Here, no one fights with anyone

Everything smelled like cookies. It had been a week since I had slept in a comfortable bed. It had been a 48 hour flight and a two hour wait in customs. But, we made it from South Africa to Canada and now, everything smelled like cookies. The tumultuous ’80s in South Africa was my childhood.…

A sense of belonging and tranquility

Vancouver’s multicultural scene can make you feel as if you’re walking around a foreign country for a few moments. As a Mexican immigrant who moved to Vancouver 13 years ago, I constantly find myself trying to decipher what language other immigrants are speaking while out on the street. Sometimes I guess correctly, other times I…

Renters in Vancouver may determine who takes over power at City Hall

The past year has seen some of the most dramatic and unlikely political outcomes in provincial history. By the thinnest of margins, and ultimately on the call of B.C.’s Lieutenant Governor, Christy Clark and her B.C. Liberals were finally ousted from the legislature – a stunning end to the party’s 16-year run in power. With…

Life in a bubble

On the first day of my journalism class, not only was I late but I was lost. My classroom was located around a corner, tucked away, nearly impossible to find. Unfortunately for me, everyone else managed to find it. As I walked in, interrupting my professor, all of my classmates turned to look at me.…

Ski culture

I come from a big resort in the Alps, and my curiosity and love for snowy mountains pushed me to travel to the west coast of Canada last fall. Having known the hectic lifestyle of the seasonal worker and also aiming to discover a new way of life, it was in Vancouver that I decided…

The Canadian side of Vancouver

I heard about the city of Vancouver long before I came here. Vancouver, “the warmest part of Canada,” we used to say scornfully, in my childhood home of Edmonton, Alberta. Vancouver seemed somewhat less than Canadian with it being so far off behind the Rocky Mountains. Vancouverites didn’t slide to school on snow-packed roads the…

Issues & Ideas: Blockchain, bitcoin, boggled?

The total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies has seen a massive explosion in value, growing from $22 billion (CAD) at the beginning of 2017 to $1 trillion over the course of the year. With the rapid growth in the crypto scene, more and more people are looking to invest and capitalize on this lucrative trend. However,…

Anyone can fit in

I was eight years old when I knew that I would someday live in Canada. At school we were given an assignment with an open topic. Still lulled by the story my mother liked to recount often of a solo trip she made to Québec, my topic could only be of that large tract of…

The B.C. NDP’s honeymoon ended with Site C decision

For John Horgan and the NDP, the honeymoon is over. For many of the party’s long-suffering supporters, the euphoria felt last summer – after Horgan and Green leader Andrew Weaver cobbled together an agreement to kick out the BC Liberals and let the NDP hold power – has turned to demoralization and even feelings of…

Vancouver: My new home

I was born and raised in Dubai, a multicultural city in the United Arab Emirates. Even though I grew up in Dubai, I couldn’t call it my home because it is impossible for expats to gain citizenship in the United Arab Emirates. Children who are born in Dubai automatically take the citizenship of their father.…

Retrospective 1982

Dear younger friends, I will take you to a Vancouver you never knew! I was born in Quebec City and made my way very gradually to the “green city,” with a stop in Ontario for university studies, a quarter of a century in Alberta to bring up our children, and two enchanted years in New…

In discovering Vancouver, I discovered myself

I was born on November 14th, 1990 in Belgium, a small, lovely country, where the highest summit doesn’t reach 2300 feet. My parents speak Flemish. It’s very close to Dutch, only the accent is different. I was six when my parents decided to divorce. That’s when I moved to the South of France. From then…