Clik here to view.
Chevron – Because BP Wasn’t Drilling Deep Enough
Fifty miles off the coast of Louisiana, upwards of 100,000 barrels per day of oil are gushing from BP’s Deepwater Horizon well into the Gulf of Mexico. With the equivalent of one Exxon-Valdez seeping...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Lies, Damned Lies, And The Census
“(The Unites States), and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world.” – Stephen Harper, 1997 In an astonishing display of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Canadian Immigration, Conservative Xenophobia
In the United States, debate surrounding Arizona’s new harsh immigration policy – the ‘papers please‘ law – moved from arguing the merits, necessity and constitutionality of SB1070, to a nonsensical...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ezra Levant vs Reality – A Prelude To Fox News North
The battle between supporters and opponents of Sun TV News – the Fox News style channel headed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former communications director Kory Teneycke – reached new heights when...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Child Soldiers: The Other Taliban and Al-Qaeda Militants
“A poignant reality of contemporary conflicts is that increasingly children are being used as cheap and readily available weapons of war. From Colombia to Sri Lanka, from Sierra Leone to Uganda,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Facts Matter In The Debate Over Water Fluoridation
It’s known as one of the top ten public health achievements of the 20th century; a “classic example of clinical observation leading to epidemiological investigation and community-based public health...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Secondary Suites And The Right To Affordable Housing
In December 2007, at the height of Calgary’s housing crunch, a report emerged from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation that confirmed what many had long suspected: the cost of renting a two...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sun News Network: Because Facts Have A Well Known Liberal Bias
“Folks, this is gonna be a thing.” ~ Sun TV host Theo Caldwell Sun News Network, a channel brought to by its own sense of self importance, is the epitome of pseudo-journalism comprised of (self...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sun News Network: Let The (Incredibly Lazy) Astroturfing Begin!
It has been fascinating to watch the Conservative campaign strategy evolve over the past two weeks; working in tandem with Sun TV in a quest to secure a Harper majority, and to destroy the opposition...
View ArticleClik here to view.
9/11 – A Decade Later
Take this opportunity to educate yourself of the facts surrounding the rise of Radical Islam, Neo-Conservatism, and the Politics of Fear. It may change the way you view the attacks of September 11, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
#OccupyWallStreet – Calgary edition
So much has been written about the Occupy movement, it’s difficult to discuss it further without a sense of redundancy. At the same time, it’s difficult for the apolitical to fully appreciate the scope...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Link Byfield – Another Thorn On The Wildrose
Though it took longer than I anticipated, it seems Wildrose leader Danielle Smith, gag order and all, has failed to contain the radical views held by some in her party from seeping out into the public...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On The Media, Journalism, And The Willingness To Support it
It has been a tough month for journalism. Reports of mass layoffs and (select) publication suspensions at Postmedia engulfed the twitterverse late Monday afternoon, the second such round of job cuts...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Yes – Let’s Talk
Though dismissed by some as a cynical marketing ploy, Bell’s Let’s Talk campaign not only succeeded in raising $4.8 million for mental health initiatives, but also provided a forum for canadians to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Poppy Wars
This op-ed appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on November 11, 2013 “Ottawa Students Don’t Care If ‘White Poppy’ Offends Veterans!” screamed the Sun News headline. In what has become the annual stopgap war...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ending The Stigma
This op-ed appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on January 28, 2014. On Dec. 29, Christopher Peloso, the 40-year-old husband of former Ontario deputy premier George Smitherman, was reported missing....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Want To ‘Send A Message’? Vote.
This op-ed appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on June 12, 2014 In October 2013, British comedian and actor Russell Brand, acting as a guest-editor for a revolution-themed edition of New Statesman, penned...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Circus At The Levant
“Being a Jew isn’t like being Black or being gay or being a woman, or even Israeli where many Jews come from. Being a Jew is a choice, like being a Blood or Crip. Jews are the medieval prototype of the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
In The Fight Against Sex Crimes, We’re All In This Together
This op-ed appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on November 12, 2014 Late last week, amid the growing scandal surrounding Jian Ghomeshi, buried under the reprehensible politicking and partisan bickering...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Of Torture And Tortured Logic
This piece appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on December 18, 2014 The executive summary of a nearly 7,000 page report into the C.I.A.’s Detention and Interrogation program under the Bush administration...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Inoculating Against Science-Denialism
This op-ed appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on February 10, 2015. There’s an illness sweeping its way across North America, one which has long-troubled the scientific community and baffled even the most...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Freedom Of Religion vs. License To Discriminate
This op-ed appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on April 8, 2015. There’s a fundamental misunderstanding, or perhaps, a deliberate mischaracterization, of what constitutes religious freedom in a pluralistic...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Address This Code
This op-ed appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on May 25, 2015. In 2013, Kimberly Hall, Director of Women’s Ministry at All Saints Presbyterian Church, wrote an open letter to teen girls who, in her view,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Rebel Without A Spine
Facts often prove a nuisance to those with an agenda to push or a narrative to sell. Just as those who peddle snake-oil rely on manufactured illness to hawk miracle cures, those who ply their trade in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
As Some Fight To “Take Alberta Back,” Others Work To Move It Forward
In 1954, when the U.S. Senate voted to censure Wisconsin Republican Joseph R. McCarthy, a man whose motivations were deemed “evil and unmatched in malice,” it closed the book on a particularly shameful...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Meriting A Quota
In seeking to redress the underrepresentation of women in key positions of political leadership, Liberal Party of Canada leader Justin Trudeau has pledged gender parity within government at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Word To My Critics:
To those accusing me of seeking to defend Blatchford, as intent to undermine Guthrie/Reilly, or as somehow actively championing an odious twitter persona I’m on the record as having no sympathy for:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Assault On Planned Parenthood: A Long Campaign Against Reproductive Rights
In 2011, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to strip Planned Parenthood of federal funding, a move deemed necessary to ensure no taxpayer dollars were used on abortion despite...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Move Along, #Harperman – We’ll Take It From Here
What began as a discussion* (and mocking) of the sideshow of the day song of a generation turned into a great exchange about political/protest tunes. I’ve collected some of the best recommendations,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Need To Know: On Syria And The Migrant/Refugee Crisis
This was initially meant to be a lengthy Facebook post for those who look to me for information on complex matters (which I do happily, by request). However, it received such appreciation and requests...
View ArticleClik here to view.
No Scrutiny Please, They’re Saudi.
This op-ed appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on October 1, 2015. In 2014, on the shores of Lake Geneva and next to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, a lavish ceremony was held to...
View ArticleClik here to view.
#RefugeesWelcome
This op-ed appeared in The Ottawa Citizen on November 27, 2015. “This is not a federal project, this is not even a government project, it’s a national project for all Canadians,” declared John...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Most Undignified Death
This column ran in The National Post on January 20, 2016. The Supreme Court hearing that granted the Liberals a four-month extension to review assisted-dying legislation last week brought out the usual...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Legitimizing Pseudoscience: What’s The Harm?
This column ran in The National Post on March 24, 2016. (Responses to Karen Selick found below this piece) After weeks of trying “natural” extracts and homemade remedies like smoothies cut with ginger...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Re: Death By Pseudoscience – The Misinformation Campaign
First, a quick review of the facts: David and Collet Stephan are on trial for failing to provide the necessaries of life — for failing to seek medical care for their son in a reasonably prudent...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Colin Powell’s Lesson For Republicans
This column ran in The National Post on August 11, 2016. Sixteen days before the 2008 presidential election, George W. Bush’s former secretary of state, Gen. Colin Powell (Ret.), appeared on NBC’s Meet...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On Homeopathy, Health Canada Must End The Double Standard
This column appeared on the CBC on December 11, 2016. Until recently, homeopathic remedies sold in the United States enjoyed many of the same privileges — including the freedom to claim they could...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Carleton’s unbalanced approach to wellness
This op-ed appeared in the Ottawa Citizen on March 14, 2017. It’s hard to overstate the naïveté at the heart of Carleton University’s initial decision to remove the scale from its fitness room at the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
On assisted death and psychological suffering
This column was published at Maclean’s on March 28, 2017 In 2015, a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the federal ban on physician-assisted suicide, solidifying the charter...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How the far-right co-opted “free speech”
This column was published at Maclean’s on May 1, 2017 It was the third time in as many months that supporters of President Donald Trump gathered in Berkeley, Calif., the historic birthplace of...
View Article(Un)civil discourse
For the CBC on July 31, 2017 “It is simply impossible to overestimate the love, bordering on worship, that reporters in Washington long had for McCain, and to a great degree still do,” Washington Post...
View ArticleOn Charlie Gard, medical harm, and fate
For Maclean’s on July 18, 2017 It’s the most commonly cited phrase from the Hippocratic Oath, the binding document—one of the oldest in history—upon which physicians swear: “First, do no harm.”...
View ArticleShe’s someone.
For the Ottawa Citizen on October 12, 2017 In the wake of allegations swirling around Harvey Weinstein, a powerful, dominant figure in Hollywood, where the emerging picture suggests decades of sexual...
View ArticleConfronting prejudice and changing minds
For Maclean’s on August 31, 2017 One year ago on C-SPAN, Heather McGhee—an African-American woman and the president of Demos, an equality-focused public policy organization—was the featured guest of a...
View ArticleOf flawed men and dangerous ones
For the CBC on November 30, 2017 In early November, Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston weighed in on the stunning allegations of sexual misconduct levelled against Hollywood icon Kevin Spacey — one of...
View ArticleOn loneliness and the winter low
For Maclean’s on December 24, 2017 “Lonely people have a natural affinity for the internet,” wrote the late film critic Roger Ebert in a 2010 entry on his online journal. “It’s always there waiting,...
View ArticleHow USAG destroyed young women
For Maclean’s on January 29, 2018 Beyond inherent ability and genetic advantage, success in high-performance artistic sport—gymnastics, ballet, figure skating—requires militant self-discipline and...
View ArticleAnthony Bourdain, suicide, and lifelines
For the CBC on June 12, 2018 Many of us experience a heaviness in the early morning hours; a feeling that the Swedish word vargtimmen perfectly encapsulates. Robert Macfarlane, author of The Lost...
View ArticleTrudeau, #MeToo, and a poisoned discussion
For Maclean’s on July 23, 2018 #MeToo, in most respects, has been an undeniable force for good. This movement of education and empowerment, of courage and justice, has shattered the silence around...
View ArticleA guide to Faith Goldy and reporting on bad actors
For Canadaland on September 26, 2018 On January 25, 2018, Roosh V — real name Daryush Valizadeh, a rank misogynist and denizen of the so-called “manosphere” — hosted a live-streamed discussion of...
View Article
