The Harper government has placed a bill before Parliament that would alter the formula for how seats are redistributed following the census. It would give Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia more seats in the House of Commons; naturally, Quebec and the Atlantic Canadian provinces are upset with this change as it diminishes their relative influence… More »

When one writer found herself sinking into a mire of prejudice and resentment, she set out to find a cure. But maybe 12 steps aren’t enough. The first step to getting help, they say, is admitting you have a problem. That part took me years of halting, painful introspection and self-doubt. Later, I told friends—just… More »

The fight for free speech is not the work of angels. Academics love Evelyn Hall’s famous saying, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” In the age of promiscuous online speech, the sentiment of two university protestors seems more apt: “Free speech for all…. More »

CanLit has the literary equivalent of the Y2K bug—it can’t flip over into this century When he delivers public lectures, editor and writer John Metcalf is fond of illustrating CanLit’s paradoxical obsession with tales of the rural past by describing the query letter he once received from a then-unheard-of Russell Smith. Metcalf claims that Smith… More »

Quebec city’s recent 400th anniversary celebration was quite a spectacle — Paul McCartney, Celine Dion, treasures from the Louvre, and even the occasional nod to diversity like the multicultural rap show, Hip hop tout en couleurs (Hip hop in all Colours). For the most part, though, the Quebec black experience went unacknowledged. For “Webster” Aly… More »

Quebec writer Nicole Brossard’s latest novel, Fences in Breathing (translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood), confronts a subject favoured by a cadre of contemporary literary darlings, Roberto Bolaño, David Foster Wallace, and John Wray among them: namely, a profound distrust in the magic of fiction. A woman of letters herself, Brossard’s Québécoise protagonist, Anne, labours to… More »

While a degree in creative writing may not top your career counsellor’s advice for a quick professional turnaround, the formal study of writing was a North American growth industry even before the recession sent more people back to school (or kept them there longer). In an anguished and incredulous Harper’s article, American writer and professor… More »

This June, York University student Fred Metallic hopes to make a bit of Canadian university history. That’s when he plans to complete the first draft of his PhD dissertation, tentatively titled “Mi’gmawei Mawio’mi: Goqwei Wejguaqamultigw?” (The English working title is “Reclaiming Mi’kmaq History and Politics: Living our Responsibilities.”) Written entirely in Mi’kmaq, it will be… More »