Akaash Maharaj - Practical Idealism
29 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 year ago - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsAkaash Maharaj's projects, articles, broadcasts, and blog serving the public good and advancing the national interest. On politics, public policy, liberalism, foreign affairs, and equestrian sport.
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Episodes
Canada's Leaders Against Antisemitism and Islamophobia
April 10, 2023 00:28A live-audio conversation with Canada's federal leaders against antisemitism and islamophobia, Irwin Cotler and Amira Elghawaby
Globe and Mail: Desmond Tutu, Truth, and Reconciliation
January 01, 2022 17:00Whoever coined the adage "Never meet your heroes" could not have met Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
Build a Wall? Canada's Response to Trump
September 12, 2019 12:30Donald Trump's main export to Canada has been a sense of national smugness, that his outrages and absurdities could never find purchase here. But it would be an act of monumental self-deception for Canadians to believe that we are an island set above the rage bubbling across the world.
Toronto Star: Build a Wall? Canada's Response to Trump
August 20, 2019 12:25It would be an act of monumental self-deception for Canadians to believe that our country is an island set above the rage bubbling across the world.
Advisory: Launch of the Guelph Equine Public Policy Group
March 15, 2019 16:30The hard reality is that Canadian horses and horsepeople suffer when our voice goes unheard in the corridors of power. The Guelph Equine Public Policy Group will ensure that Canada's governments understand how they can - and why they must - serve the equine community public interest.
TVO's The Agenda: Animal Welfare at a Crossroads - Videocast
March 08, 2019 19:11 - 33 minutes - 128 MB VideoThe courts have ruled that the Ontario SPCA's police powers are unconstitutional. What is the future for animal welfare enforcement in Canada's largest province? Who can or will protect creatures who can not cry out for mercy?
The Arc of History - Podcast
December 23, 2018 17:00 - 5 minutes - 9.45 MBAll of us can wield a power that those who would divide us will never know: an ability to make common cause out of our common humanity and our common dignity, and a determination to join hands across the divisions that beset the human condition, to create a better world in the image of the better angels of our natures.
Addressing the United Nations - Podcast
June 07, 2015 15:00 - 9 minutes - 15.1 MBAddressing the United Nations was one of the more intimidating experiences of my life. I spoke on behalf of GOPAC's global alliance of parliamentarians, on our work to bring kleptocrats to justice.
Akaash Maharaj - News: Corruption Declared a Crime Against Humanity
December 09, 2013 14:30Reuters reports on our efforts at the United Nations: There are some forms of corruption so grave, whose effects on human life, human rights, and human welfare are so catastrophic, that they should shock the conscience of the international community and mobilise the will of nations to act across borders. They are Crimes Against Humanity, and should be prosecuted in the highest national and international courts.
TVO's The Agenda: The New McCarthyism - Videocast
July 02, 2012 15:00 - 3 minutes - 15.8 MB VideoThere is no worse cancer in a free society than the thuggish impulse to equate dissent as disloyalty... The greatest patriot is the person with the courage to be the lone voice in the crowd crying out that the Emperor has no clothes. The test of our society's democratic nature is our instinct to value the right of our fellow human beings to disagree with us.
TVO's The Agenda: Forgiving the Unforgivable - Videocast
June 14, 2012 20:15 - 3 minutes - 15.3 MB VideoOur capacity to do violence to one another is the worst tragedy of the human condition, but it makes our still greater capacity to forgive one another all the more powerful.
TVO's The Agenda: The Raj, the Reich, and the Good Fight - Videocast
April 07, 2012 16:00 - 3 minutes - 14.7 MB VideoGandhi and Bose were brothers in the hunger for justice, and both had followers who were willing to die for freedom rather than live as slaves. But one group was so blinded by passion for its cause, that it was willing to join hands with regimes whose very names have become bywords for evil in almost every spoken language on the planet.
TVO's The Agenda: A Meritocracy Worth Fighting For - Videocast
March 03, 2012 20:45 - 3 minutes - 15.3 MB VideoThroughout our history, Canada has grown through the toil of generations of Canadians who were inspired by the belief that our country is free of the rigid class systems of the Old World, that Canadians' success or failure depends on our own efforts and our own abilities...But in recent years, we have come to doubt our faith in this meritocracy.
TVO's The Agenda: Resistance is Not Futile - Videocast
January 28, 2012 23:00 - 3 minutes - 14.7 MB VideoIn any democracy worthy of the name, it is not merely the right, but the responsibility of every citizen to resist unjust laws... but there is a contrast between making a scene, and making a difference. There is a choice between the comfort of self-righteous illusion, and the peril of self-sacrificing commitment. There is a hard journey between railing against unjust laws, and living out a life that models justice.
TVO's The Agenda: Hope for the Holidays - Videocast
December 19, 2011 00:15 - 3 minutes - 13 MB VideoWe will be able to hold our heads high before the judgement of history if we can reply that in our season, we held on to hope, we put aside our doubts, we came together believing in our better selves, and we remembered that we have always burned brightest as a nation during the darkest hours.
TVO's The Agenda: To Lead or to Serve - Videocast
November 25, 2011 19:45 - 3 minutes - 15.4 MB VideoOver the past quarter century, political parties have too often lurched away from being mass movements of individual Canadians sharing a common vision of the public good, and towards being backdrops for individual party leaders who speak the language of democracy while wielding near-absolute power over their elected caucuses.
TVO's The Agenda: Liberalism of Conviction and of Convenience - Videocast
November 12, 2011 00:10 - 3 minutes - 14.8 MB VideoThe 20th century began as the age of the dictator. It ended with liberalism having come of age as the ascendant political philosophy across the world. Yet liberal parties everywhere are in crisis. Can they grow with the success of liberalism, or have they been outgrown by the success of their own political philosophy?
TVO's The Agenda: Faith in Secularism - Videocast
June 24, 2011 05:36 - 3 minutes - 14.9 MB VideoSpeaking on TVOntario's The Agenda with Steve Paikin, I make the case that separation of church and state is as much in the interests of the church as it is in the interests of the state. However, upholding the ideal of the secular state often demands more courage than we might expect.
TVO's The Agenda: The Arab Spring - Videocast
March 31, 2011 16:31 - 3 minutes - 13.9 MB VideoIn my broadcast essay for TVOntario's The Agenda with Steve Paikin, I argue that despite our sometimes chequered history in the region, Western states have an obligation to enforce the Libyan no-fly zone, both to protect civilians and to ensure that the Arab Spring and the hopes for democracy in the region are not snuffed out in the killing fields of Libya.
TVO's The Agenda: Truth, Casualties, and War - Videocast
November 21, 2010 15:01 - 3 minutes - 15.1 MB VideoVideocast of my televised essay for TVOntario's The Agenda with Steve Paikin, on Canada's role in Afghanistan: Our ability to successfully conclude the mission and effect an honourable departure is being prejudiced by an ignominious political retreat from the truth: the truth about why we went to Afghanistan in the first place and what we are actually trying to achieve there... I fear that the current government is unwilling to engage in an honest national debate about our objectives in Af...
TVO's The Agenda: An Injection of Moralism - Videocast
October 25, 2010 13:01 - 3 minutes - 9.46 MB VideoIn this, my second broadcast essay for TVOntario's The Agenda with Steve Paikin, I argue that the efforts by the federal government to place emotion above reason and shut down Insite are unworthy of our country's better traditions and higher responsibilities. It is little more than an effort to purchase easy political popularity at the expense of a wretched and unpopular segment of society.
TVO's The Agenda: The Rights of Vulgar Little Cowards - Videocast
October 02, 2010 12:01 - 3 minutes - 32.9 MB VideoIn this, my maiden broadcast essay for TVOntario's The Agenda with Steve Paikin, I argue that freedom of expression is too fundamental a right to be casually abridged, and that the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal must be stripped of its power to regulate public expression.
Team Canada Rides Again - Podcast
March 18, 2010 06:15 - 14 minutes - 8.29 MBCBC Radio One's Fresh Air interviews me on whether Team Canada will be able to repeat our improbable dominance of tent pegging, the cavalry sport of horse, sword, sabre and lance, as I saddle-up to compete at the 2010 International Championships in New Delhi.
Group Sword at the International Tent Pegging Championships - Akaash Maharaj Photocast
April 05, 2007 14:10 - 537 KB image/jpegOn the final day of competition at the world equestrian skill-at-arms championships in Oman, my horse Shomool remained in a surly mood. The rider to our left is keeping a considered distance, as Shomool had just attempted to deliver a slaying kick to his horse; Shomool's rear hooves came within centimetres of the intended victim. The warhorse's wayward bloodlust would remain with Shomool for the rest of the competition, and he seemed dejected that I insisted on coming between him and his w...
Chivalry and the Thrill of Tent Pegging - Podcast
February 13, 2007 21:05 - 8 minutes - 4.34 MBAn interview with CBC Ontario Today's Rita Celli, on UNICEF Team Canada, the international equestrian skill-at-arms championships,and galloping hell for leather for honour and country
Sword, Lance, and Adrenaline - Podcast
February 09, 2007 15:15 - 5 minutes - 3.12 MBAndy Barrie tries, largely in vain, to restrain his mirth as we discuss the upcoming world equestrian skill-at-arms championships in Oman, at which I will represent the country as a member of UNICEF Team Canada. The segment was originally broadcast on CBC Radio One's Metro Morning.
Akaash Maharaj - Projects: Tent Pegging with UNICEF Team Canada
February 08, 2007 13:55Of my many eccentricities, none is as improbable as my involvement in tent pegging. Often referred to as equestrian skill-at-arms, the sport has a mounted cavalier riding at a full gallop across a timed course, on the flat and over jumps, using sword and lance to smite a succession of ground and elevated targets. Yes, really... Like most tent peggers, I was introduced to the sport through service in a cavalry regiment. Seat a man on a horse, hand him a sword, and set him off at a gallop: any...
Politics and Principles - Podcast
November 28, 2006 06:30 - 34 minutes - 8 MBIn the wake of the Quebecois Nation issue, TV Ontario's The Agenda asks if politics and principles are Canada's true twin solitudes. With Steve Paikin as moderator, Val Meredith for the Conservatives, Robin Sears for the NDP, and I for the Liberals.
Visionary Politics - Podcast
January 05, 2006 13:30 - 42 minutes - 20.2 MBA feature-length CBC Radio One national debate between Judy Rebick of the NDP, Adam Daifallah of the Conservative Party, and myself on visionary politics in Canada.