The absurdly exaggerated reaction to the British vote to leave the European Union demonstrates the complacency and incompetence of the governing elites in Britain and Western Europe, and how those attitudes rippled out, unchallenged, in the international media and financial markets. There is some analogy with the comeuppance given theContinue Reading
Canada is suffering from a prolonged pandemic of moral self-flagellation promoted by hemophiliac bleeding hearts and militant native agitators. The latest outburst of it is the recent decision of the governors of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., to withdraw from an arrangement to erect statues of all 22 ofContinue Reading
The arguments for voting for Conservative Leader Stephen Harper are numerous and persuasive. He has been a competent and diligent prime minister who has avoided fiscal imprudence, brought us well through the 2008 financial crisis and has gone to great and imaginative lengths to keep taxes down and shrink public-sectorContinue Reading
I am afraid I must dissent from the ever-rising hallelujah chorus of adulation being orchestrated by and for the chief justice of Canada, Beverley McLachlin. I admired her lower court rulings in favour of free speech, and in the only case she helped adjudicate in which I was involved, sheContinue Reading
The Mike Duffy trial opened with a formidable blast from his counsel, Donald Bayne, predicting that Nigel Wright, who is renowned to all as an honourable man and has been exempted from any charge in the matter, will confirm in his testimony that Duffy was pushed “by the Prime Minister’s Office”Continue Reading
The federal government deserves credit for unveiling its plans for regeneration of Canada’s long-shrinking navy. Seven years have passed, inexplicably and expensively in terms of ultimate cost, since the prime minister announced that eight Arctic off-shore patrol ships with ice-breaking capacity would be built, the first to be delivered inContinue Reading
CFN – It is distressing to witness the waffling and quibbling in both federal opposition parties over Canada’s contribution to the anti-terrorist effort in the Middle East, and even more depressing to note the failure of the opposition to show any recognition of the nature of the intensifying struggle betweenContinue Reading
CFN – The talk one hears around Ottawa these days about Stephen Harper calling a snap election is nonsense. If the prime minister called an election over the determination of Unifor (created last year from the merger of the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers unions) toContinue Reading
CFN – All of the usual responses quickly occurred after the Scottish referendum last week: The defeated separatists, although their leader announced his retirement from politics, claimed that they represented the forces of history and that having got from a standing start to 45% on their first try, they wouldContinue Reading
CFN– Justin Trudeau, who is leading by approximately 10 points in the polls, looms as a very plausible winner of next year’s election in the aftermath of the generally successful Liberal meeting in Montreal last week. Concerns about his depth and gravitas persist, but the allure of his personality isContinue Reading
CFN – Justin Trudeau took a promising step this week when he severed his party’s senators from the Liberal caucus, relieved them of their duties as party fund-raisers (though none of them is exactly a marquee name on that circuit), and called for a non-partisan Senate. This is one ofContinue Reading
This week’s by-election results — two for the Tories, two for the Liberals — suggest that voters are not too much concerned by the shenanigans in the Senate. Nor should they be. Mike Duffy was accused of excessive aggression in submitting his expenses, and Nigel Wright paid $90,000 out ofContinue Reading
CFN – The funeral of the newspaper, which has been almost continuously sung for over a decade, is premature (like most obsequies not conducted in the physical presence of the ostensibly deceased). . The newspaper industry invited this morbidity, as it had remained essentially unchanged for over a century: treesContinue Reading