Monthly Archive: April 2015

I’m certainly no expert on the Middle East but it doesn’t appear as if anyone else in the West is either, given the chaos in that region. I join many others in saying that George W. Bush started all this by attacking Iraq and throwing Saddam Hussein out of power. Now the Shias and the Sunnis, sworn enemies for 2,000 years, are destroying what little is left of the country. At one point, under Hussein, Iraq had the best education system in the Middle East. There are times when a dictator is the only solution and we should leave well enough alone. Canada wasn’t...

The Ontario Securities Commission is circulating for discussion a proposal that would pay up to $1.5 million to a whistleblower who feeds the regulator information about a serious misconduct of securities law. Comments are accepted up to May 4. Here’s my view right now: stuff and nonsense. Is the OSC so desperate that they will entice stoolies with cash? Whatever happened to good old-fashioned investigative work? I guess the OSC is so unhappy with its track record that it’s considering this wrong-headed course of action that involves providing confidentiality and protection. I envision a whistleblower given a new name then...

When my wife Sandy died almost four years ago, I received numerous emails and letters of condolence from friends. Others, who were not as close, tended to use a particular phrase when they saw me. “Sorry for your loss,” they would say, without the slightest flicker of emotion. Initially, the words were consoling, but after a while I gritted my teeth every time I heard what came to sound like nothing more than an empty banality. Members of the armed forces in the U.S., and increasingly in Canada, must feel the same short shrift after they’ve been told, for the...

Now that Hilary Clinton has announced she’ll run for president, what kind of candidate will she be? At first blush, she appears cautious and not at all the confident public person you’d think would be the result of being First Lady, an elected Senator, and Secretary of State. Why, for example, would she use a videotaped message for her launch and then follow a schedule of low-profile events?  Maybe she doesn’t want to peak too soon or maybe she’s worried about having to face some things in her past such as her email habits at State, the lies about the...

It may have escaped your attention, but in Canada this is National Tartan Day, launched in 2010 by the Harper government to celebrate the contribution of Scots in Canada. I’m only speaking for myself, not the two million Canadians of Scottish descent, but I have to say this is about as silly as it gets. The reason for so doing was to mark the little-known Declaration of Arbroath when Scotland sought independence in 1320 by writing to the Pope. How did that work out? Not so well as William Wallace, Robert the Bruce and Bonnie Prince Charlie can attest. None...