I have always been inclined to ignore talk about making my city—Calgary—world class. It sounds rather desperate, a sad sort of social-climbing by civic boosters. But now it appears that Calgary really is a world class city. How can it not be when two of the world’s top newspapers declare
Continue readingAuthor: Bill Longstaff
Dying with dignity in Quebec
Quebec’s new Liberal government has decided to reintroduce Bill 52, the end-of-life care bill first tabled by the PQ in June 2013. The legislation will allow terminally ill patients to request medical assistance in dying if they suffer from an incurable illness that is in an advanced state and which
Continue readingHookers to be part of Italy’s GDP
Italy’s National Institute of Statistics recently announced that next year it will start including activities such as prostitution and illegal drug sales in the country’s Gross Domestic Product. And why not. After all, these activities create jobs and incomes and are therefore an integral part of a national economy. Estimating
Continue readingWhy is the environment considered primarily a left-wing concern?
Conservative and conservation are almost the same word, both deriving from the Latin conservare, “to preserve,” and differing only by two letters. We might expect, therefore, that conservatives would be great conservationists, deeply concerned about preserving the natural world, foremost stewards of the environment. Yet that doesn’t seem to be
Continue readingVoting—the opiate of the people?
A letter to the Deseret News, a Salt Lake City, Utah, daily paper, suggested rather unkindly that the rite of voting in the U.S. is nothing more than “the opiate of the masses.” I was rather surprised to find a quote from Marx in a newspaper owned by the Mormon
Continue readingGoing … going … gone … Western Antarctic ice sheet slips into the sea
It seems the planet is running out of ice. The latest news on that front came with two reports last week that said the Western Antarctic ice sheet is collapsing. The loss of the entire ice sheet could eventually cause a sea level rise of up to 4 metres. Studies
Continue readingEgypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and déjà vu
That Egyptian general Abdel Fattah el-Sisi intends to return the country to military rule becomes increasingly clear. Leader of the July 2013 coup against then President Mohamed Morsi, Sisi is running in the May 26-27 presidential election which he is expected to win in a landslide. He is highly popular
Continue readingConference Board illustrates folly of conventional economic metrics
Once again conventional measurement has painted a warped view of our economic well-being. Relying principally on growth in the GDP sense, The Conference Board of Canada applauds the oil and gas rich provinces—Alberta, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador—for being the country’s top economic performers. In the short term they are: highest
Continue readingIs Putin playing to the gallery?
That Vladimir Putin laments the loss of the Soviet empire is well known, so adding a few bits back in no doubt appeals to him. He also has a perfectly legitimate reason for playing tough on Russia’s western front—security. Russia has suffered a number of devastating invasions from the west
Continue readingStudents instruct teachers to bring economics into the real world
Following the Second World War, Western nations embarked on securing the welfare state as a balance to the capitalist market economy, the result of which was the most prosperous and equitable societies ever known. The most influential economist through this period was Britain’s John Maynard Keynes with his prescription of
Continue readingAre the little swimmers in trouble?
The world is full of endocrine disruptors. Chemicals that mimic natural hormones in the body are found in a host of products from food packaging to toothpaste to toys. Now researchers in Denmark and Germany have found that many of them—one-third of the 96 they tested—disrupt the way sperm function,
Continue readingFrom Ukraine—"Basically we’re screwed"
A young eastern Ukrainian philosophy student, commenting on the weekend referendum in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, summed up his country’s condition rather neatly: “I haven’t voted,” he said, “and nor have any of my friends. It’s a referendum for idiots, organized by idiots. Of course I don’t want to
Continue readingApril 28—National Day of Mourning
In 1984, the Canadian Labour Congress declared April 28th a National Day of Mourning for workers who have been killed, or suffer disease or injury as a result of work. It is now recognized in over a 100 countries around the world. Every year, unions, labour councils, families and community
Continue readingAre we gambling our economy on the tar sands?
Depending heavily for jobs, profits and taxes on our most rapidly increasing source of greenhouse gas emissions is environmental folly. It may mean more economic prosperity in the short term, but by contributing to global warming, it will undermine economic prosperity, and a lot else, in the long term. It
Continue readingDon’t give up on the Senate, Mr. Harper
It wouldn’t be surprising if Prime Minister Harper was in a bit of a funk over the Supreme Court’s decision on the Senate this week. The Court unanimously rejected his government’s attempt to transform the Senate into an elected body and to set term limits, saying that such basic changes
Continue readingThe Great Game—did Putin outplay the West in Crimea?
In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires’ strategic rivalry for supremacy in Central Asia was referred to as the Great Game. The game has never really ended as Russia has continued to vie with Western powers for influence and control in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. And in
Continue readingUK PM claims Britain is a Christian country—it ain’t
British Prime Minister David Cameron has put the cat among the pigeons claiming, perhaps unduly influenced by the Easter season, that Britain is a Christian country. In fact, he suggested Brits should be downright evangelical about it. He is, however, dead wrong. A 2012 British Society Attitudes Survey indicated that
Continue readingCommon sense in Kitimat
Good news over the weekend. The citizens of Kitimat B.C. had their say on the Northern Gateway pipeline, and they said NO. In a referendum on Saturday, they voted 1,793 to 1,278 to oppose running the pipeline to their town, the proposed terminus. Mayor Joanne Monaghan promised to discuss the
Continue readingThe United States—democracy or oligarchy?
Last year, Iran held an election to choose its president. Many in the West mocked the election because the candidates were vetted by the Guardian Council (a group appointed largely by the Supreme Leader). This, however, is not so different from American presidential elections. In the U.S., candidates have to
Continue reading$36-million for a cup? Some people are just too rich
It’s called the chicken cup because it’s got chickens painted on it. The world’s highest priced birds, in fact. The cup fetched $36.1-million, including commission, at Sotheby’s spring auction in Hong Kong. Described as the “the holy grail when it comes to Chinese art,” the cup set a record for
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