FAQ

On April 19th, The Maple and Passage merged to to create an even more impactful media outlet. Read our full announcement here.

We've also prepared a seperate FAQs page specifically for questions regarding the merger. You can find that here.

The Maple is 100% reader-funded. Every dollar of our revenue comes from subscriptions to our daily newsletter and additional monthly donations from readers. We do not accept donations from third-party organizations of any kind and do not allow our publication to be used for advertising.

Logging into your account allows you to change your preferences, subscription, and billing information. If you are a subscriber, it also allows you to access subscriber-only articles and newsletters.

To access your account click the “Sign In” button on the top right of our website. Or click this link. You will be prompted to put in your email address (make sure it’s the one you signed up with).

Once imputed, you’ll receive an email with a link that allows you to log in directly. No password is needed - just click the link that gets forwarded to you.

Once logged in, your computer browser will remember you and keep you logged in until you sign out.

There are a few possible reasons why this could be happening:

Your email provider might be putting us in your Spam.

Check your junk or spam inboxes. Could even be in another folder such as “promotions” or “updates.” If you see us there, here’s how to fix it.

If you use Gmail: move this email to your primary inbox. How? On your phone: Tap the 3 dots in the top right corner, click “Move to”, then click “Primary”. If on desktop, drag and drop this email into the “Primary” tab in your inbox.

If you use Apple Mail: tap on our email addresses at the top of this email (in the “From” line) and click “Add to VIPs”.

If you use something else: Add our email address (hello@readthemaple.com) to your address book.

You could have accidentally unsubscribed from emails.

To see if this is the problem, sign in to your account and then visit your account settings.

Under the “Emails” section, manage your preferences to make sure you're subscribed to receive emails (The circle should be to the right and coloured in).

If neither of these is the problem, contact us at hello@readthemaple.com so we can help you get to the bottom of this.

You can easily stop receiving emails through your account portal. Sign in to your account and then visit your account settings.

Under the “Emails” section, manage your preferences to turn off receiving newsletters. (The circle should be to the left and greyed out).

Note that this does not cancel your paid subscription if you have one. 

You can easily change your email address through your account portal. Sign in to your account and then visit your account settings.

At the top of the portal, you will see an option to “Edit” your name and email address.

Credit card expired? No problem. You can update or change your payment information by clicking this link or visiting the account portal.

If you are a former Passage member, you can manage paid membership options by visiting this link.

As is standard for most media publications, memberships are yearly or monthly recurring charges. You'll be charged on the date you made the payment. 

If you aren't interested in renewing, no problem! Check the FAQ below to see how to cancel. If you want a refund, please check our policy below.

You can change or cancel your subscription by going into your account portal. Sign in to your account and then visit your account settings.

The second row in the portal should list your plan and the rate you pay. Click on the “Change” option to pull up a second page that shows all of our available monthly and yearly plans. Here you can select any of these options to change your subscription plan.

At the bottom of this page should be an option to “Cancel subscription.”

Alternatively, you can try visiting our payment portal. If you have any difficulties canceling your subscription, please contact us at priority@readthemaple.com so we can fulfill your request.

We know online payments can be frustrating, so we try to make it as simple as possible. We offer a full refund up to 365 days after purchase.

To turn off automatic renewal, go to your account portal by signing in to your account and then visiting your account settings.

Under your plan information select “Cancel subscription.” Your subscription will not be renewed at the end of your billing cycle. You can re-continue your subscription at any time by visiting the account portal.

Unfortunately, The Maple is not currently a registered journalism organization. That means our subscribers and donors are not eligible for charitable tax deductions.

As a non-profit, we hope to eventually acquire this status so our supporters like you can claim the benefit of tax receipts.

The Maple was founded in August 2021 as the successor to North99, an advocacy group dedicated to building a more just Canada. Unlike North99, however, The Maple is solely a journalistic project, and does not conduct any advocacy work whatsoever. Further, The Maple has no affiliation or relationship of any kind with any political party, advocacy group or third-party advertisers.

While The Maple is broadly aligned with North99’s aspiration for a more just Canada, The Maple’s managing editor had no involvement with North99, and has full independence and control over the new publication’s content and editorial direction.

You can read more about our history here.

In August 2021, North99 changed to The Maple, becoming an independent digital news publication, covering Canadian politics from the perspective of the many, not the few.

After years of advocacy work, it became clear that the mission of championing the issues of the 99% through media and analysis needed to take the next step.

So many of the issues North99 was attempting to address through advocacy were rooted in the same problem. An establishment media that ignores the stories of everyday people while overrepressenting the wealthy and powerful.
Founded from the ashes of North99, we’ve sought to make The Maple a media outlet for the people and funded by the people. We are 100% funded by individual Canadians like you - no ads, no outside funding, no corporate support.

If you supported North99, we encourage you to check out our public-interest journalism. It’s our belief that The Maple’sfact-driven journalism from a progressive perspective is what is sorely needed in Canada’s media landscape.

If you’ve continued your support through recurring donations, keep in mind that you are entitled to a complimentary Maple subscription that gets you full access to our daily newsletter. Due to limitations with our email software, we asked that donors reach out to us to receive their benefits. If you have not yet, please contact us at priority@readthemaple.com so we can get you in the loop.

Unfortunately, we are not hiring at the moment. But we hope to expand our team as we grow our readership.

The Maple does welcome unsolicited pitches for news and opinion pieces. If you are interested in sending us a pitch, please visit our Pitch Us page to learn more about our process.

We also maintain a "writer roster" of freelancers to regularly contribute to The Maple. Join our writer roster and if we have a story or article idea that looks right for you, we’ll reach out to you directly and offer it as an assignment.

In a lot of ways, it’s a no-brainer. The Maple and Passage have a lot in common, including our audiences, editorial perspectives and areas of coverage. We also share a reader-funded journalism model. In fact, although the two publications operate independently, they exist under a single media non-profit organization.

We often hear that independent media is fractured and that there are too many different publications. We believe the mission of both publications will be easier to accomplish by teaming up, as doing so will give us more collective resources. In the spirit of building independent public-interest journalism and giving readers more for their support, we’ve decided this merger is the best way forward for our communities.

It was a tough decision. Ultimately, The Maple has a larger number of paying members. Because budgets are tight, we decided we didn’t want to cause too much confusion with the change and risk losing subscribers.

We’ve tried to bring together the branding of Passage to show off the combined publications. 

The merger will free up time and resources for us to undertake more ambitious, investigative projects, while maintaining the high-quality daily content that you expect as a subscriber. It will mean more collaboration, more editorial oversight and a richer diversity of content. In short, we’ll be a more comprehensive publication with greater resources at our disposal.

The editorial direction and stories chosen by the editorial team will not change.

Yes. We will be incorporating Passage’s high-quality, thoughtful and fact-based commentary as part of our regular content. This won’t diminish or decrease the amount of news content we produce, but will complement it.

There will be no change in this regard. We are a left-wing journalistic organization focused on the issues of working-class Canadians. We will continue to be a space for critical reporting and debate on the biggest issues of the day.

You can see our values here.

Alex Cosh, The Maple’s managing editor, will become the publication’s news editor. Davide Mastracci, Passage’s managing editor, will become the publication’s opinion editor. Both will continue to determine what stories get published, and important decisions regarding the publication as a whole will be made based on consensus.

The merged publication will continue as a non-profit organization.

In fact, The Maple and Passage existed under the same media non-profit, but were separate organizations with editorial independence. You can read more about the history of the publication here. 

In short, your membership will not be affected. You will still have access to member-only content, receive exclusive newsletters and continue paying the same you always have. You’ll essentially be receiving what was previously the benefits of two separate memberships for the price of one. We’ll also be rolling out some additional membership perks.

If you have memberships at both publications, rest assured that you won’t be double charged. Your less expensive membership will stay unchanged, while the other will be automatically cancelled.

We are also offering pro-rated refunds for those with double memberships. If you have memberships at both publications and would like to get one refunded, please fill out this form so we can process your request.

We aim to have refund requests processed within 5-10 days from submission, but it often takes an additional 5-10 business days for the refund to appear on your card. Rest assured we will get through all refund requests, but due to the size of our audience, it may take some time.

(For reference a pro-rate refund would work as follows. If you have a $70 annual Maple membership and a $90 annual Passage membership, we’ll cancel the latter. Once you have sent a refund request we will send you a refund for the number of months left until your renewal on the more expensive $90 membership.)

Yes, you will continue to receive all the perks you were promised, including:

• Exclusive daily newsletter
• Class Struggle newsletter
• Members-only courses

But, we will also be expanding membership perks to include:

• Commenting privileges
• Participation in our debate series
• Quarterly impact reports

And, we plan to continue rolling out more benefits for our members. You are the backbone of this publication and we want to continuously improve your experience with us and our community of readers.

Members will continue to get a newsletter each weekday. However, there are some slight changes: The Maple and Passage’s newsletters will be merged into Maple Digest.

Two days of the week, readers will get The Maple’s flagship news reporting. Two other days will feature Passage’s critical roundup of commentary and analysis on the stories fueling the news. The Friday newsletter will be in a brand new format! These issues will have Alex and Davide unpacking the top news of the week, digging deeper and in a more engaging style. This newsletter will also feature comments from readers.

We will also introduce the ability to customize your newsletter experience through your account. For example, you can choose to only receive Friday newsletters or newsletters two or three times per week.

When you login, your plan may say $0. Don’t worry, you’re still supporting us and you’re still a member — transitioning over your payment information to the site will take some time (good old technology!).

In the meantime, if you want to make changes to your payment information, or update your card information, use this link.