The Macdonald-Laurier Institute mourns the loss of Purdy Crawford
All of us associated with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute
were devastated to learn of the death at age 82 of Canadian businessman and lawyer Purdy Crawford on Aug. 12.
Crawford, an inductee of the Canadian Business Hall of Fame, was an early supporter of MLI when it was founded in 2010 and served on the Institute's advisory board.
"Purdy was one of a kind, but that will not prevent all of us who benefited from his leadership from doing all we can to continue to act on the values he helped to instill in us", wrote Brian Lee Crowley, Managing Director of MLI, in a blog post.
"Knowing him was an unforgettable privilege - I stood on the broad shoulders of a giant who never let me down".
Cameras in the Senate won't bring honour to national debate: Crowley in Postmedia papers
Writing in Postmedia papers, MLI Managing Director Brian Lee Crowley dampened any expectations that the addition of cameras in the Senate will raise the quality of debate in the upper chamber.
Look no further than the House of Commons, he says, where the introduction of cameras close to 40 years ago has made the institution no more thoughtful, honourable or judicious than before.
Statistics Canada error shows human element in data collection: Cross in the Post
Writing in the Financial Post, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow Philip Cross says that the Statistics Canada error in its job numbers is a reminder of how the human element plays a role in the collection and processing of data.
Despite the mistake, which had the agency scrambling to produce a corrected Labour Force Survey, Cross stresses that data collection and processing is for the most part improving.
Cross also spoke on the Statistics Canada error to the Toronto Star, CBC News, the Ottawa Citizen and the CBC Radio One show Ottawa Morning, as well as the National Post, the Toronto Star, the Canadian Press and CBC TV.
He also authored an op-ed for the Globe and Mail and spoke to the Ottawa Citizen for a feature on recent cutbacks at Stats Can.
Balanced budget should be Ottawa's priority: Crowley in the Globe
Writing in the Globe and Mail, MLI Managing Director Brian Lee Crowley urges the federal government to resist calls for plunging Canada back into a deficit and instead prioritize a balanced budget.
He says Ottawa should return to the mid-1990s, when running surpluses helped attract economic growth, job creation and investment.
MLI has published extensively on the need for a balanced budget. This includes a Canadian Century video, the book "Northern Light: Lessons for America from Canada's fiscal fix" and a commentary on what the United States can learn from Canada's history with a balanced budget.
Janet Ajzenstat releases new book, Discovering Confederation
Macdonald-Laurier Institute research advisory board member and author Janet Ajzenstat has written a new book, titled Discovering Confederation: A Canadian's Story.
The book tells the story of Ajzenstat's academic career and the viewpoints she's formed along the way. Ajzenstat takes the reader through her life as a student and her time learning from prominent thinkers Allan Bloom and George Grant to her current teaching career. Throughout, Discovering Confederation shows why individual rights are protected under parliamentary democracy.
Click here to learn more about the book from its publisher, McGill-Queen's University Press. In addition to serving on the research advisory board, Ajzenstat is also the author of the 2010 MLI paper "Confederation and Individual Liberty".
Discovering Confederation is the latest in a slew of books written by MLI authors.
Civil service sick leave report misses the point: Crowley in Postmedia papers
Writing in Postmedia papers, MLI Managing Director Brian Lee Crowley says Parliament's budget watchdog is asking the wrong questions on high rates of sick leave in the federal civil service.
Crowley says that, by not considering why sick leave is higher for bureaucrats than in the private sector, the Parliamentary Budget Officer's recent report fails to determine how to get better value for taxpayers.
As it stands now, he says, the PBO is overlooking the possibility that Canadians aren't getting good enough value from workers who are off sick.
The Ottawa Citizen, the Vancouver Sun, the Montreal Gazette, the Leader Post, the Province, the Star Phoenix and the Edmonton Journal ran an edited version of the column.
The National Post's Chris Selley also picked it up in his Full Pundit feature on July 21.
MLI partners with U.K. think tank for Margaret Thatcher Conference on Liberty
The Macdonald-Laurier Institute partnered with the U.K.-based Centre for Policy Studies to provide in-depth coverage of the Margaret Thatcher Conference on Liberty, which took place in London, England on Wednesday, June 18. For a complete schedule, click here.
The event featured an impressive lineup of speakers, including Canadian cabinet minister Jason Kenney. Also speaking were U.S. General David Petraeus, Professor Niall Ferguson and John Micklethwait, the editor-in-chief of the Economist.
MLI contributed columns, blog posts from Institute for Liberal Studies executive director Matt Bufton, and livestreamed the event's speakers.
MLI also published a series of videos from the event.
Right to be forgotten diminishes public sector accountability: Singleton in the Citizen
Writing in the Ottawa Citizen, MLI author Solveig Singleton argued that the "Right to be Forgotten" is a misguided ruling that empowers the public sector to restrain information created in the private sector.
The Right to be Forgotten refers to a decision the European Court of Justice released earlier this year. The court ruled that Google had to eliminate certain links in searches - such as those that corresponded to the complainant's debt - if they no longer applied to someone's present-day situation.
Singleton, the author of the recently-released MLI paper "Finding the Balance on Digital Privacy", says that this is a misguided interpretation of the role human rights should perform.
"The Right to be Forgotten seems designed not to add to accountability, but to reduce it", she argues.
MLI Managing Director Brian Lee Crowley also authored an op-ed for the National Post about how the Right to be Forgotten is masking our duty to remember.
Other MLI columns and op-eds
MLI authors were busy throughout the summer writing about current affairs in newspapers: Senior Fellow Benjamin Perrin authored an op-ed for the National Post about religious persecution in China; Philip Cross wrote in the National Post about why we need to cut down our desire for data and in the Ottawa Citizen about why Prime Minister Stephen Harper was right to cut the GST; Senior Fellow Ken Coates authored an op-ed for MLI about why violence against Aboriginal women requires a creative solution and also joined up with Bill Morrison for a piece in the National Post on the Ontario government expanding the reach of university satellite campuses; author Christian Leuprecht wrote a piece for the Public Sector Digest on why money for community safety will help cut down on police costs; Senior Fellow Alex Wilner wrote about the West's counterterrorism efforts for Vanguard Magazine; and Brian Lee Crowley authored columns on why we risk drowning in a sea of advice from experts and why it's time for the federal government to create an "annual regulatory budget".
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