Parsing Noblesse Oblige.
Travelling around the world building linkages and creating cooperation in the world-wide research effort to cure multiple sclerosis was an eye-opener in terms of understanding charity. In North America, we…
Federal Politics
When economic action plan advertising fails.
Somebody should get a bill for this. Babel-on-the-Bay has been telling people for free that the Conservative government’s well advertised economic action plan is a crock. Do they listen to…
Long to reign over us?
You have to admit, there is always that stoic admiration for the old Queen. Nobody wants to say anything nasty about her. And then there are those God-awful hats. You…
Heaven knows: the NEB doesn’t.
When a friend called from Calgary earlier this year to tell us she had been evacuated from her beautiful home on the Bow River, she complained about the water covering…
Has Enbridge every lied to you before?
There is no stopping the pipeline people from Enbridge. The Enbridge motto should be “What TransCanada can’t do, Enbridge can do!” With President Obama making the noises that he will…
Trading staterooms on HMCS Harper.
Prime Minister Harper’s cabinet shuffle is not just new lifeboat assignments. The changes on Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship Harper are to decide who is to go first class on their…
Oh my God – they shuffled Kenney! Those Bastards!
New Title, Same Job The much-hyped Cabinet shuffle was about what you’d expect: retiring Ministers swept aside, talented backbenchers and Pierre Poilievre promoted, and a few big names swapping portfolios…
Mr. Harper bends a knee.
Prime Minister Harper bent extra low in bowing to the Queen when last in London. He had good news for her. He was sure she would be pleased to know…
Throw the engineer from the train.
With the blame game in high gear over the disaster at Lac-Mégantic, it seems everyone is sympathetic but the person to blame is the train engineer. The best way to…
Our oaths and other oddities.
A news story the other day was about three potential Canadian citizens who could not understand why they should swear allegiance to the Queen. They want to become citizens but…
Harper heeds Harris heritage.
The one problem we have to be realistic about is that ideologues are willing to kill people to support their political beliefs. The disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec is the latest…
Political peccadilloes please public.
A news story the other day said that researchers were surprised to learn that voters are not turned off by the more personal and seamier side of political news. It…
The lies that bind.
One of the most serious problems faced by first responders in the Lac-Mégantic disaster was the inability to determine what type of oil was supposedly in the 72 railway tanker…
Bitumen in Toronto: Scenario #1
Toronto’s Yonge Street Subway bisects Toronto from Union Station at Front Street to 15.7 kilometres north at Bishop Avenue, just above Finch Avenue. It is at this northern terminus that…
The silence of Stephen Harper.
You do not necessarily think of Prime Minister Stephen Harper as a quiet person. When you see television news clips of him in the House of Commons or addressing a…
Finding the political middle.
The political middle in Canadian politics is a ghost. Many speak of it but nobody has ever found it. Instead, we are a country that compromises in extremes. It remains…
The bother of bitumen.
It should be made clear: bitumen is not oil. Distilled, bitumen becomes asphalt pitch, refined it can become synthetic oil. Bitumen is not ‘heavy oil’ and it is a lengthy,…
July 1, 2013, Canada is 410 years young.
From that first explorer’s trip against the current of the St. Lawrence River, Canada began the transition to a country. And our ancestors came to build it. We were the…
Big Brother blows the bitumen bugle.
When you live in a country where most of the news media is controlled by friends of the government, do you think you should believe all the news? Do you…
The delayed masquerade of the Tories.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been saved by the rain on the plain. With Calgary recovering from serious flood conditions, it is no time for a Conservative Convention. Stephen Harper…