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Recent Articles by Margret Kopala

A House of the Provinces

The Prime Minister is painted into a corner on Senate reform. Between a commitment to the Triple E model to which, ostensibly, western Canada is wedded but which appears impossible to implement, to a Supreme Court reference about his proposals for fixed Senate terms, amending election and property ownership qualifications of senators or outright abolition of the Senate, it would appear he has little room to reform the Senate in his current mandate. Now anomalies regarding housing expenses threaten to discredit at least a few members of the Red Chamber. A minor scandal as scandals go, it has nonetheless poked a stick into the hornet's nest of public dissatisfaction with how Senators are appointed, with what they do and the length of time in which they should be allowed to do it... (more)

February 22, 2013


A New National Policy for Immigration

Jason Kenney is arguably the most activist immigration minister since Clifford Sifton, the 19th century minister of the interior whose policies were instrumental in building this nation. While many of his policies are welcome correctives to a dysfunctional immigration system, the question is whether they will be as beneficial as Sifton's to the country as a whole... (more)

May 12, 2012


Canada needed them; The sacrifices of past generations of immigrants helped build this country -- but many now arrive who contribute little

The Kopalas recently held their fourth family reunion in a little more than 30 years. A hundred-plus kith and kin from across Canada assembled at a holiday camp near Bonnyville, the now prosperous settlement in northeastern Alberta where a burgeoning oil industry is transforming the forests, rolling hills, pasture and farmland that have, in years past, sustained aboriginal tribes, French and English settlers and European immigrants... (more)

August 4, 2010


A Critique of the Drug Legalization Agenda

Why legalization will increase drug use, addiction and crime... (more)

July 1, 2009


More immigration not the answer

Don Coxe has it exactly right when he ties today's economic woes to low fertility rates rather than Wall Street. But he has it exactly wrong when he suggests that increasing immigration is the answer... (more)

May 22, 2009


The dangers of California-style marijuana dispensaries

Last summer’s New Yorker piece entitled “Dr.Kush” describes how medical marijuana is transforming America’s pot industry. In the land where referendums are authorizing the use and cultivation of marijuana for medical purposes, author David Samuels describes how 200,000 physician-sanctioned California pot users are serviced by a robust subculture of growers, dispensers, brokers, and doctors... (more)

February 28, 2009


Bus Ride to Prosperity

A recent study cites Ottawa as the prototype for Ontario’s new knowledge economy but Premier Dalton McGuinty might have saved taxpayers a few million dollars by simply noticing that IKEA has announced plans to expand its Pinecrest premises into North America’s largest. After all, who is buying Ikea product, if not the 40% of Ottawans who comprise its civil service, high tech, think tank and other members of the knowledge economy’s ‘creative classes’? More to the point, he might have asked why is a Swedish furniture maker gobbling up this lucrative market and not an Ontario furniture maker?... (more)

February 17, 2009


The West will lead the way

Stephen Harper peered into Nouriel Roubini's The Twelve Steps to Financial Disaster and his conversion on the road to Damascus was complete. Given the negative reaction to his budget, including Conservative, the prime minister is likely experiencing Gulliverian levels of frustration only made tolerable by the knowledge the Lilliputians, not having read their Roubini, aren't making runs on the banks. But then even the New York University economist who accurately predicted the global economic meltdown concedes Canada's status as a G7 country with the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio. This surely means last-in first-out of the downturn, even with multi-billion-dollar deficits.... (more)

January 31, 2009

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A mess for the liberal western state

In December of 2005, Lorraine Johnson and Shelina Palmer got married. It was barely five months since Canada legalized same-sex marriage and even though their fundamentalist Mormon sect apparently forbade homosexual activity, the need to tie the knot was clearly urgent. Of course, three of Winston Blackmore's American-born celestial wives, mothers to 16 of his children, had been issued deportation orders earlier in the year so perhaps there was no time to waste. After all, immigration officers seemed intent on standardizing rules that already applied to Muslims trying to import wives into Canada... (more)

January 19, 2009



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let's make Canada shipshape for the 21st Century