Schools must avoid the equally misguided extremes of zero-tolerance policies and permissive idealism
Saunders Secondary School in London, Ont., is home to approximately 2,000 students. It’s been in the news a lot lately, but not in a good way. A recent CBC story quoted an anonymous teacher who described Saunders as a “tinderbox of violence” where students regularly challenge teachers to fist fights after school. Over the last six…
Gun control is one of many issues on which American elected officials are far out of sync with constituents
Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr is one of the most esteemed personalities in the National Basketball Association. After yet another school shooting in the United States, this time at an elementary school in Texas – following a mass shooting at a grocery store and another at a church – Kerr spoke up. His righteous…
Has never expressed any remorse or regret over breaking the law as an environmental activist
During the Conservative leadership debate on May 11, Pierre Poilievre took the moderator to task for not mentioning an eco-terrorist attack on a pipeline project in British Columbia when listing recent attacks on critical infrastructure. On Feb. 17, around 20 masked assailants – some wielding axes – engaged in a co-ordinated attack on a Coastal…
Studying the history of law in Iran might help point the way to improving legal systems in the West
You might be tempted to think Jairan Gahan’s interest in the legal history of sex in Iran is purely academic. She is most fascinated by the early 20th century, following Iran’s Constitutional Revolution of 1906, when the country was drafting its criminal code. How could that possibly be relevant to life in the modern state, especially…
All the social and justice indicators show that things have only worsened among Indigenous peoples
The March 9, 1988, police shooting of J.J. Harper on the streets of Winnipeg and the much earlier murder of Helen Betty Osborne in The Pas in 1971 led Manitoba Premier Howard Pawley’s government to commission the Aboriginal Justice Inquiry (AJI) on April 13, 1988. This occurred in the middle of the election campaign that…
Leaders in NATO countries are guilty of crimes against humanity, yet only Africans are tried
In recent months, words like genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes have been used extensively in the media. These are important legal terms, and they shouldn’t be used loosely. Using them as political weapons risks making them meaningless. The word ‘genocide’ was coined in 1944 by Polish-Jewish law professor Raphael Lemkin after he studied…
Your employees can inadvertently be a cybercriminal’s best friend
When breaking through an organization’s security defences, employees who create vulnerabilities are a cybercriminal’s best friend. While technical security safeguards are essential, employees continue to be the weakest link when it comes to protecting corporate information from cybercriminals of various shapes, sizes and motivations. Cybercriminals regularly convince inattentive employees, through a phishing attack, to engage…
We are venturing into a new authoritarian version of what used to be a wonderful country
The discussions held by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Premiers leading up to the imposition of The Emergencies Act will not be made public, but the results are obvious: All Premiers except one, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, told Trudeau not to do it. I’m sure that they all urged the Prime Minister to take…
Attack on the Coastal GasLink site was far more violent than the Freedom Convoy
What Canada offers to its citizens isn’t glamorous or sexy, and it doesn’t inspire the beating of drums. It’s peace, order and good governance. These modest goals are accepted and expected by most Canadians. We may even have tended to take them for granted. But our peace and order have been threatened. For the past…
The “theatre” of security is not actual security
In the current Canadian Freedom Convoy emergency, it’s important to remember that we have the “theatre” of security, not actual security. We have badges, signs, uniforms, guns, scans, and pat-downs. We’re told to say something if we see something but are not told what to look for or whom to tell. This theatre accomplishes less…