Could the right question, asked earlier, have saved a good man his job? It was not exactly breaking news that my old colleague Bob Fife broke the news about how Sen. Mike Duffy managed to repay $90,000 in improperly claimed living expenses so quickly. When I worked with Fife at the Toronto Sun parliamentary bureau in the 1990s, he was already firmly established as the best consistent news breaker on the Hill. He has, of course, since gone on to greater glories first with the National Post and now as CTV’s Ottawa bureau chief. What made, and makes, Fife one of the three purest news reporters I’ve ever known, never … MORE »
If we asked any high school social studies or civics class to identify the most important rights in a democratic society, it’s a fair bet freedom of speech and freedom of belief would top the list. In Canada, the architects of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms agreed, classifying both as “fundamental freedoms” cherished by Canadians. Most of us would also intuitively limit the expression … MORE »
This past week, PBS aired a show called 10 Buildings that Changed America. Host Geoffrey Baer looked at, among others, the Wainwright Building in St. Louis, MO; Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House in Chicago, IL; and Michigan’s Highland Park Ford Plant. While all of these have shaped America’s architectural landscape in dramatic ways, the one that changed the very way we do commerce and community … MORE »
The Parti Quebecois used to stand for something. These days it seems to take its policy cues from mosquitoes. Its preferred method of governance is to buzz loudly, annoy anyone within range, suck the life out of Quebec, cause welts across the country, and leave people scratching their heads. If you were ever in doubt about the heights of lunacy which governments committed to a … MORE »
Yesterday’s email alert advising of a “breaking development” had me watching the Hamilton Police Service news conference regarding the Tim Bosma case live online. The chief’s opening words caused my stomach to wrench: “It is with heavy heart . . . ” The details remained unclear but were also unnecessary. A young man who was a husband, father, son, neighbour, church member, employee, and so … MORE »
Conrad Black refuses to play the victim. At our Cardus Convivium dinner last week in Calgary, where Black was the marquee attraction, he asserted, responding to a question, his innocence in the criminal case brought against him by the U.S. government. Again responding to a question from Convivium Editor-in-chief Father Raymond J. de Souza, he was steadfast in his conviction that the resulting time he … MORE »
Her words have been on my mind since I saw her at breakfast. Seated on the verandah of her retirement home, in between sips of tea and nibbles of toast, she uttered a phrase that I had heard from her many times before: “I just want to be a real person again.” She talked longingly about her life outside of the retirement home; her eyes … MORE »
My daughter was not quite yet an adolescent when she taught me the importance of running with eyes wide open. Not that she was fetishistically attentive to physical safety. On the contrary. Her nickname was Mimi Dreamie, earned from her habit of inhabiting imaginary spaces while running full tilt into very real trees and other large, hard, plainly visible objects. She was, however, quick on … MORE »
Last week, Cardus sponsored a conversation involving Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney, Rotman School of Business Dean Roger Martin and Convivium Editor Father Raymond de Souza on the subject of “Banking, Trust, and the Culture of Capitalism.” All three speakers explored how it takes more than the existence and enforcement of the right rules to create an economic system that earns the trust of … MORE »
There is nothing like the topic of unions to bring out people’s unquestioning love of the state. Whether you’re on the right or the left, the problem of unions—whether we want more or less of them, or whether they should have more or less influence—is almost inevitably answered with, “more state involvement please!” We expect this type of response from those on the farthest and … MORE »