PEREGRINE PULP

The Federal Court of Appeal confirms that the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act was unreasonable and ultra vires [beyond their legal authority], and that it infringed paragraph 2(b) and section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Probably the biggest and most lasting news story of 2025, even here in Canada, was the pending total economic collapse of the US and, as a result, likely that of the world. US consumer spending and GDP was supposed to crater. The imposition of tariffs and general Trumpist chaos was going to further worsen global trade and result, at the very least, in a global trade war — but perhaps translate into a world war — by the end of 2025. These were the predictions of the moderate p

Last summer I was writing about my continuing confusion around pandemic-related matters and my feeling that there remains a serious lack of dialogue around any of it. No one liked that. So, let’s try this again. A TIMELINE - 2020 - January 22 - The WHO convened an emergency meeting about an outbreak of a novel coronavirus called 2019-nCoV. The committee could not reach consensus on declaring a global emergency. J anuary 25 - Ontario confirmed Canada’s first case. British C

Writing about income had me thinking about housing. I’m really not sure why anyone talks about anything else. Curiously, even when I find the matter being discussed, what's presented is seldom anything more than current rental rates or home prices and sales volumes. Pretty rare is something offering any context of any kind. As far as I can tell, adjusted for inflation, a median single family home in Victoria, BC in 1980 was around $400,000. Two decades later the median was ro

I’ve had some wonderful moments out on the quiet of the reef with green sea turtles. (If you’ve never done so, it’s really something you must seek out, even just once. I can recommend some spots.) Because they were abundant where I was, and knowing they’re found all over the planet , throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of every ocean, I never appreciated how threatened they were as a species ( Chelonia mydas ). Accidental catches (mostly fisheries bycatch and aba

The Vancouver Sun just published " Crime destroying B.C. downtowns, municipal leaders warn ." Many other news outlets offered similar reporting. Just a couple weeks ago it was " ' When a street dies, a city dies': B.C. businesses say disorder, crime jeopardizing their survival ." The trouble here is, well, that none of this is happening. We actually have good data on criminal code violations and crime severity in British Columbia (and around the country). And if you go lookin

Comedian Dusty Slay ("Okay. We're havin' a good time.") tells a story about attempting to join the army. The whole thing is a much longer story about how he reasoned that there was no chance America would be involved in a major conflict before he could get some training and life skills, do some travelling, put in time as a cook, and to save some money to pay for culinary school and maybe build a restaurant when he gets out -- and that he should have been sent to basic trainin

Because it needs reiterating: nearly a millennia after the first known European settlement in present-day Canada, well over two centuries...

Like so many places, until recently there were trolleys and trains zooming people all over Victoria and beyond. From 1888 to 1923, a foot...

GUY: So, you won the lottery and want to bring power to the world (or just your own city.) You read Our World in Data and find their work compelling. You and the folks in government want to go all-in on a public-private nuclear partnership; after all, nuclear is safe, clean, reliable, and cheap (in the long term). Oh and it’s sexy right now. That helps. Great. What existing reactor do you use as your model? What engineering and construction firms do you go with? How do you g

My current favourite conservative meme is a video showing Joe Rogan proposing to his guest, "You have people like Bill Gates saying that ‘planting trees to deal with carbon is ridiculous, that’s a ridiculous way to do it…’ How is that ridiculous? They literally turn CO₂ into oxygen. It is their food." There’s so much to love about this, but we can just stick with the planting of trees and carbon offsetting and don’t need to get into the politics around Bill Gates or how ‘20s

As the independent senator from Vermont goes on a tour of America, we've nearly reached full reversal. The same media who engaged in...

I’ve been writing about this province's epidemic of overdose deaths and related themes for a while now. Just in recent times I’ve...

A 2021 study out of Denmark estimated the proportion of cases of schizophrenia associated with cannabis use in that country doubled in recent decades. Though cannabis remains illegal there, concern about this reality and threats of an explosion of psychotic disorders has persisted around any discussion of legalization. Relatedly, a team of researchers just completed a similar study to investigate the incidence of cannabis associated schizophrenia in Canada. Their study looke

So what is this fluoride panic about? It’s certainly not about the existing evidence.

EVERY EXPERT:  Putin just has nothing to gain from launching a war with Ukraine. He would never do it. ME:  I don’t know about that. ALL...

I’ve been writing for some time about the sudden and curious rejection of our age-old understanding that humans cause much, and in many...

In recent weeks and months there has been a whole rash of articles about rising temperatures killing people. The reporting   started with...