Jun 20 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — In the parliamentary calendar, it is inevitable that the subject of Question Period’s dysfunction will emerge, often with a twinge of anger. It’s happening again in these last few days, led by the Toronto Star researching into the veracity and truthfulness of that one time in the House where the government must account for its […]
Jun 19 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — I caught his stare as I was brought into the House of Commons for the first time and just couldn’t read it. It was late-2006, shortly after I had won a by-election as a Liberal in London, Ontario. Paul Dewar had entered the House as a newcomer for the NDP only a few months before. […]
Jun 12 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — It was hardly much ado about nothing. In fact, there’s been nothing like it in decades. Donald Trump’s erratic utterances before, during and following the recent G7 meetings effectively kept the world attentive and coming unglued at the same time. The irony of the American president wanting a chair at the table for the Soviet […]
Jun 7 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — It’s Election Day in Ontario and many remain as confused as ever as to the choice they must make. Too many have said that they’re not heading to the ballot box this year because elections themselves no longer provide the outcomes people hope for. There’s a lot of truth to this, and should be acknowledged. […]
May 23 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — “Political life is like a big wheel: constantly turning. At times you are up, at times down. But always, the wheel keeps moving,” noted former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. That remains so for many politicians even after their political days have ended. Typically, there are the three acts in a politician’s life: life before, […]
Apr 24 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — The headlines have been fairly consistent. “Canada Introduces a New Era in Peacekeeping,” notes Legion magazine. “UN Peacekeeping in a New Era,” is the title of a policy piece by the Routledge Group. The Globe and Mail headline read, “Liberals Grapple with a New Era of Peacekeeping.” It’s remains a difficult thing to discern exactly […]
Apr 17 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Robin Sears’ article, posted in Sunday’s Toronto Star, was a cogent warning on the implications of extreme populism. Titled “The Fatal Attraction of the Politics of Confrontation,” the column reminds us of what inevitably happens if we opt for leaders who would rather attack democracy as opposed to reforming it: “But the problem with those […]
Mar 27 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — In 2016, some 18.2 million Canadians used Facebook, and until the platform’s seismic struggles in the past two weeks that number was expected to grow to 20 million. It has a 75% reach among Canadian internet users and has twice as high a user rate than Twitter. More than half of Facebook users are women […]
Feb 27 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — The contrast was stark – and telling. En route back to Canada following a trip to South Sudan, our team was on a layover at Frankfurt. Eager for news – any news – I purchased a Time magazine, poring over its pages to see if anything significant had transpired while we were disconnected from the […]
Feb 14 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Is the world getting better or worse? It’s a ridiculous question really – not just because it depends on who you ask, but because a single answer proves impossible. The conclusion can only be that it is both. Plenty of research has been published legitimizing both arguments. As a kid growing up in Calgary in […]
Feb 6 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of us, are feeling the tug to just give up. We shun giving in because we instinctively understand that the direction much of the world is travelling is inequitable and unsustainable. Yet a kind of resignation is confronting so many of us as we sense that little we do seems […]
Jan 31 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — In a modern hurried-up world, they rank as some of the least understood or acknowledged forces for policy, diplomacy, human justice or humanitarianism. There are less than 200 of them in a world of billions and inevitably become the face of their country. I’m speaking of ambassadors. They are everywhere and nowhere at the same […]
Jan 9 2018 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — My wife and I leave in a few days to lead a humanitarian team into South Sudan. A trek we make every year at this time, this coming visit is occurring during a time of dramatic challenge in South Sudan specifically, and Africa in general. In various African nations, youth are increasingly coming onside for […]
Dec 26 2017 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — Journalists can be forgiven for growing jaded over time. Covering politics can prove to be a deep struggle of getting facts from those seeking to shelter them. More often than not journalists know they are being played. “The media are less a window on reality, than a stage on which officials perform self-scripted, self-serving functions,” […]
Dec 5 2017 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — As decisions go, the passing of the Republican tax cut bill could have the most profound consequences for any nation having economic relations with the United States, including, and perhaps especially, Canada. Nobel Prize winner and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote of how all the lies surrounding the initiative, “show the rot spreads […]