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November-December 2017

Is Ottawa’s proposed mega-shelter the right way to tackle homelessness?

Critics say it’s the wrong approach

Courtney Dickson

The Salvation Army is proposing an 892-square-metre “mega-shelter” in Ottawa’s Vanier neighbourhood that would provide temporary shelter beds for up to 350 people. The shelter would be the biggest in North America, featuring a special health care unit, a space for addictions recovery, permanent housing referrals, a dining facility, counselling, employment skills training, and more. […] More »

Gender Block: Venus Envy

Making it easier for those under 18 to buy gender-affirming items like chest binders

Hillary Di Menna

In September, sex shop and bookstore Venus Envy was fined $260. The Ottawa location was charged for selling a chest binder to a person under 18. The chest binder, a piece of clothing similar to a tank top that flattens the chest, is not itself illegal. It’s the fact that an “adult store” sold it […] More »
May-June 2011

This45: Mel Watkins on Straight Goods founder Ish Thielheimer

Mel Watkins

Once upon a time, there was born in Brooklyn a boy named Fred Theilheimer. When he started high school, asked his name by some young women in the schoolyard—and fearing that “Fred” would not sufficiently impress—in an act of spontaneous imagination, and with Moby Dick in his American DNA, he said, “Call me Ish.” And […] More »

Ottawa groups race to save South March Highlands from developers’ bulldozers

Denise DebyWebsite

[This article has been updated since its early March 2011 publication; please see 5th paragraph] Imagine a major Canadian city fortunate enough to have both an old-growth forest and wetlands, rich in biodiversity and rare habitats, covering an area almost three times larger than Vancouver’s Stanley Park. Now picture chunks of it bulldozed for subdivisions […] More »

How Budget Day became all about election-watching, not money

Nick Taylor-VaiseyWebsite

The governing Conservatives are about to table a budget that spends many billions of dollars. It sets the agenda of virtually every government department and it means a lot to anyone who pays taxes in Canada. But when the budget is introduced by the finance minister tomorrow, the prevailing Ottawa groupthink says it’s not about […] More »

Everything you'll find in the March-April 2011 issue of This Magazine

Graham F. Scott

The March-April 2011 issue of This is now in subscribers’ mailboxes and on newsstands. As usual, you’ll be able to read all the articles here on the website as we post them over the next few weeks. But also as usual, we encourage you to subscribe to the magazine, which is the best way to support […] More »

Tuesday Tracks! Forever Young edition: “Be True To Your School (Till You Get Kicked Out)” by The White Wires

luke champion

Chances are, even if you did happen to be in Toronto last week for Canadian Music Week, you still probably missed the opportunity to see Ottawa’s The White Wires. Their lone set, at 3 a.m. on a Saturday night, made them an easy act to miss. It’s unfortunate, because The White Wires are a gritty […] More »
November-December 2010

New Westminster, B.C., leads the way with Canada’s first living wage bylaw

Adam Lemieux

The fight against poverty in Canada recently added a new weapon to its arsenal: the living wage bylaw. While only one Canadian city, New Westminster, B.C., currently implements the practice, the push is on to make it the norm. Living wage bylaws require that workers employed directly or indirectly by a municipal government be paid […] More »
September-October 2010

Three Poems by Pearl Pirie

Pearl PirieWebsite

Chewing Each Other the delectable year of ear nips replacing gum. you keep the crisp crunch of sugar intact. I suction out a tug of self-esteem. rubbery, it fit inside a jelly bean that summer I spent calling every porsche funny-bum and laughing on a loop. that time when the throat sprouted spontaneous salivary glands […] More »

Listen to This #017: Metis National Council president Clément Chartier

Graham F. Scott

In this edition of Listen to This, associate editor Nick Taylor-Vaisey brings us the first in a three part series we’ll be running throughout this fall, talking with the leaders of Canada’s First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples about the current political environment and their relationship with the government. With a new Minister of Indian […] More »

Why Omar Khadr's case is a constitutional crisis for us all

jesse mintz

It’s time for a little refresher course in Canadian civil society: Canada’s formal political dependence on Britain came to an end in 1982 with Pierre Trudeau’s Canada Act.  The Act led to the patriation of the Canadian Constitution–you know, that old document that outlines the vibrant democratic system of government we so proudly employ in […] More »