Christopher Garnier’s PTSD: right policy, wrong result, better outcome…

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner September 3, 2018. Sometimes a right policy results in a wrong result. Most of the time — including in the case of convicted murderer/diagnosed PTSD sufferer Christopher Garnier — we are better off focusing on the right policy rather than on the occasional unexpected, unhappy wrong result of that […]

The Desmond file: belatedly untangling the threads that led to a murder-suicide

This column originally appeared in the Halifax Examiner January 2, 2018. One year ago tomorrow, on January 3, 2017, 33-year-old Lionel Desmond parked his car on a logging road in Upper Big Tracadie, NS, just as the sun was setting. Armed with two rifles, including an SKS semi-automatic Soviet military weapon he’d bought a few days earlier […]

The veterans' lawsuit settlement: Who is "excessive and unreasonable"?

The proposed $66.6 million payout to McInnes Cooper for its successful legal work in the veterans’ benefits case is—in the words of Defence Minister Peter MacKay—“excessive and unreasonable.” Topped, of course, only by the excessively excessive and unconscionably unreasonable seven-year battle MacKay’s federal government has waged against disabled veterans. The issue—which dates back to 1979 […]