Ottawa is a strange place. But the trial of Mike Duffy is weird even by its standards, as I explain in C2C Journal in the only format that seemed suitable to the occasion.
The final episode of Reality University Podcast is up. It deals with one of the great heroes in the struggle for liberty, Sir Edward Coke.
This coming Monday the organizers are releasing an online version of the speech on Magna Carta I gave at the Essentials of Freedom Conference in Calgary and selling tickets for those who want to watch it and join me for an online Q&A session afterward. Go here for details.
The 800th anniversary of Magna Carta is just 12 days away now. June 15 2015 is Magna Carta Day. Well, not in Ontario. A private members’ bill from Julia Monro (MPP York Simcoe) to make June 15 officially Magna Carta Day in this province is bottled up in committee and will likely languish if not die there since the legislature will rise on June 4 and won’t sit again until Sept. 14. They must be tired or something. Technically committees can meet in between so the bill could get reported out. But Third Reading must wait until fall if it ever happens.
Now I realize that private members’ bills rarely pass and it’s generally a lengthy process for those that do. Arguably it could go faster as a rule. But certainly when you’re looking at the 800th anniversary of what is widely agreed to be one of the most important events in our entire history, MPPs across party lines could have moved this particular bill along faster given that it was first introduced on July 24 of last year. Assuming they intend to move it at all.
On the plus side, we can celebrate Magna Carta even without the politicians.
My new podcast "Reality University" is now available. It offers a weekly look at the big questions that affect our common life and the key ideas (and books) that help us understand the world around us.
Please drop by and audit a few classes and consider signing up. Because as Philip K. Dick once said, "Reality is that which when you stop believing in it, it doesn't go away."
My latest for the IRPP asks how Ontario legislators can pass a vast new social program whose details have apparently yet to be determined.
In my latest National Post column I criticize the notion that we can find the answers to moral questions in a math textbook.
You can listen to my conversation with Andrew Lawton on AM980 about the Magna Carta project below; it starts at 39:47. https://soundcloud.com/am980/andrew-lawton-show-march-16th-2015