Mar 15 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Crises create and destroy leaders — and which leaders fall and those whose soar, can be surprising. Winston Churchill, until days before his installation as a war prime minister, might have been a historical footnote. A failure as a First World War minister, a disloyal partisan, and a semialcoholic struggling writer. Jimmy Carter, pre-hostage crisis, […]
Mar 8 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Reflecting on crises past, former prime minister Jean Chretien said last week that blockades, “won’t break the nation … because Canada is stronger than that.” The 86-year-old statesman recalled the genuine challenge to state authority that was the FLQ, saying, “we always face the problem[s] and we solve them.” Of course, he is right. If […]
Mar 1 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — You believe it’s time to negotiate a change in your relationship with your spouse or business partner. They duck, avoid and delay month after month until you finally corner them with an ultimatum. The hostility each of you then brings to the table is understandably very high. Even worse is to be “played” by your […]
Feb 23 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Asked if she needed help getting to the polls, the angry woman voter said hotly, “Well we haven’t seen anyone yet have we? We’ll just wait till your man arrives with the necessary, won’t we?!,” hanging up with a bang. Baffled, I turned to my local campaign manager on byelection day in a riding in […]
Feb 16 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Establishments are always terrified of the young. If you are in power in Hong Kong, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Chile or France today you might be tempted to exclaim, “With bloody good reason!” Armies of Molotov cocktail hurling adolescents on the streets understandably spook the powers that be. But denying the young any effective voice about […]
Feb 9 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — As a very young scrutineer in local election campaigns, I would sit for long hours witnessing the fairness of the voting procedures in my poll. A short dinner break and then I would then sit with the two other party reps and several election officials, for many more hours that night, scrutinizing the count. It […]
Feb 2 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — In the last Parliament, Canada hit a record only perhaps exceeded by North Korea. Our MPs voted their party line 99.6 per cent of the time! This and many other headsnappers are contained in the latest work of the Samara Centre for Democracy, whose mission is ongoing scrutiny of our parliamentary democracy, its deficiencies and […]
Jan 26 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Great social change rarely succeeds as a partisan project. Civil and gender rights and the “freedom to choose whom you love” were campaigns that moved from the fringes to success only when a fragile consensus was formed crossing regional, ethnic and, most importantly, partisan lines.
Jan 12 2020 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — No one can criticize the Trudeau government for its sharp focus in its first term — almost to the exclusion of the rest of the world — on Trump management. Times have changed. NAFTA2 is nearly done, retiring the existential threat to the Canadian economy that hovered over us for three years. Trump, whether he […]
Dec 16 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — It is hard to describe the depths of the poison that the tedious Brexit battle has injected into British life. It has deeply divided families, partners, towns, companies and regions of the country in a manner reminiscent of our own flirtation with national ruin. Fortunately, in our case there were several statesmen and women who […]
Dec 8 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Successful political candidates require an ability to persuade, in this order, voters, media, party members and MPs. If you are the leader of a political tribe, that order is reversed. Outside the political world the power and authority of a caucus is not well understood. Even within, some party leaders, fail to acknowledge that these […]
Dec 1 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Jagmeet Singh arguably had the best personal performance as a political leader in the federal election. Facing pundits who were betting that the party would lose its official status, a campaign war-chest half of what it had been a decade earlier and a very low recognition level among most Canadians, he campaigned boldly and with […]
Nov 24 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — If you thought our recent election was insulting, that the parties’ behaviour was rude, have a look at the U.K. Dirty tricks, vulgar insults, and bizarre stunts abound. This week the Conservatives were threatened with being banned by Twitter for changing their party’s account name from “Conservative Party” to “FactCheck.org,” to blast out lies. FactCheck […]
Nov 10 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Canada has among the financially cleanest political systems in the world. After half a century of success, however, today it is under serious threat. From the first election expenses limits used in the 1974, ours has been regarded as good a system as any in the world. This election revealed that there is new and […]
Nov 3 2019 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — We have witnessed an astonishing decline in political wit in recent years. It has been replaced by elementary schoolyard insults delivered by the faux enraged. In recent American experience, it has become difficult to distinguish Donald Trump from his Alex Baldwin “Saturday Night Live” persona. “Human scum?” “Traitors and spies?” As descriptions of men and […]