VANCOUVER COULD USE A LITTLE JIMMY McMILLAN. Jimmy ran for mayor of New York City in 2005 and 2009 as the founder and leader of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party. He didn’t win, but the passion and outrage of his message then captures the way most renters in Vancouver feel now.

FOOD BANKS DON’T WORK; MONEY DOES. Yet we cling to the belief that food banks are a good way to end hunger. They aren’t. Hunger is a symptom of poverty. And no one even pretends food banks can eliminate poverty.

“WHY DOESN’T HE JUST KILL YOU?” Halima Alari* had no answer. But, being alive didn’t help. The man with the gavel just took it as more proof that Halima was a liar. It was enough for the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) judge to reject her claim to enter Canada as a refugee.

THEY WERE THE PERFECT MARKS. Just what Esvin Paredes was looking for: few of the eleven men could read or write, most couldn’t speak English, they were “foreigners”, over 3000 kilometres from home, the law gave them no rights. Paredes swooped in.

WE ARE NOW SEEING the impacts of the first round of Fordnation cuts and it’s not pretty. Some are paying the price for a crime they certainly did not commit.

IT’S BACK TO THE FUTURE FOR ALBERTA. Premier Jason Kenney plans to cut his way to prosperity. Many thousands will feel the pain, but there will be little or no positive effect on the provincial economy. No more than there was in the past when conservative premiers like Ralph Klein, Alison Redford and Jim Prentice tried it.

A WOMAN’S RIGHT TO CHOOSE MAY SOON SHRINK IN NEW BRUNSWICK. The provincial government refuses to do anything to help keep Clinic 554 in Frederiction stay open. The clinic is the only clinic in the province that performs abortions.

DOUG FORD DIDN'T KILL ENRICO MIRANDA. But he didn't do all he could to make his death less likely, either.

SICK NOTES ARE SICK JOKES. They are also a waste of their time say doctors. Yet employers still insist on workers getting a doctor’s note when they are off sick with something minor, like a cold or the flu.

We all kinda knew that the Dud Ford government would not be good for the environment, but it’s worse that anybody thought. Not only did they cancel the cap and trade system that was in place, an action recently ruled illegal by an Ontario court, but a new report from Environmental Defence shows how badly they are failing us and the environment.