Beryl Wajsman

The illiberal democracy of collective rights

Montreal lawyer Stéphane Handfield represents a U.S. citizen who is Cuban-born and who applied in English for immigrant status in July after arriving here from the United States. In December, he hired Handfield as his lawyer.

The rock of our recovery

Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and adversity.” The same could very well be said of society. And particularly of our society today amidst the financial tribulations we face.

Let’s help real people, not fund fake profits

The current frenzy of economic stimulus packages sweeping around us like so many forest fires will not — and more importantly, should not — work. The reasons are threefold. First, they are stimulating the perpetuation of a false economy that has caused nightmares for tens of millions. Second, the packages are based on outdated Depression-era models without taking into consideration today’s much different realities. And third, they provide insufficient protection to get people through the tough three to seven years that are to come.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

So, the Montreal police would like a by-law to enforce respect for them, especially at those nasty hours in the middle of the night when the clubs let out. It must be a harrowing experience to be called bad, bad names by inebriated citizens. My, my, my.

Echoes of darker evils


“A little sincerity is a dangerous thing and a lot of it is absolutely fatal.” ~ Oscar Wilde The next time labour leaders in Canada want to know why there is such antipathy to their agenda in many quarters, they need look no further than the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Ontario wing. Over the past ten days its president, Sid Ryan, has been up to his anti-Israel agitation for the second time in 30 months. This time he wants a boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

Let’s not copy Ontario’s liquor laws

“Those who would trade permanent liberty for temporary security will, in the end, have neither liberty nor security” - Benjamin Franklin On July 3 2008 Tyler Mulcahy, his two friends and girlfriend, all aged 19 or 20, left the restaurant at Muskoka's Lake Joseph Club golf course. Information suggests the group had consumed 31 drinks over several hours.Soon after leaving, Tyler’s car lost control and flew off a winding road, landing in the Joseph River. He and two others died.

Days that sear our souls

This week and next, we would do well to pause and reflect on the solemn and universal backdrop against which this period of time unfolds every year. It is a period that reminds us of those historical encounters between governors and governed, when every act of the authorities exasperates the people and every refusal to act excites their contempt. A period of 12 days that should rend our souls asunder with searing intensity and pierce our hearts with rape-like violation.

Reasonable accommodation? How about accommodating reason!

The spate of pro-Hamas demonstrations in Montreal over the past weeks raises questions that should bother us as a community regardless of where one stands on the conflict in the Middle East. My headline to this article is not meant to suggest that there ever be any legislative restriction on what people can say or write. Short of incitement to violence, freedom of expression should be absolute.

Israel fights west’s war again

This is not 2006. In Israel’s second war with Lebanon, arguments were advanced that Lebanon’s physical integrity should not have been breached since the aggression against Israel was committed not by the government but by Hezbollah. Yet under international norms when a government acquiesces in the violent acts of a group operating from its territory it is equally responsible. Hairs cannot be split this time.

The Montreal Hamas Rally

“A totalitarian culture treats mere opponents as subversives; a democratic culture treats subversives as mere opponents. The reason is that the latter seeks never to betray its principles, while the former has none to betray.” ~ Jean-Francois Revel

Pay it forward. A faith that dares to care

During the holidays many of us tend to think all’s right with the world. Less so this year perhaps after the funny-money games of the greedy masters of the universe have caused the greatest economic dislocation since the depression. But too many still believe the advertising, the gimmicks and the statistics. The reality is there is much wrong. There is much pain. And the fleeting moments in those weeks when we decide to become more generous and giving, not only with money but with our time, rarely carry over into the rest of the year.

No fair play in education in Quebec

This past Monday, civil rights champion Brent Tyler told the Supreme Court of Canada that the Quebec government is violating the constitutional rights of immigrant parents by denying their children access to English-language public schools. Tyler added, and I concur wholeheartedly, that the policy could threaten the long-term viability of the English school system by eroding its student base. The issue this time is the constitutionality of Quebec’s Bill 104.

A very Canadian coup

Remember remember the fifth of November Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason Should ever be forgot... - poem commemorating Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot, 1605

Trivializing Hate, Hallmarks toward intolerance

This past week Rouba Elmerhebi Fahd, mother of the United Talmud Torah fire bomber, received a sentence of only twelve months probation after having been found guilty in September of being an accessory after the fact in the firebombing. The trial judge qualified the attack on the Jewish school as a terrorist act.

To Rouse The World From Fear

“I hear it said that West Berlin is militarily untenable - and so was Bastogne, and so, in fact, was Stalingrad. Any danger spot is tenable if men - brave men - will make it so.” ~President John F. Kennedy. Today is the forty-fifth anniversary of the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. That tragedy haunts us still. In many ways and at all times. The writer Mary McGrory said on that day that we shall never smile again. Daniel Patrick Moynihan answered no, we may smile again, but we’ll never be young again. For many it was the day hope died.

Police and their role

For those of you unfamiliar with the story of Courtney Bishop let me recap the facts. Mr. Bishop, a citizen of colour, is a Concordia student and a member of its rugby team. Recently he and some twenty of his friends and teammates tried to enter the Sir Winston Churchill Pub on Crescent Street. All were dressed casually. All except Mr. Bishop were white.

Quebec’s misguided priorities

The launch of another election – this time on the Quebec provincial level - coming amidst the usual cornucopia of touchy-feely government initiatives, led me to reflect on whether we the people will really get to decide anything or are we just going to end up feeling like the proverbial pinball being whacked by messages that are meaningless produced by those who are mindless. You can decide.

Imagine…

“The Republican form of Government is the highest form of government; 
but because of this it requires the highest type of human nature.” ~ Herbert Spencer

Drumbeats of division

The tom-toms of the election call sound more like drumbeats of division than clarion calls to purpose. Prime Minister Harper was right in legislating a fixed election date for this country. He should stick to it.

The Big Easy North 
Montreal and the new prohibitionists

“Paris was always worth it, and you received in return whatever you brought to it. And this is how it was in the early days, when we were very happy. If you were lucky enough to have lived there, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris was a moveable feast.” ~ Ernest Hemingway