2020
Musical interlude
Foals – Mountain At My Gates
Airbus and the Ghost of Brian Mulroney
A blast from the past. A German-Canadian huckster. A former Progressive Conservative cabinet minister. A dodgy prime minister. A European aircraft giant with a reputation for handing out easy money.…
Trump’s "Little Blue Dress" Moment?
It was a semen stain on Monica Lewinsky’s little blue dress that Ken Star used to skewer Bill Clinton. DNA don’t lie. Now Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carrol, who…
French Navy Sails to Defend Greece – Against Turkey
Another story that has gone largely unnoticed on our side of the Atlantic concerns growing tensions between two NATO members, Greece and Turkey, that have now drawn France to send…
Nicola Sturgeon – Scotland Wants Out
Today is not going down well with one of the UK’s component nations, Scotland. First minister, Nicola Sturgeon, put it plainly: “As of 11:00 pm tonight (2300 GMT) the U.K.…
Hungarian Anschluss, Orban Style. Poland Drives Stake Into Heart of Democracy.
There’s a lot going on in Europe these days that escapes much notice on our side of the pond. We hear about the rise of “illiberal democracy,” a term coined…
Is Toronto’s Head on the Climate Block?
Toronto may be in line to get hammered by climate change in the decades to come. Out of 85 major cities around the world, Toronto is projected to experience the…
Amid forestry struggles, panel finds ‘surprising’ consensus on old-growth logging concerns in B.C.
By Sarah Cox Two members of a government-appointed panel tell The Narwhal they heard an unexpected level of agreement about the need to ‘get back to the land’ and move…
What You Need to Know – The First Week of 2020
The newest episode of “What You Need to Know” is now up. In this episode Alyson Fair, Hussain Shorish and I talk about the return of the House of Commons…
Ontario revenue up $1.5 billion since November – but no new health care spending announced
Ontario’s third quarter finances came out yesterday. They confirm that although planned health care funding has increased $404.1 million since the 2019/20 Budget, no further increase has been achieved since…
The Trumpling Campaign of the Con Clown Erin O’Toole
For most of his short and undistinguished parliamentary career, Erin O'Toole has been little more than a mouth that roars.An annoying but relatively harmless Harper stooge.But now he's running for…
Brexit – the Final Countdown
The Brits, half of them anyway, are looking forward to midnight and Britain’s official departure from the European Union. The Euros, on a different time zone, will mark the event…
Not Going as Planned: The Others Who Say They’re in the Race
As we end the month of January there has been a lot of digital ink spilled over the Conservative Leadership Race and the serious potential candidates who decided to stay…
The Conservatives’ Big Problem
The Conservatives have a big problem: they don’t know what to do about the social conservatives in their midst. Susan Delacourt writes: Social conservatives are definitely falling out of fashion…
Friday Morning Links
Assorted content to end your week. – George Monbiot recognizes that our climate policy needs to be based on maximizing our shift to a sustainable society, not on trying to…
Coronavirus claims a Canadian victim
…for a joke. A joke. It may have been a bit too soon, or too edgy, or whatever. That’s fair. But to destroy an award-winning journalist’s entire career over it?…
City bungled emergency. Residents paid price. #nlpoli
EOCs bring key people together in one spot with the information needed to make crucial decisions during an emergency. Now we know why the City of St. John’s emergency response…
It’s Time For Our Forward-Thinking North Cowichan Council To Establish a Tree Protection By Law
Dear North Cowichan Mayor and Council; I strongly urge our forward-thinking council to read and recommend, as soon as possible and with advertised public input, a North Cowichan tree-protection…