Safe Places adds more layers to background checks for people who work with youth, including coaches and music teachers
Kenneth Brown of The Clarion A majority of Kindersley’s elected officials are not in favour of contributing resources to administer a certification program on behalf of minor sports. The City of Swift Current adopted the Safe Places – Youth Certified program to add more layers to background checks for people who work with youth including…
Trudeau is wrong – it's not just diversity that makes us strong, it’s how our diverse parts find so much in common
“Be proud of your heritage – be passionate about your country,” was the motto of The Ukrainian Voice, a Winnipeg-based newspaper that recently ceased operations. First published in 1910, it was the leading advocate for Ukrainians in Canada. In this digital age, it couldn’t survive. Read by many in its day, it will be missed.…
The former Conservative prime minister has advice for us on Trump, economics, immigration and more
Stephen Harper is back. After flying under the radar for the last three years, Canada’s former prime minister has returned to the arena, albeit not as an active politician. Instead, he’s a commentator with several messages to impart, all of which are packaged in his new book Right Here Right Now. Not everyone is impressed.…
Our stressful, crazy world can lead to insomnia and worse. But there are ways to cope
Insomnia could be called the 21st century disease. Falling asleep, staying asleep and getting enough sleep is ever more difficult, especially as one gets older – and everyone is getting older. Couple this with the increasing number of studies that show that lack of sufficient sleep is a major contributor to ill health. Now we…
When your last name is Arab and you’re not a Muslim or terrorist, you defy a few Islamophobic stereotypes yourself. I’m Arab in name, but my father’s religion is Maronite Catholic – an early branch of the Roman Catholic Church. I was brought up Roman Catholic and indoctrinated in papal infallibility. So the idea of…
Real communism has failed repeatedly to provide better living conditions. Why do countries like Venezuela persist?
Nineteen years ago, ex-general Hugo Chavez came into power in Venezuela, vowing that a “Bolivarian revolution” based on communist principles would improve the lives of his people. Today, millions of Venezuelans are fleeing their homes looking for food, medicine or employment in neighbouring countries. Inflation is out of control. In a country with perhaps the…
However, a strong case for taste and food safety will have to be made before consumers will be willing to eat their garbage
Within a year, single-use plastics and excess packaging have become public enemy No. 1. Everyone is talking about how our lives are overrun by too much plastic. A recent Greenpeace-led audit looked at waterways waste and companies involved. Much of the plastic trash cleaned up from Canadian shorelines this fall was traceable to five companies: Nestlé,…
It is important that we understand history as it was, and not how some of us wish it would be
The philosopher George Santayana famously wrote in The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” This statement makes sense, especially in light of our society’s recent trials of history – and the accuracy of history being placed on trial. The first example involves Scott…
The commission has released the eligibility criteria for accessing $750 million to expand Internet service to remote areas
When it comes to Internet service, whether its cellular, Wi-Fi, wireless, fixed or both, the one thing that matters most is speed – or so most Kitsilano condo dwellers would tell you. Because if you live in, say, Lunenberg County or Stony Rapids or Cambridge Bay, the thing that matters most about Internet service is…
The need for income security among middle-class Canadians is accelerating as the labour market changes
In Canadian policy circles, basic income has come to mean a stipend paid to families or individuals without the many conditions and rules that govern existing income assistance programs. The amount received is gradually reduced as income from other sources increases. However, basic income is not just about welfare reform. A basic income is most…
Banning Quebec frontline civil servants from wearing religious symbols would show obstinate and dangerous secularism
Banning Quebec frontline civil servants from wearing religious symbols, as premier-designate François Legault intends to do, would be socially regressive. Imposing this kind of flinty and obstinate secularism squashes the very diversity most politicians claim to value and support. It’s also out of step with the growing awareness among the business community that religious diversity…
Nothing in modern history has felt as tribal and reckless as what’s unfolding now
Can you remember a time as crazy as this? If you’re 60-something like me, you can flash back to the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Martin Luther King Jr. and brothers John and Bobby Kennedy assassinations, the Age of Aquarius, the Vietnam War, the Summer of Love, Mikhail Gorbachev and the end of Russian communism. But…
By subsidizing wind and solar power, the government put its green agenda ahead of Ontarians
There is still much work to be done on behalf of Ontario’s energy consumers and taxpayers. In 2005, I released a study called Pain Without Gain with two co-authors (University of Guelph professor Ross McKitrick and air quality analyst Joel Schwartz). The subtitle of the piece was that shutting down coal-fired power plants would hurt Ontario.…
They don’t fact check. They don’t edit for clarity. They care nothing about meaning. And a trio of writers have exposed them
To have somebody say you “write well in an academic context” is like being called the handsome one in an ugly contest. Academic writing has a bad reputation – a reputation it usually earns. Academic prose is dense, dry, formulaic, habitually bloated and often pretentious. By straining to look intelligent, the worst of it just…
A clear vision and strategy for dairy’s future is imperative, with a forward-looking focus on domestic and foreign markets
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), or NAFTA 2.0, could be the watershed moment Canadian dairy farmers have been waiting for. The federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has committed to compensating the dairy sector for either lost sales, higher per-unit costs or the loss in value of quotas. The government has been clear on…
Kenneth Brown of The Clarion A majority of Kindersley’s elected officials are not in favour of contributing resources to administer a certification program on behalf of minor sports. The City of Swift Current adopted the Safe Places – Youth Certified program to add more layers to background checks for people who work with youth including…
