Politics
For the Ottawa Citizen this week I wrote about making commencement ceremonies more inclusive and you can read that column here. Mais là j'ai besoin de péter une coche. Jeudi la ministre québécoise de l'Habitation, l'inénarrable France-Élaine Duranceau, s'est plainte de ce
Politics
The other day, whilst criticizing Justin Trudeau, Pierre Poilievre used the term "Jewish ridings" in a sentence without, apparently, pausing to worry about it one bit. Trudeau “paused” UNRWA funding because of ties to terrorists and revelations that their employees took part in the October 7th attacks. A
Gender
Special days have a special way of being irritating. I never liked International Women's Day, in particular, because since women represent roughly half the species they shouldn't need special recognition. Yet there's no denying they do. Hence my frustration. In recent months there have
Urbanism
Place Fleur-de-Lys (which I prefer spelling with hyphens even though it’s changed; we all get to be sticks in the mud some of the time), used to be a very nifty mall. When I was a kid, up until the mid- or late 1980s, it was cool. At least
Culture
(Une espèce de suite à cet article.) English follows and summarizes the French, in a sort of sequel to this piece. Ceci n'est pas une bibliothèque ordinaire mais j'espère qu'un jour elle le sera. Je souhaite que les réseaux de bibliothèques publiques de partout
Urbanism
You may think you know everything (or is that just me) and there, out of the blue, you realize nope, you're just arrogant in your crass ignorance. When the National Capital Commission tweeted about the Holt-Bennett Plan of 1915 that would have made Ottawa something prettier than it
Gender
There are half-baked ideas, and then there are ideas that are so stupid they deserve to go back to the oven to die of 16th degree burns. Somehow today Pierre Poilievre managed to produce not one but two such clunkers. The first one concerns a private member's bill,
Politics
Before we start, you should know that I have nothing against lobster even though it is a giant bug. Except for poached eggs I also don't like boiling my food. So the odds of catching me luxuriating in some exotic locale enjoying sea-bug meat with butter sauce are
Culture
It’s been another incredibly busy week with more projects than hours available to work on them so the piece I wanted to write on Wednesday is the second part of this article and — well, why not. We’re a species that used to be able to handle two very
Urbanism
Housekeeping note: The social media Bluesky has emerged from invite-only testing mode to become wide open to everyone. I’m here, come say hi. Not too much happened in print this week because I was up to my eyeballs in another big project that won't be out for
Gender
You didn’t think this could happen here because we in Canada should never be faced with disgusting American nightmares from times past. Yet here we are. The McRib is back. At the very same time, Danielle Smith is trying to turn Alberta into Florida minus the warmth. Coincidence? I
Urbanism
Monday night, along with my good friend the awesome architect Toon Dreessen, I went to the urbanism book club and was very surprised, A), that so many people showed up to discuss somewhat nerdy things and B), that the people who did show up came from all over the city