In my latest Mercatornet piece I argue that Australians, too, owe their firmly grounded self-government to the long and often violent struggle for liberty throughout the English-speaking world. (On which see also, of course, my documentaries on Magna Carta and the Right to Arms.)
If you're in the Ottawa area on Oct. 30 please consider joining MP David Anderson (Cypress Hills-Grasslands, and Shadow Cabinet Secretary for International Human Rights and Religious Freedom), Janet Epp Buckingham (Director of Trinity Western University's Laurentian Leadership Centre), Jay Cameron (Litigation Manager for the Justice Centre for Canadian Freedoms) and myself to discuss "Canadian Freedoms: Growing Threats?" at the Parliamentary Forum on Canadian Freedoms.
It's in Room 430, Wellington Building (197 Sparks St.) from 7 to 9 p.m. on Monday Oct. 30 and it is open to the public. But you need to RSVP to David Anderson's Legislative Assistant Tristan McLaughlin (613-995-1616 or david.anderson.a1@parl.gc.ca) and you will need photo ID for admission to the Parliamentary premises.
I'll be talking about Magna Carta, how Parliament evolved to protect the freedoms guaranteed in the Great Charter, and how the weakening of Parliament in recent decades threatens our liberties.
In my latest National Post column I argue that the federal Liberals' contempt for truth explains their contempt for Parliament.
"It is one of the deep jokes of existence that very wise people and very ignorant people frequently say the same thing; perhaps it is the basis of democracy."
G.K. Chesterton in Daily News Feb. 23, 1907, quoted in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 10 #1 (September 2006)
In my latest National Post column I lament that the Speaker of the BC legislature seems to have become just one more partisan tool for control of the executive branch instead of a bulwark of legislative independence in defence of self-government.
In my latest National Post column I caution aboriginal militants against putting forward apparently insatiable demands in an insensitive, arrogant tone.
“It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people cant be governed at all. Or if they could I never heard of it."
Sheriff Ed Tom Bell in Cormac McCarthy No Country for Old Men
In my latest National Post column I ask how Canadians are meant to understand their system of government when party leaders like Elizabeth May clearly don't.