I am a Canadian writer and blogger, and a former Member of Parliament. I use this site to share my ideas about politics, social justice, rhetoric, books, and memoir. You will see on the sidebar that I write two Blogs which I invite you to follow. I have written or edited nine Books, and you will find Journalism by me and about me posted on the site as well. I hope that you will read some of my work, and let me know what you think. I would love to hear from you in the Comments section below.
I also post here about things that I have written recently, or that have caught my eye. I refresh this page regularly.
Pope Leo’s document on AI
Pope Leo XIV has issued a document about safeguarding human dignity in an era of artificial intelligence. The Associated Press has provided some select quotes from the document. Here is one quote on democracy: “Indifference to the truth leads, slowly but surely, to a descent to totalitarianism.” Here is one on labour and employment: The workplace must be governed by “the protection of employment opportunities and the irreplaceable role of the individual.” He warned that “the pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means, and the economic order must remain subordinate to human dignity and the common good.”
Frustration with Access to Information
A CBC news team has published a story about the RCMP’s spying on Indigenous leaders, like the Dene nation’s George Erasmus seen above, in the 1970s and 80s. A sub plot to the story is the frustration that the CBC journalists encountered in their year’s-long effort to obtain information from the RCMP Security Service files. This is a frustration with which I am only too familiar. As I argue in my Pulpit and Politics blog, Canada’s Access to Information system is broken and must be fixed.
Ed Broadbent’s vision for the welfare state
Former leader of the New Democratic Party leader Ed Broadbent would have been 90 years old this year. An academic in Toronto, he returned to his blue-collar hometown of Oshawa, Ontario in a successful bid for a seat in the House of Commons in the 1968. He later led the NDP between 1975 and 1989. In his first speech in parliament Broadbent said that Canada’s development of the welfare state had stalled, and he argued there was no true democracy without economic equality. I have posted that speech to my Great Canadian Speeches blog.
Literary Review of Canada article on Communist for the RCMP
The LRC has a review in their April 2025 edition of my book A Communist for the RCMP. The writer is David Shribman, a veteran U.S. journalist who was executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He teaches in the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University he contributes to The Globe and Mail. The review is titled, Serge Protector? The RCMP informant who saw red. It took me a few moments to get it, but eventually I did.
Quotable Quotes
“Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty.” – Hannah Arendt
“Indifference to the truth leads, slowly but surely, to a descent to totalitarianism.” – Pope Leo XIV
Dennis Gruending 