National Network for Equitable Library Service

To understand Canada one must understand racism, for Canada was born and grew as a racist state. Race riots, segregated schools, racially-based union membership, mass deportations of innocent people, the state sanctioned kidnapping of children, a conscious attempt at cultural genocide and much more have shaped Canada’s history. Last Steps to Freedom: The Evolution of Canadian Racism encourages Canadians to look truthfully at their past, admit mistakes, atone for crimes and applaud progress. The book is organized chronologically, by region, and by ethnic group.

This account of the Sigfusson Transportation Company details how it was unfairly treated by the Government, in attempting to create a network of winter roads in northern Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

In this memoir, Lamees Al Ethari traces her transition from an idyllic childhood in a large extended Iraqi family to the relative stability of family exilic life in Canada. Through memory fragments, clips of poetry, diary entries, and her own art, the author reveals the trauma of three senseless wars, a decade of dehumanizing sanctions on an innocent population, the blindness of a dictatorship to the suffering of its own people, and finally their resilience and the humanity they manage to preserve.

In these essays, Sheema Khan - Canadian hockey mom and Harvard PhD - gives us her insights on being a modern and liberal, yet practising, Muslim, especially in Canada. Tackling a host of issues, such as terrorism and fanaticism, human rights post 9/11, Islamic law, women's rights, sharia, and the meaning of hijab, she explains Islam to the greater public while calling for mutual understanding and tolerance.

Against Death: 35 Essays On Living articulates the personal experiences of each author's ""near-deathness,"" utilizing fresh and inventive language to represent what ""magical thinking"" proposes. These pieces are incisive and articulate, avoiding the usual platitudes, feel-good bromides, and pep talks associated with near-death encounters. The writing moves past the sob story and confronts the tough circumstance of facing death with truth and compassion, no matter how ugly or (in)convenient.

In Garage Criticism Peter Babiak eviscerates and deflates some of the cultural hot topics of our time. Babiak deconstructs our fascination with internet culture, devolves the rhetorical hallucinations of economics and marketing, and reasserts the supremacy of linguistic thinking in everyday cultural affairs.

The first book to tell the story of Toronto's massive influence on popular music. Part civic history and part memoir from this veteran scene-builder and founder of the acclaimed Wavelength concert series, From the Top charts the evolution of Toronto's diverse independent music scene in the latter half of the 20th century.

This is an anthology of essays about queer culture and individuals in Toronto.

Using Toronto as a case study, Subdivided asks how cities would function if decision-makers genuinely accounted for race, ethnicity, and class when confronting issues such as housing, policing, labor markets, and public space. With essays contributed by an array of city-builders, it proposes solutions for fully inclusive communities that respond to the complexities of a global city.

An archaeological dig uncovers the secret history of Toronto's long-forgotten first immigrant neighbourhood. In early 2015, a team of archaeologists began digging test trenches on a non-descript parking lot next to Toronto City Hall--a site designated to become a major new court house. What they discovered was the rich buried history of an enclave that was part of The Ward-- that dense, poor, but vibrant 'arrival city' that took shape between the 1840s and the 1950s.