Passionate champion for citizen voice and beyond polarity thinking & action. Trained as a lawyer, worked on energy projects in 35 countries, founder of a capacity building NGO (canadabridges.com); recovering politician; author of two books - on corporate integrity, and gender equality, East & West. New book due March 2022- Teaching the Dinosaur to Dance: Moving Beyond Business as Usual.
Preston Manning, founder of the federal Reform Party and the Manning Centre (now rebranded the Canada Strong & Free Network) isn’t taking calls about his latest gig. The Government of Alberta, flush with petrodollars, is paying Preston over a quarter-million bucks to chair Premier Danielle Smith’s COVID-19 panel. Donna sat with Preston on another government-appointed … More Talk to the Chair
A speech from the Throne, they called it. And you can imagine it was, if you’re sitting on a toilet … More The Throne Speech…
Danielle, we need to talk. Donna was on the Fair Deal Panel. And that’s history. What’s happening now isn’t… … More Danielle, we need to talk.
Pissing people off has its rewards. Greenpeace-style modus operandi in Canada, alongside railway blockades by activists for weeks on end, are examples for how ‘direct action’ works (especially if you’re on the right side of public opinion). But is that the way to run a country? … More Conflict, controversy, provocations sell…
THE PRIME MINISTER INSISTS he must save Canada. He cannot allow, he says, the new Conservative leader to ever run this country. Is Justin channelling the Donald? … More This movie features a bad actor…
BEWARE THE STINGERS of Alberta politics. There are two careerists vying to be the Queen Bee… … More Beware the queen bees…
COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS if you’re in Alberta. Imagine what it’s like living in Europe and elsewhere, worrying about where you can secure a reliable and readily available source of energy in the near future, in a marketplace upended by Russia’s war with Ukraine … More Feeling energy secure?
Who’s next? British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s blunt one-liner as he stepped down from power—“When the herd moves, it moves”—will live on in infamy. We heard something similar from Premier Jason Kenney this spring after leadership review results starkly depicted the extent to which he had been abandoned by the conservative herd. And I well … More One Down, Trudeau to Go?
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping and Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt share something in common: their intent to remake the world in a way that suits them… … More Lest we forget.
This won’t be funny. Cynical. Or anything with a twist. I live in Varsity, a Calgary neighbourhood. This morning, I woke up just before five—the wee hours—to the faint smell of smoke. Instinct kicked in. I raced to my bedroom window. Across the street, there were flames leaping from the roof of a home. Called … More House on Fire
DID YOU SEE Rachel Notley the other day giving it her all in the Legislature?
She was pretty pissed with Jason Kenney because he didn’t proclaim what she wanted to hear about Roe v. Wade. It’s as if she set her hair on fire … More RACHEL NOTLEY, a lady in waiting…
In the Jason Kenney playbook on how to get stuff done, the old maxim rings true: it ain’t over until it’s over. But what if the premier fails to survive his leadership review later this month and sinks to rise no more? Are you going to need a life preserver? … More MAY DAY! MAY DAY!!
Crypto! Pierre Poilievre promises to “unleash” the potential of cryptocurrency once he becomes Canada’s prime minister. First he needs to be the leader of the federal Conservative Party, but let’s not quibble over the fine print. … More HURRY! HURRY! CRYPTO is the next big thing!
Jason Kenney says, “I don’t need this job.” These most telling words uttered by Alberta’s premier are an admission of defeat. I know, because it’s what I told myself just before deciding to exit the PC leadership race against him in 2017. … More Take this job & ??
TEACHING THE DINOSAUR TO DANCE: MOVING BEYOND BUSINESS AS USUAL—Donna’s new book—launches TODAY! Of course, this new book looks at the challenge of moving beyond polarity, and a whole lot more. Written over the course of the pandemic, the book has been informed and inspired by Donna’s nearly 40-year career in leadership roles in the … More Teaching the Dinosaur to Dance
Bye bye Canada’s Arctic? Vladimir Putin’s handshake with Xi Jinping of China during the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics was the first clue… … More Sit up & pay attention…
Ottawa has spoken. You disagree. And you think they’re coming for you next, your bank account, and your children. Tick-tick-tick … More Weekend rallying point?
Getting a grip on the trucker standoff at the U.S. border is to know what legacy media can’t tell you… … More Truck off, eh!
Erin O’Toole + Freedom Convoy = a blow job… … More Erin O’Toole: it’s a blow job…
THE TRUCKER’S CONVOY powering its way across Canada has been hijacked by radicals and aims to land on the doorstep of the federal government this weekend. The Freedom Convoy was launched as a protest against the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for all truckers entering Canada. Extremists and fringe groups have used social media to … More It will happen here…
PUBLIC-PRIVATE COLLABORATION isn’t a new idea. It just got scaled up, accelerated and more creative during the plague. So why aren’t we doing more of this? Because it’s hard… … More This shouldn’t be so complicated…
While it’s smart to hang out with people you know & trust during the plague, there’s peril in the familiar — a risk of becoming inward-facing… … More 2021 in review: BEYOND THE BUBBLE
EVERYTHING is different now. There isn’t a business, government, non-profit or social institution of consequence that has not been rocked in some fundamental way by the events of the past two years. From the coronavirus plague to the climate crisis to social justice movements like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter, disruption rules the day. And status quo … More Teaching the Dinosaur to Dance
THANKS TO Alberta Views Magazine for providing a platform to share this story: Why was I forced off the board of the Banff Centre? It’s not a nice story. And ultimately, this is not about me so much as it about all of us who call Alberta home. Here’s the link:
People bemoan the tendency of photography to “capture” a photo rather than to participate in a place. Can you do both? … More The Joy of Seeing More
Feeling anxious? Stressed out? Try squeeze & release… … More The land speaks…
We believe it is possible to reimagine and restore the relationship originally envisioned for the treaty partners who signed off the ceded land where the authors live in the territory now called Alberta located in western Canada (Treaties 6, 7 & 8). … More Treaty Partners
We have a choice: to change the way we go about governing ourselves; or let the anarchy of whatever goes and how much we can tolerate rule the day… … More Wild weather, wild politics…
It should have been a duh. Business as usual during a pandemic was never a smart business plan… … More Pay now or pay & pay & pay…
Given all the misery of the last year, the false predictions of when normal should be normal again, who is going to tell you that your cat is dead? … More P.S. Your cat is dead…
