Unpublished Op-Ed submitted to The Toronto Star
The inanity of a first-past -the-post election system is played out again for the Canadian voters who dutifully play their role every four years. The main political parties (Liverals / Conservatives) parade out their list of promises and their costs like barkers in a carny show. With false smiles they assure voters they will deliver. They lie. The NDP and the Green lie less but can’t get elected. Continue reading →
Unpublished Op-Ed submitted to The Star
It would appear that elementary school education is going to hell in a handcart according to the Doug Ford government and the negative figures coming out of EQAO Math scores. The education minister blames “discovery math.” The problem is far more complex than that. The public and the government has no one to blame other than themselves after decades of grossly under-funding education, a politically sensitive revolving-door curriculum with every new government, patronizing elementary teachers who are predominantly women and failing to recognize the deep and dramatic changes that have occurred in society. Continue reading →
Unpublished Op-Ed submitted to the Toronto Star. Additions have been made.
Gullible, narrow-minded voters who so eagerly embraced the carny barker in Doug Ford are now seeing what the real show is. Mike Harris 2. He has trotted out the well-worn and much used mantra of white, male, neoconservatives: cutting corporate liability and taxes, cutting a broad swath of critically needed public services and supports under the auspices of reducing the deficit and getting there by attacking working Ontarians and their wages. Ontario is open for business. This means business in the 1880s when there were no restrictions on corporations or industrial activity much like the current climate in China and the Far East where environmental, labour and all kinds of other kinds of social protections are absent. These were what made North America so great but globalization ended all that. Continue reading →
To rebuild or not to rebuild – that is the question. Following the devastating fire in the iconic architectural wonder and religious symbol our priorities as a society are on full display. In a world of desperate poverty, disease, pollution, refugee camps and the survivors of war is it moral to spend billions rebuilding Notre Dame? The answer should be an emphatic no but capitalism and the Catholic church have other ideas. However, if we only respond at this surface level seeing Notre Dame as an architectural and religious icon to be preserved we miss the point of the cathedral fire. Continue reading →
Unpublished Op-Ed submitted to the Toronto Star
The Ford government’s clumsy attempts to deal with the issue of funding IBI therapy for autism is a short and long-term deception intended to placate irate parents. Continue reading →
Unpublished Op-Ed submitted to the Toronto Star
Increasing class sizes, getting back to the basics and revoking the sex-ed curriculum reflects more of the Luddite, regressive and dismissive political thinking of the Ford government and of all governments. Unlike doctors or lawyers, education is based on political whims rather than educational research and is why we cannot make any progress. Continue reading →
Unpublished Op-Ed submitted to the Toronto Star
The recently revealed fraud amongst pharmacists is another in a long list of scandals that are the tip of the iceberg of capitalism. Capitalism is the son of patriarchy. Patriarchy has been the primary meta-ideology of society for about six millennia and it has not gone well. Patriarchal values are male-dominated, authoritarian, hierarchical, controlling and violent. Continue reading →
Unpublished Op-Ed submitted to the Toronto Star
The recent patronage appointment of a failed PC candidate Cameron Montgomery as CEO of the EQAO testing agency with a fat salary is another insult to educators in Ontario. It follows upon the establishment of a ‘snitch’ line for parents to report teacher misconduct. Now we have a CEO elect with a political ax to grind. Continue reading →
More and more we give less and less thought or attention to the nature and reality of our Canadian democracy. We collectively assume that democracy has been achieved and we can get on with our lives. Continue reading →
As the world searches for solutions to the endemic and seemingly intractable violence and conflict in Syria, the Middle East, Yemen, Africa, and around the globe, we almost invariably seek military, political or economic answers while ignoring the forest for the trees. We are looking in the wrong place and using the wrong lens. Continue reading →
