We need a political party that puts forward big ideas, and the NDP is not fulfilling that role in its search for political power, argues Murray Dobbin.

The prime minister’s frightening decision to enlist the country’s security apparatus in the direct and immediate service of the oil industry makes clear that big oil is drowning democracy.

The last eight budgets have been about smothering the national dream of prosperity and equality by systematically starving the federal government. It’s time for some big ideas.

What did Stephen Harper’s visit to Israel add to Canada’s foreign policy that wasn’t already well established?

If progressives, whether in unions, activist groups or political parties, don’t soon begin doing politics differently — radically differently — they will fail to show that “a better world is possible.”

Give percentage of your earnings to others fostering social change.

Of all the hypocrisies revealed by Stephen Harper, perhaps none are so morally offensive as his sudden, solemn respect for Nelson Mandela.

We are so accustomed to the connection between political parties and democracy that to question the relationship between the two might seem absurd. But for those who recognize the multiple crises faced by humanity — the destruction of our environment, climate change, the ravages of unfettered finance capital, the undeniable limits to growth — the failure of our liberal, multi-party democracies seems increasingly obvious.

There is no accounting for political judgment when it gets caught up in irrational euphoria. The overwhelming victory of Justin Trudeau in the Liberal Party’s leadership race demonstrates just how impoverished the state of our political culture has become.