Policy Options

OPTIONS POLITIQUES : Monsieur le Premier ministre, merci d’avoir accepté de nous rencontrer. Quand vous faites le bilan de votre premié€re année au pouvoir, comment évaluez-vous vos réussites et...

Afghanistan in the past five years has obviously undergone tremendous change. We also face tremendous challenges in many, many areas, and you can appreciate as Canadians more so today...

Western Canada seems to be hogging all of the economic headlines lately. Highest job growth in the country. Soaring wages. Construction activity leading all provinces. It goes on and...

Great political events are rarely what they appear, or are reported, to be. The best politicians conjure their triumphs and are always practised at the art of deception. There...

On peut, bien sër, se fier aux sondages faits tout de suite après l’élection de Stéphane Dion au congrès libéral de décembre dernier pour noter une hausse ”” significative mais...

Ce soir du 29 septembre 1981, Pierre Elliott Trudeau donne une conférence de presse par satellite. Il est aÌ€ Séoul, en Corée du Sud, en route pour l’Australie, ouÌ€...

There were over 900 media registered at the Liberal Party convention in Montreal last December. The mass of media in a single location was larger than anything in recent...

Norman Davies’s acclaimed masterpiece Europe: A History (1996) contains a very intriguing account of the fall in 212 BCE of the Greco-Sicilian city of Syracuse to the Romans. The...

The election of Stéphane Dion as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada capped a process of democratic activism rarely seen in this country. Many observers called the party’s...

Canadians don’t equate Charter values with Canadian values, while more than two Canadians out of three would support an amendment to include same-sex rights, as well as property rights,...

Mythology in the capturing and transmitting of a country’s history is both unavoidable and not without value. But there are times when the distortions offered by the myth-makers can...

Si presque tous les Canadiens s’entendent pour recon- naiÌ‚tre que le rapatriement de la Constitution, en avril 1982, et l’enchaÌ‚ssement dans cette Constitution d’une Charte des droits et libertés...

In the words of the late, great American economist Milton Friedman, ”œNothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” By targeting groups with specific characteristics ”” such as...

It is surely only in Canada, besotted as we are by all things constitutional, that something called the ”œnotwithstanding clause” could find a place in the lex- icon of...

In 1975, at a conference celebrating the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Supreme Court of Canada, my colleague Stephen Scott was asked what he would recom- mend...

When the Charter of Rights and Freedoms became part of Canada’s constitution in 1982, language rights were enshrined in section 16. So what are language rights, anyway? Are they...

Multiculturalism is under fire again in Europe as well as North America. David Brooks of the New York Times proclaims ”œthe death of multicultur- alism.” Trevor Phillips, Chairman of...

Few people would have predicted in 1982 that about two-thirds of all Charter decisions by the Supreme Court would involve the rights of those accused of crimes. The legal...

The reaction to the 2005 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in Chaoulli v. Quebec on the part of staunch defenders of our public system was most perplexing....

The debate surrounding the Charter of Rights has focused unduly on the issue of judicial power. The introduction of the Charter has done little to chal- lenge the dominance...

Parler de l’intention des constituants qui ont donné naissance aÌ€ la Charte canadienne des droits et libertés est problématique. D’abord on peut se demander : qui étaient-ils? Sans doute,...

SEPTEMBER 17, 1984 On the first day in the life of the new government, it is fitting that I should deal with acid rain, a file where the Trudeau...

The title of Ambassador conjures up a glamorous image of an ele- gantly dressed, be-medalled figure, inhabiting a large mansion, and chauffeured magisterially in a long car, ”œavec le...

Quand je fais de la correction, j’ai tendance aÌ€ repousser les travaux qui risquent d’é‚tre décevants au bas de la pile, pour com- mencer par les plus prometteurs. Je...