The Walrus

By January 2017, threats were nothing new to the members of the Quebec City Islamic Cultural Centre. For months, the centre (also known as the Grande Mosquée de Québec) had been targeted with hate-filled rhetoric. For example, in June 2016, a pig’s head was left during Ramadan with a note that read “bon appétit.” A few weeks later, pamphlets circulated in the neighbourhood, c...

On December 13, 1991, the Canadian government ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This pledge states: “In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.” However...

Now walk away from that cube
of comfortable air, the cone of light,
the cupboards filled with folded
likenesses of you.
Go out in the darkness
of an ordinary forest
where nothing has any love for you.
The leaves are not the least bit
green, encased in a mass of blackness
solid as a wall but still
minutely subdivided.
The ground call...

A Relic. Several years from now, I wonder if these two words might describe the very paragraph you are reading right now, a collection of sentences drafted painstakingly by a human author. It underwent multiple iterations—editorial notes included—before the final version confronting you. I struggled through word and sentence permutations until they felt acceptable, ...

Ask Newfoundlanders of a certain generation what they remember about the twentieth century, and chances are they’ll have stories of American soldiers. Perhaps they worked on an American base, danced with a Yankee sailor—even married one and moved down to the States to raise a family.