Democracy can’t survive when equality before the law becomes a cynical joke
Andrew Scheer contributed significantly to Canadian political life by saying recently that the SNC-Lavalin affair isn’t just about choosing between Justin Trudeau and Scheer. The Conservative leader did further good by making clear that the SNC-Lavalin mess isn’t even just about an abstraction called the rule of law. It is, he spelled out for those…
The former minister has demonstrated quality we should all be proud of. And the system shows it can deal with such honesty
I can’t remember feeling more proud to be Canadian than I have since Jody Wilson-Raybould began speaking to the House of Commons justice committee on Wednesday afternoon. As a little kid at Nov. 11 cenotaph ceremonies, I might have been as proud in the misty half-understood way of childhood. When Paul Henderson scored the immortal…
The SNC-Lavalin affair shows us how pernicious behaviour can seep into the deep spaces of our institutions
A key thing that makes the SNC-Lavalin quarrel such a showcase for corruption is its utter confusion about who did what to whom. Since the uproar erupted two weeks ago as a major Globe and Mail scoop, it has become a comedy of compounding curiosities. On Monday, it cost the prime minister’s principal secretary his…
Gillette has stepped boldly into the socio-political minefields of #MeToo, bullying, spousal abuse and male self-absorption
It’s tempting to take the recent’s ‘controversy’ over the Gillette shaving company’s new advertising campaign at something less than face value. For starters, controversy itself is no longer the conversational cutting edge it once was. In this era of fake-versus-false news, universal short attention spans and ludicrous overstatement as the entry price for even being…
The economic benefits of demolishing a monopoly business practice aren’t worth the environmental and human costs
Uber is embroiled in public controversy yet again with its Twitter release of an embarrassing dash-cam video of Ottawa Senators players mocking a coach while using the ride-sharing service. The tweet of the private conversation, captured on Oct. 29 when the National Hockey League team was between games in Las Vegas and Arizona, has reportedly…
If the Canada Summer Jobs precedent holds, soon other government agencies will mix public funds and political preferences
In a crucial free speech ruling recently, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that the constitution in that country prohibits forcing people to say what they don’t believe. Here in Canada, a young Ottawa lawyer upped the ante recently by filing a Federal Court lawsuit arguing that our Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the right…
The Trinity Western University case represents one of the most important religious freedom decisions of the past 20 years
On Friday, the Supreme Court of Canada will release its ruling in the Trinity Western University case. Until the judgment is made public, of course, no one knows which way the court might swing. For all who’ve tracked the dispute’s progress through the legal process, however, it stands to be among the most important religious…
The freedom of Canadian citizens to peacefully oppose anything, including abortion, is the very base on which all rights are founded
NDP MP David Christopherson gets it. Liberal Labour Minister Patty Hajdu apparently just can’t. Christopherson broke party ranks and voted for a Conservative motion in late March demanding the government scrap its “values test” for Canada Summer Jobs funding. Even with Christopherson’s support, the motion was easily defeated. “If the law is an ass, you…
Children's aid society removed children from care because the foster parents wouldn't lie about the Easter Bunny
Much of the media coverage of the legal decision involving Derek and Frances Baars and the Children’s Aid Society of Hamilton has treated it as a quirky story about a Christian family versus the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. In fact, the 61-page decision by Justice A.J. Goodman is a blistering critique of the aid…
The Gerald Stanley-Colten Boushie case has touched off a firestorm that reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how our legal system works
Reaction to the Gerald Stanley-Colten Boushie verdict continues to roil in Canada’s legal system. The latest stir of the pot comes from the Canadian Council of Criminal Defence Lawyers. The council sent a tart reproach this week to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould for their responses to the acquittal of Stanley,…
Compares the government's rule change to the reviled Indian Act for imposing ironclad status-quo thinking
Just days before the extended deadline for the Canada Summer Jobs program, David Acco still can’t reconcile what the federal government wants employers to do as part of a new application process. “It’s crazy,” Acco says from Montreal. “I would never tick the box they want me to tick. They should be looking at this…
Justin Trudeau must set a new standard for sexual propriety in great part because his father dismantled traditional values
It feels like good fortune to watch this full circle moment when the son must grapple with what the father wrought. Mere weeks ago, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke emphatically about his insistence on proper conduct between the sexes on Parliament Hill and, by extension, among Canadians generally. While North America grapples with the newest…
The Liberals’ latest decision means summer employment is now a testing ground for ideological adhesion, obedience and purity
It’s tough work to imagine two groups more radically different than the Canadian Council of Christian Charities and the gays rights network LGBTory. So when both join the rising chorus opposing changes to what should be among Ottawa’s most innocuous programs, it’s a signal something significant is going on. The Four Cs, as the council…
Quebecers find themselves taking sides in language squabbles their better judgment says are irrelevant to life outside the political bubble
Quebec’s anglophones, francophones and allophones should all be on their smart phones demanding to know what in the name of Saint René Lévesque just happened in the National Assembly. “We are not a small people,” the late premier, Lévesque, famously said after his victorious Parti Quebecois stunned everyone on election night in 1976. “We are…
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts exhibit mythologizes the 1960s by ignoring the dark ugliness masked by all those drug-addled smiles
The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is a major institution in Canada’s only real city, which is why its summer Revolution exhibit is such a serious letdown. Devotees of the museum expect far better than Revolution’s intellectually lazy merchandising of 1960s mythology. Based around the eponymous Beatles song, Revolution purports to be a fresh exploration…