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San Miguel de Allende: “NAFTA of Literary Festivals” 

By Brian Brennan March, 2018 “Meet acclaimed Canadian authors in San Miguel!” said the invitation. How could one resist? According to the program, three of the seven keynote speakers at this year’s Writers’ Conference & Literary Festival in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico – Emma Donoghue, John Vaillant and Joseph Boyden – would be Canadian. They would join American keynoters Wally Lamb, Jane Friedman and Rita Dove, and Mexican author Jorge Volpi, to talk about some of the “most pressing issues in today’s multi-cultural conversation.” Other Canadian literary panellists, readers, and workshop leaders would include Leanne Dunic, Merilyn Simonds, Sandra Gulland,

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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