Canada should shut up about Chinese violation of human rights, its government grumbles. On June 22, Zhao Lijian, a Chinese spokesperson, publicly told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “China urges the relevant Canadian leader to earnestly respect the rule of law, respect China’s judicial sovereignty and stop making irresponsible remarks.” I agree. It’s time to stop […]
Category: Politics
A challenging year in store for 2020
A retiring president, slower economic growth, and another hot year are in store for 2020. Retiring president. U.S. President Donald Trump will retire this year because he dare not contest the U.S. presidential election in November; losing it would expose citizen Trump to virtually certain criminal charges and possible civil suits. Vice President Mike Pence […]
With coming recession, Trump will soon be toast
Down Jones Index, one hundred years. Published Sunday, March 25, 2018. There are two economic forecasts you can make with confidence, based on the record of history. In a period of economic growth, the next recession is inevitable, while during a recession, the next recovery is on its way. More difficult to forecast is when […]
History of fierce free trade issue essential background for high-stakes NAFTA renegotiation with erratic Trump administration.
No Canadian political and economic issue is as contentious, persistent, and long-running as the struggle between free trade and protection. A concise account of that issue from 1840 to the 1988 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement provides essential historical background to the impending high-stakes renegotiation of NAFTA with the erratic Trump administration. The record clearly […]
The failed life of Donald Trump
Donald Trump (presidential portrait, cropped). Intelligence is one thing. Wisdom is something else entirely. Saddest are those with a plethora of intelligence and a paucity of wisdom—or even common sense. They are doomed to failed, unhappy, and often destructive lives. The greatest and most destructive failures combine intelligence with unwisdom, wealth, and power. We are […]
Toronto in great uproar as U.S. seeks fugitive slave
John Anderson, a proclaimed fugitive slave in Toronto who escaped from Missouri to Canada on the Underground Railway, was wanted by the Americans in 1860. English engraving, from “The Story of the Life of John Anderson,” 1863. “It was an anxious moment, as the Chief Justice produced his papers and began to read. The life […]
John Peters Humphrey, author of UN’s Declaration of Universal Rights
Three-and-a-half years after the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco, the nations of the world met in General Assembly in Paris to lay a foundation stone, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). It is “the international Magna Carta of all mankind,” in the words of U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt. “One of […]
Foreign titles laughed to death in Parliament
“A proposal for a return to titles for Canadians seemed to have been laughed to a permanent death” during two days of heated debate in the House of Commons, according to the Toronto Globe, February 15, 1929. Yet former Prime Minister R.B. Bennett would late defy the law to become a Lord, while publisher Conrad […]
An American flood of literary trash
Emily Murphy, magistrate, writer, and social, political and legal reformer, pens a tirade against a gusher of filthy, literary trash imported from the United States. A self-taught legal expert, Murphy was appointed an Edmonton magistrate in 1916, the first women magistrate in the British Empire.rash On her first day on the bench, a lawyer challenged […]
Parliament is all talk, talk, talk
The Ottawa Journal, October 23, 1899, notes the political penchant for prolixity. Sir Charles Tupper’s speech the other day contained about 25,000 words. Mr. Foster’s three-hour effort held about 17,000, or about as many as the gospel of St. John, which revolutionized the world. It will be observed that some of our political leaders talk […]