Articles by Robin V. Sears

Mar 13 2022 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Canada’s nakedly racist immigration policies are not ancient history. It was only in the 1970s that they were finally wound down as policy, though the colour blindness of some immigration officials was never believable. The department is currently under investigation for allegations of years of systemic racism. Canada had a racist screening system that was […]

Mar 11 2022 — Robin V. Sears — Policy Magazine — Many of the world’s foreign affairs pundit class – and some in the Canadian contingent – seem trapped in a time warp. Before Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, they tut-tutted about how the West and NATO should not have provoked Putin into threatening his invasion, by welcoming new members 25 years ago. Within days of […]

Mar 6 2022 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Western media played a strategic role in undermining the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe during the Cold War. In the ’50s and ’60s, Radio Free Europe beamed compelling news and cultural programming from Estonia to Romania. The BBC World Service was listened to everywhere for its straight-ahead news of the world. By the ’70s and […]

Feb 27 2022 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Many Canadian cities have long had problems managing semi-trailer truck traffic. Now that we have seen that they can be used as weapons, it’s time we rethink how to live with them. In Toronto, more than half the trucks passing through the city on the DVP, the Gardiner and the 401 have departure points and […]

Feb 20 2022 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Sandy Smallwood resigned in disgust just hours before Mayor Jim Watson’s coup seizing control of the Ottawa Police Services Board, stuffing it with his tame councillors. One of Canada’s most respected police oversight veterans and vice chair of the board, Smallwood said, “The police governance model is set up for failure. And I think what […]

Feb 13 2022 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — For decades now, Canadians have been proud at how effectively we have limited the influence of money in politics. Arguably, there is not another G7 country with as clean a political culture as ours. It has been the hard work of two generations of campaign finance reformers. Those protections are now at serious risk, however, […]

Feb 6 2022 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — It feels like something broke in Canada this week. The nation that has always been a little too smug about its values of civility and respect seemed to have disappeared, replaced by what looked far more American than Canadian. If you had told me protesters in the national capital would leave their feces at residents’ […]

Jan 30 2022 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Erin O’Toole became Conservative party leader on Aug. 24, 2020. It is beginning to look like he will not make his two-year anniversary. The divisions that emerged this past week, between him and his chief caucus rival Pierre Poilievre over the truckers’ pointless convoy to Ottawa, may now have become unbridgeable. The convoy cost and […]

Jan 23 2022 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — I suspect being a senior immigration official is only marginally less boring than being a night watchman, and that might sour their view of the world. Nonetheless, on three continents over several decades it has been my experience that those who control the visa stamps are all conditioned to find a way to say “No,” […]

Jan 16 2022 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — Let’s acknowledge the legitimate anger of millions of Canadians at the irresponsibility of those who refuse to get vaccinated — the threat to everyone’s safety lies at their feet. That the small percentage of Canadians who refuse to behave like responsible adults are now hogging a hugely disproportionate share of COVID ICU beds is simply […]

Jan 10 2022 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — One could almost hear a collective groan roll across the province, as the latest lockdown procedures were announced. After a gloomy Omicron Christmas, this felt like one body blow too many for parents, restaurateurs and health-care workers. It was made worse by the latest round of sombre predictions of worse to come, exploding case counts […]

Dec 29 2021 — Robin V. Sears — Policy Magazine — It was the fury of a young teenager that began the shift in the debate on the climate crisis, helping to move it from a fear of a future disaster to a present nightmare. Greta Thunberg was mocked and dismissed by climate deniers as recently as three years ago. Her demand that the crisis be […]

Dec 12 2021 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — No one ever said, “I’m so happy, I just found a really cheap heart surgeon for my dad.” It underlines one of the drivers of cost in every developed nation’s health care system. We understandably always demand the best, i.e. the most expensive. Drugs, equipment and services all rise faster than inflation. A second cost […]

Dec 5 2021 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — In the spring of 1940, facing rapidly darkening clouds of war, Winston Churchill reached out quietly to Clement Attlee, a lifelong opponent, to join a new unity government along with some of his senior colleagues. Attlee’s agreement helped Britain win the war. Four decades later, Pierre Trudeau, facing a deepening recession, skyrocketing energy prices and […]

Nov 28 2021 — Robin V. Sears — Toronto Star — The Trudeau government has always been uninterested in Parliament, perhaps even a little afraid of it. This was true even when they had a majority, and became more visible in their first minority. They have shrunk the number of sitting days to a ridiculous level this year — prior to this week, the House had […]