Issues, ethics, memory
In the Introduction to his book Journeys to Justice, Joe Gunn, executive director of Citizens for Public Justice (CPJ) writes a letter to the next generation, including his own young adult children. He expresses frustration that largely they don’t know about the struggles by members of Christian churches for justice in the not-so-distant past, and... Continue Reading →
The Liberals promised in the recent federal budget to look into pharmacare and they lured Ontario’s health minister Dr. Eric Hoskins away from provincial politics to lead consultations on how to proceed. This may be mostly a ploy to thwart the NDP which, along with the labour movement, has been trying to build support for... Continue Reading →
I had just begun reading a biography of Martin Luther King when the not guilty verdict was rendered in the Gerald Stanley murder trial. As is now widely known, Stanley shot and killed an Indigenous youth named Colton Boushie at close range after a vehicle containing Boushie and four others entered Stanley’s farm yard near... Continue Reading →
The minimum wage in Ontario was increased from $11.40 to $14 an hour on January 1 and will rise to $15 a year from now, and that means that the sky is falling according to a coalition of business groups called Keep Ontario Working (KOW). The name implies everything -- by raising the minimum wage... Continue Reading →
It is fitting near year’s end, although worrisome, to learn that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has set its Doomsday Clock to two-and-a-half minutes before midnight, closer to potential nuclear calamity than at any time since the 1980s. They point, for example, to North Korea’s continuing efforts to develop nuclear weapons, as well as... Continue Reading →
Those old enough to recall it will remember that the 1988 federal election in Canada turned into an epic battle over a proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States. The ruling Conservatives and corporate Canada campaigned for it, saying that it would provide untrammeled access to the vast American market and provide a... Continue Reading →
When they were campaigning for election in 2015 Justin Trudeau’s Liberals promised that they would adopt and implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, but it appears that they are now less eager to do so. Inherent rights It took 23 years of effort and negotiation for Indigenous peoples to have... Continue Reading →
Canadians are witnessing two post-hostage dramas and there are lessons to be learned from each. In October, after five years in captivity, Canadian Joshua Boyle, his American wife Caitlin Coleman and their three young children were rescued from their captors by Pakistani troops after a shootout in Pakistan’s rugged border area with Afghanistan. On the... Continue Reading →
Finance Minister Bill Morneau wants to close loopholes that allow highly paid professionals to reduce their taxes by incorporating and then using various small business tax breaks to shelter their income. These loopholes are legal but unfair. They amount to potentially more than $1 billion annually in lost revenues to the government. That money could be... Continue Reading →
Soon, members of the New Democratic Party will begin electronic and mail-in voting to select their new leader. The race features four competent and principled candidates in MPs Charlie Angus, Niki Ashton and Guy Caron, as well Ontario MPP Jagmeet Singh, and it has become increasingly interesting. But the wider question is whether the NDP will be relevant... Continue Reading →
Pulpit and Politics 