Canadians’ progressive values trending up
Always on the alert for good news, my attention was piqued recently by some stats released by the Angus Reid Institute. The numbers derived from a study by Angus Reid…
Bill Longstaff
There is a Russian opposition
Russian’s new tsar, Vlad the shirtless, is not a man to entertain opposition. People who cross him have been known to be poisoned, shot, imprisoned or, in the case of…
World Environment Day
In the universe are billions of galaxies,In our galaxy are billions of planets,But there is Only One Earth. The above truism is from the UN Environment Program’s website for the…
Doug Ford—surprising politician
When Doug Ford took over control of the Ontario Conservative Party, a lot of people expected the worst. He seemed to have just lucked in to a Liberal government dead…
Finally, a true accounting from Alberta’s GHG emitters?
Alberta’s government and its oil companies are playing a bit of a shell game with GHG emissions. The story for the public is that the companies are shooting for net…
U.S Second Amendment—the most abused law in history?
Once again mass shootings stalk America. Ten dead in Buffalo, 21 in Uvalde, Texas. In less than two weeks. Both shooters were teenagers. Once again there are loud outcries for…
Is the U.S. a threat to our security?
I have experienced a number of revelations about the state of North American democracy in the last few years. In 2016 I thought it was solid as a rock. How…
Will Aussie go green?
Australia shares with Canada and the United States the dubious distinction of being one of the top three per-capita greenhouse gas producers among the industrial countries. The dirty three. Like…
Greenhouse gasses ain’t no joke
When Premier Kenney went down to the U.S. earlier this month to peddle even more of our major greenhouse gas-producing product, I was at a loss for words. The global…
I voted for the magpie
It’s official. The people have voted and The City of Calgary has declared its official bird. The winner is that little favourite, the black-capped chickadee. The decision will be confirmed…
Roe vs. Wade, democracy, and minority rights
The American Supreme Court has certainly managed to catch the attention of the nation. The leaking of a draft of a ruling has people wondering whatever happened to Court security.…
How low will these Conservatives go?
A recent headline in the The New York Times read “Long After Blockade, Canada’s Truckers Have a Political Champion.” The champion it was referring to was the Conservative Party of…
Separation of God and state
This week the House of Commons debated a motion by the Bloc Québécois regarding the House’s morning prayer. Yes, the morning prayer no less. As a number of MPs pointed…
NATO advances
Vladimir Putin. Yet another megalomaniacal psychopath pursuing Lebensraum, a true heir to the Nazis he claims to despise. If he has accomplished anything in his invasion of Ukraine, it is…
Oil, guns and ethics
Promoters of the Alberta tar sands suggest customers for the product almost have a moral obligation to buy it. Their term is “ethical oil.” We hear the refrain from an…
Perhaps the party of Lincoln isn’t dead yet
The Republicans backing Trump again would be the definition of insanity. Who said that, you ask. A Democrat perhaps? Or a journalist? An academic? No, as hard to believe as…
More craziness from Texas
Many years ago, when I toiled in the oil patch, I lived in Houston, Texas for a couple of years. It was most enjoyable, especially the part about missing Canadian…
Canada’s climate scorecard: “highly insufficient”
Checking the various international climate performance indices for Canada’s rankings is a depressing business. Consider for example the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI). The CCPI is compiled annually by three…
The West? Really?
Many Canadians think of “the West” as one monolithic block. This concept seemed to firm up in many minds back when Preston Manning and his Reform Party stormed Ottawa proclaiming…