Leitch’s campaign says mass email to supporters while pictured firing a handgun intended to communicate directly to gun owners, ‘very important’ community
OTTAWA—Conservative Party leadership candidate Kellie Leitch’s email to supporters about her proposed firearm policies, which included a photo of her firing a 1972 Walther P1 handgun at a shooting range while discussing the “tradition of using firearms for hunting and for recreational purposes,” was intended to communicate to lawful gun owners who are important to the party, […]
Unfathomable jihadist forces Britain to confront ever-changing terror threat
LONDON, U.K.—When terrorists struck in London in the summer of 2005, the United Kingdom was plunged into shock of the kind that reverberated across the United States after 9/11. Tony Blair, who as prime minister was hosting world leaders at the annual G8 summit at Gleneagles golf resort in Scotland, hastily abandoned the conference to […]
British, Canadian attacks show terrorists come in all forms
OTTAWA—Last Wednesday’s deadly attack in London was a shocking act of violence resulting in five deaths and around 40 innocent bystanders being injured along the famous Westminster Bridge and on the grounds of the British parliament buildings. It was also immediately deemed an act of terrorism and the Western world sent messages of solidarity to […]
Jumping the gun on terrorism, again
OTTAWA—I know that in a world of 24/7 news and intense competition to be first with a breaking story that time is of the essence. Individuals and news outlets feel that they do not have the luxury to wait to publish, for fear that another individual or outlet will scoop them. In their haste, there is seldom […]
Canadian officials complicit in U.S. border troubles
OTTAWA—It has now been more than 15 years since that fateful day on Sept. 11, 2001 when the centres of American society and government were attacked. And like July 28, 1914 and Sept. 1, 1939, the world changed. The government and people of the United States, in a fit more of anger than sound policy, embarked […]
Preliminary thoughts on the London attacks
OTTAWA—Residents of London have undergone yet another terrorist attack. The nation that survived countless IRA attacks and threats in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, and which saw the carnage of July 2005 and the attempted beheading of a military member in Woolwich in 2013, is reeling from last Wednesday’s events when a man ran over […]
Mr. Big tactic should be allowed, especially in terrorism cases
OTTAWA—In a democracy that prides itself on the rule of law, no one in Canada is above the law, even—and especially—those charged with enforcing it, i.e. law enforcement agencies and their members. Nothing subverts the faith a society has in its legal institutions more than the belief that laws are not applied equally to all […]
Guantanamo: America’s ongoing colossal error
I think we can all agree—well except maybe some in the new Trump administration—that the US decision to use the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba to hold terrorist suspects extra-judicially was a particularly bad idea. Not only did the practice sully the U.S. image as the protector of democratic values, it also gave the very […]
Bowling alone in the White House
In a 1995 essay, Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital, political scientist Robert Putnam lamented a decline in the social interaction that is so integral to civic engagement, democracy, and a country’s fundamental cultural fabric. In the U.S. he saw people disengaging from clubs, associations, voluntary organizations, even the Boy Scouts. In his view, the […]
‘We’ve got to have Plan B’: New Brunswick MPs weather the ice storm
Waking up to a world covered in ice, New Brunswick’s MPs spent the last days of their winter break scrambling to help constituents left in the cold by a storm that knocked out power lines across the province. Without a formal role in the disaster relief effort led by the province, the MPs toured warming […]
