Category: Opinion

  • Planet Waves: The Election, Saturn and the Great Attractor

    Planet Waves: The Election, Saturn and the Great Attractor

    Dear Friend and Reader: It’s political season in the U.S. of A. Unlike most countries, where they get in and out of the elections, here in the States we have an endless phase of quarter finals, semi-finals, demi-finals, playoffs, and finally, the final finals.. The presidential race goes on for two years, with many hundreds…

  • What Canadian First Nations can Learn from New Zealand’s Maori

    How Indigenous-led business partnerships can lead the way By James Wilson, Advisor, EvidenceNetwork.ca WINNIPEG, Man./ Troy Media/ – Moving Manitoba’s Indigenous peoples from the liability to asset column was a topic that consumed some of Manitoba’s most innovative First Nations and mainstream business minds during a two-day ‘design-thinking boot camp’ recently. It was facilitated by Karl Wixon…

  • Assisted Suicide a Deadly New Form of Normal

    The Supreme Court’s Carter decision set the floor, not the ceiling, according to one proponent By Peter Stockland, Senior Fellow, Cardus HAMILTON, Ont./ Troy Media/ – Euthanasia? Assisted suicide? There’s an app for that. Or there soon might be, the executive director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association told a joint Senate-Commons committee this week. The committee…

  • Canada Pension Plan is not ‘low cost’

    Despite its reputation, the cost of the CPP is actually above the average for comparable plans By Philip Cross and Charles Lammam, The Fraser Institute OTTAWA, Ont. and VANCOUVER, B.C./ Troy Media/ – A recent meeting of Canada’s finance ministers rightly put the brakes on the federal government’s proposal to expand the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). After…

  • Oil is a Blessing for Alberta – Not a Curse

    Oil is a Blessing for Alberta – Not a Curse

    Even in bad times, Alberta benefits significantly from its natural resources By Steve Lafleur and Kenneth P. Green, The Fraser Institute VANCOUVER, B.C./ Troy Media/ – Ever since oil prices began declining from historic highs, it’s become fashionable to claim that Alberta – and Canada – bet it all on oil and lost. It’s an “I told…

  • Justin Trudeau’s Vision of Canada Lacks Substance and Clear Intent

    Justin Trudeau’s Vision of Canada Lacks Substance and Clear Intent

    We should not equate change with progress, but we should expect real leadership from our prime minister By Peter Stockland, Senior Fellow, Cardus HAMILTON, Ont./Troy Media/ – Justin Trudeau’s penchant for platitudes masks an unwillingness – or inability – to tell the difference between progress and change. Waggish columnist John Robson observes in the National Post that…

  • Will Anyone Even Notice When Newspapers are Gone?

    Will Anyone Even Notice When Newspapers are Gone?

      Newspapers now seem so irrelevant to civic life that not even nostalgic moneybags want to preserve them By Peter Stockland, Senior Fellow, Cardus HAMILTON, Ont. / Troy Media/ – Thirty-five years ago, bankruptcies of two major daily newspapers prompted such concern across Canada that a royal commission was struck to inquire into the future of the…

  • Non-Unionized Wage Freeze a Good Start – But a Drop in the Bucket for Bloated Salaries

    Non-Unionized Wage Freeze a Good Start – But a Drop in the Bucket for Bloated Salaries

    By Paige MacPerson CALGARY, AB: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) says the Alberta government’s wage freeze for non-unionized employees is a step in the right direction, but doesn’t go far enough. “It’s good to see the government looking for savings in wages, but it does little to fill the hole of the government’s $8.9 billion…

  • Patient User Fees are Compatible with Universal Health Care

    Patient User Fees are Compatible with Universal Health Care

    It’s no coincidence that countries with cost-sharing programs in place have waiting times significantly shorter than those in Canada By Steven Globerman, Senior Fellow, The Fraser Institute BELLINGHAM, WA/ Troy Media/ – A prominent feature of Canada’s health-care system, as mandated by the Canada Health Act, is the absence of any charge for publicly insured health-care services…

  • TransCanada Lawsuit Spotlights Weak Climate Change Connection to Keystone

    TransCanada Lawsuit Spotlights Weak Climate Change Connection to Keystone

    Rejection of the pipeline was never about climate change By Kenneth P. Green and Taylor Jackson, The Fraser Institute Jan 13, 2016/ Troy Media/ – The Keystone XL saga has taken a new twist. On Jan. 6, TransCanada (the company that would have built and operated the Alberta to Texas pipeline) launched two lawsuits over U.S. President…

  • Postmedia Rumoured to be Closing Some Sun Media papers

    Are the Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa Suns’ days numbered? By Terry Field Contributor Troy Media CALGARY, Alta./ Troy Media/ – Maybe coming to a city near you – if you live in Calgary, Edmonton or Ottawa – is a new daily newspaper called the Herald Sun or the Sun Journal. This new product would be…

  • Health care should be modernized, not privatized

    Health care should be modernized, not privatized

    Two-tier care and extra-billing being sold to the public as strategies for saving health care By Bryan Thomas Research Associate Centre for Health Law University of Ottawa and Colleen Flood Expert Advisor EvidenceNetwork.ca OTTAWA, Ont./ Troy Media/ – National Medicare Week has just passed, buoyed with optimism as a fresh-faced government takes the reins in…

  • Notley Needs to Rethink Toll Roads for Alberta

    Notley Needs to Rethink Toll Roads for Alberta

    Toll roads are a perfect fit with the NDP government’s environmental agenda By Steve Lafleur and Kenneth Green, The Fraser Institute CALGARY, Alta./ Troy Media/ – Alberta Premier Rachel Notley needs to swiftly revisit her government’s decision not to implement road tolls to help pay for the province’s highway infrastructure. Road tolls are not only a socially…

  • France, Islam, terrorism and the challenges of integration: Research roundup

    France, Islam, terrorism and the challenges of integration: Research roundup

      A Nov. 13, 2015 string of terrorist attacks across Paris that killed 129 people has again raised concerns across French society about jihadist violence and ISIS-inspired domestic terrorism. The tragedy comes in the wake of several other attacks in France in 2015, including an attack on an American-owned chemical factory near Lyon in June 2015 and two in January 2015,…

  • Why the Trudeau Liberals Won’t Deliver Real Change on the Economy

    The Harper government’s most important, most fundamental fiscal and economic reforms will remain intact By Ian Lee, Assistant Professor, Sprott School of Business, Carleton University OTTAWA, Ont./ Troy Media/ – A clear narrative emerged during Election 2015 and is fast drying into hard concrete: that this election was all about change. Indeed, it seems a remarkable number of…