The gym of Holyrood Elementary School, located on a sleepy side street in Edmonton’s rapidly gentrifying Strathcona neighbourhood, is packed well beyond fire code tonight. Every chair is occupied. Every inch of the floor is packed with latecomers, sitting cross-legged or leaning against the back wall. The crowd of those who arrived even later extends well outside the door. Orange pins flash on every lapel. The majority of the older folks in the crowd wear ones emblazoned with the name Heather McPherson. The younger folks’ buttons almost exclusively sport the name Paige Gorsak.
Tension rolls over the crowd as three women make their way past the assembled crowds, two of them taking nearby seats, and the third stepping to the pulpit, introducing herself as the head of the federal Edmonton Strathcona Riding Association. She congratulates the candidates on a hard-fought campaign and then announces that, by less than 20 votes, Heather McPherson has won the nomination to be the next federal NDP candidate in Edmonton Strathcona.
For a certain segment of the crowd, it’s cause for relief. For the particularly fresh-faced, it’s a crushing revelation of what electoral politics really is. For everyone else, it’s a maddening case of business as usual.
After a long, sombre night of drinking, hugging, crying, and chatting, Paige Gorsak’s campaign team will wake up and go back to work, putting one loss behind them, having already begun planning for the next one.
LOSING STARTS ON THE INSIDE
Esta historia es de la edición January/February 2020 de Briarpatch.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición January/February 2020 de Briarpatch.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
PLATFORMS FOR PEOPLE, NOT PROFIT
Digital platforms boast that they’ve “democratized” cultural production. But what would truly democratic platforms look like in Canada?
ORGANIZING THROUGH LOSS IN THE HEART OF OIL COUNTRY
The story of climate justice organizing in Alberta, at the heart of the tarsands, is the story of a group of young activists learning what it means to lose, and keep on fighting
GROWING THE LABOUR MOVEMENT
How unions are using community gardens to engage members, nourish communities, and help strikers weather the picket line
A NEW ERA FOR OLD CROW
In the Yukon’s northernmost community, the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation is reckoning with how to preserve their land and culture, amid a warming climate and an influx of tourists
“At Least Hookers Get Wages”
The risky business of sex work in the gig economy
The Literal – And Literary – Futures We Build
Briarpatch editor Saima Desai talks to two judges of our Writing in the Margins contest about Idle No More and MMIWG, ethical kinship, writing queer sex, and their forthcoming work.
The Cost Of A T-Shirt
In Honduras, women maquila workers are fighting back against the multinational garment companies that they say are endangering their health and safety.
Milking Prison Labour
Canada’s prison farms are being reopened. But when prisoners will be paid pennies a day, and the fruits of their labour will likely be exported for profit, there’s little to celebrate.
Bringing Back The Beat
In mainstream media, labour journalism has been replaced by financial reporting and business sections. But journalism students are raising the labour beat from the grave.
There's No Journalism On A Dead Planet
Corporate media owners are killing local newspapers – which is making it impossible for everyday people to understand the on-the-ground impacts of the climate crisis
