Both Sides Now
The winter of 1970. In “Room at the Top,” a coffee house about seven storeys up in the frigid night sky of Edmonton, a couple of folksingers are tuning up their guitars while their drummer is [...]
The Other Iraq
She arrives at the clinic before sunrise, securing her place at the head of what will become a serpentine line. At this hour, the heat is tolerable and the dewdrops make it almost humid. Habitual [...]
Cosmopolitan Alberta
The other day my curator and writer friend Diana Sherlock got back from her new flat in Berlin. In her Calgary living room, we looked at photos of the view from her Berlin window, which overlooks [...]
The Makeover
We always wanted to fix up Josephine. You have to admit she needs it, what with that ratty hair, carrot red and ratty. Bad combo. Also, that skin. White, white, white except when she has zits, [...]
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The Nenshi Years
I find it easy to forget what Calgary was like when it all began—before what I’ll call the Nenshi Years. It feels like a lifetime ago, several political epochs back. Before the pandemic, before the Olympic bid, before the flood. Before the boom—and whole boom–bust cycle—ended. Before the PC collapse ...
Sidewalks to Nowhere
On a cool November evening in 2012, a crowd of more than 100 invited guests, primarily land developers, gathered at a private venue in downtown Calgary. The host was Cal Wenzel, head of Shane Homes. From a stage in front of a big screen he proceeded to review each Calgary ...
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 ...