Photos courtesy of Grilled Cheese Catherine Ouellet-Cummings was working from her old home’s dimly lit basement, scrolling on Facebook, when she saw her friend liked a Belgian kids’ magazine’s page. It was called Cuistax, which published in Dutch and French—two of Belgium’s official languages. She immediately informed her husband and work partner, Julien Boisseau, about […] More »

Photo by DONOT6 As Zhi Jia finished junior high, his father was diagnosed with cancer. The two had only recently moved to Canada from China—just father and son—and were still settling into their new life in Calgary. Jia’s father’s cancer was a rare and often aggressive form called a neuroendocrine carcinoma that occurs in the […] More »

Joshua Miranda / Pexels This past January, lesbians and queer women flocked to the Montreal queer bar Champs to watch a Heated Rivalry marathon. Despite my lack of interest in men (and my lack of being a man), I was one of many lesbians who found joyful solidarity in the queer male romance featured on […] More »

Image courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada, Lantern Films, and Experimental Forest Films. For the First Nations communities who coexist with the Nechako River, there’s a deep understanding that they will persist. Nechako: It Will Be a Big River Again, a documentary directed by Lyana Patrick and co-produced by the National Film Board […] More »

Photo by Hadeel Ibrahim Hadeel Ibrahim was a reporter for the CBC in Saint John, New Brunswick in 2023 when then-Premier Blaine Higgs made headlines. He’d removed protections for trans and gender-diverse students, a move that prompted Ibrahim to eventually switch careers. Higgs’ government revised Policy 713, an education policy effected in 2020 that established […] More »

Illustration by Diana Bolton In the foreword of Maxine Roper’s No Heels, No Problem, a survival guide for women with ADHD and dyspraxia, I describe neurodivergent womanhood as a “guessing game.” That choice of words reflects my experiences getting a diagnosis of dyspraxia: a neurodivergent condition that presents difficulties with the coordination, planning, and sequencing […] More »

Photo by Akinbostanci All Hannah Kreager can do is wait. She’s spent months in Calgary now, a decision she made after hearing talk about intensified uses of federal power from the Trump administration. She had always thought she would leave her home in Tucson, Arizona, maybe for college, but she’d never planned to leave the […] More »

Illustration by Mitch Duncan The piercer first applied freezing gel all over Tora’s mouth, like sloppy lip gloss. Within 15 minutes consonants were impossible and her lips flapped around like jelly. She “chatted” with Shanna, her stylist, trying to be playful. Shanna only tilted her lips up. The piercer coughed pointedly. He held the needle […] More »

Photo by Chris LeDrew Atlantic Canada’s music scene has always been filled with rich, diverse sounds, from sea shanties to hip hop, with artists building followings far beyond home. And for over three decades, the East Coast Music Association (ECMA), the nonprofit that runs an annual awards show and industry marketplace, has been part of […] More »

Photo by Durrah Alsaif, QIMASH, 2017 Several times per day, the Adhan sounded from the depths of the Mohammad home. When sisters Salmana Janjua and Sharae Mohammad were growing up in Brossard, Quebec in the ’90s, the Islamic call to prayer signalled that it was time for Ahmadi Muslims in the area to gather in […] More »

Photo by Dave Swiewicki Desiree Dorion was born to play country music. Growing up in rural Manitoba, Dorion’s love of music led her to riding her bike to the Dauphin’s Countryfest, the longest-running country music festival in Canada, as a little girl. By the time she was five, the Juno nominee and member of the […] More »