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Fall 2024

A changing Chinatown

What do shifting demographics mean for the neighbourhood's long-term identity?

Michael Koy

In Toronto’s Chinatown, an average morning goes on as usual, with longtime business owners setting up shop and elderly residents chatting loudly in local bakeries. But underneath the mundanity lies change. When onlookers enter the Chinatown landmark, the famous Dragon City Mall, the sight of its empty shops and corridors with the occasional elderly passersby […] More »
Fall 2024

Night moves

Marginalized people are key to nocturnal scenes, but new Montreal policy misses the memo

Leina Gabra

The graffiti-covered Van Horne skatepark on the edge of Montreal’s Mile End is usually dotted with boys in beanies and sneakers, launching themselves into the rink with the cracking sound of skateboard wheels hitting concrete. But, every Thursday night for a brief stint during the summer of 2021, they were replaced with a different crowd: […] More »
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 »