I have a vivid memory of when Céline Dion entered my life—and not just because of the aggressively yellow branding of the Cambridge, Ont.-area Hy & Zel’s checkout where my mom impulse-bought The Colour of My Love, writes @katieunderwrite. (1/6) macleans.ca/culture/why-ce… Track one—on the album and for me—was The Power of Love, the vocal crescendo of which sounds like a human woman instantaneously shapeshifting into a shredded electric guitar. (2/6) macleans.ca/culture/why-ce…

Dr. Malgorzata Gasperowicz has been modelling the pandemic using the skills she developed as a developmental biologist. Right now, she’s worried about what she’s seeing in the data: she rates the likelihood of a fifth wave as 7 or 8 out of 10. macleans.ca/news/what-to-d… “We’re in a very risky state,” she says. “It all depends on what our politicians will do,” as they set the policies for their jurisdictions. In particular, Gasperowicz is worried that the worsening situation in Europe may foreshadow what is to come here. macleans.ca/news/what-to-d…

#ThrowbackThursday: In 2012, our wildest sci-fi dreams seemed possibly within reach, at least for an elite few. In a story about two up-and-coming flying-car companies, senior writer Nicholas Köhler reported on their progress: (1/5) #tbt “While Terrafugia is intent on getting its Transition to a good swath of the moneyed set … [Carplane project manager John] Brown doesn’t believe the flying car will be the mass commuter vehicle of the future[.]” (2/5)

Across Canada, household costs in 2021 went on an upward ride unlike anything seen in nearly a generation. Canada’s inflation rate in September hit 4.4 per cent—the highest since 2003. (1/6) macleans.ca/economy/inflat… This turbulent climb seems nowhere near done. The Bank of Canada forecasted inflation worsening in late 2021 to around 4.8 per cent—the highest it's been in three decades—and continuing well into 2022. (2/6) macleans.ca/economy/inflat…

“Long on pomp, symbolism, and positive spin, short on specifics or the blunt acknowledgement of any unpleasantness, the Throne Speech perhaps resembles nothing so much as a stereotypical family Christmas letter,” writes @sproudfoot. #cdnpoli macleans.ca/politics/thron… “Dear family and friends, here is what we celebrated this year and what we hope for next year.” macleans.ca/politics/thron…

In the last weeks, many Canadians have felt frustrated to see federal leaders repeating they would not initiate a federal court challenge against Bill 21, writes Emilie Nicolas. macleans.ca/opinion/why-th… Yet it rarely occurs to them that several progressive Quebeckers have advised Trudeau, Singh and others not to, fearing it would only make the francophone social dialogue even more acrimonious... macleans.ca/opinion/why-th…

For Maggie, a grocery store worker in B.C., the initial mad dash at the beginning of the pandemic “was like the 23rd of December every day for four to five months.” (1/7) macleans.ca/longforms/the-… On a wave of “We (heart) our essential workers” uplift, grocery chains like Maggie’s across Canada gave their employees a $2 hourly pay bump. It was much-heralded, but short-lived. (2/7) macleans.ca/longforms/the-…

What the parties are promising on child care:
🔴 $10 a day system by spending $30B over 5 years
🔵 Replace child care deduction with refundable tax credit
🔶 Provide relief to reopen child care centres
🌳 Boost federal funding of child care
#elxn44 macleans.ca/rankings/2021-… What the parties are promising on foreign affairs:
🔴 Spend $165mil on humanitarian aid
🔵 Ban Chinese imports produced by forced Uyghur labour
🔶 Recommit to peacekeeping
🌳 None
#elxn44 macleans.ca/rankings/2021-…

In the days after 9/11, Brian Clark would get phone calls from family members of missing colleagues asking if he’d seen their person on his descent from the 84th floor of the south tower. He remembers having to let them down gently. (1/5) macleans.ca/news/world/9-1… “I can remember that day, it rolls like a movie in my brain,” he says. After 10 seconds of terror, “I had this feeling wash over me that, ‘Brian, you’re going to be okay.’” (2/5) macleans.ca/news/world/9-1…

Jody Wilson-Raybould may be having a moment. She was mentioned several times in the latest leaders debate and has a memoir coming out soon. She recently spoke with @mariedanielles about her time in politics and what’s next. macleans.ca/longforms/jody… .@Puglaas on deciding to leave Parliament during a pandemic: “I witnessed a return to, even more so, this hyper-partisan jockeying for position in terms of acquiring votes and political expediency over the major issues that needed to be discussed.” macleans.ca/longforms/jody…

Here are five key takeaways from the federal English-language debate from @markusoff for @macleans: #LeadersDebate #elxn44 #cdnpoli (1/6) macleans.ca/politics/feder… Trudeau's record was easily criticized for its shortcomings by Singh and O'Toole, who targeted the Liberals' failure to lift all water advisories and meet climate targets. (2/6) macleans.ca/politics/feder…

What does each leader need to accomplish in tonight’s debate? What do they need to say? Let’s have a think, writes @AGMacDougall. #elxn44 #leadersdebate macleans.ca/politics/feder… Trudeau has to rally wary progressives back into Camp Liberal and re-energize his base. He’ll do this by tearing the NDP’s climate “plan” apart and encouraging progressives to rally behind the best plan in Canada for tackling climate change. macleans.ca/politics/feder…

Mitch Fowler is a “speedrunner,” the name for gamers who obsessively search for optimal paths and exploit glitches that save precious seconds to post the fastest times. macleans.ca/culture/mitch-… The 33-year-old Canadian gamer who lives in Salt Lake City had been racing to beat every level in Super Mario Bros. 3, the iconic Nintendo game first released in 1990. macleans.ca/culture/mitch-…

It’s not possible to dislike Ryan Reynolds. The Deadpool star is perhaps best known for his raunchy, self-aware and slightly immature sense of humour. 1/5 macleans.ca/culture/ryan-r… While most other celebrities revealed a little too much about themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic—by Instagramming parties on private islands, or complaining about lost opportunities to play the Royal Albert Hall… 2/5 macleans.ca/culture/ryan-r…

.@sophiamathur was just nine years old when she made her first lobbying trip to Ottawa, in 2016. Technically, it was her mother, Cathy Orlando, who was the lobbyist, as the head of Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada, but Mathur was an engaged deputy. macleans.ca/society/enviro… One of Mathur’s first drawings, which she made while in a meeting with Liberal MP Paul Lefebvre, still sits on the living room mantle of her house in Sudbury, Ont. It depicts a small cat, with the caption “A carbon tax is a purr-fect solution.” macleans.ca/society/enviro…

When Barbara Sherwood Lollar sent water samples to a colleague for testing, she knew this was no ordinary water. Tests pegged the mean age of the samples, from a mine north of Timmins, Ont., at 1.6 billion years old—the oldest ever found on Earth. macleans.ca/society/scienc… The journey from the surface to the water source in the mine takes up to an hour, down to a depth of 2,377 m. Down there, the walls are warm to the touch and the water temperature is at least 25° C. macleans.ca/society/scienc…

Dr. Theresa Tam recently unveiled the latest federal modelling of the pandemic, which forecast that the number of new cases could level off and start dropping in May, depending on the extent of public health restrictions. macleans.ca/news/what-new-… Even as more Canadians get their first doses of vaccine, Tam cautioned against lifting measures too quickly, pointing to Britain, where restrictions are gradually easing—at a point where more than 60 per cent of adults have received a first dose. macleans.ca/news/what-new-…

On April 6, Canada’s rate of new COVID-19 cases came as close as its ever been to that of the United States since the beginning of the pandemic, as Canada posted 180.8 cases per million population, while the U.S. posted 195.7 per million population. macleans.ca/news/canada-li… And our case count is rising so fast—up 28 per cent in the past week alone—that we’re likely to exceed the plateauing U.S. rate in the coming days. 
macleans.ca/news/canada-li…

We’re inching toward an awkward new phase of the pandemic: one where some countries have vaccines and others don’t, where some people are vaccinated and others are not, and where demands to reopen will only get louder and more urgent. macleans.ca/news/canada/va… Vaccine passports are already being used in other parts of the world. In Israel, a “Green Pass” that confirms vaccination status has become essential for daily life, allowing access to gyms, movie theatres and restaurants.
macleans.ca/news/canada/va…