Guns & Politics in Canada
The gun is now a part of Canadian politics. Richard Henry Bain killed one person and injured another at the PQ rally last Wed night. He was ill, it seems,…
Dave McLaren
Fix, don’t scrap, rights panels
Bill Whatcott is a man who doesn’t much like gay men and isn’t shy about saying so. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission thought that what he said went beyond dislike,…
Black Gold or Fool’s Gold
It was a text-book case of misdirection. Like snake-oil salesmen of old warming up their marks with a shell game, Prime Minister Harper and Joe Oliver accused radical environmental groups…
We have a different understanding
At the January 23rd summit meeting between First Nations Chiefs and the Prime Minister of the rest of Canada, the two solitudes talked past one another. Grand Chief Shawn Atleo…
A diamond is forever
Perhaps the most iconic irony of the whole crisis at Attawapiskat is the presence, a scant 90 km away, of the De Beers Diamond Mine at Victor Lake. The top…
Ethical Oil is Snake Oil
Talking about ethical oil is like saying guns don’t kill people. Well they don’t. People kill people. But sometimes they use a gun to do it. Oil isn’t ethical or…
We can do better: Attawapiskat
The dialogue around the tragedy at Attawapiskat has taken a nasty turn in the last few days. From justifiable shock and outrage that a community in Canada (any community in…
Occupied
One by one the Occupy camps are coming down and I, for one, will be sorry to see them go. They were a constant reminder that there are things we…
Before the Revolution
On a hot August afternoon, a few years before the Revolution, Winston sat in his cubicle on the fifth floor of the Department trying to connect the dots. Connecting dots…
Doh!conomics: How to turn a doughnut economy into a feudal society
There’s a hole in the economy where the middle class used to be. And the Harper Government is making it bigger by busting unions. You’ve heard of Reaganomics? That’s where…
Busting the arts
The Harper Government, sweater-vests and John Lennon songs notwithstanding, doesn’t like the arts. It made serious cuts to the creative community back in 2008 and then did some fancy accounting…
Video Vigilantism in Vancouver
It’s been over half a century since George Orwell wrote 1984, but Big Brother is still watching us. In fact, he’s been watching us more and more—email and phone conversations…
Mr Harper finds his whale, the Liberals are lost at sea
Well Mr Harper has found his elusive majority and Mr Layton’s job just got a whole lot harder. Now he must to try to keep the captain from taking the…
Pierre Peladeau’s Good Deed for the Day
On April 27th Sun Media newspapers across the country dutifully printed an article written by their President and CEO, Pierre Peladeau. It was a curious piece – half news story…