Debating Hal

"HAL, I won't argue with you anymore! Open the doors!"

Oops! Wrong Hal. Today I was debating Canadian writer and cultural critic Hal Niedzviecki. We were the entertainment at a $110-a-plate luncheon at the University Club in Toronto, sponsored by Canada's The Walrus magazine, a wonderful glossy newsstand magazine that's a bit like a Canadian Atlantic Monthly.

The debate, about whether we should embrace the surveillance society, was moderated by Carol Off, co-host of CBC Radio One's As It Happens, and the following Q&A was moderated by Ken Alexander, the editor of The Walrus.

H.B. Fenn and Company, my Canadian distributor, generously donated a dozen Robert J. Sawyer novels as a door prize.

This was a high-powered audience. Among those in attendance: Pamela Wallin, Valerie Pringle, Peter Kent, and Brian Stewart. Appropriate sparks flew between Hal and me, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

(Me, I like any event for which they pick me up in a limo ...)

Pictured left to right: Robert J. Sawyer, Carol Off, Ken Alexander, Hal Niedzviecki

The Robert J. Sawyer Web Site