The first half of this edition of Canadian Voices features author, educator and activist Heather-jane Robertson, who speaks on "What the Right has done right, and what the Left can learn ". The second half features Murray Dobbin, Vancouver-based journalist and activist , who speaks on "Framing the Medicare issue: Fighting to Win" . These lectures were recorded at the Parkland Institute's annual fall conference, in Edmonton, Alberta , in November, 2008. They are set upon the backdrop of one of the conference's themes, strategic frame analysis, a social science research method used to analyze how people understand situations and activities. The title of this year's conference was “ The Moral of The Story: Art, Culture, Media and Politics.” More information on the Institute at ualberta.ca/parkland.

This edition of Canadian Voices features Maher Arar,a wireless technology consultant. He was born in Syria and came to Canada with his family at the age of 17. He became a Canadian citizen in 1991. In 2002, while in transit in New York’s JFK airport when returning home from a vacation, Arar was detained by US officials and interrogated about alleged links to al-Qaeda. Twelve days later, he was chained, shackled and flown to Syria, where he was held in a tiny cell for ten months and ten days before he was moved to a better cell in a different prison. In Syria, he was beaten, tortured and forced to make a false confession.

In this talk, Mr. Arar speaks about the fragility
of our rights, the dangers of allowing deeper 
integration with the US to trump human rights, 
and the need for meaningful oversight of CSIS 
and the RCMP if we are to restore Canada's 
tarnished reputation for promoting human rights 
both at home and around the globe.

This edition of Canadian Voices features urban activist, author and Ottawa City Councillor Clive Doucet, speaking on themes from his 2007 book: Urban Meltdown: Cities, Climate Change, and Politics as Usual, published by New Society Publishers.

The Writers' trust of Canada, which nominated Doucet's book for its 2008 prize for political writing, describes Urban meltdown as An insider’s perspective into how explosive urban growth is accelerating global warming, and why political action seems paralyzed.

The talk was recorded in January, 2008, in Vancouver, BC, and originally aired on the Brownbagger, on CFRO, Vancouver Co-op Radio.

This edition of Canadian Voices features Chris Turner, journalist and author of the national bestseller 'The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need'. He speaks on themes from this 2007 book.

Concerned about the unpromising future his newborn daughter might face, the Calgary-based journalist and author spent a year touring the world looking for the ecological innovators who are trying to make our world a more livable place While investigating issues like energy consumption, alternative housing, and the commitment involved in living a greener lifestyle, he takes the reader on a journey that stretches from Colorado to India.

He spoke at an event sponsored by Selkirk College's Mir Centre for Peace in Nelson, BC, in February, 2009.

This edition of Canadian Voices features farmer, photographer and author Michael Ableman, speaking on themes, and telling stories, from his most recent book, Fields of Plenty: A Farmer's Journey in Search of Real Food and the People Who Grow It.

Michael Ableman currently farms at the Foxglove Farm, a 120 acre farm on Saltspring island, British Columbia, where he is developing the Centre for Art, Ecology and Agriculture. His experience as a practitioner of sustainable agriculture and a proponent of regional food systems for almost 30 years informs his talk and the stories about farmers he recounts.

This edition of Canadian Voices features Beverley Jacobs,president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, presenting the 2004 Amnesty International report Stolen Sisters, on Discrimination and Violence Against Indigenous Women in Canada.

In March 2004, the Native Women’s Association of Canada and the ecumenical social justice network KAIROS launched the Sisters in Spirit campaign to draw attention to the high levels of violence faced by Indigenous women in Canada, especially the largely unacknowledged pattern of racialized sexualized violence faced by Indigenous women in Canadian cities.

Later that year, Amnesty International issued the report Stolen Sisters: A Human Rights
Response to discrimination and violence against Indigenous Women in Canada. The report had three central themes:

· The role of racism and discrimination in fuelling acts of extreme brutality targeted
against Indigenous women.

· How historic and continuing marginalization and impoverishment of Indigenous
women has pushed many Indigenous women into unsafe environments

· The failure of the Canadian government and society to respond adequately to the
frequency and seriousness of this violence, including by ensuring consistent, thorough investigation into reports of missing Indigenous women.

Beverley Jacobs was the lead researcher and consultant to Amnesty Inrternational on this report, and delivered the findings in this talk at St Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, in October, 2004. The talk was recorded by Pierrre Loiselle of Praxis Media.

This edition of Canadian Voices features Andrew Cohen, author and journalist, speaking on themes from his 2007 book, The Unfinished Canadian: the People We Are. The talk was originally broadcast on TV Ontario's Big Ideas programme in November, 2007.

Taking from his book, the Carleton University journalism professor asks why Canada is so reluctant to understand and commemorate her accomplishments, and so content to forget her past. He ponders questions of national character, and delves into our past and present in search of our defining national characteristics. He argues that we are the product of many different forces, including our political culture of moderation and ambiguity, and that we have a lack of memory with regards to our history.

Cohen breaks down Canada’s identity into different facets – The Unconscious Canadian who knows nothing of history; the American Canadian, who holds onto great myths of national differences; the Casual Canadian, who is flippant about the responsibilities of citizenship; and the Capital Canadian, who is indifferent about Canada’s lacklustre capital city.

In this lecture Cohen argues that our mythology, our jealousy, our complacency, our apathy, our amnesia, and our moderation are all part of the unbearable lightness of being Canadian.

This edition of Canadian Voices features cultural historian Margaret Visser, speaking on themes from her 2008 book, "The Gift of Thanks: The Roots, Persistence, and Paradoxical Meanings of a Social Ritual". The talk was originally broadcast on TV Ontario's Big Ideas programme in December, 2008.

In the Gift of Thanks, Margaret Visser takes her cues from linguistics, the classics, and anthropology, to investigate the way gratitude manifests itself across cultures, from tipping waiters in restaurants, to standing in silence on Remembrance Day. Her inquiry into all aspects of gratefulness ranges from the unusual determination with which parents teach their children to thank, to the difference between speaking the words and feeling them, to the way different cultures handle the complex matter of giving, receiving, and returning favours and presents. In this talk, gratitude is revealed as a key to understanding many aspects of everyday behaviour.

This edition of Canadian Voices features Dr. Norman Doidge, psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and author, delivering the keynote address at a University of Toronto interdisciplinary symposium on "Altered States of Mind" in 2008. The talk focuses on themes from his recent book, The Brain that Changes Itself.

The New York Times reviewed Dr. Doidge's best-selling book by saying that, “The power of positive thinking finally gains scientific credibility. Mind-bending, miracle-making, reality-busting stuff...with implications for all human beings, not to mention human culture, human learning and human history.”

This lecture was first broadcast on TV Ontario's Big Ideas programme,on September 6, 2008. For more information on that series, visit tvo.org/bigideas.

This edition of Canadian Voices features Megan Boler, author , activist, and Professor of theory and policy studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Toronto. This talk, in which Ms. Boler ponders questions surrounding evolving media's impact on culture,  was the keynote address at the Parkland Institute's 2008 Fall Conference in Edmonton, Alberta, in November, 2008.