CALGARY—Land acknowledgements are the kind of performances Canadians love to engage in that substitute platitudes for justice. And now the feces have hit the fan. For the past few weeks, the Mi’kmaq people have been asserting their rights to trap lobster off-season,...
In the Press
Don’t expect the post-COVID economic recovery tide to raise all the boats
Oct 14, 2020 | The Hill Times
CALGARY—What were you thankful for this Thanksgiving? If you were lucky enough to spend it with your family, complete with the illustrious feast featuring a cornucopia of traditional food items, count your blessings. There are many people who weren’t able to do so and...
Parliament returns with the theatre of building back better
Sep 30, 2020 | The Hill Times
CALGARY—It’s Fall 2020 and we still have a government. That’s nice. It’s the best one can hope for in the midst of a global pandemic, economic disintegration, and a society that is held together, not by a common purpose, but the tenuous glue of predictable racial...
Trudeau wants us to believe he hasn’t done nothin’—and it’s an easy sell
Jul 29, 2020 | The Hill Times
OTTAWA—When I was a kid, Saturday mornings were my favourite: my dad would come downstairs, put on his LP of choice and make breakfast. It was from this beginning that my musical tastes began to form. Quincy Jones, Sam Cooke, The Drifters, a lot of Otis Redding (my...
Trudeau government is getting a failing grade on supposed feminist bona fides
Jul 22, 2020 | The Hill Times
OTTAWA—In addition to Black and Indigenous people, the Trudeau government is failing women, hard. Since coming to power in 2015, the Liberal government has done the most—and we mean the most—to appear as a feminist government and the saviour of women all over the...
Legacy media can’t seem to shake legacy of white supremacy
Jul 8, 2020 | The Hill Times
OTTAWA—Canadian media are the public relations arm of white supremacy and their inability to credibly cover stories relating to Black, Indigenous, people of colour (BIPOC) is an embarrassment to the nation. Furthermore, their inability to cover the biggest terrorist...
The political mastery of Singh’s dramatic House stand
Jun 24, 2020 | The Hill Times
OTTAWA—Canada is the mediocre white guy in middle management who thinks he’s Walter White. So basically, Canada is Thomas Mulcair. This lack of self-awareness, fuelled by the aromatic scents of white supremacy, is why Canada thinks it’s not racist (in fact, I just...
Save us the ally song and dance—Canada needs action, not more faux-lidarity
Jun 10, 2020 | The Hill Times
OTTAWA—“Alright Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” This iconic line from Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard sums up the Trudeau government’s flirtation with the advancement of social issues: from marching in Toronto Pride in 2016 while Black Lives Matter-Toronto...
Don’t piss on our shoes and tell us Black lives matter
Jun 3, 2020 | The Hill Times
OTTAWA—Burn. It. All. Down. We’ve marched. We’ve bent the knee. We’ve attended your diversity and inclusion workshops that don’t include us and are run by some random privileged white woman. We’ve been on your mostly white diversity panels and working groups. We’ve...