Manitobans should not be afraid of the government partnering with the private sector to run public services such as provincial parks. Research shows these partnership agreements with private operators are quite common, are often well run and bring significant...
Great events in history usually have one picture that manages to capture their essence. The iconic photo of the American troops planting the flag on Iwo Jima does it for WWII and the disturbing picture of the naked little girl running for her life from napalm,...
China first reported the detection of an unknown strain of virus in Wuhan to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Country Office in China on December 31, 2019, an event that changed the world. Eleven million residents of Wuhan city were placed under an unprecedented...
Excess costs for Kananaskis parks access should be paid from the health budget. As soon as the government locked Albertans down in March 2020, Calgarians headed outdoors in greater numbers than ever. However, soon thereafter the provincial and municipal governments...
A few weeks ago, Albertans voted to reduce the inequities in the federal equalization program. The deficit between the dollars that leave to and come back from Ottawa has recently been as high as $27 billion in one year. During times of crisis, it feels like salt in...
One of the most widespread economic myths is that inflation—the reduced purchasing power of a currency—is a win for a nation, a sign of a booming economy. For the privileged classes in government and with initial access to monetary expansion, it is a win. For everyone...
In the war to defeat the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic afflicting the world, Canada has been in a virtual economic shutdown and self-isolation of its citizens for the past month. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Government of Canada are predicting a death...
Three concurrent and independent elements are preventing Alberta from deriving the full potential out of its energy resources. It is generally said that good things come in sets of three. The Latin expression "omne trium perfectum" conveys the idea that things that...
It is still too early to draw precise conclusions on the extent to which the spread of the COVID-19 is related to urban population density. But there are important recurring themes. The following observations are made with the caveats that we are largely dealing with...
Even as the coronavirus disease has put much of the economy into shutdown mode and caused a run at the grocery stores on some staples such as bread, most of us remain generally well-supplied with food. That is something to be thankful for. It is indeed one of the...
General George S. Patton once proclaimed, “Fear kills more people than death!” That makes as much sense (or not) as something Yogi Berra said: “No one goes to that restaurant anymore; it’s too crowded.” These days no one goes to the restaurant because the government...
They called it the Spanish Lady and it was a killer. In March 1918, in the fourth year of a war in which the Allies were in retreat from a German onslaught, a new and horrible disease landed on the shores of eastern North America. The killer was a new strain of...
Australia’s Grattan Institute has included former World Bank principal planner’s Order Without Design: How Markets Shape Cities on its annual “Prime Minister’s Summer Reading List” (Summer starts in just a couple of weeks there). It is a good recommendation. We...
While the benighted residents of the world are having to deal with the restrictions imposed on them to minimize chances of transmission of the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19, many of them may be wondering how we got to such a predicament – where millions...
Policing is the only authority sanctioned to use force against its citizens, and is a powerful organization with potential for misuse for promoting partisan policies at the expense of the common good. Policing can also take on a sense of moral authority resulting in a...