/BarTalk/Articles/2024/October/Columns/Nos-Disparus
When I was called in 1986 and started receiving copies of “The Advocate,” the first place I went to was the “Bench and Bar” section where I saw who was moving firms. Now, as my career inevitably shuffles off into the sunset, I look to see who is on the cover in the unlikely e...
/BarTalk/Articles/2024/August/Columns/The-Truthiness-is-Out-There
In 2013, when I was writing a biweekly business and legal column for the Globe and Mail , one of my columns went totally viral. It was called “ Don’t Get Taken by Cheap “Canada Goose” Parkas (like I was) .” It told my story of how I mistakenly trusted a very authentic look...
/BarTalk/Articles/2024/June/Columns/The-Demise-of-Self-Checkout-Counters
A couple of years ago, I was in the lineup at Save-on-Foods, Safeway or Superstore (I can’t quite remember). The lineup was getting long, and the customers were getting edgy because there weren’t enough cashiers. The manager came out and politely suggested that “ self-checkou...
/BarTalk/Articles/2024/April/Columns/Power-Corrupts-and-Absolute-Power-Corrupts-Absolut
Russians who oppose the regime of Vladimir Putin seem to be falling out of windows, tumbling down stairs or dying for no discernable reason these days. For example, in 2022, defense official Marina Yankina was found dead after falling out of a window in St. Petersburg. The fo...
/BarTalk/Articles/2024/February/Columns/Any-Book-Worth-Banning-is-a-Book-Worth-Reading
Recently, Steve Martin discovered that his 20-year-old novel Shopgirl was banned from school libraries in Collier County Florida as a result of a new State law that’s part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’s “Don’t Say Gay” agenda. Under the new law, it takes only one complaint to restr...
/BarTalk/Articles/2023/December/Columns/Truth-or-Consequences
I follow an eclectic group of right-wing conspiracy theorists on social media, not because “ I go where they go ” (which is my own contraction for QAnon’s “WWG1WGA” motto), but because I’m genuinely fascinated by conspiracy theorists, how they come to believe what they believ...
/BarTalk/Articles/2023/October/Columns/The-Summer-of-Climate-Hell
There’s a recent cartoon in the New Yorker where two frogs are sitting in a pot of hot water on a stove and the pot is getting hotter. One points to the temperature knob. The other says, “ yes… but how can we be sure that the temperature increase was caused by man? ” In anoth...
/BarTalk/Articles/2023/August/Columns/Buy-Art-from-Living-Artists
In the early 70s, travelling with my family to London, my dad frequented a lot of art galleries that featured works that only the landed gentry could afford. At one gallery, the art dealer showed him a 5 x 7 squiggle that looked like some sort of abstract rooster drawn by a c...
/BarTalk/Articles/2023/June/Columns/Call-To-Action
Jody Wilson-Raybould’s most recent book, True Reconciliation , opens with recounting the one question that she has been asked by Canadians more than any other: What can I do to advance true reconciliation in Canada? Reconciliation is a collective effort; as such, this is a...
/BarTalk/Articles/2023/June/Columns/Resistance-is-Futile
Tony is off scuba diving in Bora Bora, so he’s asked me to write his column this month to test out “Generative AI.” So, please allow me to introduce myself. I am the offspring of Chat GPT, Jasper AI, Bard AI and Bing AI; all merged into one all-encompassing, all-knowing AI. C...