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Column: The need for open data in our city
While the Federation of Canadian Municipalities were in town, I helped give a series of tours of an affordable housing project. There were mayors, city councillors, and city administrators who came...
View ArticleIf You Build It, They Will Come
My column in today’s The StarPhoenix Years ago I was in Bahamas and had a chance to go swimming with sharks. A company took us in the middle of the Caribbean, tossed down a box of chum into the ocean...
View ArticleColumn: Ignoring mental health costly
My column this week Over the last couple of weeks I have received a nonstop series of death threats against me in a variety of forms. I have been told that I was going to be kicked through a window, my...
View ArticleColumn: Double Bunking Doesn’t Work
This week’s column in The StarPhoenix Last week the Internet news site iPolitics reported that Iwan Zinger, the executive director of the Office of Correctional Investigations, raised a series of...
View ArticleColumn: Health Privacy Needs to Be a Priority
My column in Tuesday’s The StarPhoenix Two seemingly unrelated stories that came out recently are more connected than we realize. Bell’s Let’s Talk campaign hit full speed last week. The campaign is...
View ArticleWhat have we done?
From The StarPhoenix’s blog. Â A note from the giant icicle before it was torn down. Â Luckily Jeremy Warren was there to get the story. You must know a few things before they hack me apart and I melt...
View ArticleThe Revenge of the Nerdist
The StarPhoenix talks about one of my favourite podcasts, Nerdist. Nerdist – which itself has expanded from its humble origins to include a premium content YouTube channel, podcast offshoots and a...
View ArticleColumn: Save church as gift to future
My column in today’s The StarPhoenix More than 100,000 churches and parishes across North America have closed their doors over the past decade. Entire denominations have disappeared or have had to...
View ArticleDoes growth pay for growth?
Excellent article by Charles Hamilton in The StarPhoenix It’s a question cities throughout Western Canada have been grappling with for decades: does new development pay for itself ? Does the city spend...
View ArticleColumn: Heavy Prices Paid for Low Taxes
My column in today’s The StarPhoenix If you happened to have watched the discussions during last week’s city council meeting about snow removal and business taxes in Saskatoon, you would have left with...
View ArticleColumn: Feds must step up for housing
My column in yesterday’s The StarPhoenix (not breaking a lot of news around here today) In late March, the international aid organization World Vision released a report titled Poverty at Your...
View ArticleSaskatoon needs downtown drop-in centre
My column in The StarPhoenix Saskatoon has been in an uproar over the suggestion the city spend $40,000 to remove the benches in the vicinity of the McDonald’s restaurant on Second Avenue and 22nd...
View ArticleInterview with Gerald Bauman of 650 CKOM on poverty in Saskatoon
I sat down with Gerald Bauman on the Brent Loucks Show and we talked about 2nd Avenue and 22nd Street, poverty, and crime in Saskatoon Listen here.
View ArticleColumn: Prison no place for mentally ill
Today’s column in The StarPhoenix Of the 15,400 people in federal prisons last year, 610 of them were women. This number has grown about 40 per cent in the last five years and the number of aboriginal...
View ArticleColumn: Making Winters Work
My column in today’s The StarPhoenix A well-travelled friend once told me that Saskatoon and northern Saskatchewan were the greatest places on Earth to be in the summer and the world’s worst places to...
View ArticleColumn: City must go beyond status quo
My column in today’s The StarPhoenix I would love to shut the door on 2013 and move on, but there are always loose threads as you move into a new year. Some things just never get dealt with and can...
View ArticleColumn: War on drugs wrong approach
Today’s column for The StarPhoenix Unlike politicians who are riding high in the polls, I have never used pot, or any other illegal drug for that matter. That puts me out of touch with voters both...
View ArticleColumn:Mobile services effective option
My column in today’s The StarPhoenix My ears perk up whenever I hear Coun. Pat Lorje talk about the concentration of social service agencies in Saskatoon, because it is a very hard problem to fix...
View ArticleA bit of this and that
None of these really need a full blog post but for those that care and for those that don’t… A New Project I am starting a book that I hope to have done by the end of the year.  I have a full...
View ArticleThe StarPhoenix: When it comes to transit, Saskatoon talks a better game than...
From today’s The StarPhoenix editorial. Given the fiasco involving route cancellations that greeted riders on the first day of a new school year, it’s difficult to take seriously the City of...
View ArticleRandom Thursday Thoughts
I have hated this time of year for the last two years. This weekend I am going to write and file two columns for The StarPhoenix. Not a big deal but it wraps up my 2016. Since I know what I am...
View ArticleColumn: Reply All
As I was trying to figure out what bothered me the most over Eric Olauson’s latest “lack of judgement”, I realized it was the normalcy that the Saskatchewan Party and the Premier showed towards all of...
View ArticleColumn: Innovative and Lower Cost Housing Options
When does housing become unaffordable? Housing prices in Toronto are now averaging over a million dollars and people are freaking out. Is it that much worse than a housing average of $750,000? Is...
View ArticleColumn: Saskatoon Urban Beaches
The response to my last week’s column all had a similar theme. Many of you commented that the city doesn’t have anyplace to swim inside city limits along the river. While growing up one thing was made...
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This and that
Christmas shopping is underway. Wendy and I have a shared Google Keep list that we are using to keep track of our list and since it updates automatically and is available to our phones, it makes the...
View ArticleColumn: The Beginning of the End
My column hasn’t been here since the end of May. It was rather unexpected. On the night when I write my column and put it together, I found myself at Royal University Hospital with a sharp pain in...
View ArticleColumn: Haters going to hate hate hate
As a city, Saskatoon is rather sensitive about things. Historically we have gotten upset over recycling, a home economics classrooms, bridges, any and all mill rate increases, road repairs when we...
View ArticleTaxpayers can’t subsidize poorly behaved sports franchises
Art Briles. I still can’t believe it. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats actually tried to hire Art Briles. For those of you who haven’t heard, Art Briles is the former coach at Baylor University and while...
View ArticleCommunity Business Districts
My column in today’s The StarPhoenix. I found myself in Mortlach, Saskatchewan over the long weekend. It was the first time my kids had been on Highway #1 and the first time I ever found myself in...
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