On Trump’s cabal of extremists
OTTAWA—Watching the events of Jan. 6 in the U.S. capital play out in real time was an almost sickening experience. I watched in horror as President Donald Trump addressed a massive throng of his devoted loyalists. Instead of deflating the crowd, Trump fired them up with fury. He vowed to never concede he had lost […]
Biden should push to limit presidential pardon powers
At the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, in 1787, held to decide how independent America was going to be governed as a republic, Alexander Hamilton proposed that the president be vested with the power to pardon. The proposal, seen as a pre-Independence legacy of the royal prerogative of pardon that had been present under English rule, […]
Why countries should take heed of U.K.’s vaccine-triage approach
LONDON, U.K.—Triage is always crude and messy, and there are always mistakes, but the goal is to save as many lives as possible in an emergency where there are not enough medical resources to save everybody. That certainly applies to the pandemic, and there is certainly rough-and-ready triage going on right now in hospitals across […]
Trump loyalists abandon ship, but can’t outrun their treachery to America
HALIFAX—And so the lame schmuck presidency of Donald Trump lurches toward the exits. A few weeks back in this space, I opined that his leaving would be ugly. With five dead on the Capitol Grounds after Trump’s pitchfork brigade’s antics, I stand by that observation. This U.S. president, a liar, a bully, a masher, an […]
Trump’s ugly legacy has unleashed a venom in America
OTTAWA—Whether or not Donald Trump remains in office for the next two weeks is hardly the point. His ugly legacy has unleashed a venom in America that will be very difficult to suppress. The world has watched in horror as domestic terrorists stormed the capital, wreaking havoc and death on the ultimate symbols of American […]
Trudeau should be slamming Trump’s demagoguery, more vociferously
Last week, Canada joined the rest of the world in watching a group of rioters seemingly try to literally burn down their democracy. The mob that descended on Capitol Hill on Jan. 6 was stirred up, incited, and ultimately directed by U.S. President Donald Trump, who, along with his allies and family members, had for […]
COVID is exacerbating regional, provincial, and inter-personal tensions
CHELSEA, QUE.—The most insidious thing about this pandemic is the way it turns strangers into threats and everyone into a stranger. This is most obvious, perhaps, in border cities like Ottawa-Gatineau, where interprovincial bridges were closed during the first wave. As cases in the National Capital Region rise again—not quite in tandem on both sides […]
de Adder’s Take: 01-11-2020
Will 2021 be any better than 2020?
OTTAWA—The first five days of 2021 seemed promising, until the American insurgency went down on Jan. 6. The world stood wide-eyed in shock, Twitter lost its collective mind, and there went all hopes of a dry January. In 2020, the moments of calm were even more notable when surrounded by grim numbers of COVID cases […]
No, not all nuclear materials and by-products are safely stored in a highly regulated environment, says letter writer
Re: “We cannot afford to be naive about climate change—renewables and nuclear must work together,” by John Gorman, The Hill Times, Dec. 14, 2020. Mr. Gorman states “the nuclear industry is the only energy industry that can account for all its by-products. While fossil-fuel emissions go into the atmosphere and other industrial waste goes to […]
