Photo by Patrick Sicotte

A late summer day in 2008 changed everything for the community of Montréal-Nord, a multicultural suburban borough in the city’s north end. Fredy Villanueva, an 18-year-old Honduran refugee, was shot and killed by a police officer in a park. The shock of his death rippled through the tight-knit neighbourhood, sparking immediate outrage, rioting, and protests.

Cassandra Exumé, currently the General Coordinator at Hoodstock, was the same age as Villanueva at the time. She remembers watching the borough she associated with childhood summers on the news, erupting in pain. Montréal-Nord was at a breaking point.

“The same day that there was the demonstration here in Montréal-Nord, Guillaume Hébert, Nargess Mustapha, and Will Prosper [Hoodstock’s co-founders] were just like, okay, we’re talking, we’re sad—but let’s build something from that sadness,” says Exumé. “We’re in pain right now. Just to make sure that this never happens again, what can we do?”

Out of those urgent conversations, Hoodstock, the grassroots neighbourhood collective, was born. It was first called Montréal-Nord Républik, Exumé explains, raising a little fist with a smile on “Républik.” The current name proudly puts “hood” at the front, riffing off the collective and the musical association of Woodstock for the rhyme.

Montréal-Nord, the neighbourhood Hoodstock calls home, has long been stigmatized, overlooked, and underestimated. Many residents are low-income and/or people of colour, with 42 percent of the community identifying as immigrants, according to the 2016 census. While the borough is strongly francophone, many members of the community are multilingual.

The organization runs on a “for us, by us” philosophy, with a BIPOC and immigrant-led team. Hoodstock organizes community meetings, consultations, and projects, often does workshops in schools, and organizes social events. They’ve recently moved into an open-door neighbourhood office, responding to their neighbours’ needs (such as helping them register to get a provincial healthcare card, enroll in government French classes, or resolve conflicts) as they arise or as they stop by. In the past year and a half, those needs have shifted dramatically.

Over the course of the pandemic, Montréal-Nord has experienced the highest concentration of COVID-19 cases in the city, with 12,199 cumulative cases per 100,000 people. In spring 2020, Hoodstock saw that many community members were being left behind by the federal and provincial government’s pandemic response, so they sprung into action.

“Could you imagine [experiencing the pandemic as] someone who doesn’t speak French or English, who is new to the country?” says Exumé.

The team went door-to-door distributing PPE and talking with people cooped up in their apartments. They organized a grocery delivery program for elders and the vulnerable, as well as connecting families with tablets and laptops for online schooling. “If we’d stuck to our original plan for 2020, we wouldn’t have helped so many people,” she says. “We have our vision, but we really are flexible with the changes of the world.”

Hoodstock works to fill in the gaps left by a systemic lack of resources and support for the borough. Current projects include Le Hood Stop, which will engage local youth in conversations around sexual assault and consent, a similar effort to talk to teens about gun- and gang-related violence, workshops to maintain momentum in the wake of George Floyd’s death, and connecting low-income households with affordable Wi-Fi plans.

It’s difficult for an organization like Hoodstock to plan too far into the future, as their work is determined by the ever-changing needs of their community, but Exumé sees this as the grassroots collective’s strength. “There are a lot of things we are not responsible for, but the systems are not taking care of us,” says Exumé. “How come a young, small organization has to do the work of a big government?”

Images courtesy of Me, My Friends and the Revolution

When Zawadi Bunzigiye was assigned to create a project with some sort of community impact as part of their creative writing program at OCAD University, they were stumped. It wasn’t until a conversation with a friend that Bunzigiye decided to start a podcast. What began as an academic assignment has blossomed into a “passion project” spanning 20 episodes.

Each episode of Me, My Friends and the Revolution features Bunzigiye in conversation with a friend of theirs. “Most of my friends … they’re Black Muslim women,” says Bunzigiye, “[so] of course they’re going to give something valuable [to the audience].” Bunzigiye’s deep respect for what their guests bring to the table is reflected in their ethos as an interviewer, which is to give their guests the space and the platform to take the conversation in whichever direction they see fit. And indeed,

Me, My Friends and the Revolution has touched upon everything from grassroots activism to K-pop. “Revolution” is a central component of the podcast because “people should not have to work to eat or to breathe or [have to] exist on stolen land.” For Bunzigiye, the podcast provides an avenue for people to imagine and explore an alternative way of living and relating to one another. “I just want to encourage people to have these difficult conversations with their loved ones,” says Bunzigiye. “How strong is your friendship … if you don’t talk about important things like land or anti-Blackness?”

While Bunzigiye credits their formal education with learning the technical skills to write and produce a podcast, their political education has come from studying on their own. Informed by writers and activists such as Frantz Fanon, Bunzigiye conceives of revolution in myriad ways. “When I think of revolution, I think of armed struggle … [but also] raising awareness is a very underrated thing,” says Bunzigiye. They are hopeful that taking care of and having discussions with others about oppressive structures such as capitalism and misogyny can elicit change in ways that are peaceful and non-traumatic for communities that are already oppressed.

While Bunzigiye describes season one as “experimental” since they were figuring out a direction for Me, My Friends and the Revolution, a common thread that runs through the episodes is how community can be nurtured through conversation. Season two, which is expected to wrap in early 2022, builds on this theme through different questions but some familiar voices. “[This podcast] is about growth,” says Bunzigiye. “This podcast should just encourage you to … try to be better.”

Graphic by Valerie Thai

The average grocery bill for Canadians has increased by 170 percent over the last two decades, according to Canada’s Food Price Report 2021. This is especially so over the last two years—since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020, Canadians have seen a major bump in their grocery bills.

Food production issues resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic have touched every province and territory in Canada. The pandemic caused border and facility closures, labour shortages (including brief restrictions on temporary foreign workers), and shifted consumer demand from foodservice to food retail as restaurants grappled with shutdowns. New safety measures and procedures, such as physical distancing, meant processing plants were operating below capacity and efficiency.

Meanwhile, the price of oil was down in 2020, in turn lowering energy and distribution costs for food products. However, this weakened the Canadian dollar, shooting import costs up.

Atlantic Canada

Provinces on the Atlantic coast are highly vulnerable to systemic variables, as most food production and processing is done outside the region. It’s expected that the Atlantic region will continue to see costs rising above the national average. One food bank in Charlottetown, P.E.I., reported a 10 percent user increase in May 2021, up from the previous year, due to swelling food and gas prices.

British Columbia

B.C. agricultural producers have suffered from severe drought and wildfires over the past two years. BC Cattlemen’s Association estimated that the province lost approximately 3.5 million hectares of land to forest fires in the last five years, meaning cattle had less green space to graze. While B.C. farmers would typically purchase feed from the Prairies to compensate, those provinces, too, were experiencing dry conditions. It could be three to five years before the beef industry sees some resolution.

The Prairies

Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba all saw record heat levels and little rain in 2021. While some droughts are cyclical, last year’s dry conditions were particularly unusual, exacerbated by climate change. With less supply, processors must pay more for their inputs, especially wheat and canola—an expense destined to catch up with consumers.

Ontario and Quebec

Despite the hefty price of meat, residents in Ontario and Quebec have decreased their meat budget the least among Canadians at 46 percent compared to Albertans’ 57 percent. Ahead of Thanksgiving 2021, a Toronto butcher estimated turkey was up a dollar per pound compared to 2020. A CTV news report said retailers are taking the brunt of consumers’ frustrations. In Montreal, the two-dollar increase of a six-pack of yogurt ($5.99 to $7.99) has forced some customers to skip the product altogether.

The North

Food prices in the North are so high that one Inuk woman, Kyra Flaherty, started using TikTok to bring awareness to the exorbitant costs and their impact. Despite a federal food subsidy program, northerners still face food insecurity every day, owing to long-distance shipping expenses. This issue existed long before the pandemic.

In addition, traditional food sources are threatened by climate change: animals’ migration patterns are changing; travel required for hunting, trapping, and fishing are limited because of ice made unstable by warming temperatures; and low water levels make canoe trips difficult.

Illustration by Moe Pramanick

I haven’t suffered loss nearly at the scale of many people since the pandemic started. But I have suffered loss. And I’ve been preoccupied with what to do with that feeling, during a time when touch and physical presence are treated on par with the deadly disease that they could spread. I’ve struggled to process tragedy when it keeps being supplanted with newer tragedy.

My first experience with loss during the pandemic happened in the summer of 2020, after our first round of provincial shutdowns. I had spent a couple of months

learning how to socialize remotely and had made a regular habit of messaging friends with a level of intention that didn’t exist before 2020. It seems fitting that the news would be relayed via an Instagram DM. A friend responded to a casual message of mine with the news that another of our friends had just passed away.

It’s hard to forget the visceral feeling of numbness I felt in that moment, and yet I have a very foggy memory of the hours that followed. It didn’t seem possible in the early months of the pandemic, but I somehow disconnected even more from my surroundings. In the hours and days that followed, I struggled to understand what I was feeling. All of my friends and social life had become abstractions: texts, social media interactions, and video chats. It didn’t feel quite real to think of losing a friend even beyond that.

True to the early months of the pandemic, I eventually came to terms with not knowing. I never found out exactly what the cause of death was, and didn’t feel the urge to know. I was still sanitizing my groceries and pausing my runs until sidewalks were clear. Nothing about our world felt certain, least of which being whether this friend had contracted COVID-19 or was the victim of a backlogged hospital system. I had resigned myself to accepting so many uncertainties that by the time I actually was able to speak with friends in person about her passing, I didn’t feel like I had anything meaningful to say about it.

About a month and a half later, I was driving back from a camping trip in the Kawarthas when my brother called me and told me my aunt in Calgary had just passed away. He called me just as I got on the road. I spent the rest of the two-hour drive quietly losing the post-camping trip high and preparing for an uncomfortable emotional setting. I walked into my family’s household, filled with tears and silence. My aunt had suffered a heart attack on the front steps of her house. By the time anyone realized what had happened, it was likely too late. She was taken to the hospital but passed away soon afterwards.

In the days that followed, my father expressed his need to fly to Calgary to be with his brother and family during the funeral. I decided to accompany him. In the lead-up to meeting my relatives in Calgary, I was preoccupied with the terrifying logistics of a domestic flight as COVID-19 rates seemed to be increasing. But once we arrived, I experienced something I hadn’t felt in almost a year: human emotion overwhelming our strict compliance with pandemic precautions. While we continued to wear masks in public and socially distance with extended family and friends, I was very aware that we were stretching the idea of a “social bubble” beyond recognition. I can’t justify my compromises, but I don’t regret them either. Immediately wrapping a crying cousin in a hug was an instinctive reaction. It might have been the first spontaneous moment of physical embrace I’d experienced since April 2020.

However, the grieving process and actual funeral were undeniably overshadowed by the pandemic. In Punjabi culture, friends and family will individually visit the grieving family. I’ve always suspected that the small talk over tea and biscuits, punctuated with genuine expressions of sadness, anecdotes, and comforting gestures, creates a sense of repetition that helps avoid wallowing. Understandably, fewer people felt comfortable visiting in person. In the absence of ritual and activity, our family sat uncomfortably in the sadness and the silence.

The actual funeral was filled with reminders of how our ability to comfort and grieve was impeded by the pandemic. Seating was spaced out, and almost half of the attendees were seated in another room and viewed the ceremony from a livestream. I watched the only visible parts of my family’s masked faces become wet with tears, from six feet away. Eventually, the dam did break and people began ignoring COVID-19 measures, intermittently taking off their masks and holding each other. My sadness was interrupted with thoughts of how the news would cover a possible super-spreader event at a Punjabi funeral. The pandemic always had a way of inserting itself back into the picture.

I was spared personal loss for several more months (other than a COVID-19 scare in my immediate family). I spent a lot of that spring tweeting about local and global vaccine inequity. I don’t think I was the only person feeling guilty over their ability to get vaccinated while poorer, more precariously employed people were neglected. I knew I benefited from Canada’s ability to hoard vaccines, while countries with less access to vaccines were succumbing to more infectious variants.

In June, my younger cousin and uncle in Punjab contracted COVID-19. First my cousin, and then my uncle, were hospitalized and placed on ventilators. My family anxiously and helplessly waited for daily updates for over a week. And a few short days after we celebrated the fact that my cousin recovered and was discharged from the hospital, my uncle succumbed to COVID-19. Once again, I found myself in a household filled with tears and conspicuous silences. Only this time, we were under no illusion that we would be able to attend the funeral in person. I watched my father break into tears every day speaking on the phone with his crying nieces. Even fewer people visited our house in order to console him than when I visited Calgary. We conducted a Sikh prayer virtually with family in Canada and the U.S. in an attempt to capture some sense of togetherness and comfort. But it felt like the smallest of comforts. The larger-scale issues I had spent the last few months ranting about had come for my own family, and there was nothing we could do about it. A month later, my brother got married and I felt like we pushed away a sadness that we could do nothing about, in order to feel joy and celebration.

These were three wildly different experiences of loss, but each time I felt like I was forced to abbreviate my grief. Sometimes I butted up against the uncertainty of the pandemic, other times against concrete health risks. In every instance, I simply resigned myself to not being able to feel what I wanted or needed to feel, unencumbered by our new reality.

I found myself craving the grieving rituals, the familiar gestures of compassion that could feel tedious before the pandemic. I suspect we will all need time to come to terms with who and what we’ve lost (regardless of the scale of that loss).

I can’t pretend to know what to do now with these suppressed, abbreviated feelings; I just can’t remember a time when my ability to feel and process grief was this obstructed. With this pandemic still having no definite end in sight, most of us, at the bare minimum, could benefit from acknowledging that reality.

Design by Valerie Thai

When Julia Horel presented a report at an Annual General Meeting (AGM) for the non-profit where she worked, she had a secret. Less than 24 hours prior, she received gut-wrenching news. Sometime between the first ultrasound at eight weeks into her pregnancy and the follow-up two weeks later, she experienced a miscarriage. The embryo she had been carrying—that she was still carrying—was no longer viable.

Other than a handful of close colleagues she had confided in, the members of the non-profit for which she worked could not tell that anything was amiss. That early in the loss, Horel’s own body had not yet processed that she was no longer pregnant.

According to the Public Health Agency of Canada, 15 to 25 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage. The average pregnancy lasts anywhere from 37 to 42 weeks; most miscarriages occur within the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy. In Canada, when a fetal loss occurs after 20 or more weeks of gestation, it is classified as a stillbirth. In 2019, there were 8.6 stillbirths for every 1,000 total births.

Though she had called in sick the previous day, Horel weighed the pros and cons of disclosing her loss to her bosses to excuse her absence and going through with her presentation. For Horel, it was not a difficult decision; she chose the latter, because disclosing was simply not an option, no matter the alternative. Following the AGM, she proceeded to take approximately two weeks off work.

The procedure Horel underwent occurred a full week after the ultrasound where she first learned of the miscarriage. Shortly after, she went back to the office for a day. Though work and social interaction with colleagues that day was relatively manageable, doing it again the next day felt impossible; because she could, she decided to take more time off. Recovery involved both emotional and physical healing, both of which occurred at different paces in different ways.

The weeks immediately following a miscarriage can be devastating. Horel specifically remembers forgetting to unsubscribe from an email service that informed her weekly of how large her embryo was—the size of a poppy seed, a sesame seed, etc. Thus, it was understandably triggering when she received the next email following her miscarriage. “I got an email being like, ‘your baby’s the size of a blueberry,’” Horel recalls. “That wasn’t great.”

Moreover, tech companies’ ad-targeting practices and algorithms can also result in being shown soon-to-be and new parent advertisements following a miscarriage or stillbirth. Gillian Brockwell, a Washington Post staff writer, wrote that she was served ads that assumed her baby had been born, despite having experienced a stillbirth and opting out of ads wherever possible.

The impact of pregnancy loss on employment outcomes is not very well studied worldwide. A team of researchers led by Stephanie Gilbert of Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia is performing a qualitative study on the supports (or lack thereof) that workplaces and employers have in place for employees who experience pregnancy loss and their partners. What is known, however, is that healing is not a linear process, and grief is not necessarily proportionate to the number of weeks of gestation. For some, the experience of being pregnant and suffering loss can be profound even when it occurs early on.

Though some employers offer sick days, short-term disability, or bereavement to help an employee recover from a miscarriage before 20 weeks of pregnancy, none are required to. In Canada, sick days are not mandated by statute, meaning that employers are under no obligation to provide them. In Horel’s case, bereavement leave wasn’t an option, but the nature of her small workplace, the support of her colleagues, and her accrued sick days allowed her to take as much time off as she did.

People who suffer pregnancy loss rarely have access to the flexibility and accommodation that Horel was able to use to take time off work. Across Canada, various statutes regulating employment standards mandate some form of leave after a pregnancy loss, but the eligibility criteria varies.

As per the Employment Standards Act in Ontario, for example, an employee who experiences a pregnancy loss less than 17 weeks before their due date is eligible for the pregnancy leave they would have taken. Any earlier than that, pregnancy leave is not available as an option and there are no statutory protections in place for miscarriages. In Quebec, the analogous legislation is the Act respecting labour standards. Similar to Ontario, people who experience pregnancy loss in the 20th week or later—which Canada officially classifies as a stillbirth—are entitled to the maternity leave they would have had. Additionally, the Act respecting labour standards also provides for a three-week unpaid leave in the event of a miscarriage before the 20th week. This leave can also be extended, provided it is justified with a medical certificate.

The United States also lacks federal laws requiring employers to provide leave following pregnancy loss, and parental leave policies differ greatly by state. In July of 2021, Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Representative Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) introduced legislation called the Support Through Loss Act, which would support those experiencing pregnancy loss through access to workforce supports, resources, and patient-centred care.

If the legislation is enacted, the United States would be joining other nations in implementing these progressive policies. In March of 2021, New Zealand passed legislation that gives pregnant people and their partners the right to paid leave after experiencing a stillbirth or miscarriage. This special bereavement allowance entitles employees to three days’ leave. This also extends to parents who are planning to have a child through adoption or surrogacy and experience pregnancy loss. MP Ginny Anderson, who initiated the bill in New Zealand, hopes that this legislation will “stimulate a discussion around miscarriage, stillbirth, [and] childbirth”—topics that are skirted around in professional settings.

Pregnancy loss is not often a topic of discussion at work, likely due to the societal taboo around miscarriage in general. Despite being relatively common, it is rarely discussed publicly. This contributes to a host of issues, from pregnant people not being aware of what options are available when a loss occurs, to not knowing the different ways in which bodies can react and respond to fetal loss.

“I feel like there’s the sort of societal narrative of what miscarriage is. Like, you’re pregnant and then all of a sudden you’re bleeding profusely,” Horel explained when discussing her own experience. “But that’s not necessarily what happens to everyone. That’s not what happened to me.”

People tend to turn to private support networks within their own circles, though this requires knowing someone who has experienced something similar and is willing to be open about it. Despite information and support being available online, miscarriage can be an isolating experience without personal connections and open conversations.

The societal taboo, however, is not the only reason for pregnancy loss being a complicated topic of discussion in the workplace. Given that most miscarriages occur in the first 12 weeks, it is common for the prospective parent(s) to have kept the pregnancy quiet. Disclosing miscarriage means disclosing pregnancy and the idea that one is open to or trying to have children, which in and of itself can still be a delicate subject.

Considering pregnancy status as a factor in hiring or other employer decisions is considered discrimintation, as gender is a protected ground in the federal and all of the provincial human rights codes in Canada. This, however, simply means that an employee can seek redress, most often in the form of damages, after experiencing and suffering a quantifiable loss due to discrimination. The reality is that gender discrimination still occurs in workplaces across the country, in some cases much more covert than others.

Susanna Quail, a B.C.-based labour and human rights lawyer, says she sees employers hire replacements for her clients while they are on maternity leave, firing them when they return. “I think people know better than to say we’re not promoting you because you’re trying to get pregnant…. Employers know they can’t say, ‘We don’t want you to get pregnant,’” explains Quail, recalling clients she has previously worked with. “I mean, some employers still do it, but for the most part, they know they can’t say that.”

This is only exacerbated when employees belong to other marginalized groups. Quail notices a big difference between the clients she works with at the migrant workers centre and the private-paying clients’ cases she takes on. Migrant workers, for example, face language barriers and don’t have the same access to lawyers, and, therefore, access to justice. The precarity of work and financial barriers to seeking redress can force workers from marginalized communities to simply put up with employer conduct that violates employment standards.

To people who have not experienced it firsthand or don’t work in labour or law, it can seem absurd that this kind of discrimination still happens in this day and age. Quail herself recalls being in her late-twenties, when her boss at the time made a comment about the mistake he’d made hiring numerous young adult women, because many employees were taking maternity leaves. Seeing employers express such resentment has happened a few times in her current role as well. The discrimination still occurs, oftentimes in an insidious manner; the (potential) pregnancy is a part of the decision-making process despite employers couching the reasoning and justification in alternative language.

Pregnancy loss, on the other hand, is a grey area in the law. The question of whether discrimination—dismissal, for example—due to pregnancy loss could be considered human rights discrimintation on the basis of a protected ground has yet to be litigated. Quail believes there could potentially be a good argument to say that firing someone for absences due to pregnancy loss is discrimination on the protected grounds of disability, gender, and/or family status.

Given the complexities of the issue, Quail is a proponent of universal paid sick leave, because most workers do not have paid sick time in general, or limited sick time, especially if they are not unionized. The B.C. provincial government has committed to introducing paid sick leave and conducted consultations on what that may look like. In the last election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised 10 days of paid sick leave for all federally-regulated employees.

In the absence of available sick leave, bereavement leave that applies only in cases of pregnancy loss would force employees to disclose their pregnancy. For some, this is a non-issue—a pregnancy can only be kept secret for so long. For others, leave following a miscarriage would remain inaccessible because the disclosure required to obtain the leave simply would not be an option.

Effective policy needs to be responsive to the various different emotional and physical experiences one can have following a pregnancy loss. Karla Pacheco, a Human Resources (HR) manager at a large non-profit in London, Ontario, emphasizes the importance of supporting employees throughout their time with the organization, and especially during difficult times. “I think it’s one of the best investments that an employer can make for company culture,” says Pacheco, citing her own organization’s holistic approach to benefits. “To invest money in there being an HR support for employees to trust, that has the authority and latitude to make exceptions and make recommendations.”

There will always be life circumstances that are inadequately covered by insurance and benefits policies, whether that’s experiencing a pregnancy loss or something else entirely, like being part of a same-sex couple and trying to access benefits that are not set up for you—a situation Pacheco has personally assisted employees with. “We really try to look at it in a way that we tailor it for individuals and deal with things separately,” Pacheco explains. “More and more there has to be that kind of latitude and exception because people don’t fit into a box.”

This only further emphasizes the importance for employers of operating through a lens of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Personal situations that may be undefined or unprecedented are difficult to raise with employers. Pacheco tries to avoid being prescriptive where possible, implementing that essential inclusionary lens. “Just because it is something we have not defined,” explains Pacheco, “does not mean it is something we are not open to.”

However, even universal paid sick leave that benefits all workers and creative solutions through collaboration between employers and employees remain inadequate to address pregnancy loss in a labour context. The physical and psychological toll that it can take on a potential parent and/or their partner is immeasurable. For some, a miscarriage may be an insigificant inconvenience. For others, it may be debilitating and devastating. Such is the nature of grief—it is fundamentally unpredictable.

Notably, not all individuals who experience pregnancy loss will experience grief. Implementing “bereavement leave” following pregnancy loss would also be prescriptive in a way, as bereavement denotes a specific, strong emotional response. Fundamentally, leave following pregnancy loss is more than just a labour issue—it is a reproductive health issue, and choice is essential to effective policy. Employees need the ability to choose what is best for them following a pregnancy loss. Options must be provided in a way that does not dictate how an individual “should” feel or act. The number of ways loss can be experienced is limited only by the number of humans who face it. Though a daunting task, it will be necessary for policy to both acknowledge and respond to this fact.

Illustration by Jeffrey Kam

I grew up surrounded by a family of storm enthusiasts on the east coast of Canada, where I developed a fluency in the threat of tropical storms, hurricanes, and winter storms. Each weather system evolved according to its own unique before, during, and after. For me, each event was a coupling of fascination and fear, and my interest in science and my experience living with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) stoked this preoccupation. At present, I live on Treaty 7 territory in the city of Calgary, which is located around the confluence of two rivers, the Bow River and the Elbow River. The Blackfoot name for this place is Moh’kins’tsis.

Both rivers experienced flooding in 2013. At the time, my husband and I were renting a small, character house that was just a stone’s throw away from the Bow. Only the street and a modest green space separated us from the river. This was supposed to be an exciting time. In just under a week we were set to become homeowners. We expected the move to be hectic, but we didn’t plan on dealing with a natural disaster during the transition. I cut my workday short on June 20, 2013. I was concerned about the unfolding situation and decided to take the opportunity to move some items from our basement to the main floor. I asked the property owner what to do to protect the house, but he didn’t seem worried and explained that the house had been fine during the 2005 flood, so he thought it would probably be okay this time too. In advance of an official evacuation notice, we decided to spend the night with friends across the city as a precaution. We packed our hatchback with cherished art, family heirlooms, and our cat and dog, and crossed our fingers.

According to the City of Calgary, the Bow River swelled to “eight times its regular flow rate” during the peak of the 2013 flood. This still fell “within the natural range for the Bow River,” but the last flood of comparable magnitude had occurred 81 years prior in 1932. Unfortunately, the rental house wasn’t spared. The main floor was okay, but the basement filled with several feet of water. The first sign of trouble during our initial re-entry was a cluster of floating plastic bins around the top of the staircase leading down to the lower level. After some clean-up assisted by family and neighbourhood volunteers, we left the old house behind and settled into the home we purchased, but a new obsession focused on the destructive power of water continues to follow me almost a decade later.

I have lived with anxiety and OCD for as long as I can remember. As a young child, I strived to keep things in pristine condition, I almost never lost things, and I regularly second-guessed my decisions. As an older child, I established routines to check that appliances perceived as fire hazards were turned off and to lock up the house on my way to school. I sometimes risked missing the school bus to rush back and check the front door and if I didn’t have time to go back and check, the worry would sit with me all day. These behaviours continued into my adulthood—and moving away from home, making large purchases such as vehicles, and independently completing important tasks such as taxes increased the stakes. I am a geologist and geographer, and before enrolling in my current graduate degree program researching the carbon cycle, I worked as a geologist in the oil and gas industry. My career trajectory has included work in field, laboratory, and office settings and my professional experience often involved decision-making that had real-world safety or monetary considerations. One of the manifestations of my OCD in the workplace is excessive worry that I have made errors in my work and that these errors will negatively affect my colleagues or compromise workplace safety or security. This list might seem like a lot, but it boils down to a common element—checking and double-checking that things are accurate, safe, and complete. This experience is not unusual. The Canadian Psychological Association’s “Psychology Works” fact sheet for obsessive-compulsive disorder estimates that about one percent of Canadians will experience OCD at some point in their lives and lists “checking” as a common type of compulsion. The checking compulsion is carried out in response to obsessive thoughts, which in my case include fears of harm to others or myself, and damage to my home, the homes of friends and family, or my workplace. Engaging in checking behaviours can be disruptive. I have been late for work, school, and social commitments because of checking. In extreme cases, I have skipped activities altogether because preparing to leave home was too stressful.

At different points in my life, I have received different types of treatment for anxiety, OCD, and associated depression. At present, I find myself living in relative peace with OCD. I maintain a slow schedule and prioritize tasks to complete with increased focus and intention to keep a low baseline stress level, so I have capacity to cope with stressors and challenges as they arise. (My life with OCD is always in flux, so this strategy may change in the future and is not intended as a how-to or as medical advice for others.)

My equilibrium is most easily upset by rapid change, uncertainty, and perception of harm. Extreme weather events can develop quickly, evolve in unpredictable ways, cause significant damage to property and the environment, and be hazardous to people and pets. A good storm checks off all of the criteria to trigger my personal brand of anxiety and OCD checking responses. Calgary has no shortage of extreme weather and natural hazards. Each season features its own cast of potential disasters: blizzards and extreme freezing temperatures in winter, heavy rainfall and flooding in spring, tinder-dry conditions and severe thunderstorms equipped with large hailstones in summer, and early snow and cold conditions in fall. As a province, Alberta is intimately familiar with the impacts these types of extreme events can have on the landscape and the people who live there. In August 2020, The Weather Network published an article called “Top five costliest Canadian natural disasters of the decade.” Unsurprisingly, Alberta’s fires, floods, and hailstorms occupied four of the five spots. A summary of the “Top Insured Damage Severe Weather Events in 2020” released by the Insurance Bureau of Canada shows a similar story, with Alberta flooding and storms taking three of six places on the list.

Extreme weather and natural hazards are part of living in Alberta and my obsessive thought patterns and compulsions reflect the perceived risks associated with my surroundings.

I don’t leave windows open when I leave the house in case of a sudden storm; I wake in the night to check the leaky patio door during the rainy season, and I check—and check again—pipes and walls for signs of freezing during periods of deep cold. These may seem like reasonable actions to prevent damage or catch issues early, but the problem lies in the disruptive nature of the checking behaviours and the amount of time they occupy, as well as the distress experienced if I don’t engage in the routines. These behaviours also cause tension in relationships and may be a source of conflict when family members don’t agree on what is justified as worrisome.

My OCD changed because of my experience during the 2013 flood and my obsessive thoughts now include worrying about water damage. I more frequently incorporate checking faucets and other water-related elements into my routines, and as extreme weather events become more frequent with climate change, I expect this personal trend to continue.

Greenhouse gas emissions, including carbon dioxide (CO2), and related increases in average global temperatures have caused increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme events such as heavy precipitation and associated flooding, droughts, and some storms, as well as changes to temperature extremes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recognizes these connections and its latest report, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis, explains that these effects will continue with additional warming. This report is approved and available from the IPCC, but is subject to final revisions, as detailed on their website. In its Summary for Policymakers, the IPCC reports that “global surface temperature will continue to increase until at least mid-century under all emissions scenarios considered.” This includes a scenario where all greenhouse gas emissions are low and CO2 emissions are lowered to net zero (reduced to zero or offset by removal) around 2050 and dip into the negative after that, which means CO2 removal from the atmosphere would exceed emissions. Right here at home, the Government of Alberta says that climate change may increase the “frequency and/or intensity” of forest fires, droughts, heavy precipitation, and associated flooding, and severe storms on an individual basis. This outlook is sombre from my OCD perspective. None of the trajectories considered by the IPCC can provide immediate relief and the changes in my home region are expected to include more frequent OCD-triggering events. Thus my extreme weather and climate change-focused OCD is likely to persist.

There is clear evidence linking climate change to mental health concerns and work such as researcher Susan Clayton’s 2020 article, “Climate anxiety: Psychological responses to climate change,” demonstrates this while highlighting that the effects on mental health may be both direct and indirect. More specifically, I am not alone in recognizing connections between OCD, weather, and climate. In their 2012 article, “The impact of climate change on obsessive compulsive checking concerns,” Mairwen K. Jones, Bethany M. Wootton, Lisa D. Vaccaro, and Ross G. Menzies discuss the experiences of 50 people with checking OCD and report that 28 percent of participants had “OCD concerns directly related to climate change.” Most of the participants engaged in checking behaviours motivated by worries of wasting water, gas, or electricity that would further contribute to the climate emergency, while others were concerned about potential harms caused by climate change and engaged in checking related to perceived negative consequences. My experience is most closely aligned with that of the participants worried about the impacts of climate change, with an emphasis on the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and natural hazards. The researchers acknowledged that OCD can be affected by external factors, which is consistent with my experience. Jones and colleagues explain that, to the best of their knowledge, their research on climate change and OCD checking is the first study of its type. This highlights the novelty of this type of narrative in discussions about living with OCD and suggests that more work is needed to understand this facet of the OCD experience and what the future might bring for people living with OCD.

These days, I feel like I’m on the cusp of a new era of my OCD and anticipate a future reckoning. I plan to draw on the strengths of my OCD to help me navigate what’s to come, even though I don’t know what that will look like. It’s important to recognize that my OCD is not all about anxiety and disruption; it also comes with a thoughtful mind, deep honesty, and a sense of responsibility to my community. I am skilled in anticipating challenges in all areas of my life and taking preventative action to minimize negative consequences for myself and those around me. My competence in risk assessment and attention to detail gives me an advantage when it comes to emergency preparedness, though, looking forward, I’m not sure what exactly I’ll need to weather the next storm.

AUDIO RECORDED ON LOCATION BY SACHA OUELLET AND ERICA HIROKO ISOMURA AT THE WEDZIN KWA, KWECWECNEWTXW (COAST SALISH WATCH HOUSE), HOLMES CREEK, BRUNETTE RIVER, BURNABY LAKE, AND SKᵂƛƏMA:ɬ STÁL̓ƏW̓(COQUITLAM RIVER) · Photo by Sacha Ouellet

Art and activism are necessary to sustain hope, especially in hard times like the present. In June and July 2021, poets Rita Wong, Emily Riddle, and Sacha Ouellet joined me to record the audio project “From the Prairies to the Pacific Rim,” a poetry exchange and conversation about waterways and the Trans Mountain (TMX) pipeline project, which connects us spatially across western Canada. This audio segment launched as a podcast and was featured at Vancouver’s Powell Street Festival last year. It weaves together a rich conversation featuring poetry and discussions on identity, culture, politics, and climate issues. Amidst varied relationships to land and migration, the four of us exist in a hybrid space as poets, organizers, and community members, the intersections of which shape the project.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about climate grief, and just like grief, as all these residential school sites are investigated further … I don’t think people understand that those things are so intimately connected,” Riddle says, from the eastern side of the pipeline in amiskwaciwâskahikan, or “beaver hills house,” also known as Edmonton. Whether it be fossil fuels or beaver pelts, the removal of Indigenous people is intrinsic to resource extraction and commodification in Canada. “I don’t think most people would connect those two things at all—children were removed in order to have these developments [on the land].”

Wong, who is also an educator, believes “it is not too late … to repair relationships that should have been better in the first place” and that “part of the work is to educate ourselves on what we should have learned all those years ago.” Wong’s recent work in community has included supporting 1308 Trees, an art project raising awareness about the trees being cut down by TMX in Burnaby’s Brunette River watershed, and writing about on-the-ground land defence at Ada’itsx (Fairy Creek). “My family comes from the Pearl River Delta in Southern China and wherever we happen to live, I think it is important to understand or try to learn about the waterway that we are part of.”

While sharing poetry, Ouellet reads a poem that honours her relationship to fireweed, a companion found growing both where she lives in Vancouver, and more rurally up north, where she has spent time at the Unist’ot’en camp and in her homelands of Gwaii Haanas. She asserts belief in “the power of love for the land and love for each other, compassion for the land, and also, knowing, while Mother Nature is having reactions, the end of the world isn’t here.” This segment also includes Wong’s poetry from undercurrent (Nightwood Editions, 2015) and new work from Riddle’s forthcoming chapbook with Glass House Press. Each respective poem offers a witnessing of the self and others in relation to care for these occupied lands and waters.

One of the most notable layers to this project is the sound of waterways. The audio features soundscapes from salmon-bearing rivers, creeks, and lakes from the Wedzin Kwah, Holmes Creek, Brunette River, Burnaby Lake, skʷƛ̓əma:ɬ stál̕əw̓ (Coquitlam River), and Kwekwecnewtxw (also known as the Coast Salish Watch House—next to Silver Creek), each of which are currently being affected by major development, resource extraction, and transportation projects, including TMX, Coastal GasLink, and CN Rail.

As someone who grew up alongside the great Stō:lo (Fraser River), I see this work as part of my own relationship-building to the lands I occupy. In the coming months, I intend to keep writing new work in response to the rich and generous conversation exchanged with Wong, Riddle, and Ouellet.

In the meantime, “From the Prairies to the Pacific Rim” has been released for free on SoundCloud. While the news blasts doom and gloom, artists, activists, policy makers, and everyday people continue to make change in little ways each day.

As Ouellet proclaims, “it can feel very hopeless but it is not, I promise you.”

The full audio of “From the Prairies to the Pacific Rim” with Rita Wong, Emily Riddle, and Sacha Ouellet can be streamed at soundcloud.com/ehiroko.

Photos courtesy Party Trick Press

When Natahna Bargen-Lema and Megan Fedorchuk launched Party Trick Press, they didn’t shy away from lofty goals. With a mission of revolutionizing eLiterature and bringing higher standards of diversity, accessibility, and inclusion to the publishing process, the digitally focused press aims to challenge the publishing industry’s complicated reputation.

Soft launched in October 2020, Party Trick curates literary works by current and up-and-coming authors. Among them are former City of Edmonton Youth Poet Laureate Timiro Mohamed (Incantations of Black Love), Furqan Mohamed (A Small Homecoming), and D’orjay the Singing Shaman (Shit My Shaman Says, Volume 1).

“Party Trick Press is truly a pandemic baby,” says Bargen-Lema, herself a writer. After losing her job, she called Fedorchuk, a long-time friend and former colleague from the University of Saskatchewan. “It spiralled from there!”

“I agreed before we even had a fully formed idea,” says Fedorchuk. The pair haven’t seen each other since before the pandemic began. Separated geographically, Fedorchuk lives in Toronto while Bargen-Lema is in Edmonton.

Party Trick was born of a belief that eLiterature is undervalued, yet crucial for a number of reasons. It’s accessible, allowing readers to download ebooks on a variety of devices, using magnification and read-aloud features. It also reduces paper waste. To increase financial accessibility and to challenge the publishing industry’s capitalist model, Bargen-Lema and Fedorchuk have adopted choose-what-you-pay price points.

“We’re always learning. We’re always evolving,” says Bargen-Lema, noting that the press is continuously researching opportunities to be increasingly accessible. Aware of the space they’re taking up as white women, Bargen-Lema and Fedorchuk agree that a key value is “creating a platform that is truly inclusive, that people feel represented by, that people can feel comfortable sharing on,” says Fedorchuk. A positive and collaborative experience for authors is also of utmost importance.

“Every single person that reaches out and trusts us with their words is just so humbling.… We do feel like there’s a place for us here. There’s a need for this type of work,” says Fedorchuk.

In January 2021, I pitched a scripted television series to the CBC. My story focused on several Deaf characters, not only because I myself am Deaf, but because disabled characters seldom form the nucleus of scripted TV shows.

Reality TV, however, is a different story.

Reality series such as Deaf U, The Undateables, Born This Way, and Little People, Big World prominently feature disabled people. Scripted series, however, seem to feature just one disabled character at a time, if they have them at all. Midnight Mass and Speechless are but a couple of examples, with This Close, a series created for Sundance TV by Deaf actors Shoshannah Stern and Joshua Feldman, being a notable exception.

In my pitch I spoke about the dearth of disabled characters in scripted series—and about how the disabled characters that do exist are usually tokenized and reduced to stereotypes.

Even though there are over one billion disabled people around the world, making them the world’s largest minority with over 15 percent of the population, they make up a much smaller percentage of on-screen talent, and even less behind the camera. A 2016 study by the Ruderman Foundation stated that fewer than one percent of television characters in scripted series were disabled, with five percent of these roles filled by actual disabled actors. A follow-up study from 2018 revealed an improvement of about 20 percent authentic casting on both network shows and streaming services.

Why this discrepancy between reality and scripted series?

In their book Narrative Prosthesis, Sharon L. Snyder and David T. Mitchell write that non-disabled people frequently impose on disabled people to explain themselves—that is, to tell the story of how they became disabled. Reality TV feeds that need: when non-disabled people watch Deaf U or Born This Way, they satisfy their curiosity. Through the safe distance of the screen, these shows offer non-disabled viewers a window into disabled people’s lives.

Reality TV, however, is limited in its impact. Most of the reality TV series I’ve seen focus on white, cisgender, heterosexual people; Deaf U, in fact, attracted criticism for its lack of BIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ representation. Reality TV also restricts the way we discuss and think about disability in our daily lives. When we see an actor in a fictional role on a popular series, that actor can occupy a specific space in our heads, much different from the space afforded by reality TV. They occupy a sort of fantasy space, a dream space, the place where archetypes and ideas and desires and fantasies all collide, and the actor on screen becomes larger than life. Billy Porter, Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs, Regé-Jean Page, Daniel Levy, and Michaela Coel are all larger-than-life figures who have created beautiful characters through their respective scripted series.

It seems easier to grab and maintain people’s attention through fictional narrative; thus, we must tell our stories through fictional lenses. Reality TV can have a detrimental effect on disability’s cultural presence if it is the major format through which disability is represented. It locks us down, rendering us easier to control, separating us from that beautiful dream space. We can be on TV, but it has to be in this specific area, and we cannot cross that boundary until someone else allows us to. There seem to be few (or no) ramps, Sign Language interpreters, guide dogs, or care workers allowed in that particular realm. Disability is too real, too different. Scripted TV series create figures that become part of our cultural lexicon and allow us to process the events of our lives and project our fantasies and emotions. We seldom see disabled artists on the cover of Variety or Hollywood Reporter. We must remain governable, out of sight.

In my pitch to the CBC, I ended by saying that featuring disabled characters in prominent roles would have a tremendous impact, and although my pitch was turned down, my resolve to bring a series to screen remains the same.

It is crucial for us to dream and control our own stories and see ourselves occupying other selves and other worlds, as opposed to continuously having to prove our humanity through reality TV. And since television is such a popular and successful art form, we need scripted TV series centred on disabled characters.

Illustration by Flavia Chan

Dear city planners,

I was 10 years old when I picked up Pokémon for the first time. I remember unwrapping it Christmas morning and rushing to immediately grab my Nintendo DS to play it, immersing myself in this world where creatures and humans not only coexist but work together to build a brighter future. A world where cities are built around landscapes, renewable energy, and pedestrians. Throughout the game I would walk, bike, and ride trains to (as their tagline goes) “catch ‘em all” and beat the game.

While I’m not proposing you start to let 10-year-old kids run around and explore as they please, there is something to be learned from the world of Pokémon. With the climate crisis worsening and major cities becoming inaccessible to pedestrians, we should be looking at the Pokémon video games—most notably the 2019 games for the Nintendo Switch, Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield—as inspiration for future city planning.

As an adult, I revisited the Pokémon games and could not help notice how much these games encapsulate the visions we have for our cities. These in-game cities are built entirely for walking and biking, not a single car to be seen. Additionally, these cities are built with the natural landscape in mind. I sat there in awe, just like I had 13 years ago, of the way nature and people interacted. Both living in harmony, benefiting from each other.

Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the Pokémon games, had this exact same vision for the franchise. As a child living in the still rural landscape of Machida, Tokyo, he was an avid bug collector, which inspired his childhood nickname, “Dr. Bug.” But as he grew older, more of the places he explored turned into highways and apartment buildings. When he first imagined Pokémon, he wanted kids to experience the same awe and wonder he did exploring as a child in the wilderness. But how will children be able to experience that when we are building our cities without taking into consideration the nature and people that live around them?

City planners, it may sound obvious, but you need to start building cities for people. According to a survey by Nature Conservatory Canada, nine out of 10 Canadians are happier in nature, but 74 percent of those surveyed said it’s easier to just stay indoors. This can be attributed to the destruction of natural landscapes to make way for more urban development, which is the same thing Tajiri experienced during his childhood.

It’s time for you to look at the world of Pokémon and take a page out of Tajiri’s book. He has given us the perfect example with the video game world that he has created. People are meant to explore and coexist with nature, not destroy it to build skyscrapers. If we continue down this same path of urbanization, soon 10-year-old children will only be able to experience the wonder of exploration through a screen. By incorporating eco-friendly infrastructure introduced in Pokémon into our city planning, children, both present and future, will be able to experience the thrill of exploring in person.

Yours in exploration,

Marco Ovies