Welcome to my website. I hope you are able to find useful information in here about my work in Parliament, over the last 28 years. In my current role as Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons I do not have the opportunity to put questions to the government, or participate in debate, so there isn’t the constant source of new material for the site that my activity in the  House used to provide.  However, I do make speeches outside Parliament, write articles from time to time, and have articles written about me, or which refer to me.  We will try to post these as they arise.

On March 15th I announced that I would not be seeking re-election in the next federal election.  I made the announcement because there was a very high expectation of a spring election, and I felt obligated to give my party due notice and time to find a new candidate.  As it turned out, the election fever broke and there now seems little likelihood of an election before the spring of 2008 at the earliest; although a week continues to be a long time in politics.

At the time of my announcement, I also made it known that I had been appointed adjunct Professor of Theology and Politics in the theology faculty at the University of Winnipeg.   Whenever my parliamentary duties are completed, I intend to return to my alma matter to read, write, reflect, and lecture on the topic of the interaction between faith and politics, a topic in which there is a growing interest in recent years.  I look forward to such work, but also will continue to enjoy my work as an MP for as long as this Parliament continues.

I  hope this site might be of assistance in not only understanding my perspective on various issues, but also in better understanding the issues themselves. .

My time in Parliament has been served in a time when corporate values and corporate power were in the ascendancy. Much of my political energy has gone into resisting that trend, as I believe it is a trend that is destroying what is best and unique about Canada.

For many years, ever since I served on the House of Commons Committee that studied the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 1987-88, I have fought against the way in which such agreements (FTA, NAFTA, WTO, MAI,GATS ) threaten our democratic right to choose our own values and policies, and pressure us into adopting American ways of doing things. The Canadian way, the Canadian project, is, as Mel Hurtig says, “vanishing”.

The fight is far from over. Visitors to this website are invited to find their own way of contributing to keeping Canada the true north, strong and free.