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January-February 2020

How vaping companies appeal to today’s teens

Social media, store displays, and youth-savvy flavours—behind the smoke screen on how young people are being marketed to

Amanda Lee

  “I had a flavour that was Fruit Loops in a gold and matte black carbon vape, and I was in Grade 9,” says Zach Samson (who asked that we use a pseudonym), a 19-year-old student at the University of Guelph. By Grade 10, Samson was a part of a group chat called “e-cigarettes” with […] More »
January-February 2020

The Exhaustion of Empowerment

Muslim women shouldn't be required to act superhuman to avoid being seen as weak

Sidrah Ahmad-Chan

I am tired of the narrative of the Empowered Muslim Woman™. I find it exhausting. As a visibly Muslim woman, a large portion of my daily life involves attending to a strange kind of image management. I’m aware of the stereotypes that might fill the air when I walk into a room, so I take […] More »
January-February 2020

Spotlight on The Alberta Advantage podcast

Podcast gives a left-wing perspective on local politics

Ben Cohen

The Premier of Alberta is a Conservative. Every single seat in the province bar one went blue in the last federal election. Despite the severe lack of representation in government, those with leftward ideologies still exist in Alberta. Where can they turn to hear friendly voices? The Alberta Advantage podcast. The bi-monthly podcast was born […] More »

We’re hiring fiction and poetry editors!

Tara-Michelle Ziniuk

Do you love CanLit? Are you always on the lookout for emerging authors and poets? If so, we want you! This Magazine is looking for both a fiction editor and poetry editor! Our fiction editor is responsible for overseeing the magazine’s fiction section. This Magazine publishes six print issues a year, with each issue featuring a short story by a […] More »
November-December 2018

Tout le monde en parle has gripped Quebec viewers for nearly 15 years. Why can’t it reach the rest of Canada?

Sara Black McCulloch unpacks the talk show Franco Quebecers can't stop watching

Sara Black McCulloch

Singer Grimes on Tout le monde en parle in 2015 When Canadian singer Grimes appeared on a segment of Tout le monde en parle in 2015, she was the only guest on the Franco-Canadian talk show answering questions in English. When co-host Dany Turcotte discovered she had lived in Montreal for six years, he asked […] More »
November-December 2018

Canada has an oligopoly problem—and we need to fix it

It's responsible for high phone bills, the Big Five banks, media concentration, and more

Ishmael N. Daro

In the five years that I’ve lived in Toronto, many of my phone conversations have started the same way: “Are you calling me from Saskatchewan?” the person on the other end will ask after seeing my caller ID. No, I tell them, I kept my Saskatchewan number because I can’t get a phone plan anywhere […] More »
November-December 2018

Sea Change

Short fiction by Nadia Ragbar

Nadia Ragbar

Je m’appelle Reynaud. My mother named me. She was French. Other than her, I have never met anyone else who was French. No one else in this city is French. I don’t recall ever meeting my father. I am alone in a dead city. There are no more people here. People do not live in […] More »
November-December 2018

I gave up television for 35 years. Why I started watching again

Writer Thelma Fayle jumps back into the world of TV and finds value in the medium that she never did before

Thelma Fayle

In the 1980s, Dan Hubbard and Richard Catinus were two brainy young guys trying to sell Apple computers when I was working in a government office that used IBMs. While outlining the advantages of using a Mac for my work, Dan mentioned in passing that, after reading Jerry Mander’s book, Four Arguments for the Elimination […] More »
November-December 2018

This B.C. First Nation is fighting for recognition in Trans Mountain Pipeline consultations

The High Bar First Nation has largely been excluded thanks to geographical restrictions

Amy van den Berg

Along the Fraser River in the B.C. Interior is the High Bar First Nation reserve, a vast, rocky piece of land 120 kilometres northwest of Kamloops, population one. The sole resident, an elderly woman, doesn’t live there year-round. “She’s too old to go down there and live permanently,” says Angie Kane, High Bar general manager. […] More »
November-December 2018

Inside the battle for taxpayer-funded multicultural television

The Canadian government wants TV to look as diverse as our country—but producers just want to make a quick buck

Aadil Brar

“Do Canadians really use the word ‘eh?'” “Yes, they do.” Welcome to one of OMNI television network’s flagship shows, Your New Life in Canada. Produced in English, Punjabi, Cantonese, and other languages, it offers a taste of Canadian lifestyle, culture, and language to newcomers to Canada and covers everything from how food differs in Canada […] More »
September-October 2018

Indigenous arts are the real deal. How counterfeiting is destroying that

New campaign aims to protect Indigenous crafts from mass-produced knock-offs in Canada’s gift shops

Prajakta Dhopade

Think of the dreamcatcher and it evokes a familiar image. A hoop, a woven web, adorned with beads and feathers. The iconic talisman, said to have originated from the North American Ojibwe, is a common sight in most Canadian souvenir shops. But don’t believe its “Made in Canada” label. More likely, it’s been mass produced […] More »