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1 week ago | 
thepeterboroughexaminer.com | Rosemary Ganley
Canada is under threat. It has come on us like a tornado, catching us unaware and vulnerable. How could those dimwit Americans elect a fascist-leaning president intent on making trouble everywhere, certainly here. But looking carefully, it is clear we have for a long time been lazy, and too dependent on other societies. We have held on to a colonial mindset and taken for granted our immense natural resources.
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3 weeks ago | 
thepeterboroughexaminer.com | Rosemary Ganley
Extinguish the pink smoke, folks. I didn’t make it. In spite of support for my last-minute nomination made on their website by a British NGO of feminist Catholics called Root and Branch, issued May 6, the doors of the Sistine Chapel had already been locked, and voting among the 133 cardinals was proceeding. A friend sent me the exact wording these gentlemen utter as they put their handwritten ballot in a chalice with a lid. I could supply these words to my supporters, if I knew who they were.
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4 weeks ago | 
thepeterboroughexaminer.com | Rosemary Ganley
It’s a roller coaster of a life for us these days; the death of a well-liked Pope, a Canadian election full of both hopes and disappointments, NHL hockey finals featuring three Canadian teams, and underlying it all, our ongoing dismay watching America implode. To protect mental health, one must focus on one event at a time, if that is possible. Being kind to oneself and everyone else is also good advice. They say Tai Chi is very good for us, mentally and physically. Great theatre is all around.
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1 month ago | 
thepeterboroughexaminer.com | Rosemary Ganley
The multitalented arts producer Bill Kimball arrived in Peterborough from Vermont to attend Trent University in 1975. I arrived from Montreal in 1969. Yet, although I have attended and been enriched by many of his productions over the years, we had never had a chat until recently. We sat down at Dreams of Beans, that friendly downtown community hub, the one with the piano to play, and talked for an hour.
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1 month ago | 
thepeterboroughexaminer.com | Rosemary Ganley
Facing this momentous election Monday, I’d like to end this series of columns with a plea to elevate the importance of climate policy as presented by the contenders to help us voters decide. Peterborough is uniquely positioned to know about and act on the ultimate peril in front of humanity now.
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1 month ago | 
thepeterboroughexaminer.com | Rosemary Ganley
When I was teaching high school English, my favourite students were the teenage boys, with their big feet and their ball hats turned sideways, and their honesty. I always started class with an icebreaker query: “Did you see the game last night? “They knew my distaste for Don Cherry so one day they brought in a full-sized cardboard cutout of the man. I said, “Don can stay, but every day you have to turn him around to look out the window.
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1 month ago | 
thepeterboroughexaminer.com | Rosemary Ganley
For Peterborough voters who value tenacity in life and in politics, Liberal candidate Emma Harrison came through in spades April 1. We had an interview time booked at the campaign headquarters on King Street but with the chaos caused by the ice storm and the fact that Harrison lives in Selwyn Township, I doubted it would happen. So I drove by the office on King Street at 9 a.m. to confirm. There were four staff and volunteers on hand.
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2 months ago | 
thepeterboroughexaminer.com | Rosemary Ganley
With the troubling example of the United States of America declining before our very eyes, we see the global trend toward weakening democracy. Right wing governments, headed by “strong men,” are being put into office by electorates with slender knowledge of the basic characteristics of a democratic society, too little knowledge of their own unique civics and too little appetite for defending them. “What has become of civics?” parents and teachers ask sadly. The number of democracies shrinks.
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2 months ago | 
thepeterboroughexaminer.com | Rosemary Ganley
I’ve always enjoyed being among politically aware and involved people. There’s something altruistic about them. They care about society, and I see that fact, even when I disagree about a personality they favour or a policy for bettering the human condition they endorse. They are not self-involved. They think as citizens, not consumers. I wish there were many more of them. It’s so easy in Canada to get access to the political parties, join them and give as much time and energy to them as one wishes.
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2 months ago | 
thepeterboroughexaminer.com | Rosemary Ganley
Although I was never disillusioned by the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as many other Canadians seemed to have become by early 2025, I watched his resignation in January and then the political gates churned up by one Donald Trump very keenly.
