Trevor Zinck: A fatal mix of alcohol, gambling, politics and delusion

The careening train wreck Trevor Zinck’s political career and personal life had become has finally flown off the tracks, plunged over the cliff and disappeared into an abyss. Zinck, who’d promised a vigorous defence of the criminal charges in the MLA expense scandal, turtled instead. On the the fifth day of his trial — after […]

06/24/2013
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The Home for Coloured Children: Time to Muzzle the Lawyers

For the lawyers, of course, it is about protecting the client, lessening liability, mitigating damages. In that context, perhaps, it makes lawyer sense to niggle over nouns, to parse phrases like “as if we were slaves” for literality, to offer up a bookkeeper’s balance sheet to contradict allegations of underfunding, to use all the lawyers’ […]

06/17/2013
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A mayor we can laugh with… Hey, it's a start

The good news — for all concerned — is that Mike Savage is not Brad Pitt. The better news is that he isn’t Bruce Banman either. Banman is the beleaguered mayor of Abbotsford, the currently virally — not to forget bacterially — in-the-news B.C. community where city officials recently scattered chicken manure around a homeless encampment […]

06/10/2013
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Abolishing the Senate… one bad appointment at a time

Dear Stephen Harper, Congratulations! I never imagined in my wildest imaginings even you could be quite this Machiavellian. Appointing Mike Duffy, the long-time pretend senator from CTV, an actual Senator from Prince Edward Island? Genius. Pamela Wallin, the queen of political TV, Senator for Air Canada? You had to know. You did, didn’t you? Some may suggest […]

05/27/2013
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Ron is grinning… Dave is worried… And the Cup is in the House

So… did Percy really pop Keith? Is the premier going to pull the plug? Can I get back to you? I’m still in the Metro Centre. It’s fun, frenzied Friday night. “The Cup is in the House,” and the house is bursting. Ten-thousand-five-hundred-and-ninety-five fans, plus media, scouts, officials, parents, friends of friends. Expectant, ready to […]

Justin Trudeau, the mauler-mailers and the deafening silence of our Tory MPs

The good news is that Nova Scotia’s four Conservative MPs say they are not going to waste taxpayer dollars sending constituents their national party’s mudroom-generated, bottom-feeding Justin Trudeau mauler-mailers. The bad news is that not one of them — Peter MacKay, Gerald Keddy, Scott Armstrong, Greg Kerr — seems prepared to denounce either their bullying […]

The curious case of the incurious justice minister

So federal justice minister Rob Nicholson isn’t the tiniest bit curious/concerned/appalled about what went wrong, and why, and what needs to be done to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada threw out Fenwick MacIntosh’s 2011 conviction on 18 charges of sexual assault and gross indecency, not because he […]

Rehtaeh Parsons, the media and social media: it's complicated

It’s complicated. The Canadian Psychiatric Society, among others, publishes guidelines for reporting on youth suicide. Don’t put the word “suicide” in the headline, it says. Don’t give such stories undue prominence. Don’t describe the method. Don’t glorify the victim. The guidelines are designed to reduce the very real risk of copycats. We know many media […]

Rehtaeh Parsons, cyberspace and "justice:" a cautionary tale

On April 19, 1989, a 39-year-old woman named Trisha Meili went for a jog in New York’s Central Park. She was raped and violently assaulted. Partly because of the attack’s brutality, partly because of news reports the perpetrators were a gang of “wilding” black youths and partly because of who the victim was—white, a Yale […]

Dexter's budget tinkers at the progressive edges, but is that enough?

Did Darrell Dexter balance the budget? Is the pope Argentinian? Depends on which pope you mean. And what you mean by balance. Not to forget “the…” The perhaps more relevant pre-election questions out of last week’s legislature exercise: Would the other parties have done anything different in either the budget’s broad strokes or in its […]