On my desk is a commemorative plate honouring the 1966 Grey Cup champions, the Saskatchewan Roughriders. On it are the pictures of football legend Ronnie Lancaster and his teammates. A quick scan of these portraits reveals something odd: just three of the players’...
Ever since 1931, Canadians have paused on November 11 to mark Remembrance Day, a commemoration of those who have died serving in our country’s wars. (From 1919 to 1930 the observance was called Armistice Day and held on the Sunday nearest November 11.) Men and women...
For the past 90 years, Canadian politics has been influenced by the presence of a genuinely left-wing political party. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) emerged in 1933 demanding nationalization of essential industries, universal public pensions, health...
The academic world was all a-twitter a few weeks back with the enormously humorous idea of a “Scholars’ Strike”. The idea was that on September 9th and 10th, university professors would put down their intellectual tools and by doing nothing – or indulging in...
At the time of Confederation, Canada’s Plains Indians were in a desperate situation. The same European-introduced guns and horses that resulted in a briefly glorious golden age for them had also resulted in constant inter-tribal warfare and the rapid disappearance of...
Political attacks on the Indian Act are back in the news, and that is a good thing. However, Canadian politicians, including First Nation politicians, need a credible plan about what to do before we pull out the champagne. Attacking the Indian Act is not a big deal...
In the early morning hours of June 6, 1944, thousands of Canadians approached the coast of France intending to attack the occupying German army and bring an end to the Nazi hold on Europe, one of the most hideous regimes in human history. They were part of Operation...
“If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless...
For the last couple of years Toronto writer Michael Coren has been claiming that there is no such thing as “the war on Christmas”. The phenomenon, he said in a nasty moment so uncharacteristic of the charitable tone for which he is renowned, is a “chimera built by...
On the afternoon of May 22, 1856, Preston Brooks, a plantation owner and pro-slavery politician who had been elected as a Congressman from South Carolina, strode into the nearly deserted U.S. Senate chamber. There he accosted Charles Sumner of Massachusetts who had...
Nineteen years ago, ex-general Hugo Chavez came into power in Venezuela, vowing that a “Bolivarian Revolution” based on communist principles would improve the lives of his people. Today millions of Venezuelans are fleeing their homes looking for food, medicine, or...
You have opinions. I know you do. You have opinions about immigration, gun crime, people who let their cats run loose, and the prospect of a return of major league baseball to Montreal. You have thought deep thoughts about aboriginals, levels of taxation,...
In 1961 John Profumo, Minister of War in the British government and a married man, conducted a brief, tawdry affair with teenage party girl Christine Keeler. Among Miss Keeler’s other lovers was Yevgeni Ivanov, a Soviet military attaché and intelligence agent. When...
Nobody does unintentional humour quite like an academic. Nobody can produce accidental laughter like a tenured professor explaining her deep thoughts to the masses. We have an excellent example of this sort of comedic gem in a recent article entitled “Jordan Peterson...
When I was a younger man, back when Lester Pearson was Prime Minister and Pluto was still a planet, I attended the University of Saskatchewan. It had a very simple coat of arms: three wheat sheaves and an open book whose pages displayed the motto “Deo et Patriae” --...