Sports needs to be built on a foundation of humanistic coaching. A tragic incident at the University of Maryland shows why
Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi has been dead for 48 years. Yet his treat-’em-like-dogs coaching style is very much alive in today’s sports world. The University of Maryland football program is but the latest example of reportedly tyrannical coaches allegedly going way beyond legitimate coaching techniques. It’s apparently another example of what I call Lombardi…
Decades after the ’60s Scoop, we're no closer to a successful model to help children from troubled homes
The ’60s Scoop is back in the news again. And we're no closer to a solution to a problem that has plagued the nation for generations. The federal government has set aside $875 million for Indigenous adults who were adopted into non-Indigenous homes in the 1960s, ’70s and early ’80s. Those who accept the money…
From prison reform to better community services that address poverty and prevent crime, here's what Canada can do
By Sen. Raymonde Saint-Germain and Sen. Art Eggleton Over the last decade, the number of women in Canada’s jails has spiked by 30 per cent. Even more troubling, Indigenous female prisoners now account for 37 per cent of all incarcerated women, and 50 per cent of women in maximum security. According to the 2017 correctional…
Canada needs a national agency to review all domestic homicides and create an integrated domestic violence safety system
By Elizabeth Sheehy University of Ottawa and Isabel Grant University of British Columbia Domestic violence is a national crisis. A woman is killed by her current or former partner every six days in Canada. Indigenous women are killed by their intimate partners at a rate eight times higher. In Peel (part of the Greater Toronto…
Students of the snowflake generation feel empowered to videotape, confront and swarm professors with whom they disagree
I must confess to a crime. Many years ago, when I was still in my 20s, I was enjoying a late-night non-alcoholic beverage with an old friend from my high school days. Our talk turned to the teachers in our adolescence, some of whom we revered, some of whom we despised. The memory of one…
Tiger Woods is back and the crowds are gathering to show their appreciation, in spite of his checkered personal past
It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t disapprove of his antics away from the office. Women, in general, can’t stand him. Despite all this, we can’t take our eyes off him. Donald Trump? Maybe. But the description could also apply to Tiger Woods, the greatest golfer ever, who has made one of the more improbable…
The key is to focus on acceptable and unacceptable actions, not the ethnicity or gender of the actor
Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl said, “There are two races of men in the world, but only these two – the ‘race’ of decent men and the ‘race’ of indecent men. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society.” This is a powerful conclusion from a man who witnessed the very…
The allegations against Calgary MP Darshan Kang should have been met with quick action by the prime minister. Why weren't they?
A politician’s true mettle is on full display when faced with a controversy. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau surely knows this political rule of thumb. Alas, he was all fingers when faced with a situation that required immediate action but received longer-than-expected inaction: the controversy involving Darshan Kang. A former Alberta Liberal MLA, Kang was elected as…
Far too many aboriginal men insist on locking themselves and their families in a deadly prison of dependence, alcohol, abuse and violence
There’s turmoil within the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. It could all be about the breadth of the inquiry. Grand Chief Sheila North Wilson, from northern Manitoba, has called for the resignation of the inquiry’s chief commissioner, British Columbia Judge Marion Buller. At least four staff members have left, and…
The story of MP Hunter Tootoo is about one man’s struggle to understand himself and to come to grips with, and then transcend, a troubled past
The introduction to a CBC interview with Hunter Tootoo, the Nunavut MP who voluntarily resigned his cabinet post and left the Liberal caucus, set the stage for a multifaceted scandal. “The Hunter Tootoo story turned into a disaster. … What really happened? Was it alcoholism or an inappropriate relationship that sealed his fate? Who knew…
Legendary football coach Vince Lombardi has been dead for 48 years. Yet his treat-’em-like-dogs coaching style is very much alive in today’s sports world. The University of Maryland football program is but the latest example of reportedly tyrannical coaches allegedly going way beyond legitimate coaching techniques. It’s apparently another example of what I call Lombardi…
