Posts

What Are We Doing?

-
Image
Every day I see people struggling just to make it. Homelessness. Hopelessness. Loneliness. I understand it because I have been there myself. People often imagine homelessness as something that only happens to a certain kind of person. Someone irresponsible. Someone who made bad choices. Someone different from them. But that is not what I have seen. I have met people from every walk of life who ended up there. Highly educated professionals. People who grew up in wealthy families. Immigrants who came seeking opportunity and instead found hardship. Indigenous people pushed to the margins of their own lands. Settlers who simply fell through the cracks of systems they trusted. It can happen to anyone. I worry about it because I know how thin the line can be between stability and collapse. Over the years I have written to elected officials. I have reached out to religious institutions. I have contacted philanthropists and organizations with ideas and possible solutions. Often the response is...
Post a Comment
Read more

Leadership When the World Feels Uncertain

-
Image
There is a lot of conversation right now about conflict, instability, and a world that feels like it is constantly on the edge of something bigger. Everywhere people are trying to predict what comes next. Who will win. Who will lose. What happens next. The truth is that most of us cannot predict the outcome of global events. History is full of moments where the future felt obvious at the time, only to unfold in completely unexpected ways. Empires have fallen when they seemed unstoppable. Conflicts have ended when they seemed permanent. Entire political and economic systems have shifted in ways few people saw coming. Uncertainty is not new to the human story. What matters more is how people respond to it. Leadership is often misunderstood as the ability to control events. In reality, very few people ever control the course of the world. Even the most powerful leaders operate within forces far larger than themselves. Leadership is not about controlling the world. It is about choosing how...
Post a Comment
Read more

Anecdotal

-
Image
Anecdotal There is a word institutions use when they want something to shrink. Anecdotal. It sounds responsible. Analytical. Detached. But often, it is neither. When someone speaks about homelessness — about sleeping outside in −30, about navigating broken housing systems, about eviction after one financial disruption — the response is rarely curiosity. It is classification. “That’s anecdotal.” With that word, a human experience is reframed as statistically insignificant. And that reframing matters. Because governance often moves only when harm reaches measurable scale. Until then, it is categorized. Filed. Contained. Every structural failure begins as a single case. Before housing becomes a crisis metric, it is one person outside. Before policy review, there is one denied application. Before reform, there is one story dismissed. Systems do not collapse all at once. They erode one human being at a time. In administrative structures, files harden. Positions calcify. Risk mitigation repl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ignorantia Juris Non ExcusatThe Law Cuts Both Ways

-
Image
Ignorantia juris non excusat. Ignorance of the law is no excuse. This Roman maxim moved into English common law and continues to shape modern legal systems, including Canada. Its application to citizens is clear. If you breach a rule and say, “I didn’t know,” the answer is straightforward. You were expected to know. The law binds you whether you understood it or not. Deadlines matter. Procedure matters. Jurisdiction matters. Statutory wording matters. The burden rests on the individual to understand the framework they are subject to. But here is the structural tension. If ignorance of the law is no excuse for the governed, how can it become an informal excuse for those who exercise authority under that same law? Every administrative body, tribunal, regulator, and agency derives its power from statute. Their jurisdiction is defined by legislation. Their limits are defined by legislation. Their discretion exists because legislation permits it. Without statute, there is no authority. So t...
Post a Comment
Read more

You Built the System. Own the Outcome.

-
Image
Power without authorship is a fiction. Authority without accountability is a danger. Decisions without humans are a failure. These are not philosophical ideas. They are legal realities. For thousands of years, law has rested on a simple spine: Custom becomes law through use. Authority becomes legitimate through recognition. Institutions that operate with assumed powers become bound by those same powers. In other words: if you exercise power long enough, you inherit responsibility for its consequences. But here is the leadership lesson most people miss: Qui facit per alium facit per se. He who acts through another acts himself. You cannot delegate authority without retaining responsibility. You cannot hide behind process when outcomes harm people. You cannot design systems that appear mechanical and then pretend humans did not build the mechanics. Yet this is exactly what modern organizations try to do. “The algorithm decided.” No. You built the algorithm. “That’s how we’ve ...
Post a Comment
Read more

When Systems Act Like People, Accountability Must Follow

-
Image
I want to be clear about something from the start. I am not anti-government. I am not anti-Canada. I am not trying to tear down institutions. And I am not positioning myself as a problem to the state. I am doing something much simpler: I am navigating the system and asking it to be coherent. If we accept modern institutions as legitimate actors in our lives, then responsibility must live somewhere inside them. That’s it. No revolution. No destruction. Just accountability. A Very Old Legal Principle The Romans understood something fundamental: Power without responsibility is not law. It is force. Roman law recognized that authority does not exist in abstraction. It always attaches to people. Two principles matter here: Consuetudo pro lege servatur (Custom is held as law.) and Custom is the best interpreter of laws. What this means in practical terms: If something operates as law long enough; if people rely on it, interact with it, and organize their lives around it,  it acquires leg...
Post a Comment
Read more

Empathy, Boundaries, and the Sacredness of Time

-
Image
Today I spent time with another community leader I deeply respect. Not for business. Not to strategize. Just to connect as human beings. And it reminded me of something important that often gets lost in a world driven by productivity, deadlines, and outcomes: Our time is sacred. Your day off matters. Your family time matters. Your quiet time matters. Your spiritual or ceremonial time matters. When someone says, “Today is my day,” that isn’t rejection. That’s health. Too often, people are treated like machines. Sometimes by systems. Sometimes by workplaces. Sometimes by the pressure we place on ourselves. And sometimes because we don’t feel safe enough to set boundaries. But here’s the truth: Resentment grows when boundaries disappear. The word no is a full sentence. Boundaries aren’t walls. They’re bridges to healthier relationships. I learned this early as a parent. The first time my daughter said “no” as a baby, I didn’t scold her. I celebrated. Because that was her finding her voice...
Post a Comment
Read more