Ever since reading Linda McQuaig on Connaught Labs — the “public” lab that McQuaig argues, convincingly, could have helped Canada fight the COVID-19 pandemic had it not been privatized by the Mulroney government in the ’80s — I’ve been thinking about the value of publicly owned businesses and looking atRead More

Editor’s Note: We’re dipping into Michelle Smith’s archives to provide timely tips for gardeners.   What to do this week This week, we continue with the soil nutrients I introduced last week. We are left with N, P and K. I would like to give you an idea of whatRead More

“We now send greetings and thanks to our eldest Brother, the Sun. Each day without fail he travels the sky from east to west, bringing the light of a new day. He is the source of all the fires of life…” — From Greetings to the Natural World, the ThanksgivingRead More

Old Don Cameron Donald Cameron became premier of Nova Scotia in 1991 the same way Iain Rankin is poised to become premier next Tuesday: by winning the leadership of his party (the Tories) after the elected premier (John Buchanan) stepped down. When Cameron did lead the party to the polls,Read More

Most people who live in a ‘free country’ like Canada believe they have the right to a healthy environment. We feel we are entitled to all that is imbedded in that philosophy — clean water, fresh air, healthy food, etc. Those of us who live in a rural setting (18%Read More

Back in November, Spectator contributor Tera Camus pitched me a story about local UFO sightings which sounded like fun and so I said yes and then she wrote it and then I sat on it for a few weeks, intending to add some additional information, and then Christmas came andRead More

Author’s Note: As this year unlike any other grinds to a bleak close, I offer – in the spirit not of prophecy, but satiric thought-experiment – ‘alternate universe’ visions of the near future. And bear with me, dear reader, as I first appear to lose my mind…   “The extremelyRead More

Millions of people from around the globe have been expressing their well-founded views about the need for substantial changes because they realize in order to survive as a species we have to change what is in our heads. As an example, we collectively know the core scientific factors regarding climateRead More

I have recently been working on a bioethics textbook. Bioethics is a discipline largely driven by case studies – short narratives intended to make the ethical issues under discussion clear, real and urgent. Consequently, many bioethics textbooks include case studies. I want to do something different in this month’s column,Read More

Jennifer A. Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier were recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on the gene-editing tool now known as CRISPR/Cas9. This award has drawn the public’s attention to a technique that has been of interest (and concern) to bioethicists for several years — certainly sinceRead More