Author: Rick

Iqualuit has finally entered the mainstream of Canadian culture by opening its own Tim Hortons. It may be just a self-serve kiosk, but it’s a Tim’s and the locals love it. A local Inuit elder even lit a candle and said a prayer at the grand opening. The Iqaluit location is one of three Tim’s

The women accusing Julian Assange of sexual misconduct were not initially wanting charges to be laid. I don’t want to dwell too much on the Julian Assange Wikileaks story, but here’s an interesting story in the National Post – Swedish women did not want Assange charged. The report says both women were associates (or admirers

Here’s a video interview of Julian Assange, the key spokesperson for Wikileaks. This video is from April 2010. It was originally broadcast on the English AlJazeera network. Believe it or not his cell phone rings near the beginning of the interview.

Is Wikileaks a much more sinister group than most people think? The release of sensitive (and classified) documents by Wikileaks last week was met with a relatively muted response from just about everyone. Perhaps it is because the general perception of Wikileaks is that it is an organization with what looks like an admirable objective

No one familiar with the Enbridge pipeline proposal should be surprised that First Nations groups affected by the proposal have banded together to oppose it. The proposed pipeline would carry unrefined bitument from the Alberta oil sands across the Rocky Mountains to the town of Kitimat on the Pacific Ocean. Alternative route to move oil

This video was recently produced by Pacific Wild and posted on the website Pipe Up Against Engridge. Oil in Eden: The Battle to Protect Canada’s Pacific Coast from Pacific Wild on Vimeo.

Canadians politicians and diplomats are generally relieved that the lastest disclosures from Wikileaks do not have much to say about Canada. Yes there are a grand total of 5 documents (out of a total of 2600) which contain some mildly critical comments and observations aimed at Canada. But that’s nothing compared to what they might

Here is an interesting article by Fen Montaigne on the warming of Antarctica and the melting of Antarctic ice. One would expect that signs of global warming would be most evident at the points with the harshest climates – the hottest areas on earth and the coldest. Especially the coldest. I have read elsewhere that

Since we’re talking about the monarchy a lot these days. I thought I’d make some proposals for “King of Canada”. I would like to see us start our own monarchy in Canada, and I can’t think of a better person than Don Cherry to serve as KofC. As we all know, Don even looks great

There’s an interstesting story about the Canadian cell phone business in the November (2010) issue of The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business. The focus of the article is on Egyptian billionaire entrepreneur Naguib Sawiris and his upstart wireless company called Wind Mobile. The revelations about the Canadian wireless industry are intriguing, to say the

We’ve recently been bombarded with news of the upcoming British royal wedding between Prince William and Kate Middleton, and there is suddenly renewed interest in the British monarchy. The CBC, for example ran a phone-in last Sunday in which people were asked “Will the royal wedding renew interest in the monarchy in Canada?” (or something

So today the Conservatives in the Canadian Senate voted down the NDP’s climate change bill that had been bouncing around for years. Big deal. Harper haters are up in arms about what they see as the anti-democratic nature of the move. A bill passed by a majority of elected MPs has now been quashed by

After 13 years of fighting an application for the creation of a quarry in Caledon (near Mississauga) the OMB has turned down the application. The OMB ruled that the proposed Rockfort Quarry could possibly have a “catastrophic impact” on the surrounding environment if measures to guard against potential problems did not work. The Coalition of

In this article from the Globe and Mail called Does Ontario’s Green Energy Act pass the ‘net benefit’ test? the author, Jatin Nathwani from the University of Waterloo argues that there are serious problems with the Green Energy Act of Ontario. These problems put our entire electrical supply system in jeopardy and make its sustainability questionable. The most

Prime Minister Stephen Harper made it clear last week that it is likely there will be an extension of Canadian military involvment in Afghanistan. The government had previously committed to having all Canadian soldiers out of Afghanistan by the end of next July (2011). Has the government been misleading Canadians? Some media are interpreting this

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, In

Canadian attack of Vimy Ridge, April 16, 1917 – Library and Archives Canada In an op-ed piece in the National Post Matt Gurney argues that Remembrance Day (November 11) should not be made a statutory holiday in Ontario . There are good arguments on both sides of this debate, but generally I agree with Gurney.

In his book Ethical Oil author and activist Ezra Levant argues that attempts to replace carbon based energy – in this case, oil from the Alberta oil sands – with renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar have been an “unmitigated disaster” [p207] in Spain, and by extension, other countries such as Germany. This

There was much consternation amongst UN observers, and a fair bit of self-satisfied clucking coming from UN-detractors over the proposed makeup of a powerful new United Nations agency aimed at promoting equality for women. Countries like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and some questionable African countries with terrible records on women’s equality have been lobbying to

In Part 1 called How Conestogo Got Its Name – Part 1 I offered some background into the relationship between Conestogo Ontario and an area in southeastern Pennsylvania where the name originated. Actually it is not correct to suggest that Conestogo Ontario was named after the town called Conestoga in Lancaster Pennsylvania. As I mentioned