Rick Mehta: Acadia clarifies, commingles, confuses

The Mehta case isn’t about free speech. And it’s not the exercise of academic freedom. It is a professor in a position of power publicly bullying his own students for his amusement and the adulation of his followers. Reason enough to fire him. But… This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner September 17, 2018. Start […]

Rick Mehta: a firing offence or just offensive

This column first appeared in the Halifax Examiner September 10, 2018. I will confess I’m conflicted about the news Acadia University has fired Rick Mehta. On Friday, the university confirmed it had terminated the controversial psychology professor, effective August 31, but then refused to say why or “provide any elaboration” about what it called “a personnel […]

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. […]

The great dentistry scandal of 2014, 2015… and counting

What to make of last week’s latest twists, turns, ins, outs and roundabouts in the never-ending root canal that is Dalhousie’s Great Dentistry Scandal of 2014, 2015… and counting? Who knows? The better answer, perhaps, is that (slightly) fewer social media posters and media pontificators seem so keen to rush to instant pre-judgment, conviction and […]

Harper’s diplomatically deaf, ideologically inspired foreign policy puts Canadians at risk

Canadian journalist Mohamed Fahmy sits trapped in Cairo limbo awaiting retrial next week on trumped-up charges he spread “false news” supporting Egypt’s outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, his Australian colleague, Peter Greste — who was convicted with Fahmy on the same charges last year — is home in Brisbane after being released Feb. 1 from what […]

Health care unions: arbitrator’s report unlikely to be the end of the story

By this time next week, government-appointed mediator-arbitrator Jim Dorsey is expected to hand down his final report into which health care worker should be represented by which health care union. His choices seem limited. The Health Authorities Act — which the McNeil government introduced last fall as part of its promise to merge nine district […]

Anonymous bullies

“Transparency,” explains the computer-altered voice belonging to the face hidden behind the mustachioed, comic-book smirk mask, “is of the utmost importance.” Irony, it would appear, is lost on Anonymous, the self-anointed Secret Santa sheriffs of the Internet netherworld. Late last week, Anonymous Maritimes, an apparent branch plant of the leader-less worldwide network of you-are-one-if-you-say-you-are Internet […]

Bourque, Zahef-Bibeau, personal consequences and public accountability

There is little doubt re-watching video of Justin Bourque chillingly describe the targeted killing of their husbands, sons, fathers — “It’s sad,” Bourque explains blandly. “They might have had a wife and kids, but every soldier has a wife and kids, right?… It’s all about whose side you chose, and they chose the wrong one” […]

The boy who took the photo, the girl who was bullied to death and the sentence that can never satisfy

It is easy to understand the anger, the frustration. The boy, who is now a man, who took the picture of the girl who will now never become a woman (but who still can’t be named — and that is part of the frustration), will not go to jail. Instead, Judge Gregory Lenehan Thursday sentenced […]

AIMS aims to cover its…

“The Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in Halifax has not responded to questions.” That nugget was nested in the last line, last paragraph of a Globe and Mail story last week about the Harper government’s efforts to “intimidate, muzzle and silence its critics.” Ottawa is spending $13.4 million so its tax auditors can descend, lotus-like, […]