Canada's new minister of foreign affairs, Chrystia Freeland, was recruited into politics by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his influential in his inner circle. They share a belief common amongst international bankers, industrialists and many politicians that free trade and globalization are automatically good for us and that it would be dangerous to tamper with them.

In June 2015, the Conservative government passed the Anti-Terrorism Act, which is also known as Bill C-51. It gave sweeping new powers to Canada’s spy and security agencies. For example, the legislation broadened the definition of "security" in a way which could criminalize peaceful protests. It also permitted agents of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to disrupt events preemptively rather than being limited to monitoring them.

Other countries, including the U.S., have at least some semblance of oversight on their spy agencies. In Canada MPs and Senators are mostly kept in the dark.  As well, the existing Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) is supposed to provide oversight but it is a tame agency which lacks investigative powers and is under-staffed.

Jeffrey Simpson, now retired as columnist for The Globe and Mail would write at year's end about what he got right -- and where he had been wrong. I intend to try something similar in this blog posting.

Most of my 21 posts with rabble in 2016 attracted just a few comments, but one abut Justin Trudeau and another about climate change deniers attracted numerous replies. Often writing about the deniers is like kicking a hornet's nest -- they come after you in swarms. On rabble, however, it was not the deniers but rather their critics who were most prominent in reply and for that I am thankful. 

At the United Nations in late October 123 countries voted in favour of a recommendation endorsing the launch of negotiations aimed at prohibiting nuclear weapons. Canada voted no. Douglas Roche, this country's former Ambassador for Disarmament at the UN, is clearly piqued. "The government turned its back on an important nuclear disarmament initiative," he says, "and sided with the nuclear weapons states that want to keep and modernize their nuclear arsenals for the rest of the 21st century."

On November 19th, I was among 600 people crowded into Ottawa’s Machzikei Hadas synagogue for a multi-faith solidarity event. Earlier in the week, someone painted racist and Nazi graffiti on two Ottawa synagogues and a mosque, as well as a United Church whose minister is a person of colour and the residence of a Jewish woman, who teaches in her home. Even in blustery weather, there was a long line outside of the synagogue.

Doug Gruner says that a welcoming approach toward refugees is a key to their successful integration into Canadian life, and access to health care is vital to the process.

Gruner practices at the Bruyère Family Medicine Centre in Ottawa. He spoke recently to a class at the Ottawa School of Theology and Spirituality (OSTS). "Once we make a decision to accept refugees," he said, "it is our responsibility to provide them with health care."

Honeymoon phase is over

Referring to the Syrian refugees who arrived earlier this year Gruner added, "We are past the honeymoon phase that occurs when refugees first arrive. We are now seeing a lot of physical and mental health issues."

Our southern neighbours have chosen as their president a serial liar, a crude racist and sexual predator — someone who has grown wealthy by avoiding taxes, declaring bankruptcy several times and stiffing both his employees and his creditors. 

What’s more, Donald Trump is a potential demagogue similar in temperament to Russian President Vladimir Putin, Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte and former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

I've been writing blogs for nine years now and I receive the greatest response -- much of it negative --whenever I write about climate change. I suspect that at least some of those who react are paid by the carbon industry to sow doubt. I accept the scientific consensus that that climate change is real, that it's human-induced and that it's already causing catastrophic damage. Taking my cue from organizations, such as the International Panel on Climate Change and NASA, I tend to be uncompromising whenever writing or speaking about the issue.

A soft approach

The world still faces a massive crisis over forcibly displaced people. In 2015, there were more than 65 million -- the most since the Second World War. And half were under the age of 18. About 24 million of these people have fled their countries and are counted by the United Nations as refugees.

A much larger number, 41 million, are internally displaced, forced to flee their homes but remain within the borders of their countries. In Syria, for example, 6.6 million people are internally displaced, which represents 30 per cent of the population.

Funding falls short

Vancouver orthopaedic surgeon Brian Day is challenging a law that prohibits doctors from working in both the public and private health care systems simultaneously and extra billing their patients while they do so.

Day did some boxing in his youth and now, bizarrely, he compares himself to the late Muhammad Ali as a kind of freedom fighter against injustice. He says he's going to court not out of self-interest but rather on behalf of patients on waiting lists.

Opposes equal access