Issues, ethics, memory
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 →
Truth, as the saying goes, is the first casualty of war. There is no war in Ukraine yet, but the potentially violent standoff has been accompanied by an inflated war of words, which includes no small measure of hypocrisy on all sides. In Canada, both Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have compared Russia... Continue Reading →
The big powers, led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, recently reached a deal with Iran to temporarily freeze a nuclear program that could have produced a weapon for that country. In return, the U.S. and five other nations have agreed to ease up on economic sanctions that have long hurt Iranian citizens and... Continue Reading →
There are many things that I don’t like about Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird as a politician, but he’s both right and courageous in opposing the persecution of sexual minorities in Russia, Uganda and elsewhere. I don’t like how Baird provides non-answers to questions in the House of Commons, preferring instead to challenge the integrity... Continue Reading →
The Conservative government will soon announce an Office of Religious Freedom, fulfilling a promise made in the 2011 election campaign. The stated intention of Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird is to create an organization that will monitor and criticize religious persecution and to promote religious freedom around the world. There is no shortage of persecution... Continue Reading →
A note posted on the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada website says that Father Raymond De Souza will be the featured speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast in Ottawa on May 1. Hundreds of MPs, Senators, judges of the Supreme Court, Parliament Hill staff and invited members of the public attend the annual event. The EFC... Continue Reading →
Canada’s foreign affairs minister was talking through his hat recently in Israel. John Baird was on a state visit and repeated at every opportunity that, “Israel has no greater friend in the world than Canada.” Then he would recount his story about how, as a young Parliamentary assistant working in the office of the Conservative... Continue Reading →
Pulpit and Politics 