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Winter 2024

Movie monopoly

Canada's independent theatres, scrappy as ever, still need help

Jake Pitre

“This industry is corrupt,” Lisa Milne, owner of The Royal Theatre in Trail, B.C. (population 7,920), told me, referring to the film exhibition industry in Canada, before I’d even been able to start recording our interview. She was, seemingly, dying to say it. “The studios don’t listen to us,” she continued. “In the 15 years […] More »
Winter 20204

Housing handcuffs

As rent becomes less affordable, a would-be mom searches for solutions

Rachel Cairns

  “This is not a scam,” I read the email aloud to my partner. “We are seniors looking to move to Nova Scotia and have a 2-bedroom plus den.” The sender had reached out after reading an opinion piece I wrote for Family Day, responding to headlines about Canada’s declining birth rate. In the article, I […] More »
Winter 2024

Archiving Palestine

How Palestinian women use embroidery to resist

Sarah Samuel

Razan Samara is a longtime Palestinian activist. She’s volunteered with the Toronto chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement. She’s made banners and fundraised for Palestinians in the homelands. But in 2021, when Palestinians were expelled from their homes in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah, she began to feel that she needed to do more for her […] More »
Winter 2024

From the river to the street

In small Canadian cities, street art fuels Palestinian resistance

Saffina Jinnah

Yara Jamal rarely heard anyone mention Palestine in Halifax, and it made her feel lonely. “Being Palestinian is such a controversial thing,” she says. “I felt like there was genuinely no representation of Palestine or presence of Palestine in the Maritimes at all.” Jamal was born and raised in Kuwait and is a first-generation Canadian […] More »
Winter 2024

Move us out and we’ll move on over you

Toronto needs housing for Black artists

Adebe DeRango-Adem

I am a professional writer and spoken word artist. I’ve been sharing my work—and making space for other artists to create and share their work—in Toronto for nearly 20 years. I am of East African descent, with a heritage and history rooted in oral traditions. Toronto is where I was born, and it’s where I […] More »
Winter 2024

Mort à Deux

Gabrielle Cole

During my second year of college, we killed our father. It was his own idea, but it was Charlie’s idea to do it the week before Christmas. Later, I would regret that we hadn’t waited until afterward. Charlie said that Christmas would have depressed the hell out of us regardless and anyway, it was too […] More »
Winter 2024

Serving liberation

How food is feeding the Palestinian cause

Shanai Tanwar

When Samer Alghosain first immigrated to the U.S. with his family in 1999, a tradition was born that paved his way to becoming a restaurateur. Every Friday, he and his family would pile dishes on the table that smelled, tasted, and felt like home, crafted with love from recipes that were handed down generation after […] More »
Winter 2024

Star power

A case study on the paradox of privilege in pop

Sanna Wani

My friend Lou is visiting from Australia. We do silly things together, like watch Love Island and listen to music. Lou shows me the video for Chappell Roan’s “Casual,” which follows a girl and a mermaid in a situationship. I’m fascinated. The song is good, too: the slow pumping synth and zesty lyrics contrast with […] More »
Fall 2024

When we disappear

Emily Yu

For us acrobats, it was a circus rule to choose our primary apparatus at the age of thirteen. The doors opened to the Big Top and I entered alone. The leftover sawdust on the floor stuck between my toes, the air scented with rain, instead of the usual smells of animal dung and stale popcorn. […] More »
Fall 2024

Losing their religion

After leaving the faith, many ex-Mormons need to find community again. Psychedelics offer a way forward

Sam Firman

Aaron Campbell was 37 when he walked away from his world. For 27 years he had been told that leaving would jeopardize the chance of eternal salvation for him, his wife, and their four children. Yet salvation was just what he needed, and immediately. “Ultimately, I said, ‘If I don’t [leave], my mental health is […] More »
Fall 2024

The right to read

Canadian libraries may be in danger as calls to ban books get louder

Asha Swann

Ronnie Riley learned through social media that their first novel was facing censorship. Riley was scrolling late one evening when they saw what appeared to be a leaked school memo. Their middle-grade book about a non-binary pre-teen named Jude was one of four 2SLGBTQIA+ books that Ontario’s Waterloo Catholic District School Board was trying to […] More »