U.S. President Donald Trump, seen on the South Lawn of the White House on July 27, 2018, is eroding American diplomacy with his penchant for what’s known as hard power over soft power.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Donald Trump is eroding American diplomacy and what’s known as soft power. Here’s how that may result in a new world order.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces his plan to keep the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station in operation until 2024, in this June 2018 photo.
(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette)
Ontario Premier Doug Ford seems intent on dismantling the previous government’s energy strategy. But that may not protect consumers.
Police at the scene of a shooting in Toronto’s Greektown on July 23, 2018. The parents of Faisal Hussain, whose shooting spree left two people dead and 13 injured, say their son had struggled all his life with psychosis and depression, but none of the medications or therapies he tried were able to overcome his mental illness.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
Social media abhors informational vacuums and speed eclipses accuracy. That allows pseudo-experts, agitators and even liars to circulate rumours and poisonous information when big news breaks.
A woman wipes a tear as Toronto’s Greektown neighbourhood community gathers for a candlelit vigil to honour the victims of a deadly shooting in Toronto on July 22 that killed an 18-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young
After acts of violence, we want to make sense of what is right and wrong and where we stand in the world. But we must ensure our belief systems are periodically and systematically checked.
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon holds a news conference with National Front party leader Marine Le Pen in the northern French city of Lille in March 2018.
(AP Photo)
Fears about the resurgence of fascism might have seemed irrelevant during the past 70 years, when it was discredited. It doesn’t seem irrelevant today with liberal democracy on the defensive.
U.S. President Donald Trump gives North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a thumbs up during their meeting at a resort on Sentosa Island in Singapore on June 12, 2018.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Donald Trump is unmoved by high risks and wild odds, apparently feeling that his sheer cunning will always win, including, now, in geopolitics — his latest casino.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford leaves a meeting with federal and municipal officials on the Toronto mass shooting.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nick Kozak
If Ontario’s NDP and Liberals want to undermine Doug Ford’s agenda, they’ll need to learn from other centrist and left-wing politicians who have successfully challenged right-wing populism.
Start-ups funded via business loans tend to outperform those using personal loans or having no loans at all.
(Shutterstock)
Start-ups funded via business loans can outperform those using personal loans or only equity.
A national pharmacare program may one day be a reality in Canada. Myths abound about how it would work and what the consequences would be for Canadians and pharmaceutical companies.
(Shutterstock)
As Canadians consider possibilities for pharmacare reform in the coming months, they should have access to the best available evidence about how it might work in our country.
The formula industry has responded to the decline in sales to white women at home by ramping up its marketing to Black and brown women overseas.
(Shutterstock)
American support of the formula industry comes at the cost of the health and lives of Black and brown babies, at home and abroad.
Gin Lane, a scene of urban desolation with gin-crazed Londoners; a woman lets her child fall to its death and an emaciated ballad-seller.
William Hogarth
When the U.S. broke away from the “mother country,” the dream was to let the common good overruled selfish and private interests. Yet the federal government is arranged so this can never occur.
The era of two school systems in Ontario should be riding into the sunset. There are enormous cost savings and community benefits to be had by merging the public and separate school systems. A school bus is seen here in Markham, Ont.
(Shutterstock)
The time to consolidate Ontario’s two school systems is long overdue. It’s no longer viable to dismiss the issue on Constitutional grounds. All that’s needed is political will.
China’s aspirations of global dominance will hit a snag given the world’s other major powers identify democratic values as central to their national identies. Only China and Russia do not. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing in June 2018.
(AP Photo/Dake Kang)
New research suggests the values and identities of the world’s great powers present a major barrier to China’s aspirations of global domination. Do not bet on China’s hegemonic prospects just yet.
Mary Ng is hugged by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after being sworn in as Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion during a swearing-in ceremony at Rideau Hall on July 18, 2018. The cabinet shuffle sets the stage for the next federal election in the fall of 2019.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang
With a federal election next year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has shuffled his cabinet. What do the new faces in new jobs tell us about where the government feels it could be challenged?
Actors Luana Anders and Peter Fonda smoking a joint in a scene from the 1969 film ‘Easy Rider,’ a countercultural movie that influenced drug use by baby boomers in the 1960s.
(Columbia Pictures)
Canada will soon legalize marijuana. For aging baby boomers, the move is a culmination of a cultural phenomenon that started in the 1960s.
In 2016, the Ontario government promised the province’s schools would teach all students about residential schools and add more Indigenous perspectives into the provincial curriculum. The newly elected Conservative government has scrapped those plans.
Library and Archives Canada
Ontario’s move to ignore the calls of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to add Indigenous content to its history and social studies curriculum is foolish and dangerous.
Cities were once considered a source of many problems. But that vision has changed over the last generation.
Graeme Roy
Our current celebration of cities is a big shift from the past generation when cities were seen to contain all of our problems. Should we believe the hype? Are the new ideas equally problematic?
No one really knows for certain what the market potential is for cannabis, much less for edibles, but growth opportunities are palatable.
(Shutterstock)
Cannabis-infused food products could shake up the food industry.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a news conference after their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Helsinki, Finland on July 16, 2018.
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
In the hands of a legitimate president, the recent indictments against Russian nationals for interfering in the 2016 presidential election would have been a powerful tool at a summit. Not Donald Trump.
Elon Musk may be on the hot seat for political donations and slurs against a British cave rescuer in Thailand, but his offer to pay for water filters in Flint, Mich., is laudable.
(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
If Elon Musk can help achieve safe drinking water more quickly for every home in Flint, Mich., then he should be lauded. Water is life.
Women gather outside of the Vancouver Art Gallery in 2013 to dance as a part of the One Billion Rising movement, a global campaign by women for women which calls for the an end to violence against women.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward
We tend to pay attention to mass killings and terrorism. But one girl or woman is killed every other day in Canada. If we identify that as terrorism, we might pay more attention and do something.
Javier Garrido Martinez holds his four-year-old son during a news conference in New York on July 11, 2018. The pair were reunited after being separated for almost two months when authorities stopped them at the U.S. southern border.
(AP Photo/Robert Bumsted)
The U.S. immigration detention system under Donald Trump is abusive, racist, sexist and haphazardly implemented, all designed to terrorize people attempting to exercise their right to seek asylum.
Faith Goldy, an alt-right champion who appeared in an interview on a white nationalist site, speaks outside Wilfrid Laurier Univesity in March 2018.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Hannah Yoon
Free speech may protect offensive speech, but we degrade this central right when we see it as simply the right to offend, regardless of the impact on others.
Cape Town narrowly avoided “Day Zero,” but that doesn’t mean the city is resilient to future water shortages.
(Pixabay)
Cape Town faced down “Day Zero” earlier this year, but that doesn’t mean its water system is resilient. Other cities should also take note.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, seen here walking on the front lawn of the Ontario Legislature in June, is vowing to deliver on his campaign promise to scrap the “disastrous” cap-and-trade system and fight a federal carbon tax.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
Ontario and Saskatchewan are vociferously fighting the federal government’s carbon tax efforts. But rather than back down, Ottawa should embrace a simple, fair and transparent “carbon dividend.”
