Alberta Needs Charlie Hebdo
Wednesday’s massacre of eight journalists, five of whom were political cartoonists, at the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo unleashed a torrent of “We are Charlie Hebdo” editorials across the world.…
ethics
The ethics of business
Something got me thinking about business ethics and that brought to mind a short piece I wrote for the Jewish Western Bulletin (now The Jewish Independent) in 2003. The item…
Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice…
“Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.” – Edmund Burke Promises vs. ‘political speeches:’ Tories’ honesty questioned on…
The Trolley Problem
I had read about the “trolley problem” in the past, but not given it much thought until recently when I saw Thomas Cathcart’s little book of that name in the…
Harper’s politics of cynicism….
… and an empty shelf in the pantry where “ethics” used to be… Wandering around the Interweb, I found this cutting piece that brilliantly sums up the CPC modus operandi…
The Film ‘Boyhood’: Reflections on Holding On and Letting Go
A date night with my husband Jim doesn’t happen often. We have fallen into our habits of cooking dinner together, followed by reading or watching a British television drama. Sometimes,…
A Hippocratic Oath for Bankers
Bankers destroyed the economy and in too many countries those responsible walk free despite the damage they wrought. Iceland jailed bankers at fault in their country, but what can we…
If you can’t trust Postmedia when it reports on oil and the environment, when can you trust it?
If you can’t trust your Postmedia website, who can you trust? I mean, other than Alberta Diary. Regardless, don’t blame these poor guys. They’re just trying to earn a living.…
Is Work-Life Balance Attainable?
By: Shannon O’Connor Maintaining a work-life balance has been difficult for numerous legal professionals. The question still remains: can a balance between work and life be attainable within contemporary society?…
No Charges Doesn’t Mean Wright Is Clean
On Friday, we learned that the RCMP will not be laying charges against Nigel Wright for writing a cheque to Mike Duffy in the amount of some $90,000 and change.…
With the new Québec government, the provinces should push back
Monday’s landslide win by Phillipe Couillard and his Québec Liberal Party is a great sign that the idea of sovereignty may have been set aside for a long time. But…
What in the world is Eve Adams?
When I was a kid, I was known for throwing hissy fits on just about anything that didn’t go my way. Now a lot of us adults probably were like…
Two steps forward in America, one step back in Uganda
Another good (and bad) week for common decency. 1) Freedom of religion. That’s the excuse a lot of business owners used well into the 1970s when they refused service to…
Finally, the Confederacy gets on board — well, one state does
In a decision that surprised me, a Southern federal judge overturned Virginia’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. Judge Arenda L. Wright Allen also ruled that the state also had to…
On Mass Surveillance
The revelation this week that CSEC has the capability to monitor the movements of Canadians simply by gathering some metadata from the traffic that goes by on public networks raises…
Pretty rich: Manning Centre founder and namesake lectures Ottawa Press Gallery on ethics
The Parliamentary Press Gallery, apparently as seen, sort of, but not quite, by Preston Manning. New ethical guidelines required? Doubtful. Below: The founder and namesake of the Calgary-Based Manning Centre;…
Technology Is Opening A New Era Of Ethics
Whether it is the accumulation of data about your life on Facebook, your online professional profile on LinkedIn, or the location tracking features of your cellphone, there has never been…
NDP ethics chair Pat MartinAnt denounces ‘black shroud of secrecy’
Inspired by this headline: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/12/10/ndp-ethics-chair-pat-mart_n_4421940.html
Resolving ‘Tobaccogate’ – Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion … but not necessarily in Alberta
Where there’s smoke, ummm…. there’s smoke. Got that? Actual Alberta government tobacco lawyers may not appear exactly as illustrated. Below: Alberta Ethics Commissioner Neil Wilkinson. The astonishing thing about yesterday’s…
Diane, it’s even worse than you claim
Diane Francis is a writer whose typical view of Canada is about 400 miles wide so its not surprising that in her New York Post expose, she ignores corrupt political…