The Real Story Behind Those Russian Bombers
July 31, 2010 | 3 Comments
We’ve all probably heard the story about the Canadian fighter jets chasing away some Russian planes the other day. There’s been some chatter about the political motivations behind this story, claiming the Tories are trying to find something – anything – to take people’s minds away from the census or sole-sourcing defence contracts or whatever [...]
Ignatieff’s biggest foe: uncritical media
July 30, 2010 | 22 Comments
Michal Ignatieff has a problem that just won’t go away. No matter how hard he and his team try, he can’t seem to craft, sell or maintain his own image. Since his election as Etobicoke-Lakeshore’s man in Ottawa more than four years ago, Ignatieff hasn’t exactly lurked in the shadows. And as Liberal leader, he’s [...]
Italian Re-unification, Ottawa ed.
July 29, 2010 | No Comments
Timothy B. Lee has a wonderfully sad post about the effect of freeways on urban centres. It’s wonderful in that it’s compelling writing, sad as the effect is articulated through the decline of the downtown core of St. Louis. It’s not an uncommon phenomenon. Many North American cities are scarred with freeways segmenting their old [...]
Catching Up With the Commoners
July 28, 2010 | 2 Comments
Wondering what we’re up to when we’re not writing for this lovely blog? Well, here’s some other recent commentary from our contributors: Scott has a very good post on the death of the DISCLOSE Act in the U.S., and the implications it has on the current political scene. He’s also at Washington Examiner writing about [...]
Are Water and Sanitation Human Rights?
July 28, 2010 | 2 Comments
Please, someone explain to me why it’s a bad thing that Canada did not vote in favour of the United Nations resolution declaring water and sanitation a human right? Dear lord but we abuse that term, “human right”. Follow up question for those who support the declaration: did you – as one might infer from [...]
Quote of the Day, Census ed.
July 28, 2010 | No Comments
Covering the special committee meeting on the census, National Post’s John Ivison writes: Walking past the tourists and the marching bands on the lawn of Parliament Hill to cover the committee felt like a descent into the ninth circle of Hell. A rather fitting line to sum up much of this sad controversy… even if [...]
Burka ban
July 28, 2010 | 3 Comments
Seeing as we have been discussing this issue a lot, I thought I would post the results of a QMI poll about a burka ban. The nation-wide poll of 1,526 people found that 54 per cent of Canadians would support a ban on women wearing burkas in public for safety and transparency reasons. Among “older” [...]
What’s Wrong with a National Religion?
July 27, 2010 | 8 Comments
According to the latest census, nearly 8 out of 10 Canadians self-identify as members of a Christian religion. That is an overwhelming supermajority of the Canadian population. Imagine, for the sake of argument, that Canadians successfully amended the Constitution to make Christianity the national religion of Canada. Would anything be wrong with that? On the [...]
Quote of the Day
July 27, 2010 | No Comments
Writing at The Agenda (his blog at National Review Online), Reihan Salam has a wonderful paragraph on political discourse. It’s the sort of thing we should all keep in mind in our political travels: When do you go from being a nice guy to being a careerist? As some of you may have noticed, I [...]
Canadian Bands You Should Know About
July 26, 2010 | 2 Comments
I’m going to break from my normal political routine to bring you a short post about music. Bar none, my favourite thing about attending the Calgary Folk Music Festival year after year is discovering new bands and artists with whom I wouldn’t have otherwise come into contact. This year was no different. And while Jon [...]