Photo Courtesy of Kelsey Savage & John Woods, Real Talk

On paper, Alison Klein is a serious academic with a master’s in interdisciplinary studies focused on adult education and disability. Meet her at one of the Real Talk’s free public events (affectionately known as “pizza parties”), and she’ll be the first to greet you as a peer facilitator and make a joke—sometimes with anatomically correct models at the ready.

“I go, ‘Look, a present’, and then just walk away,” says Klein with a smile. “I have kind of a funny side.”

Founded and managed by sexual health educator John Woods, Real Talk is an initiative based in Metro Vancouver that supports people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Woods has worked in community living spaces, schools, and sexual health organizations since the early ’90s, both in Canada and in London, UK. He saw the urgent need for sex education tailored to the IDD community, and a slew of intersectional barriers rooted in eugenics. Now, in between pizza parties and Q&As, Real Talk works with the community living sector to support providers and those with cognitive disabilities.

“Step five is getting the public to acknowledge and affirm that folks with intellectual disabilities could be LGBTQ,” explains Kelsey Savage, Real Talk’s project developer. “Step zero is the general population believing that folks with intellectual disabilities have a sexuality at all.”

Since its founding in 2017, Real Talk has grown to include both certified sexual health educators and peer facilitators with lived experience, ensuring its initiatives are driven by community needs. While the disability rights rallying cry “nothing about us without us” has existed for decades, Real Talk remains one of the few accessible sex-positive resources that centre self-advocacy. It provides an extensive library of YouTube videos addressing common questions around sexuality and disability. Savage also oversees Connecting Queer Communities (CQC), a social group for 2SLGBTQIA+ folks with cognitive disabilities to connect across the Lower Mainland both in person and online. People often attend both Real Talk and CQC events, and several have joined Klein as peer facilitators themselves. As facilitators, honouring education and community could mean helping someone explain orgasms to their partner one day, and being with someone’s deepest traumas the next.

“It’s happened a number of times at our events, where people have discovered they’ve been taking birth control and it’s been called a vitamin, or they’ve had an IUD and they didn’t consent to it,” says Savage. “There’s already a lot in the room before you step into it.”

As Real Talk works across communities to expand its outreach, what’s needed to ensure the future of good sexual health education is clear: government-sponsored education and publicly funded accommodations and support so people with cognitive disabilities have an equitable pathway to become sexual health educators. “I want to ideally work myself out of a job,” teases Savage.

“Earlier, I was mostly around staff and disconnected from my community,” Klein says. “I hope Real Talk is a starting point, and that sex education can be taught in schools to kids from all different backgrounds, so they all have a frame of reference [for] each other.”

Allyson Proulx wants people to know that she and Andy Cadotte do not speak for all of the volunteers in Forest City Food Not Bombs. They are just two people in a collective looking to create change in London, Ontario.

Forest City Food Not Bombs is a volunteer collective addressing food insecurity, poverty, and homelessness by providing free meals to those in need. On the last Saturday of every month, the group shares free soup with the London community. All of the soup is handmade by volunteers, using food that would otherwise be thrown out or freshly grown vegetables donated by Urban Roots London. Initially, they set up a table at London’s downtown Victoria Park for people to pick up their meals. But when volunteers saw how few people showed up in the winter, they started going mobile, hand-delivering food to encampments along the Deshkan Ziibi.

“Food Not Bombs, for me, is mutual aid…We’re not a charity,” says Proulx, who has volunteered with the group since the summer of 2023. “We’re not just ‘going to feed homeless people’, it’s ‘how do we work with people who are unhoused?’”

The Forest City group is one of many Food Not Bombs chapters worldwide. The U.S.-born collective was started in 1980 by a group of anti-nuclear activists in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Each Food Not Bombs group is a completely independent organization that operates according to their community’s needs. The groups are non-hierarchical, meaning that there are no leaders—everybody is a volunteer.

Previous iterations of London Food Not Bombs groups existed in 2008 and 2012, but fizzled out due to activists moving cities and pursuing different projects over the years. The current London chapter started in June 2023 by a crew of activists who were interested in seeing a movement like this come back to the city. “It’s such a powerful, beautiful thing to feed one another on multiple levels, like spiritually, emotionally, intellectually,” Proulx says.

In 2023, between 1,700 to 2,100 people were unhoused in London, according to a “snapshot” published by the city earlier this year. The data comes from the City of London’s “By-Name List,” which allows them to track the changing size and composition of their unhoused population. Over 350 people lived completely unsheltered, meaning they never stayed in emergency housing. In November 2023, there were 103 active encampments. This was the highest number of active encampments during the year, though it does not reflect the total number of tents in 2023.

“The thing about London is that everybody knows everybody,” says Cadotte, a current volunteer who was also part of the 2008 group. “There’s a real opportunity to come together as a community and decide a different path to take in our lives, rather than keep pursuing this path of capitalism.”

Cadotte and Proulx both say that the size of London and its geographic layout helps activism thrive. People live and work in close proximity with each other—plus, they are sharing similar lived experiences as working Canadians. “We’re all together in the sandbox,” says Cadotte.

Proulx also points to the land which London’s activism happens on. “The land itself dictates the activism on the land,” they say. “[There is] Deshkan Ziibi—the river that we live along—the nations that are here, the knowledge that we gained from them about what it means to decolonize and what it means to be in relationship with the food that grows from the land.”

On top of end-of-month meal services, Forest City Food Not Bombs has become a mainstay at advocacy events in the city, standing in solidarity and providing food in the process. As crowds filled the steps outside London City Hall to protest a proposed police budget increase in February or took to the streets of downtown London as part of ongoing Palestinian resistance, Forest City Food Not Bombs set up a plastic folding table with a cardboard sign advertising “free soup.”

Most recently, Food Not Bombs volunteers stood at the front gates of London’s Western University alongside striking graduate teaching assistants (GTAs). GTAs, represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada Local 610, are seeking a livable wage in the context of the maximum 10 hours per week they are allowed to work. “If you’re going to have collective resistance ongoing, you need to feed people so that they can continue to show up to these protests,” says Proulx.

Coming up on the group’s one year anniversary, Cadotte and Proulx both said they want Forest City Food Not Bombs to be sustainable as it continues to make change in the London community. “I don’t want to see the standards of success, like exponential growth—it’s not a stock market,” Proulx says. “I want it to grow into the ground.”

As Forest City Food Not Bombs moves into its second year, the group hopes to build its volunteer team and increase its activism, using the present to make change in London.

Photo by Katie Rainbow via Pexels

On a cloudy February day in Edmonton, Alberta, a giant trans pride flag flies over Dr. Wilbert McIntyre Park, marking the meeting place for a rally in support of the trans community. It’s days after Premier Danielle Smith, in a seven-minute video posted online, announced the most restrictive gender policies in Canada under the guise of “preserving choice for children and youth.” Alongside my 15-year-old daughter, who has many non-binary friends at school, and my best friend, whose child is gender diverse, I join the growing stream of people heading to the gazebo at the centre of the park.

The crowd eventually balloons to over 1,000 people as we wait to hear from the speakers—politicians, Two Spirit Elders, and organizations fighting for trans rights and reminding us to celebrate trans joy. Everywhere are Pride and trans colours and handmade cardboard signs. Some are cheekier than others, like the one that says, Someone come get your ‘Auntie’ Marlaina, she’s harassing the youth again. Marlaina is the premier’s given first name, but she prefers to go by Danielle—an irony she failed to appreciate while telling Alberta’s youth that all name and pronoun changes at school need to be approved by their parents.

While it’s a scary time for young trans and gender-diverse kids and their families, protests like the one happening today show how much solidarity there is in the community, letting these students know they’re not alone. There’s also a clear message that, no matter what policy the province tries to implement, those who know and love them will not stop seeing them for who they are. All around us, clusters of teachers hold signs saying they will never out their students. We run into the parents of a trans kid who lives in our neighbourhood and have a big group hug.

We’re all in need of comfort. At their AGM in November 2023, the United Conservative Party (UCP) overwhelmingly adopted three policies all related to “parental choice.” An opt-in consent for “any subjects of a religious or sexual nature,” including enrolment in extracurriculars or distribution of instructional materials relating to them; one supporting parents’ rights to be informed of and in charge of all decisions to do with all services paid for by the province; and the requirement for parental consent for name or pronoun changes for anyone under 16.

The UCP government wants to take things even further. They are proposing legislation to restrict gender-affirming healthcare for minors—no puberty blockers for anyone under 15 years of age and no gender-affirming surgeries for anyone under 18.

In her video, Smith said that gender-affirming care “poses a risk to [children’s] futures that I, as premier, am not comfortable permitting in our province.” It’s horrifying to know that Smith believes her feelings override actual medical evidence and best practices, or that parents, doctors and minor patients need her permission to choose the right treatment plan for any health concern.

There is a real fear, echoed by many health-care associations and gender-supportive services across Canada, that these policies will result in more harm to this vulnerable and at-risk community. In the Canadian Paediatric Society’s position statement on caring for trans and gender-diverse youth, they clearly state that adolescents who have access to gender-affirming medications have “lower odds of suicidal ideation over the life course.” Denying trans and gender-diverse youth access to the care they need when they need it is the real risk to these children’s futures.

Regardless of Smith’s position on the matter, many caring adults know this, and are fighting for students’ rights to be themselves. In a powerful member statement on the first day of the spring legislature session, Brooks Arcand-Paul, Alberta New Democrat MLA for Edmonton-West Henday and a Two Spirit person, stood proudly, wearing a floral and rainbow ribbon skirt gifted to him by his community, and condemned these policies and the divisiveness they are stoking.

Arcand-Paul says he’s pleased that many Albertans and organizations like labour unions are coming together to support the trans community. The vice president of the Alberta Teachers’ Association spoke at the rally in February, and the United Steelworkers, the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees and the Canadian Union of Public Employees all came out with strongly worded statements denouncing the proposed policies.

But Arcand-Paul also warns, “if this government intends to take rights away from one group, it’s certainly not going to stop there.” He says Albertans need to continue to contact their MLAs and voice their concerns about the proposed policies. “Sometimes we say something once and think it’s good enough, but we have to keep pushing the gas on this one and we can’t lose steam.” Arcand-Paul suggests people donate to organizations like Skipping Stone and Egale Canada, who are establishing legal advocacy funds and gearing up to challenge these policies in the courts if necessary.

As we left the rally, I still had the progressive Pride flag pinned to my jacket. We headed to the Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market for a pre departure coffee. Within minutes, three people stopped me, curious about the flag and the rally. I gladly answered their questions. It made me realize how powerful the simple act of showing up can be—and that we can’t assume everyone knows what’s happening in Alberta politics, or that they don’t care.

The queer and trans community have been fighting for their rights for a long time, but for some of us, this is new territory. It’s imperative that progressive Albertans continue to show up and commit to defending the Charter and human rights of all people, and to keep the pressure on this government with individual calls and letters, attendance at rallies and protests, and donations to the grassroots organizations leading these actions.

Given their track record, it’s hard to say if these actions will be enough to force the UCP government to change its course. But we have to try.

Photo Courtesy Studio ZX

The graffiti-covered Van Horne skatepark on the edge of Montreal’s Mile End is usually dotted with boys in beanies and sneakers, launching themselves into the rink with the cracking sound of skateboard wheels hitting concrete. But, every Thursday night for a brief stint during the summer of 2021, they were replaced with a different crowd: femme, queer, and trans people, speeding by on skateboards or rollerskates as their friends cheered them on.

As the sky darkened, more people arrived. They came dressed to impress and eager to be with others who understood queer joy. When Vicky B. Ouellette, a trans woman and community activist, looked down into the skatepark the first time she attended “Tran Horne Take-Over,” she couldn’t hold back tears. “I’d never seen something quite like [it]. It was so precious and so exclusively queer, and it was really important.”

“There’s a lack of understanding that we create these spaces out of necessity, not out of entertainment,” Ouellette explains as she recalls the weekly event, which was intended to unite femme, queer, and trans people during Montreal’s COVID-19 lockdown. However, with each passing week, Ouellette noticed a shift: slowly, more straight, cisgender people who seemed like observers rather than participants started to attend, recording videos and taking photos. By August, the event was shut down. She believes that the police discovered it as a result of these people broadcasting the event online.

Despite knowing that the events broke the city’s stringent rules against gathering at the time, Ouellette also knows they were deeply necessary. She cites this saga as an example of how there is a widespread absence of awareness around the importance of nightlife for queer Montrealers. For many, coming together with their community is more than just a hangout; it’s seeing their self-made family.

Ouellette is the founder of Studio ZX and the president of MTL 24/24’s advisory council, two organizations driving nightlife activism for marginalized communities. To her and many others, the act of nighttime entertainment and gathering is sacred. If an event or venue is expressly queer-friendly, it becomes a haven for people to let loose without the fear of being misgendered, harassed, or othered. However, as city officials place greater scrutiny on the nightlife sector, the underground scenes that the community has built may be pushed further to the fringes.

In April 2024, Montreal’s Commission on Economic and Urban Development and Housing presented its final nightlife policy recommendations in a public assembly meeting. It was a step toward the city’s intention to spend $2.1 million to create a 24-hour nightlife zone, likely in the Latin Quarter, as well as “nocturnal vitality zoning” throughout the city. The details of the latter are still vague, with a sense that this zoning would permit alcohol sales after 3 a.m. (the city’s current cutoff). These developments may pad the city’s bottom line, but the policy lacks clear details on how it will include or protect the main drivers of Montreal’s local nightlife scenes and its most vulnerable populations: queer and racialized artists, patrons, and workers.

For those who are not within these minority groups, it can be difficult to understand the constant feeling of unease and danger in nightlife. When asked if she feels unwelcome in nightlife spaces that are not expressly queer-friendly, Ouellette was quick to answer: “Absolutely. It’s just so easy to be objectified, or fetishized, or harassed, or screamed at, or [looked at] cross-eyed. Stuff like that is so common.”

Maintaining physical safety is also a factor. For racialized people and those who are both queer and racialized, some of the peril in nightlife is not overtly violent, but stems from a sense of otherness in some of the city’s scenes. “Being hit on by cishet men not knowing that I’m trans is a situation that is extremely uncomfortable, and can be dangerous,” Amai Doucet, Studio ZX’s media relations and communities manager, explains.

For too many people, discomfort, and sometimes violence, is the status quo in nightlife. Canada’s Survey of Safety in Public and Private Spaces found that sexual minorities are nearly three times more likely to experience violent victimization and more than twice as likely to experience inappropriate sexual behaviours than heterosexual people. Studies have also shown that racialized women who report violence are often taken less seriously than white women, leaving them at further risk.

The document outlining the city’s most recent recommendations for the nightlife policy includes a section titled Safety & Security, which emphasizes a need to increase funding for NGOs that work to decrease night-based sexual violence and collaboration between these groups, the city, and Quebec’s Ministry of Labour, Employment and Social Solidarity. Although these recommendations are a starting point, they are so general that it is difficult to glean any concrete plans.

Queer and racialized groups, and the threat of danger they face, are mentioned in the published recommendations, but the details are scant. One recommendation is to “support the creation and maintenance of inclusive nighttime community spaces for marginalized communities, such as LGBTQ2+ people, racialized communities, and people with disabilities.” Although marginalized communities and safety issues are both mentioned broadly, the document does not link the two. (This Magazine contacted several city officials who were part of the policy’s creation for comment, but none were willing to speak about the policy directly.)

As Montreal prepares to invest millions into nightlife, there is no better time for the city to improve its relationship with some of its more important players. Montreal cannot continue to undervalue the voices of marginalized groups as it enacts policies that directly affect these communities.

Last year, FANTOM, a non-profit that serves as a voice for queer and racialized people in Montreal nightlife, conducted a survey to assess its community’s needs. By far, the top concerns were safety and security, with 61 percent of queer and 58 percent of racialized surveyees mentioning it in their responses. FANTOM’s co-founder, Oliver Philbin-Briscoe, was pleasantly surprised to see that the new recommendations mentioned safety for marginalized groups at all—it’s the first time the city has done so in writing, as far as he remembers.

FANTOM envisions several projects that may help address queer and racialized people’s safety concerns, like an app to search for, review, and share venue information and the creation of more local, community-owned and operated event spaces. Still, many activists have more expansive ideas that require significant funding, resources, and collaboration with local officials.

For example, Philbin-Briscoe says it’s important to expand public transit hours to match the proposed 24-hour zones, ensuring that after-hours patrons and workers would have affordable and reliable methods to return home safely. This idea is proposed in the document, but Philbin-Briscoe is reluctant to celebrate it as a win before further steps are taken. Ouellette suggests a more qualitative path forward: a widespread education campaign illustrating the realities of marginalized communities.

Another key solution that activists emphasize is well-trained security personnel. Doucet believes that good security must hold a deep understanding of the needs of marginalized communities and be sensitive to the existing tensions between these groups and law enforcement. Several of FANTOM’s survey respondents felt that overly aggressive and poorly trained security are a central problem for marginalized communities in the underground and after-hours nightlife scene. Doucet suggests mandatory training that focuses on harm reduction and de-escalation rather than the use of violence.

Ouellette says that she believes the city’s lack of consideration for marginalized communities is not ill-intentioned, but rather, stems from a lack of knowledge and resources. However, Doucet thinks there is a relatively simple way to address this problem: to put more marginalized people in decision-making roles. “This would make sure we don’t get to a point where we’re asked our opinion after 95 percent of the work is done and most of it can’t even be changed,” she says.

Doucet suggests a council of queer and racialized people that can advocate for themselves in the city’s policymaking, in nightlife and beyond. Sometimes, she says, policymakers may not consider what Black and Brown folks, women, and queer people need because they don’t know their life experiences. That’s why Montreal needs these groups to be involved in making decisions about this city’s future.

Queer and racialized nightlife activists are cautiously optimistic, but wary of what is to come. To ensure that their hope is not misplaced, marginalized people’s concerns, solutions, and voices must be a central and meaningful part of Montreal’s nightlife policy.

Image by Paul Loh via Pexels

In the heart of the city, while more than 385,000 South Asians go about their lives, the University of Toronto (U of T) has quietly set a precedent. Amid the clamour for social justice and equality, U of T’s teaching assistants have negotiated with their union to include caste as a discriminatory practice—a move that has slipped under the radar of mainstream Canadian discourse.

Along with U of T, the Canadian Union of Public Employees – 3902 Unit 1 also became the first union in North America to add caste as a protected category, according to organizers. Caste is a traditional social hierarchy and restrictive practice based on birth or traditional occupation, ingrained in some societies, particularly in South Asia, that dictates a person’s social status and opportunities. With 2.6 million people comprising 7.1 percent of the population, South Asians represent the largest visible minority in Canada, according to Statistics Canada.

U of T’s decision sets a precedent for other institutions to follow suit, marking a significant moment in Canadian anti-caste activists’ ongoing struggle for inclusivity. “Your proposed amendment to Article 4 of your Collective Agreement includes caste as a category to be protected from workplace discrimination, harassment, coercion, interference, restriction, or any other practices prohibited by law,” said a bulletin from CUPE during the negotiation phase. “This demonstrates your ongoing commitment to fighting against oppression and recognizes that many students and education workers within the University of Toronto are impacted by caste politics and caste-based discrimination in their workplaces, classrooms, and communities.”

“This creates an inclusive and equitable environment and campus for all; that is our larger goal,” said Shibi Laxman Kumaraperumal, a fourth-year PhD scholar at U of T’s History department,teacher’s assistant, and union-side bargaining committee member who pushed for the amendment. “By doing this, we are actually beginning anti-caste conversations in the university environments in Canada. We encourage other trade unions to take it up as well.”

While many in the community are pleased with this step to curtail discrimination, that doesn’t hold true for everyone. Efforts to incorporate anti-caste measures in various North American jurisdictions have faced opposition from some Hindu organizations, which argue that such measures could lead to Hinduphobia. The term “Hinduphobia,” as outlined in petition E-4507, tabled at the House of Commons in December 2023 and meant to specifically address and define the discrimination faced by Hindus in Canada, refers to prejudice, discrimination, or hostility toward Hindu people, culture, or religion, including the association of casteism with Hinduism.

The U.S. has seen initiatives to combat caste discrimination, notably in Seattle, Washington, which became the first U.S. city to prohibit caste discrimination in 2023. Some members of the diaspora resisted, though, and they also resisted the introduction of an anti-caste discrimination bill in California, expressing concerns about the implications for the Hindu community.

Similarly, in Canada, some Hindu groups have called for a Hinduphobia bill, arguing that caste discrimination is not prevalent and that legislation against caste discrimination could unfairly target the Hindu community. Still, across the country, jurisdictions are taking steps to combat caste-based discrimination. The Ontario Human Rights Commission recognizes it now. Similarly, the city of Burnaby, B.C. voted unanimously to include caste as a protected category in its code of conduct, and Brampton, Ontario’s city council voted unanimously to take steps to add caste-based discrimination to its anti-discrimination policy.

It’s a more complex issue than it seems, and initiatives to combat anti-caste discrimination in Canada and the U.S. are in the early stages. But the efforts being made at U of T point to the need to unpack it, and to implement change at an institutional level.

Image by Hendra via Adobe Stock

On October 7, 2023, I was just about three months pregnant. As a genocide unfolded before our eyes in the weeks that followed, I reflected a lot on the parallel lives mothers live on both sides of this dystopian world.

Like many others, my social media feed exposed me to countless images of the Israeli military’s atrocities in Palestine. Images of shrapnel seared into the bodies of innocent Gazans are seared into my brain like scars: a woman silently mourning as she tightly hugs a child-sized body bag. A damaged incubator containing shrivelling babies. A girl hanging limp over the window of her destroyed home. Wide-eyed toddlers shaking uncontrollably as they begin to process the trauma that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Many of these images were censored, black squares politely asking me whether I still wanted to view the photos that they concealed. Apparently their contents were too heinous to set eyes on, and yet not heinous enough to end in reality. There was always the occasional image that slipped by uncensored. In those moments, I wished I had not logged on. I cried often. I was pregnant, but these tears were not hormonal. They were human. I often had to force myself to move away from the screen to limit the horrors I was viscerally absorbing, as if to protect the baby that was living through me.

It was an unusual time to be pregnant, to be growing a new life as I witnessed the lives of others being ended so mercilessly. Over the span of three months of genocide, 20,000 babies were born in Gaza. As I planned for my son’s future, over 16,000 children were killed, futures completely obliterated. Of the nearly 1.1 million children in Gaza, those that survived now faced malnutrition, disease, physical disability, and psychological trauma. As I received excellent care in Toronto through regular prenatal appointments, I read about the horrific and life-threatening conditions that 50,000 expectant mothers in Gaza endured, birthing in unsanitary conditions on rubble-filled floors with limited access to medication. As I felt the pain from the stitches of my C-section for weeks, I remembered the mothers who were forced to have emergency C-sections with no anesthesia. I cannot conceive of their unfathomable pain and the trauma that will forever be bound to the memories of how they welcomed their babies into the world. As one mother from Gaza, Um Raed, told Al Jazeera, “Since the birth, I’ve not known whether I should be focusing on my contractions or on the sound of warplanes overhead. Should I be worrying about my baby, or should I be afraid of whatever attacks are happening at that moment?”

Though my pregnancy felt challenging, my baby boy arrived, healthy and present. When I caressed and gently wrapped his little body in soft swaddles, I kept getting intrusive flashbacks of those babies whose tiny bodies were maimed before their first birthdays, and of those who did not even reach this milestone at all, wrapped in white shrouds. While I had the privilege of enjoying my baby’s first winter through a festive holiday season, I also got chills thinking about the infants in Gaza who have frozen to death.

I often wondered about the purpose of bringing new life into this world full of anger and injustice and pain. But if there is anything I have learned from the Palestinian people, it is their deep-rooted resilience, one that stems from the same faith that I share with them as a Muslim, but has been put to the test in ways I can’t comprehend. They provide us with an important lesson on finding purpose in a world littered with inhumanity: we all have a responsibility to be active agents, building a more just world for all. From the articles and poems we read and write to the dinner table conversations we partake in using the knowledge we choose to seek, from the silent donning of a keffiyeh to the ways in which we raise and speak to our children about the world and its people, we all have, within our own skillsets and capacities, in our respective spheres of life, the ability to partake in this global, growing tide of activism.

Over the course of a year, we contributed what we could. Never has the world been so vocal in its support for a free Palestine. Boycotts have proven successful, careers have been put at stake, and a new media outlet, Zeteo, has emerged, questioning the status quo and bringing challenging conversations to the forefront so that we no longer have to tiptoe carefully around the subject of an ongoing genocide.

Despite the signing of a ceasefire deal 465 days later, we will continue to learn, speak, cry, create, call out, and call it like it is. In doing so, we will watch the tide continue to rise, from the river to the sea, in all ages and stages of life, until injustice is entirely swept away.

Photo Courtesy of Somia Sadiq

For Somia Sadiq, a registered professional planner and founder of Winnipeg-based impact assessment consulting firm Narratives Inc., we don’t tell ourselves stories in order to live. Rather, we live in order to carry them. To pass them along.

The government of Canada’s website defines impact assessment as a tool used by those spearheading major projects, such as mining or dam-building, to determine the effects of their proposed endeavour, whether positive or negative. Sadiq had been working in the field of impact assessment for private and government agencies for 20 years before she found herself jaded by their cold bureaucracy. “One of the key challenges that I was seeing was in how the world of planning approaches works with communities,” she says, talking about the people and lands potentially housing, or impacted by, the projects.

In Sadiq’s view, the traditional way of planning and consultation replicates the extractionary, perfunctory, and rigid currents of the overarching colonial and patriarchal systems within which consulting works. “Something as simple as offering an honorarium to an Elder who has spent time with you, sharing their knowledge, meant 10 hours of conversation with my VP of finance,” she says. She felt she could do things differently, and so eight years ago, she founded Narratives, a consulting firm that focuses on people, the land they live on, and their relationships to it.

Narratives privileges clients’ stories in its creation of psychosocial impact assessment plans, community plans, or land relations plans. They work with communities to establish for the courts that an organization’s project may harm that community’s wellbeing, or they help the community to undertake their own projects, providing them with the tools to represent themselves in court or move through colonial municipal, provincial, or federal systems in a way that empowers them.

Traditional impact assessments in Canada, Sadiq says, focus on a proposed project’s impact on the biophysical environment. Sometimes, it also considers the impact on the human environment, and “it may or may not consider the interface between those,” she explains. “We may not consider the health impacts. It all depends on which province you’re in, the nature of the project, and so on.”

Narratives, meanwhile, takes a holistic approach to impact assessments. The firm works primarily with Indigenous communities neglected by traditional planning by assisting with community planning, impact assessment, landscape design, and research and analysis, providing these as tools that people can implement and benefit from. The firm’s goal is to advance its clients’ goals, whether it be reestablishing identity, reclaiming identity, or reclaiming sovereignty.

Narratives’ work is built on the foundation of what it has learned from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and, according to their site, “the principles of storywork,” which include respect, reciprocity, responsibility, synergy, and holism. This foundation guides how Narratives creates impact assessments. A key to their work is recognizing that identity is tied to the land. Ultimately, Narratives works to achieve its goals through listening, something Sadiq has been doing all her life.

“I’m Punjabi and Kashmiri by background and grew up in a world very rich in storywork,” she says. “We were taught through stories and allegories and folk songs and everything in between. That’s how our parents and grandparents taught us any lessons in life.”

Narratives creates something called an all-encompassing impact assessment plan, which, Sadiq says, is a fancy term for thinking about everything. “When we’re thinking about the impact on people, we need to think about the psychological and sociological impact of not just the project, but historically as well. So if you have a community that has significant layers of trauma that they’ve experienced and you’re adding yet another event to that scale that may amplify that, then it’s going to be a problem.”

Sadiq explains that it can even out the playing field when people are given space to share their stories. “It’s harder for someone to answer the question, how did something impact you? And easier for them to tell you a story about what happened.”

One of Narratives’ clients is the Niiwin Wendaanimok Partnership, a group of four Anishinaabe communities that provides construction contracting and environmental monitoring in Treaty 3 territory. The firm is working on a study compiling historic and current data on land and resource use to guide the Niiwin Wendaanimok’s project of twinning a highway through Manitoba and Ontario. Narratives has worked with the Niiwin Wendaanimok for many projects, both in the background with harmonized impact assessment or with community planning. The Elders of one of the four communities, the Wauzhushk Oniqum Nation, also initiated an investigation into a residential school that was on their reserve. Narratives provided support by offering trauma-informed planning support.

Cultural stories aren’t a tool for Sadiq; rather, they’re alive. “Really making sure that the work that we do is community led means that it’s inherently a really beautiful mechanism for the communities to uphold their ceremonies, do the work in a good way with us, essentially just in the background, facilitating the process and serving as technicians more than anything else,” she says. “Ideally by the end, they’ll feel the pride and they’ll be able to continue to do the work on their own.”

Photo by HAPPYRICHSTUDIO via Adobe Stock

When I learned I had precancerous lesions on my cervix and that my doctor was recommending I remove them surgically, my reaction went as follows: One, muted panic. Two, I’m definitely going to die. Three, Wait, what does that even mean?

So I did what anyone in possession of an Internet connection in 2021 would do: I went online to do my own research. The Internet confirmed what my physician had told me: the procedure, called a loop electrosurgical excision procedure, or LEEP, is a common one, in which a heated wire is inserted into the vagina to remove the offending cells.

I also found a host of women complaining of unexpected side effects. One article, in Cosmopolitan, was particularly concerning, full of stories of post-LEEP sexual dysfunction from women who had fully healed, yet who were unable to orgasm, feel pleasure during penetration, or have pain-free sex.

I mentally rehearsed the discussion I’d had with my gynecologist. He hadn’t warned me about any of this, which worried but did not surprise me. He had seemed more concerned with protecting my ability to get pregnant, even though I had repeatedly told him I was uninterested in bearing children. With scant scientific literature available—studies on post-LEEP outcomes were mostly focused on the procedure’s efficacy in preventing cancer, as well as pregnancy outcomes—it felt impossible to assess whether these risks were real. Was I about to subject myself to a procedure that might save my life, but at the cost of one of the things that brought real joy to it?

*

The disconnect between our experiences with medical professionals and what women and people assigned female at birth (AFAB) hear from our peers has been a central concern for feminist health activists for decades. When it comes to understanding what’s going on with our bodies, who can we trust?

For much of the twentieth century, the health-care system overtly treated AFAB people as unable to make decisions about their own bodies. Contraception was not decriminalized in Canada until 1969, and limitations on abortion were struck down even later, in 1988. Birthing people often had to endure labour alone, without partners present, and without the freedom to decide on pain relief options. Many women were ignorant of even the basic anatomical realities of their bodies.

In the 1960s and ’70s, activists dissatisfied with the limitations imposed by a misogynist health-care system, regressive laws regulating their bodies, and chauvinist doctors began to organize. They formed self-help groups, opened community clinics, and ran underground abortion networks. They performed vaginal self-examinations using a speculum, a flashlight, and a mirror.

What became known as the women’s health movement was grounded in a belief in empowering women with access to information about their own bodies and their sexual and reproductive health that was being denied to them by licensed health-care providers. In the U.S., the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective published revolutionary health-education text Our Bodies, Ourselves in 1970. Inspired in part by that text, a Canadian group called Women Healthsharing launched a quarterly magazine, which ran from 1979 to 1993 with a mandate to “take health out of the hands of the experts and return it to our own collective and individual hands.”

“The media landscape for women’s health information and feminist health perspectives in particular was dismal” at the time, says Connie Clement, founding managing editor of Healthsharing and longtime public health activist.

Healthsharing featured a mix of experts and lay writers reporting from across the country. “We always tried to write for lay women and women who had training in health. And I think it was a huge success for us that we had nurses and doctors contributing and reading, and we had women who had no special knowledge,” Clement says.

The subjects of Healthsharing ’s coverage were wide-ranging. In the inaugural issue, collective members Madeline Boscoe and Kathleen McDonnell penned a piece exploring birthing options in and out of the hospital, in response to feelings of “powerlessness, ignorance, and alienation from our bodies and our surroundings” in childbirth. Multiple issues reported on the use of Depo-Provera, a controversial contraceptive with potentially serious side effects. One column crowdsourced health information from readers (“We are trying to find out more about cervical caps in Canada,” read one callout). Other stories, like a piece on the labour conditions of garment workers, looked at the wider social and economic status of women in Canada.

This kind of education was key to both the women’s health movement and to second-wave feminism more broadly, grounded in the belief that knowledge was a precondition for enacting social change. “The whole feminist health movement was trying to change the social context of women’s health, [and] the structural conditions that influence health,” says Clement.

While it may seem like we are lightyears away from people not knowing what their own vulvas look like, as I peruse archival copies of the magazine over 30 years later, I am struck by how many articles overlap with current hot-button topics. The desire to balance “expert” medical opinion with the layperson’s experiences, the critical questioning of controversial pharmaceutical solutions, the attention to broader social, economic, and political conditions: it’s all in those pages, and it can be bittersweet to see how many issues are still relevant today, a testament to how slow progress can be in these contexts, and how easy it can be to roll it back, especially when we forget what has come before us.

*

I came of age in the 2000s, long after the era of the Women Healthsharings and vagina colouring books of women’s lib. I instinctively shied away from the diet-centric, fatphobic content in teen girl magazines. Thankfully for me, there was an entire ecosystem of feminist writing I could turn to online which shared both individual women’s experiences and fact-based reporting on our health. From blogging platforms Tumblr and LiveJournal to linchpin publications Bitch and Jezebel to private and semi-private groups of people with the same issues, for a while it seemed like the Internet could deliver on the promise of creating networks of knowledge in ways that mattered, filling the gaps where traditional media failed.

But by the time I was doing a deep dive on LEEPs, the online landscape had transformed entirely—in no small part because of social media, especially TikTok. The short-video sharing platform has become a major source for health information, especially for young women. In 2024, a survey study in the journal JMIR Infodemiology found a majority of U.S. women between 18 and 29 used TikTok for health information. Users post about vaginismus, birth control, orgasms, squirting, perimenopause, endometriosis, fibroids: I could go on. Some of these videos are created by health professionals, but many AFAB people post in the spirit of helping others through sharing their own experiences.

When I type in “birth control” on TikTok, the results are as follows: a “wellness”-focused woman encouraging natural planning, i.e. tracking your menstrual cycle to understand when you might be ovulating; a self-described nutrition coach listing ways the pill supposedly “robs us of our health;” and a sex educator responding to a question about birth control that doesn’t involve hormones.

In some ways, this knowledge ecosystem seems like an outcrop of the activist efforts of yore, grounded in information-sharing between peers and often using the language of increased bodily autonomy. Topics like hormonal birth control’s effects on the body are sometimes grounded in
legitimate concerns. Although these contraceptives are both considered safe overall and highly effective at preventing pregnancy, rare life-threatening complications can occur. There is research investigating the link between birth control and chronic inflammation that can lead to cardiovascular problems, blood clots, and mood disorders. Meanwhile, for methods like intrauterine devices (IUDs), for example, some report extreme pain during insertion, feeding into concerns that women and AFAB people’s pain is being dismissed by health-care providers.

More problematically, however, discussion online about birth control can quickly veer into right-wing misinformation territory, inflaming fears in an effort to get people to abandon contraceptive use altogether.

And in countries like a post-Roe U.S., where some states are increasingly implementing restrictive abortion laws, the stakes of an unwanted pregnancy can be high, says Dr. Jenny Wu. Wu is a medical resident in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke’s School of Medicine; she studies women’s reproductive health information shared on TikTok.

“It’s a complex conversation to navigate with my patients, when they tell me they don’t want hormonal birth control and they want to do natural family planning in a state where we have limited abortion access,” shares Wu from her home in North Carolina, which in 2023 banned abortions after 12 weeks with limited exceptions. (Both surgical and medication abortion is legal in Canada and free to those with access to territorial or provincial health care.)

Wu says the level of misinformation propagated online about reproductive health is contributing to increased levels of distrust from her patients overall. This climate makes it more difficult for Wu and other doctors to have these conversations about proper gynecological care, but it also can mean people don’t go see her at all, don’t receive proper care, don’t get the contraceptives they need or access to screening tests to detect potentially life-threatening diseases. But mistrust of the health-care system, especially for at-risk populations, is nothing new.

*

Underlying the relatively recent phenomenon of online misinformation is the much longer, checkered history of gynecological medicine. In Canada, abusive medical practices like the forced sterilization of Indigenous women are ongoing. Meanwhile, many AFAB people and racialized people feel their symptoms are routinely downplayed or dismissed by health-care providers. It’s not hard to understand why some people would want to avoid the medical system altogether.

Tracey Lindeman is a longtime Canadian journalist and author of BLEED: Destroying Myths and Misogyny in Endometriosis Care. Endometriosis, in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows elsewhere in the body, is notoriously under-researched, misunderstood, and underdiagnosed, which can lead to years of pain and suffering for those living with the condition.

“Endo is a super lonely disease, because you just feel like no one can really understand you and how much pain you’re in,” Lindeman, who lives with endometriosis, shares. For endo patients, frustrating repeated encounters with the medical system can feel more like gaslighting than care. In BLEED, Lindeman writes about asking her boyfriend to write a letter confirming that they didn’t want children in order for her request for a hysterectomy to be taken seriously. Another woman she speaks to experiences a pelvic exam so rough she files a sexual assault complaint; others still are denied referrals to a specialist or have their requests for pain relief dismissed.

Online groups can be a boon to these patients. There are thriving communities, like Nancy’s Nook Endometriosis Education on Facebook, with roughly 213,000 members, that offer a network of information and crucial support—and, just as importantly, the knowledge that those going through this are not alone.

But health influencers hawking cures of dubious provenance and efficaciousness feed off the need of those who turn to the Internet to self-manage their health. Much of the content paints itself as “natural,” implying it is better than “chemical” remedies. Looking up videos about LEEPs, I immediately stumble upon an account that is selling a course on how to “naturally” clear human papillomavirus, which can cause cervical cancer. Another “plant-based health” account shares a video about how “chemicals” cause endometriosis and that you can heal it without hormonal or surgical intervention. These accounts are selling supplements, creams, and cycle trackers, all ways to supposedly take control of your own health or body.

Many of these solutions are obviously farfetched; others have a “science-y” veneer of plausibility about them. But for those people who have been ignored, traumatized, or abandoned altogether by formalized health care, these options may feel like the only solution.

“[The wellness industrial complex] is capitalizing on desperation,” says Lindeman. “People are desperate for help, they’re desperate for answers, and they’re not getting that help, and they’re not getting those answers the conventional way, and so they become really vulnerable to online influencers and online [gynecologists] who are proposing information that lets them maybe try to manage it themselves.”

Enduring racism and sexism in the health-care sector; traumatic personal experiences when seeking treatment; the explosion of influencers promising to help reclaim power over your own body: these all feed into one another so that AFAB people delay the treatment they need, suffer needlessly, and even die younger. We need ways to circulate accessible, evidence-based information, both from other women and AFAB people and medical professionals, which build momentum to tackle these much larger problems together, instead of isolating us even further.

*

A year after my diagnosis, I sat in a Montreal-area hospital, clad in a medical gown and socks, clutching a small piece of yellow paper. I didn’t feel like I had all the information I needed to make a decision about whether to have the LEEP, so I had scribbled down a list of questions for my doctor.

But I was called into the OR with no chance to speak to the doctor beforehand. Instead, I was ushered onto the operating table. As he applied local anesthetic to my cervix and inserted the wire into my vaginal canal, I asked him: “So… should I be worried about any sexual side effects?”

“No, no, I have never heard of this,” he replied.

With the loop still inside me, he rattled off what to expect post-surgery. In a daze, I heard the words “heavy bleeding.” “So a lot of bleeding afterwards is normal?” I asked. “No! Go to the ER if you start bleeding,” he repeated.

The whole thing was over in a matter of minutes. I stumbled off, the yellow paper crumpled and unused.

For a long time after the procedure, I felt confused and irritated at myself for not being a better self-advocate. I could have refused to undergo the procedure if I wasn’t satisfied with the level of information I had been provided. Why hadn’t I been able to say what was on my mind?

Sharing my story helped, because I started to realize just how common LEEPs were. It helped assuage my fears that I was necessarily on the road to cervical cancer. Reading accounts like those from Lindeman, who experiences doctor anxiety after a lifetime of poor medical encounters, helped reassure me that I wasn’t alone.

Is sharing stories online enough to take control of our health? In some ways, yes. The Internet has become a lifeline for many Americans seeking medication abortions. Lindeman says journalists pay attention to what is being said online and amplify concerns to a wider audience.

Meanwhile, after finding that the majority of videos about IUDs on TikTok mentioned pain, Wu shifted the way she practices: “I [now] offer patients something for pain before any IUD placement and really before any gynecological procedure.” In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States’ public health agency, even updated its recommendations for IUD insertions to include discussions of pain management.

And in 2023, a year after my own LEEP, a study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine was published exploring healthcare providers’ limited knowledge of post-LEEP sexual dysfunction and the resources patients used to cope—potentially the first ever study to look at the difference in patient and health-care provider perspectives when it comes to LEEP treatment. It found that there was “misalignment” between the two and recommended not only further research into sexual dysfunction symptoms, but also better education and training for providers, and better support for patients who do have negative outcomes.

These are heartening indications that when you share your health experiences, people are listening. The question remains: how do we translate these types of discussions into improving health outcomes for all AFAB people—especially when research into health problems that affect us is still underfunded?

It starts with finding ways to pair networked knowledge with collective action, because the power of social media is ultimately limited. “It’s the personalization of systemic problems,” points out Lindeman. “[You’re] continuing to focus on what you can do as an individual, instead of attacking the systems that are responsible for such a deficit in care.”

Social media may give us the reassuring impression of solidarity. In reality, it is atomizing, incentivizing a competitive attention economy; a billion voices speaking over, but not always to, one another. The collectives of the women’s health movement knew that to build power, you must do it together, through communities of care.

Perhaps we have to start by relearning that lesson–even if it means tearing ourselves away from our phones.

Photo by Hayden Petrie

“This is not a scam,” I read the email aloud to my partner. “We are seniors looking to move to Nova Scotia and have a 2-bedroom plus den.”

The sender had reached out after reading an opinion piece I wrote for Family Day, responding to headlines about Canada’s declining birth rate. In the article, I shared our situation: we’re a couple in our mid-thirties postponing having children because… money, with housing costs—particularly rent—being the main concern. We currently live in a one-bedroom apartment and are searching for an affordable two-bedroom, admittedly an oxymoron in Toronto.

The couple who emailed lived in Oakville and offered a lease takeover, one of the few remaining ways to find relatively affordable rent, in early 2024. Their place was perfect on paper: 1,200 square feet with a dishwasher, parking space, and storage unit for $2,400 per month. However, it was on the side of a highway, with a 30-minute walk to the GO train for an hour’s commute into the city.

I was relieved when they emailed a few weeks later to say their daughter was moving in. Even though we won’t find anything like it in Toronto for the price, for us, the savings weren’t worth a two-to-three hour commute or being disconnected from our friends, community, and a walkable neighbourhood.

My partner and I don’t belong to the work-from-home pyjama class; we’re part of what political economist Ricardo Tranjan calls the “tenant class,” also the title of his 2023 book. Tranjan aims to re-politicize housing in Canada, questioning whether it should serve profit and wealth or provide homes for people. His thesis is clear: we can’t have it both ways.

Tranjan likens the power dynamics between landlords and tenants to those between bosses and workers. Just as workers must sell their labour to survive, tenants must pay whatever rent a landlord demands to secure a place to live. Landlords, who can evict tenants and raise prices, wield a similar power to bosses.

The financialization of housing is a key driver of rising rents in Canada. In 2020, more than one in five houses in B.C., Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were used as investment properties. Ontario is at the forefront of this trend, with investors owning 56.7 percent of newly constructed condos in Toronto and nearly 40 percent of all properties built after 2016.

Tranjan’s most radical argument is that, despite popular discourse, there is no housing crisis. He rejects the term because it suggests the system once worked but is now failing everyone. “We have a housing system that is structured around profit creation and wealth accumulation,” Tranjan tells This Magazine, “and it’s working really well for people who are very influential and really close to power, to make sure nothing that we do changes that.” Simply put, real estate in Canada is treated as an asset to make money, and not for housing actual people, which can lead to higher rates of evictions, unreasonable rent hikes, poor building maintenance and other problems.

Although Canada officially recognizes housing as a human right—we even signed a fancy United Nations paper saying so—housing is increasingly becoming a privilege, and it seems tenants are the only ones working to correct that in a meaningful way.

*

In April, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, where Tranjan is a senior researcher, released a report calling for rent control across Canada, using Ontario as a case study. The report shows that rents in Ontario are increasing at a rate three times higher than the province’s 2.5 percent cap. Landlords exploit loopholes like Above Guideline Increases (AGIs) to raise rents beyond standard limits, passing the costs of property improvements onto tenants. New units are exempt from rent control, as are vacant units, which had an average rent increase of 36 percent in 2023.

This isn’t just an Ontario story. From 2022 to 2023, rents across Canada surged by 22 percent, resulting in the lowest national vacancy rate since 1988. Only five provinces and one territory have rent controls on occupied units, and just two have controls on vacant units. Alberta, where there is no rent control, has seen the fastest-growing rents. PEI is the exception, having imposed a temporary rent freeze last year.

In May, I wrote another opinion piece about renting, responding to the federal budget’s purported focus on supporting Canadians, especially younger generations facing unattainable homeownership. The budget allocates $15 billion to the Apartment Construction Loan Program, an initiative that has mostly produced above-market rentals for seven years. Instead of addressing rising rents, the government proposed a renters’ Bill of Rights that would allow tenants to see a unit’s previous price and have rent payments count toward credit scores. While seemingly progressive, advocates argue it would penalize low-income renters struggling with rising costs. As a renter who’s never missed a payment, the proposal feels like a hollow gesture—good credit won’t help me pay for a mortgage I can’t afford. Meanwhile, measures like increasing borrowing limits from RRSPs and extending first-time mortgage amortization periods favour lenders and developers, cost individuals more, and conveniently leave a crucial question unanswered: How can we save for a down payment when our rents are skyrocketing?

This time I received an email from a landlord: “Please do your research better before misleading readers. Your actions and wishes [for rent control] will only force small landlords to sell their rental properties, decreasing the number of rental units.” My knee-jerk reaction was to thank this reader for affirming my opinion: meaningful protections for renters could free up supply by disincentivizing multiple property ownership. Despite our antithetical positions, this interaction reflects a broader conflict: the false equivalency between tenants’ and landlords’ financial security.

For landlords, a house is an investment; for tenants, it’s shelter. Comparing renters’ basic needs to landlords’ financial interests is misleading. Why does this landlord feel deserving of high returns but immune to market risks and regulation? Rent control is essential to keep the housing market fair and accessible. This emailer might argue that rent control disrupts the free market, but the current system forces even high earners to compete with middle and low-income renters, driving inflation and interest rate hikes that hurt everyone. It’s also reducing access to affordable housing, and leaving little social housing for the unhoused. Large and small-scale investment strategies fuel this cycle, worsening unaffordability, rental scarcity, and growing homelessness.

With 66.5 percent of Canadians owning homes and 40 percent of federal MPs invested in real estate, the landowning and landlord class wields formidable economic and political power, holding 90 percent of the country’s wealth. By failing to intervene in this so-called crisis, governments have left renters to fend for themselves.

*

In some places, tenants are succeeding in taking matters into their own hands. Ontario’s first anti-renoviction law came into effect in Hamilton over the summer. If a landlord wants to renovict, they have to apply for a construction licence within seven days, a contractor needs to sign off saying the renos require tenants to move, and then, once changes are made, landlords have to let the same tenants move back in, and at no added rental cost. They may also have to help them find somewhere else to live while the reno happens.

Hamilton’s new renter protections were partially due to work by ACORN, the nationwide tenant advocacy group, and inspired by a similar policy established in Burnaby, B.C., which has gained recognition as one of the strongest tenant protections in Canada. This success in Burnaby, also championed by ACORN, includes vital components such as financial support during temporary relocations, compensation for moving costs, and protections against unjust evictions. These victories show that tenant organizing has the power to push political leaders to protect affordable housing.

Tenant organizing is building momentum across Canada. Rent strikes in Toronto have challenged some of the largest corporate landlords, while the Vancouver Tenants Union has protected renters from unfair eviction. In Quebec, one of the largest and longest-operating tenant associations is fighting for robust rent control and a ban on Airbnb. In Ottawa, tenants in the Herongate neighbourhood have filed a human rights case against “demovictions.” ACORN has secured hundreds of millions in repairs, prevented displacement, and achieved protections like landlord licensing and stricter rent controls.

People are also adapting to rising rents by seeking shared accommodations and connecting online to find housemates. The Instagram account @coolpeoplehouses lets users share sublets, rooms for rent, and lease transfers, and helps people bypass the hell that is navigating ever-tightening listings by passing along below-market rents. The page resembles a patchwork of ISO (in search of ) posts—a collage of kitchens, bedrooms, and living rooms from across the GTA. While a room can still occasionally be found for under $1,000, the average price for September listings was just below $1,200.

The Instagram account works in tandem with the app Housemate Space to help people find compatible roommates, similar to online dating. The founder, who prefers to remain anonymous, launched the app in 2020 after a co-living relationship turned sour. “I wanted to create a solution that made it easier. I saw an opportunity to create a community-based platform where people could connect and find compatible housemates, not just housing,” they explain.

In 2023, Rentals.ca reported a 27 percent rise in shared listings, with a 78 percent spike in Ontario alone. Housemate Space allows users to create profiles, which are then matched with potential housemates based on compatibility factors, while @coolpeoplehouses serves as a marketing page for sharing listings. The founder spends about 20 (unpaid) hours per week managing both platforms and believes it’s worth the effort. “People are looking to save on rent while also seeking more meaningful connections with their housemates,” they say. Feedback from users has shaped the platform’s evolution: “Initially, we focused on helping individuals find places, but as we listened to the community, it became clear there’s a bigger need in the multi-tenant housing sector.”

Interest in shared living extends beyond grassroots efforts. On a larger scale, organizations like Youthful Cities, a think tank, envisions co-living as an alternative for young renters. Their Toboggan Flats project aims to convert vacant office spaces into affordable communal apartments for young professionals in Canada, inspired by successful European co-living models. With office vacancy rates rising in cities— Toronto’s reached 18 percent this year, the highest since the 1990s—they aim to create as many units as possible across the country and are currently scouting for buildings in major cities like Calgary and Ottawa. Once secured, the first co-living space is expected to be ready within 10 to 14 months, much faster than usual office-to-residential conversions, as they can retain the existing mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, thanks to shared kitchens and bathrooms.

People are also, of course, connecting through groups like Montreal’s Chez Queer on Facebook, as they have been for years, to find the right housemates. And, anecdotally, in Toronto at least, more people seem to be hiring real estate agents to find them a place that may not be easily found otherwise. In these cases, the onus to pay the agent is on the landlord, not the prospective tenant.

While these strategies offer creative ways to navigate the housing market, they individualize the problem, leaving renters to find personal fixes without addressing the systemic forces driving up prices. My partner and I don’t want to live with roommates as we raise a child, and even for young professionals who might benefit from co-living initiatives, what awaits them when they outgrow shared living arrangements if housing costs keep rising as they have for decades?

What’s needed is collective action. In his book, Tranjan mentions how the labour movement historically offered essential support and solidarity for tenant organizing, but that this has diminished over time. He noted in an interview that in Latin America, in Portuguese, Spanish, and French, the term “housing movement” is as familiar as the labour movement. Barcelona plans to ban short-term tourist rentals by 2028, and France and Spain have implemented rent caps. These examples show that change hasn’t resulted from benevolent governments acting out of goodwill, but from being pushed by organized political pressure.

Rising rents are often attributed to market forces and low supply, overlooking how landlords profit from the housing shortage. The notion that we can build our way out of the housing crisis is repeated endlessly—and likely will continue to be—but it only preserves the status quo for property owners. Simply adding more housing won’t fix an unfair system. Without widespread, organized challenging of harmful policies and financial incentives that favour developers, the divide between renters and owners will keep growing, no matter how much new housing is built.

*

Last summer, my partner and I went to view a two-bedroom in our neighbourhood, where we hope to stay, close to our work, friends, and daily routines. The middle-aged couple who owned it seemed like “good landlords.” The unit was listed just under $3,000, slightly below the average for a two-bedroom. The previous tenants had just bought their first home (perhaps helped by paying lower rent). The other two units in the house had been occupied for over 10 years. They told us they’d received 4,000 inquiries, and we joined a line that stretched down the block.

While we waited, I thought about those two emails: a landlord’s entitlement to profit at our expense and fellow tenants offering solidarity. Their need to clarify “This is not a scam” reflects the inherent exploitation of our current system. As the line grew behind us with other couples our age looking for a two-bedroom—for more space, an office, or, like us, a room for a child—I turned to my partner and said, “This is a scam.”

Photo courtesy Free Palestine Halifax

Yara Jamal rarely heard anyone mention Palestine in Halifax, and it made her feel lonely. “Being Palestinian is such a controversial thing,” she says. “I felt like there was genuinely no representation of Palestine or presence of Palestine in the Maritimes at all.”

Jamal was born and raised in Kuwait and is a first-generation Canadian who works as a journalist covering Palestine and the Middle East. She’s lived in Halifax since 2017, but years passed before she found a community who cared about her people.

But then, in 2020, Jamal met Katerina Nikas. Nikas had printed dozens of stickers featuring art by Montreal-based street artist Zola and Kevin Yuen Kit Lo, depicting a person wrapped in a keffiyeh with the words “Settlers Fuck Off” in bold print, and plastered them around town. The stickers quickly caught Jamal’s attention, and soon the two were covering the walls of the city together.

For Nikas, the story of Palestine was relatively new. Born in Canada to Greek immigrant parents, she was aware of what had been happening in Palestine but learned more about the history from a Palestinian friend. In 2018, Nikas joined her on a trip to the West Bank to visit her family. “I left feeling the most heavy hearted I had felt in my whole life,” she says, describing intimidation by soldiers and the constant need to stay vigilant. Upon her return, Nikas quickly found herself compelled to do something. “I think when you read about it, it’s very different. Sometimes you can become desensitized in a way. But when you see it, it’s much more real. When I got back home, I just couldn’t remain silent,” she explains.

The two were onto something, but couldn’t yet know how meaningful their actions would prove to be—or that they’d be able to provide a sense of belonging where one was sorely lacking.

*

Anti-Palestinian racism is a problem in Canada, and likely a much bigger one than anyone realizes. In a (non-exhaustive) 2022 report trying to get a sense of the issue, Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) found over 500 examples of it in written online content alone, mostly from non-profit organizations and right-leaning media outlets. Yet anti-Palestinian racism is not recognized by the federal government, which the CJPME says is contributing to Palestinian erasure. The Arab Canadian Lawyers Association says institutions in Canada are either not acknowledging this form of racism, framing it as a political issue, or lumping it in with Islamophobia. Ignorance at the institutional level is contributing to daily experiences of racism and othering for Palestinian Canadians, leaving them feeling isolated, much like Jamal.

However, protesters for the Palestinian cause are working to make sure people feel supported. They’ve made themselves heard by taking over campuses to speak out against Canada’s complicity in the genocide; they flood the streets from coast to coast in regular weekend protests.

Part of what makes protests so effective has always been art. Right now, street art is one of what feels like few things validating Palestinians in large and small communities alike in a time when they may feel alone and threatened. It’s also morphing into bigger actions providing more tangible support.

For the past year, people in Saskatoon have shown unwavering commitment to Palestinian freedom through weekly rallies. Attendees bring posters and banners, and wear their prolific buttons. People of all ages and backgrounds come with their placards and signs calling for action. The Saskatoon chapter of the CJPME formed over two years ago, and they say they’ve seen a significant increase in community support as rally attendance grows. They’ve collaborated with other groups on high visibility banner drops over freeways, calling for solidarity with Palestine. Group members note that these banners usually only last a few hours at most before they are removed, but feel they still bring awareness to their city.

Said Abdelhadi is a member of the CJPME – Saskatoon Chapter and a Palestinian who has lived in Saskatoon for the last 11 years with his wife and son. He loves it there and explains that though the Palestinian community in Saskatoon is small, they appreciate the group’s work. “We’re trying to change things around the city…it’s all about education,” Abdelhadi explains.

Group members say support is growing each week. The chapter is inspiring its neighbours to speak out. A local mom and her children were writing messages of support for Palestine with chalk on the sidewalk in front of their house when an angry woman washed it away. She accused the homeowner of sharing messages of hate despite it being quite the opposite. The homeowner continued to chalk the sidewalks in front of her house and has even added a small basket of chalk for others to contribute.

The Saskatoon Chapter of the CJPME has also hosted film nights and a play about Rachel Corrie, a young American woman who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer as she protected Palestinian houses from demolition in 2003.They have not, however, received support from their local Members of Parliament, noting they have consistently denied their requests to meet. They addressed a petition with over 2,000 signatures to Premier Scott Moe, and did not receive any response or acknowledgment. (Moe did not respond to This Magazine’s request for comment.) Yet the group is not discouraged, and they don’t plan to slow down. Neither do others like them—and their actions are making powerful change.

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A mural reading Palestine Libre has stretched over Park Avenue in Montreal for a decade. In larger cities, street art blends into the background. But in smaller cities and towns, where political actions and diasporas are smaller, street art affirming Palestinian life and resistance can send an even more powerful message. These visual displays of solidarity are critical. Street art is a reflection of the pulse of a city. It communicates what’s important, what drives people, what’s just under the surface. Its messages confront us. Sometimes they force a reaction where we didn’t expect one. Street art is a form of empowerment; it conveys knowledge without discriminating. It’s also a form of protest.

In Halifax, what started with just two people stickering, postering, and chalking the streets is now a movement of over 10,000 Instagram followers and over 250 regular supporters attending rallies, marches, vigils, and webinars. Jamal and Nikas founded Free Palestine Halifax in 2020 and have been working tirelessly since. Jamal essentially created the community she, and so many others, have always needed. “We started our organization to create a safe space for the community and to start the conversation about Palestine and educate the public,” she says. Jamal recalls that not long ago, she and Nikas stood out wearing keffiyehs around town, but now it’s common. She says this movement has brought her a sense of peace and she no longer feels alone.

Free Palestine Halifax is a grassroots movement, using street art to bring awareness to the Palestinian genocide and what has been happening in the region since 1948, when Palestinians were first expelled from their lands. Nikas and Jamal have spent countless hours walking the city, often through the night, spray painting walls, postering, chalking sidewalks, and stickering posts. They’ve created banners to drop in high visibility areas and developed pamphlets to leave on cars and in mailboxes.

In a city like Halifax, street art can be jarring. And that is exactly the point. Without the marks they leave on the city, they wouldn’t have been able to make such a strong impact. “Art plays a huge role,” Jamal says. “That’s how we got our support.”

The group has encountered some resistance from local businesses and the odd resident. They say they’ve been physically assaulted and continue to receive death threats since October 7, 2023. This has not deterred them, though. Community support helps. So does collaborating with other communities, like the local Indigenous people who were some of the first to show their solidarity.

Palestinians, and the Middle Eastern community in general, have welcomed the art around the city and the movement as a whole. Nikas recalls a vigil they held for Shireen Abu Akleh, the beloved Palestinian American journalist who was killed in 2022 while on the job. “This Palestinian girl came up to us, and she’s like, ‘I just didn’t realize like how much I needed this.’”

Street art is special because of its impermanence. It reflects a specific moment in time, and then, like the moment, it vanishes. Street art about Palestine can offer a small comfort to Palestinians, and for the rest of us, it’s a wake-up call. It’s incumbent on us, the viewer, to take lasting action.

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Earlier this year in Vancouver, I was waiting for the bus when I noticed small blue printing on the plexiglass of the shelter that stated, “Free Palestine, Free Congo, Free Sudan.” Simple. Subtle. Visible. And I couldn’t just keep scrolling past. Instead, I was forced to stop and confront my own ideas about freedom and collective liberation. Street art is there whether you want to see it or not.

These installations offer viewers a moment to pause, reflect, and educate ourselves on the gravity of what’s been happening. They make me feel hopeful about the power of even the smallest action. Free Palestine Halifax started with a sticker. Now it’s thousands of people strong, and it’s helping people on a collective and individual scale. Street art about Palestine is more than a moment of resistance; it’s offering healing and ways supporters can take actionable steps, too.

In 2021, Jamal and Nikas were chalking some statistics in downtown Halifax about civilian casualties in Palestine. They caught the attention of a woman passing by who knew nothing about what was happening there. Curious, she asked more, and the two explained. Moved, she laid down a rose she was holding on the chalked statistics. “We will never forget that,” Jamal says.

It’s moments like this that drive Jamal and Nikas to continue to spread the word on Palestinian resistance in the Maritimes. “Being ignorant,” Jamal says, “is one of the most dangerous things a human being could be.”