This year was a bit odd - I started out as a freelancer, and I suppose I continued as a freelancer (but this time, with a steady gig). Going from a full-time job to one in which I had to hustle for assignments every single day was an unexpected, and at times very unpleasant, change.

But - I learned how to do it, and I was able to make fantastic connections and investigate some really interesting stories.

I went through three computers (long story) and made my new husband more than a little nuts (though I take no responsibility for his rapidly thinning hair), but overall, I'm pretty proud of what I put out.

My first true 'freelance' piece:  After LA prosecutors decided to prosecute Robert Durst for the murder of Susan Berman, I wrote about how that brought me back to my college days. A journalism professor - who happened to be Berman's best friend - tried to teach us interviewing skills by asking us to interrogate her on the details of Berman's killing.  It didn't end well. The Riveter published it, and you can read about it here.

I tried my hand at op-ed writing, and had two pieces published in the Montreal Gazette, one of them even earning me a 5-minute spot on Aaron Rand's evening show on CJAD.

I continued to write about Central Asian affairs for Silk Road Reporters. I also branched out to cover international trade for Global Trade Review, where I investigated a fascinating story about the return of manufacturing to Mexico from China. That was one of the most fun I've ever had writing an article.

In May, I was back covering the Canadian mining sector for SNL Financial, and I love the freedom and wide berth that I'm given by my editor to pursue anything and everything (and also, the more regular paycheck). I did a series of pieces on the failings of tailings dams throughout Canada, and the inability? unwillingness? of provincial and federal regulatory systems to change anything. I had a ball talking to international trade specialists over how the TPP would impact Canadian mining, and returned to my (slight) obsession over the (non) development of Ring of Fire chromite resources, here and here.

I topped off the year with the longest piece I've ever written (I blame Spotlight), chronicling how one Canadian junior company signed a deal with China Railway to build a rail line from the Ring of Fire and connect it to an existing rail line. If it happens, it will be the first time a foreign power has financed and constructed Canadian infrastructure. It's a doozy, so I encourage you to read it!

In 2016, I'm hoping to branch out a bit more, and write about feminist issues on top of natural resources, economics, and international affairs. I'm looking forward to seeing what's next.

I'm getting ready to go to bed, and just thinking about how much I wish you were here tonight.

I feel like you have a phenomenal talent for being away when the world explodes. ;-) I don't remember exactly what happened before, but tonight I'm feeling your absence very intensely.

The world is a very difficult place to be some days, and today - tonight - came with so many awful and repugnant flavours of heartache. Your embrace doesn't make that heartache disappear - it just helps remind me there's some light beyond the gloom.

There's a line by Simon Kuper - an FT correspondent in Paris - about tonight. And it's rattling in my head:

I don’t think this is a clash of civilisations. I see it as a clash of a couple of thousand jihadis with a great city. The problem — as we saw in former Yugoslavia, or in Lebanon — is that it only takes a few men with guns to make a place unlivable.

I was never afraid after terror attacks, in the news, in my own city, or anywhere. I've walked past policemen disabling wired packages in Westminster and at the UN, I never felt afraid being in NYC after 2001. But that quote - makes me afraid of what I am beginning to see that our world is starting to turn into. I'm fine with living with no guarantees - no one has any, and to think otherwise is insanity. 

But it's the cities - and civilization, and culture, and life, and that world - and I wonder if this could ever disappear. I don't think Paris is just going to suddenly stop being Paris. But I'm beginning to think that life going on just as it did isn't something we can take for granted anymore. After attack after attack after attack continues....some of this life will get chipped away. And when it starts to chip away, what will stop it from crumbling altogether?

Some very dark thoughts on a very dark night. 

All my love.

Megan McArdle’s recent article on Bloomberg View about New Yorkers opting to leave the city – entitled ‘Real New Yorkers say goodbye to all that’ struck a chord with me. Very deeply.

There was a lot about which I agreed – primarily being befuddled when non-native New Yorkers wanted to ask me about my favorite bars and clubs, and me (and her) meeting their requests with an air of befuddlement. Our New York City is not one of clubs and bars, but of where we grew up. The hot new club is not the typical hang-out of a 12-year-old (although, I’m having a flashback to Kimmy Schmidt, where the rich teen goes everywhere, so this might not be entirely accurate).

But what really struck me about McArdle’s piece was this line: “We left because those of us who grew up there were less willing to bear any burden, pay any price to stay.”

The operative word there: willing.

And it hit me that McArdle is writing from a particular standpoint: one of a moderately wealthy New York family (if you lived in the Upper West Side at any point in the last 20 years, you were moderately wealthy.)

And with (moderate) wealth comes the luxury of choice. She could choose to leave New York City. Others – such as lower middle-class workers who had never lived anywhere but New York and were heartbroken to think of leaving it – were effectively thrown out on the street when the price of everything grew beyond their reach.

She talks about her background, of her parents not being from the city but somehow acclimating and becoming tried and true New Yorkers. But what of the multitudes of blue-collar workers whose parents, and grandparents, arrived on boats sailing into Ellis Island who opted to stay? They eked out livings in the dirty, unforgiving streets for decades, committed to making it in “the city”. Committed to sending their children to proper schools. And they did it, and their children remained there.

But paying the bills got much, much harder, as a wave of gentrification and price increases on food, transport, and life became ever steeper. And those children had no choice but to leave, or face financial ruin.

Of course it was easier for McArdle to leave New York City. Her roots were elsewhere. She didn’t feel the city in her bones, I would argue. She didn’t see the city as the place where her forebears had struggled and come out, ever so slightly ahead, despite all the odds, through the generations.

For those of us of working-class ilk, we were thrust out by our inability to pay obscene prices for less-than-standard living spaces. These people, if they were smart, left New York. The working-class neighborhoods of the outer boroughs (Brooklyn, Queens, even Staten Island, which is its own beast), are increasingly being taken over by moneyed offspring wearing signature beards and plaid shirts. And the working class culture of New York – that from which sprang Arthur Miller and George Gershwin and so many others – has all but disappeared.

Which left me with this other thought: who is covering New York from this oh so vital perspective? As university tuition gets more and more astronomical, and j-school prices follow suit, that awful future we were warned about seems to be upon us, where only the privileged masses who can afford the suffocating tuition rates and the years of relative payless-ness break through to major media outlets. And the New York they write about is seen only through these privileged eyes.

Once upon a time in my not-so-distant youth, the New York Daily News served that function, standing with the unions and the firemen and policemen to combat privilege and City Hall and fight for the working population.

But those days are gone.

And I have yet to see anything, or anyone, take its place.

‘Real’ New Yorkers would never have believed they’d see the day where the working poor couldn’t find a way to make it in their beloved city. But it looks like that day has come.

I had the honour to live-tweet the event. I've gone and Storify'd it for you:

Philippe Couillard’s government announced Jan. 26 that it would host an international symposium at the end of February to advance its Plan Nord program.

The plan envisions spending $80 billion in investment over a 25-year time span, with $33 billion going to expand the mining sector and $47 billion to develop energy resources. The plan was first introduced under previous premier Jean Charest, was resuscitated by first the Parti Quebec, and then the Liberal party, who added amendments and an additional $1 billion investment in Quebec contracting firms for the production of mining equipment.

The symposium will be held from Feb. 25 to Feb. 27, and will bring in international experts for discussions on economic development and sustainability in northern Quebec, all part of the soon-to-be unveiled Liberal plan to bring economic wealth to the north of the province.

These international experts - among whom will be the president of Iceland - will grapple with the challenge of developing the region’s mineral and other resource wealth, all while preserving the environment and countering the consequences of climate change, expected to have a larger impact on the northern community.

But as the Liberal government formulates its northern policy, it should keep a close eye on what has happened in the Yukon this week before they bank too heavily on counting on the mining sector to bring lasting prosperity to the north.

This week, one of Yukon’s two operating mines was forced to close due to crashing metals prices. Yukon Zinc Corp.’s Wolverine mine - which produced zinc and silver - will have to lay off 220 workers due to a massive cash shortfall and an inability to pay into the fund which will finance cleanup of the site.

The Chinese company insists the closure is temporary - but with metal prices continuing to plunge towards bottom, it’s unlikely the mine will resume production anytime soon.

It’s expected that Yukon will take a terrible hit from the mine closure. Yukon’s economic growth has been dependent on mining activity for the past several years, the territorial government acknowledges in its 2014 Economic Outlook.

The territory’s 2015 mining revenues, stemming from proceeds generated by Wolverine and Alexco Resources’ Bellekeno mine, were expected to total over $800 million. Together with quarrying and energy, mining accounts for more than 20% of the territory’s gross domestic product.

This wasn’t always the case. As recently as 2007, mining only accounted for 6% of the territory’s GDP. If this figure still held, the shutdown of Wolverine would have a much more manageable ripple effect.

Mining activities not only contributed to a significant chunk of the overall territorial economy, but were also responsible for a large proportion of non-residential construction. Mining companies financed the building of hospitals, wastewater treatment facilities, cultural facilities and airport expansion.  The slowdown of mining activities will also be felt in this end of the economy.

The Couillard government should be wary of placing such dependence on one industry as it looks to put the finishing touches on its Plan Nord. Metals prices are unlikely to rebound in the near future, and mining companies themselves are looking to decrease exploration and development on new assets.

There are many reasons why mining companies would reconsider investment in the north, including, the region’s remoteness and lack of transportation infrastructure, not to mention the expense of flying fuel in for its activities. The Couillard government would do well not to put all of its northern economy eggs in one basket.

A version of this article appeared in the Montreal Gazette on Feb. 4, 2015.

So on January 20, I got the chance to launch a Tweetchat for the Montreal Press Club, of which I'm a board member. 

I'm so glad for the opportunity - I honestly feel that once it's up and running, and we work out all the glitches, that it's going to become a fantastic resource for both francophone and anglophone journalists to connect and discuss the big issues in the city. There's far too wide of a chasm between French and English chasm, and my big dream is to narrow it however I can.

I was a bit dismayed that for all of my bilingual, obsessive marketing of the event on Twitter, only a few MPC board members showed up. But I have to remind myself that Rome wasn't built in a day (sigh, cliche, but I've been up since 5 am so you're just going to have to deal with it). However, I am going to go ahead and call it a success, for these reasons:

1. It actually happened. We now have a Tweetchat, and it's no longer in the theoretical stage. That in itself is worth celebrating.

2. It gave me my first experience of being a Tweetchat monitor - and I had the opportunity to learn, and make mistakes - like not including the damned hashtag - a few times over. The small audience just means there weren't a whole lot of people around to judge me for it. ;-)

3. Many of the participants had never participated in a Tweetchat before. This gave them the opportunity to get their sea legs before this thing takes off like wildfire.

I did learn a few key things about scheduling, however.

First, it was downright foolish to schedule our kick-off Tweetchat event right before the State of the Union address was about to be broadcast. Twitter was already preoccupied - and journalists weren't interested in participating in a fledgling online experiment when everyone was gearing up to live-tweet this important speech. So there's that. No more competing with SOTU. Got it.

It also somehow managed to slip my mind that Tuesday at 8 pm is when #muckedup happens - @Muckrack's very popular journalism Tweetchat. Even though it's mostly focused on discussing US issues, I know I've participated in it more than once, so to have thought that scheduling our Tweetchat for the same time wouldn't have any impact on our attendance was pretty .... fanciful. Sure, I'll go with fanciful. So next time, we'll be sure not to schedule the Tweetchat at the same time that other one is going on.

We'll be doing it again in late February, so watch this space to find out how you can participate!

On Monday, Quebecers awoke to the news that over 100,000 households had no power on a bitterly cold day.

And then I watched in amazement as the numbers quickly went down by half, then another 25%, and by late morning all but a few thousand had had their power restored.

To me, it seemed like an absolute miracle.

Quebecers may take their top-notch utility service for granted, but after a few years of living in the Washington, DC area, I certainly do not. 

Power outages in the capital city, and in Maryland counties also serviced by Pepco, are all too frequent, often coming with no warning and no immediate precipitating event such as extreme weather or high winds. It was not uncommon to have a lovely, sunny, cloudless day, and for the power to go out suddenly - and remain out for hours.

In these crises, Pepco did very little to get power up and running, preferring to engage in public hand-wringing over the excess of trees which, in their minds, caused the outages.  Sending out crews to assess the problem and fix the issue was never their first priority.

In the winter of 2010, Washington was hit by a moderate storm (by Quebec standards) which dumped 2 feet of snow on the area. Pepco's customers lost power for a full week.

Pepco took no responsibility for the outages, or for the delay in getting power back up. Even today, it struggles with keeping the lights on. According to the Washington Post, Pepco reports 70% more power outages than other power companies in big American cities.

Having survived five days in the dark with no heat, I am incredibly impressed that HydroQuebec was able to turn the lights back on as quickly as they did.

Electricity is not the only feature of Montreal that puts DC to shame: our metro system gives us a lot to be proud of, too.

Last week in Washington, smoke filled the L'Enfant Plaza metro station, resulting in 1 death and sending at least 80 to local hospitals (some are still there). In the days since, we've learned that WMATA officials did not learn of the smoke for at least 10 minutes, resulting in a fatal delay. This incident comes just a few years after nine people were killed by a train collision in 2009 on the same metro system.

Service has continued to decline on WMATA, with several rail workers dying in a collision with a train in 2010, and two other rail workers dying on the tracks in October 2013. Riders on the Red Line advise each other never to ride in the first or last cars, warning that trains often hit each other and these cars take the brunt of the impact. 

We take a lot for granted in Montreal, but I have learned firsthand that going on the STM and not experiencing regular minor collisions with other trains or track workers is an advantage not shared by some transit systems.

Being blessed by an effective and responsive power utility and a metro system that doesn't kill its riders is something that all Montrealers should be proud of.

A version of this article appeared in the Montreal Gazette on Jan. 19, 2015.

It's been a week since the Charlie Hebdo murders. I am still in awe of my city, and so proud that Montreal on Sunday had the largest solidarity march outside of France. It's the way it should be.
I took a few photos of the march:

Yesterday was an awful day, a day which I would have been happy to have never seen the likes of. 

I woke up much earlier than usual to head to a morning meeting, and saw the screaming headlines about the gruesome, cruel murders of 12 people at Charlie Hebdo in Paris. My Paris. The very Paris which had done so much to advance the cause of freedom.

I left for my meeting at the Montreal Gazette in a daze. Walked up the escalator in a daze. Entered the newsroom and on towards the back, in a daze.

The Gazette has a security guard at the desk - but how much security is that? How much security is really enough to protect yourself against people who are committed to killing and are armed with the equipment and determination to make it happen?

I would say, there isn't enough security in the world to guarantee safety.

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I headed out early to the 5 pm vigil organized by Mayor Denis Coderre, determined to get a spot in the front. I was one of the first people there, and ever-so-grateful for the two large outdoor fireplaces set up by the city to keep attendees warm. Even more grateful, when considering I didn't see the need to wear longjohns.

Once the ceremony began, I was startled by how moved I was. I'd spent all day obsessively following the news on Twitter, rushing to get out the Montreal Press Club's condemnation of the attacks, trying to stay on top of all the latest developments. But I hadn't been hit by the enormity of what had happened that awful morning until I heard journalists around me in front of City Hall start chanting, "Je suis Charlie." 

I started sobbing. And couldn't stop. The impromptu chant was followed by a rendition of "La Marseillaise". I don't know the words. I didn't need to, because there was no way I could have caught my tears enough to be able to sing. 

I had had plans to attend the 6:30 vigil in front of the French Consulate on Rue McGill, but I couldn't. The emotion was too strong, too overwhelming, and I desperately needed to go home.

But when I saw the photos of the massive turnout on Rue McGill, in -31C windchill, the tears started all over again. I've never been prouder of Montreal.  Or how touched I am by their determination, in that awful, horrific cold, to show their solidarity with Parisians on that night.

Nous sommes tous Charlie. Let us never forget the value of freedom of expression.