Category / Current Discourse

by William Brooks

Is it really all about Harper?

The audacity of Canadians who have elected Stephen Harper throughout the entire Obama era appears to be as troubling for east coast American liberals as it is for the overwhelming majority in Canada’s media and cultural establishment.

This became evident early in our current election campaign when the legendary New York Times, newspaper of record for the American left, enlisted a young Toronto journalist to pen a stern warning for Canadians who might consider re-electing a Conservative government.

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by Kevin Richard

The Reality of Evil

Recent tragic events in Quebec, such as the finding of a young woman’s dismembered body in Hinchinbrooke, the murder-suicide in Boucherville where a father took the lives of his own children, and the double murder in Marieville, invariably lead us to question why such things occur.

We understandably want to know what drives a person to commit such heinous crimes. This type of questioning usually leads to comments that most of us instinctively agree with, such as, “a person must be crazy to do something like that”, or “he must be sick and out of his right mind.”

I understand that these are mostly comments of initial outrage, but they are also demonstrative of how a person attempts to make sense of evil. I sometimes feel compelled to nod my head in agreement, but upon reflection I cannot help but arrive at a very different conclusion. Rather than explaining why these things occur, such comments and assertions serve only to veil the existence of evil, and in the process they undermine the principle of individual responsibility. For this reason, simply nodding in agreement, without challenge, may do more harm than good.

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by Neil Cameron

Remembering Quebec’s Jacque Parizeau

When the Quebec Legislature began its first post-election session in November of 1989, the first speaker was Jacques Parizeau.

It was my first day there as an Equality Party Member, and he surprised me, by giving a very non-partisan address, almost the kind one would expect from someone like a Lieutenant-Governor.

Parizeau was amiable and wide-ranging, and drew our attention to the painting above the Speaker. It was entitled “The Language Question in Quebec,” an early sitting of the Lower Canada Parliament in 1793, when it was first decided that French would be allowed in debate. He almost seemed to be hinting at an underlying reality: that the Legislature was on most days an oil painting masquerading as an action film, or a theatrical performance, in which he was looking forward to playing the role of a lifetime.

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by Kevin Richard

Bidding for the throne

The bidding war for your vote is on.  Federal political parties have prepared a host of special treats.  This fall it will be up to us to decide which of the treats we prefer.  More precisely, it will be up to middle class voters, as they, in particular, are being aggressively tempted and solicited with these delicious goodies.  Moreover, they are being led to believe that their very existence is being threatened by the evil upper class, that they need a saviour, and that only a government of a precise political stripe, and with a particular brand of treat, can be their true Robin Hood.  The throne is what they want, and in exchange, they are offering the candy of cheques and social programs.

“Candy” is not what politicians call it of course.  “It is medicine”, they claim, and apparently it tastes great.  The problem, however, is that while political parties simultaneously claim to be sole vendors of the cure for the middle class, they also claim that their opponent’s medicine is poison.  So then, how are we to make sense of this?  Which of these is in fact the cure?  Which of these will prevent the middle class from disappearing?  The truth, I’m afraid, is that while the sugar-coated “medicine” may taste good, and while it may even give a delightful little buzz, it is actually keeping us sick.

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by William Brooks

From McCarthyism to Harry Reid: Harsh words lead to deep divisions in USA

Edward R. Murrow once said: “To be persuasive we must be believable, to be believable we must be credible and to be credible we must be truthful.” Murrow is fondly remembered by American liberals as the 1950’s CBS journalist whose criticism of “McCarthyism” and the “Red Scare” helped speed the political downfall of Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy.

McCarthy is said to have abused his position as a US Senator by making unsubstantiated claims that there were large numbers of communists and Soviet spies in the US Government and other American cultural institutions. Today, the term “McCarthyism” is generally used to describe demagogic, reckless and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of a political opponent.

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by Kevin Richard

Protesting the “A” word

Student protesters are back on the streets of Montréal. Empowered by their maple spring victory of 2012, where the lesson learned was that the more disruptive you are the more likely you will get what you want, student unions have chosen their cause. They are determined to wage another war. This time, however, it is not about tuition hikes. This time the object of protest is the evil A-word (austerity). The word our own Premier dares not say for fear of political backlash. And students are not alone.

We’ve been hearing this word quite a bit in recent years, often in a negative tone. It is not uncommon to sense the disdain and indignation in the voices of those who make reference to it, as though austerity were a contagious disease, or a great form of government oppression and injustice. But when closely examining our situation one should conclude that the lack of austerity in recent decades is what is truly worthy of our indignation.

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by William Brooks

Plus ça change: Renewing Discourse in the Age of Aquarius

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose …” said nineteenth century French journalist, Jean-Baptiste Karr; and such may be the feeling of many sixty to seventy year-old citizens of western democracies who have watched the disposition of our societies evolve over the past several decades.

As wide-eyed students in the 1960’s; scores in our cohort felt connected to the ascendance of a cosmic new era. In the early years of that decade, “the progressive movement” spoke to young people in the language of personal liberation, human equality and “social justice.” In the USA, Martin Luther King’s non-violent campaign led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. In Canada, a charming young bachelor prime minister promised a “just society” in a united, bilingual, multicultural nation.

In the young ranks of the working and lower middle-classes we felt our stars were rising. In 1969, uniformly turned out in tie-dyed T-shirts and bell-bottom dungarees, we sang along with the 5th Dimension. “Let the sun shine in” we intoned: “Harmony and understanding …sympathy and trust abounding …no more falsehoods or derisions …golden living dreams of visions …mystic crystal revelation …and the minds true liberation.” It was the dawning of the “Age of Aquarius” and the universe was unfolding as it should.

By the late 1970’s, however, a decade-long reality check raised some disturbing questions about the conventional wisdom of our time.

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