Ontario Premier Doug Ford is not up to the task

Harry Shannon Background: This letter to the Toronto Star followed their editorial outlining some of the problems with how Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been handling the pandemic. I thought the analogy with sports players would resonate with Ford himself, as well as others. The letter was published in the January 22 edition of the paper. Re…

Dear Albertans

Harry Shannon I sent the article below to the Calgary Herald as a possible contribution to their Opinion page. I haven’t even had an acknowledgement. Some context: I wrote this after hearing the Alberta Premier Jason Kenney on the news. Kenney and his government have tried to keep the province’s economy open during the COVID-19 pandemic.…

Time for a Wealth Tax

Harry Shannon This was written as a letter to the Toronto Star. It wasn’t published, but you can read it here. Re Covid-19 costs. Time’s up: help cities, Editorial, July 16 The COVID-19 pandemic has played havoc with people’s finances, and governments have had to go into huge deficits to mitigate the impact on people who have lost t…

A post on, you guessed it, coronavirus and COVID-19

Harry Shannon Some thoughts on the coronavirus and its impact. I am not paying attention any more to the number of new confirmed cases. That’s because, as far as I can tell, whether someone is tested is rather arbitrary: has the person sought care; does the person have symptoms; how severe are the symptoms; are there enough testing kits; h…