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 hasty, defeatist and craven withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces from Afghanistan in August has compelled the so-called “civilized” Western nations and their leaders to confront the failures and errors of the past 20 years, which resemble those of earlier conflicts....
Travel and work over the past two years have brought me to many different jurisdictions. What continues to strike me is the way the responses to COVID-19 have been varied, arbitrary and often draconian. I look back at Canada and see raging debates over mask mandates,...
The Wall Street Journal has weighed into the growing impasse between Alberta and Canada’s federal government over the hostility of the federal government towards Alberta’s vital oil and gas industry. In a recent column by Holman W. Jenkins Jr., the potential prospect...
The Alberta separatist movement hasn’t burned this hot since the first Trudeau imposed the National Energy Program. Yet, somewhat ironically, Canadians from other provinces feel closer to Alberta than any other faraway province. Everyone that is, except for Quebec,...
How should municipal services be delivered to citizens? The political right argues that outsourcing services is usually more efficient, while the left argues that privatization of services such as waste management or waste water treatment would lead to lower quality...
As we commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the armistice that ended the ‘Great War’, the ‘War to End All Wars’, later, sadly renamed World War I, it is not only just and right that we honour and remember those who lost their lives, or were otherwise casualties of...
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...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 8, 2018 Contact: Lorenzo Montanari @: lmontanari@propertyrightsalliance.org 2018 International Property Rights Index Released The global index ranks property right protections in 125 countries, covering 98% of world GDP and 93% of the...
In an effort to slay what appears to be a structural deficit, the Manitoba’s government is legislating a pause in annual inflation- level pay increases in its share of the overall public sector. That is, if the legislation is okay with the courts. Last July, the...
Red tape and paper-shuffling clog the arteries of departmentville. Most debilitating is the process-bound micro-management of all personnel and financial decisions by large central agencies. While well intended, their rules and controls cost hundreds of millions,...
Where would we be without Vasili Arkhipov? In fact, would we be here at all? Who is Vasili Arkhipov you may ask? Before I get to that, let me talk for a minute about the nuclear world we now live in. There are currently so many nuclear weapons on our small planet that...