Late in 2019 my co-founder Geoff and I decided to launch a new publication that would offer left-wing perspectives on politics, economics, and culture from talented Canadian writers too often excluded from traditional media outlets.

We were frustrated with the uniformity of the discourse in the media, particularly in the opinion sections of our largest newspapers.

Though a large segment of Canadians hold progressive views, their beliefs are not represented in our media — anything to the left of moderate liberalism is almost unheard of. Passage is an attempt to change that.

Our mission is to offer a diverse range of left-wing opinion, thoughtfully expressed and rigorously argued. You may not agree with everything you read in Passage, and that’s how it should be.

Good opinion writing is not meant to merely confirm and reinforce our worldview. It’s meant to provoke, challenge, and persuade in an effort to arrive at the truth. That is the sort of writing we aim to publish.

We are also proud of the fact that Passage has been crowdfunded entirely by its readers — no money from corporations or advertisers, no venture capital or angel funding. Because of this funding structure we do not have to answer to anyone except our readers.

At the outset of our launch, I want to thank our Managing Editor Davide Mastracci for his hard work pulling together an outstanding collection of essays over the past month.

I also want to thank the over 700 donors who made it possible to launch Passage through our crowdfunding campaign in December 2019. Without them, this would not be possible.

And finally I want to thank you for reading Passage — and hopefully subscribing. Please feel free to send me your feedback. I want to hear your ideas and thoughts on how we can continue to improve and grow.

Best wishes,

Taylor Scollon, Passage Co-Founder