August 23, 2010
26 million hectares of forest, $17 billion, and one lonely bush pilot
For years, Joel Theriault has waged a losing battle against pesticide spraying in Northern Ontario forests. He’s made enemies in the logging business, the Ministry of Natural Resources—and even among his fellow environmentalists. What keeps him going? Illustration by Dushan Milic On a chilly afternoon in mid-June 2009, bush-pilot-turned-environmental-activist Joel Theriault is once again flying... [More >>]
May 1, 2004
Lords Of The New Church
From the godfather of punk to the underground’s fairy gothmother, meet the leaders of a lifestyle revolution, whose style and attitude long ago transcend the mainstream Joey is a punk. His hair is bleached white blonde and styled to spiky points. He wears a black leather jacket and ripped jeans; his wrists are ringed with leather cuffs, one studded, one bearing a silver skull. He goes to protests... [More >>]
May 1, 2003
Come together
Highly organized and efficient—and far from being marginal, they’re tackling some of today’s most puzzling social problems. Cheri Hanson tours a few of the best examples. What do intentional communities look like? Maybe your mind has already hit image overdrive: hippie crash pads littered with bongs; tie-dye decor; Jimi Hendrix wafting through the marijuana haze; blenders clogged... [More >>]
March 1, 2003
Confessions of a Playa Hata
Conservatives have mounted a war against envy—blasting anyone who questions CEO pay or tax cuts as jealous, green-eyed wannabes. What are they so scared of? Martha Stewart was searching for the perfect word. She was trying to describe her disastrous year to Jeffrey Toobin from the New Yorker. It began last summer, when Stewart was accused of insider trading, and her good friend, ImClone CEO Samuel... [More >>]
January 1, 2003
Remembering Anti-Racism
Can identity politics make a comeback? A few months before my 20th birthday in 1987, I scrawled “No Sandinista ever called me Paki” on the back of a Viva Nicaragua Libre T-shirt and wore it proudly around the University of Toronto campus. I was inspired by photos of black Vietnam War protestors who, echoing Muhammad Ali, carried “No Viet Cong ever called us nigger” banners. The... [More >>]
November 1, 2002
The Rebel Sell
If we all hate consumerism, how come we can’t stop shopping? Do you hate consumer culture? Angry about all that packaging? Irritated by all those commercials? Worried about the quality of the “mental environment”? Well, join the club. Anti-consumerism has become one of the most important cultural forces in millennial North American life, across every social class and demographic. This might... [More >>]
July 1, 2002
Café Resistance
In downtown Winnipeg, a group of radicals is trying to create a different kind of café/bookstore. But as David Leibl finds out, even when there are no bosses, some things in the service industry never change. There’s a disheartening tranquility about an afternoon stroll through Winnipeg’s Exchange District, the locus of what was once western Canada’s largest metropolitan centre. Many of... [More >>]
May 1, 2001
Not Playing: Canadian Films
When the Canadian government introduced Canadian Content rules for radio, listeners from coast to coast to coast were made to endure the strains of Gowan, Glass Tiger and Platinum Blonde. Today, many Canuck acts are critically acclaimed and commercially viable—hitting the Billboard charts on a regular basis. Could screen quotas do the same thing for our homegrown filmmakers? Originally published... [More >>]
December 1, 2000
This Land Is Whose Land?
On the surface, Victor Buffalo v. The Queen is a dispute over mismanaged oil money—$1.38 billion of it, to be exact. But the deeper questions raised by the case could spark a full-on legal war across Canada, topping $190 billion in claims and changing the face of Canadian government/aboriginal relations forever I’m sitting in a Calgary courtroom looking on with disbelief at what is happening.... [More >>]
