Maclean's November 2022

A year and a half ago, a family was out for an evening stroll on a suburban sidewalk in London, Ontario, when a 20-year-old man driving a pickup truck jumped the sidewalk and ran them down. Like many Canadians, I was horrified when I heard about the incident. The story is heart-wrenching and unfathomable. The police allege that the killings were intentional—that the driver, Nathaniel Veltman, out-fitted the truck with a device to optimize its murderous impact and that the attack was motivated by anti-Muslim hatred. The event left four people dead, including both parents, who were much-loved, accomplished professionals in their 40s. Their high-achieving teenage daughter also died, along with the family’s beloved grandmother. A three-generation catastrophe in a single act. A nine-year-old boy, who suffered serious injuries, was…

MONEY TALK Our September issue’s cover story was a collection of expert essays explaining and analyzing Canada’s roller-coaster economy. One writer, for example, suggested the widespread adoption of electric vehicles could ease gas prices. Naturally, readers had their own opinions. Gas prices go up because of supply and demand. So watch what happens to the price of electricity when further oil and gas policy restrictions hit and carbon taxes increase. The battery-powered car won’t look so wonderful when the price of charging it is more than the cost of a tank of gas. Graham Stranks on Facebook “Implement punitive taxation on rental, income and investment properties”JOSH LEHR Facebook Others offered their thoughts on how to lower rent prices: Promote destinations other than Toronto and Vancouver to potential immigrants. Places like Saskatoon,…

CANADA’S LABOUR MOVEMENT is ripe for a resurgence after decades of stagnant wages—not to mention the health-and-safety nightmare that was the pandemic. Leading the charge is Unifor, the country’s largest private-sector union, which represents more than 315,000 employees. Recently, Unifor made headlines for its own internal conflict: in March, former president Jerry Dias was charged with a breach of Unifor’s code of ethics after he allegedly accepted $50,000 from a Canadian supplier of COVID-19 rapid test kits and promoted the product to union employers. (Dias denies the allegations.) Restoring solidarity won’t be easy for Lana Payne, but luckily it’s one of her strong suits. In August, the 57-year-old activist, who previously served as Unifor’s secretary-treasurer, was elected the organization’s first female president and is, in her words, looking to “turn…

OVER THE LAST FEW YEARS, I started farming crickets—four billion of them. My company, Aspire, which opened a facility in London, Ontario, this spring, is the result of several years spent looking for a solution to global food insecurity. Insects are already widely consumed as a tasty source of nutrition, and few people know that processing bugs uses a fraction of the land and water that other livestock use. The 12 acres that house Aspire would be enough to raise just six cows a year. We’re aiming to produce 12 million kilos of cricket protein in the same amount of time. An operation of this scale could never exist if we hadn’t taken risks on new technologies, and we need to make sure Canadian farmers are in a position to…

“I avoid shouting now that my voice is a real money-maker”Tiffany Ayalik, audiobook narrator, Vancouver Early life: As a child, I loved putting on plays and concerts with my sister, Inuksuk. We created our own pretend worlds. Education: I studied theatre at Red Deer Polytechnic in Alberta for two years before heading to the University of Alberta to get my bachelor’s degree in fine arts. Theatre school is where I learned to use my voice as a tool. Breath work, character work, accents—all those lessons taught me about the physiological process that allows us to make sound. I’m also a throat singer in a band called Piqsiq, so I’ve spent tons of time in studios with mics and engineers. How I started: After school, I got an agent and began…

The buyers: Nicole Bergot-Browning, a 47-year-old children’s soccer franchise owner; Matt Browning, a 40-year-old civil engineer; and daughters Finley, who’s eight, and Nora, who’s three. The budget: $1 million. The backstory: In 2014, the Bergot-Brownings dropped $714,000 on a three-bedroom semi-detached home in Toronto’s Danforth neighbourhood. After Nora’s birth in 2019, the family took regular trips to visit Nicole’s parents, who lived near Qualicum Beach on the east side of Vancouver Island. Matt, a native of Grimsby, England, loved the mountains, and Nicole says the island felt even more like home than north Vancouver, where she grew up. “Every time we visited, we were like, ‘What’s our five-year plan to move out here?’” Nicole says. At the time, moving didn’t make sense. Nicole worked in television production—a city-bound pursuit—and the…