Listening in a Time of Pandemic
I was in Spain when the world went sideways. I was visiting one of the world’s oldest universities, founded in 1218, the University of Salamanca. It sits atop a hillside on the river Tormes, [...]
Defending Your Rights
My name is Sadie Vipond, I am 14 years old, and I am part of a lawsuit against the federal government. All 15 of the youth involved in La Rose et al. v. Her Majesty the Queen are being affected [...]
The Road From Here
Years from now we may well remember the date with a certain mythic significance. March 11, 2020: the day the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 virus a global pandemic. I was [...]
Pandemic Politics
Pop Quiz! What do you call a government that runs up record deficits, intervenes in the marketplace, restricts people’s movements and pays workers to stay home? a. Socialist b. Communist c. New [...]
Should We Bail Out the Oil and Gas Industry?
Max Fawcett The writer and former editor at Alberta Venture says yes. For the better part of five years now, Canada’s oil and gas industry has blamed Justin Trudeau for all of its problems. Now, [...]
Alberta’s Black Swan
The best evidence of our conservative government’s cluelessness before the economy tanked in 2020 is the provincial budget. It was passed in a rush on March 18, 2020, two months after the novel [...]
An Environmentalist’s Case for Beef
“…If you knew how meat was made, you’d probably lose your lunch. I know; I’m from cattle country, and that’s why I became a vegetarian. Meat stinks, and not just for animals but for human health [...]
Pandemicton
“I ran through Edmonton between March 19 and May 6 taking photos. I call my photography ‘runtography,’ as I shoot while I’m running with a DSLR I carry in a backpack. Besides the pandemic, the [...]
Night of Power
Night of Power is the debut novel of Anar Ali, a short-fiction writer who grew up in Red Deer. The book opens with an evocative prologue of a man waking in a frozen prairie landscape, attempting [...]
I Am Herod
Richard Kelly Kemick is an agnostic who decides to try out for a role in the Canadian Badlands Passion Play. It’s a lark. He’s starting to conclude he’s less a writer than a failed writer, his [...]
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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 ...