What do burning churches and bullets fired at synagogues have in common? Both are happening because we are governed by people who are committed to a worldview in which there are “oppressors” or “oppressed”. Indigenous and Palestinians are “oppressed” and those who go...
Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it - George Santayana Cancellation culture is a relatively novel concept, coming to fruition with surprising vengeance only a few years ago. Former President Donald Trump provoked a passionate moral...
When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called Canada the first post-national state, the implications went farther than divisive multiculturalism. Increasingly, those with the same characteristics as this country’s founders find their government, media, and academic...
It is late December and, as one looks around, the usual sights and sounds are in evidence. The parking lots of shopping malls are full. The postman’s bag is swollen with cards, flyers, and appeals from charitable organizations. Stacks of Amazon boxes pile up beside...
In a recent article about climate change, Seth Borenstein, a science writer with the Associated Press, gave us a master class on how to sell the results of a computer model as if it represents reality. In the Borenstein world, a group of scientists can take a...
A year and a half into the COVID-19 pandemic, the only thing keeping Air Canada alive is the federal-government bailouts. They are delaying the inevitable and sensible way out: cutting travel restrictions, encouraging tourism by ensuring effective containment and...
The governing body of the Ontario Medical Association recently voted down a motion to open its meetings with the currently fashionable acknowledgment that “you are on treaty land”. They were roundly criticized for their effrontery by Indigenous spokespeople. Andre...
But what is neither forgivable nor understandable is the reaction of federal politicians to the trial. Both the Prime Minister and the Justice Minister have joined in the chorus criticizing the decision of the twelve jurors. (~1 minute)
Television programs not only entertain, but they also are an important influence our ideas about our society and culture. These messages are not meant solely to reflect social reality accurately, but also to shape that reality. People and their actions and opinions...
Equality, of course, is one of the hallowed values of the post-Enlightenment West, celebrated in the French revolutionary slogan, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” and in the American Declaration of Independence,[1] which asserts that it is “self-evident” that “all men...
My parents met during “the dirty thirties,” depression years, when life was tough. They were both teachers in small schools on the prairies. My father was older than my mother, and after a brief courtship they married. There is nothing unusual about that story. In...
Think about it. What would the death of six million people look like in the Canadian population? A loss of that number would be equivalent to the annihilation of every single person in the following cities: Vancouver, Calgary, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, London, and Halifax....
In the last few days, two academic conferences were criticized for not being sufficiently “diverse.” A conference to empower women and train them for leadership was cancelled by St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota, because, according to university...
Consumers of popular culture, aware of the recent box-office success of the movies Black Panther and Wonder Woman, may have been puzzled by recent claims that the world of fantasy entertainment – comics, films, books – was deemed to be suffering a crisis in diversity....
It used to be that one of the most important hallmarks of a strong democracy was its protection of free speech. Unfortunately, Canada seems to be following the lead of those who would rather silence opinion that’s not considered sufficiently “progressive”.