• A photograph of gravestones on the grounds of Huronia. The gavestones are long, thin gray stones with only a number at the top. They are set into a concrete pad close together, nestled next to each other on the ground.
    Magazine

    Class inaction

    Survivors are speaking up about the abuse they endured in Canada’s government-run institutions for disabled people. Class-action lawsuits promise them justice – but can they deliver?

  • A digital illustration of a tree planter in a coal mine surrounded by green hills. The sky is blue and cloudy. The tree planter is standing to the left of the image, wearing blue pants, a red and orange shirt, and a yellow hat. They have a beige bag with plants inside slung over their shoulder. They're looking at the coal mine and three of their colleagues at work planting trees in the distance.
    Magazine

    Planting trees in a coal mine

    Reclaiming mines is touted as an essential part of a just transition. But in Teck’s B.C. coal mines, two tree planters were left asking: were they part of reclamation, or greenwashing?

  • A photo of people marching on a road in Brampton. Two people in the front are carrying a large banner that says
    Magazine

    “With our own hands”

    Workers and international students in Brampton are fighting back against wage theft, naming and shaming employers to recover over $250,000 in stolen wages. 12 workers share the lessons they’ve learned in the fight.

  • A black and white digital comic with three panels. In the first is four women workers in a factory assembly line. They are all wearing collared shirts, aprons, and bandanas. In the second panel is two workers unloading goods from a ship. The ship is behind them, and they are in the foreground pushing dollies with large rectangular crates on them. The third panel is a close-up of a construction worker suspended in the air. He is wearing a hard hat and a collared shirt. He is holding a rope and grimacing. In the background are half a dozen large buildings.
    Magazine

    Indigenous labour struggles

    From leading one of British Columbia’s earliest strikes to fighting against low wages and racist bosses, some pivotal moments in Indigenous labour history.

  • A black-and-white digital line drawing of five men in wheelchairs, each of them with someone behind them pushing their wheelchair. Behind them are indistinct figures holding a banner that reads
    Magazine

    How Quebec workers won – and kept – anti-scab laws

    If anti-scab legislation is to be extended across Canada, the NDP’s best efforts and the Liberals’ reluctant co-operation might not be enough. The history of the Quebec labour movement can show us how to fight for anti-scab legislation.

  • A digital illustration of two farm workers at work. The farm workers are in the center of the illustration, and both are wearing black rubber books, marine blue pants, and plaid sweaters. They are fist-bumping while holding a crate overflowing with vegetables. Pumpkins, corn, swiss chard, and other vegetables surround them. Plant roots are visible below them.
    Magazine

    Building farm worker power

    Across Canada, farm workers are facing hotter summers and extreme weather, while being denied basic labour protections like a minimum wage. The farm workers organizing within the National Farmers Union want to change agriculture’s unsustainable conditions.

  • Three portraits are side-by-side. Rana Nazzal Hamadeh, a Palestinian woman, is standing in front of a blurred city landscape. She is wearing a black ribbed v-neck sweater and her long, black hair is tied back in a sleek ponytail. She has a small gold nose ring on her left nostril and she's wearing eyeliner, mascara, and red lipstick. Jessica Johns, a light-skinned Cree woman, stands in front of a blurred fall backdrop and is looking straight at the camera. She has shoulder-length, wavy, light brown hair and blue eyes. She is wearing a navy blue collared jumpsuit accessorized with a black leather bolo tie with silver embellishments. She has a silver, triangular septum piercing and colourful tattoos of plants on her left arm.  Randy Lundy, a Cree man, is tilting his head to the right. He has short, black, recently buzzed hair, brown eyes, and a clean-shaven face. He is wearing a grey t-shirt. In the background is a clear blue sky, trees, and a wooden fence.
    Magazine

    “We inhabit a land; the land inhabits us”

    An interview with the judges of Briarpatch’s 12th annual Writing In The Margins contest: Rana Nazzal Hamadeh, Jessica Johns, and Randy Lundy.

  • A digital illustration. On the left half of the illustration is a desk and folding chair surrounded by beige crates. On the right half of the illustration is a path with sunflowers and a blue sky. The person, who has brown skin and is wearing a red leather jacket, is walking through a revolving door that separates the two halves, exiting into the right half.
    Magazine

    Exiting the revolving door

    Sheltered workshops for disabled people allow employers to evade labour standards and pay workers below minimum wage, all under the guise of never-ending “training programs.”

  • A copy of Briarpatch's Nov/Dec 2022 issue on a yellow background.
    Magazine

    Keeping justice in a just transition

    As the term “just transition” gains traction with policymakers and fossil fuel companies trying to paint themselves green, the articles in this issue remind us that a just transition means justice for workers, migrants, and Indigenous Peoples.

  • The cover of the book
    Magazine

    Kids review “We Move Together”

    Five kids, from ages 6 to 13, review “We Move Together”, a children’s book about disabled people navigating their neighbourhoods and making friends along the way.

  • An abstract red line drawing of two figures. The first figure is crouching, reaching its arms out in front. The second figure is in the same pose, facing the opposite direction, and is partially overlapping the first figure, on the same level.
    Magazine

    The ghostwriter

    A short story about a mysterious ailment

  • Three black-and-white illustrations, done in pen and ink, of the three roundtable participants. Each participant is shown from the shoulders up and is slightly smiling at the camera.
    Magazine

    Roundtable on long COVID in Canada

    Three people living with long COVID discuss government responses to the pandemic, what doctors need to know, and how people can support long haulers.

  • Two brown hands draw on a zine with a yellow pencil on a busy desk that is strewn with craft materials. Handwritten text on yellow blocks in the centre spread of the zine says:
    Magazine

    “There are disabled people in the future”

    An interview with Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha about “crip doulaing,” the future of the disability justice movement, and understanding access and care as joyful.

  • Three photos of unappetizing-looking food: a cheese sandwich made from untoasted bread and unmelted cheese; petrified scrambled eggs and a pale hash brown; and unidentifiable green and brown gruel.
    Magazine

    “We are fed the same way caged animals are”

    To understand what life is like along the “continuum of confinement,” three people living in prisons and long-term care homes share the food they have eaten and eat every day.

  • Digital illustration of a hospital room with the focus on a pornographic scene playing on a wall-mounted television, from the perspective of a viewer next to the hospital bed. Also shown is the lower half of a person's body covered in blankets on the bed, a window with lowered curtain, a closed door, and a vital signs monitor.
    Magazine

    Fighting for the right to fuck

    For more than a century, eugenicists have tried to eliminate disabled people through sexual sterilization. Today, disabled people’s sex lives are still surveilled, suppressed, and punished in institutions.

  • A digital illustration showing assistive devices – a wheelchair, a cane, and a blood glucose monitor – floating against a light blue background.
    Magazine

    Care without institutions

    Four case studies of projects that are meeting disabled people’s needs through community care.

  • A vase holding many long stems sits on top of a decorative pedestal. Some stems have bright green inked leaves at their ends while others have hot pink inked anti-depressants at their ends. The anti-depressants are printed with the letters “VX” to represent their name, Venlafaxine.
    Magazine

    The pressure to be cured

    Both professional and popular psychology are focused on “curing” individuals of distress. But without looking at a person’s social and political context, the pursuit of a cure can do more harm than good.

  • An illustration of a brown skinned woman standing with crutches on either arm, looking at the viewer sadly. Black text at the bottom says,
    Magazine

    Migration has always been a disability justice issue

    An interview with Ameil Joseph about the history and present of Canada’s discriminatory treatment of disabled migrants

  • A digital illustration of an older Black woman crossing the street. She wears a purple dress and is looking off into the distance. Close behind her, two bright yellow car headlights loom. In the background, city skyscrapers and smog crowd the sky.
    Magazine

    Walking with my mother

    In 2017, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The city she once navigated with ease became dangerous and confusing, and I learned that it was worsening her symptoms. As a daughter and an urban planner, I wondered: what would a city built for disabled people’s safety and ease look like?

  • Dark purple and black ombre background with white stars. In the foreground are yellow pills and red and blue capsules across the length of the image. A range of objects are floating around the page which include (from left to right); a mask, a prescription bottle of pills, a handheld nebulizer, two cannabis buds, a joint, nasal spray, an asthma inhaler, and a needle.
    Magazine

    What we need to be well

    There’s a big overlap between communities of disabled people and illicit drug users. A safe supply of drugs should be considered a fundamental part of disability justice.