Six Waves of Refugees
A refugee is someone who is forced to flee from persecution in their home country, or who has fled violence, war or destruction. To meet the definition in the 1951 Geneva Convention used in [...]
George Melnyk
George Melnyk
Lost in Translation
A slender, middle-aged man with dark, gently greying hair sits at a desk in his basement. He’s wearing a black sweatshirt, faded jeans and white sneakers as he peers into the screen of a laptop. [...]
The Tomes, They Are A-Changing
These are tumultuous times for Alberta book publishers. They’re disappearing. They’ve stopped publishing, moved to other provinces or been merged. One way or another, many no longer exist. Duval [...]
What Are We Fighting For?
In March 2006, Prime Minister Stephen Harper went to Kandahar, Afghanistan, to speak to Canadian troops. he defended Canada’s mission in Afghanistan, claiming that our military is “defending [...]
Faces of the Lakeside Packers Strike
In the Middle of October 2005, members of the United Food & Commercial workers, Local 401 went on strike at Lakeside Packers in Brooks. The local had been certified in 2004 as the bargaining [...]
Literary Genealogy
How do you grow a poet?” Robert Kroetsch was asking how a new land, like Alberta, nurtures literary creativity, what a colonial society needs to do to grow its own stories. Kroetsch asked the [...]
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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 ...
Can Climate Change Be Reversed?
When NASA initiated the Mercury Project that would send the first American into space in 1958, one of the many questions facing scientists was what to do about the carbon dioxide emissions of their astronauts. Our bodies exude about a kilogram per day of the gas, which is lethal in ...
Equalization Rage
It has been called the superglue of Canada’s Confederation. It is also, ironically, one of the things that keeps driving provinces apart. It is ridiculously complicated, made more so by politicians over the years. It could no doubt be improved. Say hello to federal equalization, a program that Alberta’s new ...