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…
Bill Longstaff
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…
Are liberal values failing?
A recent article in The New York Times by David Brooks, “Globalization Is Over. The Global Culture Wars Have Begun,” discusses the decline of globalization generally and Western values specifically…
How much for defence?
Chrystia Freehand’s recent budget, although modest, did have some goodies in it for the military, including more than $8-billion in new funding over five years. While less than expected, perhaps,…
The authoritarian Americans
Why are Americans so much more authoritarian than Canadians? According to a survey by American business intelligence company Morning Consult, the U.S. has twice as many right-wing authoritarians as Canada…
Calgary’s three angry amigos
I have lived in Alberta a long time, all but four years under conservative governments—Social Credit, then Progressive Conservative, now UCP. Only for four years did I enjoy the governance…
Finally—a Bill to end news theft
It’s taken a while, and the loss of a third of journalism jobs and 451 news outlets since 2008, along with the migration of billions of advertising dollars to tech…
Smalls vs. Amazon as David vs. Goliath
The recent success of employees at Amazons’s New York fulfillment centre in forming a union might be the best example of David defeating Goliath since the biblical incident. The union,…