As at least one news organization has noted, Tom Flanagan was Stephen Harper's campaign manager in the 2004 federal election when the Conservative Party levelled charges against then-Prime Minister Paul Martin strikingly similar to those that so damaged Flanagan last week. At the heart of the beleaguered professor's misgivings about child porn laws is the question of when and how the legal system should intervene to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation. A similar, though not identical, issue separated the Conservative Party of Canada from the other three other parties contesting the 2004 election. The details of the dispute are not...

05 March, 2013

[caption id="attachment_11400" align="alignleft" width="125"] McGuire[/caption] [caption id="attachment_11401" align="alignright" width="125"] Cannon[/caption] In the moral panic that arose in response to Tom Flanagan's comments on child pornography last week, most of those who rushed to join the lynch mob were guilty of self-righteousness abetted by misrepresentation. CBC New executive Jennifer McGuire and University of Calgary President Elizabeth Cannon, however, deserve special mention for their failure to uphold the responsibility their instituions have for protecting controversial speech. Both had a duty to uphold a core principle of their organizations, and they weren't up to the task....

04 March, 2013

Tom Flanagan, the University of Calgary political scientist who once served as Stephen Harper's chief of staff and who has a long history in the Reform, Canadian Alliance, and Conservative parties, tells Meagan Fitzpatrick of Postmedia News he is puzzled by the government's decision on the census: It's just never been an issue in the Conservative movement. It just literally comes out of nowhere as far as I can see...

24 July, 2010