Chess is not just a game. It is an ancient philosophy of attention—a way I first learned to analyze the world from my father, who taught me to play as a young child. We’d sit together on the living room floor with a board and a beautifully carved chess set between us, as he guided me through the moves and the stories of each piece.

Young Canadians, in particular, are acutely aware of this permeability. Many consume U.S. news in real time, encounter the same viral footage, and experience the same unease when democratic norms appear fragile. The fear is not that Canada is identical to the United States, but that no democracy is immune to erosion — especially when power begins to justify itself rather than explain itself.

Across these pages, you’ll find work that grapples with Black history and resistance, the freedom to read, women’s and girls’ safety, sexual and reproductive health, homelessness, and the quiet, daily ways communities hold one another together when institutions fail them. These themes may appear distinct, but they are bound by a single throughline: access. Access to knowledge, to care, to dignity, and to platforms that refuse to look away.