Interview with Tim Ryan
AV: What was the inspiration for your story? The inspiration for this story was a cottage and dock that I used every summer when I was kid. I wanted to explore the thoughts that kids [...]
Jesus on the Dashboard
Gemma, the teenage anti-heroine of Lisa Murphy-Lamb’s debut novel, belongs in the pantheon of great YA protagonists. Part Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye, part Margaret Simon from Are [...]
Mothers and Others:
The median woman in Western democracies was for many years a married heterosexual mother. As a result, citizens tended to use family responsibility as a prism for evaluating political [...]
Defying Expectations:
Studying a thriving labour union in Alberta is a bit like studying an organism that flourishes in scorching, sulfur-laden undersea vents. Until recently, Alberta’s labour protections have been [...]
Survival of the Richest
The newspaper business has been in trouble for a long time. One of the gaudier proofs was last year, when Torstar and Postmedia traded a bunch of newspapers for the purpose of killing them. That [...]
Gods’ Footprints
If you could hold a black-throated green warbler in your hand, it would be soft to the touch and strangely light. Barely as long as an avocado, the slender greenish bird with a black neck and [...]
The Year of Bargaining Diplomatically
Last year the government of Alberta faced a mountain of public-sector contract negotiations. A whole mountain range, actually. Collective agreements covering roughly 180,000 employees expired: [...]
Meet the Minister: Christina Gray
AV: Far more Albertans are workers than employers, but our culture really celebrates “the entrepreneur”—the job creator, the employer. What do you think about this? Well, we need both. A [...]
Essential Workers’ Right to Strike
Marni Soupcoff says workers have no right to strike. It’s true. I don’t think essential workers should have the right to strike. But before I go any further with my case for why, you [...]
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The Plans to Strip-Mine Coal in the Mountains
It looks like spectacular wild country, but some see it more as a big money sandwich.
The top layer of that sandwich is comprised of alpine grasses, forget-me-nots and stonecrop, glacier lilies and ancient, brave pines whose branches have been gnarled and weathered by centuries of wind. In summer, solitaires and ...
Listening to Stones
It is a brilliant way to learn. Students of Socrates used to gather around the great man and exchange heady ideas that arose out of provocative questions—what we know now as the Socratic dialogue method of education. You might think the Greek philosopher and his followers hung out in academic ...
Who’s Keeping Watch?
As a journalist, covering Alberta's United Conservative Party government is a bit like trying to jump aboard a speeding locomotive. So much weight is moving at such great velocity that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to keep up.
Once upon a time, Alberta governments weren’t so purposeful or so quick—or, if ...