Author: Phil Gurski

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 25, 2018 Canada and the US cooperate on many issues in many forums: the G7 (even with last week’s horror show thanks to the US President), the G20, the UN as well as a whole host of international bodies, in addition to numerous bilateral councils and […]

As we mark Canada Day today it is a good time to reflect on who and what we are as a nation.  We are made up of people from all corners of the world even if we were taught in elementary school (at least I seem to remember that I was) that Canada was ‘discovered’ […]

If you were to listen to enough news these days you’d think that Canadians have little, if anything, to celebrate this day, our 151st birthday as an independent nation.  An ‘epidemic’ of shootings in Toronto.   A trade war with our neighbour and (erstwhile?) closest ally.  Yet another year and no Stanley Cup winner among Canada’s […]

If there is one country that is garnering the headlines for all the good reasons these days (as opposed to Trump’s US for all the – well you know what I mean) it is Saudi Arabia.  The cradle of Islam has best been known for confirming the maxim “there is no FUN in FUNdamentalism” as […]

I know that I have written on this topic before so I am sorry for the repetition.  You probably don’t need to read yet another blog on that terrible Tom Cruise film but in the wake of CBC reports that alleged gay serial killer Bruce McArthur had been assessed way back in 2003 a “very minimal” […]

There was a very interesting juxtaposition of stories on violent extremism this week in two Western, democratic nations where two acts of terrorism shocked their populace’s in recent years.  Oddly enough, in an era where we almost instinctively associate terrorism with Islamist extremism, these two were right-wing in nature.  And, the perpetrators of these acts […]

Well this was a day of opposites in Canadian news.  This morning the Globe and Mail reported that a man convicted almost 20 years ago in a murder case that was secured thanks to a ‘Mr Big’ operation wants the Supreme Court to re-open his case.  That same court ruled in 2014 that this tactic, […]

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 18, 2018 Well, the G7 in La Malbaie, Quebec, is over and some would say ‘Thank God!’  It would be hard to imagine a weirder summit than the one Canada just hosted.  The group of seven powerful economic and political nations usually gathers to talk shop, […]

To say that Canada-US relations are going through a rough spot now would be a slight understatement.  Trade tariffs.  A disastrous Canada-led G7, due mostly to the ?performance? of the US President.  Accusations that Canada burned down the White House during the War of 1812: an amazing feat for a country that was not born […]

We humans are constantly trying – one would hope – to make our jobs easier, more efficient and able to produce better results.  This is, usually, a good thing since the opposite – harder, less efficient and less productive – would strike most of us as kinda stupid.  So we get more automation, more streamlined […]