From our education system to our literary community, why is CanLit so white? Nashwa Khan challenges the default narrative JUNOT DÍAZ UNLEASHED A BOMBSHELL on the writing world when he published his essay “MFA vs. PoC” in the New Yorker last spring. The Dominican American author is a creative writing professor, a fiction editor for […] More »

A scientific and anecdotal rumination on why today’s kids are more than all right—they’re the best generation yet I had only been a College professor for three years when Gregory Levey’s controversial and much-discussed magazine piece “Lament for the iGeneration” was published in 2009. I interpreted it as a cautionary tale: if we’re in the […] More »

If high-school kids are smoking, they’re likely to have used flavoured tobacco products like candy flavoured cigarillos, according to a coalition of health groups that released the findings of their Youth Smoking survey on Monday. More than 50 percent of those who smoked had used flavoured tobacco products, which have come under fire for their […] More »

By the time Friday rolled around last week there was a veritable anthology of jokes to which “David Gilmour” was the punch line. The paper-bag jowls and complacent half-smile of his face pasted on News Feeds and blogs like an advert for a public flogging. Everywhere that CanLit went, so too went the name David […] More »

My roommate has this hilarious—and, uh, brilliant—idea to rid the world of war and conflict: Put all of the world’s leaders in a room full of puppies, she says, and everybody will suddenly get along. Aptly dubbed Puppies For Peace, the program would, she argues, solve all of the world’s problems because, like, PUPPIES! World […] More »

Ian McCormick is one of the new generation of Canadian farmers.  Thanks to programs like FarmStart and CRAFT (Canadian Regional Alliance for Farmer Training), new farmers — young people and folks who often didn’t grow up farming — are trying their hand at small-scale production.  FarmStart helps develop a new generation of farmers by leasing […] More »

Writing is no easy gig. Anyone who’s ever put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard) knows the list of roadblocks can seem endless—and even apocalyptic. Sometimes we have great ideas, but can’t write a single sentence. Other times, the writer’s block on ideas can seem Grand Canyon-sized. How do people find time to write, […] More »

Talks between the student unions and the Quebec government broke down again last Thursday. Indeed, as the strike stretches well past its 100th day, it seems no end is in sight. People from outside student union groups are now joining the cause in greater numbers than at any point during the strike—not so much in […] More »

A growing number of teachers and parents say Ontario’s current school  curriculum will graduate scores of children who are 21st century illiterate. Inside the fight for more technology and social media in the classroom. Every school day from September to June at 3:30 p.m., Aerin Guy meets her nine-year old daughter at school. On this […] More »

The student strike in Quebec does not look to be ending anytime soon. While a tentative agreement was struck on May 6, following a 22-hour negotiation between the students and the Quebec government, it will likely be annulled after the 150,000 students around the province vote this week. If the agreement is passed, it would […] More »

Back in the 1960s, a group of high-minded northern and southern Canadians had a collective revelation: if the North ever wanted to succeed, it desperately needed a university. Toronto-based lawyer and retired Air Force general Richard Rohmer spearheaded the idea, first lobbying locals and politicians, and later penning a draft for a bricks-and-mortar institution. While […] More »