Politics
In my Ottawa Citizen column this week I enlisted the help of BeePBot, my own personal imaginary AI writing assistant, to create a short sci-fi story about how cool Ottawa would be if we started making all the right decisions. No legal writing to share this week and if I
Urbanism
My personal big news this week is my departure from Substack, for reasons I explained here. I had first heard about the moderation issues in early December and didn’t really want them to be true because damn, migrating from one platform to another is not the most fun in
Urbanism
In my Ottawa Citizen column this week I express gratitude for the privilege I have of engaging with readers in the paper, online, and on jogging and bike paths throughout the city. Columnizing is my absolute favourite thing to do, because a) it’s cheaper than therapy to get most
Urbanism
A lighter roundup this week as I am taking some much-needed personal time to recharge. In my Ottawa Citizen column I highlight the latest pedestrian plan unveiled by the city of Paris last month and ask why on earth we can’t do something like that here. We even have
Politics
My, oh my is there a lot of activity suddenly on housing. About time, of course. But at the same time, shame that it’s all upside-down. I guess when you’re dealing with politicians politicking in political ways, that’s to be expected. Momentum got going in October when
Gender
In my Ottawa Citizen column this week I discuss the role we’re asking public libraries to play when we cut services elsewhere and generally privatize everything. This was prompted by a news item about the OPL requesting a $3M security upgrade in light of an uptick in incidents where
Urbanism
In my Ottawa Citizen column I discuss a successful public-private partnership I discovered when I took up ultimate. Domes in Ottawa are a rare example of something useful that was done right and that enjoys a great deal of success and no criticism that I can see. What lessons does
Urbanism
In my Ottawa Citizen column this week I answered the question asked by the National Capital Commission and the City of Ottawa about what the Rideau Canal means to me. It is quintessentially Ottawa-esque in that it can be beautiful but is mostly under-utilized, and not in a good way.
Urbanism
I’m not much of a bible reader but I do enjoy a great horror story so the one about the plagues of Egypt was always kind of attractive that way. I wondered this week what, in modern-day Ottawa, could count as plagues and I found a few things. Since
Urbanism
In my Ottawa Citizen column this week I allow myself a little bit of mild woot-wootingon housing. No, we’re nowhere near getting close to attempting to solve the crisis. But it’s important to acknowledge small crumbs of good news. In my legal writing for National Magazine I have
Politics
My column for the Ottawa Citizen this week discusses the recent spike in anti-semitic incidents and how we should at the very least let our Jewish neighbours know we’re there and we care. In my legal writing for National Magazine I have a piece on the impact of the
Urbanism
In my Ottawa Citizen column this week I blow a gasket at the extreme speeding and general lack of driving skills found on too many streets in Ottawa. In my legal writing for National Magazine I have a review of Ben Perrin’s most excellent book, Indictment: The Criminal Justice