2011‑2022, and is preserved here for archival purposes.
Convivium Editor in Chief Father Raymond J. de Souza reflects on the Canada Day celebrations that unfolded in early July.
I had the blessing of spending Canada’s 150th anniversary in Ottawa with my Cardus colleagues for various events that were most inspiring.
It capped off six weeks in which I found myself for unrelated – but Providential? – reasons on Canad...
In this final text from the Cardus’ What Makes a Good City forum, Andrew Bennett for reviving the spirit of urbi et orbi – the city and the world – by which religious traditions have made beauty and comfort integral to our urban lives.
June 1, on certain Church calendars, is the commemoration of St. Justin Martyr, also known as Justin the Philosopher.
St. Justin Martyr lived at the beginning of the second century. He was a Roman citizen, a patrician, well schooled in rhetoric, in p...
In the second of our series from Cardus’ What Makes A Good City forum, Andrea Mrozek ponders the intersection of the hotel-style condo and the empty playground in her own neighbourhood.
There's a condo development down the street from me in my urban Ottawa community. It’s about four kilometers from Parliament Hill. When they were selling those units, they advertised them as hotel style living. For those of you who may travel quite a bit fo...
As Canadians get set to revel in urban summer life, Convivium showcases remarks from the What Makes A Good City forum held last Thursday at Cardus Ottawa. Today, Milton Friesen examines the complexities that give the city the aura of a living organism.
There is no city building for dummies. If you see that title, don't buy it. There's nothing simple or reducible if we are serious about cities. If it's simplified, packaged, essentialized, walk on by. As Hilary Putnam famously said, any theory that fits in ...
The networks of relationships needed to make a community not only liveable but also sociable can be vast and complex. But as Milton Friesen writes, they can also be entered into, appreciated and drawn upon by something as simple and convivial as shared conversation over grits and fried catfish.
Chief among the privileges of leading the Cardus Social Cities program are the many opportunities to meet people who are doing significant work in communities and cities across Canada, the United States and around the world. These conversations, email excha...
The idea is sound. As noted in a recent report by Cardus, Banking on the Margins, payday lenders and the loans themselves are structured in such a way as to encourage their customers to become dependent. The loans, while quick and easy, do not build credit, and they require customers to pay back the original amount borrowed plus substantial interest in one lump sum. Too often this results in adding a significant deluge of spending for people who are already struggling to maintain a responsible cash-flow. An unemployed construction worker from Fort McMurray who has trouble making ends meet one week can be crippled by the automatic withdrawal of his previous week’s shortage plus interest rates that, in Alberta at an annual rate of 839% on a ten-day term, are the second highest in the country. And, as our research suggests, the struggle doesn’t stay with the individual. The lack of funds and the increase in debt are linked to mounting costs to families, significant physical and mental health problems, increased criminal activity, and a host of other problems which ultimately strain society – and often the government.
In the throne speech this month, Lieutenant Governor Lois Mitchell announced the Notley government’s intention to “protect Albertans who are experiencing economic d...
Saying “government should not” is as simplistic as saying “government should” if there is nothing else that follows. Yes, conservatives believe in limited government. But this requires more than arithmetic requiring the size of government. What government should do, it should do well and enough resources need to be dedicated to those tasks.
My exposure to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) began in 2001 as a newly elected municipal councillor in Vegreville, Alberta and the physical infrastructure advocacy that FCM has built a solid reputation on was quickly apparent. Fast forward ...
There are many angles to consider in the report. In reading between the lines of the report and its summary data, it appears that the lone personal charitable impulse may be as rare an entity as the lone genius or heroic figure is increasingly proving to be. The report is about individual giving but even passing reflection shows that individual does not equal solitary.
The Charitable Giving by Individuals report by Martin Turcotte of Statistics Canada is a comprehensive and important summary that makes use of the 2013 General Social Survey data to out...