Illustration by Michelle Simpson I’ve been a high school teacher for 16 years now. That means I’ve spent roughly half my life in high school something I’d never have predicted as a teenager. All I wanted then was to get the hell out. I was a fat teen in the 1990s, when “heroin chic” was […] More »

Photo courtesy Police Free Schools Winnipeg In the summer of 2020, the group Justice 4 Black Lives Winnipeg (J4BLW) sparked a wave of abolitionist organizing in the city after collecting over 120,000 signatures on a petition calling for the defunding and eventual end to the Winnipeg Police Service. Inspired and called to action by the […] More »

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Illustration by Julia Galotta I’m a young woman, who can, to my knowledge, get pregnant and has long-held dreams of being a mother. When I was a child, I spent my days dutifully caring for my dolls—who were named Baby and Popstar. When I turned 13, I started babysitting the two toddlers who lived next […] More »

Photo by XURZON; Design by Valerie Thai At least 595 people died in B.C. from heat-related deaths during the summer of 2021. Most of these occurred during the province’s “heat dome” event, which took place from June 25 to July 1, and saw temperatures rise as high as 49.6 degrees Celsius. Many climate activists and […] More »

Picture this: you’re ready for a good night’s rest. You crawl into bed around midnight, and just as you are about to fall asleep, thunderous juddering and whirring erupt above your house. You sit awake, startled as the Winnipeg Police helicopter circles around your neighbourhood, its bright spotlight creeping and surveying. This disruption is a […] More »

A late summer day in 2008 changed everything for the community of Montréal-Nord, a multicultural suburban borough in the city’s north end. Fredy Villanueva, an 18-year-old Honduran refugee, was shot and killed by a police officer in a park. The shock of his death rippled through the tight-knit neighbourhood, sparking immediate outrage, rioting, and protests. […] More »

When Zawadi Bunzigiye was assigned to create a project with some sort of community impact as part of their creative writing program at OCAD University, they were stumped. It wasn’t until a conversation with a friend that Bunzigiye decided to start a podcast. What began as an academic assignment has blossomed into a “passion project” […] More »

“I think if you’re not leaning into transit as a reliance or as your first choice, you don’t really know how these fare impacts can really hit you,” says Danika McConnell, an organizer for Free Transit Edmonton (FTE). In spring 2021, Edmonton was set to raise adult cash transit fares to $3.75. It would have […] More »

“We started this because it’s a need,” says Omar Kinnarath. Kinnarath is the founder and one of the organizers of Mutual Aid Society Winnipeg (MAS Winnipeg). The group started in March of 2020, immediately in the wake of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. Stores across the city faced severe shortages of necessities: diapers, baby formula, […] More »

At the University of Toronto (U of T), most PhD students are expected to spend at least four years working demanding and often thankless jobs, all while living below the poverty line. “It’s a very long tradition,” says June Li, finance commissioner at the University of Toronto Graduate Students’ Union (UTGSU). “You’re a PhD, you’re […] More »