Reading Time: 4 minutes Being tested and labelled at an early age can have a devastating effect on a child’s self-esteem and intellectual potential
Author: Doreen Barrie
Doreen Barrie is an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at the University of Calgary.
She has published a book on Alberta entitled The Other Alberta: Decoding a Political Enigma and wrote a biography on Ralph Klein for the book Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century. She did the study on Party Financing in Alberta for the Royal Commission on Electoral Reform and Party Financing and has written Sacred Trust or Political Football: A Citizen’s Guide to Canadian Health Care. She is currently working on water issues. She wrote an article in the journal Australasian Canadian Studies entitled “Water Fight: The Tarsands and Other Threats to Alberta’s Water.”
Who said Alberta was a bastion of conservatism?
Reading Time: 3 minutes The province has long been on the cutting edge of political innovation, despite what some would have us believe
The fundamental flaw of populist politics
Reading Time: 4 minutes The populist trinity of direct democracy – initiative, referendum and recall – is incompatible with the Canadian political system
Second line of O Canada should read “Our home on native land”
Reading Time: 4 minutes One small change to the words of O Canada will remind us of our historic debt and help facilitate broader knowledge of Indigenous issues
Let’s be honest: consumers are the main contributors to climate change
Reading Time: 4 minutes Governments are unwilling to curb consumption, the main driver of the economy. So it is up to each of us to become more thoughtful consumers
High noon at the Senate
Reading Time: 4 minutes The sleeping giant has only just started to twitch. If that giant is fully awake, the consequences for democracy could be disastrous
Electoral reform by any other name is still progress
Reading Time: 4 minutes Relax party discipline to dent the iron control of a majority government, forcing it to make compromises and behave less like a dictatorship
Is Trudeau’s warranty running out?
Reading Time: 3 minutes The botched electoral reform initiative and the access-for-cash mess highlight a growing disconnect between the voters and the Liberals
Sharing the wealth is the Canadian – and Albertan – way
Reading Time: 3 minutes Wildrose’s attack on equalization payments is based on a skewed view of the program and a lack of respect for the true Alberta perspective
Cracking open Canada’s health-care oyster
Reading Time: 3 minutes Court case in B.C. will force us to look with real clarity at our health system and how it measures up to others around the world