February 2015

In wake of great loss, a reminder to make the world a better place

on Feb 23, 2015
Posted by Tasha Hubbard

The tributes emerged mid-afternoon on February 10th, as the news that four artists had died in a horrific car accident that killed five people north of Regina.

Michelle Sereda’s was the first name to emerge, and the close-knit arts family of Regina began to mourn.  Michelle had been a long-time figure in the performance, theatre and movement arts community. The next name heard was Lacy Morin-Desjarlais, who was a young woman recently returned to her homeland, also working in theatre and dance. The afternoon waned as the sadness of many continued to rise.

Late in the evening,...

The Unbalanced Thinking Behind A Balanced Budget Law

on Feb 21, 2015
Posted by Andrew Jackson

The Harper government claims to be paragons of fiscal virtue. They have pledged to balance the federal budget this year, notwithstanding a slowing economy, and are likely set to announce details of  the balanced budget legislation promised in the 2013 Speech from the Throne. 

The promised legislation will disallow annual deficits in “normal economic times” (whatever they are) and “set concrete targets for returning to balance in the event of an economic crisis.” 

Balanced budget legislation is a bad idea since it would remove the flexibility which is needed to set fiscal...

Can Pope Francis make ecology critical to the identity of the faithful?

on Feb 18, 2015
Posted by Bill Blaikie

This year Pope Francis is expected to deliver an encyclical on ecology, one concerning the environment broadly and perhaps climate change more particularly.

Believers and non-believers alike, united by a common concern for the future of the planet, have high hopes that someone who chose to name himself after that great lover of creation, Francis of Assisi, will say something truly transformational, for as a Canadian Council of Churches document lamentably observes, transformative change has not “found traction within political processes.”  

Whatever Pope Francis says, it will...