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September-October 2021

Cash after COVID

Is money as we know it becoming extinct?

Keah Hansen

Back in April, a friend and I had met up to grab smoothies at a café before going on a lockdown walk. We each ordered, and I pulled out my debit card to pay. “Sorry, cash only,” said the woman behind the counter. I stared blankly at her, then my friend. “I don’t have any […] More »
March-April 2018

Is cryptocurrency our money of the future?

Its mavens say it will get you rich quick. Others say it’s the way of the future. The reality of Bitcoin remains to be seen

Mark Mann

In the 1951 animated film Alice in Wonderland, Alice was trying to find a party when she fell down the rabbit hole. Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that this has become the favourite cliché for people struggling to explain what it’s like to enter the disorienting world of Bitcoin. We’ve all heard stories about the mad crypto-party, […] More »
March-April 2018

Medical cannabis users cannot afford the weed that’s keeping them healthy—and legalization won’t help

These patients are among the country’s sickest, its poorest, its most opiated. But as the country lurches toward legalization, the patients who most rely on cannabis are still struggling to pay for it

Kieran Delamont@k_delamont

On a mild February afternoon in 2014, a pastor named Chris from the Maritimes sat outside his Jeep in a park near his home by the water, and smoked a joint. There was a sense of experimentation, curiosity even. Having never smoked weed as a teenager, Chris barely knew what he was doing. He got […] More »
May-June 2011

This45: Clive Thompson on zero-growth economist Peter Victor

Clive ThompsonWebsite

Could you live on $14,000 a year? Could everyone in Canada? And could we live on $14,000 a year for the rest of history? That’s the sort of uncomfortable, prickly question Peter Victor likes to ask. And the way you answer might say a lot about the future of the planet. That’s because Victor is […] More »
November-December 2009

Six new documentaries explore the darkest corners of modern capitalism

Dorothy Woodend

If ever there was a conspiracy theory that had every likelihood of being true, it’s that a shadowy cabal of billionaires are meeting at some remote location in the Swiss Alps (perhaps the Hotel Mont Pelerin, or the latest Bilderberg stronghold) to plot how to most effectively screw the rest of the world. Michael Moore’s […] More »
January-February 2010

Olympic Countdown: Your at-a-glance guide to Vancouver 2010’s sponsors

Kim Hart MacneillWebsite

Want to be the official chewing gum of Vancouver 2010? At the Olympics, there’s nothing money can’t buy Our guide to some of the sponsors who want their name associated with the biggest, sportiest, Spandex-iest show on earth. Click to enlarge! More »
September-October 2009

Saskatchewan stems population crash with $20,000 payments to recent grads

Laura Kusisto

It hasn’t been easy being Alberta’s neighbour these last few years. While Canada’s economic wunderkind enjoyed double-digit growth, next-door Saskatchewan saw the near-disappearance of the family farm and watched 35,000 residents in five years flee to other provinces. So when the Conservative Saskatchewan Party swept to power in 2007, promising a $20,000 tuition rebate for […] More »

How real estate became one big Ponzi scheme

Max FawcettWebsite

So much for that buyer’s market. After it appeared that the balance of power in the real estate relationship had finally swung back to the buyer after almost a decade in the seller’s favour, home prices in most major markets in Canada have resumed their seemingly inexorable climb. According to the Canadian Real Estate Association, […] More »
September-October 2004

Can I be interested in money and finance and still be a lefty?

Bruce GillespieWebsite

REFRESHER COURSE More »