During Beverley McLachlin’s 28 history-making years on Canada’s Supreme Court bench, she ruled on laws that created a quantum forward leap in the state of human rights in Canada—for Indigenous people, for sex workers, for same-sex couples and for citizens seeking assisted suicide, pre-MAID. After her 2018 retirement, she turned her mighty pen to the fictional kind of legal drama: her latest thriller, Proof, hits shelves on September 17.

McLachlin devoted her remaining time to arbitration work. She also served two terms as an overseas judge on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal, a recently wrapped tenure that drew criticism from pro-democracy activists who argued that the 2020 passage of Hong Kong’s National Security Law by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress jeopardized civil liberties within the region. For Maclean’s, I spoke to McLachlin about the future of democracy, both north and south of the border. Even as judicial independence appears to be wobbling worldwide, McLachlin still believes in Canada’s ability to serve justice.

—Katie Underwood, managing editor

A few years ago, when Veronika Slowikowska was working at Craig’s Cookies in Toronto, she launched her TikTok comedy account. One of her early skits, viewed by more than a million people, was a send-up of the reality show Is It Cake? She snagged a new fanbase of hundreds of thousands—and then booked a leading role on a TV show.

Philip Kim grew up in Vancouver, the child of Korean immigrants who wanted him to pursue a post-secondary education. He surprised them instead when he fell in love with breakdancing—or “breaking” as the sport is officially called—and devoted his teenage years to developing his skills. In the August issue of Maclean’s, we feature Kim along with a few other Canadian athletes who are pioneers in non-traditional sports like surfing and skateboarding.

Want to find true love? Log off, says Treena Orchard, a Western University anthropologist who wrote a book about dating apps. “Relying solely on the algorithm restricts us from having those random, wonderful, unexpected sparks with new people,” Orchard writes. “Even if it doesn’t lead to long-term partnership, there’s nothing like a real-world connection to rekindle our bonds with each other.”

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