It may be time to pay homage to hydroelectric dams and their role in our quality of life. But that homage may be more of a eulogy than a celebration. Large and small dams have a glorious history. Rivers turned grist mills that processed farmers’ grain into food, and powered machinery that sawed trees into…
The Inconvenient Indian By Thomas King Penguin Random House Canada There are many cheery stories in Canadian history. They focus on the Order of Good Cheer, the adventures of the Company of Adventurers, Radisson and des Groseilliers, and so on. It’s possible that Indigenous author Thomas King sought a counterbalance as he wrote The Inconvenient…
It’s difficult to know for sure since academics and economists want to hide behind jargon rather than offering concrete analysis
As the Buffalo Springfield sang in 1966, “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear. …” They were referring to civil unrest but could have been predicting the current debate about neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is the ill-defined trend to less government, rolling back social programs, downward pressure on wages, fewer union jobs and careers…
It doesn’t do to embarrass oneself in front of the waiter in the lobby bar of the Four Seasons George V hotel
When we were dating, my wife-to-be made the mistake of mentioning that it would be nice to stay in the Four Seasons George V hotel with me in Paris. I took this idle chat as a mission. Twenty years went by, but I remembered my assignment. I had some business in Geneva and suggested that…
Pierre Trudeau came perilously close to losing it all in 1972 to an unassuming federal Conservative leader. That fate may well await his son
A charismatic leader with most of the bloom off the rose near the end of his first mandate. An ordinary leader, elected from a province with the fraction of the population of a major city. The current Canadian federal election? Yes, but also the contest in 1972 – the first I covered as a young…