The "climate change caucus"—good news on two fronts
An initiative championed by Liberal MP Kirsty Duncan has borne fruit in the House of Commons. Dr. Duncan proposed a "climate change caucus" consisting of members of all parties, and…
Bill Longstaff
Capitalists really do run the world—science says so
Science, it seems, is confirming the Occupy movement's concerns about capitalists running the world. A trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology combined the mathematics…
The Pope suppots a Tobin tax
In 1972, Nobel Prize-winning economist James Tobin suggested his now famous currency transaction tax as a way to manage the volatility of exchange rates. He believed that governments were not…
Measuring social progress—the Canadian Index of Wellbeing
Released last Thursday, the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW) illustrates yet again the folly of using the GDP as a measure of social progress. The GDP is, after all, simply…
Public transit blossoms in Calgary
When Calgary's GoPlan, the blueprint for the city's transportation development for the next 30 years, was created in the mid-1990s, it predicted that by 2024, 50 per cent of commuters…
Welcome to the new Supremes
Finally, the Prime Minister has filled the gaps in the Supreme Court and seemingly with good choices: Justice Andromache Karakatsanis and Justice Michael Moldaver, both from the Ontario Court of…
Calgary’s main attraction
What is Calgary's most popular attraction? The Calgary Stampede, you say? Flames games, perhaps? The Calgary Zoo? Wrong, wrong and wrong.According to an article in Fast Forward Magazine, in 2010…
Occupy Wall Street—a Sixties moment?
Is Occupy Wall Street a Sixties' moment? Will it bring about lasting change or simply fade away? Either way, it is overdue. Started in New York, inspired by the Arab…
A message from Forest Lawn for workers everywhere
The workers at Sobeys' Forest Lawn supermarket, the only unionized Sobeys in Calgary, are currently on strike. The pickets have been on duty for two weeks. Doug Smith of the…
Premier Redford’s male cabinet
The recent election of Alison Redford as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Alberta, and thus the premier of the province, was healthy progress for women in Canadian politics.…
Congrats to Tawakul Karman and friends
I was a little surprised at the Nobel Peace Prize awards for 2011. I had felt sure the winners would include a leader from Egypt's Arab Spring revolt, the Arab…
Pembina comments on the federal environment commissioner’s report
I intended to comment on the October Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, offering as it did yet another disappointing, if not depressing, account of the…
Loss of party subsidy is loss for democracy
Democracy is about political equality. To be democratic, a political system must in essence belong to all the people equally, and if it is to belong to all the people…
Cities—the provincial option
The possibility of Toronto becoming a province has popped up in the news again. The idea has floated around for years, supported by a variety of civic thinkers including the…
At least read the bloody book
We in Christendom have a history of "Christians" using religion to justify violence of all kinds, from war to burning people at the stake. Indeed, exploiting one of history's gentlest…
CIA undermines aid agencies
That the CIA does sleazy stuff is hardly new. Perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised then that they exploited children to help track Osama bin Laden.In order to confirm his…
Palestine and the churlish U.S. veto
It seems so little to ask. A people, already recognized as a nation by most other nations, requests full membership in the UN. It should be a shoo-in. Palestine is…
British cooking a hit in Berlin
Black is white, down is up, and British cooking is popular in Berlin. It's true! Berlin has seen the opening of a spate of cafes and bars featuring British food.East…
Barack Obama, the world’s leading assassin, and his private army
Within the U.S. military is another military, a secret military. Not secret in its existence—although even that can be shadowy—but secret in its operations. Except when it scores a public…
The best voting system for Canada
We have seen four provincial referendums recently offering alternatives to the First Past the Post (FPTP) voting system and all failed to bring about change. A major reason for the…