Fifty years ago, Alberta entered the modern era. With the provincial election of August, 1971, Albertans dismissed Social Credit, their governing party for 36 years, and elected the Progressive Conservatives.…
Being a sucker for surveys, I couldn’t resist the Vote Compass survey on the CBC News website. The survey purports to locate your position on the political landscape relative to…
As humanity continues to heat the planet, there are winners and losers. Let me rephrase that. Ultimately nobody wins; in the long term if global warming isn’t halted it will…
So we are to have an unnecessary election. Didn’t we make our views clear enough in 2019? We didn’t give one of the parties a majority because we didn’t buy…
Heavily dependent on tourism, the Cuban economy has been hit hard by the pandemic’s restrictions on travel. The loss of Canadian tourists is a particularly heavy blow as in recent…
From 2006 to 2015 we endured a decade of Conservative rule even though the Conservatives never won the support of even 40 percent of Canadian voters. Such are the idiosyncrasies…
The most recent Angus Reid Institute poll on Canadians’ priorities and voting intentions had at least one big surprise. That, at least to this observer of the Canadian mind, was…
Purchasing carbon offsets is a popular way to act against global warming, or at least to alleviate one’s conscience. An offset allows a business, government or individual to pay someone…
Oakley, Utah, is small but appealing. Nestled in the mountains beside the Weber River less than an hour’s drive east of Salt Lake City, the town offers an attractive bargain…
As nations reset their economies following the Covid crisis, one focus is on reducing the inequality that has become an increasing threat to political stability. An obvious instrument to achieving…
“They will not be left behind.” So said Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan at a news conference this week. The “they” he was referring to are workers in the oil…
President Joe Biden missed his goal of 70 percent of Americans vaccinated against Covid by July 4th. Some cities are now urging even vaccinated residents to resume mask-wearing, and in…
I have been a supporter of social democracy since the days of the CCF and Tommy Douglas. I have, however, often offered support to the Liberals and occasionally to the…
We are all tribal. We don’t have a choice. We are designed that way. Our architects—our genes—design us to be biased toward fellow members of our tribe as opposed to…
Young people in China are channeling the 60s and it worries their Communist overlords. They are rejecting consumerism, hard work and all that other middle class stuff. They are lying…
A recent Pew Research survey of religious attitudes in India revealed some interesting insights into a society tolerant of, yet divided by, religion. First, Indians are a very religious people.…
“We need to change the rules”—Greta Thunberg, 2019 In 1970, American biologist Arthur Galston coined the term “ecocide” to describe mass environmental destruction. Galston was a critic of the Vietnam…
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability…
I opened the CBC website one morning this week to be confronted with the headline “High oil prices a potential boon for beleaguered Alberta.” I mistook “boon” for “boom” and…
The Prince of darkness. Thus was Dick Cheney, one of the most unpopular figures in the history of American politics, known when he was George W. Bush’s vice-president. Cheney oversaw…
