Kermit the frog used to sing: “It’s not easy being Green. It seems you blend in with so many other ordinary things and people tend to pass you over.” That wouldn’t be a bad characterization of the Green Party of Canada. The Greens have just elected a new leader, Annamie Paul, the first Black woman […]
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The Ford government in Ontario, using the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse, has launched an attack on the principle of union seniority as it pertains to the hiring of new teachers. The seniority principle, often simplified to “last in, first out” has been incorporated into the language of union collective agreements going back to the […]
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Most people have a healthy scepticism of politicians and their promises. As Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet president in the 1950s, observed, “politicians are the same all over, they promise to build a bridge even when there’s no river.” So, to last Wednesday’s throne speech, either written or pre-approved by Justin Trudeau and delivered by the […]
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Tim Heffernan and Martin LeBrun are Ontario and BC educators. They say that school days are the best days of our lives. This may be debatable at the best of times. But as the topic of this year’s return to school dominates media and family discussions, one thing is certain: everything is uncertain. With the […]
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In 1967 the Boxtops sang “Give me a ticket for an aeroplane, ain’t got time to take a fast train.” 53 years later in the Canada of COVID-19, the chances of going anywhere, whether by plane or train or even long-distance bus, are severely limited. Even before COVID, Canada’s transportation system between towns and cities […]
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One can hardly call the Cabinet shuffle involving the departure of Bill Morneau and the promotion of Chrystia Freeland as heralding out with the old and in with the new. Despite alleged policy differences (Trudeau supposedly is a more profligate spender of government money than Morneau), it was more a question of Tweedledum and Tweedledee. […]
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The first thing to note about the WE saga and Trudeau’s previous brushes with matters “ethical” (e.g., the Aga Khan trip, SNC Lavalin) is the obsession that the media has with these issues at the expense of more blatant ethical scandals such as the thousands of deaths in the long-term care homes or the deadly […]
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The German playwright, Bertolt Brecht wrote in the 1930s that it is easier to rob by setting up a bank than by holding up one. If Brecht were alive today, he might want to revise the statement by substituting pharmaceutical company for bank. Using a measure called Return on Invested Capital (ROIC), research shows that […]
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Canada has now been under COVID-19 restrictions for three months and many provinces are starting to open up again, although the virus is not under control. Canada is not yet out of the first wave and is certainly not ready to deal with the inevitable second wave. The Liberal government has acted too little and […]
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Over $2.3 million was the cost of Trudeau’s failed attempt to get Canada a seat on the UN Security Council. In the age of the pandemic with the billions of government dollars swirling around for different programs, $2.3 million may seem like a drop in the ocean. But it isn’t. For the middle class, so […]
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