It is becoming increasingly apparent that if employers want to avoid legislation requiring them to institute affirmative action programs, they are going to have to do much better on a voluntary basis at hiring and promoting women into higher-paying jobs and employers should stop assuming that women can’t do nontraditional jobs: if they have the… Continue reading Upwardly Immobile

If only this were printed on scratch’n’sniff stock, there would be so much less explanation required. A smell, slightly sickly, a bit cloying, an odor caused by clothes too warm and yesterday’s cut flowers and the suffocating sorrow of the viewing room, yes-for this is how one who once worshiped Canadian magazines feels when invited… Continue reading Lost in gloss

Legend has it that after his last broadcast for the CBC in 1976, Norman DePoe took a swing at his boss, Mike Daigneault, in the hallway outside the Montreal studio. Daigneault says this is “just not true,” that it was merely an argument between the two. DePoe also denied the incident, saying that it was… Continue reading Rogue Reporter

Carsten Stroud likes the way people talk. He drops in and hangs out with bikers, cokeheads and street kids, hoping to capture the way they sound in his magazine pieces. To him, the inarticulate are eloquent. But in March, 1983, Stroud was confronted by the prototypical reporter’s nightmare: having someone deny ever having talked to… Continue reading Quasi-Quotes

Gerald Hannon had a hand in every issue of The Body Politic but one. He bought the premier TBP at a gay dance in the winter of 1971, joined the paper’s collective soon after, and wrote an article for the second issue. That one he hawked on street corners in Toronto. “Gay liberation!” he hollered,… Continue reading Time, Gentleman, Please