YES, IT’S TRUE that Rob Ford was elected to the Toronto municipal council in his Etobicoke ward—and, yes, it was a landslide: but the Ford era of this city is now in remission. When the counting of votes was complete,… Read More ›
Current Events
Essays on topical issues in the news, from around the world, by Wayne K. Spear
The First Nations Financial Transparency Act and Business as Usual in Ottawa
THE RON GIESBRECHT story is an everyone-saw-it-coming affair, and that’s among the reasons why the First Nations Financial Transparency Act has engendered both its champions and detractors. “This is the greatest piece of legislation passed by our parliament, I believe,… Read More ›
Why Would Anyone Want to Be the National Chief of the AFN?
THE ASSEMBLY of First Nations 35th Annual General Assembly, held last week in Halifax, was remarkable more for what wasn’t said than what was. The name of the former national chief was seldom spoken, and the consensus appeared to be… Read More ›
The Long Tsilhqot’in Journey to Aboriginal Title
THE WEBSITE of the Xeni Gwet’in (pronounced Honey Gwi-deen) reads like a manifesto: In a world full of travel promises, some kept others not, the Xeni Gwet’in people offer none. The Xeni prefer to simply share their home with respectful… Read More ›
We Simply Can’t Explain Mass Murderers
HOW MANY INDIVIDUALS commit themselves to the business of random mass killing? It’s a small number, only a fraction of one percent of the human family. So why do we look for an explanation of the extraordinary in ordinary things,… Read More ›
Racism? How About Donald Sterling’s Moneyism
I‘M GOING TO begin by admitting my heart’s not in this post. That’s because it’s about two squalid, ridiculous human beings who deserve obscurity: V Stiviano and Donald Sterling.
How the Cold War Became the Climate Warming War
THE PROPOSITION THAT human activities are drawing the Earth to its climate-derived apocalypse was already an old idea when I first encountered it thirty years ago. Long before the topic of global warming was cornered by Al Gore, two acquaintances… Read More ›
Ottawa’s policy vacuum undermines its oil sands rhetoric
OIL: it’s an imposing and multi-faceted topic, into whose orbit come geopolitical intrigue, war and empire building. Oil fuels our modern industrial comforts and conveniences, as well as our controversies. In many parts of the petroleum-rich world — Iraq, Saudi… Read More ›
Putin victory carries Russians forward into the past
WHEN IN THE final days of his anti-climactic election campaign Vladimir Putin sought the blessing of the Theotokos of Tikhvin, he confirmed symbolically an attachment both to the Russian Orthodox Church and the czarist tradition. Add to the pious optics… Read More ›
