Opinion Editorial

Publication bans have value in digital age

A teenage girl is raped. Her attacker faces charges. Under Canadian law, the identity of the youthful victim can’t be revealed during court proceedings or later — indeed, if it could, the traumatized young woman might never have come forward to police in the first place.

Opioids. MORRIS LAMONT/The London Free Press/Postmedia Network file photo

Opioid dangers must be taught to students

Schools have been called upon to teach more than the Three Rs for many decades now, but they should add one more assignment to their long list of lessons: Warning students about drug use, especially deadly opioids.

Black Lives Matter at Toronto's Pride parade on Sunday, July 3, 2016. (Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun)

Why BLM does what it wants

From Black Lives Matter Toronto’s perspective, why shouldn’t it have blocked the busy intersection of Yonge and Bloor Streets for 20 minutes Tuesday morning to protest the impending deportation of a new mother to Jamaica

(Getty Images)

Time to end climate of fear

Surely it’s not the role of Canada’s Competition Bureau to get involved in disputes between organizations making competing claims about climate change.

Premier Kathleen Wynne speaks from Queen's Park on Tuesday, June 13, 2017. (MICHAEL PEAKE/TORONTO SUN)

Wage warnings won’t stop Wynne

Don’t expect Premier Kathleen Wynne to change course because of Tuesday’s warning from Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office (FAO) that her minimum wage hikes will cost 50,000 jobs, hit groups like recent immigrants hardest and are an inefficient way to address poverty.

Getty Images

Challenging hate

A checkout person at a London store recognized my name on my membership card and had nice things to say about this column.

Tax reforms will hurt

Most Canadians aren’t worried about the federal Liberals’ plan to restrict the use of private corporations as a tax-saving vehicle, but for those citizens who have incorporated — professionals and small business owners — the changes would be catastrophic and would represent yet another hurdle for private initiative and enterprise.

US President Donald Trump makes a statement in the Diplomatic Room at the White House in Washington, DC, on August 14, 2017. (Getty Images)

Diplomacy puzzling

This week’s searing failure of leadership on the part of U.S. President Donald Trump after the brazen neo-Nazi display of muscle in Charlottesville, Va., prompts a spate of worrying questions. One of which is: Does Canada have the relationship right with this U.S. administration?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau walks with PMO Director of Communications Kate Purchase as he arrives for a media availability at the National Press Theatre in Ottawa on Tuesday, June 27, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

Canadians wary of Trudeau’s mess

Ever since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted his version of our immigration policy to virtue signal how it differed from the Trump administration in the U.S., the predictable has happened.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland discusses modernizing NAFTA at public forum at the University of Ottawa in Ottawa on Monday, Aug. 14, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

NAFTA: Keep calm and carry on

The thing to keep in mind as negotiations begin on Wednesday between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico to renegotiate the 23-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), is that this will be a marathon, not a sprint.

Drunk-driving plans needs more thought

Federal Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould’s proposal to lower the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers to .05 per cent from .08 per cent seems logical, based on the evidence. But will toughening the sanctions reduce the number of drinking-related road fatalities and accidents? Not by itself.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau answers a question during Question Period in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Wednesday, April 5, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Carbon pricing is the new snake oil

So, how is Canada doing in meeting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Paris climate treaty commitment to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030?