Soon afterward, Fotheringham left Maclean's, and became a columnist for The Globe and Mail. He had a national syndicated column that was in 20 newspapers, but he retired from regular contributions in 2007, after life-threatening complications from a colonoscopy led to his hospitalization for five months. Fotheringham continued to write occasionally for the Globe and for the National Post, as well as a Calgary magazine called The Roughneck. Later years Fotheringham had honorary degrees from the University of New Brunswick (2003) and the University of Saskatchewan (2005). He died on August 19, 2020, at his home in Toronto. He was 12 days short of his 88th birthday. Although the cause of death has not yet been determined, his wife noted that he was in "generally poor health" in the time leading up to his death. Controversies In a 1984 column, he wrote that two Vancouver lawyers were "cementing their connections through the tennis club circuits and the wife-swapping brigades". A judge awarded the lawyers $10,000 each in damages for libel. In a 1988 article about the British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Bt, he wrote that "Prince Charles always supports him, claiming great results for British exports, but no one has ever been able to demonstrate that any scientific or historical benefits have resulted." A London jury awarded £75,000 in damages against Fotheringham and his publishers. In 1987, Fotheringham quipped that the United States were not serious about free trade negotiations with Canada because its chief negotiator Peter Murphy had an inoperable brain tumor, which is alleged to have led to his dismissal from his Washington post with Southam News. Fotheringham was repeatedly accused of plagiarism throughout his career. He told an interviewer that "I don’t think it’s all that serious" since "all journalism is based on basically what someone else has written or reported.". Invented terms Affectionately known as "Foth" as well as "Dr. Foth", he dubbed himself "the Great Gatheringfroth", and coined some well-known terms in British Columbian political history: Lotusland – British Columbia, particularly Victoria the Granite Curtain – the Rocky Mountains the Tweed Curtain – the Oak Bay, British Columbia–Victoria border, referring to the former's conservative British character "the Brogue that walks and talks like a man" – journalist and broadcaster Jack Webster (who had many nicknames, not all of them Foth's). Foth later adapted this phrase to "the Jaw that walks and talks like a man"