Cost of Tory crime agenda ballooning amidst government secrecy

I have a new piece up on the national page of Xtra.ca today, which continues my reporting on the unspoken costs of the Conservative "tough on crime" agenda, and as more figures are released in the next couple of weeks, I'm sure that I'll be writing even more about it. I also have to say that Justin Piché was a great source for some of the facts on the file, and I'm quite sure that I'll be speaking to him again in the future, as I continue looking at these particular issues.

NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis leaves federal politics

I have a new piece up on Xtra.ca today, which is a farewell interview with NDP MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis, whom I've been talking to a lot lately for various stories I have ongoing. While the speculation is that she'll run for mayor of Winnipeg, she all-but confirmed to me in the Foyer today that it was likely. Now I'm curious who is going to be replacing her on those files she was working on that I've been following - and hopefully it'll be someone who is as easy to work with as she was from a journalistic perspective.

Debate on refugee reform bill begins

I have a new piece up on the Xtra.ca national page today, which continues my coverage of the attempts to reform the refugee system in this country. It was one of the few times that I've actually sat through debates as they happen, partly from CPAC and partly in the House (where I was the only reporter in the gallery for it). I'll continue following this as it develops, which should be a great deal more coverage in the coming weeks.

There were more questions I had for NDP MP Bill Siksay that never made it into the final article, so I posted that Q&A on my Hill Queeries blog here.

Tory ministers skip HIV vaccine study meeting

I have a new piece on the national page of Xtra. ca, which follows up from last week's piece on the CHVI study in the Commons health committee. I'm really glad that I've been following this story, because few others have, and when they do, they have been missing the point. (See the Canadian Press story in particular to prove my point). It's part of why I'm lamenting the dearth of beat reporters on the Hill today, because if the reporter in question had been to all three meetings, rather than just showing up at the last one, and if he'd spoken to any of the MPs involved rather than just taking his copy directly from committee testimony, he might have seen what some of the issues were. But I guess that's why I'm here, and I did get thanks from some of the MPs for paying attention to the story, which makes me feel pretty good as a journalist.

Did Vic Toews kill the HIV vaccine facility?

I have a new piece up on the national page of Xtra.ca today, which I spent most of last week putting together, including some very early committee meetings. There was a lot of material to follow, and a bunch of it couldn't make it into the story, but will likely be useful at some point down the road. This was a pretty involving story, and one that I'll continue to follow, with a definite piece later this week, but likely more to come later.

On a personal level, this was one of those stories that I was really one of the only reporters covering, and it felt good to be breaking it, and talking about it with other reporters. Okay, sure, the Winnipeg Free Press was also on the story, but they really didn't have as substantial of coverage as I did, so it felt good to be breaking some ground on this.

Queer refugees left out of reform

I have a reprinted article in the new print issue of Capital Xtra, which is my story on the proposed changes to refugee legislation. It's also a mostly intact version of the story, which is always nice to see.

US report paints grim picture of gay life in Zimbabwe

My second article of the day was a full story on the main page of Xtra.ca, this time on an issue with Zimbabwe. It would have been up yesterday, but DFAIT was a little slow in getting back to me, though the spokesperson explained to me this afternoon that she wanted to confirm a couple of things with her counterpart at CIDA. But, everything worked out, and I got a good story out of it in the end.

Will the GG argue on behalf of gays in Africa?

One of the two pieces I had on the main page of Xtra.ca today was a post on the News Roundup Blog regarding Her Excellency the Governor General. It was a quick assignment which mostly involved a call to Her Excellency's office, and then scouring her itinerary online, and writing it up - all while having lunch between my coverage of a committee in the morning, and heading back to the Hill for Question Period in the afternoon.

Jack Layton, A Fighter Undeterred + Thoughts From the Hill - April Edition

I have two articles in the April edition of Outlooks. The Outlooks website has also been revamped entirely, and while it looks like the whole current edition is no longer available in .pdf format, individual articles are now posted. The first piece is my sit-down interview with NDP leader Jack Layton, which we had planned to do before his announcement about his battle with prostate cancer, but which ended up being one more part of the article. This was actually my first sit-down with Layton - though our paths have crossed before in terms of scrums and whatnot in the foyer outside of the House of Commons, and just days after this interview, I got Layton's comments regarding another story I was working on.

The second piece, the Thoughts from the Hill panel, isn't online yet unfortunately. In this month's panel, I asked our three queer Parliamentarians about what they thought it says about Canadians that gay rights being excluded from the citizenship guide made mainstream headlines, when compared to the fights going on in the States. And I got a couple of really interesting answers.

You can find Outlooks at many newsstands across the country.