Diane Francis

Quebec's unruly students are no different than the Greeks. Both have enjoyed free rides for years, both are being asked to pay their share of the tab and both are refusing to do so.
The backdrop to both situations and many more to come is the Great Markdown, or...

For nearly 20 years, Alan Greenspan was the most powerful banker in the world as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board until 2006. He is the keynote speaker at the International Economic Forum of the Americas/Conference of Montreal to be held from June 11 to 14. This year's theme is...

News that foreigners are circling around another important Canadian company, Viterra Inc., is upsetting and again begs the question as to what is in Canada's "national interest".

The question of "national interest" is what Investment Canada must evaluate if foreigners win the bid for Viterra, or any Canadian company.

Nearly three times more condo high-rises are being built in Toronto than are being built in New York City and nearly seven times more than in Chicago, according to Bloomberg News.

This development boom, and accompanying price increase, is not about housing to meet a sudden surge...

All Chinese companies must be banned from construction work in Canada because of their questionable track record here and around the world.

It was shocking that Enbridge Inc.'s Pat Daniel said his company was willing to allow a Chinese company to buy a piece of, and to bid...

At long last, Canada has a federal government that is willing to fix the country's broken immigration system, and become what it should be: the human resources and recruitment department for the economy.

As a critic of immigration for two decades, author of a book about all the boondoggles, and...

Talk recently about Chinese building a pipeline through British Columbia threatens the project's future more than does any statements by First Nations leaders, Robert Redford, Greens or New Democrats.

It's also an indication that the private sector does not get it. The pipeline will only be built if Albertans, British...

There are seven or 12 states that actually elect the President of the United States, not 50 states and the District of Columbia.

That is because there are two distinct Americas and this year's Presidential run-up and Republican primary underscores its "bi-cultural" political architecture. Regions matter and it's surprising that...

The heroes of the Orange Revolution -- the man nearly poisoned to death and the beauty in traditional braids -- inspired the world in 2004. I covered this non-violent protest and stood, with half a million others, many nights in a frigid Kiev square to hear Viktor Yushchenko...

It would be refreshing to have political leaders who connected the dots. This is important because if governments don't understand the causes of their troubles, then they cannot fix them.

Which brings me to Dalton McGuinty and Jean Charest. Much ink has been spilled on the fact that...

There was really nothing new in the scathing Drummond Report about Ontario's fiscal mess to those who follow finances. But its value is that an esteemed expert, Drummond has shamed the Ontario Liberals publicly and itemized 362 concrete steps they must, and can, take.

But will they? Will Greece? Will...

The Prime Minister's visit to China netted more than a couple of pandas for a decade. It got Washington's attention.

The optics -- notably concerning the oil sands -- was the main aim of the high-level visit. And it worked. The threat that Canada would divert energy to China instead...

Huguette Labelle has had a distinguished career as a civil servant in Canada, as a federal deputy minister then as head of the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) for six years. Since 2005, she has been Chair of Transparency International in Berlin, a non-governmental organization that monitors and...

The New America Foundation, sponsored by Silicon Valley tycoons such as Eric Schmidt and Steven Jobs' widow Laureen Powell Jobs, published an important and concise prescription to fix the listing world.
"The Way Forward" was written by two academics -- Professors Robert Hockett of Cornell University and...

The old British-France rivalry burst onto front stage when France's central banker responded to rumours that France would lose its Triple A status by saying Britain should first because it was in worse shape.

It was poor form and irrelevant to France's situation.

But Britain's predicament is serious...

The pas de deux, performed for weeks by Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, is slowly easing eurozone members into becoming the United States of Europe.

Frankly as political theater, it's enormously well-executed and deserves a Broadway Tony.

The first act concluded last week when the backsliders, Greece and Italy,...

"Eurogeddon," or currency Armageddon, appears to be inevitable due to the deep philosophical and cultural divide between eurozone members. But these differences also point to a reasonable exit from the current mess if the divide cannot be overcome which is to split the euro into two currencies.

In effect, there...

The party that calls itself Europe is over.

The sovereign debt crisis afflicting its weakest members has ended the eurozone's political Ponzi scheme -- the proclivity to hand out entitlements today and run up a tab due tomorrow.

The continent's La Dolce Vita lifestyle will disappear along with subsidies; cushy...

President Barack Obama has kicked the can down the road by postponing permission to build Canada's Keystone oil sands pipeline to Texas until 2013, after the next election.

This decision, in essence, strands the oil sands indefinitely and shuts it out of the U.S. market for years, if...

People around the world behaved badly this week, hardly a unique phenomena, but the consequences were more earth-shattering than usual.

Most disappointing was the jailing of three Pakistani athletes who obviously didn't realize that bribery and cheating wasn't cricket.

Then another Republican, Herman Cain, has been virtually...