Editor’s Note: When I realized I would be publishing this year on the 41st anniversary of the sinking of the Ocean Ranger, I decided to reprint this piece from 2022—the preface to Susan Dodd’s 2012 book, The Ocean Ranger: remaking the promise of oil, with permission from Fernwood Books.  Read More

On Monday, we paused to remember the 26 men who died 30 years ago, when the Westray coal mine exploded in Westville, Nova Scotia. Westray is one of the low points in Canada’s history of patronage-driven job creation schemes and the failure of government to regulate corporate profit-seeking. Remembering thoseRead More

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the sinking of the oil rig, Ocean Ranger, off the coast of Newfoundland with the loss of the entire crew—84 men, my brother Jim among them. The Spectator is marking this anniversary by republishing the preface to my 2012 book, The Ocean Ranger: remaking the promiseRead More

I was visiting my mother a few years ago, in the seniors’ home where she now lives, in BC. Mom introduced me to a well-dressed lady: “This is my daughter. She’s come from Nova Scotia to visit me.” “Oh!” the lady offered brightly, “my husband used to run oil rigsRead More

“You have driven my husband wild with your book!” This is how Jane Crosbie welcomed me on my first visit to Government House in Saint John’s, Newfoundland in 2012. When my book The Ocean Ranger: Remaking the Promise of Oil came out, the then-Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador roaredRead More

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth in a series of articles about the conclusions of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) inquiry. You can read the first one here, the second here, the third here and the fourth here.   How might reclaiming the rightful “power andRead More

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a series of articles about the conclusions of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) inquiry. You can read the first one here, the second here and the third here.)   To show how Canada—and we in it—perpetrate genocide against Indigenous womenRead More

Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of articles about the conclusions of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) inquiry. You can read the first one here and the second here.)   Cassidy Bernard, a young mother died last fall in We’koqma’q (Whycocomagh). Last week,Read More

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles about the conclusions of Canada’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) inquiry. You can read the first one here.)   Why does the MMIWG inquiry declare a “Canadian genocide”? Why raise such a storm of controversy overRead More

“We recognized the need for a national public inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and we have commissioners who came back with findings of fact and with calls to action. “We thank them for their work, we applaud their work and we accept their findings, including thatRead More