Senators talk to local youth about bullying

I have a new story up on the Ottawa page of Xtra.ca, which was about an event that took place in the Senate chamber this morning. I always enjoy spending time up in the Senate, and as this was a more informal event, where I could actually take pictures and head down onto the Senate floor after the event to speak to both Jeremy Dias and a couple of the Senators, it made it that much more of a fun event to cover - even if I had to be surrounded by children and be subjected to spoken word poetry.

MPs react to BC polygamy ruling

I have a new story up on the national page of Xtra.ca today, which gathers political and legal scholar reaction to yesterday's BC Supreme Court decision on the polygamy reference. Being as I knew it was coming down the pipe, I gave the various parties a heads-up, and to their credit, they were ready with spokespeople for me. And once again, UofO law professor Carissma Mathen proved that she's a fantastic resource on these kinds of legal questions, and many thanks to her once again for taking the time to speak to me and explain some of the issues involved - and for creating a bit of controversy in the decision.

Democracy at the riding level

I have an editorial up today as well on the Ottawa page of Xtra.ca, which accompanies the piece on the Liberal riding association meeting. While the story talked about what happened at the meeting, this piece looks at the significance of joining a party at the riding level, which is something that I'm quite keen on encouraging people to do because that's the part of our democratic system that is the most engaging, and the part that most people simply don't know about. Like I said before, the whole evening was pretty inspiring, and I'm hoping these two pieces help to encourage more people to get involved, whatever their party affiliation.

Ottawa Liberals discuss party's future

I have a new story up on the Ottawa page of Xtra.ca today, which stems from my visit to the Ottawa Centre federal Liberal riding association meeting on Wednesday night. It was a pretty great night for someone who believes strongly in parliamentary democracy - seeing people engaging in the process and having some really great discussions about the existential questions of their party and where they want things to go. I also got to meet Mike Crawley, who is running for the position of party president and have a good chat with him, some of which made it into the final piece.

A more cautious Supreme Court?

I have a new analysis feature on the main page of Xtra.ca, which looks at what the two new incoming Supreme Court justices might mean for a couple of the cases that are heading before the Court that Xtra has been keeping an eye on - in particular, HIV criminalisation cases and the court challenge to prostitution laws. I really enjoyed this piece as I got to speak to a couple of really smart people on the subject, and I also had enough room to really delve into some of the issues.

Commonwealth meeting comes up empty-handed on human rights

I have a new story up on the main page of Xtra.ca today, which follows up on last week's story and the weekend's events with the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. It was another piece where I was able to get the right commentary immediately after Monday's QP, was able to get Baird's quotes from QP, and put it all together in a fast turnaround (where it then sat on my editor's desk, but what can you do?) And I hope to follow up on this story further within the next few days with some background and behind-the-scenes interviews, with any luck.