Brian Dijkema
Brian Dijkema is the Vice President of External Affairs with Cardus, and an editor of Comment. Prior to joining Cardus, Brian worked for almost a decade in labour relations in Canada after completing his master's degree with Cardus Senior Fellow, Jonathan Chaplin. He has also done work on international human rights, with a focus on labour, economic, and social rights in Latin America and China.
Bio last updated May 23rd, 2023.
Articles by Brian Dijkema
Seeking Empty Stomachs
By Brian Dijkema
December 3, 2013
Our Catholic and Orthodox friends probably need little convincing of the practice—it’s been around for some time after all—but allow me to encourage them to take up the practice with vigour, and to make the modest proposal to my Protestant brothers and sisters that we likewise hold off on the Christmas season sweeties
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Simon Says: Faith is Great for Business
Brian Dijkema
November 21, 2013
But then I read the article, and I found that what it was really about was how Western capitalism is attempting to use mystic techniques of meditation to advocate "mindfulness", all in service of improving the bottom line Mindfulness emphasizes that there is more to success than material prosperity ...
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Remembering How?
Brian Dijkema
November 11, 2013
Give thanks to those who fought and died in pursuit of that freedom ...
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Law Good, Virtue Better
Brian Dijkema
November 8, 2013
The Prime Minister is Right Honourable; cabinet ministers are Honourable; the Senate is a house of Honour; Mayors are called Your Worship In this sense, our frustration with our politicians is less their adherence to the law, but more what we rightly see as a lack of political honour ...
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Contingency in Politics
Brian Dijkema
October 25, 2013
Others, and here I'm thinking about Hannah Arendt, suggest that insofar as we understand politics only in terms of power we actually demean ourselves and become less human ...
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Pomp and Pluralism
Brian Dijkema
October 17, 2013
omp, pageantry, press, parliament, pandemonium! Throne speeches might be light on actual content, but they never fail to show that our political institutions—for all their failures—are worthy of respect and reflection.
It's also a vision under fire: should not a nation "quartered into many communities, each disposing of its internal affairs" include religious communities, and the institutions they create? Are our schools and hospitals free to express the deepest beliefs of their founders, in the public square? McG...
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A Double-Edged Sword
Brian Dijkema
September 26, 2013
But what happens if, in the effort to amputate these carcinogenic things, you cut too deep? What happens if you are removing the tumour next to the heart and you cause irreparable damage? I note this because public religion has as many—and I would argue more—positive things to offer the public as it...
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Draw the Shades on the Fishbowl
Brian Dijkema
September 19, 2013
Yes, we live in a constitutional democracy in which the public interest, rather than private interest of those in government, takes precedent ...
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What Lies Beneath Public Discourse
Brian Dijkema
September 12, 2013
Water treatment plants might not be about heaven and hell, but all political discourse—on hijabs or highways—plumbs the depths of human life ...
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The Back End of the Golden Goose
Brian Dijkema
August 15, 2013
The golden goose puts eggs on a lot of tables across Canada, but keeping her feathers clean takes a lot of work ...
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The Play-Date Apocalypse is Upon Us
Brian Dijkema
August 9, 2013
If, somehow, these newspapers manage to survive the ravages of time and Jeff Bezos, this type of thing will one day be recounted as part of the historical record of western civilization: play date brokers and nanny/parent mediators ...
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Usury and Unity
Brian Dijkema
August 8, 2013
Welby's action on payday loans is yet another piece of surprising evidence of unity in the Church ...
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Sacrifice Binds Us
Brian Dijkema
July 25, 2013
That is, insofar as we live in such a way that denies the importance of sacrifice, or denies the possibility of positive moral good arising from sacrifice made by individuals and communities, so far do we deny the possibility of solidarity and therefore of a quality common life "Solidarity" refers t...
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Shalom—Now Chestnut-Coloured and With a Hoppy Finish
Brian Dijkema
July 18, 2013
Cardus Work and Economics Program Director Brian Dijkema reflects on the business of shalom.
In last week's Comment article, Cardus Senior Fellow Paul Williams noted that "the primary biblical motif for redemption in the economic realm is 'Jubilee'" and that "the social goal of this biblical vision is not economic growth or efficiency but relational peace or shalom ...
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Socialist Acts?
Brian Dijkema
July 2, 2013
In other words, let's have less debate about whether Acts condones socialism or affirms free markets, and more about what the Holy Spirit tells us in Scripture about how we should act economically ...
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Engagement > Catharsis
Brian Dijkema
June 28, 2013
Which is why, however sympathetic I might be to the cause of environmental protection, I can't help but feel that these protests are as much an exercise in catharsis as they are in effecting change ...
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Markets in Love?
Brian Dijkema
June 26, 2013
Charity is greater because it "manifests God's love in human relationships [and] it gives theological and salvific value to all commitment for justice in the world Does such a suggestion imply an obligation for those who work with charities to give their time for what would, in other circumstances, ...
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Where are the Atheist Churches?
Brian Dijkema
June 6, 2013
He then wonders what would happen if you "make a bunch of atheists turn up in person someplace every seven days, to perform various non-believing rituals and maybe have some coffee, and contrast those who stick closely to the regimen with equally assiduous church attendees Perhaps the benefits of re...
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More is Not Enough
Brian Dijkema
May 23, 2013
This is both a true description of the way markets work, and why those who are concerned about morality in economic behaviour and structures might want to go beyond "more" as a basis for supporting free markets ...
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Le Parti Moustique
Brian Dijkema
May 16, 2013
The government's Minister of Democratic Institutions (yes, you read that right), Bernard Drainville wants to revoke the understanding between orthodox Jews and the city of Montreal which "allows orthodox Jews who do not drive on holidays, and who often live close to their synagogues, to avoid ticket...
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Bad Medicine For Trade Unions
Brian Dijkema
May 6, 2013
In Communist Poland, it was a trade union that stuck out its tongue at the apparatchiks who thought that the state knew what was in workers' interests In fact, it is workers' organizations (formal or informal) that spring up in places where the state and the market step out of line ...
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Neither Too Simple Nor Too Complex: The Bangladesh Tragedy
Brian Dijkema
May 3, 2013
But if the context is so complex, how are we to respond? Do we blame God for placing people in the swampy delta that is Bangladesh? Do we allow ourselves to be paralyzed by the complexity or fall headlong into rash action based on simple slogans? The tragedy in Bangladesh last week is at once madden...
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Playing Peek-a-boo with Political Principles
Brian Dijkema
April 18, 2013
We are now well acquainted with the fact that Canadian political parties have drained the clear water of principle from the House of Commons and left it a swampy cesspool of power and pandering ...
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Keep the Super PACs out of Canada
Brian Dijkema
April 11, 2013
Super PACs, or Political Action Committees, are those great behemoths that spend hundreds of millions, sorry, hundreds of billions of dollars to get their candidate or their desired piece of pork into office or into law First, as Ray Pennings notes, "political parties have become marketing machines ...