I can’t count how many of my childhood Saturdays included a trip to the barbershop, so my brother could get a haircut. Each trip included a long wait and a whole lot of people locked in Patois-filled debate. So I get why Brandon Hay chose barbershops early on as a venue for the organization he […] More »

  ON A COLD NIGHT IN DECEMBER 1989, Rachel, a first-year student at McGill University, was sitting in the emergency room with a friend suffering from a migraine. About an hour after they first arrived, paramedics began rushing women on stretchers through the ER. Rachel’s first response was confusion: She couldn’t understand why so many […] More »

Driving back and forth along Wellesley Street in Toronto, Iris looks for a sign that she belongs. It’s late at night and raining, and she’s been blown off by a date. The woman she met on the dating website Plenty of Fish lives in Niagara Falls, and Iris rented a car for the weekend to […] More »

The next morning, which is really just hours later, we arrive at Monte’s county hospital room which is located in the prison wing. He is being guarded by two members of the Los Angeles Police Department. Before we enter the room they nonchalantly tell me pieces of my brother’s story: We thought he was on […] More »

I went to church in August. I hadn’t been in 20 years. It was Monday and St. Paul’s Anglican in downtown Halifax was dead quiet. A young woman in burgundy sat at a table near the door. I looped around the pews before asking the question I had come here to ask: “Charles Lawrence is […] More »

Canada, in the eyes of many of its citizens, as well as those living elsewhere, is imagined as a beacon of tolerance and diversity. Seen as an exemplar of human rights, Canada’s national and international reputation rests, in part, on its historical role as the safe haven for the enslaved Black Americans who had fled […] More »

Margaret Wente is confused about racism. That is the most generous interpretation I can offer for her recent Globe and Mail article, “The good news about racism,” in which she argues that racism is vanishing from society. It is declining at such a rate, in fact, that the recent resurgence of white supremacy is a […] More »

This year, Canada celebrates its 150th birthday. Ours is a country of rich history—but not all Canadian stories are told equally. In this special report, This tackles 13 issues—one per province and territory—that have yet to be addressed and resolved by our country in a century and a half Fifty years ago, the city of Halifax destroyed […] More »

This year, Canada celebrates its 150th birthday. Ours is a country of rich history—but not all Canadian stories are told equally. In this special report, This tackles 13 issues—one per province and territory—that have yet to be addressed and resolved by our country in a century and a half  I hadn’t been this excited about a stamp […] More »

This year, Canada celebrates its 150th birthday. Ours is a country of rich history—but not all Canadian stories are told equally. In this special report, This tackles 13 issues—one per province and territory—that have yet to be addressed and resolved by our country in a century and a half Last year, Black Lives Matter Toronto concluded #BLMTOtentcity, […] More »

This year, Canada celebrates 150 years since Confederation. It’s a milestone that’s been marketed since the clock struck midnight on January 1: There are parties to go to, maple leaf-encrusted foods to buy, special landmarks to take selfies with. Celebrating Canada’s birthday this year should be, according to many, a fun time. But it’s hard […] More »