Organizing a Women’s March
Nine days out from the January 21, 2017, Women’s March on Washington, DC, Calgary had no local march scheduled. If it hadn’t been for Joni, this city wouldn’t have been part of the largest [...]
Chance Encounters with Wild Animals
The title of Calgary writer Monica Kidd’s fourth collection of poetry, Chance Encounters with Wild Animals, suggests an exploration of the risks and rewards of wilderness travel, the kind that [...]
The Empress of Idaho
I loved Edmonton author Todd Babiak’s The Empress of Idaho. Set in Monument, Colorado, it features all the hallmarks of a small-town America coming-of-age story in the late ’80s, complete with [...]
This Has Nothing To Do With You
That morning” are the first two words of Lauren Carter’s new novel: “That morning,” the one after Melony’s high school graduation party, when everything changes. She wakes up feeling right with [...]
Letter to the War Room
DEAR WAR ROOM: I realize you’ve called yourself the “Canadian Energy Centre” since opening shop last fall, but we all know you’re the War Room as promised in the United Conservative Party’s [...]
Vistas of the West: Poems and Visuals of Nature
Vistas of the West is a well-designed, attractive hardback that may grace the coffee table of many a western home for years to come. It would make a good gift to mail to any puzzled easterner who [...]
Beverley McLachlin: The Legacy of a Supreme Court Chief Justice
With her retirement from the Supreme Court of Canada in 2017, a certain genre of Beverley McLachlin hagiography has emerged. The first woman to serve as Chief Justice, McLachlin cuts a formidable [...]
Saving Seeds
It’s the cusp of the growing season on our farm. The past year hasn’t been for the faint of heart, that’s for certain: another blink-and-you’ll-miss-it summer, the boreal forest lagging [...]
Fort McMurray—Wood Buffalo
Fort McMurray—Wood Buffalo may be in the far northeast corner of Alberta, but it has been at the centre of change in the province for many years. That’s attracted people such as Don Scott, a [...]
Contacting the Premier
When I was offered the Director of Correspondence job in Premier Notley’s office in June 2015, the title triggered images of a quill pen and ink pot atop a Dickens-era desk. Reading the premier’s [...]
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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 ...
Jason Kenney’s Vision for K-12
It was by all accounts, a fiery speech. Standing on a blue-curtained stage in front of a couple thousand supporters at the UCP’s inaugural policy convention in Red Deer in May 2018, leader Jason Kenney went on the attack against anti-oilsands activists and the foreign money he says funds them ...
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 ...