A euphemism is, the dictionary tells us, “a mild or indirect expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.&rdq...
National Post
National Post
I do not see the world improving next year. Politically, the best news about 2016 is that it will mark the end of the public careers of the two most humility-void, vainglorious politicians in A...
PEN international, a non-political organization now represented in 150 countries, was founded in 1921. Its mandate is to promote literature and support freedom of expression. PEN Canada joined ...
Cartographers locate cities on geographical maps. Writers locate cities in our hearts and minds. As “the great shining star of his Canadian literary generation,” in the words of one...
It’s too bad “white privilege” can’t be packaged up and sold. Otherwise young white males hoping for a future in academia might be able to sell theirs on eBay, and give ...
Fiction writers rarely wonder if they have what it takes to write a punchy opinion column. But plenty of non-fiction writers wonder if they have the creative juice for a work of fiction. I&rsqu...
I return this week to the topic of my last column: Euthanasia, considered until mere decades ago an audacious, immoral notion, has shed its aura of transgression. State endorsement was pioneere...
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s seventh appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada is Justice Russell Brown, of the Alberta Court of Appeal, who will replace Justice Marshall Rothstein up...
A condition called hemispacial neglect, also known as hemiagnosia, is a rare phenomenon in the neurological world, characterized by the inability of those afflicted to process and perceive stim...
In Ecclesiastes it is written, “There is a time for everything, and a season for everything under the sun … a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. …”
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PEN International, the association mandated to support freedom of expression for writers, recently held its 81st annual congress in Quebec City. Every year the organization sums up the prevailing sta...
It is a black day in France for loss of human life and — more important historically — a black day for democracy’s greatest gift to the world: the principle of freedom of spee...
With Barack Obama’s tenure as U.S. president grinding to its definitive end, it’s clear the chasm between the Messiah-like figure he sold himself as in 2008 and the only-too-flawed ...
In the normal course of events, you would not find the small community of Membertou, a branch of the greater tribal group of the Mi’kmaw nation, located within its tribal district of Cape...
Only two countries allow the importation of pit bull type dogs: Canada and the U.S.
In mid-June, 32 rescue dogs were saved from “death’s row” in a Bakersfield, Californi...
It was with a great sigh of relief that all right-thinking Quebecers saw the PQ crash and burn in last spring’s election. The authors of their own defeat, the PQ’s primary strategy ...
For most university students, spring means exams and the search for a summer job. Amongst a certain cadre of Quebec students – a few hundred out of Quebec’s student body of 44,000 &...
Over the years I’ve written many columns about honour killings in Canada’s South Asian communities. Under the terms of Quebec’s proposed Bill 59, my frequent allusion to the d...
Most mainstream news publications publish, you know, news. Except when it’s about “rape culture” on campus, when no news is also considered news. Case in point: following a wi...
Last week University of Ottawa president Allan Rock announced the Gee-Gees men’s hockey team would not be allowed to participate in the 2015-16 season. It would appear that the whole...