On the Subject of Pandemics
The illness and death toll from the coronavirus, or COVID-19 as it is now known, steadily advances. As I write, the bug has sickened over 95,000 people and killed over…
March 2020
Climate Emergency: A 26-Week Transition Program for Canada (Video)
Climate Emergency: A 26-Week Transition Program for Canada by Guy Dauncey FRSA, PIBC (Hon) What could the government of Canada do if its Ministers, MPs and civil servants knew that…
A Shell insider is behind LNG Canada’s disputed claim about reducing carbon pollution
We have been spoon-fed misinformation from the industry and our provincial and federal governments. Going back to the former Christy Clark BC Liberal government up to and including the present…
New column day
Here, on the Saskatchewan Party’s refusal to accept that nuclear power is as impractical as it is unpopular – and how that fits into the view the province’s voters should…
Wash Your Hands
Green Party of Canada Yesterday at 10:43 · Please save the face masks for those who actually need them– health professionals & patients. Here are some much more effective health…
How Hate Had To Surrender To Our Canadian Values
The railway blockades have been a real test of Canada's character, a measure of its Canadian values.With most favouring compromise and negotiation over the use of force. While others screamed…
Now It’s a Race
It was just earlier today that I wrote about some of the events of the past couple of days in the Conservative Leadership race. While those two stories were interesting…
Coronavirus Update – Panic or Propaganda? Both? Or Simply Mass Insanity? All The Above
As of today, the mass media hype and hysteria over the latest exotic virus continues to spread, unabated. In its wake, mass insanity is spreading nearly as fast. Let’s step…
Democratic establishment deals Super Tuesday blow to Bernie Sanders, but race is far from over
Nurses and friends turned out in support of Bernie Sanders in Los Angeles, California, March 1, 2017, two days before Super Tuesday. Photo by National Nurses United. Super Tuesday did…
Starving for Compassion
My time working in politics showed me a lot of things and exposed me to a lot of situations. But one thing that I saw too much of that I…
Cost savings associated with Housing First
I’ve written a summary of a recent study I co-authored on savings to the health and justice sectors associated with Housing First (i.e., the immediate provision of subsidized housing, along…
Contracting out employment services in Ford’s Ontario
Ontario premier Doug Ford. Photo from Flickr. Ontario’s self-styled government-for-the-people has announced new “prototype” projects to run social service employment programs. Prototype service managers were revealed in February for Hamilton-Niagara,…
Fantasy and Indoctrination: Rough notes on a few fantasy novels: part one
New Spring, The Novel: The Wheel Of Time: In The Beginning – Robert Jordan (so the cover says) (Lord of the Rings films and Terry Brookes Shannara novels got me…
Conscious Political Dehydration
It’s been close to a week since the first list of approved “applicants” for the Conservative Leadership race were announced, which included a surprise or two. Since then the race…
Then There Were Two
Elizabeth Warren has dropped her bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Yesterday the rumour mill circulated the story that Warren had decided to endorse Bernie Sanders. If so, she hasn’t…
"Hamsterkauf" – Trust the Germans to Have a Word For It.
The common hamster is known for its ability to stuff extra food into its cheek pouches. In Germany this has inspired a word for panic buying when there’s some sort…
"at your library" in the north island eagle: let your reading take you someplace new – part 2
Is your reading stuck in a rut? Do you read the same authors all the time? Do you ever search for something new (to you) and different to read? I’m…
I have something in my eye
If this does not make you cry, you can’t. Deanna Dikeman’s parents sold her childhood home, in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1990, when they were in their early seventies. They…
It Makes Perfect Sense
While many bemoan the fate of the Teck Resources Frontier tarsands project as yet another example of restrictive regulatory measures, others, as the following letter from the print edition of…
Successful People are “Lazy”
It’s ok to be lazy. In fact, incorporating come lazy behaviours into your work might make you more productive. As counter-intuitive as that sounds, it’s true. There are certain tricks…