July 28, 2010
Harper’s parliamentary reforms could solve some problems—and cause others
Over the years, governments have tinkered with the parliamentary rules set by the Charlottetown conference, pictured here. 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... [More >>]
January 25, 2010
“I think I might be a little bit racist. And I’d like to change.”
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 a handful at first. They weren’t surprised; some of them even admitted to... [More >>]
November 13, 2009
Strengthen democracy and fight bigotry head-on — Legalize Hate Speech
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. Even douchebags.” Marc Lemire, the cherubic-faced webmaster of white supremacist Freedomsite,... [More >>]
September 18, 2009
Canada’s an urban nation. Why is our literature still down on the farm?
CanLit has the literary equivalent of the Y2K bug—it can’t flip over into this century Most Canadians live in cities. Why is our literature so relentlessly rural? Illustration by Graham Roumieu. 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... [More >>]
August 20, 2009
“Socialism” and “Big Government” as Orwellian doublespeak
It’s not the size of your bureaucracy. It’s how you use it. Onward, Stephen Harper: lead us to the socialist utopia! If you follow the right-wing punditry you’d think comrades Harper, Obama, Brown, and the like are leading us along that slippery slope to—gasp—socialism. Not that any of these leaders has a nice word to say about socialism; they don’t. But the more alarmist fringes... [More >>]
August 19, 2009
Quebec’s “hip hop historian” raps about Québécois black heritage
Quebec City "hip hop historian" Webster. Photo courtesy Webster/Abuzive Muzik. 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... [More >>]
August 12, 2009
Review: Nicole Brossard’s latest novel throbs with linguistic menace
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 write a... [More >>]
July 27, 2009
Creative writing courses: cash cows of the humanities
Can creative writing be taught? It's complicated. Illustration by Dave Donald. 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,... [More >>]
July 16, 2009
The privileged Westerner’s guide to talking about the rest of the world
When you’re talking international development, words matter There’s nothing like an all-purpose label to bring comfort and order to an otherwise overwhelming world. But what’s comforting to one person can be downright offensive to another. When it comes to the language used to label the “non-Western” world, quotation marks just won’t cut it anymore. What’s really behind the terms... [More >>]
May 12, 2009
Mi’kmaq PhD dissertation a Canadian first
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 >>]
