Institutions

Taking Care of Our Own

Doug Sikkema

May 15, 2015

Why? One narrative—the dominant one—is that we don’t get what we want because our universal healthcare system has failed to properly provide for the influx of greying baby-boomers. The system has failed to create new and better programs and to financially prop up natural caregivers with better Compassionate Care benefits—though the recent federal budget’s allowance is a step in the right direction. And there is truth to this narrative: Better end-of-life care will likely mean we need to have more robust institutions and better systemic strategies.

This past month, Cardus entered into the discussion about end-of-life care in Canada. One of the striking things in many of the reports is that a lot of Canadians want to be taken care of by their own—tha...

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Stories of Subsidiarity

Ray Pennings

April 21, 2015

For more on subsidiarity, consider my colleague Milton Friesen's excellent work on the subject over at our Social Cities page. There are ways to form a thriving society that don't necessarily rely on traditional political labels.

At the Manning Networking Conference in Ottawa this year, I had the opportunity to host Father Robert A. Sirico of the Acton Institute for his talk on "Ethics and the American Idea." In the clip below, he tells a story th...

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Give Hospitals Grassroots Treatment

Peter Stockland

November 24, 2014

But the president of the Canadian Medical Association broke with saw-bones tradition last week by letting us in on two words that, he said, should get the attention of everyone who uses our health care system. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hospitals are invariably opaque environments where mere mortals are always encouraged to sit quietly without fussing to understand what is self-evidently beyond their ken.

But the president of the Canadian Medical Association broke with saw-bones tra...

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Lost in a Fog of Denial

Peter Stockland

November 10, 2014

What is so on a personal level is even worse on an institutional level as we discovered this week when two Liberal MPs were summarily suspended from their caucus following allegations they each harassed female MPs from the NDP in different times, places and, presumably, ways. After that, everything becomes double indemnity doubt about what is true and what to do.

Two generations after women became a massive part of the workforce and sexual harassment reared its head, we continue grappling—in Jian Gomeshi’s case, literally—for the right response.

What is so on a personal level is even worse on an institutional...

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The First Freedom of the Human Soul

Ray Pennings

November 4, 2014

"I think our literacy may be fairly high ... but our understanding of religion has diminished quite a bit," says Farr. "What we've lost is the anthropology, if you will; the notion that human beings are by their nature religious." . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

At the Transatlantic Christian Council in Washington, D.C., earlier this fall, Cardus executive vice president Ray Pennings had a conversation with Thomas F. Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and Worl...

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Canada: Back to Normal

Peter Stockland

October 27, 2014

The consensus was that CBC did a brilliant job, which seems true but signaled something more. When our village solipsists feel free to turn the public conversation back to themselves again, you sense the world returning to its established order. There were signs that ordinary citizens who never ride the airwaves of the public broadcaster were also coming back to life as usually lived.

Normalcy seemed to make a quick Canadian comeback last week when CBC Radio convened a media panel to discuss how well the media covered the Oct. 22 attack on Parliament Hill.

The consensus was that CBC did a brilliant job, which seems true but signal...

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New Cardus Education Survey to be released

Naomi Biesheuvel

September 4, 2014

The release will take place at the CUNY Institute for Education Policy at Roosevelt House, New York, New York, from 5:30-7:45pm on September 10, 2014. The event will feature Cardus's Ray Pennings, along with Sean Corcoran of New York University; Kathy Jamil, founder of Islamic School's League of America; and Ashley Berner of the CUNY Institute for Education Policy.

The newest collection of U.S. data for the esteemed Cardus Education Survey will be released next week.

The release will take place at the CUNY Institute for Education Policy at Roosevelt House, New York, New York, from 5:30-7:45pm on September 10, 2...

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Expand the Inner Circles

Brian Dijkema

August 21, 2014

Earlier this month, Robert George offered a bit of advice to young scholars. That advice, in a nutshell, is to be very wary of applause. "In the end," he says, "wh...

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Protests and the Police Force

Ray Pennings

July 24, 2014

That's not to say it isn't important or can't be effective. Washington, 1963. Gdansk, 1981. Tiananmen Square, 1989. Arab Spring, 2011. Mass people presence with chants and placards can make a difference and change history. But this needs to be kept in perspective. The fact that some protests are effective doesn't make every protest effective.

Although I've done it a few times, carrying a placard in a public protest really isn't my thing.

That's not to say it isn't important or can't be effective. Washington, 1963. Gdansk, 1981. Tiananmen Square, 1989. Arab Spring, 2011. Mass people presen...

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An Academic Farce

Alan Jacobs

July 17, 2014

This article was originally published on the Text Patterns blog, July 3, 2014. Reprinted courtesy of the author.

Peter Conn is right about one thing: college ac...

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The Secular Democracy and its Victims

Ray Pennings

June 19, 2014

Surely it is possible, within a liberal democracy, that we can, without bloodshed, lay bare some deep rifts between value systems. But we're only fooling ourselves—playing with house money—if we don't constantly scrutinize and re-evaluate the "why" questions beneath our differences. The preoccupation with "what" questions in the ongoing Trinity Western University (TWU) community covenant debate has left the "why" questions unanswered.

If our freedom of religion and our freedom to associate mean anything all, surely they allow those who disagree to coexist, without coercing each other.

Surely it is possible, within a liberal democracy, that we can, without bloodshed, lay bare some ...

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Social Licence and Democratic Institutions

Ray Pennings

June 11, 2014

My point here is not to argue the merits or demerits of the pipeline, nor to suggest that the process has been without its flaws. But a two-year review process by the National Energy Board, a federal agency that has subject matter expertise, which heard 1450 submissions in 21 affected communities over a two-year period cannot be dismissed as an undemocratic process.

By June 17th, Canada's federal cabinet is required to decide whether the controversial Northern Gateway pipeline can proceed. From an institutional perspective, this marks the conclusion of a lengthy process. There was a day when all sides engaged in arguin...

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What the Government Should Do

Brian Dijkema

June 3, 2014

The two leading campaigns are a case study in how politics in Ontario have developed. The choice offered is one side which suggests that government is the key player for "good" in Ontario, while the other side suggest that the markets are the key to making Ontario a better place to live. In many ways, the Ontario election debate is a case study in Cardus's assertion that "the coinage of our contemporary debate is the left or the right—what governments should do and what they shouldn't do." This debate will show very clearly how "we naturally default to fewer and fewer institutions to solve the problems of the day.

Tonight, the three major parties in Ontario will debate one another in an attempt to persuade voters that their parties should form the next provincial government.

The two leading campaigns are a case study in how politics in Ontario have developed. ...

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De-Register the Liberals, Anyone?

Ray Pennings

May 21, 2014

With tongue firmly in my cheek, I want to propose that all tolerant, open-minded Canadians join me in my quest to de-register the Liberal Party of Canada. I don't propose we do this lightly. But just as various law societies are deciding (after carefully co...

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Don't Kill the Messenger

Naomi Biesheuvel

May 13, 2014

I've seen some controversy online recently surrounding the poignant but overly dramatic "Look Up" video that appeared on YouTube a few weeks ago and now has close to 36 million views. The video besee...

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Regimes of Tolerance

Brian Dijkema

April 29, 2014

The Law Society of Upper Canada and the Nova Scotia Barrister's Society have decided that while the institution that teaches lawyers in British Columbia—TWU's forthcoming law school—is constitutionally acceptable, its graduates are not fit to practice law. That is, neither LSUC nor NSBS have submitted that Trinity Western's code of conduct policy is unconstitutional—they know this because the Supreme Court ruled very clearly that it is constitutional. They also are fully aware that in the same decision, regarding teachers who were taught at TWU and were required to sign the same Community Covenant, there was, as Albertos Polizogopoulos put it last week, "no evidence that TWU's students, who had signed and abided by the Community Covenant, demonstrated any discriminatory behaviour in the exercising of their duties as teaching professionals."

If law societies are, so to speak, the marrow which supplies blood to our legal system—a society which has, as its very raison d'etre the "duty to protect the public interest, to maintain and advance the ...

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What makes a Christian Organization?

Ray Pennings

April 2, 2014

But legal definitions should not overly influence our perception of Christian (or other religiously-based) institutions. There are more basic things to keep in mind.

Supreme Court cases on both sides of the 49th parallel last week focused on what ...

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The Chance to Speak Up

Ray Pennings

March 24, 2014

Related: Cardus covered in today's National Post Summary briefing of the case from last week (free PDF) "Loyola's Freedom of Religion" Paul Donovan explains the importance of the case (YouTube)

Cardus has covered the issues involved in Loyola et al vs. the Attorney General of Quebec on many occasions. Always our position is that the organizations of civil society, including those that are religiously motivated, must be free to participate...

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Justin Case

Peter Stockland

February 24, 2014

Federal Liberals spent the past weekend at their biennial convention in Montreal. Cardus's Peter Stockland sat down with Scarborough-Guildwood Liberal MP John McKay to get his assessment of the last big party gathering before the 2015 federal election....

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Corporate Faith

Peter Stockland

February 13, 2014

Yet when the Supreme Court of Canada hears arguments next month in the dispute between Loyola High School and the government of Quebec, the implications will be at least as far reaching as TWU's bid to marry an evangelical Christian ethos with accreditation of our next generation of lawyers. . . .

Debate over Trinity Western University's bid to open a new law school in B.C. has overshadowed the religious freedom fight faced by a 166-year-old Montreal high school.

Yet when the Supreme Court of Canada hears arguments next month in the dispute be...

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The Business of Patronage

Brian Dijkema

February 11, 2014

Why? The museum does not cost a dime to enter. It cost a mint to build, and likely costs a mint to maintain, but the visitor need not open her wallet for anything other than to buy a glass of wine to enjoy in the plaza. Anyone—anyone—can come in and enjoy it all. And all of its riches are available not as a result of public largesse, but of private patronage; particularly the patronage of J.

There is no other way to describe it: the Getty is a gift. My wife and I just returned from a vacation to southern California and one of the places we visited was the J. Paul Getty museum. There is a lot you can say about the place—its use of outdoor space ...

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Non-Partisan Politics

Ray Pennings

February 5, 2014

Of course it's a political stunt. It positions Trudeau as bold and decisive. The new proposal tabled during the first days of this sitting counters the narrative that Trudeau is all flash and has no ideas. It is designed to inoculate the Liberal brand against an upcoming and potentially damaging auditor's report on Senator spending.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau reframed the Canadian Senate debate last week by announcing that the...

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Three Cheers for Ideology

Eric Miller

February 4, 2014

Left and right may be sick. But the solution isn’t to kill them off. Rather, it’s to infuse them with life—ideological life.

The politics of left and right have caused many in recent years to jeer “good riddance” to any candidate willing to step up to a mic. Our dominant ideological configurations seem to be malignancies that, for the sake of hope itself, must be removed.

...

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The Cardus Travelling Circus

Dan Postma

December 27, 2013

Sure, sure. Cardus believes cities can be much better than they are now. We believe a more cooperative labour environment would seriously raise the dignity and fairness of our workplaces. We think private education is good for everyone. Ideas matter when they get legs.

"How and where ideas have consequence is as much a matter of who uses them, as what they say." —Michael Van Pelt and Robert Joustra, in Comment (2008)...

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