About This Magazine

This Magazine

This Magazine is a Toronto-based bimonthly magazine of progressive politics, arts and culture, and one of Canada's longest-publishing alternative journals. Launched in April 1966 as This Magazine Is About Schools, it grew out of the era's education activism and gradually broadened into a forum for investigative reporting, political commentary and in-depth arts coverage from a left perspective. Published by the Red Maple Foundation, a registered charity, it has spent six decades introducing new Canadian writers and artists while holding to an independent, critical editorial line.

Overview

The magazine's editorial identity blends political journalism with cultural coverage. Issues typically combine reported features and essays on social justice, labour, the environment, urban affairs and Canadian politics with substantial arts writing — fiction, poetry, criticism and profiles of emerging artists. It has been praised for integrating commentary and investigative reporting with in-depth arts coverage, and for serving as an early platform for writers who went on to national prominence.

Published six times a year, This Magazine operates as a non-profit cultural publication, supported by arts funding rather than driven primarily by advertising revenue. It is indexed in the Canadian Periodical Index, the Canadian Literary Press Index, the Alternative Press Index and the Canadian Magazine Index. The magazine carries the ISSN 1491-2678, and its masthead reflects the blend of journalism and literature: alongside interim editor Valerie Howes and publisher Lisa Whittington-Hill, it lists dedicated news, fiction, poetry and arts editors — Tegwyn Hughes, H Felix Chau Bradley, David Ly and Shazia Hafiz Ramji — with Valerie Thai as art director. A media-industry profile describes the title as fiercely independent and proudly subversive, a critical voice dedicated to exposing under-the-radar stories and publishing progressive commentary on Canadian politics, pop culture, social issues and the arts. Filmmaker Sarah Polley once said of it: "This never ceases to make me think, question things and get angry."

History

The magazine was launched in April 1966 "by a gang of school activists" as This Magazine Is About Schools, a journal covering political issues in the education system. Its early years were rooted in the ferment of 1960s Toronto: the editorial offices were located near the University of Toronto in space rented from Campus Co-operative Residences Inc., the co-operative housing organization that in the late 1960s spawned the experimental "free university" Rochdale College. The educational philosophy of Rochdale College was influenced by this association and by individuals who published in This Magazine, notably the poet Dennis Lee.

In 1973 the name was shortened to simply This Magazine, and the publication gradually expanded its focus to include a wide variety of political, arts and cultural writing from a progressive perspective. Over the following decades it established itself as a durable institution of the Canadian alternative press, outlasting many of the underground and countercultural papers of its generation. It is now counted among Canada's longest-publishing alternative journals.

A distinctive part of its legacy is its role as a discoverer of talent. This Magazine has been credited with introducing the early work of some of Canada's most notable writers, critics and artists, and its contributor rolls read as a who's who of Canadian letters. Prominent Canadian writers published in its pages have included Naomi Klein, Margaret Atwood, Dionne Brand, Tomson Highway, Evelyn Lau, Dennis Lee, Michael Ondaatje, Rick Salutin, Stan Persky, Mel Watkins, Al Purdy, Drew Hayden Taylor, Doug Saunders, Mark Kingwell and Linda McQuaig. The magazine's longevity is itself a statement: founded in April 1966, it reached its 60th year of publication in 2026, a run spanning the Rochdale era, the rise of Canadian cultural nationalism, the neoliberal 1980s and 1990s, and the digital transformation of media. Few alternative journals anywhere have published continuously for six decades, and This Magazine has done so while holding to the radical roots its founders set — never wavering, as its own description puts it, in an editorial commitment to fearless, rabble-rousing journalism.

Content

Each issue mixes political and cultural material. The politics side covers Canadian social movements, labour issues, environmental debates, Indigenous rights, urban policy and critiques of corporate and government power, often through reported features and essays rather than news-digest formats. The arts side publishes fiction, poetry, visual art and critical essays, alongside interviews and profiles that have frequently spotlighted emerging rather than established names.

This combination — advocacy journalism and literary culture in a single package — has been the magazine's signature. It treats culture as political and politics as cultural, and its pages have historically given space to voices marginal in the mainstream press. Special issues and themed packages have allowed deep dives into topics such as education, the city and the state of dissent. The literary side of the magazine is not filler between political essays but central to its identity. Fiction, poetry and critical essays share space with reportage, and the arts coverage has often championed work overlooked by larger cultural publications. This integration of commentary, investigative reporting and in-depth arts coverage is what the magazine is most praised for — treating a poem and a political exposé as equally serious forms of attention to the world.

Coverage & Audience

This Magazine is a national publication with a readership concentrated among progressives, activists, academics, students and readers of independent Canadian culture. Its audience is defined less by geography than by political and cultural affinity: people who want an alternative to mainstream political magazines and a venue for writing that connects policy to lived experience.

Because it is published by a registered charity and supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council, the magazine is accountable to a cultural mandate rather than to shareholders — a structure that has allowed it to take editorial risks commercial magazines avoid. Its influence has arguably exceeded its circulation. By publishing early work from writers who became central figures in Canadian public life, the magazine has functioned as a farm team for progressive journalism and letters, and its six-decade run gives it a continuity few alternative publications can claim.

Ownership

This Magazine is published by the Red Maple Foundation, a registered charity, and receives financial support from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. This non-profit structure insulates its editorial line from commercial pressure and reflects its status as a cultural institution rather than a purely commercial venture. The magazine's current editor is listed as Valerie Howes (interim editor), and its publisher as Lisa Whittington-Hill.

Digital Presence

The magazine maintains its online presence at thismagazine.ca, where current and archived content extends the print edition's reach. (Reference sources variously list the magazine's web address as thismagazine.ca and this.org, reflecting domain changes over its long history.) Like many small literary-political magazines, its digital operation supplements rather than replaces the print product, offering a window into the current issue and the magazine's six-decade archive. The title's longevity, charitable ownership and arts-council support position it as a survivor of the alternative press era, continuing to publish progressive political and cultural writing in a media environment where such independent voices have become scarcer. Media database Muck Rack lists it as a verified national magazine, describing it as one of Canada's oldest alternative journals — a status few of its 1960s contemporaries survived to claim.