On the morning of Sept. 11, 1973, my father Pedro Riquelme was walking to his office when a passerby told him to back home. Quickly. Confused, he would be told the Chilean military was moving into his town of Valparaiso. More than 116 kilometres to the southeast, General Augusto Pinochet and the Chilean military began their siege of the capital...

Continue →

I had 27 years of my life compressed into three boxes and a dream when I arrived in Canada from the Philippines in August last year. In a heavy pink binder, I had my passport, all the necessary permits and bank statements proving my worth. It didn't take long, however, for reality to hit me in the face. My savings...

Continue →

As the season's first snowflakes drifted down today on a cold November morning, the City of Toronto prepared to evict the residents of the St. Stephen-in-the-Fields church encampment. Never mind that Toronto shelters are turning down more than 300 people a day during the warm months. Or that most evicted residents end up back on the streets, often in new...

Continue →

The pandemic saw a significant rise in readers but many are turning away from physical books and embracing audio as their medium of choice. A survey by BookNet reports 60 per cent of people who participated in the survey said they read at least one book in the past month. BookNet Canada is an organization that conducts market research and...

Continue →

I believe that women are smart, powerful, strong and independent, and can do anything if they work hard. I also believe this is why we need more women in skilled trades. Research from the Institute for Research on Public Policy finds that women, make less in skilled trades, even in female-dominated fields. Women with trade certificates earn an average of...

Continue →

In newsrooms across the globe, AI technology has become an essential part of the story-creation process. It is commonly used in newsrooms to help make news a faster process. While AI technology can be informative when creating stories, it lacks the awareness and thinking skills to avoid bias or adding wrong information while writing. According to a report published by...

Continue →

Tell me if you’ve heard any version of this story before. An Asian person who lives in North America has a somewhat normal life and eventually finds out that because of their own or their family’s past, they have to deal with the consequences of their ancestors and have to figure out what is happening to them to either set...

Continue →

Since being crowned the NBA Rookie of the Year in his debut season in 2021-22, young Scottie Barnes has only gotten better. The funny, goofy and talented Barnes is the third Raptors player in history to win this award. Even during the 2021 Summer League when he first played for the NBA, his personality was already captivating people. Raptors Rupture...

Continue →

When I came to Canada a day before my birthday last year, I had no idea how this would change my life until the same day the following year. I celebrated my birthday alone that day, jet-lagged, trying to fix my sleep schedule and not even realizing that it was my favourite day of the year. That day made me...

Continue →

Queer characters have been a part of the media since the early 1900s, but in the past few years, TV shows, movies, and books have made leaps in providing accurate, authentic representations of queer teenagers and young people as main characters. Although there's been a rise in representation, we need more, especially for young people. Children are exposed to television...

Continue →