This Magazine

Progressive politics, ideas & culture

Menu

Health

Invisible labour and tangible risk

On working through a pandemic

Nisa Malli

Lately, all of my labour—domestic, creative, and income-earning—has shrunk to the space of a studio apartment. My office now doubles as my kitchen table, my gym, and my sick bed. It is a home which felt small even when I had access to third spaces for work, leisure, and exercise (such as cafes, parks, libraries […] More »
March-April 2020

Self-care is a sham

We need to place more value on community care

JP Larocque

Dearest Fellow Millennial, Self-care is a sham. There. I said it. Look, I get it. The modern world is an exhausting one. The workday is basically whenever you’re conscious, home ownership and retirement are but a fantasy, and the spectre of global warming lurks around every corner. We’re also everyone’s favourite bad joke: a pack […] More »
January-February 2020

How vaping companies appeal to today’s teens

Social media, store displays, and youth-savvy flavours—behind the smoke screen on how young people are being marketed to

Amanda Lee

  “I had a flavour that was Fruit Loops in a gold and matte black carbon vape, and I was in Grade 9,” says Zach Samson (who asked that we use a pseudonym), a 19-year-old student at the University of Guelph. By Grade 10, Samson was a part of a group chat called “e-cigarettes” with […] More »
January-February 2020

When mental heath is not on the menu

People working in Canada's restaurant industry need more supports—and some are cropping up

Zakiya Kassam

  My first restaurant job was also my last. It was a three-month stint that passed by in a blur of cutlery roll ups, tedious small-talk, and barely-there tips. Like many jobs in the food service sector, my shifts were long and ran late, and my hourly pay was well below minimum wage. Breaks were […] More »
November-December 2019

Leaving a literary legacy

In the wake of my cancer diagnosis, I decided to read

Melanie Masterson

When you are diagnosed with a terminal illness there is a lot of talk about leaving a legacy. Some people write letters to their children. Some record videos. I have a pretty active Instagram account and have blogged for decades and hope my daughters will enjoy looking back on that. Some things older women living […] More »
September-October 2019

10 things every voter should care about this election, 1-5

Mainstream media only shows us a handful of issues, but federal leaders should be held accountable to much more

various

  1. The Rise of the Alt-Right Andrew Scheer formally addressed the United We Roll convoy in February, a protest that began as a pro-pipeline demonstration and grew to represent racism and xenophobia characteristic of the worldwide yellow vest movement. In May, Conservative MP Michael Cooper read a passage from the New Zealand shooter’s manifesto […] More »
July-August 2019

Deciding Factors

The decision of whether or not to bring children into the world is always complex. Here, identity, ancestry, age, capitalism and climate change are all part of the considerations.

Thirza Cuthand

Being a Plains Cree non-binary lesbian with a non- functioning uterus makes baby-making hard. And the looming pressure of total environmental and climate collapse has made a lot of my friends choose not to have children at all. Is it selfish to bring a child into the world as it stands now? And can I […] More »
March-April 2019

Will Our Data Lead Us To The Virtual Afterlife?

As Canadians live longer and amass more personal data than ever, we could be getting closer to living forever in bot form

Stacey McLeod

Hayley Atwell as Martha in Black Mirror James Vlahos can no longer sit across from his father, hold his hand or give him a hug. But he can ask him for advice when he’s feeling blue and let his children ask questions about his family’s life in Greece or listen to him sing “Me and […] More »
March-April 2019

You Are In The Process Of Dying

Last year I sat by my wife's side and held her hand as she died on the day of her choosing

Don Ayre

In Canada, we generally don’t like to talk about death. Even our medical profession is reluctant. And rightly so: Doctors are committed to preserving life, and we wouldn’t want it otherwise. But death is a part of life, and assistance in dying is increasingly being recognized as a medical option for terminally ill patients. It […] More »
January-February 2019

Gene machine

I spit in a tube and uncovered secrets about my family long held under wraps by the government. My case for consumer DNA kits

Adam Elliott Segal

Illustration by CSA Images IN THE WINTER OF 2018, like millions of others across the world, I ordered a DNA test. For $99, Ancestry.com promised me a look into my family roots, using just my saliva. The kit arrived in Toronto late last winter from Utah, Ancestry’s home base. I took the collection tube out […] More »
September-October 2018

Why did a young mother die in an alley after she was admitted to hospital? Her family says it’s because she was Indigenous

Windy Sinclair went to a Winnipeg ER. Three hours later, she went missing. Her body was found frozen in an alleyway three days after.

Ryan Thorpe

It was freezing in Winnipeg, cold enough that frostbite threatened to set in minutes; the kind of cold that sets deep in the bones, down to the marrow. Unforgiving wind ripped through flat, icy streets, and snowdrifts piled along sidewalks. A frigid, stainless steel sky descended on the prairie capital. By the time Windy Sinclair, […] More »