Thoughts on BC Politics and More

    This week’s Centre Ice Canadians update comes from the heart of democracy in East Asia. I am here at the invitation of Taiwan’s government, part of a delegation of Canadian politicians learning more about a country that, since being freed from 50 years of Japanese occupation in 1945, has resisted Communist China, overcome a military dictatorship, and gone on to build a vibrant, wealthy, and inclusive multi-party democracy.   It's a democracy under threat.   Taiwan is a hot place right now, literally, and politically. With the Humidex pushing 50 even locals are hunkered down, with air conditioners working overtime. And every day, along the 130-kilometre-wide Taiwan Strait which separates Communist China from free Taiwan, boats and aircraft from the Chinese armed forces push into Taiwanese territory.   Canada does not recognize Taiwan. We abandoned the country in exchange for an embassy in Beijing, way back in 1970. We are not alone: only a ...

  I can’t help but feel I am not alone in worrying, and wondering, about what the world can do following the rolling of Russia’s military in to the sovereign and independent country of Ukraine.   Just 39 years old when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) collapsed at the end of 1991, former military intelligence officer Vladimir Putin seems, by all appearances ready to once again use the hammer of military force to overpower any resistance to his aspirations.   While crushing resistance at home to a war which many everyday Russians oppose strongly, and indiscriminate bombing going on in the Ukraine, it seems that the megalomaniac President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, will not counter any resistance to his imperialistic intents. But now, what should western democratic countries do? In addition to actual military targets, Putin has unleashed the targeted bombing of schools, kindergartens, hospitals, and homes – with the end result of innocent civilians bei...