In a short piece for the Canadian International Council, Roland Paris asks the essential question about Prime Minister Harper: What Is Stephen Harper Afraid Of? It’s been clear for some time that Harper, for all his bravado, trusts no one. That has bee…
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Northern Reflections: Smelling The Crazy
For Conservatives, Paul Krugman is more than an apostate; he is the Anti-Christ. But his column in today’s New York Times is required reading. He writes that it’s strange how many people, who have been in denial, are now “waking up and smelling the cra…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Who Is The Real Stephen Harper?
To his critics on the left, Stephen Harper is a right wing ideologue. To his critics on the right, he is a Liberal in disguise. Scott Stinson, in The National Post, claims that Harper has succeeded by selling out his conservative principles:The Tory go…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Come, Let Us Reason Together
I have always thought that Churchill was right when he said that, “the United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative” I was a graduate student in the United States during the Watergate Crisis; and, …
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Lester Pearson Would Be Furious
Yesterday, John Baird announced that Canada would boycott the UN Conference on Disarmament. Canada’s objection, said Baird, was that North Korea would chair the conference:”It’s just absurd to have them in the chair,” Baird told a conference call. “Th…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Danger Of Getting Too Close To Royalty
After the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge left Canada to bask in the glow of Hollywood, the Prime Minister chose to do some basking of his own. Speaking in Calgary over the weekend, Stephen Harper, according to The Globe and Mailconsigned the Liberals an…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Student Debt and Myopic Public Policy
Gary Mason began his column in Thursday’s Globe and Mail by reminiscing about the good old days:Once upon a time, getting money to attend university in Canada was easy. There were non-repayable grants available from the government, and there were lot…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Smart People Flunked History
I have referred several times in this space to Barbara Tuchman’s book, The March of Folly. In particular, I have returned to Tuchman’s definition of “wooden-headedness:”Wooden-headedness, the source of self-deception, is a factor that plays a rem…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The Saga Of A Prodigal Son
Bob Hepburn argues, in today’s Toronto Star, that Conrad Black should be stripped of his Order of Canada: Strangely though, the advisory council that oversees the Order of Canada once again failed to strip former newspaper owner Conrad Black, who…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Good Old Fashioned Class Warfare
While many members of the chattering class have heralded Stephen Harper’s election as the beginning of a bright and beautiful future, Linda McQuaig has always seen it for what it is: a concerted and vengeful attempt to turn back the clock.In today’s To…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Speculating on the Economy
Jim Standford has an interesting piece in today’s Globe and Mail. He notes that the Harper government justified its imposed settlement on Canada Post by claiming that the economy was at risk. Apparently, a government which believes in free markets has …
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Socializing Losses
For the last thirty years, conservatives have maintained that government must be run like a business, adhere to market principles, be lean and mean. But it is always instructive to compare what conservatives say to what they do.Consider the sale last w…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Canada Day 2011
This has been a difficult year. In Alberta, a forest fire ravaged the town of Slave Lake. In Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Souris, the Assiniboine and the Red Rivers have inundated huge swaths of prairie farm land. In Quebec, the Richeleau River has t…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: An Eye On The Future
In today’s Globe and Mail, Micheal Ignatieff offers a response to those despicable attack ads that Conservatives ran from the day he became Liberal leader until the day he resigned that post — the ones that ended with the tagline, “he didn’t come back…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Reach For the Top?
In Macleans recent survey of Canadian Prime Ministers, Stephen Harper occupies the middle ground. He is rated 11th out of 22. Wilfred Laurier comes in first; hapless Kim Campbell occupies the last spot. The top four prime ministers — Laurier, Ma…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Defining The Government
The outcome was inevitable. The mail will be delivered on Tuesday. But the parliamentary filibuster was worth it. What we finally had in this country was a genuine debate. And the “Harper Government” — remember that’s the phrase they themselves chose&…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: The New War On Crime
In his latest blog post, Alex Himelfarb warns that — after the Canada Post filibuster is over — the opposition should turn its attention to the government’s omnibus crime bill. That bill takes its inspiration from the four decade old American war on …
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Facing Facts
My wife and I used to live a half hour away from the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec. My grandmother grew up on a farm just outside Thetford Mines. So asbestos is part of the family history. The problem is that the history of asbestos is fraught with …
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: Leaving Afghanistan
America has reached a crossroads. And Barack Obama has a difficult road ahead, because it is his task to lead the nation into a world of limits. From the very beginning, Americans have seen their country as a land of infinite opportunity. And, as…
Continue readingNorthern Reflections: A Post Mortem
In the latest edition of The Walrus, Warren Kinsella analyzes the reasons for The Liberals’ disastrous election outcome. It’s clear that he has little patience for Michael Ignatieff’s strategic skills. More importantly, he claims that when Ignatieff ha…
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