“We CAN look after each other better than we do today” and “Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity.” - the late NDP Leader, Jack Layton

by Obert Madondo | The Canadian Progressive, July 24, 2012:

Emotional by nature, I am. Very. But this is the first time I’ve blogged with tears streaming down my 40-year old black-male cheeks. I’m bawling because, somewhere in this city I now call home, an extra-ordinary woman is pregnant and living on the streets. Annie Pootoogook is her name.

As I blog, I can’t hold back the tears. Until now, I thought I knew Annie. We were together at the Occupied Ottawa protest encampment at Confederation Park last fall. One of the finest of my Canadian moments, that one was. The moment I received the final invitation to abandon the comfort of my immigrant-world. The invitation to engage, without the slightest shred of fear, with the politics of my adopted country.