I have a letter on The Vancouver Sun’s website (online only, it would appear) replying to a ridiculous op-ed piece that blames the high cost of housing on “mass immigration.” My response is restrained in both tone and word count, … Continue reading →
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Politics and its Discontents: In The Service Of Truth
There are many truths today that, thanks to the almost reflexive, visceral response of an often vitriolic social media, few dare to speak. Most recently, linking the terrible fires in Fort McMurray with climate change has been one of them. Is it insens…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Measuring Democracy
One of the concerns that has motivated me throughout the years I have written this blog is public accountability. Far too often, whether examining politics at the federal, provincial or local level, it is evident that public accountability, when it oc…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Morally Weak, Intellectually Contemptuous
That’s how I regard the justifications for continuing with the Saudi arms deal offered by Stephane Dion and his puppet master, Justin Trudeau. I see I am not alone in that assessment: Re: Approval of Saudi arms deal was illegal, lawyer argues, April 22…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Andrea’s Damascene Moment
In the Book of Luke, Jesus is reported to have said the following:I tell you that … there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.In Acts of the Apostles, Paul’s conversion…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Outrage Continues
In the weekend Star, Tony Burman gave five reasons that Canada should cancel the Saudi arms deal, an immoral agreement which the Trudeau government refuses to budge on. I will simply give the headings of his arguments here:1. Canadians oppose it2. Cana…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The High Cost Of Free Trade
Despite the rhetoric by our political and corporate overlords about the wondrous benefits of free trade, multitudes of people on both sides of the border are becoming increasingly aware of its true costs.In today’s Star, readers weigh in with their usu…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Time Grows Short
As The Mound of Sound points out, it is getting very late on the climate-change front. The goal of keeping global warming at below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100 seems a fool’s errand, given that it is now predicted to be reached by 2030. A bitter truth tha…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: More On Freelands’s Double-Speak
Recently, I wrote a post about CETA, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement; part of it examined the double-speak of Chrystia Freeland when she talked about both the protection of investor rights and the benefits of the deal that will redound t…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Looking In The Mirror
A recent Toronto Star piece about climate change chose to explore, not the well-known physical peril it poses, but rather the mental one. Citing a 2012 report from the U.S. National Wildlife Federation, it offered the following grim predictions:… cas…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Highlighting Corporate Failure
There are two lead letters in today’s Star that bear reproducing. Expect no admission of a flawed ideology on the part of the neoliberals among us, however:Re: House of Harper quickly crumbling, Feb. 22 Suddenly a lot of people from banks and corporati…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Star Readers On The Guaranteed Annual Income
I write periodically in this blog on the concept of the guaranteed annual income; it seems it would be an effective way of helping to address many of the socio-economic problems we face. As you will see in the first of four letters on the subject from …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: More On The Guaranteed Annual Income
Responding to a recent opinion piece advocating for a guaranteed annual income, Star reader David Gladstone of Toronto has this to offer the crucial role it can play in a world of tremendous change and increasingly precarious employment:It seems the wo…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: To Serve And Protect Who?
Were I so inclined, I could probably devote this blog solely to police misconduct, so extensive does it seem. Perhaps it is due to the Forcillo conviction for the attempted murder of the late Sammy Yatim that we are more sensitive to the issue, but eac…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: A Good Question
There are days when it is difficult to see any long-term future for the human race. Stories abound of both our collective and individual acts of brutality that attest to the fact that purely animal urges prevail within us far too frequently. The scinti…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Blowhard Blah Blah Blah
Please pardon the rather inarticulate nature of this post’s title, but it seemed appropriate in dealing with this subject:And it would appear that Toronto Star readers have taken the full measure of Kevin O’Leary:O’Leary mulls Tory leadership bid, Jan….
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Canadians Speak Out About Saudi Arabia
While our new government would, I’m sure, dearly love to change the channel on the indefensible arms deal with Saudi Arabia that I have been recently writing about, it is clear that Canadians are not about to be easily diverted. A selection of letters …
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Remembering Sammy Yatim
To listen to James Forcillo, the Toronto police officer who shot Sammy Yatim eight times as the knife-wielding teen stood inside an empty streetcar, he had no choice but to kill him:”If I had done nothing, he would have stabbed me,” Const. James Forcil…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The True Voice Of Canada
As we well know after enduring almost 10 years of darkness, sometimes the loudest and ugliest voices are the ones that command the most attention, thereby skewering our perceptions of reality. If the Harper government had been the true voice of Canada,…
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: One Thing Is Clear
The older I get, the more I realize that there are no simple solutions to problems, be it world hunger, war and conflict, climate change, or something as seemingly straightforward as getting along with that difficult guy down the street. And while I ha…
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