The Paradise Papers, the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation and tax reform

This article originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on November 14, 2017. Quick now. What has the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation (“a citizens’ advocacy group dedicated to lower taxes, less waste and accountable government”) had to say about all those revelations of tax-sucking, financial jiggery-pokery uncovered in the Paradise Papers? Sorry. Time’s up. You win. […]

Winning, losing and Jamie Baillie

This column original appeared in the Halifax Examiner November 6, 2017. Many years ago, probably after an election campaign he’d just lost that he believed he should have won, I interviewed then-Nova Scotia Liberal politician Gerald Regan. He was in a philosophical mood. “Victory and defeat,” he told me, paraphrasing a Rudyard Kipling poem, “are equal […]

Masuma Khan and the issue of freedom of speech

(This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on October 30, 2017.) Should the vice president of the Dalhousie Student Union have faced even the whiff of disciplinary action from the university’s administration for a less than genteel Facebook exchange she had with some constituents? The short answer is no. The long answer is still no. […]

Lyle Howe: a sad end to a sad case

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on October 23, 2017. “The Hearing Committee of the NOVA SCOTIA BARRISTERS’ SOCIETY gives notice of the disbarment of Lyle Howe of Halifax, Nova Scotia pursuant to Section 45(4)(a) of the Legal Profession Act, effective October 20, 2017 until further notice.” In the end, the end was no surprise. The […]

Reparations raises the racism disconnect

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on October 10, 2017. On Sept. 25, the United Nations Human Rights Council discussed a report on Canada by its Working Group of Experts on Peoples of African Descent. The report, which shone its white-hot light on our country’s sordid history of slavery and racism in virtually […]

Beware businesses bearing bleats

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on October 1, 2017. What should you think when you suddenly find yourself squarely in the firing-squad crosshairs of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, the business-boosting press, Doctors Nova Scotia, lawyers, retailers, restaurateurs, tax planners, even ad hockeries like the newly […]

Stephen McNeil could learn a thing or two from Fidel Castro

Cuba’s ambassador to the U.S., José Cabanas, speaks during end-the-blockade event in Washington. (Bill Hackwell) This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on September 25, 2017. My wife and I recently spent a week in Washington, D.C., advocating for an end to the failed, 56-years-and-counting U.S. blockade of Cuba. We were with a group that […]

The politics of economics

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on September 18, 2017. In last Wednesday’s “Morning File,” Tim Bousquet walked us through the most recent disappointing passenger counts from the still ongoing, seemingly never-ending bottomless money pit we call the Yarmouth-to-Portland ferry service. (It’s worth noting that Tim got his numbers from that’s-public-information-you’re-entitled-to-know-so-here-you-go Portland, Maine officials […]

The Herald strike ends, how long will the bitterness linger?

This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner on September 11, 2017. The question was straightforward. Would the replacement workers who’d taken their jobs for the previous 19 months continue to work in the newsroom, the Chronicle Herald reporter wanted to know? There was a long silence. “Yes,” Mark Lever responded finally. Later, another reporter […]

Are you better off? Discuss

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on September 5, 2017. As someone who has spent most of his life living to the rhythms of academia of one sort or another, I always think of the day after Labour Day as the real New Year’s Day, an annual day of stock-taking, resolution-making and future-fantasizing. […]