The news release and action plan issued by the provincial energy ministers following their recent conference in Kananaskis stepped rather lightly over environmental concerns. Perhaps this is not unexpected at…
According to the Conference Board of Canada's report How Canada Performs, we are becoming a more unequal society. Although, in the period 1976 to 2009, all Canadians were better off…
The modern march to free market supremacy is often thought to have begun with the ascendancy of the conservative regimes of Margaret Thatcher in the U.K. and the Ronald Reagan…
"Global investment in renewable energy jumped 32 per cent in 2010, to a record $211 billion," reads the Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2011 report. The report, commissioned by…
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has admitted it. He recently declared that press self-regulation in Britain had failed and a new body, independent of the media and the government, is…
It seems that every time the subject of changing the voting system comes up, we automatically assume that a change must be sanctioned by a referendum. I increasingly feel this…
Calgarians, indeed Albertans, will often tell you that this is a place where you are judged by what you do, not by who you are. I doubt this was ever…
As British Columbia's carbon tax celebrates its third birthday, the province's residents seem to have grown rather fond of it. According to a Pembina Institute report, 69 percent of British…
Catherine Ashton, high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy, recently stated that the EU called for "deep democracy" in countries such as Tunisia and Egypt…
In Nikolai Gogol's novel Dead Souls, his protagonist Chichikov seeks to purchase serfs who have died but are still registered against their owners as taxable assets. By relieving the owners…
Shortly before the Canada Post lockout, Statistics Canada mailed me a copy of the 2011 National Household Survey, formerly known as the long form census, to dutifully fill out. I…
That the United States is unpopular in Pakistan is common knowledge. But just how unpopular is surprising. According to the Pew Global Attitudes Project, 73 per cent of Pakistanis hold…
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni, has a problem. He wholeheartedly supported incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the 2009 presidential election, and now it turns out the flaky Ahmadinejad is being…
Americans have for some time seemed to have an insatiable appetite for military spending. Defence was the sacred cow of their federal budget. Now it seems they are losing that…
Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, animal advocate and a very funny man, once observed that, "Man always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins…
The now infamous Vancouver hockey riot has done a pretty good job of smearing the city's reputation around the globe. Shocking as it was, it wasn't entirely surprising. Rioting seems…
According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Canada's economic prospects are looking good. In its latest global forecast of economic activity, this year we will have the highest GDP growth…
I admit I was motivated to write this post by the above heading. I couldn't resist it, so I plagiarized it. Apparently it first appeared as a Twitter message on…
Congratulations to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) for their victory in the Turkish election last Sunday. Erdogan led his party to their third…
A study released Wednesday by international consultants Deloitte and Touche reports that CBC/Radio-Canada contributed $3.7 billion to the Canadian economy in 2010. This contrasts to its annual parliamentary allocation of…
