It’s silly that women get bullied just for liking things, but there’s a lot more to be said on the subject
Sam Nock
I am admittedly a formerly pretentious, insecure hater of all things popular, pastel, and mainstream. As a teenager I forced myself to sit down and read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, making long lists of Russian names, trying to keep complex plots straight that were honestly above my paygrade. Though I still think Anna Karenina is a […]
How Indigenous children are reclaiming their languages through immersion school
Caelan Beard
Robin had been ready to start school for a year. On the first day, she was prepared, wearing a blue dress with pink hearts and carrying a giant backpack that tugged at her mother’s heart. Robin’s parents both came to drop her off. As they left, they waved goodbye to their oldest child and called […]
The guy who bought the house next to my apartment is the heir to a chain of hardware stores. I saw him teaching a young woman about the stock market at a local coffee shop. I watched him as he leaned over the young woman’s laptop, his chubby index finger pressed into the screen, making […]
Newcomers to Canada are being forced to navigate predatory debt cycles
Erika Holter
Marcia Bryan knows firsthand the damage that can be wrought by a payday loan cycle. Bryan moved from Jamaica to Canada with her mother in 1981, when she was 18. Her mom thought it would be a better place for them to make a life. Years later, at a time when Bryan was helping her […]
They’re slumped over on the seat, head almost touching the floor of the train car. The other passengers try to politely look away, avoiding sitting in their vicinity. Is the person asleep, unconscious? Possibly unhoused, with random personal items spilling out of a ripped backpack, they might need assistance. Yet no one moves to get […]
Neighbours are gathering across the country to seize their means of food production
Emesha Boyko
Kevin Sidlar’s garden has been a refuge for the past two decades, if not quite a major source of sustenance. For much of his adult life, he’s grown annual flowers, peas, and tomatoes in his backyard. In the early days of 2020, something shifted within Sidlar. He felt nervous about disease and the security of […]
In the middle of the 2023 fire season, A Critical Incident Stress Management counsellor came to our fire base. The season had been unprecedentedly busy, even with wildfires ramping up in recent years, and my crew in southern British Columbia had racked up more than 70 days on the fireline with no sign of it […]