How much should we pay and what should we pay for?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, May 18, 2010 at 11:24 AM - 20 Comments

The Agenda convenes a panel—including our Andrew Coyne—to discuss the sorts of questions that should probably be dominating our politics.

True North strong not free

By Mark Steyn - Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 606 Comments

Photograph by Chris Bolin

Well, Ann Coulter is no longer in Canada, but 30 million Canadians are. So, for the sake of argument, let us take as read the frankly rather boring observation of the northern punditocracy that the whole brouhaha worked to her advantage, and consider instead whether the Canada on display during her 96-hour layover actually works to Canadians’ advantage. Which was the claim advanced by the eminent Canadian “feminist” Susan Cole appearing on U.S. TV to support the protesters’ shutdown of Miss Coulter’s Ottawa speech:

“We don’t have a First Amendment, we don’t have a religion of free speech,” she explained patiently. “Students sign off on all kinds of agreements as to how they’ll behave on campus, in order to respect diversity, equity, all of the values that Canadians really care about. Those are the things that drive our political culture. Not freedoms, not rugged individualism, not free speech. It’s different, and for us, it works.”

Does it? You rarely hear it put quite that bluntly—“Freedoms”? Ha! Who needs ’em?—but there was a lot of similarly self-regarding blather in Coulter Week euphemizing a stultifying, enforced conformism as “respect” and “diversity” and whatnot. “I therefore ask you, while you are a guest on our campus, to weigh your words with respect and civility in mind,” wrote François Houle, the provost of the University of Ottawa, addressing Miss Coulter in the smug, condescending, preening tone that comes so naturally to your taxpayer-funded, tenured mediocrity. “There is a strong tradition in Canada, including at this university, of restraint, respect and consideration in expressing even provocative and controversial opinions and urge you [sic] to respect that Canadian tradition.”

Continue…

The emotion of politics, the politics of emotion

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, March 21, 2010 at 3:30 PM - 67 Comments

The Agenda convenes a panel to discuss emotion and public policy.

More from Alison Loat here.

Paikin v. Flaherty

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 9, 2010 at 12:45 PM - 17 Comments

The host of the Agenda talks to the Finance Minister.

And then a bunch of smart people, including our Andrew Coyne, talk about the budget.

Rights and Democracy: I say tomato, you say this has nothing to do with the Middle East

By Paul Wells - Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 12:16 PM - 220 Comments

Yesterday’s display of bulbous rubber noses and floppy shoes from the seven clowns running Rights and Democracy is wearyingly familiar in every particular.

Tossing a dart from across the room, I hit this passage, at random out of any number of others, to rebut: they write that the executive review committee “gave the former president repeated opportunities to meet and discuss the evaluation in Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal. He chose not to avail himself of those opportunities.”

Rémy Beauregard actually addressed that point in a long letter to the board of Rights and Democracy on Oct. 26, 2009. “With respect to the efforts made to accommodate the President for a meeting of the Committee,” he wrote, “it is important to clarify that of the 55 days proposed by the Secretary of the Board for such a meeting, the President indicated he was available for 45 of those days.”

Then why was there no meeting? Because, as I’ve learned when trying to seek comment from them, Aurel Braun and his pals can be difficult to pin down. Continue…

Apathy is boring

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, January 6, 2010 at 1:44 PM - 54 Comments

While TVO’s Mike Miner thinks at some length about the significance of it all, that Facebook group, as of this writing, has 65,000 members. Stephen Taylor, lead rallier for Canada, has helpfully set the magic number for democratically legitimacy at 127,000 members, the number drawn by his cause a year ago.

Meanwhile, a rival Facebook group, promoted by the National Post to demonstrate how easy it is to rally tens of thousands to your cause, has 120 members.

Let us now think seriously about this place

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 20, 2009 at 5:05 PM - 18 Comments

Janice MacKinnon, Rick Salutin, Jeffrey Simpson, Susan Delacourt and Ned Franks talk with Steve Paikin about the utility or futility of our current Parliament.

The nature of leadership

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at 3:15 PM - 6 Comments

Carleton professor Waller Newell talks to Steve Paikin about political leadership.

The full discussion—including our Andrew Coyne—is here.

Paikin v. Martin

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 3:32 PM - 6 Comments

The former prime minister sits down with Steve Paikin to discuss the G20, the global economy and Africa.

'I have some concern'

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 12:35 PM - 6 Comments

Ned Franks talks to Steve Paikin about the state of Parliament.

Hot-boxing the Agenda

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 11:51 AM - 0 Comments

Keith Martin talks decriminalizing marijuana with Steve Paikin.

These people are not actors

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 29, 2009 at 5:18 PM - 5 Comments

Steve Paikin convenes a half dozen newish MPs and MPPs to discuss life in politics. Theatre is the most over-used word therein. 

Theatre involves actors publicly portraying characters that are, at least in theory, entirely divorced from their actual selves. Question Period involves politicians standing in public and speaking loudly. Often they may present exaggerated versions of themselves, but mostly, I would argue, they show no more than who they are. It flatters the individuals involved, diminishes the usefulness of the conflict, and excuses too much of the lesser behaviour to suggest such stuff has anything to do with Laurence Olivier.

Hey, remember Elizabeth May?

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 4:40 PM - 25 Comments

The Green leader talks to Steve Paikin about the state of our democracy.

Paikin v. Kenney

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 1:02 AM - 30 Comments

The Immigration Minister on the Agenda.

UPDATED! ITQ on TVO: I swear, I'm a big fan of citizen journalism. Honestly.

By kadyomalley - Tuesday, September 9, 2008 at 4:50 PM - 15 Comments

I just get so tired of the whole us vs. them attitude of some of its more zealous evangelists. Anyway, as promised earlier, here’s last night’s edition of The Agenda with Steve Paikin.

Okay, you know what? I’m going to seek counsel on this – until then, you can view it here, and hopefully, I’ll figure out how to embed it sometime before my brain turns to oatmeal. It’s been a long day, y’all.

Steyn! Sock puppets! Almost face to face! But not quite!

By Paul Wells - Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 4:43 PM - 0 Comments

Our colleague Mark Steyn will be on TVO’s redoubtable Steve Paikin interview show, The Agenda, tonight. So will some of the students who like to stand in for the shy fellow who launched a Human Rights Commission complaint against Mark. The details are… complex. I will let Mark tell you all about it. But I’m pretty sure I know what I’ll be watching on TVO tonight at 8….