http://www.cardus.ca/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed en Copyright 2013 Cardus Thu, 23 May 2013 02:50:39 -0400 Cardus Thu, 23 May 2013 02:50:39 -0400 http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/when-democracy-loses-its-moral-authority?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed "Hard to believe Obama's claims of ignorance in IRS Scandal"—May 20, 2013 Fox News headline. "Harper government had to know $90,000 payment to senator crossed all sorts of ethical red lines"—May 20, 2013 Andrew Coyne column. "NDP at a loss to explain Mulcair's contradictions, silence about bribe attempt"—May 20, 2013 Edmonton Sun column. "Alleged Rob Ford video raises ethical dilemma"—May 20, 2013 Global News report.   For those of us who make it our business to counteract the cynicism with which most view contemporary politics, it's been a tough week. The cumulative effect of major scandal stories involving our leaders is reason for us to step back and ask serious questions regarding our democratic system. Does politics only attract those with dubious ethics? Would the situation really be different if the political opponents of those currently holding office were in power? It is discouraging to read stories regarding blatant ethical questions involving the President of the United States, Prime Minister of Canada, the Canadian Leader of the Opposition and the Mayor of Canada's largest city on the same day. Although the natures of these purported scandals are quite different from each other, the bottom line reduces to the same—can we count on our leaders to carry out their office with the basics of integrity and transparency? Whatever the facts are regarding the specific cases, at a minimum it must be said that those involved in each of these cases have been less than forthcoming in explaining themselves. If the events themselves don't merit the scandal label, the lack of explanation almost certainly does. Whatever partisan likes or dislikes I have regarding the four leaders presently in question, it stretches credibility to suggest that they all have simply tossed their principles once they achieved their office. So what is it? Why is the compass that guides decision-making seem different when viewed from the perspective of leadership? Alice Wooley, a legal ethicist at the University of Calgary, suggests that insularity is part of the equation. Speaking of how PMO lawyers may have participated in an arrangement which seems to be an elementary breach of the rules, she writes: Why? Why didn't they see it? My own guess is that the insularity of that kind of office can make you blind to even the most obvious of ethical issues and answers. That you only see how things are or seem from the perspective you occupy, and you lose the ability to see how they will seem from a different perspective. There is something to this. Familiar with many good people who have held public office, I can attest that it is hard work for them to resist the "insider-talk" and attitude which makes them sound more like an apologist for government to their electors than a voice of their electors to government. Some succeed better than others. Add to that the basic rule of democratic politics—winning is necessary in order to achieve your agenda. The imperative of power results in clouded judgement where the smaller means are justified by the greater ends. Compared to the greater cause, many things seem trivial and a nuisance, and those who insist on them seem small-minded and petty. Everything becomes hyper-partisan. A confession that, "Yes, I've messed up and pledge to do better next time," along with genuine contrition becomes politically difficult. There is no system of regulation which can manage to keep government on the ethical high road and few and far between are the leaders that are able to rise above the ethical landmines that tempt them. That does not mean regulation should be avoided—in fact, the present controversies do speak to the value of rules and disclosures. It also speaks to the wisdom of our federalist system, in which power is divided between various institutions and there are checks and balances—institutional processes—designed to hold our leaders accountable. While the current headlines may fray our confidence in our leaders, the fact that there are headlines on matters that our leaders would prefer be kept silent speaks to the important different tasks of society's institutions. Back in 1997, the American magazine First Things raised significant controversy with its End of Democracy issue in which judicial activism was highlighted as such subversion to democracy that conscientious citizens might no longer be able to morally support the existing form of government. I'm a long ways from suggesting any alternative to democracy in our present context but the current version of democracy isn't looking all that attractive right now either. Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 "Hard to believe Obama's claims of ignorance in IRS Scandal"—May 20, 2013 Fox News headline. "Harper government had to know $90,000 payment to senator crossed all sorts of ethical red lines"—May 20, 2013 Andrew Coyne column. "NDP at a loss to explain Mulcair's contradictions, silence about bribe attempt"—May 20, 2013 Edmonton Sun column. "Alleged Rob Ford video raises ethical dilemma"—May 20, 2013 Global News report.   For those of us who make it our business to counteract the cynicism with which most view contemporary politics, it's been a tough week. The cumulative effect of major scandal stories involving our leaders is reason for us to step back and ask serious questions regarding our democratic system. Does politics only attract those with dubious ethics? Would the situation really be different if the political opponents of those currently holding office were in power? It is discouraging to read stories regarding blatant ethical questions involving the President of the United States, Prime Minister of Canada, the Canadian Leader of the Opposition and the Mayor of Canada's largest city on the same day. Although the natures of these purported scandals are quite different from each other, the bottom line reduces to the same—can we count on our leaders to carry out their office with the basics of integrity and transparency? Whatever the facts are regarding the specific cases, at a minimum it must be said that those involved in each of these cases have been less than forthcoming in explaining themselves. If the events themselves don't merit the scandal label, the lack of explanation almost certainly does. Whatever partisan likes or dislikes I have regarding the four leaders presently in question, it stretches credibility to suggest that they all have simply tossed their principles once they achieved their office. So what is it? Why is the compass that guides decision-making seem different when viewed from the perspective of leadership? Alice Wooley, a legal ethicist at the University of Calgary, suggests that insularity is part of the equation. Speaking of how PMO lawyers may have participated in an arrangement which seems to be an elementary breach of the rules, she writes: Why? Why didn't they see it? My own guess is that the insularity of that kind of office can make you blind to even the most obvious of ethical issues and answers. That you only see how things are or seem from the perspective you occupy, and you lose the ability to see how they will seem from a different perspective. There is something to this. Familiar with many good people who have held public office, I can attest that it is hard work for them to resist the "insider-talk" and attitude which makes them sound more like an apologist for government to their electors than a voice of their electors to government. Some succeed better than others. Add to that the basic rule of democratic politics—winning is necessary in order to achieve your agenda. The imperative of power results in clouded judgement where the smaller means are justified by the greater ends. Compared to the greater cause, many things seem trivial and a nuisance, and those who insist on them seem small-minded and petty. Everything becomes hyper-partisan. A confession that, "Yes, I've messed up and pledge to do better next time," along with genuine contrition becomes politically difficult. There is no system of regulation which can manage to keep government on the ethical high road and few and far between are the leaders that are able to rise above the ethical landmines that tempt them. That does not mean regulation should be avoided—in fact, the present controversies do speak to the value of rules and disclosures. It also speaks to the wisdom of our federalist system, in which power is divided between various institutions and there are checks and balances—institutional processes—designed to hold our leaders accountable. While the current headlines may fray our confidence in our leaders, the fact that there are headlines on matters that our leaders would prefer be kept silent speaks to the important different tasks of society's institutions. Back in 1997, the American magazine First Things raised significant controversy with its End of Democracy issue in which judicial activism was highlighted as such subversion to democracy that conscientious citizens might no longer be able to morally support the existing form of government. I'm a long ways from suggesting any alternative to democracy in our present context but the current version of democracy isn't looking all that attractive right now either. http://www.cardus.ca/research/2/publications/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed On May 21, 2013, Brian Dijkema presented this briefing note to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in Ottawa, ON. Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 On May 21, 2013, Brian Dijkema presented this briefing note to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in Ottawa, ON. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/the-question-asked-too-late?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed 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 mind worked with, is actually simple. He simply asks questions, usually starting with a bevy of freshly plucked expletives. Indeed, having known Fife for so long, I am willing to bet some portion of $90,000 that this is exactly the question he asked and began doggedly pursuing the moment he first heard that the senator had repaid in full all misallocated funds owing: "Where in the (ahem) world does (ahem) Mike (ahem) Duffy come up with (ahem) $90,000 just like that?" The pity is that no other reporter—much less overpaid opinion columnist—in the parliamentary precincts appears to have done the same. Or perhaps they did and just weren't as fast, dogged, and connected as Fife is in tracking down stories. My sense, though, is that they did not largely because the fundamental craft of asking simple, basic questions seems to have become a lost art in national journalistic circles and, in fact, in journalism generally. The practice was the sine qua non of journalism. I am never sure exactly what has replaced it, but that is an entirely different point to ponder. In this case, if the spirit of inquiry were as robust as it should be, at least two faults would have been avoided. The first, obviously, is that we would likely never have been led to believe that Sen. Duffy paid the money back himself so quickly. We would have known the truth, which still counts for something, yes? More, we would have been spared the career execution of Nigel Wright, Prime Minister Harper's chief of staff, who, as most know, lost his job after acknowledging that it was he who helped the good senator pay off his debt. Put another way, had the first question with regard to Sen. Duffy's means been properly, promptly, and widely asked, the second question upon discovery of Nigel Wright's generosity would have been: "Yes, and what exactly is wrong with that?" For in all the smoke, light and noise that drove the prime minister's chief of staff from his post, no one has ever said precisely what it was that he did wrong. There have been references to parliamentary codes of ethics and what gifts it is proper for a senator to receive but surely those apply to the senator in question. Surely it was his obligation to decline the help, however well intended. No one has suggested in any way that Nigel Wright's gesture was anything but well intended. It came, or least appears to have come, from his own pocket. There is no hint that any sort of quid pro quo was attached, which makes sense given that Sen. Duffy is now such a persona non grata on Parliament Hill that it would be, ipso facto, ludicrous to expect a return of favours from him anyway. What could he possibly hand over: a desk drawer full of chiseled expense accounts not as yet submitted? With a couple of simple questions, a man whose moral compass seems to have been tossed overboard would have been called to account much sooner. And a man who sought only to do the right thing would have been spared vilification and job loss. Journalism matters because questions matter. Just ask my old colleague Bob Fife. Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 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 mind worked with, is actually simple. He simply asks questions, usually starting with a bevy of freshly plucked expletives. Indeed, having known Fife for so long, I am willing to bet some portion of $90,000 that this is exactly the question he asked and began doggedly pursuing the moment he first heard that the senator had repaid in full all misallocated funds owing: "Where in the (ahem) world does (ahem) Mike (ahem) Duffy come up with (ahem) $90,000 just like that?" The pity is that no other reporter—much less overpaid opinion columnist—in the parliamentary precincts appears to have done the same. Or perhaps they did and just weren't as fast, dogged, and connected as Fife is in tracking down stories. My sense, though, is that they did not largely because the fundamental craft of asking simple, basic questions seems to have become a lost art in national journalistic circles and, in fact, in journalism generally. The practice was the sine qua non of journalism. I am never sure exactly what has replaced it, but that is an entirely different point to ponder. In this case, if the spirit of inquiry were as robust as it should be, at least two faults would have been avoided. The first, obviously, is that we would likely never have been led to believe that Sen. Duffy paid the money back himself so quickly. We would have known the truth, which still counts for something, yes? More, we would have been spared the career execution of Nigel Wright, Prime Minister Harper's chief of staff, who, as most know, lost his job after acknowledging that it was he who helped the good senator pay off his debt. Put another way, had the first question with regard to Sen. Duffy's means been properly, promptly, and widely asked, the second question upon discovery of Nigel Wright's generosity would have been: "Yes, and what exactly is wrong with that?" For in all the smoke, light and noise that drove the prime minister's chief of staff from his post, no one has ever said precisely what it was that he did wrong. There have been references to parliamentary codes of ethics and what gifts it is proper for a senator to receive but surely those apply to the senator in question. Surely it was his obligation to decline the help, however well intended. No one has suggested in any way that Nigel Wright's gesture was anything but well intended. It came, or least appears to have come, from his own pocket. There is no hint that any sort of quid pro quo was attached, which makes sense given that Sen. Duffy is now such a persona non grata on Parliament Hill that it would be, ipso facto, ludicrous to expect a return of favours from him anyway. What could he possibly hand over: a desk drawer full of chiseled expense accounts not as yet submitted? With a couple of simple questions, a man whose moral compass seems to have been tossed overboard would have been called to account much sooner. And a man who sought only to do the right thing would have been spared vilification and job loss. Journalism matters because questions matter. Just ask my old colleague Bob Fife. http://www.cardus.ca/organization/news/176/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed On May 21, 2013, Brian Dijkema made the following remarks to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in Ottawa, ON. Tue, 21 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 On May 21, 2013, Brian Dijkema made the following remarks to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in Ottawa, ON. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/reconsidering-limitations-on-free-speech-in-canada?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed 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 of belief that is clearly deeply racist or hateful. But would we also limit speech and belief that, while hurtful, also happens to be true? Perhaps the Supreme Court of Canada has drawn a line in the wrong place. In February's Whatcott decision, Canada's highest court found that even speaking the truth in a manner that is ultimately judged to be hateful can run Canadians afoul of provincial human rights codes. More important, it is not even necessary for it to be shown that such "true but hateful" speech caused any demonstrable harm. Using the Court's reasoning, to succeed in a human rights complaint for hateful expression, a complainant need not show that that the statement or writing actually exposed a vulnerable group to hatred. He or she need only convince a judge that the expression may "tend to expose" a group to hatred. What follows is in no way a defense of what William Whatcott did to land himself before the courts. For those interested, the details of the decision can be found at Lexum. The Courts' decision itself is as convoluted as the history of the case, and rings alarm bells for those concerned with protecting freedom of speech and belief. It is of concrete concern to people of religious faith, especially, who might try to discern whether (for example) Scriptural proscriptions of particular behaviours might be judged "hate speech" when they are restated in a vernacular or conversational way. An ordinary pastor, minister, priest, rabbi, or cleric should be able to look at the legislation and determine what constitutes hate speech without the need to become a Supreme Court jurist. This decision falls short of creating a bright-line rule that is readily applied, even by those with legal training. The Whatcott decision raises three essential questions that must become part of the debate on free speech and freedom of belief limitations. 1) What is the threshold to establish that a publication or speech has caused a harm that necessitates a legal remedy? Previously a complainant had to demonstrate that the "hate" speech or writing actually exposed the vulnerable group to hatred. However, the courts now have reset the bar to permit censoring of expression that was merely hurtful or offensive. The court has moved the legal test away from reasonable standards of justice focusing exclusively on the effects of that speech and toward assessing the motive of the speaker in determining culpability. This violates long-held principles of justice that require the state to establish motive as a precondition of a guilty verdict. The connection between intention and liability is conspicuously absent from an approach that justifies censuring expression regardless of the intention of the writer-speaker. As Kevin Boonstra, a constitutional lawyer, points out: "If there is to be a non-criminal prohibition on hate speech, it should be of such a nature that the targeted group is actually impacted, not just that a statement may 'tend to expose' a group to hatred." 2) Can free speech that may or may not promote hatred be protected by the right to freedom of religious belief? For religious groups the difference between permissible and impermissible communication of beliefs that "tend to expose a group to hatred" is dangerously ill-defined. Without such clarity, how can people of religious faith know when they must hold their tongues and when they are permitted to follow the principle of speaking the truth in love to communicate the tenets of faith? And isn't such confusion and uncertainty precisely what the Charter was intended to avoid? 3) Can verifiably true statements be considered as "hate" speech? The Court has clearly muddied the waters with its rejection of the defense of truth to a charge of hate speech. It says explicitly that "truthful statements can be presented in a manner that would meet the definition of hate speech, and not all truthful statements must be free from restriction." The Court has determined it may be necessary to restrict the articulation of truth to ensure that hate is not permitted to permeate social dialogue. How can that be the limit of speech in a society that still believes itself to be free? When it comes to any fundamental right, the ideal that we teach is that for me to possess a right I must also give that right away to others, even if I passionately disagree with them. In this sense, a society is only strengthened when we don't lose sight of the fact that we must tolerate expression that we despise in order to preserve our own right to vehemently disagree with others. Even in a time as distracted as ours, a clear and present threat to such an age-old principle of democratic freedom must receive more attention—before it's too late. Mon, 20 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 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 of belief that is clearly deeply racist or hateful. But would we also limit speech and belief that, while hurtful, also happens to be true? Perhaps the Supreme Court of Canada has drawn a line in the wrong place. In February's Whatcott decision, Canada's highest court found that even speaking the truth in a manner that is ultimately judged to be hateful can run Canadians afoul of provincial human rights codes. More important, it is not even necessary for it to be shown that such "true but hateful" speech caused any demonstrable harm. Using the Court's reasoning, to succeed in a human rights complaint for hateful expression, a complainant need not show that that the statement or writing actually exposed a vulnerable group to hatred. He or she need only convince a judge that the expression may "tend to expose" a group to hatred. What follows is in no way a defense of what William Whatcott did to land himself before the courts. For those interested, the details of the decision can be found at Lexum. The Courts' decision itself is as convoluted as the history of the case, and rings alarm bells for those concerned with protecting freedom of speech and belief. It is of concrete concern to people of religious faith, especially, who might try to discern whether (for example) Scriptural proscriptions of particular behaviours might be judged "hate speech" when they are restated in a vernacular or conversational way. An ordinary pastor, minister, priest, rabbi, or cleric should be able to look at the legislation and determine what constitutes hate speech without the need to become a Supreme Court jurist. This decision falls short of creating a bright-line rule that is readily applied, even by those with legal training. The Whatcott decision raises three essential questions that must become part of the debate on free speech and freedom of belief limitations. 1) What is the threshold to establish that a publication or speech has caused a harm that necessitates a legal remedy? Previously a complainant had to demonstrate that the "hate" speech or writing actually exposed the vulnerable group to hatred. However, the courts now have reset the bar to permit censoring of expression that was merely hurtful or offensive. The court has moved the legal test away from reasonable standards of justice focusing exclusively on the effects of that speech and toward assessing the motive of the speaker in determining culpability. This violates long-held principles of justice that require the state to establish motive as a precondition of a guilty verdict. The connection between intention and liability is conspicuously absent from an approach that justifies censuring expression regardless of the intention of the writer-speaker. As Kevin Boonstra, a constitutional lawyer, points out: "If there is to be a non-criminal prohibition on hate speech, it should be of such a nature that the targeted group is actually impacted, not just that a statement may 'tend to expose' a group to hatred." 2) Can free speech that may or may not promote hatred be protected by the right to freedom of religious belief? For religious groups the difference between permissible and impermissible communication of beliefs that "tend to expose a group to hatred" is dangerously ill-defined. Without such clarity, how can people of religious faith know when they must hold their tongues and when they are permitted to follow the principle of speaking the truth in love to communicate the tenets of faith? And isn't such confusion and uncertainty precisely what the Charter was intended to avoid? 3) Can verifiably true statements be considered as "hate" speech? The Court has clearly muddied the waters with its rejection of the defense of truth to a charge of hate speech. It says explicitly that "truthful statements can be presented in a manner that would meet the definition of hate speech, and not all truthful statements must be free from restriction." The Court has determined it may be necessary to restrict the articulation of truth to ensure that hate is not permitted to permeate social dialogue. How can that be the limit of speech in a society that still believes itself to be free? When it comes to any fundamental right, the ideal that we teach is that for me to possess a right I must also give that right away to others, even if I passionately disagree with them. In this sense, a society is only strengthened when we don't lose sight of the fact that we must tolerate expression that we despise in order to preserve our own right to vehemently disagree with others. Even in a time as distracted as ours, a clear and present threat to such an age-old principle of democratic freedom must receive more attention—before it's too late. http://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/3970/activism-justice-and-longing-for-shalom/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed I care about justice; must I be an activist? Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 I care about justice; must I be an activist? http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/the-perfected-downtown?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed 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 with each other is the Southdale Center in Edina, MN. In the mid 1950s a German socialist named Victor Gruen, feeling more and more concern for the isolated lifestyle that the car, subdivisions, and miles of strip malls were creating, envisioned a new type of community—or rather a reworking of an old one. It would allow its inhabitants to live independently of the car, to live, study, and work in their neighbourhood, and its crowning jewel would be an indoor air-conditioned shopping mall at the centre, complete with gardens, parks, cafes, and shops—a community centre. The mall was inspired by the streets of Vienna with their outdoor cafes, open shops, and bustling pedestrian streets. In 1956 Gruen's dream of this utopian space was realized in Edina, Minnesota with the Southdale Mall. Exterior store fronts of a street were turned inward to a large interior space. It was a perfected downtown—no dirt, no traffic, no rain. When Southdale first opened, thousands and thousands of people flocked to see it, even Frank Lloyd Wright. He, however, was unenthused. He said, "You tried to bring downtown here. You should have left downtown, downtown." The centre, the downtown of Gruen's perfected community was complete, but rather than building the other necessary pieces of his vision—the homes, schools, and offices—the developer turned the land surrounding the mall into an ocean of parking. As Gruen put it later, the shopping mall was a "bastard development." Perhaps both Wright and Gruen caught a glimpse of what this new, isolated shopping mall would do to cities across North America. With the centre of commerce moved up to a clean, air-conditioned building in the suburbs, downtown centres lost their appeal and their business. But more was lost than business. Among many other things, we lost the public spaces available downtown, the neutral places where democracy actually happens: the cafes where people gathered; the parks where families met; the public square where people could debate, demonstrate, and discuss. These were no longer filled with people. And these are not things that can simply be relocated to the indoor mall. Public spaces are important for just that reason—they are public. The mall puts on a nice façade of being a public space where you are free to move about as you please, to have a coffee in the centre, and to shop, but it is still a privately-owned space. Public demonstrators will be quietly escorted to the door by the security personnel. It is a controlled space. However, downtown centres are making a revival. People see the value and importance of having a thriving city core—a central space where commerce and debate can exist together. Downtowns are attracting shoppers, diners, workers, and residents. Forbes recently highlighted "15 U.S. Cities' Emerging Downtowns," stating that those who are moving downtown want to live in "tight-knit urban neighborhoods that are close to work and have lots of entertainment and shopping options within an easy walk". These are the same things that Gruen hoped to include in his utopian community, but the difference now is, the desired structures already exist in downtown cores and won't be paved over with parking lots anytime soon. Fri, 17 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 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 with each other is the Southdale Center in Edina, MN. In the mid 1950s a German socialist named Victor Gruen, feeling more and more concern for the isolated lifestyle that the car, subdivisions, and miles of strip malls were creating, envisioned a new type of community—or rather a reworking of an old one. It would allow its inhabitants to live independently of the car, to live, study, and work in their neighbourhood, and its crowning jewel would be an indoor air-conditioned shopping mall at the centre, complete with gardens, parks, cafes, and shops—a community centre. The mall was inspired by the streets of Vienna with their outdoor cafes, open shops, and bustling pedestrian streets. In 1956 Gruen's dream of this utopian space was realized in Edina, Minnesota with the Southdale Mall. Exterior store fronts of a street were turned inward to a large interior space. It was a perfected downtown—no dirt, no traffic, no rain. When Southdale first opened, thousands and thousands of people flocked to see it, even Frank Lloyd Wright. He, however, was unenthused. He said, "You tried to bring downtown here. You should have left downtown, downtown." The centre, the downtown of Gruen's perfected community was complete, but rather than building the other necessary pieces of his vision—the homes, schools, and offices—the developer turned the land surrounding the mall into an ocean of parking. As Gruen put it later, the shopping mall was a "bastard development." Perhaps both Wright and Gruen caught a glimpse of what this new, isolated shopping mall would do to cities across North America. With the centre of commerce moved up to a clean, air-conditioned building in the suburbs, downtown centres lost their appeal and their business. But more was lost than business. Among many other things, we lost the public spaces available downtown, the neutral places where democracy actually happens: the cafes where people gathered; the parks where families met; the public square where people could debate, demonstrate, and discuss. These were no longer filled with people. And these are not things that can simply be relocated to the indoor mall. Public spaces are important for just that reason—they are public. The mall puts on a nice façade of being a public space where you are free to move about as you please, to have a coffee in the centre, and to shop, but it is still a privately-owned space. Public demonstrators will be quietly escorted to the door by the security personnel. It is a controlled space. However, downtown centres are making a revival. People see the value and importance of having a thriving city core—a central space where commerce and debate can exist together. Downtowns are attracting shoppers, diners, workers, and residents. Forbes recently highlighted "15 U.S. Cities' Emerging Downtowns," stating that those who are moving downtown want to live in "tight-knit urban neighborhoods that are close to work and have lots of entertainment and shopping options within an easy walk". These are the same things that Gruen hoped to include in his utopian community, but the difference now is, the desired structures already exist in downtown cores and won't be paved over with parking lots anytime soon. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/le-parti-moustique?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed 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 high-modern conception of secularism  can reach,  I present to you Exhibit A of the latest valiant effort from Le Parti Moustique. The government's Minister of Democratic Institutions (yes, you read that right), Bernard Drainville wants to revoke the understanding between orthodox Jews and the city of Montreal which "allows orthodox Jews who do not drive on holidays, and who often live close to their synagogues, to avoid tickets if they are unable to move their cars when a holiday coincides with a day designated for street-sweeping." Get that? The city does not tag the cars of the religiously observant in the rare chance that street sweeping and an orthodox holiday happen to take place on the same day (how often are streets swept in Montreal, exactly?). Good heavens, a small group of a small group (the Orthodox Jews make up about 14% of the Montréalaise Jewish population and only 1% of the city's total population), which has been practicing its religion for millennia, and has held this understanding with the municipality of Montreal for nearly three decades, wishes to not get tickets! Anarchy on the streets of Montreal! Well, that's what Mr. Drainville thinks. Here's what he had to say: We cannot start saying we are going to change the highway code and the parking signs according to different religions. It will never end. We will have parking signs for Jewish holidays, then we will have parking signs for Catholic holidays, and after that parking signs for Muslim holidays. It makes no sense. We cannot manage a society like that. I had to read that twice too. All I heard the first time was this. I wonder what the PQ would do if a real riot were to take place? Tanks? Wait. The key words here are "manage society". Mr. Drainville sees society, like every other apparatchik of his particular ideology, as something to be managed.  And we all know religion is particularly hard to manage, especially since its calendars overlap so often with the calendar which sets the dates on which cigarette butts get swept up into the Madvac LT500. Luckily, there remains a solid set of Quebeckers who are guided by more wholesome—I want to add more Quebecois—values. A Montreal constitutional lawyer, Julian Grey, notes "We have to have a system of law that allows for discretion and for exercise of ordinary human neighbourliness. There's nothing wrong with what they did." The city councilor for Snowdon, Marvin Rotrand, adds "The idea of meeting requests from major ethnic and religious organizations on our territory, when it causes no prejudice to other citizens or to the city, is something that is natural for us and has been for nearly 30 years, without incident." The key words here are "ordinary human neighbourliness" and "something natural for us." God bless Messrs Rotrand and Grey for confirming what anyone who's visited Quebec knows: that a remnant of people who respect the role of faith in our common life remain. As for Le Parti Moustique? Well, it deserves a fate worthy of all mosquitoes. Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 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 high-modern conception of secularism  can reach,  I present to you Exhibit A of the latest valiant effort from Le Parti Moustique. The government's Minister of Democratic Institutions (yes, you read that right), Bernard Drainville wants to revoke the understanding between orthodox Jews and the city of Montreal which "allows orthodox Jews who do not drive on holidays, and who often live close to their synagogues, to avoid tickets if they are unable to move their cars when a holiday coincides with a day designated for street-sweeping." Get that? The city does not tag the cars of the religiously observant in the rare chance that street sweeping and an orthodox holiday happen to take place on the same day (how often are streets swept in Montreal, exactly?). Good heavens, a small group of a small group (the Orthodox Jews make up about 14% of the Montréalaise Jewish population and only 1% of the city's total population), which has been practicing its religion for millennia, and has held this understanding with the municipality of Montreal for nearly three decades, wishes to not get tickets! Anarchy on the streets of Montreal! Well, that's what Mr. Drainville thinks. Here's what he had to say: We cannot start saying we are going to change the highway code and the parking signs according to different religions. It will never end. We will have parking signs for Jewish holidays, then we will have parking signs for Catholic holidays, and after that parking signs for Muslim holidays. It makes no sense. We cannot manage a society like that. I had to read that twice too. All I heard the first time was this. I wonder what the PQ would do if a real riot were to take place? Tanks? Wait. The key words here are "manage society". Mr. Drainville sees society, like every other apparatchik of his particular ideology, as something to be managed.  And we all know religion is particularly hard to manage, especially since its calendars overlap so often with the calendar which sets the dates on which cigarette butts get swept up into the Madvac LT500. Luckily, there remains a solid set of Quebeckers who are guided by more wholesome—I want to add more Quebecois—values. A Montreal constitutional lawyer, Julian Grey, notes "We have to have a system of law that allows for discretion and for exercise of ordinary human neighbourliness. There's nothing wrong with what they did." The city councilor for Snowdon, Marvin Rotrand, adds "The idea of meeting requests from major ethnic and religious organizations on our territory, when it causes no prejudice to other citizens or to the city, is something that is natural for us and has been for nearly 30 years, without incident." The key words here are "ordinary human neighbourliness" and "something natural for us." God bless Messrs Rotrand and Grey for confirming what anyone who's visited Quebec knows: that a remnant of people who respect the role of faith in our common life remain. As for Le Parti Moustique? Well, it deserves a fate worthy of all mosquitoes. http://www.cardus.ca/organization/news/173/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed There is a growing effort to rebuild “social infrastructure” – cultural and recreational organizations, assets and activities that nurture healthy communities. Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 There is a growing effort to rebuild “social infrastructure” – cultural and recreational organizations, assets and activities that nurture healthy communities. http://www.cardus.ca/organization/news/174/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Calgary's elected officials have as much as admitted they made a mistake six years ago by not including faith-based institutions as stakeholders in plans to revitalize the city's core neighbourhoods. In early May, with no debate and no one opposed, they voted to correct that oversight. Thu, 16 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Calgary's elected officials have as much as admitted they made a mistake six years ago by not including faith-based institutions as stakeholders in plans to revitalize the city's core neighbourhoods. In early May, with no debate and no one opposed, they voted to correct that oversight. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/greatly-troubled?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed 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 much more had been taken from this life as a result of a crime, the motive of which seems entirely incomprehensible. I had to wipe some involuntary tears as I absorbed what I had just heard. The prayers that we and so many others had raised, that Tim would be found alive and returned to his family, would not be answered in the way we hoped. Tragedies of this sort are theological and practical challenges for me, as I seek to live out of my faith in the midst of a society that does not share it. Why does God allow evil of this magnitude to take place? Although there are "right" theological answers to that, owning those answers is difficult—and is even more difficult for those far closer emotionally to the situation. At times like these, we may be well advised to follow the example of Jesus, who when he came to the graveside of Lazarus, observed the mourning that was taking place, "was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled," and publicly wept alongside the other mourners (John 11:33-35). Away from the graveside, there was a place to explain to Martha the gospel of the resurrection, which in Lazarus' case would be demonstrated in an immediate and miraculous manner, but at most times of tragedy is represented only in consolation. The Bosma family is not alone in dealing with tragedy, although theirs is a case that is presently of public profile. Tragedy of this magnitude happens every day somewhere in the world, and it is impossible to become emotionally involved in every case. For me, although I live 3,000 kilometres away from Ancaster, Ontario, the proximity of overlapping social media networks and a shared ethnic and religious community provided a connection to this case. But that too speaks to the importance of community and institutions to which we belong. As a fellow citizen I feel the pain when I become aware of difficult circumstances being faced by any of my neighbours but when I share closer connections, usually through shared sense of belonging to the other institutions of society, I am more affected but also bear a greater responsibility. 2,000 years of Christian social thought can sometimes bear only technical and theoretical fruit, but in weeks like this, we are reminded that this tradition provides us so much more. In the darkest moments of life, there is Christian hope and comfort that can be held on to and shared, even when that faith seems to contradict the evidence immediately before us. It is especially at these times that the various institutions and communities that comprise society serve their most important role. The strong family, church, and neighbourhood communities that the Bosmas are supported by cannot take away the pain, but can support them through their agony. Even as I write, their church is the site of a press conference for Tim's widow Sharlene, and for information on a trust account for her and her daughter. Though many of us are far away or distant, we can still pray and weep alongside them. It's a day to carry out our calling "with heavy hearts." Wed, 15 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 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 much more had been taken from this life as a result of a crime, the motive of which seems entirely incomprehensible. I had to wipe some involuntary tears as I absorbed what I had just heard. The prayers that we and so many others had raised, that Tim would be found alive and returned to his family, would not be answered in the way we hoped. Tragedies of this sort are theological and practical challenges for me, as I seek to live out of my faith in the midst of a society that does not share it. Why does God allow evil of this magnitude to take place? Although there are "right" theological answers to that, owning those answers is difficult—and is even more difficult for those far closer emotionally to the situation. At times like these, we may be well advised to follow the example of Jesus, who when he came to the graveside of Lazarus, observed the mourning that was taking place, "was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled," and publicly wept alongside the other mourners (John 11:33-35). Away from the graveside, there was a place to explain to Martha the gospel of the resurrection, which in Lazarus' case would be demonstrated in an immediate and miraculous manner, but at most times of tragedy is represented only in consolation. The Bosma family is not alone in dealing with tragedy, although theirs is a case that is presently of public profile. Tragedy of this magnitude happens every day somewhere in the world, and it is impossible to become emotionally involved in every case. For me, although I live 3,000 kilometres away from Ancaster, Ontario, the proximity of overlapping social media networks and a shared ethnic and religious community provided a connection to this case. But that too speaks to the importance of community and institutions to which we belong. As a fellow citizen I feel the pain when I become aware of difficult circumstances being faced by any of my neighbours but when I share closer connections, usually through shared sense of belonging to the other institutions of society, I am more affected but also bear a greater responsibility. 2,000 years of Christian social thought can sometimes bear only technical and theoretical fruit, but in weeks like this, we are reminded that this tradition provides us so much more. In the darkest moments of life, there is Christian hope and comfort that can be held on to and shared, even when that faith seems to contradict the evidence immediately before us. It is especially at these times that the various institutions and communities that comprise society serve their most important role. The strong family, church, and neighbourhood communities that the Bosmas are supported by cannot take away the pain, but can support them through their agony. Even as I write, their church is the site of a press conference for Tim's widow Sharlene, and for information on a trust account for her and her daughter. Though many of us are far away or distant, we can still pray and weep alongside them. It's a day to carry out our calling "with heavy hearts." http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/conrad-black-and-crossing-toward-truth?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed 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 served in an American prison was the outcome of injustice. Just as stoutly, he insisted, digressing while answering a different question from Father de Souza, that his ill fortune be placed in proper context. He said: "I don't want anyone in this room to imagine that I think that there aren't a great number of people…who haven't had greater problems of a different kind. "I do not want anyone to imagine that I'm presenting myself to you as a uniquely beleaguered person. What I went through was certainly no day at the beach, but it does not compare with people with terminal illnesses. We've all had them in our families and amongst friends. It's a terrible crisis, the worst crisis. I want you all to understand that while it was a very difficult time, I don't represent it as unprecedented or anything like that." Though he had earlier insisted that "even my worst enemies don't accuse me of carrying modesty to a fault," it was a moment of connection-through-humility that showed why Black is one of the greatest living Canadian showmen. Perhaps one of the greatest showmen we've ever had. I use the noun as high praise. I mean it in the sense of someone who understands, as a craft master, the way language reaches an ear and so an audience but, more, who has reconciled his fate as a player in his own travelling one-man show, accepted the reality of life as theatre; not theatre as a synonym for pish-posh and facile flim-flam but as means for crossing toward a point that just might contain the truth. There are those, chiefly on the left, who love to see Black as the Simon Bar Sinister of buffoonish bombast. There are those, trending toward Christian conservatism, who enjoy the frisson of considering him a stiff-necked sinner idling at the gate. We all wear the comfy slippers of our own caricatures. To whatever miniscule degree Black's persona corresponds to either of those cartoons, or to a mixture of them both, he rises, in public and in person, gigantically above them. At our Cardus Convivium event in Toronto on May 3 when we hosted Governor Mark Carney, I had the good fortune to be seated beside Black during the luncheon, and sat with wine glass suspended above the table linen as he explained what Hegel really meant with his aphorism that no man is a hero to his own valet. This touched off a kind of brown bag Hegelian Improv in which Black opened wide the gates of memory to cite things other famous people have said that other less famous people have famously misconstrued. I felt as if I should be raising my glass in a toast, and never once wished to echo Margaret Thatcher's tart corrective to him: "That will do, Mr. Black; that will do." Yet my small moment of witnessing a prodigious mind tumbling forward in the sheer joyful rambunction of being able to speak itself as part of convivial table talk paled in comparison to his feat from the dais at last week's Calgary event when he essentially covered the sweep of Western history in responding to Father de Souza's questions. Here is an example, quoted at full length for the same reason we refrain from putting water into wine: "I think a very important part of what we've been talking about is the issue of moral leadership of secular leaders, especially when they conduct themselves in a way that embraces, broadly-speaking, a spiritual role. It is unfortunate that this occurs usually, and for obvious reasons, in the greatest crises of life and death. "We've been speaking of Abraham Lincoln. When he said the line I quoted, which is a line of poetry, about hoping the war would end soon, he added, 'But if God wills that all the treasured piled up by the bondsmen's 250 years of unrequited toil should be sunk, and that every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be repaid by the sword, so still it must be said that such a judgment is true and righteous altogether.' "He was saying that he would see the war through, no matter how many people died, to abolish slavery. In that case, there was a secular leader, the president of a nation, speaking in what amounted to a religious way and enunciating a religious truth, and it was a truth. "In our own times—there are people in the room who probably remember—the address that President Roosevelt gave on D-Day, began 'Our sons, pride of our nation, have embarked upon a mighty endeavor of liberation.'  He said: 'They yearn but for return to the haven of home; some will never return. Accept these, Heavenly Father, Thy most heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.  They will build the peace, invulnerable to the dealings of unworthy men.' "That was spiritual as well as secular leadership. Now, we don't need it on that level now because we're not at war for the lives of our countries and our children, but we need something more than the pretty dubious and cynical and mediocre leadership that the United States have been afflicted by for some time." There is, in those four paragraphs, a 50-plus word citation from Lincoln and another of the same length from Roosevelt, set down as the foundation for the larger thought, extempore, simply drawn out of memory on the spot to perfectly serve the purpose while the rest of us rustled in our seats trying to keep up. For the lines cited were actually an addendum to Black's responses, politely interjected at the end just to clarify and emphasize his earlier answers. It was wonderful oratory and remarkable showmanship played not by a victim but by someone who genuinely deserves his fellow Canadians' applause. Tue, 14 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 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 served in an American prison was the outcome of injustice. Just as stoutly, he insisted, digressing while answering a different question from Father de Souza, that his ill fortune be placed in proper context. He said: "I don't want anyone in this room to imagine that I think that there aren't a great number of people…who haven't had greater problems of a different kind. "I do not want anyone to imagine that I'm presenting myself to you as a uniquely beleaguered person. What I went through was certainly no day at the beach, but it does not compare with people with terminal illnesses. We've all had them in our families and amongst friends. It's a terrible crisis, the worst crisis. I want you all to understand that while it was a very difficult time, I don't represent it as unprecedented or anything like that." Though he had earlier insisted that "even my worst enemies don't accuse me of carrying modesty to a fault," it was a moment of connection-through-humility that showed why Black is one of the greatest living Canadian showmen. Perhaps one of the greatest showmen we've ever had. I use the noun as high praise. I mean it in the sense of someone who understands, as a craft master, the way language reaches an ear and so an audience but, more, who has reconciled his fate as a player in his own travelling one-man show, accepted the reality of life as theatre; not theatre as a synonym for pish-posh and facile flim-flam but as means for crossing toward a point that just might contain the truth. There are those, chiefly on the left, who love to see Black as the Simon Bar Sinister of buffoonish bombast. There are those, trending toward Christian conservatism, who enjoy the frisson of considering him a stiff-necked sinner idling at the gate. We all wear the comfy slippers of our own caricatures. To whatever miniscule degree Black's persona corresponds to either of those cartoons, or to a mixture of them both, he rises, in public and in person, gigantically above them. At our Cardus Convivium event in Toronto on May 3 when we hosted Governor Mark Carney, I had the good fortune to be seated beside Black during the luncheon, and sat with wine glass suspended above the table linen as he explained what Hegel really meant with his aphorism that no man is a hero to his own valet. This touched off a kind of brown bag Hegelian Improv in which Black opened wide the gates of memory to cite things other famous people have said that other less famous people have famously misconstrued. I felt as if I should be raising my glass in a toast, and never once wished to echo Margaret Thatcher's tart corrective to him: "That will do, Mr. Black; that will do." Yet my small moment of witnessing a prodigious mind tumbling forward in the sheer joyful rambunction of being able to speak itself as part of convivial table talk paled in comparison to his feat from the dais at last week's Calgary event when he essentially covered the sweep of Western history in responding to Father de Souza's questions. Here is an example, quoted at full length for the same reason we refrain from putting water into wine: "I think a very important part of what we've been talking about is the issue of moral leadership of secular leaders, especially when they conduct themselves in a way that embraces, broadly-speaking, a spiritual role. It is unfortunate that this occurs usually, and for obvious reasons, in the greatest crises of life and death. "We've been speaking of Abraham Lincoln. When he said the line I quoted, which is a line of poetry, about hoping the war would end soon, he added, 'But if God wills that all the treasured piled up by the bondsmen's 250 years of unrequited toil should be sunk, and that every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be repaid by the sword, so still it must be said that such a judgment is true and righteous altogether.' "He was saying that he would see the war through, no matter how many people died, to abolish slavery. In that case, there was a secular leader, the president of a nation, speaking in what amounted to a religious way and enunciating a religious truth, and it was a truth. "In our own times—there are people in the room who probably remember—the address that President Roosevelt gave on D-Day, began 'Our sons, pride of our nation, have embarked upon a mighty endeavor of liberation.'  He said: 'They yearn but for return to the haven of home; some will never return. Accept these, Heavenly Father, Thy most heroic servants, into Thy kingdom.  They will build the peace, invulnerable to the dealings of unworthy men.' "That was spiritual as well as secular leadership. Now, we don't need it on that level now because we're not at war for the lives of our countries and our children, but we need something more than the pretty dubious and cynical and mediocre leadership that the United States have been afflicted by for some time." There is, in those four paragraphs, a 50-plus word citation from Lincoln and another of the same length from Roosevelt, set down as the foundation for the larger thought, extempore, simply drawn out of memory on the spot to perfectly serve the purpose while the rest of us rustled in our seats trying to keep up. For the lines cited were actually an addendum to Black's responses, politely interjected at the end just to clarify and emphasize his earlier answers. It was wonderful oratory and remarkable showmanship played not by a victim but by someone who genuinely deserves his fellow Canadians' applause. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/contemplating-realness?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed 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 lit up as she described the willow trees in the park steps away from her old condo or the days spent bustling around the streets of Toronto. What does it mean to be a "real" person? What is it that provides us with a sense of certitude about our own personhood? It is the rare being who can be fulfilled by the Descartian notion "I think, therefore I am".  Throughout time, we have chosen to see our image reflected via our possessions or our achievements. For my friend, her "realness" is inextricably linked to freedom. The freedom to live life on her own schedule, to walk without assistance, to make her own tea and toast. Recently, for me, my freedom arrived on four wheels in the form of my first car. To come and go as I please affords me the independence to go, to seek, to find, to do. Yet ironically, my going, seeking, finding, and doing comes at the price of a litre of gas.  In order to sustain my newfound independence, my freedom is subject to my paycheque.  When I turn the key in the ignition, I question whether my new possession is truly liberating, or have I become ensnared by a new reality? The allure of shiny new things fades fast; more lasting is the seductive power of personal achievement to define a person’s reality. The euphoria that comes with gaining the next promotion, gold medal, top score, or accolade can certainly make one credible. Yet this euphoria is only sustained by constant achievement, and that credibility is so fragile that unexpected failure can cause us to question our very purpose in life. So how then do we become "real"? All bodies age, all minds become foggy, and all hearts will eventually stop beating, but when it is my turn to sit on that verandah, and contemplate my "realness", all I can hope is that my life will have been lived to prove that my realness, my dignity exists through my participation in the "light and power" of a Spirit far greater than I. Whether I choose to grasp it or not, freedom is always within my reach. Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 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 lit up as she described the willow trees in the park steps away from her old condo or the days spent bustling around the streets of Toronto. What does it mean to be a "real" person? What is it that provides us with a sense of certitude about our own personhood? It is the rare being who can be fulfilled by the Descartian notion "I think, therefore I am".  Throughout time, we have chosen to see our image reflected via our possessions or our achievements. For my friend, her "realness" is inextricably linked to freedom. The freedom to live life on her own schedule, to walk without assistance, to make her own tea and toast. Recently, for me, my freedom arrived on four wheels in the form of my first car. To come and go as I please affords me the independence to go, to seek, to find, to do. Yet ironically, my going, seeking, finding, and doing comes at the price of a litre of gas.  In order to sustain my newfound independence, my freedom is subject to my paycheque.  When I turn the key in the ignition, I question whether my new possession is truly liberating, or have I become ensnared by a new reality? The allure of shiny new things fades fast; more lasting is the seductive power of personal achievement to define a person’s reality. The euphoria that comes with gaining the next promotion, gold medal, top score, or accolade can certainly make one credible. Yet this euphoria is only sustained by constant achievement, and that credibility is so fragile that unexpected failure can cause us to question our very purpose in life. So how then do we become "real"? All bodies age, all minds become foggy, and all hearts will eventually stop beating, but when it is my turn to sit on that verandah, and contemplate my "realness", all I can hope is that my life will have been lived to prove that my realness, my dignity exists through my participation in the "light and power" of a Spirit far greater than I. Whether I choose to grasp it or not, freedom is always within my reach. http://www.cardus.ca/comment/article/3969/responsible-activism-and-social-change/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed If it's up to this generation to save the world, what will happen to our faith lives if there's still saving to be done when we're finished with it? Fri, 10 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 If it's up to this generation to save the world, what will happen to our faith lives if there's still saving to be done when we're finished with it? http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/a-goose-on-a-roof?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed 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 her feet and I saw some potential for her to develop as a teenager into a promising sprinter or perhaps middle distance runner. I would encourage her to come for shorter runs with me to see if a love of running would take in her. She would gamely trot along, though it turned out she was a) doing it to humor me and b) far more interested in what she could uncover in her surroundings than in the amount of ground she could cover. On a particular occasion in Calgary, we were running through the neighborhood of Elbow Park and I was cajoling her to try to keep an even pace when I realized she had stopped in her tracks at a street corner half a block behind me. When I got back to her, she was standing, staring up into the sky, pointing a finger upward. "Look," she said as I approached, "a goose on a roof." I looked up and there stood perhaps the largest Canada Goose I've ever seen, poised on a roof as if posing to be photographed for its debut appearance on a postage stamp. We stood for several minutes, dad and daughter on a Calgary street corner, admiring this great, huge, startling, lump of iconic bird. Our conversation, when we began to run again, became a stream-of-consciousness Dr. Seuss playbook on the possibilities of the words goose and roof. My daughter is long past her teenage years now, yet that encounter endures as one of those small moments that are utterly meaningless except for the fact that they are noticed and so will never be forgotten. Indeed, they can never be forgotten precisely because of the way the noticing teaches us to see again and again. I don't know how many thousands of miles I have run since then, but a potential goose on the roof is—figuratively anyway—always somewhere in my peripheral vision. Running is, of course, seen as many things: competitive, demanding, healthy exercise, psychologically soothing, blah-blah-blue. But a primary thing missed by people who hate running, or would like to love it but can't quite get started, is how seamlessly it brings together a felt sense of physical presence in the world with the pure joy of seeing God's light shaping His creation. It really does pay to run with your eyes wide open. It pays not just in the moment but in memory. Last weekend, the day before running the Vancouver half marathon, I went for an easy morning jog in the city's West End, marveling at what an elegant neighborhood it has evolved into over the past few decades—or more properly returned to become again what it once was. More than 65 years ago my grandfather, a Norwegian blacksmith, used his careful savings to buy a family house on one the streets I ran along. When I was not quite yet an adolescent, the house and dozens like it were demolished to make way for the execrable architectural pustules that were Vancouver's first true high rise apartment buildings. The destruction turned the area into all-but a transient slum, complete with houndstooth hookers all along Davie Street and some of the side streets. Running through the area, genuinely renewed rather than boutiquishly re-fabricated, I had to admit I liked what I saw. If it will never be a family neighborhood again—property prices driven by proximity to English Bay and Stanley Park makes that impossible—the new(ish) buildings show at least a strong reflection of the old elegance. There is a sense that those who built them cared about the fact they would face onto streets that will be walked or, better yet, run along. At one point in my jog, a sea gull hung briefly suspended above me in the light breeze and glorious West Coat early light, before squealing off to haggle over fish in False Creek. Not a goose on a roof, exactly, but worth keeping an eye out for. Thu, 09 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 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 her feet and I saw some potential for her to develop as a teenager into a promising sprinter or perhaps middle distance runner. I would encourage her to come for shorter runs with me to see if a love of running would take in her. She would gamely trot along, though it turned out she was a) doing it to humor me and b) far more interested in what she could uncover in her surroundings than in the amount of ground she could cover. On a particular occasion in Calgary, we were running through the neighborhood of Elbow Park and I was cajoling her to try to keep an even pace when I realized she had stopped in her tracks at a street corner half a block behind me. When I got back to her, she was standing, staring up into the sky, pointing a finger upward. "Look," she said as I approached, "a goose on a roof." I looked up and there stood perhaps the largest Canada Goose I've ever seen, poised on a roof as if posing to be photographed for its debut appearance on a postage stamp. We stood for several minutes, dad and daughter on a Calgary street corner, admiring this great, huge, startling, lump of iconic bird. Our conversation, when we began to run again, became a stream-of-consciousness Dr. Seuss playbook on the possibilities of the words goose and roof. My daughter is long past her teenage years now, yet that encounter endures as one of those small moments that are utterly meaningless except for the fact that they are noticed and so will never be forgotten. Indeed, they can never be forgotten precisely because of the way the noticing teaches us to see again and again. I don't know how many thousands of miles I have run since then, but a potential goose on the roof is—figuratively anyway—always somewhere in my peripheral vision. Running is, of course, seen as many things: competitive, demanding, healthy exercise, psychologically soothing, blah-blah-blue. But a primary thing missed by people who hate running, or would like to love it but can't quite get started, is how seamlessly it brings together a felt sense of physical presence in the world with the pure joy of seeing God's light shaping His creation. It really does pay to run with your eyes wide open. It pays not just in the moment but in memory. Last weekend, the day before running the Vancouver half marathon, I went for an easy morning jog in the city's West End, marveling at what an elegant neighborhood it has evolved into over the past few decades—or more properly returned to become again what it once was. More than 65 years ago my grandfather, a Norwegian blacksmith, used his careful savings to buy a family house on one the streets I ran along. When I was not quite yet an adolescent, the house and dozens like it were demolished to make way for the execrable architectural pustules that were Vancouver's first true high rise apartment buildings. The destruction turned the area into all-but a transient slum, complete with houndstooth hookers all along Davie Street and some of the side streets. Running through the area, genuinely renewed rather than boutiquishly re-fabricated, I had to admit I liked what I saw. If it will never be a family neighborhood again—property prices driven by proximity to English Bay and Stanley Park makes that impossible—the new(ish) buildings show at least a strong reflection of the old elegance. There is a sense that those who built them cared about the fact they would face onto streets that will be walked or, better yet, run along. At one point in my jog, a sea gull hung briefly suspended above me in the light breeze and glorious West Coat early light, before squealing off to haggle over fish in False Creek. Not a goose on a roof, exactly, but worth keeping an eye out for. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/can-ethics-be-taught?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed 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 the populace. In fact, numerous examples were cited of self-evident silliness within the financial system that stemmed from the desire to implement rules of fairness. But if trust in our economic system cannot be created by legislation and regulation, then how is it created? As the conversation continued, the role of other institutions came into focus. The role of business schools in teaching ethics was especially highlighted. But again, the contradiction quickly became evident. What good can it do to offer one or two required courses in which various ethical models of decision-making are outlined and good behaviours is enjoined, when the rest of the curriculum works with the assumption that profit maximization within the law is the only imperative? If trust in our economic institutions is to be achieved, our panelists suggested, self-regulation is necessary, a moral compass from within. Recent history abounds with examples where the creation of new rules to close the loophole that someone exploited yesterday only creates an incentive for someone more creative to even more skillfully game the system. The consequence of this is economic reward for them and a new loophole that needs to be covered. The result ends up being more rules, not more ethics. Implicit in the conversation was a recognition that the problems that contribute to our fraying social fabric and the trust that is so necessary for a civilized life together can't be achieved by moralisms. Ethics courses that leave students with a bunch of "you shoulds" or "you should nots" are not effective. There are deeper questions that proceed from our understanding of what human nature is about and what we see as the purpose of our life together.  To use a grammatical metaphor, the indicative precedes the imperative. Who we are determines what we think we should do. To be sure, in the context of a post-modern pluralistic society, consensus on these matters is not easily achieved. But as last week's conversation highlighted, avoiding discussion of these matters due to the inevitability of disagreement is a self-destructive path. Having pursued that path for too long, it is to be feared that even a public vocabulary in which we can understand each other and have reasoned conversations on these fundamental issues is lacking. Talking about these matters alone doesn't solve anything, but it is a necessary start. Last week's conversation took place as part of Cardus's Hill Family Lecture Series. This series features Canadians of prominence discussing these sorts of issues with an aim of stimulating that debate and broadening our literacy and understanding of these issues.  Last Friday's conversation (which will be more fully featured in the next issue of Convivium and also received coverage in the Wall Street Journal, Canada Press and CTV National News) demonstrated the relevance of "faith in our common life." The reverbs of these conversations have direct implications for our social and economic life. Wed, 08 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 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 the populace. In fact, numerous examples were cited of self-evident silliness within the financial system that stemmed from the desire to implement rules of fairness. But if trust in our economic system cannot be created by legislation and regulation, then how is it created? As the conversation continued, the role of other institutions came into focus. The role of business schools in teaching ethics was especially highlighted. But again, the contradiction quickly became evident. What good can it do to offer one or two required courses in which various ethical models of decision-making are outlined and good behaviours is enjoined, when the rest of the curriculum works with the assumption that profit maximization within the law is the only imperative? If trust in our economic institutions is to be achieved, our panelists suggested, self-regulation is necessary, a moral compass from within. Recent history abounds with examples where the creation of new rules to close the loophole that someone exploited yesterday only creates an incentive for someone more creative to even more skillfully game the system. The consequence of this is economic reward for them and a new loophole that needs to be covered. The result ends up being more rules, not more ethics. Implicit in the conversation was a recognition that the problems that contribute to our fraying social fabric and the trust that is so necessary for a civilized life together can't be achieved by moralisms. Ethics courses that leave students with a bunch of "you shoulds" or "you should nots" are not effective. There are deeper questions that proceed from our understanding of what human nature is about and what we see as the purpose of our life together.  To use a grammatical metaphor, the indicative precedes the imperative. Who we are determines what we think we should do. To be sure, in the context of a post-modern pluralistic society, consensus on these matters is not easily achieved. But as last week's conversation highlighted, avoiding discussion of these matters due to the inevitability of disagreement is a self-destructive path. Having pursued that path for too long, it is to be feared that even a public vocabulary in which we can understand each other and have reasoned conversations on these fundamental issues is lacking. Talking about these matters alone doesn't solve anything, but it is a necessary start. Last week's conversation took place as part of Cardus's Hill Family Lecture Series. This series features Canadians of prominence discussing these sorts of issues with an aim of stimulating that debate and broadening our literacy and understanding of these issues.  Last Friday's conversation (which will be more fully featured in the next issue of Convivium and also received coverage in the Wall Street Journal, Canada Press and CTV National News) demonstrated the relevance of "faith in our common life." The reverbs of these conversations have direct implications for our social and economic life. http://www.cardus.ca/organization/news/170/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Bankers need to see themselves as custodians of their institutions, Mark Carney, the outgoing Bank of Canada governor, said on Friday, expounding on his recent remarks that the industry needs moral, not just regulatory, reform. Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Bankers need to see themselves as custodians of their institutions, Mark Carney, the outgoing Bank of Canada governor, said on Friday, expounding on his recent remarks that the industry needs moral, not just regulatory, reform. http://www.cardus.ca/blog/2013/05/bad-medicine-for-trade-unions?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed 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 most loony left—think Sid Ryan, head of the morally and financially bankrupt Ontario Federation of Labour—but I'm always puzzled when those who traditionally look more skeptically on the state's use of coercive power take up the same tune. I am a fan of Lord Conrad Black. I almost always find his writing compelling and I usually learn from it, I find his tone pompous but endearing for that, and I have no end of admiration for his thoughts on the American justice system. That system is—as he perspicaciously puts it—unfair, hypocritical and barbaric. The time the American system kept his body captive has lent—yes, admit it—a powerful voice and incisive mind to those who share concerns about the vast waste of both human and financial resources in the American prison system. He, of all people, should know the fickle and occasionally pernicious character of both states and markets—especially when they find themselves with a common enemy. It is because of this that I find his response to Canada's very real union problems so strange. In his Saturday column, Black calls for a dismantling of public sector collective bargaining. In fact, he goes further. Here's the key quote:Collective bargaining is a defiance of the free market, which is efficient and meritocratically fair. Union rules standardize, regiment, stifle initiative, discourage enterprise, and concentrate power to intimidate and influence political decision-making in the hands of unrepresentative and self-serving cabals. Unionization divides any enterprise and creates a them-and-us-mentality that is a collapsed lung that cripples and stultifies any organization. Laws must be constantly reviewed and updated to prevent abuse by employers. And civilized and liveable working conditions must be assured as a matter of inalienable right to everyone. But the surest guaranty of such rights is the free market, as exploited workers will not produce competitive products or services, and will defect from or sabotage by their sullenness any employer who so treats them. Yes, markets are usually efficient and yes, they are usually meritocratically fair, but only someone without experience of the human condition would say this is true writ large. We know first-hand that markets can actually be both horribly inefficient and meritocratically unfair. Don't believe me? Ask Mark Carney, or Roger Martin, or Fr. Raymond De Souza. Markets will be both inefficient and unfair because they are human institutions, and humans are often horrible creatures. Whom then, do we trust to keep these in line? The state? Well, states see things a certain way, and they certainly viewed Lord Black in a particularly nasty way. Why put primary trust in them to regulate the lives of working people? Maybe organizations made up of workers might have a bit more insight into what is best for them. In fact, it is workers' organizations (formal or informal) that spring up in places where the state and the market step out of line. In Communist Poland, it was a trade union that stuck out its tongue at the apparatchiks who thought that the state knew what was in workers' interests. Solidarnosc fought for fairness against a state-run command economy, and won. In China—which is all laissez-faire free market, no enforced regulation—it is spontaneous collective bargaining that is demanding "liveable working conditions" and "inalienable rights." Black's criticisms of unions are not unfair. And his diagnosis of the problem is spot on. But his prescription—getting rid of collective bargaining—will violate the first rule of medicine. It will do harm. Best to consult with another doctor. Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 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 most loony left—think Sid Ryan, head of the morally and financially bankrupt Ontario Federation of Labour—but I'm always puzzled when those who traditionally look more skeptically on the state's use of coercive power take up the same tune. I am a fan of Lord Conrad Black. I almost always find his writing compelling and I usually learn from it, I find his tone pompous but endearing for that, and I have no end of admiration for his thoughts on the American justice system. That system is—as he perspicaciously puts it—unfair, hypocritical and barbaric. The time the American system kept his body captive has lent—yes, admit it—a powerful voice and incisive mind to those who share concerns about the vast waste of both human and financial resources in the American prison system. He, of all people, should know the fickle and occasionally pernicious character of both states and markets—especially when they find themselves with a common enemy. It is because of this that I find his response to Canada's very real union problems so strange. In his Saturday column, Black calls for a dismantling of public sector collective bargaining. In fact, he goes further. Here's the key quote:Collective bargaining is a defiance of the free market, which is efficient and meritocratically fair. Union rules standardize, regiment, stifle initiative, discourage enterprise, and concentrate power to intimidate and influence political decision-making in the hands of unrepresentative and self-serving cabals. Unionization divides any enterprise and creates a them-and-us-mentality that is a collapsed lung that cripples and stultifies any organization. Laws must be constantly reviewed and updated to prevent abuse by employers. And civilized and liveable working conditions must be assured as a matter of inalienable right to everyone. But the surest guaranty of such rights is the free market, as exploited workers will not produce competitive products or services, and will defect from or sabotage by their sullenness any employer who so treats them. Yes, markets are usually efficient and yes, they are usually meritocratically fair, but only someone without experience of the human condition would say this is true writ large. We know first-hand that markets can actually be both horribly inefficient and meritocratically unfair. Don't believe me? Ask Mark Carney, or Roger Martin, or Fr. Raymond De Souza. Markets will be both inefficient and unfair because they are human institutions, and humans are often horrible creatures. Whom then, do we trust to keep these in line? The state? Well, states see things a certain way, and they certainly viewed Lord Black in a particularly nasty way. Why put primary trust in them to regulate the lives of working people? Maybe organizations made up of workers might have a bit more insight into what is best for them. In fact, it is workers' organizations (formal or informal) that spring up in places where the state and the market step out of line. In Communist Poland, it was a trade union that stuck out its tongue at the apparatchiks who thought that the state knew what was in workers' interests. Solidarnosc fought for fairness against a state-run command economy, and won. In China—which is all laissez-faire free market, no enforced regulation—it is spontaneous collective bargaining that is demanding "liveable working conditions" and "inalienable rights." Black's criticisms of unions are not unfair. And his diagnosis of the problem is spot on. But his prescription—getting rid of collective bargaining—will violate the first rule of medicine. It will do harm. Best to consult with another doctor. http://www.cardus.ca/organization/news/171/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed The outgoing head of Canada's central bank says economic recovery can only happen if banks can rebuild the public's trust. Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 The outgoing head of Canada's central bank says economic recovery can only happen if banks can rebuild the public's trust. http://www.cardus.ca/organization/news/172/?utm_source=general&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Cardus%2BGeneral%2BFeed Skilled trades workers – ranging from electricians to carpenters to welders – are a crucial component of the Canadian labour force. However, many employers report that there are shortages of skilled workers in these occupations. Federal and provincial governments have targeted many grant and tax credit programs to encourage workers to become apprentices in the skilled trades. However, myriad provincial regulations that limit how many apprentices firms may hire are stymieing these efforts and limiting apprenticeship opportunities. Mon, 06 May 2013 00:00:00 -0400 Skilled trades workers – ranging from electricians to carpenters to welders – are a crucial component of the Canadian labour force. However, many employers report that there are shortages of skilled workers in these occupations. Federal and provincial governments have targeted many grant and tax credit programs to encourage workers to become apprentices in the skilled trades. However, myriad provincial regulations that limit how many apprentices firms may hire are stymieing these efforts and limiting apprenticeship opportunities.