For as long as I’ve wanted to be a writer, I think I’ve wanted to be a columnist as well. I first started publishing the occasional op-ed in the early 2000s, fully expecting the Globe and Mail to realize my brilliance and offer me a full-time perch. That never happened, of course, and there was no way it ever would.
But now, somehow, almost two decades later, I’ve found that perch at Canada’s National Observer. It started with a few freelance pieces during the pandemic, then a few more, and finally a full-time gig right before my son was born — in large part so that I could have access to health benefits and a stable paycheque. I will never forget how important that was at the time.
Now, more than two years into that full-time relationship, I find myself the winner of the 2023 Mary Ann Shadd Cary award for columns at the National Newspaper Awards. As I said in my speech — one I fully expected never to deliver— the work that was nominated for that award wouldn’t be possible without the rest of the team at Canada’s National Observer.
It wouldn’t be possible without your support as a reader, either. Your commitment to our journalism is an essential part of the community we’ve built and the work we’ve done. We have so many great reporters, great editors, and yes, a decent columnist or two, and you’re recognizing that every time you support us with your own hard-earned money.
That recognition is only going to get more important. We are staring down the possibility of a Conservative federal government in 2025, that will declare open war on climate policy and potentially end any possibility of meeting our Paris Accord targets. It will also declare open war on the media, or at least the parts that aren’t operating as its de-facto PR wing. And it may well defund the CBC, as Pierre Poilievre has promised time and time again.
We need to prepare for that possibility. That means reinforcing our business model, adding more subscribers and supporters, and finding new ways to deliver the news and information you depend upon. Why? Because, in a way, we’re fighting for our freedom now.
No, I’m not suggesting that Poilievre is a fascist, or even that he aspires to become one. That’s pretty obviously ridiculous. But there is clearly a broader movement afoot within Conservative circles to undermine traditional sources of knowledge and authority, one that took full flight during the pandemic. And as American historian Timothy Snyder warned in his 2017 book, “ you submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case…..to abandon facts is to abandon freedom.”
We need to fight for the facts. That’s what we’re doing at Canada’s National Observer.
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