Christmas? I do Xmas
One of the traditions of the holiday season is lamenting about the corruption of Christmas by commercialization or by foreign cultures that have invaded our pristine Christian shores. I have…
Bill Longstaff
Rebuilding the American middle class
When you consider that the United States is the richest country in the world, the state of its working class is shocking. The country now has the highest proportion of…
Producing the wrong oil?
The Joint Review Panel has ruled on the viability of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and the result is as expected. The panel, established by the National Energy Board and…
Canadians becoming downright peaceable
Stats Can has released Canada’s crime statistics for 2012 and the country continues to look increasingly like the peaceable kingdom. Crime overall continued the decline it began in 1992, with…
Germany’s Grand Coalition—a lesson for Canada?
Germany now has a government that represents a solid majority of the German people. With three-quarters of Social Democrat party members voting to join a coalition with Angela Merkel’s Christian…
Alberta creates a Minister of Renewable Energy
Occasionally a spark of hope interrupts the dreary flow of environmental news. Such a spark occurred in Alberta last week with the announcement by Premier Redford that Donna Kennedy-Glans would…
Dagenais illustrates why women avoid politics
“If you can’t stand the heat, etc.” … the usual justification when one politician objects to the boorish behaviour of another. And no doubt MP Charmaine Borg heard a lot…
Americans opt to mind their own business
For the first time since it began measuring the statistic 50 years ago, the Pew Research Centre reports that a majority of Americans believe the U.S. should mind its own…
Should women run the world?
Scientists at at the University of Pennsylvania have once again confirmed what we have always known intuitively. Men’s and women’s brains are wired differently. Maps of neural circuitry from one…
Pembina praises Ontario’s new energy plan
The Pembina Institute, one of the country’s leading environmental advocacy organizations, has good things to say about Ontario’s new long-term energy plan. In a press release this week, the Institute…
Omar sues
Justice has to date miserably failed Omar Khadr. It simply has not been a match for the vindictiveness of Washington and the callousness of Ottawa. Consequently his life continues to…
Canada-Australia climate axis—greatest threat to global security?
Prime Minister Harper once announced that the greatest threat to global security was terrorism. That was nonsense of course—every year, malaria kills approximately 660,000 people, mostly children, and AIDS 1,700,000…
U.S. feeds Japanese militarism
China, with its paltry aid to the Philippines and its announcement of a new air-defense zone over the East China sea, has not been making friends in its region these…
If you’re a democrat, instruct your MP to support Chong’s Bill
An opportunity to strike a blow for parliamentary democracy has suddenly arisen and all democrats should take advantage of it. On Thursday, Michael Chong, MP for Wellington-Halton Hills, will introduce…
Thou shalt not have an economy of exclusion and inequality
I am no fan of the Roman Catholic Church, nor can I avoid cringing at some of Pope Francis’s views, particularly on women, but occasionally I do have to applaud…
Parliament needs a science watchdog
Science has never been more important to the human race than it is today. We are faced with the two greatest threats in our history: catastrophic climate change combined with…
Does Canada’s knee-jerk loyalty benefit Israel?
Right on cue, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked the new nuclear deal with Iran hardly before the ink was dry, calling it a “historic mistake,” stating he was not…
The Conservatives and the Republican disease
Being an inveterate reader, I frequently encounter something that is such a nice piece of writing it demands a second or third reading and occasionally even creates a pang of…
Era of sense of entitlement reaches U of C
CEOs loading up on compensation and perks, even if their companies are floundering, has become a commonplace of our era. This sense of entitlement has similarly been observed among various…