Recently I was reading GEORGIA STRAIGHT – one of my favourite newspapers in BC. It gives you a snapshot of everything you can only want to know about in your city – from what is happening in City Hall and what local residents think about it to alternative health solutions available in Vancouver. The GS gives you a good idea about how one can entertain him/herself and covers burning global issues and how we are impacted by them. I also found that in most of the issues you can find at least one article speaking to income inequality / immigrant challenges / diverse workforce /racial/visible minority issues. Those are the topics that attract my attention and I am grateful that at least one newspaper in my city pays attention to these issues.

For example in the latest issue (Jan 24-31), one can find an article speaking about how internationally-educated professionals can get back to practice physiotherapy “WANTED: BC IS SEEKING MORE PHYSIOTHERAPISTS”. I now know that there is a special course at UBC that helps immigrants to prepare for the national exam. On the flip side, it costs over $5,000 to take prepare and take the exam. In another article “SCHOOL FUNDRAISING FATIGUE”, Carlito Pablo examines how schools located in different parts of the city have different abilities to fundraise for their needs. PACs became fundraising groups more than advisory committees to schools. Depending on where the school located, parents have more time and sources to support schools which created inequality. Finally in another article by Charlie Smith “DIALOGUE CAN CREATE CHANGE” I learnt that one of the graduates from SFU’s Dialogue program – Baritigo, while working on re-writing the Canada Health Act “pointed out how systemic racism prevented foreign-trained nurses from working…” Good reading, what can I say!