Feb 21 2021 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — American media critic A.J. Leibling famously said, “Journalism is the weak slat under the bed of democracy.” Today he might have added political parties. Each are essential and each is an increasingly threatened weak slat. Look how close the American republic came to disaster because of their hollowed-out parties. No sustainable democracy is possible with […]
Feb 14 2021 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — There is a wide misunderstanding of the purpose and consequences of an American impeachment. Being “impeached” is already a very serious blow — you have been charged with a political felony — even if you are able to threaten your voters into setting you free. Impeachment was used regularly in the early days of the […]
Feb 7 2021 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Imagine you were a near-bankrupt bank at the depths of the Great Recession. To head off creditors, you freeze all your clients’ deposits without notice, blocking any withdrawals. Then you turn around to the Government of Canada and say, “If you give us enough cash, we will allow some of our clients to withdraw some […]
Jan 31 2021 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — “Think of it as the ultimate staycation with lots of time for meditation,” said a smart-alec friend, as we headed for Hong Kong and 21 days locked in a hotel room with an electronic tracker strapped to our wrists. Your movements are recorded and precise to the metre. We wrestled with the moral quandary of […]
Jan 24 2021 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — West German Chancellor Willy Brandt’s Ostpolitik — his effort to deepen diplomatic relationships with the Soviet Union to be able to win recognition of West Germany by Moscow and to attempt to stabilize relations during the Cold War — was condemned by the German right, and by Washington. As a balancing act Brandt had imposed […]
Jan 17 2021 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Sun., Jan. 17, 2021timer3 min. read Erin O’Toole is no fool — though you would be forgiven for wondering, given his performance in recent days. Having carefully plotted and executed a shift to the centre, and the beginnings of an appeal to working-class urban voters, he appears to be at risk of backsliding into the […]
Jan 10 2021 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — When hundreds of Luftwaffe bombers cast a daily shadow over London during the Blitz, the Royal Family remained at Windsor Castle, just west of the epicentre, for the duration. Day after day members of the family would visit bomb sites and victims in hospitals. Princess Elizabeth joined the volunteer service that provided care for the […]
Dec 21 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Policy Magazine — It’s usually unwise to choose an untested personality as a party leader. There are occasional exceptions that prove the rule—Rachel Notley, Barack Obama. Then there is the much larger club: Andrew Scheer, Michael Ignatieff, Boris Johnson, Brian Pallister. One might have put Jagmeet Singh in the bigger group if Justin Trudeau had not handed him […]
Dec 20 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — With unusual candour, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo shared his two worst nightmares as a leader at the beginning of a health crisis. He was deeply worried that when he told New Yorkers that they had to submit to a very tough lockdown, that they would refuse. “What was I going to do then, arrest […]
Dec 13 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — In this plague year Canadians gave less than half to charities than they did last year, and yet the most generous Canadians are among the poorest. The province with the lowest annual family incomes — Newfoundland and Labrador — give the most. The number of donors in Canada, especially among the young, is declining. The […]
Dec 6 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Finance ministry boffins around the world hate tied tax measures. They want the freedom to decide for themselves who gets tax credits and who must pay. They have a point. It’s true that “sin taxes” work — charge more for tobacco and liquor, and people consume less. But measures like Stephen Harper’s staggeringly cynical hockey […]
Nov 22 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Canada is a nation built on an improbable vision and unshakeable trust. Believing a thin strip of settlers flung thousands of kilometres across a continent would be able to survive an implacable environment and exceedingly harsh winters took conviction and faith. Most importantly, we learned to trust our neighbours, our community and the institutions of […]
Nov 15 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Political movements and their parties rarely die; they merely go into hibernation for a while. In 1895, Keir Hardie of the U.K.’s Independent Labour Party was humiliated as he and every one of the 28 ILP candidates went down to crushing defeat. The consensus was that socialism was dead. A generation later, the reformed Labour […]
Nov 7 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Policy Magazine — Few elections live up to their billing as “the most important of our lifetime.” This one did, erupting in several directions, in ways never before seen. More than one hundred million Americans voted before election day, by far the greatest number ever. The most expensive election by far. Some estimates putting the total at $14 […]
Nov 1 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Despite the mounting horror of the pandemic’s second assault, there are also some powerful lessons that will hopefully lead to permanent change in how we manage future virus attacks, and how we will rebuild. The first lesson of this pandemic is that we must never be caught so flat-footed again. Canada will not soon let […]