Oct 14 2016
| It's amazing what we gradually accept as normal -- even admirable -- in how we treat each other in Canada. As Bruce Cockburn's song suggests, the trouble with normal is it always gets worse.
Oct 14 2016
| The main reason the "world" can't avert its eyes from the Trump drama isn't because it's imaginative and dazzling but because it's happening in a nation that has fateful impacts on everyone beyond it.
Oct 14 2016
| There were few in Ottawa inner circles resisting Paul Martin's deep spending cuts as Finance Minister, but one strong dissenting voice came from Douglas Peters, who died last week at the age of 86.
Oct 13 2016
| The movement to combat climate change is growing dynamically and unpredictably, and is facing increasing repression from the fossil-fuel industry and government authorities.
Oct 7 2016
| A commitment to free speech doesn't reconcile easily with human rights codes that may compel respect and courtesy toward specific groups -- including their right to be addressed as they choose.
Oct 6 2016
| Climate change is real, and it is worsening. That it should play a central role in the U.S. elections is undebatable.
Oct 5 2016
| At the Association of Science and Technology Centers conference, two products stuck out. One created virtual reality, the other augmented reality. Both were imagination prosthetics for adults.
Oct 4 2016
| It's here. The Liberal government has finally launched its long-awaited public consultation on Bill C-51, and a broad range of privacy and national security issues.
Sep 30 2016
| If recent mainstream economic reports are to be taken seriously, some of the big brains managing global capitalism these days are starting to lose faith in their neoliberal ideology.
Sep 30 2016
| In politics, we tend to see what we want or need to. You're looking for an outcome, yearning for it. What, though, of political cases that require actual thought, not prejudgments?
Sep 30 2016
| The U.S. election is far from over, but Monday's faceoff was a crucial battle in that campaign, and it fell to the first woman candidate in U.S. presidential history to take a dangerous bully down.
Sep 29 2016
| An inquiry into the conduct of Federal Court Judge Robin Camp when he presided over a sexual assault trial raises some hard questions about the impartiality of the Canadian justice system.
Sep 29 2016
| The U.S. has less than 5 per cent of the world's population and almost 25 per cent of the world's prisoners. Now a national movement is growing for prisoners' rights.
Sep 28 2016
| We have a new federal government, a new tone around First Nations and the environment. But when it comes to concrete action on lowering emissions and respecting land rights, much remains the same.
Sep 27 2016
| Land use, access to agricultural land, and who stewards land, are key issues in food production. Land-grabbing is a growing concern because it determines not only access but also how land is used.
