Tag: Canada

Polio behind a plastic screen

(Long Read)   It was the late spring of 1957. I was six, just about to turn seven. One afternoon, I was walking home from school when I suddenly began to feel pain in my legs and shoulder. Our house in the temporary Smeltersite settlement in the new town of Kitimat, British Columbia was uphill […]

In memory of Alice Munro

Canadian author, Nobel Prize winner and master of the short story, Alice Munro, has passed away at 92. This photo was taken on September 21, 2005 at Massey Hall,during the CBC Lockout, when the leaders of Canadian arts came together rally in support of CBC workes on the picket lines. Munro’s superb short stories gained […]

Rex Murphy, dead at 77, from astute commentator to bitter curmugeon

Rex Murphy, one of Canada’s best known, loved and hated TV commentators and columnists has died at 77. I have mixed feelings about his passing. I was Rex Murphy’s online editor from 1998 to 2003 when I was web producer for CBC’s The National. In those days his writing was superb and he had incitive […]

The Ottawa protestors are partying on the 80th anniversary of a real crime against humanity the sook ching massacre in Singapore.

(Warning: This post may be triggering to people or their families who were victims of real crimes against humanity. I didn’t want to raise the temperature of the  Ottawa protest debate but the continuation of the blockades and remembering the anniversary date compelled me to write this). The so-called freedom convoy protestors on the streets […]

Aranzazu Banks, horror on Hecate Strait, in Canadian Dreadful anthology

            A mariner sailing from  BC’s  Douglas Channel to Haida Gwaii is seduced by mysterious lights on Hecate Stait, not knowing a seductive monster lurks off Aranzazu Banks. My short story Aranzazu Banks appears in the new anthology of Canadian horror and magic realism Canadian Dreadful  edited by David Torcher […]

Re-elected Harper government to crack down on dual citizens of Beringian origin

A re-elected Harper government would crack down on dual citizens originally from Beringia, sources are saying. The sources say Harper and his advisors consider many Beringians to be a threat to Canada or at least to Harper’s vision of Canada. According to Statistics Canada there were at least 1,400,685  residents of Beringian origin in Canada […]

Marmite

Marmite kept my father alive.

Updates with CFIA statement saying Marmite not banned When I was a little kid my father insisted—yes insisted—that I eat my Marmite. This morning I woke up to the news that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has apparently banned Marmite, a yeast extract spread, in this country, along with some other British “comfort foods.” (After […]