As Vancouver hosts the FIFA World Cup 2026™, it’s important that residents and visitors feel safe and supported.   Free, confidential help is just a call or click away. VictimLinkBC is a 24/7 support line available in 240 languages to take calls and texts from victims, including trafficked persons, and provide them with information and referrals to local resources.   To learn more about VictimLinkBC, visit: victimlinkbc.ca/ To learn more about helpful local supports available during the FIFA World Cup 2026™ in Vancouver, visit: vancouverfwc26.ca/know-befor…

This courageous man, Alan Turing “If you really want to know the true power of hate, just remember that Alan Turing, the breaker of the enigma code in WWII, was driven to suicide (or was MURDERED, it isn’t known for sure) by being forced to undergo chemical castration as a punishment for his homosexuality. Historians say he saved 14 to 21 million lives. I’d also like to say in the time we studied WWII in school, the history textbooks never mentioned him. I had never heard of him until I watched “The Imitation Game” which I 110% recommend you watch if you haven’t. Alan Turing was a blessing to humanity who saved (once again) 14 to 21 million lives, and he is left out of history because he was gay and autistic. And this is just one example?? So many brilliant and heroic people are left out of history because of their race, their gender, their sexuality, their religion, and it’s just because some bigots in positions of influence get to decide what parts of history are remembered. This man has had a profound effect on the world, it’s estimated he shortened the war by 2 years, saved countless lives and was the father of modern computing. Without him the world would be a very different, and very dark place.” #PrideMonth2019 #AlanTuring #QueerHistory #LGBTQHistory

She was 57 years old. White hair. No carefully managed image. No media training designed to make her more palatable. Just thirty years of accumulated knowledge and the calm, unhurried authority of a woman who had spent her life mastering her subject. She sat on a BBC panel, answered questions about immigration and politics, cited evidence, made arguments — and then went home. The next morning, her inbox looked like a crime scene. Her name is Mary Beard — Cambridge professor, classicist, one of the most respected scholars of ancient Rome and Western civilisation alive. And the internet had decided that a woman speaking with quiet authority on television needed to be punished for it. The messages were not criticism. They were not debate. They were rape threats. Death threats. Coordinated campaigns of personal destruction targeting her appearance, her age, her voice — anything that could be used to remind her that spaces like the one she had just occupied were not meant for her. Most people would have gone quiet. Mary Beard went further in. She did what scholars do when they find a pattern that disturbs them: she followed it backward. Through decades. Through centuries. Through millennia. All the way back to some of the oldest texts in Western civilisation. And she found it had always been there. In Homer's Odyssey — one of the foundational works of Western literature, nearly three thousand years old — there is a scene that most readers pass over without registering its quiet violence. Penelope comes downstairs and asks the poet to sing a different song. Her own son, Telemachus, cuts her off. He orders her back to her room and tells her plainly: speech is the business of men. She goes. Mary Beard read that scene and recognized it immediately. Not as ancient history. As a pattern. In ancient Rome, women who dared to speak in public were not described as orators or thinkers. They were described as noise — disorderly sound, something that did not deserve to be called language or argument. Their voices were not speech. Their thoughts were not thoughts. In the medieval world, women who claimed public authority were labeled as witches. Elizabeth I — Queen of England, ruler of a nation — had to rhetorically reshape herself into something masculine just to be taken seriously as the leader of her own country. The silencing of women who speak with authority was not invented by social media. It was not a modern pathology or a cultural accident. It was built deliberately, over centuries, into the very foundations of how Western civilisation defined who gets to speak, what authority sounds like, and who is allowed to take up space in public life. Mary Beard had found something important. In 2017, she published Women & Power: A Manifesto — short enough to read in an afternoon, substantial enough to reframe everything you thought you understood about why this keeps happening. Her argument was precise and devastating. The problem is not that women lack the ability to lead. The problem is that the model of leadership itself — the template for what public authority looks, sounds, and feels like — was built by men over centuries and has never been redesigned. When a woman enters public life and doesn't fit that template, she is not failing. The template was never built for her. It was built specifically to exclude her, and it has been doing exactly that, efficiently and continuously, for three thousand years. The solution, Beard argued, is not to teach women to perform power the way men have always performed it. The solution is to dismantle and rebuild the very concept of what power is allowed to look like. She kept teaching. She kept writing. She kept appearing on television — white-haired, unhurried, carrying her decades of authority without performing it, without packaging it for comfort, without apologizing for it. The threats continued. But other messages began arriving too. Letters from women and girls who had spent their entire lives feeling that every door was slightly too narrow, every table slightly too high, every room slightly reluctant to make space for them. Women who had spent years wondering what was wrong with them — why they couldn't quite fit, couldn't quite belong, couldn't quite be taken seriously no matter how much they knew or how hard they worked. They read the book and understood, perhaps for the first time, that nothing had ever been wrong with them. The room had been designed without them in mind. That is not a personal failing. That is a three-thousand-year-old architectural decision. And one Cambridge professor with white hair and a calm voice — who refused to go quiet when the internet told her to — spent her career documenting it, naming it, and handing that knowledge to everyone who needed to hear it. Telemachus told Penelope that speech was the business of men. He was wrong then. He is still wrong now. And Mary Beard has three thousand years of evidence to prove it. via The Inspireist #FeministFriday #HERstory

On this day in 1898, the Yukon Territory was formed. The Canadian government created the territory due to the thousands of Americans flooding into the Klondike during the gold rush in an effort to better control the situation.

All eyes on the Toronto night sky for the #FIFAWorldCup ✨ @NovaSkyStories

I'm sharing Canada's soccer/football history throughout the World Cup! Today, it is the story of Canada's first foray into World Cup competition.

Please enjoy my cartoon in today's @TorontoStar

It is Pride Month. Throughout this month, I will be sharing the stories of how Canadians fought for equality. Today it is the story of The Body Politic.

What a moment! Alanis Morissette belting out O Canada, as a packed stadium and all the players sing along…Go Canada 🇨🇦 #WorldCup

On this day in 2005, Scott Young died. Born in 1918 in Cypress River, Manitoba, he was one of Canada's most acclaimed writers. In his career, he wrote 45 books on a variety of topics and genres. He is the father of rock legend Neil Young. 📸 Tony Bock

“Dear migrants, before I say any other word to you, I want to bow before your dignity. “You are not numbers or case files. “You are people — with a family and a home left behind, with dreams that no one has the right to scorn.” — Pope Leo XIV

Good morning 🩷

He is considered to be the greatest, and most complete, hockey player who ever lived. His legacy with the game is so deep that his nickname was Mr. Hockey. He inspired generations of players in his 32 professional seasons. This is the story of Gordie Howe. 📸 NHL 🧵 1/12

Young people have a higher risk of being trafficked, with a majority of police-reported incidents involving women and girls under the age of 24. Becoming aware is the first step in stopping it. Learn more: canada.ca/en/public-safety-c… #WorldDayAgainstChildLabour

Happy birthday to Christine Sinclair, born on this day in 1983 in Burnaby, BC! She spent 20 seasons with Canada's national team and is the all-time leader in international goals among men and women with 190. She has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame. 📸 Jennifer Gauthier

Human trafficking affects all ages and backgrounds.  Learn about human trafficking, including the warning signs, who is at risk and how it can happen: ontario.ca/page/recognizing-…  #EndTrafficking

Happy birthday to Robert Munsch, born on this day in 1945! One of Canada's most beloved authors, he has written over 50 children's books. He has a star on Canada's Walk of Fame and two schools are named for him. His most famous acclaimed book is Love You Forever. 📸 CBC

On this day in 1925, the United Church held its inauguration at the Mutual Street Arena in Toronto. The church was founded through the merger of the Methodist Church of Canada, The Congregational Union of Ontario and Quebec and the Presbyterian Church. 📸 UCoC Archives

Shame isolates. #Pride says: you belong. No matter who you are or what you’ve been through, you deserve love, care, and support without judgment. We will always be a space that welcomes and affirms all 2SLGBTQ people — not just in June, but always.

RT @GordonFielden: This is the largest sporting event on the planet, despite what some Americans may believe, and the decision to prevent A…