In To Africa

I leave tomorrow morning for Africa, Sudan/Darfur specifically, to begin construction of a high school for Darfur refugees, as well as assessing the various water and micro-enterprise projects we’ve had on the go there for the last decade. Yet I visit the region with a certain sense of foreboding that has only surfaced in the [...]

Read Full Post »

On Being “Doe-eyed”

So, it’s my birthday. Almost five decades of living and so many lessons learned. The picture to the right was taken on the streets of Calgary, Alberta. I’m standing with my Mom in 1959 – the day Lester Pearson came to stay in our home while visiting with my father. From an early age, I [...]

Read Full Post »

Having God but Missing the Star

Occasionally in these pages, I have confessed my own confusion as to why MPs who say they hold similar religious beliefs effectively belittle one another in the name of politics. It’s true that Jesus stated that God and Caesar must exist side-by-side, yet he consistently put the emphasis on actions of love, respect and justice.  [...]

Read Full Post »

Grinch Does It … Again

London Free Press Columnist Ian Gillespie is a staple on the city’s media beat.  His articles and blogs usually take a look at city life from different angles.
I thought I’d include his latest blog post. I’m mentioned in it but that’s not why I include it here. Parliament is broken; we all kind of know [...]

Read Full Post »

A Victory for Democracy … and Africa

They said it would be a close one and it was. It was a vote full of surprises, with little downside.  When it was all done, I came out of the House with a sense of excitement that I had just witnessed democracy in action.
The vote called for this evening was on Bill C-393, a [...]

Read Full Post »

The Proof Is In The Persistence

The House of Commons has been raucus, unseemly and somewhat less than productive in these last number of years.  I was elected three years ago today, in a by-election.  I was a food bank director and professional firefighter, but nothing could have prepared me for what was about to follow.  On the day I was [...]

Read Full Post »

Canada Takes The Lead

For all its problems, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) does one thing very well: it leads the world in an effective approach for alleviating food shortages around the globe.  In fact, at the recent World Summit on Food Security in Rome last week, Canada stood alone in not only living up to its international [...]

Read Full Post »

Israel The Loser In Six Days of War

“Why would he do this?  We need both our friends working together and he has just split them. That can’t be good.”  These were the words quoted me by one of my community’s Jewish leaders concerning Stephen Harper and his party’s frontal assault on the Liberal Party in labeling them “anti-Semitic.”  His consternation has turned [...]

Read Full Post »

The Rooster Crows in Ottawa

It was the week of chest thumping. The locker room bravado displayed following the vote that will likely lead to the end of the gun registry. Then Senator Mike Duffy’s public meltdown in his debate with NDP Peter Stoffer. These were just more slippery stones in the decline of effective democracy in Canada.
Things have subtly [...]

Read Full Post »

“Fake” Wears a Tuxedo

In its own way, it was sickening. Upon arriving home from Ottawa late last night, the sadness of my wife’s face was evident. She told me of how Senator Mike Duffy had blustered his way through a CBC interview, opting to label NDP MP Peter Stoffer a fake and an actor. Subsequently watching the interview [...]

Read Full Post »

Floor Crossing

In a recent Policy Options magazine, Robin Sears writes in real terms concerning the partisan nature of politics and how it’s always characterized Canadian political life. People, including me, often hearken back to the Lester Pearson minority governments and how much was achieved through compromise. Sears says it was never quite that simple, but he [...]

Read Full Post »

Leave It At The Door

I attended a special breakfast this morning hosted by a particular faith group.  There were seven Liberals there by my count, a couple of NDP, and a number of Conservatives.  The subject of the session regarded voting trends in Canada and how this particular faith group’s members voted across the country.
For Liberals, it was an [...]

Read Full Post »

CIDA – From Food to Moral Famine

Climatologists can largely determine from where most environmental refugees will come and, to a lesser degree, where they might end up.  They can also provide something of a rough timeline for when these mass migrations, large and small, will happen.  But the world community, especially the developed nations who have the benefit of countless studies [...]

Read Full Post »

Big and Small Heroes

America’s Thomas Paine fussed over the possibilities of true democracy in his country. Faced with the challenge of threatening nations, he pondered how you focus a distracted citizenry on the task of building a nation of possibilities. Looking at the people around him, he mused: “Society is composed of distinct, unconnected individuals who are continually [...]

Read Full Post »

At Times, It’s Worth It

During a hectic day of events yesterday, two telephone messages within an hour of each other helped me to understand once again why being a member of Parliament can be a remarkably rewarding experience.
During a large-scale economic forum in London I received a text message that was deeply moving. Maclean’s magazine had posted a picture [...]

Read Full Post »

Altered States – Dealing With “The Ugly”

This is the ugliest period in our politics in many decades … tribalism!“
- Thomas Mann (political analyst)

London, Ontario’s an interesting city of over 300,000 people and some great institutions.  My own riding hosts hospitals, the university, cultural groups, head office of the Chamber of Commerce and the downtown region. People from all over the city [...]

Read Full Post »

Tribute To A Champion

The bluster vanished in the House of Commons in an instant yesterday.  When Irwin Cotler stood up in the fourth slot in Question Period and challenged the government once again to bring Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik home from years of exile in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum, we waited for the predictable response.  After all, this [...]

Read Full Post »

Oda on ODA

ROME, ITALY – In something of a rush, International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda and her staff caught the plane in Ottawa en route to the Cooperation Minister’s run-up meeting to the G8, scheduled for Italy next month. I was fortunate to be asked along. From the outset, the minister’s staff were professional and inclusive. There [...]

Read Full Post »

In a Minister’s Defence

Being a Minister of Defense in times like these is an unenviable task.  With the Afghanistan mission winding down and Canada’s role in the region continually being questioned, the task of standing up in Question Period and fending off opposition attacks is difficult at best.  In my view, Peter McKay has done a better job [...]

Read Full Post »

Homegrown Hooey

Silly season has now given way to the lethal hunting season.  While the negative ads on Dion were certainly effective at the time, they were also one of the key reasons voter turnout reached an all-time Canadian low.  I recall blogging back then and saying that Canadians wouldn’t buy it, that they were looking for [...]

Read Full Post »