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Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. At least, that’s according to this old saw. A German phrase defines names as being nothing more than “noise and smoke”. Words, names, labels – we’ve had this discussion before, many times in fact. In politics, especially in Canada, labels don’t mean much anymore.

In Ottawa, we have a party in power that calls itself “Conservative”, yet it has failed to do most of the “conservative” things people had expected of it, such as eliminating Big Government, reducing (income) taxes, prudent spending and so on. The “co...

Several studies have found, confirmed and re-confirmed that Canadian parents would rather see their children become lawyers or journalists than politicians, showing all three of these professions to be among the most reviled in the country. What they all have in common is the perception that they make a living from lying and generally being despicable individuals. Unfortunately, the vast majority of members in each of these professions have done more than their share to solidify this view.

When it comes to politicians, people look for honesty, integrity and leadership. It is understood that politicians are always faced with difficult decisions and that they don’t alway...

Canadians find themselves in a happy place today. The Winter Olympics in Vancouver have been a smash success, with Canada carrying off the honour of having scored more gold medals than any other country before in the history of the winter games. The Games have seen their share of heartache, what with the deaths of a luger and the mother of a Canadian athlete, but they will be remembered as not only a great global party, but also as the birth of a “new Canada”.

Canadian and international commentators alike have concluded that the recent events in Vancouver have showcased a new kind of Canadian, one who enjoys celebrating his or her patrio...

A lot of people will relate to this scenario. Trying so hard to impress a “person of interest” (the “cool girl” in your class) or a person of authority (a teacher or boss), people tend to get themselves into weird situations and end up looking foolish – right in front of the very person they’ve tried so hard to bedazzle.

This is what Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff must feel like. The person of interest is not some “babe” he has a crush on, but the Canadian electorate. Seeing how he spent most of his adult life away from Canada, it’s almost impossible ...

Turn to any news channel or open any newspaper, and one topic you’ll likely find discussed just about everywhere in Canada right now is the perceived slight of the French language at the Olympic Games in Vancouver. At the same time, letters pages in (Albertan and Western Canadian) newspapers are filling up with irate comments about how the “French should go home and shut up”.

I first became aware that there was an issue on the night of the opening ceremony, when my Twitter page started being inundated with angry comments about the use, not lack, of the French language. I decided then not to reply to or comment on ...

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. At least, that’s according to this old saw. A German phrase defines names as being nothing more than “noise and smoke”. Words, names, labels – we’ve had this discussion before, many times in fact. In politics, especially in Canada, labels don’t mean much anymore.

In Ottawa, we have a party in power that calls itself “Conservative”, yet it has failed to do most of the “conservative” things people had expected of it, such as eliminating Big Government, reducing (income) taxes, prudent spending and so on. The “cons...

Several studies have found, confirmed and re-confirmed that Canadian parents would rather see their children become lawyers or journalists than politicians, showing all three of these professions to be among the most reviled in the country. What they all have in common is the perception that they make a living from lying and generally being despicable individuals. Unfortunately, the vast majority of members in each of these professions have done more than their share to solidify this view.

When it comes to politicians, people look for honesty, integrity and leadership. It is understood that politicians are always faced with difficult decisions and that they don’t always ...

Canadians find themselves in a happy place today. The Winter Olympics in Vancouver have been a smash success, with Canada carrying off the honour of having scored more gold medals than any other country before in the history of the winter games. The Games have seen their share of heartache, what with the deaths of a luger and the mother of a Canadian athlete, but they will be remembered as not only a great global party, but also as the birth of a “new Canada”.

Canadian and international commentators alike have concluded that the recent events in Vancouver have showcased a new kind of Canadian, one who enjoys celebrating his or her patrioti...

Alberta, Canada’s richest province, has had a hard time recently. Assailed by a global recession, with its concomitant drop in oil and gas prices, as well as by its own premier, Ed Stelmach, who felt he had nothing better to do than “reform” the oil royalties scheme, thus causing worse damage to the province than former Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program, Alberta now finds itself in a position of having to dig itself out from under a pall of gloom. Preparing a budget with a deficit that looms large no matter what government does is no easy task. Yet, even in such difficult times, there

Canadians find themselves in a happy place today. The Winter Olympics in Vancouver have been a smash success, with Canada carrying off the honour of having scored more gold medals than any other country before in the history of the winter games. The Games have seen their share of heartache, what with the deaths of a luger and the mother of a Canadian athlete, but they will be remembered as not only a great global party, but also as the birth of a “new Canada”.

Canadian and international commentators alike have concluded that the recent events in Vancouver have showcased a new kind of Canadian, one who enjoys celebrating his or her patrioti...

Several studies have found, confirmed and re-confirmed that Canadian parents would rather see their children become lawyers or journalists than politicians, showing all three of these professions to be among the most reviled in the country. What they all have in common is the perception that they make a living from lying and generally being despicable individuals. Unfortunately, the vast majority of members in each of these professions have done more than their share to solidify this view.

When it comes to politicians, people look for honesty, integrity and leadership. It is understood that politicians are always faced with difficult decisions and that they don’t always ...

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. At least, that’s according to this old saw. A German phrase defines names as being nothing more than “noise and smoke”. Words, names, labels – we’ve had this discussion before, many times in fact. In politics, especially in Canada, labels don’t mean much anymore.

In Ottawa, we have a party in power that calls itself “Conservative”, yet it has failed to do most of the “conservative” things people had expected of it, such as eliminating Big Government, reducing (income) taxes, prudent spending and so on. The “cons...

Turn to any news channel or open any newspaper, and one topic you’ll likely find discussed just about everywhere in Canada right now is the perceived slight of the French language at the Olympic Games in Vancouver. At the same time, letters pages in (Albertan and Western Canadian) newspapers are filling up with irate comments about how the “French should go home and shut up”.

I first became aware that there was an issue on the night of the opening ceremony, when my Twitter page started being inundated with angry comments about the use, not lack, of the French language. I decided then not to reply to or comment on ...

A lot of people will relate to this scenario. Trying so hard to impress a “person of interest” (the “cool girl” in your class) or a person of authority (a teacher or boss), people tend to get themselves into weird situations and end up looking foolish – right in front of the very person they’ve tried so hard to bedazzle.

This is what Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff must feel like. The person of interest is not some “babe” he has a crush on, but the Canadian electorate. Seeing how he spent most of his adult life away from Canada, it’s almost impossible ...

Alberta, Canada’s richest province, has had a hard time recently. Assailed by a global recession, with its concomitant drop in oil and gas prices, as well as by its own premier, Ed Stelmach, who felt he had nothing better to do than “reform” the oil royalties scheme, thus causing worse damage to the province than former Liberal prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program, Alberta now finds itself in a position of having to dig itself out from under a pall of gloom. Preparing a budget with a deficit that looms large no matter what government does is no easy task. Yet, even in such difficult times, there

 For the Alberta Tories, and Albertans, this is the moment of truth, the end game. The next twelve to 24 months will decide the fate of the Tories, who have been in power since 1971. Since December 2006, when Ed Stelmach took the reins of the Tory party and became premier of Alberta, the party has been in a steady decline. Nothing the premier has ever touched has turned out as planned, and Albertans, not surprisingly, have soured on Stelmach and the party they have held dear for close to forty years.

Stelmach’s biggest sin has been his “reform” of the royalties scheme for oil and gas companies, th...

Over a year ago, Barack Obama inspired not only Americans, but also people around the world, with his “Yes, we can” chant. As it turns out, a chant is all it ever was, devoid of any substance. The lofty promises of “post-partisanship” and “reaching out across the aisle” have been empty ones at best, or bald-faced lies at worst.

It’s not all Obama’s fault; while he does and must shoulder most of the blame, the main forces behind his government’s shift to the radical and extreme left have been such Communist-Democrats (or “progressives”, as Glenn Beck calls them) a...

Apple boss Steve Jobs presented, with much fanfare, the arrival of his company’s latest product: the iPad, essentially a bigger version of the iPhone or iPod Touch. The latest toy can be had for US$499, but that price can quickly double if you wish to have WiFi and 3G capabilities as well as larger memory. As the iPhone before it, the iPad, too, will be linked to AT&T to provide the necessary wireless connection to the Internet.

In Canada, so this pundit’s prediction goes, the iPad will not be a major success. Actually, it could be a colossal failure here. First of all, its price will definitely be higher, and the...

After stimulus spending and corporate bailouts for companies that will eventually disappear anyway, Canada is now saddled with a considerable deficit and must start looking at ways of reducing, containing or, hopefully, eliminating it, while continuing to grow its economy and create jobs. This is not an easy task, as it will require substantial cuts to government spending and a major overhaul of the tax system.

Spending cuts will put the government of Stephen Harper in a predicament. Canada’s government programs are mostly geared to special interests that, even though they constitute a minority only, can...

Democracy is sometimes said to be its own worst enemy. By its own definition, power rests with and emanates from the people. But given any society’s myriad interests, it becomes a Sisyphean task trying to accommodate all that the populace demands. Put in more mundane terms, democracy is a little bit like that old saying of too many cooks spoiling the broth; unless there is a central authority that separates the wheat from the chaff, there is a very strong risk that a country may rupture along the multitude of fissures running through it.

China is a good case in point. The sheer size of its population and the large number of...

In the game we call politics, it’s all about scoring points at the expense of your opponent. What counts as a point is defined by whether it serves to further your ideology or not. A socialist, for example, considers any policy a success if it adds to Big Government, higher taxes, less productive and less prosperous companies – and, thus, fewer jobs, which necessitates even more Big Government measures – and generally any situation that prevents people from being free-thinking, self-reliant individuals. Conservatives, by contrast, want the exact opposite, naturally.

But where both sides regularly fail is the inability to ...

Politics is often no more than a game, especially in parliamentary systems, such as Canada’s. A few weeks ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper played a round of “chess” with the opposition parties and won by employing a little-known move known as prorogation, or suspension of Parliament.

Prorogation is a legitimate measure under the constitution. It may not be popular with opposition parties, but that does not make it undemocratic or an example of foul play. Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, demonstrating his poor understanding of how democracy works, accused the prime minister of not “understanding democracy”. This makes Mr. Ignatieff...

Things must be rather desperate for Canada’s Liberals, when their leader, Michael Ignatieff, tells them to discard the notion of being Canada’s natural governing party: “We talk too easily within this party of being the natural party of government. If I can achieve one thing as a leader of this party, it’s to get that out of our vocabulary.” He then went on to say that the Liberal

Ask yourself: Did you feel fuzzy inside when the first headlines came out pronouncing the end of the recession? Did you take heart and send out your résumé to a bunch of companies? Did it make you feel more confident about the future and, more importantly, your future financial security? Enough, perhaps, to make you go on a shopping spree?

With news pouring in that the United States, at least, may face a double-dip recession and no visible sign of real recovery in the job market, are you still confident? I’ll be frank and say that I am not. Not at all, in fact.

As a translator I get to work with companies f...

Voters everywhere in the West are becoming more and more disillusioned with politics and politicians. Turnout for elections has been abysmal and embarrassing for anyone who believes in democracy. Canadians last went to the polls in a federal election in late 2008, and while the percentage of voters bothering with the exercise was yet again low, Canadians did find something to get excited about in the almost simultaneous election in the United States.

Back in 2008, Canadians, Americans and the rest of the world were glued to their TV and computer screens following every morsel of news about the new poli...