Issues, ethics, memory
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 →
The recent Canadian federal election which thrust Justin Trudeau and the Liberals into power was, depending upon your point of view, either a happy day or an exercise in the politics of resentment. For many people who I have encountered since October 19 it is as if a dark cloud has passed or a weight... Continue Reading →
The main issue in the Canadian election was supposed to be who could best manage the economy. Prime Minister Stephen Harper claims that it's he, and warns that other political parties will run deficits and raise taxes. Of course, Harper ran six deficits in a row. Apparently, he runs good deficits but it would be... 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 →
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 →
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 →
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 Manning Centre’s annual Ottawa-based gathering of Conservatives has come and gone for another year. Reform Party founder Preston Manning and his wife Sandra created the organization in 2006 to act as a training ground for Conservatives to win in politics. This year’s event featured the usual array of Conservative politicians and operatives from right... Continue Reading →
Stephen Harper has returned from a feel-good trip to Israel on which he was accompanied by an entourage of 208 people, largely at government expense -- cabinet ministers, MPs, Senators, rabbis, officials from Jewish groups, evangelical Christians, business people and various others. There has been much speculation about whether this was a trip based on... Continue Reading →
The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has released its most recent report. The blue ribbon group of scientists concluded that is 95 percent certain that global warming is occurring, that it is caused mainly by our burning of fossil fuels, and that we will see more violent weather and rising sea levels as a result. Scientists... Continue Reading →
Pulpit and Politics 