Category: The Magazine

“Two nations warring in the bosom of a single state.” That was how Lord Durham perceived the relationship between Upper and Lower Canada in the late 1830s. According to Durham the only way to resolve the tensions between the two Canadas was to unite them. Once French Canadians developed political and economic ties to Upper… Continue reading Divided We Stand

For me to write that I think Brian Mulroney is an asshole,” says Joey Slinger, “is every bit as inconsequential as if my mother phones up and tells me she thinks Brian Mulroney is an asshole. My opinion is perhaps interesting to her and hers is to me, but it has no place in journalism.”… Continue reading The Fortunes and Arrows of Outrageous Slinger

The day my daughter started kindergarten we received a sheet of paper from her school that we were advised to keep for handy reference. The dread communication-which occasionally slips out from under the plastic french fry magnet on our fridge door-lists all the “PA days” for the year. To our horror, the very first one… Continue reading Just the Feelings, Ma’am

Two male students boosted Montreal Gazette photographer Allen McInnis to the cafeteria window at the University of Montreal’s l’Ecole polytechnique and held him steady on the narrow sill. Police officers had drawn all the cafeteria’s drapes, but at this window a 15-centimetre gap in the curtains remained. The gap was all McInnis needed to photograph… Continue reading Indecent Exposure?

It was mesmerizing. As bombs rained on Baghdad, we were glued to our radios and televisions. We heard the air raid sirens and felt the tension of reporters as they resisted the Iraqi authorities’ requests to go to bomb shelters. We flinched at the jolts of the antiaircraft missiles and listened in as the Cable… Continue reading The Shallow End