The Quality and the Rabble in American Government
The health of democracy, indeed government generally, often rests more with the quality of a country’s civil servants than with the quality of its politicians and their associates. Rarely have…
Bill Longstaff
Hong Kong Has Spoken
Hong Kong has spoken, indeed has shouted, and it has shouted “democracy” loud and clear. Pro-democracy candidates secured almost 90 percent of district council seats in Sunday’s election, taking control…
Evangelicals and Their Populist Prophets
Christian evangelicals are having good innings in the political sphere these days. First, their man Donald Trump becomes president of the U.S.; then another of their populist heroes, Jair Bolsonaro,…
Alberta—the Old South in the Cold North
Reading the book All God’s Children, I encountered a section about the relationship of the American South to the Union just prior to the Civil War. As I read on,…
Big Bump for PR (take note Mr. Trudeau)
Has this election awakened Canadians to the need for proportional representation? The results of a recent Angus Reid poll certainly suggest so. From the support of under half the electorate…
Trump and Israel—So Much for Separation of Church and State
The Trump administration has taken yet another step in its radical support of Israel. Having recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, recognized Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights, cut off…
The Extraordinary Arrogance of "Kamikaze" Kenney
Lorne Gibson, Alberta’s elections commissioner, has had his differences with the province’s Conservatives. In 2009, he was Alberta’s chief electoral officer and, unhappy with the 2008 election, he recommended 182…
"Alberta is in danger of becoming the Don Cherry of Canadian politics."
Nothing quite like a good one-liner. Wisdom in a few words. And Graham Thomson, one of the better columnists writing about Alberta politics, started my day off with a beauty…
Would It Help To Dump Alberta?
The G20’s Climate Transparency group issued its annual report this week grading all member countries on their climate performance and found them all wanting. The report said only about half…
Democracy or Putinism?
Vladimir Putin has been quoted as saying that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century.” Whether or not his words have been interpreted…
Alberta after Fossil Fuels
Alberta and oil are almost synonymous. But if the province is to do its share to avoid the apocalypse that global warming threatens, it must kick the oil habit, or…
Time for Evo to Go?
Evo Morales has done great things for Bolivia. Perhaps his most important contribution has been giving Brazil’s indigenous people their country back. For centuries after the conquest, as has been…
Can Trudeau Make a Future with Alberta?
Life is full of little surprises. Often pleasant ones. I encountered such a surprise this week reading the Calgary Herald, not a paper usually on my wave length. And yet…
The Climate Case for Impeachment
Will they or won’t they? Impeach the Donald, I mean. As the U.S. Congress moves glacially along the impeachment path, I propose impeaching him not on the grounds of his…
The unbridgeable gap: Alberta and Saskatchewan
One result of the recent election is a certain amount of angst about Alberta and Saskatchewan failing to elect a single Liberal. How to ameliorate the alienation felt by this…
Eastern Europe happy (mostly) with democracy and free markets
In November, 1989, the world’s most infamous wall came down and the “Evil Empire” crumbled away. The communist regimes of Eastern Europe collapsed like dominoes and by 1990 free elections…
A bad night for politicians, but not so bad for the country
It was not a good night for political parties. Clearly, the voters were not about to commend the Liberals for their four years in power. And just as clearly, they…
Apparently I’m a Quebecker
Vote Compass recently published a survey of Canadians’ attitudes toward a variety of issues. The results were broken down by province, scaling how much respondents agreed or disagreed with different…
Living with the apocalypse
Is it time to recognize that we are politically incapable of dealing with global warming? Is the gap between what is politically acceptable and what is scientifically necessary too great?…
War Rooms, Secrecy and a Little Patronage—Democracy in Alberta
Former journalist and conservative lobbyist Tom Olsen was the UCP candidate in my riding of Calgary-Buffalo in this spring’s Alberta election. Tom lost to Joe Ceci of the NDP, but…