May 19 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Forty years ago this spring, an eloquent, passionate, young American-educated German named Petra Kelly helped to launch the Green movement that swept first West Germany and then much of Western Europe. Kelly was one of those naturally charismatic politicians who drew supporters from a broad sweep of German voters: left and right, young and old.
May 12 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — John Diefenbaker, Tommy Douglas, and David Lewis each had difficult, even scarring, childhoods. Illness, poverty, prejudice were part of their early lives. Yet, like their fellow party leaders of that era, those painful memories were not part of their public biography. It was not acceptable to discuss that type of personal history as recently as […]
May 5 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — If you are reading this in the Star online, sitting at home in London, L.A. or Hong Kong, you may not know that you can help choose Canada’s next government. It’s not your fault if you did not know. It has been very poorly communicated to the nearly three million Canadians who live abroad.
Apr 28 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Once in a generation or so, in most provinces, a transformative premier arrives. Their legacy outlives them. Jean Lesage and Rene Levesque’s legacy lives on in the success of Quebec Hydro, central to the province’s economy decades later. Bill Davis’ creation of the largest network of community colleges in the nation is at the foundation […]
Apr 21 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — The wealthy are expert at hanging on to their wealth, often through concealing its existence in tax shelters, offshore, and in private corporations. It’s part of the reason our wealth inequality is now growing very fast. The Trudeau government is fond of bragging about how much its tax changes have done to bring tax fairness […]
Apr 14 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — “Hitler would have loved social media” So said Disney CEO, Bob Iger, last week, receiving an award from the Simon Weisenthal Center for his work against racism and anti-Semitism. He meant, of course, the ability to use these platforms for hateful propaganda. There are so many reasons to be enraged about the social media monopolists […]
Apr 7 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Rachel Notley may not flaunt the swaggering charisma of a Trudeau, but as she demonstrated in this week’s leaders’ debate, she sure wins on character. She conveys as well, a deep determination to fight for a politics of values, as she laced her opponent over and over for his wobbly handling of some very insalubrious […]
Mar 31 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — British Columbia politics has the most vicious history of partisanship of any in Canada, a preference for political bridge burning over building. Nasty campaign tactics, threats against candidates, even the occasional outbreak of violence were hallmarks of B.C. politics from the creation of the Social Credit coalition in the ’40s for the next half century. […]
Mar 24 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — During the 1981 bitter battle over the Charter of Rights an NDP MP was accused of leaking a confidential set of amendments to a Liberal colleague on the committee, wrestling with daily comma by comma confrontations. He narrowly escaped expulsion from a divided caucus. When Brian Mulroney polled in the low teens, he regularly had […]
Mar 17 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — In the U.K., the U.S. and Canada we may have seen the first cracks in the partisan walls that guarantee caucus discipline in each place. In the U.S., 12 Republican senators defied a presidential demand they support his “national emergency” to shift money from defence spending to his wall. This is a first in his […]
Mar 10 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — It had been an ecstatic election. Canadians made a decisive change, rejecting a shaky Conservative government, choosing an untested political star. He offered a bold vision on Indigenous Canadians, new social policy, and a Canada open to more immigrants and refugees. The Conservatives had fielded a leader who seemed out of sync with the “new […]
Mar 3 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — It is not easy to remain confident about the ability of parliamentary democracy to effectively check executive power in Canada, when the PMO is more all-powerful than ever. Harder still to remain confident about American institutional checks and balances, when the awesome power of the presidency is in the hands of a man described by […]
Feb 24 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — It has become a basic truth among a generation of campaigners who grew up with social media that the only campaign strategy and tactics that deliver votes are nasty. Starting with the Harris government, continuing through the Harper years, to their several provincial cousins today — some of different parties — campaign planning today is […]
Feb 17 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Politicians of all stripes love whistleblowers — until they are in power. Then the offending civil servant, public employee, or angry citizen becomes a “disloyal, illegal leaker!” Of all the many hypocritical hobby horses in political life there are few that can match this dichotomy. The Ford government was badly bruised this month when their […]
Feb 10 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Some politicians and cyber experts have been raising the alarm about cyberattacks and social media lies as threats to democracies, to mostly indifferent reaction, for years. The lies and attacks are already happening in Canada: Here’s the tally of just the past two weeks: