Madelaine Drohan

When journalists talk about what is at stake in the digital era, they talk of dwindling jobs, shrinking media outlets and the frantic struggle to capture people’s attention. But by following what they think are the dictates of the new technology, journalists are helping to undermine something more important than their jobs: the ability of governments to deliver good public…

Since Stephen Harper led the Conservatives to power in 2006 he has declined to spell out his government’s foreign policy in a formal statement. Instead, Canadians have been treated to declarations that play well on the nightly news or fit easily into a tweet. We are told that Canada will “no longer go along to get along,” or that “moral…

When Peter Lougheed died last September, those paying tribute to the revered former Alberta premier summed up his legacy in terms of three main achievements: he modernized a former agricultural economy; he aggressively took on Ottawa when provincial interests were at stake; and he established a political dynasty that still governs the western province more than four decades…

When I visited Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta in 2000, I fully expected to find a low-level war going on, with local Nigerians pitted against the foreign oil companies in their midst. It had only been five years since Nigeria’s military rulers had executed Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight colleagues on what were widely seen as murder charges trumped up to silent protests about environmental damage done by oil production in nearby…

We also have no history of colonialism. So we have all of the things that many people admire about the great powers but none of the things that threaten or bother them. —Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Pittsburgh, September 2009 ◆ After Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper made this off-the-cuff remark at a news conference in Pittsburgh in…