Closing Doors
No one likes having a door slammed in her face. But talking to dead people’s relatives is part of my job as a newspaper journalist. It is a skin-thickening, awkward task and I don’t relish it, [...]
Farming Out Our Future
In an increasingly urban and self-consciously cosmopolitan province, something about the word “rural” seems to make people uncomfortable. Whatever the lingering mythic importance of ranchers, [...]
Perilous Trades
On the day of the accident, an epic snowstorm swept through central Alberta. Weather reports discouraged travel except in emergencies. defeated cars dotted the ditches between Red deer and [...]
Doing the Dirty Work
The idea of labouring in a lucrative industry, even one dominated by heavy, dirty work and long hours, drew me to the oil patch. It was the reality that made me happy to leave. After hearing the [...]
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Should Post-Secondary Education be Free?
Hugh Mackenzie
The economist and research associate at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says yes.
Free tuition would redress a massive intergenerational inequity created over the past 30 years. In 1990–91, average university tuition in Canada was $1,464; adjusted for inflation, that would be $2,541 in 2019–20. Today the actual average ...
Edmonton to Calgary in an Hour
Either way, the three-hour drive between Edmonton and Calgary on the QEII highway has the same itinerary: nice landscape, cows, trees, pumpjack, anti-Ottawa billboard, creeping boredom, leg cramp, Donut Mill raspberry bismarck, cows, fence, pickup truck passing you at 160 km/h, horse, trees, jackknifed semi-trailer in the ditch, pumpjack, cows, full-on boredom ...
Not a White-Bread Childhood
Toronto freelance portrait photographer Markian Lozowchuk (disclosure: his mother and I are second cousins) has photographed Justin Trudeau for Toronto Life and Margaret Atwood for Maclean’s, but his editorial shoot of Chrystia Freeland for Toronto Life in 2017, including the cover, was “the most memorable shoot I’ve done.” Even three ...