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At the Primal Scene
A late middle-aged mom is having tea with her adult daughter in the parents’ living room. We glimpse the father for a second, walking awkwardly. The daughter asks, “what’s wrong with dad?” The mom replies, “he threw his back out yesterday.” “I think it’s time you and dad moved to a smaller place. I bet…
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The Awesome Weapons of Office
The legendary Canadian documentarist Donald Brittain referred to the election of the Parti Quebecois in 1976 as giving Rene Levesque “the awesome weapons of office.” That phrase comes to mind today. The invoking of the Emergencies Act is intended to give the federal government additional weapons of office to end the insurrection in Ottawa. Does…
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Slow Boring of Hard Boards
Recalling Marx’s dictum that history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce, it is instructive to begin with the two major crises faced by Pierre Trudeau. One, the October Crisis, is well known, but the other, the pilots’ strike of 1976, is almost forgotten. The Trudeau Government treated the kidnapping of British diplomat…
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The Whole World is Watching
“The Whole World is Watching” was a rallying-cry used by anti-Vietnam War protesters to shame American police and military who were violently suppressing demonstrations. But it now fits the situation in which Canadians find ourselves. What the world has recently seen of Canada in stories that have received international attention is not how we would…
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How to Take Back Ottawa
One component of my public management course was a crisis management simulation. I would imagine a crisis and write a one-page scenario. I would distribute the scenario to the students at the start of class, choose a small crisis management team, and ask the team to lead a discussion. This year’s crisis requires no imagination;…
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Candidate Vetting: Then and Now
This will be the last in the series of posts dealing with my relationship with Joe Clark. It deals with vetting candidates for Parliament. The Background In a 1977 by-election in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne, the local riding association nominated Roger Delorme, a local broadcaster. It turned out – and this was known before…
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The PCP/CPC Caucus under Clark and O’Toole
The Progressive Conservative Party, now Conservative Party of Canada, with its history of mainly being in opposition, has been plagued with caucus fractiousness. In the current session of Parliament, the Conservatives have been able to speak with one voice about ending conversion therapy, but are divided about many other issues, most notably vaccine mandates. Reviewing…
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A PC Party Platform for Canada in the 80s
A major part of my involvement with Joe Clark’s campaign for the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party in 1976, which I began to discuss in last week’s post, was the preparation of policy papers. Four advisers – me, Carole Uhlaner, Ian McKinnon, and Mark Krasnick (of blessed memory) – did the drafting, and Joe…
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Campaigning with Joe and Maureen
I was recently interviewed by Matthew Hayday, an historian at the University of Guelph who is writing a biography of Joe Clark, Canada’s sixteenth prime minister. My then wife (Carole Uhlaner, now an emerita professor of political science at the University of California at Irvine) and I were deeply involved doing policy work and speech…
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The Last Thing Toronto Needs Now
Recently I became aware of a proposal by Nieuport Aviation, owner and operator of the terminal at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport (BBTCA), to spend $69 million upgrading it, including the construction of a US Customs and Border Protection pre-clearance hall. The Background I’ll unpack the wordy first sentence with some background. Nieuport Aviation opaquely…
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Messiah: From Concert Hall to the Street
On a holiday season that has quickly shifted from joy to wariness, I have turned to Handel’s Messiah for consolation. Last year I wrote about some of Handel’s techniques (vivid imagery, contrasts, repetition) and motifs (sheep and lambs, corruption, the king). This year I listened to two contrasting versions. The Original Original Instruments Messiah In…
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Attacking Doug Ford on Science
Two days ago (Wednesday December 15) the Ford Government announced it would step up vaccinations and testing. Socially distancing? Hardly at all, the only change being that events of more than 1000 attendees will be reduced to 50 percent capacity. Yesterday the independent Ontario Science Table argued that, with cases of the Omicron variant doubling…
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I Have Antibodies!
How do I know? The Ontario Health Study told me. As I discussed in a previous post, I am participating in the Ontario Health Study, a longitudinal study of a large sample of 225,000. After completing a questionnaire about Covid – 19, I was part of a subset of 12,000 asked to provide a blood…
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Attacking Doug Ford on Covid
The reaction to my previous message attacking Ontario Premier Doug Ford on climate change was positive as readers encouraged me to record and post it. Here is my message attacking his handling of the pandemic. I’m also planning messages on democratic values and respect for science. My plan is to record and post all of…
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Finding Our Carbon Footprint
Fighting climate change requires action in the areas of politics and personal practice. Last week’s post was about political action – mobilizing to defeat a premier who is a notorious climate change malefactor. This week’s is about personal practice. My undergraduate class’s climate change action group referred me to the University of California at Berkeley’s…