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Michelle Cyca

@michellecyca.com
11K followers 1.3K following 1K posts

it's "see-sa" hot takes bureau chief @thenarwhal.ca writer @thewalrus.ca adjunct prof @ubcjournalism.bsky.social journalist, nêhiyaw, mom, roller skater she/her ✌️michellecyca.com

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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 1h
recommended reading today — Aaron Hemens’ interview with Phyllis Webstad, published two years ago on @indiginews.bsky.social. Webstad is not even mentioned on the federal government’s webpage for NDTR/Orange Shirt Day indiginews.com/news/orange-...
indiginews.com
Orange Shirt Day’s founder fears Sept. 30 is being co-opted from residential ‘school’ survivors
‘I don’t want Orange Shirt Day to be forgotten — it was started by a survivor,’ says Phyllis Webstad, whose 11-year-old event now coincides with National Day for Truth and Reconciliation
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Senator Paula Simons 🇨🇦 @senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social · 5h
On Parliament Hill this morning for the flag raising ceremony that will begin a day of solemn remembrance on this Truth and Reconciliation Day. It seems even more important this year, in a moment of rising residential school denialism. #cdnpoli #Canada #yow #Ottawa
An audience, dressed in orange shirts (and rain coats) sit on a foggy, slightly drizzly morning in front of a stage set up in front of the parliamentary visitors centre. In the background, one can see the construction equipment renovating Centre Block.
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Niigaan Sinclair @niigaanwewidam.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
A burial site for dozens of children who died while attending the Brandon Indian Residential School will be acquired by the province, the Free Press has learned. www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews...
winnipegfreepress.com
Province to acquire campground near former residential school
A burial site for dozens of children who died while attending the Brandon Indian Residential School will be acquired by the province, the Free Press has learned.
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 23h
huge victory for DULF — also a great day to support @defactomedia.ca which has excellent coverage of this case
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 28/09/2026
the number of shitty PR emails I've gotten recently that are using Orange Shirt Day as a hook for things that have nothing to do with residential school survivors or history is appalling. even worse now than it was four years ago, when I wrote this: indiginews.com/first-person...
indiginews.com
Orange Shirt Day is not about buying orange shirts - Indiginews
Corporations are trying to turn reconciliation into a transaction — we need to disentangle its meaning from the act of shopping
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 28/09/2026
in advance of the National Day of Truth & Reconciliation I spoke to Kimberly Murray & Connie Walker about their efforts to raise awareness about this looming destruction, which survivors may not even know is happening next year. read it today at @thenarwhal.ca:
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âpihtawikosisân @apihtawikosisan.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Residential School denialism is done in the service of white supremacy and they are very, very clear about this link.
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 27/09/2026
should I frame this? my three-year-old’s first skeet ❤️
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 27/09/2026
have reached a surreal, much-anticipated point in my parenting journey: listening to “Jagged Little Pill” with my daughter and explaining I was her age when it came out
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 26/09/2026
just as fireworks are illegal in BC except for one week before Halloween I believe eggnog should only be permitted on grocery shelves in December
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 25/09/2026
fun to read this response to my latest Walrus column about the troubling relationship between Scholastic book fairs & Canadian public schools in LitHub: lithub.com/have-they-ru...
lithub.com
Have They Ruined Our Beloved Scholastic Book Fair?
Oh, Scholastic Book Fair. If you made your way through a public school in North America anytime during the past half-century, you should recall that shiny catalog. That sudden, circus-like presence…
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 25/09/2026
bizarre to me that so much reporting on housing fails to interrogate the assumptions that homeowners (1) should always get to approve of changes to their neighbourhood (2) should be protected by government from any possible decline in property values www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
Toronto needs more homes. These neighbours say they're paying the price | CBC News
An elderly downtown couple says they’re shocked and upset that the city has approved a duplex next door to their three-story Victorian home that they say will tower metres above their chimney and rend...
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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
As I'm sure many others have pointed out, this website is an AI scraper. This news is 6 years old. The company scrapes real news articles and rewrites them with an LLM, then republishes them for clicks.
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 22/09/2026
october is going to be a really fun month for politics
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 21/09/2026
my kid came home with her Scholastic catalogue last week with a hopeful checkmark next to a vending machine-shaped eraser set (??) anyway for @thewalrus.ca I wrote about why it's bad & weird that our public school libraries rely on a corporation that directly advertises to children in the classroom
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 18/09/2026
a genuine pleasure to moderate the Vancouver council candidates debate last night with @womentcities.bsky.social! watch to learn about some of the people campaigning for your vote next month. (also learn which parties chose not to participate!) www.youtube.com/live/rv0Paba...
youtube.com
Our City Hall Forum
YouTube video by Women Transforming Cities
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The Narwhal @thenarwhal.ca · 11/09/2026
SCOOP: A leaked document indicates Alberta is considering rewriting laws, creating new Crown corporations to take over the natural gas system and build new gas pipelines and taking on costly legal battles — in large part so AI data centres can have access to power, @drewanderson.bsky.social reports.
thenarwhal.ca
Leaked doc suggests Alberta has sprawling plans to pave the way for AI data centres, more oil production
Rewriting laws, creating Crown corporations that could rival TC Energy, building new natural gas pipelines and increasing prices for consumers: what a leaked document says about Alberta’s AI data centre and oil push
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 10/09/2026
for @theglobeandmail.com I spoke to Emily St John Mandel about living in America, counterlives and writing without a plan: www.theglobeandmail.com/culture/book...
theglobeandmail.com
Emily St. John Mandel imagines the bleak counterlife of America in Exit Party
Mandel’s latest novel portrays two unsettlingly plausible trajectories in America’s near future
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 08/09/2026
this is so gross nunatsiaq.com/stories/arti...
nunatsiaq.com
‘The theft is blatant’: Nunavut AI ‘correspondent’ regurgitates northern stories
Leah Qammaniq, an Inuk journalist raised in the North, understands first-hand the issues that she reports on in Nunavut. She covers Inuit self-governance, food security and, generally, daily life in t...
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Emma McIntosh @emmamci.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
A follow-up to this follow-up: The B.C. Conservative Party continued to unravel as two more MLAs stepped down from its caucus Wednesday, pointing to ties between senior staffers and the Alberta separatist movement. www.thestar.com/news/investi...
thestar.com
Alberta separatist ties hasten implosion of Canada’s B.C. Conservative Party as 9 MLAs have now resigned in a month
Alberta separatist ties among senior staff lead B.C. MLAs Donegal Wilson and Scott McInnis to resign, making nine caucus departures in a month.
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 02/09/2026
new from me! more reasons to delete Google Maps besides the Lake America thing
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James McLeod @jamespmcleod.ca · 01/09/2026
For the Toronto Star, I wrote about the trade war, digital sovereignty, and Lake Ontario. We are already dominated by American tech giants. If Canada fights this trade war and we don't renegotiate the terms of digital trade, we will lose. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
thestar.com
Google changing Lake Ontario to Lake America isn’t just frustrating. It points to a deeper problem for Mark Carney
Canada’s digital infrastructure is too tied to companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon.
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Blayne Haggart @bhaggart.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
This is a good example of what @ntusikov.bsky.social and I have been warning about for years: US tech companies are uniquely susceptible to extra-legal US government pressure (Google isn’t compelled to change Lake Ontario’s name.) Because of this, they represent a direct threat to Canadian autonomy.
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 29/08/2026
interesting how many replies I've seen to this story on reddit, and elsewhere that say something like "well, you chose to live there." air pollution is a hazard, not an annoyance. a residential neighbourhood should not expose the people who live there to constant, serious health risks.
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Shannon Waters @sobittersosweet.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
This story is wild and disturbing BC seems to have overstated its natural gas royalties by $1.5 BILLION over 5 years Per the premier's office, it's an administrative error converting units and currency An SFU economist with expertise in royalty structures says that doesn't add up #bcpoli
biv.com
B.C. admits to $1.5B budget error following BIV investigation
Premier's office blames 'administrative error' for missing $1.5B in gas royalties; experts call the government's explanation confusing, and in some cases, demonstrably false
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 26/08/2026
for @thewalrus.ca I wrote about the season's hottest trend (racism) thewalrus.ca/why-is-anti-...
thewalrus.ca
Why Is Anti-Indigenous Racism on the Rise? | The Walrus
The new “Indian problem”
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The Walrus @thewalrus.ca · 26/08/2026
A century after Canada vowed to “get rid of the Indian problem,” anti-Indigenous rhetoric is surging. Here, The Walrus contributing writer Michelle Cyca examines how leaders weaponize economic anxiety to reverse reconciliation efforts: thewalrus.ca/why-is-anti-indigenous…
On the left: a colourful and blocky pop art illustration of four Indigenous people outside of a white structure against green trees and a pink sky. On the right: text that reads “Why is anti-Indigenous racism on the rise? The new ‘Indian problem’”
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 22/08/2026
come for the story, stay for the photos!
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 20/08/2026
a necessary read on Domtar, owned by Indonesian billionaire Jackson Wijaya, "the largest private forest manager in Canada... he now owns dozens of mills and controls over 22 million hectares of Canadian forest, an area seven times the size of Vancouver Island." www.bchistoryboy.ca/p/the-crofto...
bchistoryboy.ca
The Crofton Mill Closure
China’s fibre grab and a century of capital flight
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 20/08/2026
whenever I want to be astonished by mankind's endless capacity for delusion and hubris, I go to Facebook Marketplace, where today someone is selling an old UBC sweatshirt for $800
Facebook Marketplace listing for a "Vintage 1950s Vancouver UBC Sweatshirt" for $800. A photo of the sweatshirt, which is short-sleeved, light grey, with a blue UBC logo and a quarter-zip collar
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 20/08/2026
my opinion is that journalism outlets need to start being clearer about public bodies withholding interviews or information, rather than going with an anodyne "declined/unavailable for an interview" that suggests each incident is a scheduling issue, and not a consistent obfuscation strategy.
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 20/08/2026
perfect, no notes
CBC News headline reading "Transparency issues raised over B.C. government decision to remove public employee directory: Charity says government officials' contact information was valuable to efficiently organize, work on projects"A line from the story reading "The B.C. Ministry of Citizen Services declined an interview"
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Shannon Waters @sobittersosweet.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
"Reporters in B.C. are often shocked when they call officials in Alaska or Washington for comment and mid-level government employees freely speak on the record." This is so true and so bizarre. In the U.S., public employees - scientists, program directors, analysts - actually talk to reporters 😱
todayinbc.com
B.C. disables employee directory, leaving public in the dark about who works for gov't - Today in BC
Public can no longer look up who works in the B.C. government, or access internal contact information
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 18/08/2026
imagine they do the $100m renovation of 24 Sussex Drive & then Laureen Harper fills it with feral cats again
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404 Media @404media.co · 17/08/2026
SCOOP: 404 Media placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it. What did we find? It ended up at an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books. Yes. This is literally the logo outside the Amazon warehouse door. Read now:
404media.co
We Tracked a Shipment of Rare Books. It Ended at an Amazon AI Training Facility
We placed a tracking device in a shipment of rare books to see which AI company was buying it, and found an Amazon facility where Amazon scans and destroys books.
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 16/08/2026
Vancouver — this is one month away! tickets are free! be an informed and active participant in democracy & I will personally give you a high-five www.eventbrite.ca/e/our-city-h...
eventbrite.ca
Our City Hall Forum: Council Candidates Debate
Join us for an evening of getting to know some city council candidates as they vie for your vote in the 2026 Vancouver municipal election!
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Cycle Toronto @cycletoronto.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Reminder: this case didn't come down to Cycle Toronto's "bike lanes good" v. the province's "bike lanes bad" evidence. The province's own internal documents (and their staff briefing to cabinet) confirmed that bike lanes do not cause traffic congestion and ripping them out will put lives at risk.
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Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
The bike lane decision is extraordinary. The Ontario Court of Appeal flat out saying: more lanes make cars go fast and “induced demand” is just a theory. Aggressively hostile to 80 years of theory and empirical evidence. coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/i...
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 15/08/2026
notably, the court of appeal didn’t dispute that removing roads would put cyclists at increased risk of harm & death — only that “there is no constitutional obligation to regulate the use of roads in any particular manner.” www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
cbc.ca
Ontario appeal court says Ford can rip out Toronto bike lanes | CBC News
Premier Doug Ford’s government can rip out 19 kilometres of protected bike lanes in Toronto, the Court of Appeal for Ontario has ruled in a decision released Friday, reversing a lower court decision m...
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 14/08/2026
the perennial focus on arson or intentional fires is a distraction from the main driver of increased fire activity: climate change. it's tempting to believe individual pyromaniacs are responsible because looking at systemic causes would require us, as a country, to stop investing in pipelines.
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SEAN ORR @seanorr.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
“Vancouver’s surprise decision this summer to allow natural gas heating in new buildings was the culmination of behind-the-scenes discussions that included Mayor Ken Sim’s senior adviser, David Grewal, who is director of two private natural gas companies.” vancouversun.com/opinion/colu...
vancouversun.com
Questions raised about role of Vancouver mayor's adviser in controversial natural gas vote
Vancouver council's surprise decision to allow natural gas heating in new construction could be good for mayor's top adviser's businesses.
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 12/08/2026
pretty irresponsible headline given how prevalent arson conspiracies and misinfo are & how many people will not click through to learn that there have been 14,856 fires since 2016 & this figure represents 3.6%.
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janelle 𓆝𓆞 @janellelapointe.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
My latest piece! ✍🏽 “A country is not a corporate portfolio. Indigenous rights are a critical line of defence against unchecked corporate power. When the elements of life that we depend on are treated as assets to be unlocked, everyone and everything, except the investor, becomes expendable.”
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 12/08/2026
it's outrageous that every government ministry has a massive communications department and yet they refuse to provide information that the public has a right to know, even when asked directly.
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Shannon Waters @sobittersosweet.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
My mind still boggles at the fact that heat is considered an essential service in rental housing here in B.C. but cooling is not A growing number of municipalities are taking action but - as everyone I spoke to pointed out - the issue is really the purview of the province and/or the feds #bcpoli
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 12/08/2026
put this guy on the $20 bill instead of the monarch www.timescolonist.com/local-news/a...
timescolonist.com
Alert Bay man gives mouth-to-mouth to resuscitate river otter pup
Well-versed in first aid, Gordon Mellish treated the unconscious river otter pup like a baby or small child.
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Andrew Kurjata @akurjata.ca · 11/08/2026
This year has felt weird to me and I figured out why: because it doesn't feel weird. Whats happening in Summerland right now is devastating. But it's also routine. Jasper. West Kelowna. Fort Nelson. Fort McMurray. 100 Mile House. Communities are evacuated now. Every year. youtu.be/wLI3Qiv0cmU?...
youtu.be
'Every year is going to be a bad fire year': wildfire expert | Power & Politics
YouTube video by CBC News
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 11/08/2026
this is a wild investigation — two Vancity employees (one current, one former) with very progressive resumes donated $5k to the Alberta separatist party & are linked to Apollo Chung, a separatist & ops director for the B.C. Conservative Party
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 09/08/2026
or: Canada has more than four times as many measles cases per capita than the U.S.
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Michelle Cyca @michellecyca.com · 07/08/2026
desperate to find the person in my neighbourhood who has been waging a sign-based war on this messy property (valued at $6.2 million) for at least seven years now. first photo from 2026, on reddit; second from 2019, via theBreaker.news.
An under-construction property with orange fencing outside. A sign posted on the fencing reads THIS MESS HAS TAKEN 8 YEARS TO BE 1/2 FINISHED. DISGUSTING & INCONSIDERATEA Twitter screenshot from Sep 1 2019, of a Tudor-style house behind a black fence. A sign on the fence reads "DISGRACEFUL MAINTENANCE. This Owner has no respect for his neighbours and even less for the neighbourhood.)
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