Agnostic, Athiest, (strong and weak), secularist, naturalist, humanist, non-believer, pantheist, positivist; the list of terms used to describe people who do not believe in the existence of a deity is…
What kind of Canada has a prime minister who does not speak at the UN General Assembly? Stephen Harper’s Canada. But why? CBC journalist David Common tweeted yesterday about Harper…
There is this bizarre perception in our society that we are somehow in a great conflict between forces of emotionalism and rationalism. The idea here seems to be that going…
Religion usually isn't a dominant issue in Canadian politics. While there is certainly a general correlation with higher levels of Christian religiosity among conservatives, prominent debates over religion as the…
I am always somewhat bemused that in today's usage the expression 'political correctness' is overwhelmingly considered a pejorative. One might accuse somebody else of being racist or sexist, but one…
Canada's top legal group, the Canadian Bar Association, was not exactly kind to Harper's approach to crime in its recent annual conference. It identified many issues from overcrowding to the…
When trying to understand the political landscape it is often useful to figure out the various couplings and interdependencies between superficially disparate political positions. Politics divides itself into widespread factions,…
Religion has long claimed ultimate Truth in two differing domains of knowledge: what is, and what ought to be; descriptive and normative; knowledge about the nature of the universe and…
When Jared Loughner shot dead six people in Tuscan in an attempted murder of congresswoman Gabby Giffords, there was several interesting reactions outside of the obviously deserved expressions of sympathy…
Which of these sounds like a true leader, a president one can get behind: the man who strongly and emphatically declares what he thinks is morally right and acts accordingly,…
Competing with the concurrent LGBT Pride parade in Toronto, a local imam took it upon himself to very publicly condemn homosexuality, referencing how Islamic law instructs us to execute those…
Friday’s Vancouver Sun had a short item that you might have missed, “Suicides up, road deaths down due to recession.” It’s in the bottom corner of page B5: Suicides rates…
This is as close to a eulogy and an ode as I can write for a place with which I struggle every day. As I write this, a now yearly…
I was saddened and disappointed to watch Vancouver burn last night. Disappointed because the Canucks played so poorly and lost a game that they didn’t deserve to win, saddened to…
If you’re a college or university teacher, whom do you work for ?” Thus begins Stanley Fish‘s latest New York Times editorial on the subject of academia. Here are a…
(Note: This post contains a portion of the talk that I gave last month at the 16th International Conference of the Association of Psychology and Psychiatry for Adults and Children…
The fact that SlutWalk has rapidly ballooned into a multinational protest movement from an ill-spoken comment by a Toronto policeman represents a distinct and poignant feeling latent in our societies.…
Infant formula is a medical necessity for those who are unable to breastfeed their infants. There are a host of medically sound reasons why a mother, in conjunction with her…
I’ve already written about how much I’m looking forward to COPE’s Re:Imagine Schools event tonight. I’ll be live-blogging the event as well. You can scroll down to watch or participate…
It is quite natural to feel some sense of revulsion towards homeless people. They may be smelly, unclean, imposing on our presence and saying strange things; this kind of appearance…
