Racial purity laws – status cards – have no place in a modern country. They should have been gone long ago
Sen. Lynn Beyak says in an open letter that the Indigenous should give up their status cards and become true Canadians. The reaction to the letter has been fast and furious. She has been denounced by a host of worthies. As I write this, I’m listening to a CBC radio interview with the mayor of…
The USDA estimates every four storeys would save the same amount of carbon emissions as created by 500 cars every year
If a tree falls in the forest, can a tree-hugger cheer? Yes, believe it or not. Felled trees can now replace concrete and steel in high-rise buildings, saving their weight in carbon emissions. Engineers and environmentalists are both rightfully excited by the new innovation in building high-rises. Unfortunately, a recent competition south of the border…
The federal government must ensure that dividing the department into two helps bands negotiate self-government and create own-source revenue streams
Recent changes at Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada are causing consternation across indigenous communities, and with other Canadians. The decision to split the department in two, one part overseeing Crown-indigenous relations and the other overseeing service delivery to communities, comes right out of the 20-year-old report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP), which…
Mark Kingwell is vexed by the failure of democracy to silence the speech of those he disagrees with
Mark Kingwell is what is commonly called an intellectual social critic. He has an impressive list of advanced degrees and has published books on difficult topics such as baseball, cocktails and democracy. He’s paid by the taxpayers of Ontario to teach philosophy to their university-going young people. But a recent article in the Globe and…
Content-rich instruction is key to reading comprehension and critical thinking, and it empowers disadvantaged students
Content-rich instruction may not be as flashy as some of the educational alternatives but it’s a whole lot more effective. Educators have long debated the importance of specific content knowledge in the curriculum. Progressive educators generally favour a non-content-specific learning process. Traditional educators say all students should master a defined body of knowledge. The 21st century…
You could fill volumes with the uncomfortable statements uttered in the past by people whom we now revere, from Abraham Lincoln to Mahatma Gandhi
Frantic officials in the American south are joining with the Taliban and Islamic State as the latest group to destroy memorials to the past. Specifically, they are tearing down statues in praise of the Confederacy. We might well examine the racist speech of Civil War-era politicians to see what motivates the iconoclasts of today to…
The new Conservative leader can do much to advance indigenous issues and the national agenda – and get his party elected in 2019
Indigenous issues didn’t play a large part in the recent federal Conservative leadership race. They were mentioned but took a back seat to other matters. But Conservatives must understand that indigenous issues are of vital concern to all Canadians. For instance, candidates devoted considerable time debating TransCanada’s Energy East and Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline projects. Energy…
Aboriginal Canadians must accept that remaining in grievance mode and relying on the government is preventing them from moving forward
“The Indian Act is the root cause of all of the maladies that our people suffer from,” aboriginal leader Craig Blacksmith said recently. He's absolutely right. Blacksmith was a candidate in the recent Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC) election. He ran on a platform of getting rid of the Indian Act. While he made it…
Recognizing that all of us are an amalgam of good deeds and bad attitudes will save us from a ceaseless round of endless moaning about the sins of our ancestors
How much of a hero do you have to be to warrant a statue? How much of a villain do you have to be to have your name stripped from streets, bridges or schools? The brouhaha surrounding the memory of Edward Cornwallis and Egerton Ryerson means that Canadians and their governmental representatives need to seriously…
By narrowing government’s role in the economy, a new policy direction can kick-start growth and make the province a mecca for people and investment
It’s 2036 and Manitoba’s population just passed three million. The economy is booming. Imagine for a moment the events needed to bring Manitoba to such a result. In 2018, let’s suppose, Manitoba finally confronted its slow-growth, deficit-ridden crisis by abandoning heavy government ownership of the economy, punitive tax rates and dependency on federal transfer grants.…