AS THIS WEEK’S United Nations General Assembly advanced, faithful to the template, nothing could have been more clear than that the world is suspended discouragingly between the Scylla of Holocaust denial and the Charybdis of Holocaust panic.
Canada
Posts about the politics, people and news events of Canada.
Ottawa’s Indian policies stick with tried and tested failure
WHEN THE politician and aspiring poet Nicholas Flood Davin visited Captain Richard H. Pratt’s Carlisle Barracks, in Pennsylvania, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was only weeks along in its operations. Nonetheless, in March of 1879 an enthusiastic endorsement of this… Read More ›
Brazeau’s latest outburst shines a harsh light on the Senate
SENATOR PATRICK BRAZEAU was again in the news this week and, as is so often the case, for ignoble reasons. After a report emerged revealing that he holds the title for most-missed days of Senate business, Brazeau took to Twitter… Read More ›
One last chance to do the right thing on Omar Khadr
The case of Omar Ahmed Khadr has long divided Canadians into two respective camps, Bring Him Home and Let Him Rot Over There. The federal government of Canada now appears to constitute a third, having for years shilly-shallied and otherwise… Read More ›
Good fortune and Bob Rae weren’t always on the best of terms
FEDERAL LIBERAL LEADER Bob Rae’s citation of William Shakespeare was an indirect invocation also of a commonplace political euphemism — the putting aside of personal ambition “to spend more time with the family.” Announcing his decision yesterday not to run… Read More ›
Ripples from the War of 1812 are still being felt
IN RECENT MONTHS, there has been debate over the federal government’s decision to spend a yet-undisclosed sum commemorating the War of 1812. The Americans will doubtless overlook this bit of their history, but I’m unable to imagine any Canadian government… Read More ›
Abortion, Augie and the March for Life
SUBMITTING MYSELF TO the Ottawa weather, which today possessed all the charm of wet underpants, I lingered while the wind carried my way the Parliament Hill speeches of the March for Life assembly. In the middle of one characteristically sonorous… Read More ›
Ottawa mixes platitudes with parsimony for Canada’s veterans
AT FIRST GLANCE the federal government’s proposed changes to the Department of National Defence’s soldier suicide prevention program is an offense against common human decency, and it doesn’t much inspire confidence that this news arrives from the Minister of National… Read More ›
How J.S. Woodsworth opposed the war and saved capitalism
ONE MIGHT HAVE anticipated, with all the recent talk of conscience rights, that J.S. Woodsworth would soon enough become a hash tag. But not as the object of a slander. The man who once led the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was… Read More ›
What difference does it make what Michael Ignatieff says?
In his essay “Notes on Nationalism,” George Orwell observed that “if one harbours anywhere in one’s mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible.” By his reckoning, nationalism is a… Read More ›
Belhassen Trabelsi — a criminal, not a refugee
THE RIVALRY BETWEEN Alberta’s Wildrose and Progressive Conservative parties at several points alluded to another contest, of Canada and Saudi Arabia in the designation of the world’s premier crude-yielding nation. There’s however another contest underway, crude in a differing sense,… Read More ›
Wildrose adds to politics’ rich history of gaffedom
The Alberta race, within view of the ribbon, is yielding the gaffes which invariably issue from the combined stresses of mental fatigue, excitement and desperation. In the gaffe genre, there are many sub-species of misspeaking. Each fresh entry into the… Read More ›
The great achievement of the Charter
I neither have a horse in, nor would desire to enter one into, the race between Alberta’s Progressive Conservative candidate Alison Redford and her Wildrose rival Danielle Smith. My interests furthermore were of no concern in the American Senator Roy… Read More ›
How gaudy baubles and military Keynesiasm gave birth to the F-35
A STRAIGHT-SHOOTING bureaucrat will admit that procurement processes are often initiated with the final selection a foregone conclusion. If you know in advance what you need, and you furthermore know who’s most qualified to deliver, then formalities intended to promote… Read More ›
If Mulcair can’t hold the NDP’s gains, the merger whispers will begin
The rise of Thomas Mulcair brings Canada one step closer to a settling of its parliamentary landscape. This former Quebec Liberal, whose one-time boss was a former Progressive Conservative, will henceforth parry with the Liberal interim leader — a former… Read More ›
