I had almost forgotten the time line. But it is now 15 years since Like Father, Like Son: Ernest Manning and Preston Manning (ECW Press, 1997) emerged from my computer, went through an editor’s mind, then a printing press, before turning itself into a book. This was a true story, written from a faith-political interface […]

There it was, in the first paragraph of one of the 20 or so news releases from various corners of Parliament, stacked in my e-mail inbox this morning. There was what? The magic word, of course. Lutherwood. It was like red meat for a faith-political journalistic beast. Like Calvin Institute, Wesley Acres, St. Patrick, Mormon […]

How often do individuals or groups, believing they are on the highest moral ground, fall into ethical lapses that bring harm to their own political or religious stance? That sort of question has been floating around the hallways of Parliament the past couple of weeks, as the “roboscam” and other related issues have been playing […]

How do you get the government to listen, anyway? Or the opposition, for that matter? One way is to very carefully prepare a brief for a standing committee, whose makeup comes from all political parties. The brief may not get much public attention, although the group presenting it may have its own ways of letting […]

Chuck Strahl is one of the new Trudeau mentors. It is quite an honour, and a good way to make use of the experience he gained in the almost two decades he spent in the House of Commons. Strahl was one of the original “class of ’93” Reformers and, in Stephen Harper’s minority government, held […]

Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi found himself being bashed, nationally, a few days ago, for his effort to reduce conflict among members of his city council. At the root of the bashing was a somewhat contentious decision the mayor had taken, to have a psychologist/facilitator meet with council members. Nenshi was a surprise winner in the […]

Lee Strobel is an apologist. No, he has nothing for which to apologize. The “apologist” moniker relates to the increasingly professional practice of providing friendly and informed venues for defending and/or explaining the Christian faith. Apologists are not evangelists or pastors, exactly, but they can, at their best, provide considerable support for both of those […]

“The difficulty with the ‘big society’ concept, as it is being worked out in Great Britain, is that, as it stands, we have an emerging ‘small state and small society.’” I will not name the originator of that quote. It came earlier this month from a visitor from Great Britain who was commenting on my […]