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Amidst a wave of queer TV cancellations, the Canadian sports comedy delivers queer joy and a welcome dose of realness. By Phoebe Fuller. Canadian director J Stevens spent their early 20s playing the "weird niche sport" of Australian rules football. They were the only queer person on the team for their first year, but by year three, "basically everyone on the team was out, everyone was dating everyone and then everyone was breaking up," they tell me in an interview over Zoom. The ensuing drama left them with one thought: "this needs to be a TV show." Working alongside fellow Canadian showrunners Karen Knox and Gwenlyn Cumyn, Stevens drew from their own queer sports league experience to create Slo Pitch, a new Crave original series produced by Shaftesbury and Elliot Page's PageBoy Productions. The show is streaming now, with new episodes dropping every Friday. The show is landing at a time when queer TV is in a weird place. Like many other queer folks out there, I will watch virtually anything that centres queer stories, but these days, those stories are starting to feel few and far between. Beloved series like Heartstopper, Euphoria and Hacks have wrapped, Yellowjackets is on its last season and even reality shows like I Kissed a Girl and I Kissed a Boy have been getting the chop. When we do get an exciting new series, it's hard to get attached: so many queer shows — especially ones focusing on women and gender-diverse characters, including Amazon Prime's 2022 sapphic baseball show A League of Their Own (RIP) — are cancelled after just one season. Beyond the sudden success of Heated Rivalry, the future of queer TV feels a little uncertain. But Stevens hopes to offer something new to sapphic viewers and break the one-season curse with Slo Pitch. "We love seeing beautiful gay men make out onscreen, but there are others who deserve to see themselves as well," Stevens says. Queer joy and… ridiculousness Slo Pitch follows the Brovaries, a beer-league softball team in pursuit of their first championship win after their coach's longtime girlfriend dumps her and joins another team. The mockumentary-style sitcom draws on shows like The Office and Parks and Recreation with its charming (and weird) cast of characters, will-they-won't-they relationship dynamics and goofy hijinks. The show began as an OUTtvGo web series in 2020, where it was popular enough to win a second season and be picked up for distribution in the U.S. Now Canadian streamer Crave has rebooted the story as a half-hour comedy, with much of the same cast and creative team. Stevens describes the resulting show as "queer joy and queer stupidity." It's easy to see why, with storylines like the team trying to seduce their coach into ending a team "non-fraternization agreement" and staging a sexy car wash to raise money to pay their league fees. Despite clear stylistic differences, comparisons between Slo Pitch and Heated Rivalry have been everywhere online. Both shows feature queer characters, revolve around a sport and are Crave original series. But according to Stevens, the similarities stop there. "If you're coming to our show for Heated Rivalry, you're going to be sorely disappointed," they say. Where Heated Rivalry focuses on the angst of hiding your feelings, the steaminess of a secret affair and the drama of coming out, Slo Pitch follows the sitcom formula of a ragtag group navigating silly situations — whose members also happen to be queer. "I think getting to see queer characters just existing is something we still haven't seen a lot of," Stevens says. "Yes, our characters are queer. Yes, they're dating each other. Yes, it's messy, but it's not inherently about their queerness." Queer media representation has declined Of course, comparisons like this happen in conversations about queer media for one major reason: there isn't enough of it. Onscreen LGBTQ2S(IA)+ representation has generally declined since peaking around 2022 to 2023, according to research from GLAAD...

A top Canadian director delivers a delicious evisceration of electoral politics. Don't miss it at VIFF. By Dorothy Woodend. When my son Louis was little, I had a hard time convincing him that Richard Nixon was a real person. To be fair, his only knowledge of Nixon came from old episodes of Futurama, wherein the former U.S. president was presented as a head in a jar. Auteur filmmaker Matthew Rankin had a not-dissimilar experience with the late former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney. On the phone from his home in Montreal, Rankin explains that as a child of the 1980s, his first glimpses of Mulroney came from television. Wee Rankin thought of the former Progressive Conservative party leader as a TV character. Turns out, he was kind of right. Television was the medium for Mulroney's message. Part Irish blarney, part not-so-naked ambition, the man cemented it all with a rumbling purr of voice, a slick hairstyle, cool suits and a massive jawline. Try fitting all that in a jar. Fresh from its People's Choice Midnight Madness Award at the Toronto International Film Festival last month, Rankin's documentary fantasia Ladies and Gentleman, Brian Mulroney is the film we need right this moment. That's not overselling it. Oh, the Canadiana! In the heat of election season, with two of the damn things in B.C. this month and the Americans going bananas over the November 2026 midterm elections, Rankin's celebratory evisceration of electoral politics and shenanigans is not only a reminder of how different Canada is from our southern neighbours, but also how truly critical that difference is. Watching it alone in my apartment, I laughed like a loon. But this is a film that needs to be seen with an audience. Luckily for Vancouver folks, the film is screening at the Vancouver International Film Festival this week and next. Before we get into the meat of the thing, a word about director Matthew Rankin, who is strangely emblematic of the best of Canadian identity for me. Born and raised in Winnipeg, Rankin's early films depicted the glorious weirdness of his hometown, from singer Burton Cummings getting bashed in the head with a beer bottle in a North End 7-Eleven to the banal beauty of Winnipeg apartment buildings. Born of deep affection, poignancy and gonzo humour, Rankin not only captures the idiosyncrasies of this country, but he makes them beloved. The apotheosis of this melancholic hilarity came in the form of Rankin's 2024 feature film Universal Language. Shortlisted for the Academy Awards, it was a prismatic reimagining of Winnipeg through an elaborate embroidery of intermingling tales. Delicate as a poem and nutty as a fruitcake. It was a truly visionary work. Ladies and Gentlemen, Brian Mulroney is not the filmmaker's first kick at a former prime minister. Rankin's 2019 feature The Twentieth Century charted the rise of William Lyon Mackenzie King. Described by its maker as "one-part Canadian Heritage Minute and one-part ayahuasca death trip," the film rose to the challenge of capturing King in all his weirdness. Mulroney does something similar by summoning the spirit of the man himself, as well as the atmosphere of the time, in all its particularity and detail. Composed of Canadian ephemera, the flotsam and jetsam of CBC television, NFB films, campaign footage and archival pleasures aplenty, the film borrows the language of episodic television. With station breaks, commercials and cutaways, Rankin creates a flavour fueled in part by sweetish nostalgia but shot through with tougher stuff. Call it the bitter gruel of history. Progressive Conservatism: an oxymoron? Before we get to the end, let's begin at the beginning, fittingly enough with an old-timey station sign-on. As "Oh, Canada" warbles in the background, a carousel slide of images pours forth: shining mountain vistas, joyful children, buckets of writhing lobsters and former prime minister Joe Clark in a turtleneck. The visual jokes come so fast and furious that their arrival...

The East Vancouver educator's open-door policy is key to helping students feel seen. By Harrison Mooney. Sol Diana is many things. He's a brilliant poet. A boxing coach. And a beloved educator. At Killarney Secondary, it may not surprise you to learn he's that teacher. The one whose door is always open. The one who seems unbothered, seems to thrive, amidst the chaos of another year, while everyone else is still struggling to locate their lesson plans, fumbling for the password to the photocopier. Granted, Diana is probably scrambling a little bit too. He's got ADHD, so it's rare when he isn't. But it's also rare to find his classroom door closed when you need him or a safe place to let down your guard amid the social pressure cooker of another year of high school. "I keep a pretty open-door policy," Diana explained to the Tyee. "That's something that I visualized for myself when I started being a teacher. Because as a kid, that was often something I would need. So it's been really awesome to sort of embody the teacher that I would have wanted." Diana has a knack for meeting people where they are. He reads the room, and then the poem, aloud, that brings the room together. The Filipino Canadian writer and spoken-word artist is a true creative force whose way with words was never more apparent than in the aftermath of a tragedy at a Filipino cultural celebration last year. His beautiful 2025 poem "the garden on fraser and 41st" captured the heartbreak of Vancouver's Filipino community following the Lapu-Lapu Day festival tragedy last spring. Diana's words also resonated well beyond, and seemed to knit us all together. It was a special poem. Diana told the Tyee that he knew it right away. "The way that I wrote it, it was definitely an out-of-body experience," he said. "I haven't written like that since. Something took over. It definitely felt like a spiritual moment." We sat down with Diana to talk about writing, teaching and what it means to nurture the next generation. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Tyee: Recently I reread that beautiful poem you wrote after Lapu-Lapu. You had that one line: On Sunday we sounded like thunder. So bouncy, so voicey. I can't believe you don't have your own book already. Sol Diana: That's something that's in the works. With ADHD, it can be hard to really just sit and dedicate a lot of life energy to something, especially when there's all these other things going on. But it is something I'm working on. I think I'm building a nice archive of work. So that's the plan for sure. ADHD, huh? I have that. Are you on the meds? Or are you free-braining all the time? I was [medicated] for a couple years, but it made my sleep even worse. I was, like, titrating for a while, trying to find the right dosage, and then I just gave up. So I've been free-braining. It's give and take, but I'm making it work so far. Heroic. My daughter had a teacher last year with ADHD and that class was just a completely different experience than with the super-structured, Type A teachers she had for Kindergarten and Grade 1. Not a bad experience. Just totally different. Teaching with ADHD seems tough. What's it like? I definitely struggle when I compare myself to my colleagues who are Type A and have run a tight ship, have everything organized and their classroom is spotless. But now that I have a few years under my belt, I've really leaned into some of the strengths that my ADHD gives me. I think I'm really sensitive to what my students need. I'll pick up on certain things. I'm able to change and adapt on the fly. I'm not so tied to either a lesson plan or the vision that I had. So I think, with my ability to get distracted by something and follow a different thread, I've been able to make that work in the classroom. And I think some of my other students who also probably have ADHD have been really grateful for that. I'll bet you crush at back-to-school. Those first few weeks seem so chaotic. But this g...

The human rights expert offers a must-read account of what fails when housing is mistaken for wealth. By Jackie Wong. Housing Inc.: A Global Takeover and Our Fight for Home Leilani Farha House of Anansi Press (2026) Some of the most impactful people are those who see the difficult reality of the world as it is while envisioning what it could be, if only creativity and big-picture thinking took the lead. Leilani Farha is one such person. The first Lebanese Canadian to deliver the annual CBC Massey Lecture, Farha will give two talks in Vancouver on Oct. 22 and 23 as part of a 2026 national tour. That same week on Oct. 21, she will be at the Vancouver Writers Fest to discuss how the financialization of housing has divorced us from understanding it as a human right. Her message bears repeating and deserves deep listening, particularly as we approach both municipal and provincial elections in B.C. Farha's first book Housing Inc: A Global Takeover and Our Fight for Home became an instant national bestseller when it published this fall, with good reason. The book confronts what other writers on the same topic tend to circumvent: that the global housing crisis is the outcome of years of colonialism, racism and the widely held, politically reinforced belief that the market will fix itself. Farha's expertise as the global director of the international human rights organization The Shift informs her writing. So does her years of work as a human rights lawyer and the former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Housing, a role she held from 2014 to 2020. As special rapporteur with the UN, Farha travelled from her home in Ottawa to meet with hundreds of people around the world living in a range of circumstances, from encampments to their cars. She also visited the residents of informal settlements, renters facing eviction and people who had lost their homes in the 2008 financial crisis. One community leader showed up late to their appointment because he was struggling to find somewhere to wash his hands before he shook hers. A California woman who lived with her daughters in her car expressed guilt for not being able to provide them with a place to keep milk cold for cereal in the morning. Conversations and encounters like these formed the basis of her reporting work and efforts to demonstrate how treating housing as an investment and revenue source strips it of its core purpose: to provide residents with a foundation of safety and, importantly, dignity. "Dignity encompasses both the inherent worth of every person and the conditions necessary to keep that worth intact," Farha writes. "Housing sits at this intersection — it's often the difference between dignity being protected or destroyed." Farha considers the political decisions that led us to present day, where she, a generation X parent of generation Z, watches her children and their peers struggle to gain independence by forming households of their own. "It wasn't supposed to go this way," she writes. "The postwar human rights framework promised that economic growth would lead to collective advancement — that life would materially improve for everyone. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrined housing as part of its vision." Her generation came of age with these postwar values. "Many of us still teach the old promise, because we still believe it could be true. But neoliberal policy is now stealing the future from an entire generation. Housing has become a primary vehicle for this dispossession." A 'slow cancellation of the future' Housing Inc. blends reporting, analysis and memoir, but some of the most powerful moments in the book arise when Farha turns the lens on her own life. Growing up in a Lebanese family where household conversations often focused on Palestinian liberation and Israel's occupation of Lebanon, she was aware, from an early age, of how global injustices impacted her relatives. "These weren't history lessons, nor were they grooming sessions f...

Employers are refusing to include protections on artificial intelligence in contract negotiations, unions say. By Isaac Phan Nay. There's an argument playing out at bargaining tables across the province. Crystal Braunwarth, co-chair of the BC Federation of Labour's AI committee, says unions across British Columbia are hearing workers voice their concerns about artificial intelligence entering the workplace. The technology has raised a number of concerns around job displacement, data privacy and safety. But when unions try to bring these issues to the bargaining table, Braunwarth said, employers aren't willing to play ball. The BC Federation of Labour is the central organization for unions representing 500,000 unionized workers in B.C. Braunwarth said member unions have reported the same argument at bargaining tables across industries — including during negotiations for longshore workers, health-care workers and teachers. But Braunwarth said workers in the movie and film industry have had AI protections in their contracts for years. Braunwarth is also the business representative for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, better known as IATSE, Local 891, which represents about 10,000 theatre and movie artists and technicians in B.C. and the Yukon. IATSE Local 891's collective agreement defines AI and protects employees from some of its impacts. And she says she's hoping their contract can be used as an example to help other unions achieve workplace protections against the impacts of artificial intelligence. "Employers have been just flat out refusing to bargain AI language, because they're saying no one knows what it is yet, and it's moving too fast," said Braunwarth. "Those are not reasons to not negotiate something, because we have a real baseline on this." Unions have been calling for artificial intelligence guardrails for years. During the labour code review in 2024, the BC Federation of Labour and other unions asked the provincial government to update labour laws to include language on AI. And in the years since, some unions have been trying to address members' concerns during contract negotiations. Colin Jones, president and chief negotiator at the British Columbia Institute of Technology Faculty and Staff Association, said some of his union's 1,800 members have been voicing their concerns about the technology for at least a couple of years. "There's uncertainty," Jones said. "There are questions about how it affects student learning and how it affects their job as a teacher." He said the union tried to bring those concerns to bargaining, which started in October 2025. It brought three proposals to be included in their next collective agreement. First, the union asked for artificial intelligence to be added into the existing contracts' language on technological change, plus some principles to ensure adoption does not harm employees. Second, the union asked for a committee that would bring the two sides together to discuss the technology. And finally, the union wanted language requiring BCIT to both disclose where AI surveillance or tracking tools are in use and have a human review any hiring or disciplinary decision made by AI. But Chris Hudson, BCIT's vice-president of people, culture and inclusion, said the technology was moving too fast to try to include it in a collective agreement. "AI is this revolutionary technology, and issues related to AI that occur today or tomorrow are just always changing," he told The Tyee. "It's just the speed and pace of change around AI that makes it impractical for employers and unions to agree on what the language should be in a collective agreement." He added BCIT already has an AI council, made up of different levels of school leadership, that aims to ensure the school adopts the technology ethically and responsibly. The union's Jones said he wasn't convinced by the employer's arguments. But he said AI wasn't a top priority during that round of bargaining, so the...

A couples therapy approach could help heal the divide. By Jared Wesley and Adam Galovan. There are few things more frustrating than loving someone who doesn't seem to love you back. Except, perhaps, being told that you don't love someone as much as they love you. That's the dynamic many Albertans feel they have with the rest of Canada, and vice versa. Most Albertans harbour a sense that the province is not treated fairly by the federal government, that it does not get its fair share of attention or support, that its contributions are taken for granted, that its complaints are dismissed and that its biggest desires are thwarted. Those feelings have declined noticeably since the 2025 federal election, particularly among New Democrats, but they remain a defining feature of Alberta politics heading into this month's referendum on separation. Some Albertans express this alienation as anger, others as quiet resignation. But many express it as something more complicated: a desire to be seen, understood and appreciated by the country they love. That is why the language of family and romance comes so easily to debates about Confederation. It reflects how many Albertans experience Canada — less as a contract among governments than as a relationship among provinces. In these ways, much of Alberta sees itself as the jilted lover of Confederation. From this perspective, Alberta has been loyal to the rest of the country. Alberta has worked hard to contribute to the family's prosperity, helping to power the national economy, fill the federal treasury and welcome Canadians here to build better lives. Yet when Alberta has needed something in return — another pipeline, a hand up when bad times hit, a little gratitude, a little room to move — it feels like Canada is unsupportive. At times, this feeling manifests as a belief in being taken for granted. This includes the sense that other family members are not pulling their own weight when it comes to economic development, preferring to rely on wealth distributed from west to east. In this way, Alberta's emotional identity has always contained a touch of martyrdom. Every region has its complaints. But Alberta has elevated grievance to the level of a civic religion. To grow up in Alberta is to absorb, almost by osmosis, a familiar litany of wrongs: the national energy program, equalization, pipeline delays, environmental regulation, Senate seats, federal indifference, Laurentian elitism. Federal governments have too often treated the province as a problem to be managed, a cash cow to be milked or a caricature to be mocked. Not all Albertans feel like the jilted lover of Confederation. Across the province and, yes, across the spectrum, most Albertans feel their province is undervalued in Confederation. Most. But not all. Other Albertans may not share the sentiment that Albertans are getting as raw a deal as their leaders contend. They may prefer to call Alberta the "problem child," "spoiled child" or "resentful son" of Confederation. But those judgments don't make the alienation any less mainstream. This grievance-based culture is attractive to far-right movements. It can be mobilized, monetized and weaponized by people who have an interest in sowing division. In these ways, separatist politics does not simply express Alberta's hurt. It amplifies it, hardens it and then offers departure as the only measure of self-respect. Based on this, the separatists' preferred metaphor is far darker. In speeches, memes, podcasts and comment threads, Alberta is cast explicitly as the abused spouse of Confederation. Alberta is exploited, battered, trapped and finally brave enough to escape. This is a grotesque analogy, not least because it borrows the language of intimate partner violence to describe being subject to federal environmental regulations. Nonetheless, the separatists' abuse metaphor transforms disappointment into danger, recasting federalism from a difficult relationship into a violent one. To be c...

But a Kamloops man's 'dignity kits' offer short-term help while those without homes wait for a long-term bathroom solution. By Kristen Holliday. Kamloops had a problem. Specifically, it had a poop problem, one linked to the difficulties unhoused people have accessing washrooms. The topic has been a source of frustration for business owners finding feces near their doorsteps. But for people living rough, who can be turned away from public washrooms or find them locked, there's often little choice — a scenario that leads to a loss of dignity, and occasionally conflict. A local service agency that had struck a committee to deal with the problem had hit a series of challenges. Committee members had floated ideas to install and open more bathrooms or extend hours for public toilets. But each idea came with practical and logistical barriers and resolving them could take years, leaving people to make do in the meantime. Then Michael MacDonald, a 64-year-old man who lives in a North Kamloops shelter and who had been invited to participate in the washroom committee, started thinking about a more immediately achievable approach. When someone made a comment about distributing poop bags in jest, MacDonald started thinking seriously about the idea. MacDonald — like many who live without a permanent home — is resourceful and knows what it's like to be "three steps below hope." For him, the answer to the challenge involved helping people without homes maintain their dignity. "When you're homeless, you still have an idea of what dignity is," he said. Living without a home can erode that sense of dignity, he said. MacDonald wondered how to make a small thing respectable. "I started to think, well, how can we make using a poop bag dignified?" A search for achievable solutions Over the years, MacDonald had lived out of several vehicles until his last car, a Saturn Vue, was towed, leaving him and his dog Norman to sleep on the street behind the office of a local non-profit. A staffer at the non-profit subsequently helped him secure a bed at a shelter. MacDonald said people must understand the situations that can bring someone to their knees. Without enough resources to sustain oneself daily, one gets pulled into an undertow. MacDonald sees homelessness as a symptom of a host of other difficulties that beset society, and the result of barriers that prevent people from rebuilding their lives. But the scale of the systemic challenges can bog down discussions about how to address the fallout and help community members, he said. "Unhoused is a category of people that we're going to live with, at least for my lifetime, and probably forever," he told The Tyee. "We can't handle the drug abuse among people that are housed — addiction, and family violence, and all of those things that come out of that." Instead, MacDonald turned his focus on a simpler question: "How are we going to serve the people that are unhoused?" The problem and the plan The "poop problem," as MacDonald put it, had multi-faceted consequences for Kamloops residents, both housed and unhoused. For people living rough and burdened with countless difficulties, the need for a bathroom or menstrual products can lead to conflict when someone is told they can't use a bathroom or when someone is driven to steal supplies such as tampons or pads. "Those situations tend to escalate beyond their significance," MacDonald said. He hopes that addressing the problem could help alleviate frustration among those who find feces on their properties, while being distributed through a process that brings community groups together. MacDonald's washroom kit idea was almost too simple for some. Some suggested the focus should be on finding a better long-term solution. MacDonald, though, said time and energy have been dedicated to exploring expensive and "grandiose solutions" that get hung up and never materialize. "The first response to this kit was 'Well, let's do a survey,'" he recalled. "I'd rather dig fo...

Announcing funding to prepare BC for oil spills is 'a warning sign all on its own,' UBCIC rep says. By Sarah Cox. Ending months of speculation, today the Carney government designated the West Coast oil pipeline a project of national interest, side-stepping environmental safeguards that have been in place for decades and charting a course that could irrevocably alter the Salish Sea. The pipeline will send one million barrels of oil a day from Alberta's oil sands to a new terminal at Roberts Bank, south of Vancouver. The Roberts Bank area sits in the Fraser River delta, a globally important ecosystem that supports one of the world's largest salmon runs and the endangered southern resident killer whale population. While details about the project remain sparse, the oil would be loaded onto very large crude carriers — super-sized tankers the length of three football fields that are unprecedented in the wildlife-rich Salish Sea. Announcing the national interest designation in Fort McMurray, with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith at his side, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the project — now dubbed Pacific Link — will help reduce Canada's dependence on the United States, which currently purchases about 90 per cent of Alberta's oil. "The oil sands are part of Canada's once-in-a-generation opportunity to become a global energy superpower," Carney said, adding that the pipeline project will create 140,000 jobs across the country and generate more than $20 billion in GDP annually. He said Ottawa will invest $10 billion to expand the Roberts Bank terminal. The project, which will largely be funded by taxpayers, is estimated to cost up to $43.7 billion. The area around Roberts Bank is also a critical node on the Pacific Flyway for migrating birds, and home to the largest congregation of overwintering waterfowl and shorebirds in Canada. Carney promised to strengthen protections for "the marine life that call these waters home," including "a series of measures to protect the habitat of killer whales during construction." Yet the government's environmental assessment of the already approved Roberts Bank Terminal 2 port expansion project — a separate project scheduled to begin construction in 2028 — concluded that the second container port would cause severe and permanent adverse effects on the struggling killer whale population, Fraser River chinook salmon and migratory birds such as western sandpipers that rely on intertidal biofilm to fuel their migratory journey to breeding grounds in Alaska and Siberia. Widespread concern from experts and stakeholders Scientists, conservationists, legal experts, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs and the state of Washington are raising significant concerns about the impacts of the new pipeline, terminal, and boost in tanker traffic in the increasingly busy Salish Sea. Georgia Lloyd-Smith, a staff lawyer with West Coast Environmental Law, called the decision "financially and legally risky," while Katisha Paul, the women's representative for the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, told The Tyee that it is "inappropriate" for Carney to talk about addressing environmental impacts when they aren't fully known, in the absence of a thorough environmental assessment. The national interest designation means that the new oil pipeline, which will largely follow the sometimes troublesome route of the Trans Mountain pipeline, is already pre-approved before many details are known and before any formal assessment of environmental impacts or substantive consultations with impacted First Nations take place. Carney said Canada's Major Projects Office will work to finalize conditions for the project — including ownership, benefits and environmental protections — by next September, "clearing the way to get shovels in the ground." The national interest designation gives the federal cabinet the power to exempt the pipeline project from a host of federal laws and regulations designed to protect wildlife and waters, including the Fisherie...

Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc created a bright future from a hazardous landfill. By Josh Kozelj. Joshua Gottfriedsen was sitting on the shore of the Fraser River when his dad pulled a fish out of a net. Pointing to various parts of the sockeye salmon, his father, Bucky John, said it's important to use every part of the fish. Some pieces are better in soup, others for dog food, and you always give the guts back to the river for animals to eat. Nothing, he said, is ever wasted. So Gottfriedsen was caught off guard when he learned how his nation's landfill was harming the planet. Now 41, the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc member says the landfill was dusty and gross and didn't have a liner that prevented waste from seeping into the environment. Trash was stacked with multiple layers of dirt, leaving the ground unsteady and dangerous. "There were air bubbles that released after some time, not only a bad smell but also making the ground drop two to three feet," said Gottfriedsen, who currently serves as CEO of Scwén̓wen, the business arm of Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc. "It was not sustainable." The nation commissioned a study to close the landfill for good in the early 2010s. But it was never acted on. Turns out, that was a win for the planet. While Gottfriedsen sat on the band's council, they were approached by a company, Grassland Organics, that was eager to bring composting to Kamloops. The city, home to 100,000 people, didn't collect compost at the time, baffling Rob Maciak, CEO of Grassland. "We just couldn't figure out, for a big city like Kamloops, why don't they have curbside collection?" Maciak said. Maciak later learned that the city didn't have a facility permitted to take food waste, leading him to ask Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc if their centrally located reserve could host such a site. Gottfriedsen had a different idea. Following his father's principles, he asked Maciak whether they could remediate their old landfill and build a facility that handled multiple waste streams, including composting. The Stswékstem Engineered Waste Management Facility was born in early 2024. The facility has since diverted 8,000 tonnes of food waste from the landfill per year and has 52 different environmental mitigation measures. It's double-lined and has ponds that collect leachate and storm water. There's also an electric fence that deters wildlife from entering the site. "We formed Stswékstem and designed a facility that is state of the art and does more recycling than wasting," Gottfriedsen said. One bin, two bin, green bin, blue bin Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc owns 51 per cent of Stswékstem, with Grassland owning the remaining 49 per cent and handling the logistics of the business. Food and yard waste is received from a geographic area spanning Kamloops to Salmon Arm, turned into compost and sold in "truckloads" directly to landscaping companies and aggregate suppliers, Maciak said. Last year, the facility took in about 10,000 tonnes of curbside organic material. Composting reduces reliance on fertilizers and cuts down on greenhouse gas emissions. If waste is sent to the landfill instead, it produces methane, which is among the most harmful greenhouse gases on the planet. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, food waste makes up over half of methane emissions from landfills. Maciak knows that landfills aren't going to be fully replaced any time soon. He says the next best option is facilities like Stswékstem that encourage separation. Along with food and yard waste, the facility accepts all kinds of recyclable materials, including tires, appliances and construction waste, for a fee. "All of that is separated and recycled or reused in some fashion," Maciak said. Steel is sold to scrapyards and wood waste is shredded and turned into the pellets used in pellet stoves. Separating waste makes it easier to identify and reuse recyclable materials, meaning they're far less likely to end up in the landfill. When recyclables are mixed with haza...

Danielle Smith really loves fast trains. Especially as a distraction. By David Climenhaga. It's a three-hour drive from Edmonton to Calgary — maybe less with Alberta Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen's new higher speed limits. So does it really make sense to spend $38 billion or more to build a high-speed passenger-only rail system between the two cities? Of course it doesn't. But — what the hell? — Canadians love trains! Trains are just so romantic. In the 19th century they tied the country together — never mind for a moment that the country in question was Canada, which Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is making us all vote whether or not we want to leave on Oct. 19. Smith really loves trains, especially when talking about them provides an opportunity for a nice distraction from the fine mess she's gotten herself into with the separation referendum that everybody hates almost as much as we all love trains. Apparently Dreeshen loves trains too — even though he's working hard to let us all drive faster on even more of the Queen Elizabeth II Highway, which is how plain old Alberta Highway 2 is now known since Smith's United Conservative Party predecessor, Jason Kenney, renamed it in 2005 in a fit of royalist enthusiasm. (Not sure what the Alberta separatists he invited into the UCP, who want to set up a republic, think of that. They'd probably rename it the Donald J. Trump MAGAway if they could.) Plus, of course, Smith's best-known rail adviser, David Moretta, also happens to be her husband. Indeed, the two of them used to run a restaurant in an old railcar in High River. Anyway, now it even turns out that those formerly hated Liberals in Ottawa — still despised by the separatist base of Smith's United Conservative Party, of course — also want to build high-speed passenger trains. After all, they're what Prime Minister Mark Carney calls big nation-building projects, especially when they cost a fortune. (Environmental assessments? There's a plan for that, so you can stop worrying about 'em!) So Smith and a phalanx of Alberta and federal officials got together at Heritage Park in Calgary Monday to pose for pictures and announce that "Alberta's government is preparing to launch a formal Request for Proposal (RFP) process this fall, inviting private-sector proponents to submit proposals for a downtown Calgary-Red Deer-downtown Edmonton high-speed rail project that also includes service to Alberta's two largest airports and the City of Airdrie." Which, when you think about it, is a wordy way of announcing that nothing much at all is happening, but... look over there! High-speed train! Continuing with the grand-sounding but not-really-all-that-impactful announcement, Smith said that a proponent will be named by next spring and the feds have promised the putative project will be referred to Ottawa's Major Projects Office. "We are taking the next steps toward a project that could strengthen one of Canada's fastest-growing economic corridors and support Alberta's growth for decades to come," the premier enthused in her canned quote in the press release. Just for toots and giggles, let's think about this idea. If the train stops at Edmonton International Airport in Leduc, Red Deer for refreshments at the Donut Mill, Airdrie for reasons no one has thought up yet, Calgary International Airport and maybe somewhere in downtown Calgary, there's just no way you'll be able to get from one terminus city to the other faster on the train than you could in your car. And that doesn't count the time you'll need to spend going through airport-style security. Plus, you'll still have to rent a car when you get where you're going, because there's not going to be a public transit system that works in either city for a very, very long time. (This is true notwithstanding the government's claim in its news release that the fast trains will "be integrated into existing passenger rail systems in Calgary and Edmonton.") So it's unlikely the train can succ...

But post-secondary students still face daunting wait-lists, high rents and long commutes. By Nayeli Martin del Campo. Some students are having an easier time finding a place to rent, thanks to a drop in the number of international students allowed to come to Canada. But others are still facing high costs and waiting lists that can stretch into the thousands for coveted on-campus housing. When Elaina Lee was accepted as an undergraduate student in the faculty of science at the University of British Columbia, she was ready to travel from South Korea to Vancouver. But even though she applied for housing on campus as soon as she received her acceptance letter, Lee was already "late" to secure a room for the following year. "I didn't know I had to apply for residence before I got my offer. And I have to say I acknowledge that I had to apply — I just never really expected it to be so competitive," Lee said. "I found out I had about 3,000 people ahead of me. Later the number decreased to 2,800 or so, but it's still a lot. I don't expect to get a unit until next year. It was a very frustrating experience." In the 2025-26 academic year, 73,906 undergraduate and graduate students were accepted into the UBC Okanagan and Vancouver campuses in total. Shannon Dunn, associate vice-president of student housing and community services at UBC, told The Tyee that "UBC provides housing for 16,000 students attending the Vancouver (13,883 beds) and Kelowna campuses (2,120 beds)," meaning the university has housing capacity for about 22 per cent of students. After she realized that getting a room at UBC for the fall 2026 session was impossible, Lee looked for accommodation close to campus. As an international student who did not know the city well, she felt safer living on campus. "I did get a room on campus, but it's not owned by UBC themselves. The one I found charges me $1,200 monthly. It's a bit more expensive than the residence, but it's still worth it in my opinion," Lee said. The university housing website shows that housing payments can vary per year. For instance, "the typical cost for a room and meal plan for a first-year undergraduate student is roughly $14,000–$18,100. However, winter session fees can range from $8,100 to just over $15,600 depending on the room type and residence area." The renting options displayed by the university range from single rooms (small or share) to one-bedroom apartments, studios and two-bedroom apartments. Lee said she would have liked to have had more information from UBC's housing department to understand how competitive on-campus housing is, especially since international students who have not secured a place to live before arriving in Canada may find the experience very complex. "I really hoped that they would tell me before I applied that you have to apply really fast because you'll get a thousand, thousand wait-lists," Lee said. Marco Bravo is an international student from Mexico who studied software quality assurance engineering at the Canadian College of Technology and Business. He decided to look at options other than those offered by his school. "When I arrived in Canada, I think there were a lot of people here, so it was difficult to find something that I would like to live in by myself, but it was so expensive," he said. "So I decided to look for a [room in a] shared house. That was more affordable at that time." "I was kind of stressed to find a place because I was living in an Airbnb," he said. When Bravo moved into the shared house in New Westminster — about a 40-minute commute from his school — he started living in a makeshift room in the basement at a cost of $750 a month, he said. Later, he moved to another makeshift room that had been carved out of the living room with a metal sheet. Finally, he was able to move into an actual bedroom for $850 a month. "When I moved in, there were probably six or seven people in the house. But then other people came and they brought couples, so it multip...

Despite Eby's 'buy Canadian' focus, a firm with MAGA connections is the likely contract winner. By Andrew MacLeod. At a time when British Columbia Premier David Eby is championing buying Canadian, BC Ferries may be preparing to enter a multi-year agreement to buy fuel from an American-owned company with strong ties to U.S. President Donald Trump and the governing Republicans. Under a request for proposals that closed in February, the B.C. government-owned ferry corporation sought bids for a single proponent to supply fuel starting Oct. 1 for up to eight and a half years. BC Ferries spends about $150 million a year on fuel, an amount expected to rise, making the agreement worth at least $1.3 billion and possibly much more. It has not publicly announced the results of the competition and declined to confirm the current supplier, Parkland Corp., is the successful proponent. "The fuel supply procurement is currently in the final stages of the process, with contract finalization and approvals underway," a spokesperson said. "Once the process is complete, notification will be provided through BC Bid and we'll be able to provide further details at that time." Parkland, which is based in Alberta and has supplied fuel to BC Ferries for many years, sold last year for US$9.1 billion to Sunoco LP, a large U.S. fuel distribution company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Sunoco is in turn controlled by Energy Transfer LP, whose co-founder and executive chairman, Kelcy Warren, is a major financial supporter of President Trump. Following the purchase, Sunoco reportedly laid off hundreds of Parkland's Canadian employees, including many senior managers. Eby, who launched B.C. into a snap election last week, has spoken repeatedly about the importance of government entities, including BC Ferries, buying from Canadian suppliers. In his Sept. 18 speech at the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Vancouver, Eby announced: "I will be directing BC Ferries to ensure that the next generation of BC Ferries vessels will be built right here in British Columbia." The government received wide criticism last year for a BC Ferries decision to enter a $1.6-billion deal to build four new ferries in China with the support of a $1-billion loan from the federal government's Canada Infrastructure Bank. In recent months a coalition of unions had pressed for a commitment to build vessels in British Columbia in future. "These ferries are going to be built by B.C. workers, because when B.C. makes major infrastructure investments, British Columbians should benefit," Eby said to cheers at the convention. "The goal is simple: more jobs, more markets, more opportunities to build a good life in British Columbia and a strong future for all British Columbians. The way to prosperity is not to give in to a bully." In the same speech, he said: "BC Ferries now uses 100 per cent B.C. eggs, and 60 per cent of all of the food you find on BC Ferries comes directly from British Columbia." The Tyee's efforts to ask Eby about BC Ferries' fuel contract have so far been unsuccessful. Eric McNeely, president of the BC Ferry and Marine Workers' Union, said it's unclear how much sway Eby has with BC Ferries, which is set up with a quasi-private structure where it is owned by the government but not directly controlled by it as a Crown corporation would be. Regardless, he said, the company should buy Canadian whenever possible, including when it is sourcing fuel. "From a labour point of view, that makes a lot of sense to us." According to the 64-page bid document, "This RFP identifies a business opportunity for the selected proponent to supply marine diesel, biodiesel, and aqueous urea solution to the BC Ferries vessel fleet, terminal operations and commercial services division." The initial term of the agreement would be 4.5 years, which BC Ferries could extend for two additional terms of two years each. McNeely said he estimates it will be worth about $200 million a year. The union is ex...

The school district says it takes a comprehensive approach that reflects community context. By Michelle Gamage. When the Abbotsford School District extends an invitation to a guest speaker, it asks them to sign a letter acknowledging abstinence as the only way teenagers can be "truly safe" from unwanted sexual outcomes. The letter template, last revised in 2024, says: "In the area of human sexuality instruction, a primary focus will be on sexual abstinence, as this is the only truly safe way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases." Kristen Gilbert, director of education at Options for Sexual Health and a sexual health educator for 20 years, told The Tyee that "simply isn't true." She said that by emphasizing abstinence, Abbotsford is straying outside of B.C.'s comprehensive sex education curriculum, which could mean students are ill-prepared to navigate healthy romantic and sexual relationships later in life. If students are missing out on comprehensive information about sexuality because of this policy, the impact is serious, she said. "I would go so far as to say their right to education is being violated. That's quite serious," Gilbert said. "What helps in reducing unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections is knowledge, not lack of knowledge," she said. The Abbotsford School District includes 46 schools attended by over 20,000 students. Nathan Ngieng, superintendent of the Abbotsford School District, told The Tyee its schools still provide a comprehensive sex education to students. The wording around abstinence is a reflection of the "context" of the community and what is important to parents, he said. Working "hand in hand" with the community helps invite more people into the conversation to establish the partnership between parents and teachers that is needed to educate students "in the way that makes the most sense and is accurate," he said. "We are bound by the curriculum," he added. "Our obligation is to make sure that they are equipped with the factual information, well-rounded information, so they can make good decisions about their health and well-being." Ngieng said the wording that abstinence is the only "truly safe" way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections could be considered for revision. All parents in B.C. are permitted to opt their children out of learning sex ed in school, he said. When parents choose this option, they are responsible for their child learning through an alternative delivery model and still have to report back to the teacher to confirm the learning objectives were met, he said. Comprehensive sex ed B.C. introduced an age-appropriate sex ed curriculum 30 years ago, Gilbert said. Elementary school students are taught the names of body parts, how their bodies belong to them and whom they can talk to about their body and relationships in their family and communities. The goal is to get students comfortable with the topic so they're ready to hear more complex information starting in Grade 8 to help them make decisions in the future they feel great about, Gilbert said. That includes abstaining from sex until they feel ready, Gilbert said. Sex ed isn't just about learning how to use a condom, she said. It's about learning how to talk about a potentially difficult subject so that youths can navigate their own sexuality, consent and partner's consent later in life, she said. Many young British Columbians will become sexually active in the last two years of high school or the next couple of years after that, Gilbert said. Comprehensive sex ed means young people have access to all of the information and resources they need to make decisions that are best for them, she added. The data about how helpful that is is "overwhelming," she said. Young people who have received comprehensive sex ed are more likely to wait longer before they start having sex; wait until they feel ready to start having sex; and place higher value on love and connection in sexual re...

Inside the race against the clock to save testimony about residential school crimes. By Tyler Olsen. Time is running out to preserve key documents that can shed more light on the impacts of Canada's Indian residential schools on individuals, families and communities. Next year, a massive archive of documents and testimony related to experiences at residential schools will be destroyed. The archive contains confidential testimony given during compensation claims processes that spanned more than a decade. A court ruled in 2017 that records collected through the Independent Assessment Process must be destroyed in 2027 because those who participated had been told their testimony would remain private. Although participants can elect to have their testimony preserved, only a small number of people have chosen to do so. That has researchers such as Toronto Metropolitan University's Connie Walker worried that many don't know they have only a limited time to preserve their records. When the Supreme Court ruled the records would be destroyed, it ordered a two-year advertising campaign online and in print media. But that effort is now long over, and social media accounts intended to share the information have long gone dormant. Walker, a prominent journalist and Okanese First Nation member, says many people don't seem to know about the ability to save their records — nor about their looming destruction. "For six years — arguably the most crucial time to notify survivors and engage with survivors about their choices — there doesn't seem to have been much engagement," Walker told The Tyee. "When we go to communities," Walker said, "we're speaking with survivors who don't know that this impending deadline is about to happen." In a statement to The Tyee, a spokesperson for the federal government wrote that Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada plans to "launch another national awareness campaign before the 2027 deadline." Survivors can visit the My Records, My Choice website to ask to have their testimony preserved. Meanwhile, Walker and Kimberly Murray, former executive director of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and a member of the Kanehsatà:ke Mohawk Nation, are working to increase awareness themselves. On the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, they and colleagues at Yellowhead Institute are holding an event in Toronto and online to talk about the destruction of the records, the ability of survivors to ask for their testimony to be preserved, and work they are doing to save other critical documents. Although they're unable to halt the destruction of the Independent Assessment Process records next year, Walker and Murray are undertaking an ambitious effort to obtain thousands of other public documents that illustrate the impacts of residential schools. Those filings relate to historic lawsuits filed by survivors in the 1990s and early 2000s and aren't set to be destroyed, though they too involve their own time pressures. Tyee senior editor Tyler Olsen recently spoke with Walker and Murray about their work. The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. The Tyee: Why are these files with residential school testimony so important? Connie Walker: For me, it started with Surviving St. Michael's, which is the podcast and the investigation that I did into the residential school that my dad went to. Even though I've been a journalist for over 25 years now and have done reporting on residential schools and intergenerational impacts of residential schools, it wasn't until I did that in-depth investigation into a single school that I really kind of understood the truth about what was happening and the scale of abuse at a single institution. As an intergenerational survivor, getting a better understanding of what was happening to the children at St. Michael's was shocking to me. It was also so deeply personal because I could directly trace back my own life and how I had been impacted by ...

Tax credits let companies pay little for resources. What do the parties say? By Ben Parfitt. In 2019, Shell Canada, a subsidiary of one of the world's biggest oil and gas companies, paid the British Columbia government not one dollar in royalty payments despite producing 175 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The Tyee learned of Shell's nonpayment after reviewing records that the government fought hard to withhold and relinquished only as a date for a formal appeal under B.C.'s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act drew near. B.C.'s oil and gas resources are publicly owned, with companies like Shell paying one-time purchase fees to obtain the rights to drill and then paying royalty payments on each unit of gas and oil that they subsequently produce. But while Shell and others have dramatically increased their drilling and production in recent years, what they pay in royalties has just as rapidly declined. The precipitous decline in royalties has proven a problem for Premier David Eby, whose BC NDP government was accused recently of using "flawed price forecasts" that overstated the government's likely future royalty payments by nearly $1.5 billion over the next five years. Now a week into a month-long election campaign, The Tyee asked the NDP and other parties about declining natural gas royalties and what needs to happen to ensure British Columbians receive maximum financial returns from the resource. Despite Eby's admission that his government had used flawed information that caused its gas royalty calculations to be way off, the NDP told The Tyee that it still expects royalty revenues to nearly double from $766 million this fiscal year to $1.4 billion in 2027-28. The NDP said the sharp climb upward will be "driven by higher royalties for natural gas liquids as well as higher natural gas prices and production" and that if re-elected the government will work to ensure provincial residents "get a fair return" for their natural resources. In a written response, the BC Green Party expressed skepticism, noting that "this year alone, British Columbians saw $531M less in LNG royalties than what the BC NDP promised, with the government blaming it on spreadsheet errors that have yet to be fixed. If the new Oil and Gas Royalty Framework is implemented in 2027, British Columbians will lose out on nearly $3 billion that could be spent on social services we desperately need." In a recent Tyee opinion piece, economist Jim Stanford noted that the primary reason for declining royalty revenues is "generous loopholes, credits and cost allowances" that allow companies like Shell "to largely avoid royalties." Stanford went on to note that Shell and other oil and gas companies paid the province $672 million in royalties in the 2024-25 fiscal year. Fifteen years ago, those same companies paid nearly twice as much in royalties while producing half as much gas. Shell's nonpayment in 2019 is spelled out in documents reviewed by The Tyee and released by the Finance Ministry in 2022 to the then-B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The documents cover five fiscal years from 2017 through 2021. They show that in 2017, Shell Canada paid a nominal $269,556 in royalties. It then paid $6.3 million in 2018 before paying nothing in 2019. In the subsequent two years, Shell paid nearly $6 million and $7 million, respectively. Only nine months after disclosing those numbers, the provincial government decided members of the public would no longer be entitled to such information and passed legislation forbidding its release. The Green Party said the decision to pass a law that effectively blocks the release of such information ever again means that the government is "effectively shielding the same corporations ripping British Columbians off from accountability." Chief Roland Willson of the West Moberly First Nations said the government's decision to build a firewall around what specific companies pay in gas royalties is almo...