Guest Columns

Boot camps: More boots, less camping
By William Bedford
Thursday, April 6, 2006
There have been reports in the media that the Ontario governments boot camps for the rehabilitation of young offenders are not working as well as expected.

Hippocrates and ringing ears
By William Bedford
Thursday, March 23, 2006

I was lying in bed battling the flu bug and listening to a doctor on the radio talking about how far the science of medicine had advanced in such a short time. Medical science, according to the radio doctor, had come further in the last 50 years than it had in all the centuries going back to the Father of Medicine, Hippocrates himself.

After I wrote my recent article on the derogatory use of the word “Newfie” I received an email from a young lady in Ontario named Valerie. This lady hadn't yet read the piece but instead had read a commentary of mine written shortly after the Newfoundland and Labrador curling rink captured their gold medal in Turin.

Canada's third-world prisons:
Cruel and unusual punishment
By William Bedford
Saturday, February 4, 2006

Its nothing less than disgraceful that Canada, which is held in such high esteem around the world, should tolerate the shocking conditions that prevail in its prisons. And where, one wonders, are the voices of outrage against these conditions from the prison chaplains? Mr. Justice Lloyd Brennan of superior court reduced the sentence of a convicted murderer named Van Duc, by seven years because the felon had spent 28 months in the Don Jail while awaiting trial.

In order to forget about the rising price of gas, and whether our health-care system is going broke, most of us probably paid more attention to the love lives of Brad and Angelina than to the last report from the G8 old-boys club.

A. is for: Alberta, where you will find the wonderful Rockies.

B. is for: Billy Bishop, Canada's famous World War I fighter pilot.

C. is for: Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, known as "The Cradle of Confederation" because in 1867 the provinces of Ontario, then called Upper Canada, Quebec, then called Lower Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia met there and formed a united Canada. It would, however, take another 132 years to complete todays Canada of 10 provinces and 3 territories.

For 22 years, I looked after the spiritual needs of senior citizen homes. Volunteers helped. Among them was Anna Cairnduf, a lady who hails from a mountain town in Austria. She's the grand niece of Father Joseph Mohr, the writer of the Christmas carol "Silent Night", which for a long time was ignored. Why?

 Sitting here in my cozy living room, with the Christmas tree lights blinking and carols playing on the radio, I think back, as I always do at this time of year, to that strange Christmas in 1953 that changed my life forever. That long ago Christmas wasn't going to be the worst one of my life, by any means, how could it, after the ones I had spent in the Refugee Camps? Nevertheless, compared to the Christmases my wife, Olga, and I had enjoyed since we arrived in Canada following World War II, that Christmas was looking far from merry.

By John Burtis
Monday, December 5, 2005

Don't get me wrong, my old man was nothing like Murdstone, David Copperfield's stepfather in Dicken's masterpiece.  Still, growing up was no piece of cake with one, critical, life altering exception; my father valued the importance of reading and never hectored me if I was so engaged.

Like millions of other Canadians on November 11th, I stood for two minutes of silence at 11 AM. Eyes tightly shut, I tried to conceive of the millions who had bled into foreign soils, and the countless others whose souls were forever etched with the sorrow of war. I thought of the Dutch schoolchildren who maintain the Canadian cemeteries in the Netherlands, and how they raise money to fly our veterans over to commemorate their courage, even when our own government alleges they cannot. I stood stoically yet cried for my grandfather, a strong man felled by the atrocities of WWII.

Im angry, in fact so angry that its hard to keep a single train of thought. I just think how frustrated and indignant I am with all thats happening.

Im going to make you angry. Actually, you may already be angry because you see the reality and you know youre in it what Ive written here has been echoed around the world if news reports are to be believed.

Are you a humanist? A rationalist? A skeptic? Perhaps you are a fundamentalist, or a capitalist? Do you believe in philanthropy? Free will? Do you believe that justice exists; that there exists a right or wrong? Are we better off resorting to anarchy? Do you believe in the human condition? Do you believe in "Truth?" Who are you really? Its a question worth looking into.

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