Issues, ethics, memory
The Conservative leadership race involves an unwieldy group of 14 candidates — only four of whom might be seen as fit for the office. They are former cabinet ministers, including the impressive Michael Chong, Lisa Raitt and Erin O’Toole, as well as Andrew Scheer, a former speaker of the House of Commons. Unfortunately, among them, only... Continue Reading →
Stephen Harper has vanished from sight in the past six months but his Where’s Waldo status may be about to change. Harper will address the Conservative convention in Vancouver late in May. Recently he also spoke to Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson and other Republican super donors about how fractured political parties can unite. In... Continue Reading →
I have contributed, along with 35 other writers and researchers, to a book called The Harper Record 2008 – 2015. It is a project of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. My chapter is called: White Hats, black hats, the Harper government’s policy toward Israel. As you will see I draw the title from a simplistic... Continue Reading →
In March 2011 I posted an article to my Pulpit and Politics blog called Harper’s Hit List. The piece contained a list of organizations whose staff had either been fired, forced out, publicly maligned, or who had resigned in protest. I did not do the original research but rather published what others had already assembled.... Continue Reading →
Stephen Harper and the Conservatives have spent years scapegoating refugees and it is coming back to haunt them in the 2015 election campaign. The Conservatives' messaging has been derailed by the sight of hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into Europe, and by the images of the lifeless body of three-year-old Alan Kurdi being carried... Continue Reading →
During the federal election campaign in the autumn of 1965, dozens of students at my boarding school in rural Saskatchewan traveled in a big cattle truck to hear Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson speak in the Humboldt arena. The building was packed and Pearson gave a fulsome speech which was heard by anyone who showed... Continue Reading →
There's an intense debate happening in Parliament and now in the streets over Bill C-51, which the Harper government says is needed to prevent terrorism on Canadian soil. The legislation provides sweeping new powers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), which collects information covertly on security threats and forwards that information to the RCMP.... Continue Reading →
Preston Manning fancies himself a big thinker and his recent networking conference in Ottawa was billed as an intellectual event for the conservative movement. But National Post columnist Andrew Coyne got it right in his column -- the Manning conference was “vapid”. The Harper government has swallowed the movement and rather than talking policy the... Continue Reading →
The Canadian Establishment has begun to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Sir John A Macdonald's birth in 1815. Prime Minister Harper even skipped events to honour the Charlie Hebdo victims in Paris so that he could be in Kingston to commemorate Macdonald’s birthday. But there is a darker story here about the man often considered... Continue Reading →
The Conservative government has in the past two or three years forced the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to shift funding away from long-established development partners such as the Mennonite Central Committee and the Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. CIDA money has instead began to flow to Canadian corporations, particularly to mining companies active... Continue Reading →
Pulpit and Politics 