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MICHAEL WALKER of the Fraser Institute

DEBORAH JONES November 12, 2005 Michael Walker’s desk in his new office at the Fraser Institute is crammed between the door, a window and a ceiling so low that red tags flutter from overhead sprinklers, warning him not to bash his head. Yet he has taken some space to prop up a large portrait on the floor just inches from his chair. It’s a stodgy youngster with bright red hair, a pug nose and a smoke in his hand. “It’s a joke,” laughs Mr. Walker, who bought the Jennifer Bell painting, a spoof on Thomas Gainsborough’s famous Blue Boy, on

Muskrat Falls hydroelectric – Who buried the risk assessment report?

Ed Martin, former president and CEO of Nalcor Energy. Photo by Greg Locke © 2017
Ed Martin, former president and CEO of Nalcor Energy. Photo by Greg Locke © 2017

ROGER BILL November 25, 2017 ST. JOHN’S, Newfoundland — The man in charge of finishing the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project on the Churchill River in remote central Labrador calls the venture a “boondoggle”. The Newfoundland and Labrador government has established a commission of inquiry to determine why the project is wildly over budget and years behind schedule. A good place for the Commissioner, Judge Richard D. LeBlanc, to start is to find out who buried the warning that there was a “very high risk” of a multi-billion dollar cost overrun barely four months after the massive project was green-lighted in December,

Vancouver fights graffiti with graffiti

Graffiti hidden on the beach of English Bay in Vancouver's tony West Side. © Deborah Jones 2017

DEBORAH JONES: FREE RANGE July, 2005 The very first time he tried writing graffiti, Robbie, a talented teenager whose art has sold in galleries, blundered into Vancouver’s war on graffiti. As he and another high-school student spray-painted images on a seaside retaining wall, an undercover police officer in Canada’s first designated graffiti squad nabbed the pair. Detective Valerie Spicer gave them a choice between a $500 ticket or community service with a peculiar Vancouver twist. The teens chose service, in which offenders are teamed with established mural artists to produce sketches, given unlimited costly spray paint, then sent up for

Africville: Nova Scotia’s blacks remember

Women walking from Africville towards Halifax in 1917. Photo: James & Son, Nova Scotia Archives Photo Collection, Public Domain

DEBORAH JONES: FREE RANGE July 02, 1988 Halifax, NS, Canada —  In Halifax today, what used to be Africville , with all the rich and negative connotations of that name, is a little-used park on the windswept edge of Halifax harbor. From a stark concrete building nearby emanates the clamor and stench of the city’s garbage transfer station, which replaced the dump where many Africville residents once scavenged a living. Nearby, cars speed past on a busy artery. Little is left here of the vibrant and controversial community of about 400 black people who had to leave the area in

Dear Americans: Enough, Already

A woman waits to deliver her harvest at a packing line at a banana plantation operated by a Chinese company in the province of Bokeo in Laos April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva SEARCH "SILVA BANANA" FOR THIS STORY. SEARCH "WIDER IMAGE" FOR ALL STORIES. TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

DEBORAH JONES: FREE RANGE August 19, 2017 Lacking ear plugs strong enough to block the din from America blasting the world, or a mega-phone loud enough to counter the babble, I’m resorting to two letters. Dear non-Americans: There’s a big world out there. Please remember that fact as we remain transfixed on America’s latest horrific but predictable melt-down. Yes, a raging super-power warrants some global attention. It does not require us to gorge on outrage, 24/7. We are riveted wholly on the United States at the expense of other things, many in desperate need of our attention. We risk burn-out,

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