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From the archives

When Terror Came to Canada

The response to the FLQ crisis remains controversial five decades later

A Neglected Pledge

Moving beyond apologies

The Nobel of Numbers

How a Hamilton native played mathematical peacemaker after World War One

John Richards

John Richards is a former member of the Saskatchewan legislature and a professor of public policy program at Simon Fraser University, in Vancouver.

Articles by
John Richards

Spending Power

Can compassion and efficiency be combined in the use of public funds? November 2015
In pre-industrial society, the family was the primary source of social support. It still is in much of the world. However, voters in wealthy industrial countries have been willing over the last century to mitigate the extremes of a market economy via the welfare state. Not that this willingness is boundless. At a time of severe fiscal crisis in Sweden in the…

Vision, Reason, Commitment

A Bangladeshi NGO combines the best of business and government October 2009
Ian Smillie is a Canadian with a distinguished career in international development. In 2003, he received the Order of Canada. He has written Freedom from Want: The Remarkable Success Story of BRAC, the Global Grassroots Organization That’s Winning the Fight Against Poverty, the best single-volume account available of BRAC, a remarkable organization. Known universally by this…

Canada’s Candide

While Calgary wants to govern, Vancouver cultivates its garden October 2007
My instructions are to write about western Canada, British Columbia in particular. I contemplate the task on a July afternoon, while looking out the open cottage door and across Tribune Bay. A butterfly comes into view—a fluttering yellow dot moving randomly against the brown and green of hills on the bay’s far side, the silvery blue of sunlit ocean and the purple lavender in the…