Institutions

  • In Praise of Deliberation

    This weekend in Toronto, a similar, but much less consequential, convention will take place in Toronto. Canada's federal New Democratic Party—a party with socialist roots which for the first time in its fifty year history won official opposition party status in last May's election—is choosing a new leader.

    The Republican primaries are dragging on. Candidates Santorum and Gingrich are now publicly musing about forcing a "brokered convention." It might mean the delegates at the Republican convention...

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  • Understanding the Fringe

    I wasn't quite sure what she meant, wondering if by "fringe" she had in mind extraterrestrial Raelism, only the most fundamentalist expressions of religion, or orthodoxy of the more mainstream variety. So I asked her directly. "What do you consider fringe?" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

    Last week I gave a public speech in which I argued for a greater public understanding and discussion of the role that religion plays in providing social capital on which society relies. After the presentation, I had a short conversation with an audience mem...

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  • Time to Stop Doubling Down on Short-termism

    Simply stated, none of these jurisdictions have a hope of ever paying down even a portion of their accumulated liabilities, with non-debased money. They are each so strapped with debt and entitlement that none of them can currently service their interest (despite rates being close to zero), without borrowing more money or resorting to the printing press.

    Over the past four decades, the developed economies have gone on the biggest debt bender in history. The current level of global indebtedness, coupled with the massive unfunded government entitlement promises, are conservatively valued at over six times (6x...

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  • The acid erosion of political trust

    It always has to instantaneously expand from something gone wrong to yet another full-blown scrape us screeching off the ceiling national nervous breakdown. Make no mistake. The information surfaced by Elections Canada—showing that miscreants (as yet unknown) used automated dialing technology to misdirect and confuse voters in the last federal election—is a serious democratic matter. Our one genuine kick at the political can in this country comes every four or five years when we put a ballot in a box. Innocent blood has been shed protecting that electoral sacrament.

    Our real problem is that it's never enough for it to be what it is, is it?

    It always has to instantaneously expand from something gone wrong to yet another full-blown scrape us screeching off the ceiling national nervous breakdown.

    We—at least...

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  • Watching the Frog Boil

    The short-term political strategies are predictable. When campaigns use tactics they prefer to hide, they typically give their political masters "plausible deniability" and keep the circle of those "in the know" as small as possible. If a tactic backfires, a staffer takes the public blame. Accept the resignation, insist it was an isolated incident involving a rogue player acting alone, and try to change the political conversation quickly.

    The boiling frog metaphor is often used to describe gradual change that occurs unnoticed. The political dirty trick stories making Canadian polit...

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  • Contesting the Defence of Liberal Hegemony

    Here's a snippet of the Supreme Court's ruling on parental requests to remove their children from state-mandated religious education, which prompted the discussion: Stackhouse criticizes the EFC and Cardus for "arguing quite wrongly" about the case. Putting aside the fact that Cardus has, to date, not published anything official on this case, I want to query John on two matters in his argument which I think will help the discussion along.

    Dr. John Stackhouse thinks Catholics and Protestants are overreacting in their response to the Supreme Cou...

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  • Common Life: Even Disney's cheese feeds our spiritual hunger

    As March Break looms and Canadian families by the thousands prepare for the pilgrimage to "America's Sistine Chapel," aka Disney World, I advise looking beyond the idealized vision of American capitalism to experience the basic human need to be enchanted.

    Last summer, I visited Walt Disney World in Florida. Like millions of others from every tongue and tribe, I participated in what has become a central ritual of North American life. Disney World is one of the most visited places on the planet after Mecca and...

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  • Taking the Wide(r) Angle

    Theologian photographer, Christophe Potworowski makes the church newly visible in the world.

    Photography sounds easy. You see something you like, you click, and there you go. Yet most of the time, we end up photographing not what is in front of us but what is in our minds. We make reality fit our preconceptions: "This would make a great picture, it...

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  • A Child by Any Other Name

    In Calgary's Foothills Hospital, for instance, the "Pregnancy and Infant Loss Program" is described on the website as one which provides information, guidance and "grief support for parents and other family members who have experienced a pregnancy loss (miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, still birth, neonatal death or termination) through individual, couple and group counseling."

    How early does a fetus become a baby become a human being? Our politicians may be loath to debate it, but it seems even our hospitals need more work to get their nomenclature straight. Contradictory practices within single hospitals cannot be serving anyone...

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  • Personal, not private

    What was overlooked in much of the coverage, however, was what the policy demonstrated about our understanding (or lack thereof) of the connection between religion and the public good—and how that connection is often expressed through institutions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

    A few weeks back President Obama announced, and a few days later backtracked on, a policy requiring employers to pay for sterilization services and contraception (including the 'morning-after' pill considered by many pro-lifers to be a form of abortion) as ...

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  • Ignoring a Key Reason for the Decline of Unions

    A discussion paper released by the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Communications Energy and Paper Workers (CEP) suggests that unions are "fac[ing] an enormous and historic moment of truth." While Canadian unions are known for their overuse of hyperbole, the list of problems they themselves provide suggests the problem is genuine.

    Canada's unions are in trouble, but what is to be done?

    A discussion paper released by the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) and the Communications Energy and Paper Worke...

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  • A Gift for Canada

    It's not that these Calgarians had nothing else to do, given that the group included executives representing major oil, media and investment companies. The CEO of the Calgary Stampede was there as was the publisher of the Calgary Herald. The Mayor and Chamber of Commerce President, a university of Calgary representative and CEO of the community foundation—they all cleared their schedule to answer the invitation issued by former Epcor Center CEO and prominent Calgarian Colin Jackson who, with a few other civic leaders, launched Imagination 150.

    On July 1, 2017, Canada will celebrate its 150th birthday. Yesterday, thirty prominent Calgarians gathered to discuss what a suitable gift for the occasion might look like.

    It's not that these Calgarians had nothing else to do, given that the group i...

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  • The great issue of our day

    The great issue of our day is whether we can order our world with flourishing institutions apart from government and markets. This is the key question behind the very taxing challenge facing the Houe of Commons Standing Committee on Finance today. As tax tools go, Canada's charitable tax credit is one of the most successful ever implemented.

    Presented (3:00 pm EST) February 14, 2012, to the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, Pre-Budget Consultations.

    The great issue of our day is whether we can order our world with flourishing institutions apart from gov...

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  • Morning and midnight in Montreal

    So the crew at CBC Montreal's Daybreak deserve a break for missing a genuinely important discovery hidden in an otherwise banal report about a problem few knew existed and no one cares about anyway. Yet amid the, ummmm, utterly fascinating engineering details explaining precisely why the Metro is such a Hell pit, Daybreak's research turned up a clip from the early 1960s of then Mayor Jean Drapeau inaugurating the system.

    Even the best morning radio isn't meant to be the wakey-wakey equivalent of the evening CBC show Ideas, or similar thought-provoking programming.

    So the crew at CBC Montreal's Daybreak deserve a...

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  • The Repentance of Thieves and Murderers

    The long-time Cuban president is responsible for the dispossession of millions of dollars worth of land, cars, cash, and other material goods once held privately by Cubans. He is also responsible for the more heinous crime of dispossession of the dignity and lives of countless Cuban citizens. Hundreds of men and women endure squalid prison conditions because of his policies. Churches, trade unions, newspapers, political parties, free courts, and other green shoots of independence, pluralism, and liberty have been cut down to the nub or choked by Fidel Castro, his brother Raul, and their geriatric posse of communist true believers. But rumour has it that Fidel is contemplating a return to his old faith. As with most news from Cuba, it's difficult to determine the veracity of these claims, but an Italian newspaper quotes his daughter Alina as saying, "Today he is more interested in the fate of his soul than the future of Cuba." Because while it might be true that he is more concerned for the state of his soul than for the future of Cuba, it is also true that a full reorientation of his soul towards God and his rejoining of God's church would be a tremendous development in the future of Cuba.

    Fidel Castro is a thief and a murderer. And he may be returning to Christianity.

    The long-time Cuban president is responsible for the dispossession of millions of dollars worth of land, cars, cash, and other material goods once held privately by Cuba...

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  • Change the record

    Officially, the meeting's purpose was "to re-connect with our Centre City faith-based organizations and to seek further feedback on The City's Centre City Plan." That plan, adopted by City Council in 2007, calls for the doubling of residential density in the downtown core, or 40,000 additional residents in the next thirty years. But it makes no mention and considers no consequences of the 26 faith institutions which currently are part of the city's downtown, as these two Cardus studies from 2010 and 2011 noted. Municipal consultations of this sort aren't typically well-attended, so officials were enthusiastically overwhelmed, although scrambling to accommodate, the assembled crowd. The evening began with a short formal presentation which combined into twenty minutes Municipal Planning 101, 125 years of Calgary official plans, and a summary of the most current Plan. I found it telling that the last long-range plan for the city core, approved in 1966, featured three priorities for the downtown: a walking mall (Stephen Avenue); a +15 system of walkways (the series of second level bridges which connects downtown office towers); and a C-Train system (the name given to Calgary's LRT transit). Anyone familiar with Calgary today will recognize these features, highlighting that while Official Plans never accurately predict the future, they have a powerful influence in shaping it.

    Last night, the City of Calgary convened a meeting with the city's faith communities. It's an inspiring case study on how Cardus tries to achieve its mission.

    Officially, the meeting's purpose was "to re-connect with our Centre City faith-based organ...

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  • The Virtue of Small Charities

    the top 1% account for 59% of revenues received; 42% of the charities have revenues of less than $30,000 and collectively account for just 1% of revenues; 40% of charities have no paid staff 37% have just 1-5 employees 64% of charities operate in local communities with local mandates Last week Cardus submitted a brief to the House of Commons Finance Committee regarding tax incentives for charitable giving.

    Of Canada's 161,000 incorporated non-profit and voluntary organizations . . .

    the top 1% account for 59% of revenues received; 42% of the charities have revenues of less than $30,000 and collectively account for just 1% of revenues;...

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  • Helping the Humanities Out of its Funk

    One recurring theme is that universities are too specialized. "Too specialized," in this case, is code-word for either incomprehensibility or marginal futility. Think, for instance, of an English prof who spends fifteen years of his life plumbing the depths of meaning in the fact that Emily Dickinson's corsets were made with narwhal bones rather than with genteel pilot whale bones.

    There is a lot of talk these days about the sorry state of universities, and even more talk about the even sorrier state of humanities within those universities.

    One recurring theme is that universities are too specialized. "Too specialized," in this...

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  • Have think tanks stopped thinking?

    As it turns out, for such a poorly understood group, think tanks are an increasingly powerful cadre of activists and thinkers. The United States of America has one of the most sophisticated and developed think tank cultures, with most western states not far behind (or catching up quickly). Emerging after the first World War, think tanks were designed to serve two functions: policy development and political combat.

    Think tanks are an odd breed, so odd in fact that I often dispense with the term entirely when people ask me what I do. Prayer around the family table, in which invocations for blessings on work are given, usually go something like, "Bless Rob, and whatever...

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  • Veiled Interference in Freedom of Religion

    The issue is controversial, of course, due to the practice of certain Muslim women of wearing a niqab or burka in public. While Minister Kenney's edict sounds reasonable, as Peter Stockland noted in this space yesterday, the response of outrage to the announcement also sounds reasonable. Recognizing that freedom of religion is a greatly attacked freedom these days, I am usually inclined to bend over backwards to protect it, but here—in matters as basic to our citizenship as swearing public oaths, establishing identity, or witnessing at a trial—I think the state has a more reasonable argument, to ensure it functions properly. These essential processes in the state's functioning are part and parcel of the very package of freedoms that allow for the freedom of religion, which in my mind does allow for the wearing of religious head coverings on other occasions.

    For the record, I think Minister Jason Kenney is right in insisting that when taking the oath of citizenship, new Canadians are required to show their faces. He is quoted as saying, "The citizenship oath is a quintessentially public act. It is a public decl...

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  • Another Evangelical Conspiracy, The Office of Religious Freedom

    And of course there are plenty of reasons to be bitter at the government. Despite holding broad consultations (on the true breadth of which we have only their words of assurance), very little on this Office has been promoted or even talked about. There is, naturally, the indignation of religious communities and non-governmental associations that were not invited in these first rounds, upset partly because of the important appearance of inclusivity but mostly because they didn't get invited to the parties. This especially shouldn't surprise anyone at Amnesty International, given its recent and public exchanges with Minister Jason Kenney. Their invitation probably didn't get lost in the mail.

    The CBC seems to be alleging there is yet another evangelical conspiracy afoot, since Prime Minister Harper's government continues to disappoint conspiracy enth...

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  • Giving Drunk Driving Laws a Breathalyzer

    The arguments on either side of the debate are familiar. Those in favour of toughening the law point to the fact that deaths by drunk driving have been reduced by 40% in British Columbia since it passed its law in September 2010. In other words, "it works," so don't fix it. Those opposed to this legislation note that it comes with a significant extension of arbitrary police powers and huge potential for unfairness.

    Just in time for the holiday season, an impassioned debate is taking place in our legislatures, courts, and op-ed pages regarding drinking and driving laws.

    The arguments on either side of the debate are familiar. Those in favour of toughening the la...

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  • Mathematics and social architecture?

    The physical structures we build, the infrastructure that supports us, and the communication links that enable our exchanges have a specificity that can be partially underwritten by mathematics. These mathematics and the materials of our built environment are the stock-in-trade of engineers, architects, planners, economists, consultants, and legislators.

    At Cardus we are exploring the language and practice of social architecture. Turns out it can mean a lot of things. Sometimes it means the nature of the relationships between people and institutions, o...

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  • Occupy Birmingham Jail

    It matters for the worse that the movement was such an utter and embarrassing flop, for at least three reasons. The second is the polarity created by the stone fecklessness of the generally peaceful Occupy movement and the bloody-minded violence of the British smash mobs last summer. If these are now the only two imaginable modes of protests, and if standing one's ground without burning things down is deemed both futile and wimpishly humiliating, what do we think the odds are that violence will become the default option in future? Hello, London? .

    With our cities emptied of even the detritus of the Occupy movement, it's worth reflecting on why it was so utterly vacant.

    It matters for the worse that the movement was such an utter and embarrassing flop, for at least three reasons.

    The fir...

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