Can a ‘white van driver’ be a terrorist? Discuss

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on June 26, 2017. I was watching CNN last Sunday night. It is my guilty-pleasure punishment for the sin of obsessing too much about what Donald Trump might do next. Trump had filled up his Father’s Day dissing his predecessor, Barack Obama, in 140-character vitriol. He’d falsely […]

Stephen McNeil’s 20 per cent majority: a referendum on…?

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on June 19, 2017. So that didn’t take long. It will be three weeks tomorrow since Nova Scotians voted in a provincial general election. You may remember that election: the one in which Stephen McNeil’s Liberals came within a few hundred votes here or there of losing their majority […]

Wade Smith’s unfinished legacy: ‘It’s up to us…’

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner, June 12, 2017. “Maybe we need to look at an all-black school or other alternatives.” It was April 2006 and Wade Smith, then the vice principal of St. Patrick’s High School in Halifax, was musing to former-student-become-CBC-journalist Maggie Rahr about a recently released report on the province’s progress — […]

Since none of the above is on the ballot…

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner May 29, 2017. Who would you like to see win tomorrow’s provincial general election? Who should win tomorrow’s provincial general election? If you answered none of the above to either — or both — of the above, welcome to the club. And perhaps welcome too to […]

Four more years… but what might have been instead

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on June 5, 2017. For me, the sweetest, saddest moment of last Tuesday’s election night lasted not much more than a moment. And it didn’t happen until the tail end of the first hour of Wednesday morning. Sometime after midnight, I gave up on the TV […]

Since ‘none of the above’ is on the ballot…

Who would you like to see win tomorrow’s provincial general election? Who should win tomorrow’s provincial general election? If you answered none of the above to either — or both — of the above, welcome to the club. And perhaps welcome too to that more select group — the none-of-the-above-but-definitely-not-Stephen-McNeil club — which Progressive Conservative […]

Are election campaigns any place to discuss serious issues?

Election campaigns are no place to discuss serious issues. That’s what Kim Campbell — Canada’s now-you-see-her-now-you-don’t, first-and-only-female prime minister — infamously declared in 1993 in the middle of her one and only federal election campaign as a party leader. Though I was among those who mocked her at the time, I now believe she was […]

The younger French president, his older wife and… Amy Hood. Quelle difference?

(This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on May 15, 2017 .) One of the many fascinating, if beside le larger point storylines to emerge from the recent French presidential election is the one about the relationship between that country’s new president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife, Brigitte — more specifically about the gender-bending, […]

Will the next government finally end the 15-year persecution of Dr. Gabrielle Horne? Time to ask…

(This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on May 8, 2017 .) Elections offer opportunities. If you have a question, or concern, or if there is some specific issue bugging the hell out of you, the upcoming election gives you the chance to raise it, face-to-doorstep, so to speak, or email-to-email, with the candidate […]

Havana, Halifax and the state of democracy

(This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner on May 1, 2017 .) I confess. I spent a quiet weekend while my Nova Scotia journalist colleagues no doubt filled theirs to the almost end with feverish when-will-he/will-he pull the plug media speculation about the date of our next provincial election. That’s because I spent my […]