Back to the drawing board, Bill

Finance Minister Bill Morneau says his budget will provide support for journalism. It won’t. It will only provide demise-delaying bailouts for badly managed media corporations. There are better ways. This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner March 25, 2019. Start with this from Page 173 of the federal budget Finance Minister Bill Morneau tabled […]

Clearwater wins. Again. Still. Always. And forever

What began as an act of reconciliation with Canada’s indigenous peoples will likely end up as yet another “landmark” in the continuing process of corporate co-opting and colonialism. This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner March 18, 2019. Last week, Clearwater Seafoods Inc. released a triumphant joint statement, announcing a 50-year partnership agreement with […]

What would Andrew do? Jagmeet?

The SNC-Lavalin affair offered a stark choice for our prime minister. We know which door he chose. But what about the opposition leaders. Shouldn’t we know what they would have done with the same choice? This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner March 11, 2019. There is an unanswered, barely whispered question at the heart-attack centre […]

Bobbleheaded Zach joins the public accounts follies

Education Minister Zach Churchill was just filling in on the public accounts committee last week, filling in Liberal interest spin in the usual please-the-premier way. And so it went. Funny, but… The column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner March 4, 2019. I’m almost certain Nova Scotia Education Minister Zach Churchill is not really a Bobblehead. He was just […]

Councillor Lindell Smith: Not is proud of… Will be proud of…

As he begins the second half of his first term as a city councilor, Lindell Smith reflects on what’s been accomplished. And what’s still to do before he moves on. He is not, he says again/still, a career politician. This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner February 25, 2019. What are you most proud […]

Alex Richman: R.I.P.

When Alex Richman’s son “did not survive” the 1991 crash of US Air Flight 1493, his and his wife’s grief turned to frustration, then anger and finally resolve as they set out to make flight safer for all of us. This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner February 18, 2019 “Alex was laid to rest beside his son David in Shaarey Zedek Cemetery, Winnipeg […]

The Cat can’t come back… to Portland

But the money-sucking ferry service will continue to suck Nova Scotia tax dollars. That’s good news for columnists, bad news for taxpayers. The good news for need-to-always-be-even-more-shocked-and-yet-more-appalled columnists is that the Yarmouth ferry is the gift that keeps on giving. The bad news for taxpayers is that it is also the ferry that keeps on […]

Now that the Fangless Five have become the Insensate Seven, it’s time for…?

Stephen McNeil’s Liberals have made a mockery of the notion of public accountability. So now the opposition parties need to step up and do their — and our — job. The column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner February 4, 2019. Stephen McNeil’s Liberals have made a mockery of the notion of public accountability. So […]

Writing in the Writers’ Relay

Hello, So… I’m one of 12 Nova Scotia writer-volunteers taking part in — wait for it — a “writing relay event.” On Feb. 19, each of us will take a turn creating 200 words of a collective short story before handing off to the next relay writer. And so on. And so on. It’s a little […]

Encounter re-encountered, with lessons for today

In 1970, a dozen outside experts came to Halifax for a week to turn the city ‘upside down.’ Last week, a local group played excerpts from ‘Encounter on Urban Environment,’ the NFB’s documentary on that cataclysmic week in Halifax, and discussed whether it’s time for another upside-downing. This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner January 28, 2019. I […]