There is a new premier in British Columbia, Christy Clark. One of her first acts as premier was to shred my labour budget for the year. I run a retreat centre in rural British Columbia, and we had already set our budget when she announced an increase in the minimum wage. In a three-stage process […] Read more
Stories by Christopher Lind
Social equality: the issue that dares not speak its mind
Some years ago I was giving a talk in Red Deer on the farm crisis. Afterward, I was approached by a young man who had always wanted to be a farmer. Recently he had put in an offer on a half section of land but he was outbid by a Calgary lawyer. The lawyer wanted […] Read more
Moral economy involves bringing several factors into play
If I said Big Business can never be moral, would you agree with me? Why is that? In general, people are pretty cynical about commercial relationships. The bigger the business, the more cynical people are. With size, all relationships become more impersonal. You don’t know the owner and they don’t know you, your family or […] Read more
Let’s make a commitment to fairness, transparency
I will never forget a story told to me by one of my students, a middle aged woman who had been married to a farmer for many years. They lived in rural Alberta. She needed to buy a new car so she went to the nearest town and discussed her needs with the salesman at […] Read more
Power of the crowd harnessed to compile information
Yeah, yeah, yeah, the world is going to hell in a handbasket. So what can we do about it? This is one of the most challenging questions I hear. On the one hand, the questioner agrees with me that things are deeply wrong. On the other hand, they see the engine of destruction frozen in […] Read more
Unpaid work ignored once more as census rules change
Women fought to include unpaid household labour in census statistics. Now it will no longer be tallied. Meet Maureen. She is a single parent of a sick child and this is how she describes her day: “I administer 10 hours of peritoneal dialysis. I prepare charts which are reviewed by doctors. I dispense medications around […] Read more
Canada Post in jeopardy via parliamentary rummage sale
Rural Canadians are resilient, multi-talented people. However, they also depend on a few key institutions to support their diverse way of life. One of those institutions is the post office. Fortunately, Canada Post recognizes its unique role. This is how the crown corporation describes its self-understanding on its website:”For longer than Canada has been a […] Read more
‘First do no harm’ applicable to far more than medicine
In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas summed up our ethical imperatives with the phrase “do good and do no harm.” This was not original to him. He was affirming what he learned from early Greek philosophers. The medical profession makes the same claim, which it learned from Hippocrates more than 2,000 years ago. This simple […] Read more
‘Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me’ – The Moral Economy
I have been ashamed of my country only twice in my life. The first time was when we declared war on Iraq in 1990. The second was last week when I listened to a British journalist upbraid Canadians for allowing our government to undermine new international action on climate change. I never thought Canada would […] Read more
Are we all in this together or are we not? – The Moral Economy
EVERY OTHER day I open the newspaper and read some new speculation about another federal election. Will we, won’t we, and what story will we tell ourselves this campaign is about? Given the crisis we are still in the middle of, the story should probably be an economic one. Prime minister Stephen Harper seems to […] Read more
