While dance has the potential to break down barriers, Vancouver-based dancer and choreographer Ralph Escamillan says it’s not always easy to find free classes to train and practice in the city.  So he created one. After starting a community organization called VanVogueJam in 2016, the 25-year-old has been teaching vogue, a dance-based art form originating […]

I am quite open about the fact that I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. Talking about it comes easy to me. More difficult to handle are the reactions I get from others. “So are you like that nerd on The Big Bang Theory?” someone in a work meeting recently joked after I mentioned my […]

4 A.M: Awaken. Move slowly to preserve the dream. When it fades, sit up. Meditate on one word for one hour. 5 A.M: Exercise. If bones crack during yoga, use the elliptical first. 6 A.M: Wash, after listening for son’s truck to rumble alive and leave for the day. Bless his inherited armour skin. 7 […]

On a rainy Thursday in April, I arrive at a yellow brick, split-level house in London, Ont. People are doing word searches at a large dining table. Some help themselves to a container of freshly baked peanut butter cookies, and CBC News is playing on a television in the living room. This house, tucked away in […]

At any given time there are 150 to 200 Nunavik Inuit in Montreal accompanying a loved one receiving medical care. The lack of basic services in their northern communities forces a vast number of Inuit to fly south to receive treatment in the city. Once they arrive, many Inuit opt to stay in Montreal in an […]

Adjacentland By Rabindranath Maharaj Buckrider Books, $22.00 “Today is a new day but yesterday was the same day.” Adjacentland is a twisted story of a man’s journey to discover who he is after waking up in an institution with no memory and only odd clues within letters and drawings to guide his way. As each […]

In a ballroom in Toronto’s LGBTQ Village, long-time drag queen Fay Slift smiles down at a young child dressed just like her. Both wear ice-blue wigs, bright patterned dresses, and long pink evening gloves. Around Fay’s look-alike sit more children, listening as she and Fluffy Soufflé, dressed in a navy muumuu and bracelets made out […]

As a child, Tim Johnson was sexually abused by multiple adults. Brief therapy sessions then didn’t help him. “I wasn’t ready for it,” says Johnson, who’s now a paramedic in York Region, Ont. As an adult, memories of his abuse started creeping back until he hit rock bottom. “One day I left work with the […]

The main thrust of the argument                    was that she was cold and he was an empty can of cream soda.                    Yellow jackets hummed around his gaping mouth, sampling his sugar.                    Or else she was hang gliding over treacherous cliffs while he                    refolded the family chute. She never let him see her without                    her headband on, […]

Thousands of federal offenders are serving life sentences in Canada’s justice system, and critics say they aren’t getting the rehabilitative support they need. “A life sentence is quite different from a traditional sentence,” explains Anita Desai, executive director of the St. Leonard’s Society of Canada. People serving life sentences, or “lifers,” often grapple with a […]

Dear Free Speech Warriors, Socrates had ideas—about life and government and religion—and he liked to express them to anyone willing to listen. Or who just happened to be standing nearby. He was tried, convicted, and killed for this behaviour. Faith Goldy has ideas—about life and government and religion—and she likes to express them to anyone […]