Photography by Johann Wall, Updated 16:40, Apr. 14, 2020 | Published 12:50, Oct. 1, 2012This article was published over a year ago. Some information may no longer be current.
Joseph arvay, Canada’s most powerful civil rights lawyer, spent much of last year trying to win Gloria Taylor a proper death. Time is running out.
His client has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a fatal and rapidly progressive neuromuscular disorder, sometimes referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. Her muscles have already begun to atrophy. Her legs have given way and, inexorably, other body parts are failing. Eventually, she will lose the ability to stand, and then to swallow. She will be maintained by sets of tubes for feeding and waste. As her lungs give up, it is possible that her own body will choke her to death. Her brain, though, will remain sharp so she will be cognizant of this betrayal.
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Canada s Environmental Racism Continues Five Years After the Paris Agreement
And the world feels its effects
Magazine cover on Canadian Mining Impacts and Resistance Movements by the Mining Justice Alliance. Photo by Mildred German
Unceded Territories | A Recent UN report indicates that not a single member nation is on track to keep their Paris Agreement / Accord de Paris goals. This not only exposes the world to the dreadful reality of climate change but suggests that the efforts and funds used to address it over the years have been, by and large, ineffective.
The report also underscores Canada’s own failures on its climate change goals. And despite ongoing multiple warnings of the irreversible impacts of climate change, Canada has caught the world’s attention with its controversial mega-projects such as the Trans Mountain (TMX) Pipeline, the CGL Pipeline, and the Site C Dam. Reports of Canada violating Indigen
Joe Arvay changed your life. That is true even if you have never heard of him.
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The Victoria lawyer, who died suddenly of a heart attack Monday at 71, was perhaps Canada’s most successful constitutional litigator, bringing about sweeping social change through the force of his arguments. He had a remarkable talent in getting judges to appreciate, both viscerally and intellectually, the ill-treatment suffered by the clients he represented.
Six years ago, Arvay appeared before the Supreme Court of Canada to make the case for deathly-ill people having the right to choose a time and means of death.