Bucking horses and other immoral entertainments
It’s Stampede time in Calgary and that means it’s time for another debate about exploiting other animals to amuse ourselves. The focus, of course, is rodeo—bucking broncs, calf roping, steer…
Bill Longstaff
Blair makes nice with Sisi—following in Margaret’s steps?
Former British PM Margaret Thatcher’s fondness for Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet was infamous. Pinochet was a mass torturer and murderer, but the iron lady was quite fond of him…
Omar Khadr’s trial lacked legal basis
After the way Omar Khadr has been persecuted by both the American government and ours, I wouldn’t have thought any more outrageous news of this sordid affair could emerge. But…
Corporations suing countries—how crazy is that?
Lone Pine Resources sues Canada because Quebec has imposed a moratorium on fracking. Philip Morris sues the Australian government over its tobacco plain packaging legislation. Swedish energy company Vattenfall sues…
Republicans losing the Cuban vote
Lack of support from minority voters has long been an Achilles heel for the Republican Party. This holds true for Hispanics. In the last presidential election, Obama gained a record…
Iran has a huge PR problem
To say that that Americans and Israelis don’t like Iran would hardly be news. But to say that just about every other country in the world doesn’t like Iran either…
Bravo to Elon Musk, patent-buster
Inventor/entrepreneur/engineer/investor Elon Musk recently announced he was giving away all the patents on Tesla Motor’s electric car technology, allowing anyone, competitors included, to use them. Musk, CEO and product architect…
Can capitalists save capitalism?
Prominent Harvard economist Lawrence Katz illustrates the American economy with an amusing analogy. He depicts it as an apartment block in which the penthouses have increased in size, the middle…
Alberta politicos hedge on flood mitigation
After the great flood in Calgary last year, municipal and provincial governments agreed something had to be done to prevent another such catastrophe. There were, however, no shortage of sceptics.…
Kathleen Wynne—lucky with her enemies
Some people are lucky with their friends; some are lucky with their enemies. Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne is clearly one of the latter. Faced with two opponents that seemed determined…
Marshall Islanders take on the nuclear powers
This is a David and Goliath story like no other. The Republic of the Marshall Islands, a country with a population of only 68,000 souls, is taking the nuclear powers…
Mark Carney on capitalism eating its children
Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, formerly Governor of the Bank of Canada, isn’t exactly your average leftie. Indeed, bank governors tend to turn up on the opposite…
Legislating morality—the new prostitution law
Ah, yet another step backward into a failed past. I refer, of course, to our favourite government’s new Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act, a piece of legislation that…
Fatah and Hamas reconcile … finally
Family quarrels can be nasty affairs, and the seven-year tiff between Fatah and Hamas has been no exception. In the 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, Hamas won a decisive majority in…
On the good news front—Experimental Lakes Area is open for business
Of all the victims of the federal government’s suppression of science, the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) was perhaps the most important. The ELA, comprised of 58 freshwater lakes along with…
Why only politics when we think of democracy?
Conversations about democracy tend to revolve overwhelmingly about politics and government. These topics are rightly at the centre of democratic dialogue as they are the overarching institutions of our society.…
Could Alberta go green?
With 50 per cent more greenhouse gas emissions than Ontario, Alberta is Canada’s pollution province. And that makes us think of the tar sands. But it’s more than bitumen. Alberta’s…
Today is the International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers
Fifty-eight years ago, one of Canada’s most honourable contributions to the international community was born. The first armed UN peacekeeping mission, an emergency force formed to deal with the Suez…
Calgary, I’m forced to admit, is a world class city
I have always been inclined to ignore talk about making my city—Calgary—world class. It sounds rather desperate, a sad sort of social-climbing by civic boosters. But now it appears that…
Dying with dignity in Quebec
Quebec’s new Liberal government has decided to reintroduce Bill 52, the end-of-life care bill first tabled by the PQ in June 2013. The legislation will allow terminally ill patients to…