Mar 5 2022 — Glen Pearson — London Free Press — Perhaps we just can’t do it anymore. Canadians have spent the last 155 years disagreeing about everything. What else can we expect from a country of 10 provinces, three territories, more than 200 languages, 15 religions (more if you count indigenous spirituality, which we should), and an endless array of political opinions?
Feb 28 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — It now appears that Vladimir Putin greatly overestimated his military might or underestimated Ukraine’s. The answer is likely both. Ukraine demonstrates remarkable prowess and adaptability against what many thought a Russian juggernaut. Their skill in fighting in small units, moving at a pace quicker than Russian tanks, rocket launchers, and troop carriers, has held the […]
Feb 19 2022 — Glen Pearson — London Free Press — If we could speak to our ancestors, we would hear of other moments in history when it felt as though the sun was setting on the human journey. I recall my grandmother telling me as we walked an Edinburgh, Scotland, street that the entire nation felt as though their historic run was ending when the […]
Feb 17 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — I’m no fool, and I’m not blind to what’s going on in the country. Canada’s peaceful middle is slowly being edged off the stage by what were once fringe elements of the political world. Both sides of the political spectrum have resented the placid, stodgy, almost inevitable pace of Canada’s middle-class, and have worked relentlessly […]
Feb 9 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — For the average Canadian attempting to muddle through the pandemic, the truck convoy that arrived in Ottawa seemed something of an anomaly – a fringe protest using its heavy rigs to make a statement. Almost two weeks later, we are coming to understand that perhaps the most dangerous aspect of it all has been the […]
Jan 17 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — For many years the issues discussed at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland, were primarily economic challenges, global trade, and, naturally, the expansion of the international free market system. For politicians, policy wonks, billionaires and celebrities, it was one of the great global gigs from its inception in January 1971. This year’s event was […]
Jan 11 2022 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — The headline in the Hill Times this week said it all: MPs say Canadians feeling ‘exasperation,’ ‘frustration’ with pandemic, and Graves says national outlook ‘unsurprisingly quite dark.’ No shock there. What the initial waves of the pandemic couldn’t do, Omicron accomplished at lightning speed. Canadians are exhausted, with little interest in anything, including politics, that […]
Dec 22 2021 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — 2021 was a year three provincial elections, an array of municipal, territorial and indigenous elections, and the federal election held this past September. These represented dozens of electoral contests that in any other year would signify moments change. It was not to be. COVID-19 and the Delta and Omicron variants had decimated this past year’s […]
Dec 10 2021 — Glen Pearson — London Free Press — “What if the world just can’t get it together, my friends?” Those words, said near the end of a two-hour Zoom call with international development veterans from America, Canada, Europe, and the U.K., hung like a dark premonition over everyone.
Dec 8 2021 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — In the run-up to the holiday season, one can almost detect the collective groan going up across the country as the evidence of the Omicron variant settles into Canadian communities. Millions of hopes look to be delayed once more as businesses, schools, associations, hospitals and hospices are pulled back into pandemic disciplines they believed were […]
Dec 1 2021 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — “In politics, nothing happens by accident, and if it happens, you can bet it was planned that way,” noted Franklin Roosevelt. Well, maybe not this time. Just as political jurisdictions across Canada and around the world believed they could see the end of the COVID tunnel and get their programs and economies back to a […]
Nov 16 2021 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — The headlines dominated the world’s economic news for most of the past two decades: The Uprising of the Global Middle Class – Atlantic (2017) How a Growing Middle Class Could Save the World’s Economy – Pew (2016) A global tipping point: Half the world is now middle class or wealthier – Brookings (2018) For many, […]
Nov 3 2021 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — For those eager to watch the regular gatherings among leaders of the most powerful democratic nations, this week’s gathering in Glasgow, Scotland carried with it a certain sense of desperation. You could feel it as the luminaries flitted about in their attempt to show the kind of global solidarity it will take if climate change […]
Oct 18 2021 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — The headline isn’t just some political or partisan question thrown out there as part of the everyday dialogue. Across the world, democratic, progressive movements have their troubles. Canada, a seeming bastion of security in an unsettled world, especially having just concluded an election, nevertheless contains enough disconcerting divisions to reckon the future as something uncertain. […]
Sep 29 2021 — Glen Pearson — National Newswatch — It ended up being my quiet recluse during my years as a Member of Parliament. My office was on the fourth floor of West Bloc, and the larger window faced the bronze statue of Lester B. Pearson. He sat, quiet and serene, legs crossed and looking out over the Commons. Frequently sitting on the bench […]