How The East Was Won (Open letter to Conservative delegates)

Dear Conservative Party members,

First of all thank you for choosing Montreal for your first national policy convention next March 2005! Now that your party leader, Stephen Harper, is "determined to build a truly national party" by re-establishing roots in Quebec, it seems important to put things in perspective.

Pour un meilleur leadership politique

(Pour les mordues et mordus) 
Pauvreté, finances et services publics mal en point, industries non compétitives, sous-emploi, malversations, iniquités, détérioration écologique, litiges constitutionnels, conflits internationaux, voilà autant de problèmes qui durent depuis des années et même qui empirent pour la plupart.

Instinctivement, nous nous tournons vers nos leaders politiques pour résoudre ces problèmes et, lorsque ces derniers n’y prêtent pas

Odd alliance .

(Published letter in the National Post, Monday, Sept. 13, 2004)

Re: Canada's Left Can Find Common Cause in Quebec, Sept. 8

Tories, Social Conservatives, and the West

Now that the 2004 federal election shouting match is behind us and everyone has had a chance to calm down, maybe we can have a sensible discussion about its results and some of its most contentious issues.

D'où provient le déclin de la participation électorale ?

(Publié dans Le Devoir, Édition du mercredi 21 juillet 2004)

Le déclin du taux de participation aux quatre dernières élections fédérales au Québec, qui est passé de 77 % à 60 % (y compris les bulletins rejetés le 28 juin dernier), a fait couler beaucoup d'encre. Des chercheurs et des observateurs en attribuent la raison tantôt à l'apathie des jeunes, tantôt à la désaffection des partisans. Qu'en est-il réellement?

On How to Avoid Moral Dilemmas in Politics

(Wonkish. Paper written for a course on ethics at Harvard)

First of all, let me state up front that I believe many leaders and politicians have had “to learn how not to be good” (Machiavelli, The Prince), and then done wrong, in order to succeed in their respective fields or situations. This however does not imply by any means that such leaders were faced with equally compelling moral choices, nor that they chose wisely.

Canada and the Balkans: The Way Forward

(Published by Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee)

The Honourable Maria Menna, the newly appointed minister responsible for international co-operation, will have her hands full right off the mark in this new post-Kosovo world marking the beginning of the new century.