Clips, selected:
Magazine and long-form:
Robert Pickton on trial: the case of the pig farm killings
Time magazine, 2007
The murders of dozens of women put Vancouver in the spotlight as gruesome details emerge in the mass-murder trial of area pig farmer Robert Pickton
Canada’s aboriginal adoption crisis
Chatelaine magazine, 1998
Thousands of aboriginal children in Canada are parked in the foster care system. Jones considers this situation and some successful examples of transracial adoption.
The perfect baby?
Chatelaine magazine, 1998
The meeting of new reproductive technologies and human genetics could give couples the option of producing healthier babies, but there are serious ethical issues surrounding this possibility.
Deadly errors
Chatelaine magazine, 1998
Medical mistakes and human error killed a four-year-old child in a Halifax hospital. Understanding why it happened, and not just placing blame, is necessary to stop it from happening again.
PCL: construction master builder
The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine, 1996
PCL became Canada’s largest construction company through solid business fundamentals. But can it prevail against the harsh realities of the international scene?
Vancouver: Fool’s paradise – or 21st Century model?
The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine, 1996
In 1996, Vancouver is envisioned as the last, best chance to create in North America a nearly perfect major metropolis, a world city of ethnic diversity and determined civility that might just serve as a model for 21st-century urban planners on every continent.
Guns and money: The new abortion wars
Chatelaine, 1996
The politics of abortion in Canada in the 1990s are defined by guns and money.
In animation, anything is possible
The Financial Post magazine, 1995
When words, still art or live-action film fail to capture an idea, animation – the medium of choice for interactive video and computer games and programs – fills the breech. But animation’s growth also reflects advances in technology and its perfect fit with New Economy trends.
The bullies of Moser River
The Globe and Mail FOCUS, 1994
For years, the residents of the tiny Nova Scotia community of Moser River pleaded unsuccessfully for protection from a group of hooligans who have terrorized the town. Then Donald Findlay died.
Fly me to the moon
The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine, 1994
Craig Dobbin’s CHC Helicopters swooped in to buy any rival or fly any mission, including sorties into war-torn Rwanda and the turbulent waters of the North Sea, on its way to becoming the world’s largest helicopter company.
Robo-shop: a model for a future without human workers
The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine, March, 1994
Plant 41, a Nova Scotia aircraft engine factory where robots are the stars, is a model of teamwork between humans and computers for its giant U.S. parent, and an example of the ominous jobless economy.
Global harvest of the seas
The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine, October, 1994
Undaunted by the disappearance of its Atlantic Canada fish stock, FPI has cast its nets wider, transforming itself into one of the continent’s top marketers of fish plucked from waters the world over
Canada’s homegrown pimping industry
Chatelaine magazine, 1994
No one knows how many teenage girls have been coerced into a life of prostitution by men from the Halifax-area community of North Preston. Dozens of pimps were jailed; scores of young women gave evidence of torture and confinement in cities across the continent; a few have been killed. And Canada’s homegrown teen-pimping industry is still very much alive.
Netting profits: is aquaculture the future?
The Globe and Mail Report on Business Magazine, October, 1994
Does New Brunswick’s thriving aquaculture industry points one path to survival for Atlantic Canada’s devastated fishery?
Northern cod: an ecological and economic disaster
Chatelaine magazine, 1993
The moratorium on fishing northern cod off Newfoundland hit like a shock wage in Bonavista, where people trace their ancestry – and reliance on the fish – back five centuries
The Buddhists of Halifax
The Globe and Mail FOCUS, 1991
Buddhists have flocked to the traditional, former British outpost of Halifax, to establish a world headquarters for followers of the late Tibetan lama Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Life:
Bragging rights on snow
New York Times, 2006
What is the difference between God and a ski instructor? God doesn’t want to be a ski instructor. Students in Level One of the Canadian Ski Instructors Alliance, however, very much do — or at least earn the badge.
Imprisoned women and dogs help each other rehabilitate
The Globe and Mail FOCUS, December 28, 2006
Dozens of delinquent dogs and female inmates are helping each other rehabilitate
Mad descents
New York Times, 2006
Espresso is a gnarly mountain-bike trail on British Columbia’s famous North Shore for bikers — and these are ”bikers,” whose body armor and monstrous downhill machines make other cyclists seem effete. Though a mere cyclist, I am here to stretch my comfort zone, and hopefully survive.
“Killer” road: Canada’s demonic and blissful Sea to Sky
Vancouver Sun, 2001
If Canada’s demonic and blissful Sea to Sky Highway were human it would be a Lothario. Highway 99 gets to you, in a purple prose kind of way, as does no other road.
No home for the Flower Children
The Globe and Mail, 1997
For decades, the southern shoreline of Vancouver Island was the idyllic home to social misfits, free spirits and unreconstructed hippies. And then the government started sending eviction notices.
The Rankin Family
Chatelaine magazine, 1993
Nothing – politicians, fame, or drunks – fazed this Canadian Celtic folk band, named group of the year at the 1993 Canadian Country Music Awards, as they wrestle with the cusp of stardom.
Northern art finds a southern home
The Globe and Mail December 28, 1983
Houston North Gallery aims to succeed in the global art world from a base in Nova Scotia, thousands of kilometers from the Inuit artists in Canada’s Arctic they represent.
News:
Canada faces deadly fentanyl overdose crisis
Agence France-Presse, 2017
The wealthy Pacific coast city of Vancouver is the bleak epicenter of an opioid epidemic.
Activists vow ‘resistance’ as courts to rule on Canada pipeline
Agence France-Presse, 2017
Activists and oil companies are counting on the courts to decide on a controversial expansion of the TransMountain pipeline from Alberta’s oil sands to Canada’s West Coast.
U.S. court affirms equality of same sex marriage
Facts and Opinions, 2015
By just a single vote, a bitterly split United States Supreme Court ruled the U.S. constitution grants same sex couples “equal dignity in the eyes of the law.” Both the majority ruling affirming the right of same-sex citizens to marry, and the dissenting opinions, blaze with fiery passion, angst and literary fervour.
Canadian Court Expands Aboriginal Rights
Facts and Opinions, 2015
Canada’s top court greatly expanded aboriginal rights in Canada’s westernmost province, in what may stand as a landmark decision, in Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia, affecting control of a vast swath of land and resources, in British Columbia and beyond.
Nepal’s Predictable Agony
Facts and Opinions, 2015
The massive earthquake that shattered Nepal on Saturday came as no surprise. The long-term fix to Nepal’s challenges will be anything but simple.
The mysterious deaths of the Blue Whales
Facts and Opinions, 2014
The deaths of nine blue whales in thick ice near the shores of Newfoundland shook and baffled researchers who study the creatures.
Report says 90 companies cause 2/3 of climate change, past and present
Facts and Opinions, 2013
International debates about climate change focus on blaming nations, and which of them should pay the bills. That changed with new research that claims just 90 companies are responsible for two-thirds of emissions linked with human-caused global warming. Researcher Richard Heede aims to change the game — and to name and shame.
Canadians open first bitcoin ATM
Agence France-Presse 2013
Three young entrepreneurs opened an automated teller in this Western Canadian city, calling it the world’s first ATM able to exchange bitcoins for any official currency.
Chinese “most-wanted” fugitive Lai Changxing deported from Canada
Agence France-Presse 2011
A Canadian court cleared the way for China’s most-wanted fugitive. Lai Changxing, to be sent home to face expected criminal charges.
Greenpeace hits 40
Agence France-Presse, 2011
A simple phone call about dead sea otters washing up on the shores of Alaska after United States nuclear tests led to the birth of environmental organization Greenpeace. Four decades later, Greenpeace has had a tumultuous path.
Adbusters magazine lit fuse for Occupy movement
Agence France-Presse, 2011
“Occupy” protests against corporate power in the United States began in the basement of an old house in Vancouver, at the world headquarters of Adbusters magazine.
Humans 1: Artificial Intelligence 0 (for now)
Agence France-Presse, 2007
Scientists have now developed computers that can beat humans at chess, checkers and backgammon. But if Polaris wins the essentially psychological game of poker – with its inherent bluffing, emotions, deliberate deception and elements of chance as well as mathematics – experts say it will be a major milestone for the progress of Artificial Intelligence.
Beat Cops on the High Seas
The Globe and Mail, 2006
Illegal drift-net fish boats are hunted by a high-seas posse of Russian, U.S., Canadian, Japanese, South Korean and Chinese officers using shared ships and technology.
Not Guilty: Questions abound after Air India terrorism trial
Time magazine, 2005
Conflicts over nationalism linger in the Canadian-Sikh community, after not-guilty verdict in terrorism trial
Soon, there will be no fish — Daniel Pauly
The Globe and Mail, 2005
From his separation from his mother as a toddler in postwar France, to his deprived childhood as a live-in servant in Switzerland, to his recent winning of a prestigious Japanese award, Daniel Pauly’s life is like a Dickensian tale writ large. For years, the Vancouver-based marine biologist has worked on the devastation of the world’s oceans and their inhabitants, helping to bring the issue into the spotlight.
Bill Rees’s big shoes: ‘ecological footprint’ inventor
Time magazine, 2005
Ecological economist William Rees invented the Ecological Footprint, a tool used worldwide to assess the environmental impact of human communities.
Michael Walker: controversial Fraser Institute founder moves on
The Globe and Mail, 2005
Few Canadians incite such extremes of rage or admiration as Michael Walker, the retiring founder of the Fraser Institute
Orcas condemned to die
The Globe and Mail, July 20, 2002.
The viral tale of Springer, the spunky orphaned orca, has the superficial tenderness of a Disney flick. Below the surface, however, lurks a film noir. Why are the killer whales of the Pacific Northwest disappearing?
Germ Warfare
Chatelaine magazine, 1995
In the war between germs and antibiotics, this much is no longer in doubt: eventually, bacteria win every battle. The only question is: how long can the cavalry keep arriving with new drugs?
Suicide, or murder? Jane Hurshman Corkum’s violent life, and death
The Globe and Mail newspaper, 1992
Why was Jane Hurshman Corkum found shot to death in her car in Halifax, a decade after she blew out her husband’s brain as he slept?
Africville: Nova Scotia remembers
The Globe and Mail, 1988
The dispersion of residents from Africville, mostly into public housing, remains a sore point in Nova Scotia. Africville is bitterly and romantically remembered as an impoverished but solid community wiped out by discrimination.
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