From Dismissed to Disposable
Dawn is breaking January 1, 2020, when I receive a phone call. The paramedic on the other end informs me that my brother, Olivier, has fallen and can’t get up. Administrators of the lodge where [...]
Clem Martini
Clem Martini
Only Leave a Trace:
Only Leave a Trace offers a series of thoughtful, poetic observations on Roger Epp’s career during a particular transitional episode at the University of Alberta. “This book of meditations,” the [...]
When Things Fall Apart
Life is filled with surprises. So, on the day that I drove my brother, Olivier, to emergency to be treated for a psychotic episode, during that evening when we sat in emergency for nearly 12 [...]
Green Theatre
The prototype for the ideal contemporary theatre exists and I have seen it. It’s aesthetically pleasing and a marvel of engineering. The acoustics are spectacular. It is able to accommodate [...]
Edge of the Edge
You wake up. You’ve received a phone call. Disoriented, you fight sleep and attempt to make sense of what the voice on the other end of the line is telling you. You discover that your [...]
Whose Woods Are These?
Each year as summer approached, we prepared our escape. We hauled bins of dried food, boxes of tattered paperbacks, sleeping bags and an immense, hideous, grey-green army surplus tent out to our [...]
Scared Straight?
For a number of years I exchanged services with youngsters in trouble with the law. The terms of our exchange weren’t clearly articulated, but in practice they are simple to describe. I offered [...]
Pushed to the Edge
There are two things you never want to have happen to you. One of them is to suffer a mental illness. The other is to suffer a mental illness and try to get admitted to a hospital. The problem is [...]
MOST READ
MOST READ
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 ...
Out with the Old
On a sunny autumn afternoon, pedestrians walk up to the edge of Edmonton’s 115th St, where steel girders separate the road from the edge of the hill. The view is tremendous: overlooking the lush Victoria Park golf course and the gorgeous panorama of the North Saskatchewan River valley. Most people ...
Pension Folly
In 1965, Quebec, eager to be master in its own house, decided it wanted to have its own pension plan and not be part of the new Canada Pension Plan. Quebec’s population was younger than the Canadian average, and the province had a high birth rate. The province believed its ...