So far this year several new centres of “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” have been established. The current total of such fonts of wisdom and scholarship is 18. They usually specialize; in the ‘rule of law’, the economy...
“There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.” John F. Kennedy In November, Russia destroyed one of its own old space satellites, Cosmos 1408, a 2,200-kg intelligence satellite launched in 1982,...
Will Alberta Stay or Go? A conversation with Tom Flanagan, editor and co-author of the new book “Moment of Truth: How to Think About Alberta's Future” Alberta is at a crossroads. Its situation in Canadian confederation is unfair. It is unequal. So... what comes next?...
The United Nations (UN) was born out of an idea for creating a society of nations, a global community, a brotherhood of nations built on a set of higher ideals. These ideals would give rise to a global village with accountability to each other, including social...
This past weekend, we learned of the tragic and unexpected passing of Pastor Leon Fontaine at 59 years of age. Leon was a gifted leader playing many roles both nationally and internationally. He was, with his wife Sally, the senior Pastors at Springs Church with...
Testimony before the Public Order Emergency Commission reveals the case for government invoking the Emergencies Act is either weak or very weak. The Prime Minister was, in fact, opposed to members of his cabinet or senior public health officials meeting with protest...
Every day, the television news tells people about new COVID-19-positive test results, but are they reliable? Kary Mullis, the late inventor of the diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, explained how his test could be misused. So did a Portuguese...
The Nova Scotia Liberal Party has chosen a new leader and it is important to think about the policy priorities of the province’s incoming premier. Although an election does not need to be held until spring of 2022 (Nova Scotia is the only province without a fixed...
Good news has many fathers, the saying goes, while bad news is an orphan. So it was when the Covid-19 case numbers and casualty counts began to recede late last spring. Even faster than dandelions sprouting, variations on “We have flattened the curve” became among the...
And so it continues: the ongoing, antagonizing relationship between the government of Alberta and the Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA). This saga could be chalked up as entertaining if it were not for the thousands of Alberta students and teachers caught in the...
Manitoba is at a pandemic low - not in infections, they are high - but in the government’s response. We are now encouraged to rat out fellow citizens on a “snitch line”. Officers have been hired to hand out tickets carrying hefty fines to business owners and...
John Thomas Peters Humphrey, OC (1905-1995) was a lawyer, diplomat, and scholar. He directed the United Nations Human Rights Division from 1946 to 1966. He was instrumental in drafting the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and received the U.N. Prize...
For a public sector workforce expecting to retire with a good pension, the “health” of their defined contribution pension plans are dependent on both the market and the actions of the provincial government. Recently, Pallister’s government seems to be stalling on...
The Thunder Bay Police Services Board (TBPSB) was disbanded in 2018 after an investigation by Senator Murray Sinclair found the board had failed to deal with the “clear and indisputable pattern” of violence and systemic racism against First Nations people in the...
The Alberta Premier initially declined to punish members of his party and staff after news of their travel was revealed, pointing out that his government’s pandemic approach to protecting “lives and livelihoods” included the travel sector. The premier said he took...