Dianne Rinehart

Freelance writer.

Former university journalism instructor. 

Former foreign correspondent.

Former parliamentary correspondent.

Former newspaper editor.

Former magazine editor. 

The Honest Talk •

Famed director Gail Harvey’s life could only have happened in the movies

Gail Harvey didn’t start out thinking she would become an award-winning director of documentaries, movies and television series.


She was studying early childhood education and planned to work with at-risk children when a backpacking trip through Europe with her boyfriend tipped over the first domino in what would become a lifetime of reinvention.


That trip sparked something bigger than a desire to travel. Harvey became fascinated with documenting what she saw – and was soon chasing one cre...
On The Bay Magazine •

The Underdog Cats - On The Bay Magazine

When Matthew Bingham first met Quinn, a cat who ended up at the Georgian Triangle Humane Society (GTHS) after her owner died, the poor thing was doing what traumatized, scared animals do: she was hissing and scratching at anyone who approached her cage—and hiding.
At first, the volunteer team could only approach Quinn with a back scratcher through the bars of her cage and give her treats through an extendable tube. “She was a little spicy,” Bingham says understatedly.
But after Bingham and other...
On The Bay Magazine •

The Eternal Optimist - On The Bay Magazine

If you’ve been to a Collingwood Blues game, you were probably hit up for a donation to the Optimist Club of Collingwood and Southern Georgian Bay by the upbeat and affable Ralph Sneyd.
The former Collingwood Collegiate Institute teacher and wrestling coach is a fixture at each game, selling 50/50 tickets to raise money—$28,000 to $48,000 each year, “depending on how far we go in the playoffs.”
The funds go to the programs that engage, delight, inspire, train, and care for the physical and mental...
On The Bay Magazine •

A Dream Build - On The Bay Magazine

The couple designed, gutted, renovated and created the comfy, cozy interior design elements themselves. The home owes all its charm and perfection to them.
“There’s a lot of passion and care that went into everything,” says Emily, understatedly.
The result? Neighbours and other town residents—and even people driving by who stop to inquire about their business—say the couple not only beautified a generations-old village landmark, but the home now beautifies the town!
Indeed, James Aitken, an arti...
On The Bay Magazine •

In The Swing - On The Bay Magazine

Along the way, McLeese was required to conduct two archaeological studies, 25 years apart, to make sure there were no ancient burial grounds beneath the site—then build a wastewater treatment plant and 10 kilometres of sewers. Drinking water is pumped from the East Linton water treatment plant up Grey Road 1, to the water tower that was built for the community. And then there is the lighthouse, which houses the pump for the golf course’s irrigation.
After all this preparation, the 2008 recession...
The READ •

Where TV Shows Are Born - The READ

When Subah IMAMI’15 was growing up, she loved the arts. But with what she calls a “stereotypical Asian” upbringing, she knew she had to pursue a career in one of four areas to please her parents: “Do I want to be a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer or go into business?” she says, laughing. 


The Bangladeshi-born student chose business, applying to only one school: New York University’s Stern School of Business. She vividly remembers finding out on December 15 of her last year at Branksome Hall tha...
The Hamilton Spectator •

When owning a dog bites you in the back

My puppy trainer (no matter what they tell you, dog trainers are training you, not your beast!), instructed her students to wrap our dog’s leashes around our waists for a day to train them to stay close to us when we walked them.She was sniffing in grasses by the side of a trail, and I was standing around looking at birds in the trees or something else inane, when she bolted after a squirrel, dragging me down the side of a gully with her by my waist.Which is why most puppy trainers (alas, not mi...
The Honest Talk •

I’m the same dinner guest with or without a partner – so why the snub? - The Honest Talk

I have a married girlfriend, Sara-Jane, who has invited me to her and her husband’s dinner parties throughout all my marriages (yes, plural!) and relationships (too many!). 


But what is incredible – and oh so rare – is that she has invited me to join her and her husband – and their couple friends – as often during my single years as the ones when I was paired up.


While this may sound like a plot line from a 90s movie, single women everywhere are often still battling the “third-wheel” label...
The Globe and Mail •

Opinion: So, your friend says you can bring your dog to their cottage - should you?

Dianne Rinehart is a writer and owner of the perfectly well-behaved Daisy.

I once stayed over at a friend’s place when my dog was about a year old.

I wasn’t worried. She’s amazingly well-behaved. But a few days after leaving, I learned that Daisy had left a pile of poo in my host’s rec room.

I was mortified. It was so unlike Daisy – why had she done this?

The answer, as it often goes with pets, was: Who knows! The point is that we don’t really know what our dogs are going to do at someone el...
On The Bay Magazine •

Men, It’s OK - On The Bay Magazine

DIANNE RINEHART: YOU WERE BORN AND RAISED IN THE BURLINGTON/OAKVILLE AREA. WHAT MADE YOU SPECIALIZE IN UROLOGY?
Dr. Geoff Wignall: I worked for Royal Bank for a couple of years. And I realized very quickly that I am not good with finance, but I love working with people and helping people. So, I applied to med school. I went to Queen’s where I met my wife and business partner, Kelly Powell. She was doing her PhD in pharmacology and toxicology. Then I decided I wanted to be a surgeon. And I went t...
On The Bay Magazine •

The Dark Side of Maggie Giles - On The Bay Magazine

When Maggie Giles was choosing an excerpt from her award-winning first book, The Things We Lost, to read at her book launch, she thought nothing of reading a sex scene between the protagonist, Maddie, and the character’s best friend’s partner. Yikes!
So, she was taken aback when a girlfriend of hers, who is a writer of romance books—a genre renowned for being spicy in that department—told her she was surprised Maggie had chosen something so risqué.
“That’s risqué?” she asked her friend incredulo...
On The Bay Magazine •

Blue Skies Ahead - On The Bay Magazine

Craig Pitman, a lean and muscular guy in jeans and a ballcap who owns two Midas auto centres in Toronto and Bradford, doesn’t look like someone who would be into decor.
But he has spent the last 20 years flipping intently through home and decor magazines, planning and sketching the dream home he recently completed, a lot of it with his own bare hands, in The Blue Mountains.
The result is a light-filled, stylishly built and furnished, 2,400-square-foot chalet-style home on three floors, based on...

The Little Town That Could | On The Bay Magazine

And that, of course, does not even begin to include tourists who drive up from Toronto. “Those people are coming up in droves,” says Johnston.
This influence of people arriving from elsewhere is part of the town’s character. Creemore has attracted its share of talented and hip entrepreneurs, artists and artisans, not just from Toronto, or even Canada, but from around the world. For example, Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo and interior designer and TV personality Sarah Richardson both came from Toronto....
The Hamilton Spectator •

Carney’s handling of Chinese ‘bounty’ comment is troubling

Dianne Rinehart is a journalist who covered the democracy elections in Poland in 1989 and the United Nations Conference on Women’s Rights in Beijing in 1995.On that same day, as democracy was budding in Poland, I watched TV newscasts depicting the snuffing out of democracy protests — and protesters — with horror as tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square in Beijing and soldiers began shooting.How many people were killed? We still don’t know, because such is the iron fist with which Beijing’s communis...
The Hamilton Spectator •

We must learn from the women who fought for democracy in Russia

Dianne Rinehart is a journalist who was a freelance writer in Moscow from 1988 to 1990.Soldiers, shamed by their mothers and grandmothers for taking part in the coup, abandoned their tanks. And when Boris Yeltsin, the new president of the Russian Soviet Socialist Federal Republic, took in the scene, he went out onto the street to join them.The mothers had won — without guns, without armour. They had done it with love, for the soldiers who were their sons, the young men who had been used for publ...

Doggone Dedicated | On The Bay Magazine

Meet the OPP’s local canine officer, Sarah Hendrick, and her hard-working wonder dogs, Janus and Finny.
by Dianne Rinehart // Photography by Anya Shor & Roger Klein





When OPP Constable Sarah Hendrick starts her day, she puts on a military-style uniform and boots, and then loads up with 20 pounds of gear, including a ballistic vest, a firearm, ammunition, a controlled-energy weapon, pepper spray, a baton, handcuffs—oh, and a ball, a Kong and a leash—before leaving to pi...

Imagine a Tree Fort | On The Bay Magazine

But Webster had another love, which brought him to the Collingwood area—he grew up skiing on weekends with his family at Devil’s Glen.
When he finished university, Webster came up to Southern Georgian Bay to do some golfing, and when he saw how the area was popping, he knew he had to move here and bring his luxury home-building business, which he recently renamed Westerbilt Homes from WFD Construction, with him. “It’s really a four-season playground,” he says of the area. He still skis at Devil’...
The Globe and Mail •

Opinion: Holiday greetings from hospice

Dianne Rinehart is a journalist and journalism instructor at the University of Guelph-Humber.

A holiday spent in a hospice may not sound like a cheery, festive time. But trust me – it is.

My sister, Elaine, recently died in the Dr. Bob Kemp Hospice in Hamilton, Ont. It was Nov. 29, and the spirt of Christmas was all around.

She was suffering terribly before she moved into hospice, even though she was in a supportive seniors’ residence that had PSWs on call to help with home care. But patchwor...

A School to Call Home | On The Bay Magazine

The Heathcote Schoolhouse, which first opened its doors to students in 1871, presented the young family with an opportunity they had not expected.











On Christmas Eve 2020, Nicholas and Ashley Pearce were celebrating Christmas at Ashley’s parents’ vineyard in Prince Edward County when she decided they should make an offer on an old schoolhouse in Heathcote, Ontario, that they had never set foot in.
“My poor best buddy and real estate agent wa...
Toronto Star •

Most Torontonians will never own a home. Good thing there’s a straightforward way to make rental life not just livable, but great

There has been a seismic shift in the real estate market in recent years. According to a CIBC report released last spring that echoes others, 76 per cent of Canadians who aren’t homeowners feel entry into the housing market is out of reach.What governments are not doing is putting the same energy and incentives into creating rental housing that people want to live in for life. This oversight is short-sighted because the lack of appropriate rentals is also contributing to the rising cost of housi...
The Hamilton Spectator •

‘The Disappeared’: Afghan despots remove women from public view completely

In the late ‘70s, Argentina’s military, which had taken control of the government in a coup, took anyone they deemed to be in opposition to them, drugged them and threw them out of planes, semi-conscious, to be killed without a trace in the Atlantic Ocean.Now, in present day Afghanistan, women are The Disappeared, if not by killings (and there are many of those), then through the most heinous of “vice and virtue” laws that women’s voices will not be allowed to be heard in public places, and they...
Toronto Star •

I chose to rent my home instead of owning — and I’m much happier. Here’s why

If a home is where the heart is, why are we inundated with messages from well-meaning parents, friends — and real estate agents — that buying is the be all and end all for choosing where we want to live, even if it means giving up on what makes us happy.For me, being able to live in a neighbourhood I love, even if I can’t afford to buy there, is much more important than all the promises about home ownership, about building equity and being in control.For most of my adult life, there was no way I...
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