APEC—Environment one, Keystone zero
Despite Stephen Harper's 25-minute walk in the garden with Barack Obama during the recent APEC forum, the president was not dissuaded from his decision to conduct a thorough review of…
Bill Longstaff
Obama’s sartorial slip
"I was persuaded by our team to perhaps break tradition, and so we have not required you to wear your aloha shirts." Thus President Obama broke the 20-year tradition of…
Canada’s climate change policy—drinking the Kool-Aid
The warnings continue. And they are ominous. In its annual World Energy Outlook released November 9th, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that the world will lose the chance to…
Did former Israeli security chiefs rat out Netanyahu?
Meir Dagan, former head of Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service, is no admirer of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He has accused Netanyahu of being "irresponsible and reckless" and feels…
The UNESCO vote and the decline of American influence
Following the vote Monday to admit Palestine into UNESCO, Hamas official Ahmed Yousef said it "shows that Israel and America are not dictating politics to the world anymore." Hamas's view…
Congratulations to the Palestinians … and UNESCO
Allow me to add my cheer to those that went up at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) 36th General Conference after delegates approved Palestinian membership. The…
Six more MPs for Alberta—not good news for this Albertan
I admit to ambivalence about the government's announcement that under the proposed Fair Representation Act the country will gain 30 more MPs. It is a good thing, of course, to…
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…
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…