It's a curtain call for the democracy Canadians built after the world wars. Politics is evolving from an arena where powerbrokers create consensus from disparate viewpoints into a zero-sum game where stakeholders choose loyalties, the victor divides the spoils, and the losers are annihilated. Our partisan choices are either a technocratic centre-right that thinks it knows better or a rules-weary right wing that feigns no moral pretense.

I was ready for the unexpected on my first day as an outreach worker at Elevate NWO. Elevate is a harm reduction organization responding to treatment and prevention of HIV and Hepatitis C in Thunder Bay and the wider region, but also finds itself responding to other emerging issues. In Thunder Bay, that often means advocating for our unhoused neighbours in the fight for housing, not tents.  

All this said, I was nevertheless surprised when all the talk of my first day was about birds!

Summer is here and it’s time to live, laugh, and litter outside.

We experience, create, and appreciate art and making in our own ways. There’s no insider secret code to “getting” public art. Even if you think you don’t know anything about art, even if you’re in no mood to learn, it doesn’t lessen your experience.

The hours are long, the responsibility is huge, and the number of cases in NWO far outnumbers the veterinarians. It’s hard to hold boundaries, but it’s so important to be off the clock. It’s a huge toll on mental health, and people in this profession have a three times higher risk of suicide. To put the stats in perspective; I moved back to Thunder Bay 15 years ago. We have lost three veterinarians here to suicide in that time. 

North American conservative politicians continue their ongoing antagonism toward the environment with their “axe the tax” and “drill baby drill” slogans and policies.

Two days before the 2015 federal election, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau marched into a pit of pandemonium at the Thunder Bay airport that looked less like local partisans and more like The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. Hundreds of screaming people clamoured for selfies with this dreamboat who would rescue Canada from Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s stuffy preference to play by himself.

Seventy-two emergency beds, one case manager, rental costs vastly disproportionate to the rates of social assistance, barriers to entry at every turn—the vicious cycle continues. 

Being a freelance artist is a hustle. I work really hard to do what I do, working long hours, balancing a lot of different skills and projects, wearing a lot of different hats. So, to me, seeing AI art popping up in my feed, in books, in film, in company logos, in memes, in my hometown and everywhere…is disheartening.