Journalist Martin O’Malley crisscrossed Canada reporting for The Globe

Martin O’Malley, who has died at 86, wrote six books and countless newspaper articles and columns in a career that spanned more than four decades. But his most memorable bit of writing was an unsigned editorial early in his career for which he got little or no credit.It was 1967 and Mr. O’Malley was a 27-year-old editorial page writer for The Globe and Mail. Pierre Trudeau, the Liberal justice minister, had just introduced a bill that included far-reaching changes to the Criminal Code, notably the decriminalization of homosexuality. That same year, the courts had declared Everett Klippert a dangerous sexual offender subject to indefinite imprisonment because he practised gay sex.