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Background: Few studies have assessed the relationship between poverty and the risk of infection with antimicrobial resistant organisms (AROs). We sought to identify, appraise, and synthesize the available published Canadian literature that analyzes living in poverty and risk of AROs. Methods: A structured narrative review methodology was used, including a systematic search of three databases: MedLINE, EMBASE and Web of Science for articles pertaining to poverty, and infection with AROs in Canada between 1990 and 2020. Poverty was broadly defined to include economic measures and associated social determinants of health. Based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, there were 889 initial articles, and 43 included in the final review. The final articles were extracted using a standard format and appraised using the Joanna Briggs Institute Levels of Evidence framework. Results: Of 43 studies, 15 (35%) related to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). One study found a 73% risk reduction (RR 0.27, 95%CI 0.19–0.39, p = < 0.0001) in community-acquired MRSA (CA-MRSA) infection for each $100,000 income increase. Results pertaining to homelessness and MRSA suggested transmission was related to patterns of frequent drug use, skin-to-skin contact and sexual contact more than shelter contact. Indigenous persons have high rates of CA-MRSA, with more rooms in the house being a significant protective factor (OR 0.86, p = 0.023). One study found household income over $60,000 (OR 0.83, p = 0.039) in univariate analysis and higher maternal education (OR 0.76, 95%CI 0.63–0.92, p = 0.005) in multivariate analysis were protective for otitis media due to an ARO among children. Twenty of 43 (46.5%) articles pertained to tuberculosis (TB). Foreign-born persons were four times more likely to have resistant TB compared to Canadian-born persons. None of the 20 studies used income in their analyses. Conclusions: There is an association between higher income and protection from CA-MRSA. Mixed results exist regarding the impact of homelessness and MRSA, demonstrating a nuanced relationship with behavioural risk factors. Higher income and maternal education were associated with reduced ARO-associated acute otitis media in children in one study. We do not have a robust understanding of the social measures of marginalization related to being foreign-born that contribute to higher rates of resistant TB infection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I conduct a meta-analysis of the Canadian minimum wage literature, using meta-regression methods to determine whether this literature has a publication bias and the size of the empirical effect after adjusting for this bias. For teenagers, the demographic group with the largest share of minimum wage workers and thus providing the findings of most interest to policy-makers and legislators, I find no evidence of a publication bias and a minimum wage elasticity of about −0.27. I also discuss the implications of my findings for researchers and policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is based on Our Canada: Jewish-Canadian Women Writers, a federally funded research project exploring the literary output of more than one hundred women authors in this country, together with the body of commentary on their work. Elucidating themes of immigration, tradition, identity, family, hope, and strengthening connections, the prose and poetry of these authors prods us to think about what Canada means and what these authors have contributed to our shared cultural imaginary. This literature serves to deepen our understanding of broadly diverse nations--both Jewish and Canadian. It is timely in terms of current reflection, examination and questioning of the multicultural paradigm that has shaped Canadian identity for over thirty years. Nothing is more challenging than grasping, or attempting to grasp, the mindset of others with radically different understandings and beliefs. Part of this challenge are the social and political implications of how particular individuals within particular communities have understood themselves and their place in the Canadian mosaic--often over generations. The contributions of Jewish women writers to Canadian literature respond to this challenge, beginning in the late nineteenth century in Montréal, developing in key centres across the country, and continuing in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon ethnographic research in Winnipeg, Manitoba, we complicate simplistic epidemiological and sexual health discourses that position African newcomer teen girls and young women as "at-risk" for HIV/AIDS and other consequences of being sexually active. By tracing the trajectories of sexual health messages and utilizing the concept of assemblage, we seek to account for the ways in which risk is actively made and negotiated in practice by African newcomer youth. By highlighting the perspectives and experiences of participants in relationship to Canadian literature on the subject of sexual risk, culture, and education, we work to counter essentializing, racializing, and pathologizing discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages selected moments in Austin Clarke's literary journey to argue that in spite of his involvement in the development of Canadian literature (CanLit) during the 1960s and 1970s, the Canadian literary establishment continues to pay little critical attention to his contributions. This lack of recognition is specifically evident in recent writings about Canadian literature and the literary figures who spearheaded its development after Canada's Multiculturalism policy of 1971. Canada's becoming officially multicultural required a new narrative of Canada and new literary depictions of Canadians in their national literature, as ethnically diversified but of a single citizenship. I argue that Clarke's legacy as a Black writer should be given more prominence in Canadian institutions because today this legacy is under threat of erasure as the number of Canadian Black voices telling mainstream stories about Black people's experiences is evidently in decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canada’s official rhetoric situates the nation as one capable of perceiving and arbitrating upon humanitarian need on a global scale. Unofficial discourses confirm this perception of Canada’s humanitarian credentials. One unofficial discourse that tends to question official rhetoric, however, is that of fiction. This article examines the representation of humanitarian concerns in Canadian Maggie Helwig’s novel Where She Was Standing. The novel’s portrayal of the nature of evidence, and of its own status as a type of evidence, are discussed, leading to the proposal of Lauren Berlant’s “cruel optimism” as a potentially appropriate conceptual tool with which to deal with the difficulties in the position of Western observers of humanitarian issues in distant cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines one aspect of Canada's early cultural diplomacy. During the late 1940s, the Department of External Affairs frequently received requests for Canadian books from foreign libraries. At the same time, many officials were eager to promote Canadian culture abroad. The Annual Book Presentation Programme was inaugurated with the intention of creating “repositories of Canadiana” which might stimulate interest in Canada among foreign readers. Although the budget for the program was always modest, over the years the department's book gifts did fulfill their aim, creating a basis for the later growth of Canadian studies in universities abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Canadian gay male scholar and activist ponders the transformation in his own thinking about bi male identity and GLBTIQA community politics over time. The author posits a four-stage process of social, legal, and cultural acceptance of sexual minorities and compares the civil-rights progress made by gay men and lesbians to that still being made by bisexuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Canadian graduate student scrutinizes his sexuality in terms of self-image issues and entering the erotic exchange of glances that affirms his sexual nature. The author asks: what is a bisexual self, or a sexual self of any kind, when one doesn't know how to approach men or women, and how does one learn to begin those approaches? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Canadian gay dad, married 51 years, answers the question: Why would a man not stay married simply because he chooses to take a male lover? The author examines the shared values (social justice, family, art, mutual respect and love) that enables "mixed" relationships to thrive and prosper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]