Writings - Good Columns

Back home (really late) from Calgary - but The Schmooze podcast is now out! On all the main platforms. Check it out.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - Where does hate come from? Lots of things. Envy, resentment, ideology, economic distress, ignorance, indifference. I’ve been writing about hate for 40 years, and I can tell you that indifference ranks pretty high up on the list, lately. Mark Carney is a practitioner of indifference. He came to a Toronto synagogue a few days ago - ostensibly to deliver a Prime Ministerial denunciation of the variant of hate that is antisemitism - and he couldn’t once articul

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With Don and Jared and me!

Our documentary, The Campaign, has really only been seen once before - privately, with friends and family, a few weeks ago in Toronto. It was well-received. But it was friends and family. Getting invited to show it at the Tev Aviv International Documentary Festival, as we were this afternoon, was something else entirely. As I sat there in the back row, watching people leave while it was still underway, it occurred to me that The Campaign was always going to be received diffe

First showing of our documentary, The Campaign, at the DocAviv documentary festival! Today!

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - More than 9,000 kilometres away from where Mark Carney gave his big speech, the guy selling T-shirts in the Carmel shuk regards his Canadian inquisitor. After a pause, he allows that his best friend lives in Canada, in Vancouver. Does he like it? “He likes it,” the man says, then he pauses. “He also says there are many antisemites there.” He shakes his head. It’s like that a lot, here. Those who will talk, those who know something about Canada, will mentio

Review of The Hidden Hand in today's Winnpeg Free Press calls it "devastating" and "convincing." Snippet: "Does a shadowy web of influence, supported by wealth and global fealty to a controlling religious group, exist? Are people and communities being influenced by a malign cabal sowing polarization and hatred? Does a hidden hand control economies, media and political engagement of many, wide-ranging others? Canadian author, lawyer, commentator, political consultant and punk

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - There was a time, not so long ago, that people here really, truly loved him. One year and one month ago, for example, hostage families gathered in an auditorium near the centre of this city to plead for the release of their loved ones. They were so, so sad, their suffering visible to all of us who had come to listen to what they had to say. They all spoke in English, not Hebrew. One after another, the family members held up photos of their sons, daughters,

...on a couple Amazon lists - where, I've learned, most people seem to get their books now. Spotted this from a great distance, from my perch in Tel Aviv. Very grateful to all of you for picking up. Honored by that.

Possibly the worst flight of all time. But made it. Now, a couple hours of sleep and then DocAviv for this!

“When you have a problem and a solution,” the barber said, “you don’t have a problem anymore.” “When you have a problem and no solution” - and here he shrugged - “you have a way of life.” The barber worked not far from the Prime Minister’s Office in Ottawa, and spent many years offering wisdom to MPs and Senators. And he was right, of course. His aphorism applies, these days, to Alberta’s erstwhile Premier, Danielle Smith. Smith has a big problem, one entirely of her own maki

At the Tel Aviv International Documentary Festival, June 2 and 3! Pretty cool.

Full disclosure: I despise separatists. My family were all born in Quebec. That was home. But in the Seventies, we had to leave Quebec because the separatists drove us out - we spoke English. There have been two referenda in Quebec on separation. They cost Canada and Quebec jobs, investment and political stability. More than 700 companies left Quebec. Canadian stocks and companies lost value. And the experts say that the national economy was hit with billions in losses, year

This popped up on the Facebook memory thing. Don't know why, but it did. So, I post it here to remember her, as I sit up at the cabin with Joey, her brother. ** Roxy was her name. Before I even met her, that was her name. She was a black lab and boxer mix, and a rescue. I drove out to Woodstock with two of my sons to get her, and the owner – an old-time Ontario PC, who recognized me as a damn Liberal and joked that I couldn’t have her – had already called her Roxy. It fit. So

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