Every end of year we are inundated with two phenomena in our newspapers, TV broadcasts and Web sites. These two are: the year that was and the year that will be. The former recaps the important events of the 12 months drawing to an end and always includes, and I am not sure why, a […]
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They say a picture is worth a thousand words. If that is true, how much is a video worth? A million? We are inundated with images, both still and moving, wherever we go. We watch videos on our cellphones all the time, even if most of them are crazy cat ones. And given that anyone […]
I recently wrote a blog in which I stated that doing stupid shit in the ill-named ‘war on terror’ is a bad idea that will result in worse problems down the road. The examples I provided on that occasion included the Iraqi Shia-dominant regime campaign of revenge against the Sunni population accused of helping Islamic […]
I am sure you have all heard the term ‘the folly of war’. There was even a book with that title written years ago by a historian named Donald E. Schmidt: The Folly of War: American Foreign Policy, 1898-2005. With this being 2018 (almost 2019) and all you would think that humans would have realised […]
In so many ways Canada and the US are very similar. We are both largely Anglophone, former British colonies, and Western liberal democracies. On the other hand we are also very different. Whether we are talking about gun laws, the role of religion in society or baseball vs. hockey there are distinctions that apply at […]
When it comes to terrorism we all have a role to play. Citizens have a responsibility to call authorities when they see suspicious behaviour (‘See it, Say it’ is one such campaign) or notice those on the possible pathway to violent extremism and get in touch with those who have CVE (countering violent extremism) programs […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on December 19, 2018. July 1 is, of course, our national day. Whether you celebrate it like we do here in Ottawa with a series of events centred on Parliament Hill capped by the awesome fireworks display or in your own local way (at the cottage, in your […]
So the Trudeau government has responded to a Parliamentary “Supply Day Motion” (NB I have NO idea what that means) dated October 23 that called on the Government of Canada to “immediately bring to justice anyone who has fought as an ISIS terrorist or participated in any terrorist activity, including those who are in Canada […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on December 3, 2018. Way back in medieval times there was a concept known as sanctuary. Under this notion, those who had committed crimes could place themselves beyond the long arm of the law by hightailing it to a church or monastery, where supposedly divine law trumped the […]
Today marks a very solemn occasion in Canadian – and world – history. 29 years ago, on December 6, 1989, misogynist Marc Lepine went into a classroom at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique and, after separating the men from the women, killed 14 of the latter before cowardly taking his own life. His excuse? Lépine’s suicide note blamed […]