In December 1984, Ward Five Alderman Frank Starzomski put forth a motion calling for Sydney’s City Council to be reduced from 12 members to six. Trimming city council had long been advocated by Sydney’s Shadow Council, a group of citizens—many of them women—who monitored the actual council, although, as theRead More

Premier Monkey’s Paw I was watching that Simpsons’ Halloween special where they spoof “The Monkey’s Paw” (a short story Wikipedia informs me was published in 1902 by the English author W.W. Jacobs) when I had a sudden revelation. It’s a “three wishes” story—the wishes being granted by the monkey’s pawRead More

Food for thought Let’s start with a little game of “Okay, stop” with Sylvain Charlebois—professor in food distribution and policy and senior director of the AgriFood Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University and all-round media darling. Here he is on the question of whether Canada’s three leading grocers have been price-gougingRead More