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Spring 2025

QTs unite

Queer and trans fat folks create community in New Brunswick

Ashleigh-Rae Thomas

In 2021, Aaron Beaumont decided it was time to create more queer connections in New Brunswick. While doing their undergrad at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, Beaumont’s work in fat studies led them to learn more about fat activism online. After realizing that most groups were based in the U.S., and the few Canadian groups […] More »
Spring 2025

Changing the narrative

Consulting firm supports Indigenous sovereignty

Alisha Mughal

For Somia Sadiq, a registered professional planner and founder of Winnipeg-based impact assessment consulting firm Narratives Inc., we don’t tell ourselves stories in order to live. Rather, we live in order to carry them. To pass them along. The government of Canada’s website defines impact assessment as a tool used by those spearheading major projects, […] More »
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 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

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 »
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 »
Summer 2024

A love letter to Brown people in Vancouver

During this spike in racism, I hope we look out for each other

Shanai Tanwar

Dear Brown people in Vancouver, Do you feel it too? The way those who don’t look like us seem to slip their distaste for us “subtly” between sentences? The fact that irrespective of our immigration status, fluent English, accomplishments, education, upbringing and value systems, we are still… unwanted? The barely concealed microaggressions and scarily racist […] More »
Summer 2024

On the plus side

Rather than relying on fast fashion, fat folks are creating their own clothing economies

Megan Hunt

In the summer of 2020, for all the obvious reasons, I didn’t have much to look forward to—aside from the packages of clothes. Online shopping was a popular crutch during the harsh days of COVID-19 restrictions, but I felt adamant that my situation was different. I was nothing like the social media influencers showing off […] More »
Summer 2024

Skate culture

How one collective is empowering Indigenous youth

Ayesha Habib

Rosie Archie knew she wanted to be a skater when she was 12 years old. Her older sister Charmie was already good enough to land tricks, and Archie was not far behind. There were no skate parks in Canim Lake, a Tsq̓éscen̓ First Nation reserve in interior B.C., so the sisters would travel to nearby […] More »