It's been a while before I posted anything here. Before I start doing so again, here are some thoughts on some issues from the past few months. I'm sure I had a lot more opinions to share with you my beloved audience but these are the ones I remember, in chronological order.
Olympics: When it comes to sports, we are a country of drama queens. We bemoan the lacklustre efforts of our athletes when no medals are forthcoming and demand increased funding. Demands which, invariably, will be forgotten only weeks later. Nobody cares about our swimmers and rowers between Olympics. Of course, the disappoinment of the first week is forgotten once we start winning medals in the events where we are actually expected to perform well.
EU-Canada FTA: Great announcement from Foreign Affairs. Liberalizing trade with the EU is a great thing for Canada. The Canadian goverment has started a trend of signing bilateral free trade agreeements (Chile, Israel, Peru). Let's hope it continues. The Doha Round has demonstrated the futility of multi-lateral agreements.
Election 2008: What a boring election campaign. I can't believe a few hundred million dollars of arts funding is the most exciting issue. Have the Conservatives said anything about their platform?
Financial Crisis: Where do these people get off predicting a downturn on the magnitude of the Great Depression? Even if they are eventually proven correct (which I doubt very much) we are far from the point where the term 'depression' applies. The alarmists on the Left especially are having a field day with this. Eric Hobsbawm, for one, is calling this a dramatic shift away from the capitalist paradigm. Surely one of the 20th century's most celebrated historians should know that his craft is best practiced in retrospect.
Queen's/Carleton: I was ashamed of my personal connection to Queen's for a few days after the introduction of the Stasi as official campus police (I wonder if the squads will be as relentless in stamping out careless blasphemies - somehow I think not). That is until everyone's attention was drawn to Carleton and their racist/sexist student union. I suspect the majority of student unions have similar tendencies but at least most of them have the decency to keep it under wraps. I just hope that the recent ridiculousness will deflate the sails of the political correction movement a little. And maybe the public outrage will even spillover against those funny human rights commissions. One can always hope.
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