Oct 15 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — During the 40 years between 1970 and 2010, new democracies suddenly erupted across the globe. The turbulent year of 1973 saw only 45 of the world’s 151 nations were reported by Freedom House to actually be “free.” Portugal, Spain and Greece were subjected to dictatorships, the Soviet Union and its satellite nations appeared secure, Mao […]
Oct 9 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Electoral contests are hardly ever about the world in which Canada seeks to excel. This election is no different. A decade ago, one leadership candidate for a national party touted the idea of Canada being the world’s first international nation. He spoke of how millions in the world wanted to migrate to our shores, how […]
Oct 2 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — There is little question that global democracy has hit a speed bump. The many flirtations with populism cascading through Europe and America were too often accompanied by an extremism that made general populations uncomfortable. As hatred, racism and alt-right movements used political turbulence and vulnerabilities to show their true colours, millions of voters and citizens […]
Sep 10 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — For political junkies, there’s been no time like it. The embroiled happenings in Britain, America, and less frequently France, Germany and Russia have turned these days into a kind of madness that hasn’t been seen in decades. The spectacle of democracy falling apart on countless screens in real time, hour upon hour, can bring one […]
Aug 27 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — The G7 in France, now concluded, held little in the way of significance. There was the odd surprise (Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif’s drop-in visit) and Justin Trudeau’s pledge of over half the group’s combined total to fight the Amazon forest fires, but ultimately the summit was about containing any damage instilled by the American […]
Aug 20 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — We are all endeavouring to enjoy the fading days of summer before the hyper-activity of the federal election fires up. The political parties have used the warmer days to hit the hustings in an attempt to tenderize voters for the melee that is about to ensue. But this election will be held against a backdrop […]
Aug 15 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — We know it’s coming and it will be confounding. The use of fake news, “Black Ops,” and digital algorithms designed to skew reality are about to become part and parcel of the next federal election campaign scheduled for a few months from now. We look on, aghast, at the social media shenanigans south of the […]
Aug 5 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — “Well, Mr. Pearson, you might be in the wrong business.” Deepak Obhrai said the words in such a genial manner that I could only smile in return. It was early in my political time as an MP in Parliament when Obhrai stopped me on my way down the stairs leading to the underground tunnel between […]
Jul 16 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Like it or not, and whether it is indeed an accurate assessment, the terms “populism” and “class war” are increasingly creeping into our political language the closer we get to this fall’s federal election. Numerous pundits have spent the past year assuring Canadians that nothing like Brexit or the Trump phenomenon would happen here in […]
Jul 2 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — During my former parliamentary tenure (2006-2011), there were those rare occasions when we would commiserate as MPs from different parties about just how caustic political life was becoming. There were inevitably expressed concerns about how long the public would tolerate the kind of mean partisanship displayed in the House and on the news. We knew […]
Jun 19 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — “I have become radicalized … I now think the rampant individualism of our current culture is a catastrophe. The whole cultural paradigm has to shift from the mindset of hyper-individualism to the relational mindset.” These words, coming from one of America’s great conservative commentators, are revolutionary in their own way – not so much a […]
Jun 4 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Writing in the Washington Post this past week, Fareed Zakaria noted that the hard edge of populism might be on the wane. Citing a lessening in tensions on the issues of immigration and lack of economic opportunity, he nevertheless wrote: “In both cases, the crisis appears to be over, but the fury remains.” Indeed it […]
May 23 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Sometimes we can all be pretty dumb. Seriously, we make assumptions based upon our belief that our positions are well thought out and we wonder how those with opposing views can be so naïve. I’ve encountered a lot of this lately, as a conservative mindset sweeps across much of the world. Those holding to such […]
May 17 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — It’s tough to blame him. In its own way it seemed kind of inevitable. Francis Fukuyama was little known to the outside world in 1989, but his star was rising within the American State Department. And his timing was perfect when he published The End of History and the Last Man six months prior to […]
Apr 30 2019 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Is it true? Is a Blue Conservative wave sweeping Canada as in so much of the rest of the world? Andrew Cohen provided some clues in his Ottawa Citizen article when he wrote that, provincially, five provinces led by Liberals or NDP have been defeated by Conservatives in the last three years. Jason Kenney’s win […]