Internetization is revolutionizing our lives. But too many parts of Canada lack the electronic capacity needed to take advantage of it
Earlier this year, I was invited to deliver the keynote address at the 36th annual international conference of the Business & Economics Society International in Italy in July. But COVID-19 intervened and the conference was transformed to a virtual platform. I delivered my keynote address from my living room in Fredericton, N.B. The title of…
Perhaps it’s not democracy that has been corrupted, nor the democratic process, but rather the electorate itself
If the majority of the electorate is not already disillusioned and alienated by the extreme partisanship of politics, the upcoming United States elections will likely push another generation of voters into the void of disillusionment, apathy and abdication of franchise. The U.S. is the so-called beacon of democracy. Yet the two political extremes have become…
Global energy players and major stakeholders are out with their keenly-awaited and immensely researched outlooks
Energy outlook season is here. And it’s not rosy. Global energy players and major stakeholders are out with their keenly-awaited and immensely researched outlooks. COVID-19 has turned 2020 into an unusual year, carrying long-term ramifications for the energy world. The Paris-based International Energy Agency has termed the pandemic a disruption not seen since the “world…
It’s not that voters are dumb, it’s just that they’re busy. And in the midst of a brutal global pandemic, it’s become even worse
Forget it. Two years ago, in a limitless and sunny August when a global pandemic seemed like an impossibility, my daughter and I knocked on doors for the Democrats in Portland, Maine. We were using a list of registered Democrats living in a tidy West Portland neighbourhood. The houses weren’t terribly big nor terribly small.…
Holocaust survivor Eva Kor died in the summer of 2019 while in Poland doing one of the things she found most meaningful: touring a group of young people through the Auschwitz concentration camp. Her message remains: “Each of us has an important part to play in repairing the world. Be the change you wish to…
In a recent New York Times opinion piece, Regina Ip, a member of Hong Kong’s Executive Council (essentially the cabinet of Hong Kong’s government), defended the Chinese Communist Party’s attack on freedom in Hong Kong. In an apparent attempt to bolster her argument, she noted Hong Kong’s top rating in the Economic Freedom of the…
Polls shows older Americans abandoning Trump because they’re appalled by his mismanagement of the pandemic
None of us. There’s a simple reason why no one really wants to say Donald Trump is going to lose the U.S. presidential election in 2020. Because no one really got it right in 2016. I’m one of the many who got it wrong. Never saw it coming. And I was close enough to the…
It’s time to reflect not just on what politics is doing to our democracy but what it’s doing to us
Let’s begin by wishing U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump a full and speedy recovery following their positive COVID-19 testing. The text below was drafted before this diagnosis was known and reflects on the toxicity of public discourse for which the president is partly culpable. Some of the social media response to…
When a leader suggests he will subvert the democratic process, voters have recourse. We’ve seen it in the Philippines and elsewhere
An apocryphal story circulated in the Philippines in the early 1980s of a dinner party conversation between President Ferdinand Marcos and Catholic Bishop Jaime Sin. Marcos reportedly said, “I really admire those Americans. They know the results of their presidential elections the day of the election.” In response, Sin reportedly said, “Well how about us…
Roosevelt was much sicker than anyone let on during the election campaign. In fact, he died just a few months into his new term
A few days ago, a Toronto radio newscaster used the word “unprecedented” while describing the drama around U.S. President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis. And it’s true. No previous election had such a story just weeks before going to the polls. That’s because 2020 is a more transparent world. In 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt – the…
Earlier this year, I was invited to deliver the keynote address at the 36th annual international conference of the Business & Economics Society International in Italy in July. But COVID-19 intervened and the conference was transformed to a virtual platform. I delivered my keynote address from my living room in Fredericton, N.B. The title of…
