Ahead of the Ice
Fall I stand in the line at the grocery store on a Tuesday evening. Outside, big fat flakes swirl to the pavement. It’s late October and this is one of the first snowfalls of the coming [...]
Stories in Storage
An authentic 19th-century samurai sword, with a manta-skin handle designed to give the user a better grip when the duel gets bloody—brought back to Alberta as a souvenir more than a century ago [...]
Gloria Sawai
Shortly after the death of Edmonton writer Gloria Sawai, I was invited by her children, Naomi and Kenji, to go through her library and select whatever books I should like to keep. Obviously this [...]
What Lies Beneath
Tony Bruder and Ron Schmidt get on either side of the six-foot boards as I crouch down to get a better look. The two Pincher Creek-area neighbours shuffle the weather-beaten wood aside, revealing [...]
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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 ...