Maclean's April 2025

I’m married to a birdwatcher. I like hiking, so I happily accompany my husband as he stomps through ravines, parks and patches of forest searching for a yellow-rumped warbler or a hooded merganser. A few years ago, during a winter COVID lockdown, a group of owls got comfortable in Downsview Park, a greenspace in north Toronto. Their arrival was big news in my household, and we all jumped into the car to go look at them. Turns out we were not alone. The birds were so popular that conservationists had constructed a makeshift fence around the owls’ new habitat to keep the paparazzi away. It always feels odd to birdwatch in a wide-open space so close to the city centre, in an area surrounded by shops and condos and highways.…

PREDICTING THE FUTURE Our January/February issue was a thorough prognostication of everything that’ll matter to Canadians in 2025. We broke down the year to come in culture, sports, business, politics and more. Thank you for an excellent issue. I read it cover to cover, really helpful. Being one of those people who hates Pierre Poilievre, it was good to read what he actually might think. Most of the time, when he opens his mouth, one of the first words he utters is “Trudeau,” which helps no one. We need to hear what his policies are, and most things I’ve read have told me next to nothing. I was so surprised to read in this article that some of it made real sense. Thank you. Roger Webber-Taylor Ottawa, Ontario “Meaningful workers’…

Led by Niagara College, the Southern Ontario Network for Advanced Manufacturing Innovation (SONAMI) boasts a network of 11 post-secondary institutions. Through their respective research and innovation centres, they collaborate with small- and medium-sized companies (SMEs) to tackle their manufacturing-related challenges. This model leverages faculty, students, and state-of-the-market equipment, with funding from the federal and provincial governments. And it’s paying off. Supporting economic development SONAMI has worked with 379 companies across Southern Ontario and supported over 460 research projects. Through this work, it has created or maintained over 870 permanent jobs and engaged 660 students, whose learning experience has been enhanced by solving real business challenges. Most SMEs, which comprise 99 per cent of businesses in Canada, don’t have the time, expertise, or equipment to research and develop new products. “Our…

FOR MONTHS NOW, Canadians have had their eyes locked on the border, anxiously anticipating what fresh, destabilizing hell America’s mercurial president will visit upon us next. Way up north, meanwhile, another turf war is brewing as Russia, China and, yes, the U.S. slowly encroach on Canada’s third (and largest) coast. As global warming melts our natural icy defences—opening up new shipping routes and access to critical minerals—we’ve been forced to find new ways to protect our Arctic interests. That’s Jennie Carignan’s territory. Carignan is no stranger to danger. Before she was appointed the country’s first female chief of the defence staff last July, she helped defuse land mines in Bosnia’s farm fields, kept the peace in the Golan Heights and led NATO forces in Iraq during her trailblazing three-decade career…

WHEN HURRICANE KATRINA hit in 2005, I was an associate professor at the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center in Baton Rouge, studying the aerodynamic behaviour of wind-borne debris. I’d previously lived in New Orleans and knew the local landscape, so several reporters asked me to help them navigate the city streets after the storm. We boated through roads that had become waterways. The damage I saw that day brought me to tears: we floated through a drowned McDonald’s drive-thru and stopped at porches to pick up dogs who were stranded. One of the reporters later told me he saw a dead body in the water. A few weeks later, I returned to New Orleans with researchers from the centre. The wind, it turned out, damaged a limited set of buildings;…

AN ACTING CAREER wasn’t on Anna Lambe’s radar as a kid—Iqaluit, her hometown, wasn’t exactly teeming with film sets. So imagine Lambe’s surprise when, in 2015, the spotlight came to her: the producers of The Grizzlies, a 2018 film about a real-life lacrosse team from Kugluktuk, Nunavut, held open auditions in 25 northern communities, including Iqaluit. Lambe’s high school drama teacher—an early supporter—urged her to try out and, out of 600 teens, she was cast as Spring, the team’s only female player. “I was young and sporty,” she says. “It just made sense for the role.” Believing The Grizzlies to be just “a one-off thing,” in 2018, Lambe enrolled in the international development program at the University of Ottawa, hoping to one day return home and work with an NGO.…