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Health + Human Development Communicator | 1991 – 2017

27 Years Contributing as a Health and Human Development Communicator | 1991 – 2017

Preface

Out of the army and off to the University of Toronto in the 1980s.

Whilst studying at the University of Toronto in the 1980s, the seeds were sown for much of the work that followed in the 1990s and 2000s. And what came together was the ability to undertake innovative communications initiatives using media and the latest digital tools. I had a strong interest in what constituted a modern, healthy society, and this eventually led my studies from psychology to sociology to history and eventually medical history. Along the way, I further developed my keen interest in communicating, writing for student media and broadcasting on student radio. I also organised various student organisations, from Erindale College’s first Peace Club, to its Amnesty International chapter, and eventually ran on a reforming ticket for the Students Adminstrative Council (SAC) at U of T. I undertook primary research for a history professor (Sidney Aster) working on a book, looking into the British Government’s efforts to organise food supply shipments during World War II (the biography of Lord Salter, Power, Policy and Personality: the Life and Times of Lord Salter, 1881-1975), and catalogued the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) collection for the University of Toronto (Robarts Library). Being U of T, I also had the privilege of making amazing contacts and meeting some of the brightest Canadian minds of the time (for example, Professor Edward Shorter, co-author of Shock Therapy: A History of Electroconvulsive Treatment in Mental Illness).

Power, Policy and Personality: The Life and Times of Lord Salter, 1881-1975 by Sidney Aster. The Papers of Lord Salter are held in the University of Cambridge Churchill Archives Centre. “Personal and political papers; with notes and correspondence collected by Professor Sidney Aster in the course of writing the official biography of Salter.”

The 1990s were an exciting time because it was possible to blaze new trails with emerging digital technologies. And this led to highly influential work with the United Nations and the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). This included an opportunity to head up the communications office for the UN in Mongolia just at the moment in the late 1990s when the Internet was coming online, and undertaking an influential role heading the launch of a child health portal for the prestigious Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital (GOSH)/Institute of Child Health (ICH), just as the NHS was undertaking its Modernisation Plan in the early 2000s.

By the mid-2000s, whilst consulting for the United Nations in Africa, Asia and Central Asia, I was offered a new opportunity in 2006/2007 to work with the then-Special Unit for South-South Cooperation (SSC) based in New York. It became clear there was a disconnect between what was happening within the United Nations and what was happening on the ground in the global South. The rapid take-up of mobile phones was transforming how people communicated and led their lives. Elsewhere, the wider mobile and information technologies space was generating new business models and creative ways to use communications tools to do things and make a living. All this was very stimulating and chronicled in the e-newsletter Development Challenges, South-South Solutions and Southern Innovator Magazine for the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC).

Timeline

1985/1989: Graduate from the University of Toronto with a BA Honours in History (including medical history) and Political Science. One of my final year papers addressed medical quackery involving the drug laetrile as a cancer cure and how the medical establishment and regulatory authorities, in their attempts to prevent its use, in fact played into the prevailing anti-establishment political climate and distrust of institutions and the government.

1989/1991: Begin work as a Unit Coordinator for a chemotherapy ward of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre (previously Princess Margaret Hospital/Ontario Cancer Institute) in Toronto. First training in health informatics and witness first-hand new computer initiatives to quantify workload on the ward to better allocate resources.

1991: Investigative journalist, health and medical reporter for Today’s SeniorsHospital News, and writing for many other magazines and newspapers, including The Toronto Star and Canadian Living Magazine, drawing on my first-hand experience working in a hospital/research institute and my contacts. Covered impact of early 1990s Canadian austerity crisis on health system/healthcare as well as innovative responses to better use resources. This included covering the roll-out of the World Health Organization’s Healthy Cities initiative (Taking Medicine to the People: Four Innovators in Community Health for Canadian Living Magazine), and medical education reforms (for The Toronto Star in Take Two Big Doses of Humanity and Call Me in the Morning). Interviewed the project head for a new innovative initiative to provide online resources for patients from the Metro Toronto Reference Library, which was later incorporated in Toronto’s University Health Network.Other stories covered included: Changing Health Care Careers A Sign of the TimesCritics blast government long-term care reformsCut services to elderly, says doctors’ survey… but leave our salaries alone!Feds call for AIDS, blood system inquiry: Some seniors infectedGovernment urged to limit free drugs for seniorsHealth care on the cutting block: Ministry hopes for efficiency with search and destroy tacticsHealth Care in DangerNew legislation will allow control of medical treatmentPrivate firms thrive as NDP ‘reinvents’ medicarePsychiatric care lacking for institutionalised seniorsSeniors falling through the health care cost cracksSpecialists want cancer treatments universally availableStudy Says Jetliner Air Quality Poses Health Risks.

1992/1994: Editor and Writer for the Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine, including its newsletter, better connecting Canadian medical history scholars. The archive of newsletters is held at the Wellcome Collection Library in London, UK: http://0-www.bmj.com.libsys.wellcome.ac.uk/search~S7?/tNewsletter+%28Hannah+Institute+for+the+History+of+Medicine%29/tnewsletter+hannah+institute+for+the+history+of+medicine/-3%2C-1%2C0%2CB/frameset&FF=tnewsletter+hannah+institute+for+the+history+of+medicine&

Report from Miami and Fort Lauderdale for Today’s Seniors in the wake of Hurricane Andrew on medical evacuation coordination measures for Canadian ‘Snowbirds’.

1994/1996: Editor-in-Chief for Watch Magazine, an innovative youth culture and media start-up partly funded by the Government of Canada. Watch Magazine played an important role in Toronto’s recovery from the economic collapse brought about by the combination of the late 1980s crash and government austerity policies. By engaging youth (high school-aged writers, editors and creatives), Watch Magazine showed their energy and perspective could jolt the city back to life, despite the negative media portrayal of youth at the time.

“As one of those high school kids and the guy who wrote (most of) this article, I’d like to say thanks to David [South] for all his hard work on Watch magazine! I learned a lot from him and it was a great experience.” William White

In 1995 I worked as a Senior Media Reporter for the Financial Times‘ newsletters New Media Markets and Screen Finance. I covered the rise of new media, including the Internet and cable and satellite television channels. Also covered new film-financing schemes funded by the European Union and the rise of new media in the Nordic countries. Stories included:

Channel Regulation: Swedes Will Fight Children’s Advertising All The WayFrom Special Report: NMM (New Media Markets) Spotlight On The Emergence Of Satellite Porn Channels In The UK.

1996/1997: Features Editor for Id MagazineId‘s investigative journalism unearthed many firsts, from covering the prototype experiments with e-cash and the cashless society in its hometown of Guelph, Ontario (Cashless Society Put to Test in Ontario Town, The New York Times, Sept. 30, 1997), attempts by far-right groups to organise at high schools, reporting from Port-au-Prince on the United Nations’ mission in Haiti, and the social impact of Canada’s expanding sex economy during the austerity and recession years of the 1990s (Special Report: Sexual Dealing – Today’s Sex Toys Are Credit Cards & Cash). 

1997/1999: Communcations Coordinator and head of communications for the UN Mongolia mission in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia (1997-1999) under the Partnership for Progress.

1997: Begin a two-year assignment as head of communications for the UN/UNDP Mongolia mission (1997-1999). Called “one of the biggest peacetime economic collapses ever”, I was thrown into the deep end as part of the UN’s efforts to rescue Mongolia from this severe crisis. I established the award-winning UN/UNDP Mongolia Communications Office (a high-profile and lively hub staffed by media professionals) and quickly developed and launched the award-winning UN Mongolia Development Portal (www.un-mongolia.mn) (called a “role model” for the United Nations). I developed and launched the mission’s first newsletter, Blue Sky Bulletin (distributed by post, online and by email to subscribers), as well as the first Mongolian Human Development Report, the Mongolian AIDS Bulletin (after attending the Fourth International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacificin 1997, and meeting and being inspired by UNAIDS head Dr. Peter Piot, the Bulletin was used to kick-start Mongolia’s response to an unfolding STDs/HIV/AIDS crisis), the UN’s and Mongolia’s first online magazine, Ger, while also overseeing the country’s largest bilingual online and offline publishing operation. In Starting from Scratch: The Challenge of Transition, I document the challenge to re-start Mongolia’s data and statistics collection after it was wiped off the mainframe computers that once stored it during the Communist period (a cautionary tale for our times if there ever was one!). InFreedom of Expression: Introducing Investigative Journalism to Local Media in Mongolia, I give an account of a workshop for Mongolian journalists keen to learn more about the discipline of investigative journalism and how important it is in a democracy. In Partnership for Progress: UNDP in Mongolia, I painted a picture of Mongolia’s country conditions in 1997, what was at stake, and how the UN was responding. Stabilized, by 2012 Mongolia was being called the fastest growing economy in the world, and was contributing troops to UN peacekeeping missions.

1998: Develop and launch Mongolia’s first web magazine, Ger. Lead two international media tours of the country, one in 1997 (Scandinavian media), and the other in 1998 (women journalists). Many stories were generated from the two international media tours and were compiled in books published by UNDP, including  In Their Own Words: Selected Writings by Journalists on Mongolia, 1997-1999 (ISBN 99929-5-043-9). Read an example story here: The Milk of Kindness Flows in a Peculiar Land A Steppe From Nowhere by Leslie Chang (The Asian Wall Street Journal, 15 August 1998).

1999: Publish many books on Mongolia’s development, including In Their Own Words: Selected Writings by Journalists on Mongolia, 1997-1999 (ISBN 99929-5-043-9) and the Mongolian rock and pop book (ISBN  99929-5-018-8). Undertake preparatory work with Mongolian scholars for the Human Development Report Mongolia 2000: Reorienting the state for UNDP Mongolia.

Whilst working for a UK-based international development consultancy, I prepared papers for the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AMFAR), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), for various UN agencies including UNCTAD and UNAIDS, and coordinated the preparation of the report and launch strategy for the World Bank’s Task Force on Higher Education and Society (2000).

The One World Youth Conference Series initiated by UN/UNDP Mongolia shows it is possible to engage policy makers and connect them with youth, playing a key part in the development of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the UN’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:wv2Sujc7lBoJ:https://search.archives.un.org/uploads/r/united-nations-archives/1/3/3/1333b60aed62bd81200b36cf45674a5b7815b8f1974c1313cf797017db506170/S-1096-0264-21-00011.pdf+&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

Mongolia’s Follow-up to the UN Global Conferenceshttp://lawsdocbox.com/Politics/78172933-I-should-like-to-thank-you-for-your-kind-letter-dated-25-september-1999.html

“A UN System site. A very nice, complete, professional site. Lots of information, easily accessible and well laid out. The information is comprehensive and up-to-date. This is a model of what a UNDP CO web site should be.” From A Survey of Country Office Web Sites April 2000 by UN HQ New York. 

1999/2000: Consulting for a UK-based international development consultancy and for the United Nations in Kiev, Ukraine

2000: My work in Mongolia is covered and cited in various books published after 1999, including Wild East: Travels in the New Mongolia by Jill Lawless (ISBN 97814-5-964-5783)Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists by Morris Rossabi (ISBN 9780-5-209-38625), and Dateline Mongolia: An American Journalist in Nomad’s Land by Michael Kohn (ISBN 9781-5-7143-1554)Ukraine. Work on the strategic re-launch of the UN Ukraine web portal and advise on the communications strategy for the UN Resident Representative/UNDP Resident Coordinator. This is also the year in which the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were launched and the new development portal reflected this in its structure and content.

2001: UN wins Nobel Peace Prize jointly with its Secretary-General Kofi Annan, citing the Prize was “for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world.”

2001/2003: Project Manager in charge of Web Strategy for the GOSH Child Health Portal at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust/Institute of Child Health. 

2001: Begin work on the development of the award-winning GOSH Child Health Portal for the National Health Service (NHS). As part of the NHS’ Modernisation Plan, it was called a “role model” for the NHS and one of the “three most admired websites in the UK public and voluntary sectors,” and was developed and launched under heavy public and media scrutiny. Each stage of the Portal’s development would coincide with a high-profile media launch. For example, the Hospital’s 150th birthday celebrations included Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and pop star Madonna.

2002/2003: Win the Childnet Award in 2003 for the Children First website (supporters were Prince Harry and Cherie Booth QC). Children First’s content was developed in partnership with the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation). Awarded additional funding from the PPP Foundation (now AXA Research) (see Research Review 2001: A year of excellence and innovation and Research Review 2002: Building on success). The GOSH Child Health Portal grew its “hits” from 1,472,302 in February 2002, to 7,715,107 in June 2003

“The GOSH/ICH web site to date has been a notable success. Not only has it met a majority of its objectives … and achieved recognition as ‘exemplary’ among NHS resources, but it has also generated a number of spin-off projects, including Children First (as a successor to GOSHKids) and The Virtual Children’s Hospital. …

“In a context in which less than 25% of all projects realise even 50% of their benefits, the satisfaction of 75% of the original objectives .. must rank as a significant achievement.” Consultant’s evaluation of the GOSH Child Health Portal in 2003. 

2003/2004: Live and work in Jerusalem, Israel. Travel extensively around the country during the hudna

2004/2006: Consulting for the United Nations in Mongolia, South Africa and Turkmenistan.

2007/2017: Consultant and Editor and Writer for the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation (UNOSSC) (formerly the Special Unit for South-South Cooperation). Both an e-newsletter (Development Challenges, South-South Solutions) and a magazine (Southern Innovator) are produced chronicling the impact of mobile and information technologies on the global South, and the rise of a 21st-century innovator culture as a result. Both media substantially raise the profile of the global South, Southern Solutions, and the 21st-century global innovation culture, while also being cited as an influential resource in the UN’s adoption of an innovation and South-South Cooperation agenda for its programming and priorities.

The thinking behind this work can be found in two sources:

1) Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development by The UN Millennium Project, “commissioned by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to develop a practical plan of action to meet the Millennium Development Goals. As an independent advisory body directed by Professor Jeffrey D. Sachs, the UN Millennium Project submitted its recommendations to the UN Secretary General in January 2005. The core of the UN Millennium Project’s work has been carried out by 10 thematic Task Forces comprising more than 250 experts from around the world, including scientists, development practitioners, parliamentarians, policymakers, and representatives from civil society, UN agencies, the World Bank, the IMF, and the private sector” (Innovation: Applying Knowledge in Development, UN Millennium Development Library, Taylor & Francis, 17 June 2013).

2) Two editors for the e-newsletter and magazine, Cosmas Gitta and Audette Bruce, authored a paper jointly with Professor Calestous Juma (a well-known scholar and leading figure in the study of innovation at the Belfer Center) in 2005 for the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs titled, Forging New Technology Alliances: The Role of South-South Cooperation.

2007: David South Consulting begins work on the e-newsletter Development Challenges, South-South Solutions for the then-Special Unit for South-South Cooperation (SSC) at the United Nations. The e-newsletter is distributed by email to an influential global subscriber audience working in international development and the United Nations, as well as distributed online via various platforms.

2008: Reader response experiment begins with crowd-powered news website NowPublic. Initial proposal for the development of book or magazine on innovation. Awarded grant for Cuba study tour by BSHF. 

2009: Adjust e-newsletter content based on reader responses. Begin posting content on Twitter platform.

2010: Begin development of the new global magazine Southern Innovator with the then-Special Unit for South-South Cooperation (SSC) at the United Nations and a design team in Iceland led by Solveig Rolfsdottir, one of Iceland’s top graphic designers and illustrators. 

The magazine was produced to the UN’s design standards, as well as abiding by the UN’s Global Compact. With production in Iceland, the magazine could be designed and laid out using 100 per cent renewable energy sources.

Launch David South Consulting as Senior Partner working with talented global professionals.

Develop and launch the new branding for David South Consulting and its website, davidsouthconsulting.com, all designed by Solveig Rolfsdottir

2011: Launch the first issue of Southern Innovator Magazine at the Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo) in Rome, Italy.

It is called “a terrific tour de force of what is interesting, cutting edge and relevant in the global mobile/ICT space…”. Launch www.southerninnovator.org website (now www.southerninnovator.com) and social media including Twitter account @SouthSouth1.

To avoid censorship and interference, Southern Innovator‘s editorial operations were based in London, UK and its design studio was based in Reykjavik, Iceland (a high-ranking country in the World Press Freedom rankings and a former top place holder in the UNDP Human Development Index). Using a women-led design studio, it developed a design vision that could communicate across borders using clear graphic design and high-quality images. For example, when it launched in 2011, infographics were rare in development publications and at the UN; now they are commonplace. It also tried to be as  ‘green’ as possible. The studio was powered on 100 per cent renewable energy (in particular, geothermal energy); the hard copy of the magazine is printed on paper from sustainable forests.

2012: Launch second and third issues of Southern Innovator Magazine at the GSSD Expo in Vienna, Austria.

Called a “Beautiful, inspiring magazine from UNDP on South-South innovation.”

With 201 Development Challenges, South-South Solutions stories posted on the NowPublic platform, a total of 336,289 views by 2012 had occurred, according to the NowPublic counter (Closed in December 2013, the stories published on NowPublic were able to reach a large, global audience, receiving 201,109 views as of 27 June 2010, and reaching 420,151 views by 31 July 2013. The stories were cited in many other media resources and also in books. This includes Export Now: Five Keys to Entering New Markets by Frank Lavin and Peter Cohan (2011) and The Canadian).

2013: Launch fourth issue of Southern Innovator Magazine at the GSSD Expo in Nairobi, Kenya.

Called “fantastic, great content and a beautiful design!” and “Always inspiring.”.

2014: Launch fifth issue of Southern Innovator Magazine at the GSSD Expo in Washington, D.C. U.S.A. The Twitter account @SouthSouth1 called “ one of the best sources out there for news and info on #solutions to #SouthSouth challenges.” Final issues of e-newsletter Development Challenges, South-South Solutions published.  

The two publications proved influential on a number of fronts, being early to draw attention to the following: the rising use of mobile phones and information technology in development, the world becoming an urban place, innovative food solutions including the nascent insect food sector (now a big thing), altering perspectives on what is possible in Africa, the use of data science to innovate development, and tracking the growing number of technology hubs and the fast-growing start-up culture in the global South. The publications were cited for shaping the new strategic direction adopted by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) (the UN’s leading development organisation) and its first youth strategy, and the development of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As the world’s first global innovator magazine, Southern Innovator’s design had to be appropriate for a diverse audience. It has drawn praise for being both “beautiful” and “inspiring”, while its use of sharp, modern graphic design and infographics inspired others in the UN to up their game when it comes to design.

Senior Partner David South outside the White House in 2014.

2015: Develop scale-up plan for Southern Innovator Magazine. The UNOSSC was promoted from being a Special Unit to an Office. It also had its budget increased. 

South-South cooperation and innovation have now become the key methodology for the UN’s delivery of its programmes and projects. In 2015, China pledged US $2 billion to “support South-South cooperation” and called for the international community to “deepen South-South and tripartite cooperation”. In development parlance, they have been “Mainstreaming South-South and Triangular Cooperation” in their plans.

The current policy vogue for innovation in developing and developed countries can trace its roots back to some of the early work done by these two publications (and which was further amplified by the annual Global South-South Development Expo (GSSD Expo), which often would feature innovators from the two publications, spreading the innovation message around the world). Both publications had set out to inspire and “champion a global 21st century innovator culture”. And they have done this, as can be seen from concrete evidence and anecdotal responses from individuals and organizations alike.

By 2015, davidsouthconsulting.com is ranked in the Top Million Sites in the world by Alexa (at 920,811). 

2016: Many books have been published citing stories from the e-newsletter Development Challenges, South-South Solutions and Southern Innovator Magazine. They include: Beyond Gated Communities edited by Samar Bagaeen and Ola Uduku (Routledge: 2015), Chile in Transition: Prospects and Challenges for Latin America’s Forerunner of Development by Roland Benedikter and Katja Siepmann (Springer: 2015), Export Now: Five Keys to Entering New Markets by Frank Lavin and Peter Cohan (John Wiley & Sons: 2011), Innovation Africa: Emerging Hubs of Excellenceedited by Olugbenga Adesida, Geci Karuri-Sebina and João Resende-Santos (Emerald Group Publishing: 2016), New Directions in Children’s and Adolescents’ Information Behavior Research edited by Dania Bilal and Jamshid Beheshti (Emerald Group Publishing: 2014), A Sociological Approach to Health Determinants by Toni Schofield (Cambridge University Press: 2015).

Many papers have been published citing stories from the e-newsletter and the magazine. They include: Afro-futurism and the aesthetics of hope in Bekolo’s Les Saignantes and Kahiu’s Pumzi by Mich Nyawalo, Journal of the African Literature Association, Volume 10, 2016, Issue 2,Autonomous Systems in the Intelligence Community: Many Possibilities and Challenges by Jenny R. Holzer, PhD, and Franklin L. Moses, PhD, Studies in Intelligence Vol 59, No. 1 (Extracts, March 2015), Decoding the Brand DNA: A Design Methodology Applied to Favela Fashion by Magali Olhats, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina Florianopolis, 2012, Edible Insects and the Future of Food: A Foresight Scenario Exercise on Entomophagy and Global Food Security by Dominic Glover and Alexandra Sexton, Institute of Development Studies, King’s College London, Evidence Report No 149, September 2015,Evaluation of Kenyan Film Industry: Historical Perspective by Edwin Ngure Nyutho, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Nairobi, 2015, Evaluation of the Regional Programme for Africa (2008-2013), UNDP Independent Evaluation Office, 2013, High-level Committee on South-South Cooperation Seventeenth Session: Framework of operational guidelines on United Nations support to South-South and triangular cooperation: Note by the Secretary-General, 22-25 May 2012, New York, The New Middle Class and Urban Transformation in Africa: A Case Study of Accra, Ghana by Komiete Tetteh, The University of British Colombia, 2016, Propagating Gender Struggles Through Nollywood: Towards a Transformative Approach by Nita Byack George Iruobe, Geonita Initiative for Women and Child Development, 17 July 2015,Reberberation: Musicians and the Mobilization of Tradition in the Berber Culture Movement by TMG Wiedenkenner et al, The University of Arizona,  2013, Recasting ‘truisms’ of low carbon technology cooperation through innovation systems: insights from the developing world by Alexandra Mallett, Innovation and Development, 5:2, 297-311, DOI: 10.1080/2157930X.2015.1049851, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2015,“Slam the Slums”: Understanding architecture through the poor by Malini Foobalan, November 26th, 2009, Song Lines: Mapping the South African Live Performance Landscape: Report of the CSA 2013 Live Mapping Project Compiled by Concerts South Africa, Samro Foundation, 2013, Strategic Framework of the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation, 2014-2017, Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Office for Project Services, 27 to 31 January 2014, New York, Using Mobile-Enabled Devices for Engagement and Monitoring of Patient with Chronic Disease: Hypertensive Case by Akinwole A.K., Yekini N.A., Oloyede A.O., Ojo O., International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 10, Issue 4, April 2019 (ISSN 2229-5518), Wearing Your Map on Your Sleeve: Practices of Identification in the Creation and Consumption of Philippine Map T-shirts by Pamela Gloria Cajilig, paper presented at the 6th Global Conference (2014): Fashion: Exploring Critical Issues, Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom, 15th to 18th September 2014, Young Girls’ Affective Responses to Access and Use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Information-Poor Societies by Dania Bilal et al, New Directions in Children’s and Adolescents’ Information Behavior Research, Library and Information Science, Volume 10, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, 2014, Youth Empowered as Catalysts for Sustainable Human Development: UNDP Youth Strategy 2014-2017, United Nations Development Programme, Bureau for Development Policy.

2017: Invited to speak at the Workshop on Innovations in Service Delivery: The Scope for South-South and Triangular Cooperation in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Able to see first-hand how many of the ideas developed in the e-newsletter and the magazine Southern Innovator were being implemented in a country. Work featured in new book Busted: An Illustrated History of Drug Prohibition in Canada by Susan Boyd (Fernwood Publishing, 2017, ISBN 978-1-55266-976-1).

2018:

Citations

Agribusiness strategy and rural development: A case study of Ihunga Sub County, Ntungamo District by Denis, Simpson Singahache, 2018

Financing Renewable Energy in Developing Countries: Analysis of Business Models and Best Practices, Resources Future Publication, Pakistan Office, July 2018

2019:

Citations

Problems and Prospects of Development of Apitourism in Kazakhstan, Zh. N. Aliyeva, R. M. Baiburiyev, David D. Lorant, A. S. Shagyrbay, Z. K. Kaliaskarova, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary, Bulletin of National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan, ISSN 1991-3494, Volume 6, Number 382 (2019), 45-53 (https://doi.org/10.32014/2019.2518-1467.144)

Using Mobile-Enabled Devices for Engagement and Monitoring of Patient with Chronic Disease: Hypertensive Case by Akinwole A. K., Yekini N.A., Oloyede A.O., Ojo O., International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research, Volume 10, Issue 4, April 2019, ISSN 2229-5518

2020:

It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to comment on a draft of Buying into capitalism: Mongolians’ changing perceptions of capitalism in the transition years by External Professor Emeritus Paula L. W. Sabloff from the Santa Fe Institute (12 Oct 2020: Central Asian Survey). 

“A political anthropologist, she uses complex-systems tools to analyze three different databases: Mongolians’ changing ideas on democracy and capitalism, the emergence of early states all over the world, and 19-20th century Cozumel.”

The Santa Fe Institute “is the world’s leading research center for complex systems science.”

Citations

Development of Luffa Cylindrica Nonwoven Structure and assessment of its suitability as a packaging and shopping bag material by C. Wetaka, Moi University School of Engineering, 2020

2021:

Citations

Determinants of Capacity Utilization among Agribusiness Firms in Nigeria by Chukwuma Ume, Patience Ifeyinwa Opata, Kalu Uche Felix, Ukwuaba Charles Ikenna, Sunny Chukwuemeka Ume, Agu Amarachi Jacinta, Asian Journal of Managerial Science, Vol. 10 No. 2 (2021): July-December 2021 (DOI: https://doi.org/10.51983/ajms-2021.10.2.2926)

Impact of Digital Strategy in Business for Small and Medium Enterprises in Developing Countries by Malik Mustafa, International Journal for Modern Trends in Science and Technology, 7 (09): 205-210, 2021

2022:

https://sites.google.com/davidsouthconsulting.org/david-south-international/home?authuser=1/

https://sites.google.com/davidsouthconsulting.org/southern-innovators/home

https://sites.google.com/davidsouthconsulting.org/new-mongolia-project/home/

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2024

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CASE STUDY 1: Investigative Journalism | 1991 – 1997

Expertise: Investigative journalism, editing, start-ups, content and magazine design, digital content, digital strategy.

Locations: Toronto and Guelph, Ontario, Canada and London, UK 1991 to 1997

Investigative Journalist, Editor, Reporter, Writer: David South

Abstract

I worked as a journalist for magazines and newspapers from 1991 to 1997 in Canada and the United Kingdom and as a radio host for a weekly spoken word interview programme, Word of Mouth (CKLN-FM). 

CKLN-FM’s “Word of Mouth 6 pm-6:55 pm Hosts: David South, Jill Lawless This show goes well behind the headlines for the real story behind the events.”

This included working as an investigative journalist for Now Magazine, “Toronto’s alternative news and entertainment source”, as a Medical and Health Correspondent for Today’s Seniors, and as an investigative journalist and reporter for two Financial Times newsletters, New Media Markets and Screen Finance.  

Samples of published stories can be found here (below) and on the Muck Rack platform here: https://muckrack.com/david-south

About

Could it be possible to do high-quality investigative journalism in the context of a shrinking economy undergoing austerity, and where the media sector is contracting and consolidating around a small number of media companies? Is it possible to launch new media products in the face of a contracting economy and reach new audiences and create new markets?

In Canada, the early to mid 1990s were the years of government austerity and economic crisis. After the crash of 1989/1990*, institutions came under great stress. Health care, for example, was pitched into a period of turmoil and change. Drawing on my experience working in the health sector (Princess Margaret Hospital/Ontario Cancer Institute), I covered this crisis in many stories for various publications, in particular Today’s Seniors.

The Canadian economy severely contracted and unemployment was at 11.4 per cent by 1993 (Statistics Canada), and as Statistics Canada says, “Because employment recovered at a snail’s pace after the recession of the early 1990s, the decline in the unemployment rate was delayed until 1994”. 

The media in general could not avoid the wider economic crisis. According to the book The Missing News: Filters and Blind Spots in Canada’s Press (Robert A. Hackett and Richard S. Garneau, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, University of Toronto Press 2000), Canada’s media was also in a crisis throughout the 1990s, as declining resources, staff layoffs and media closures reduced the breadth and depth of news coverage. Canadian media as a whole also has a “great dependence on advertising, which accounts for more than 70% of daily newspaper revenues, about 64% of magazine revenues,” which means there is enormous pressure to only publish stories that do not upset advertisers. And monopolies exert great control over news content in Canada: “In the United States, ten companies control 43.7% of total daily newspaper circulation. By contrast, in Canada since 1996, one single company controls a comparable share of the media pie.”

The impact of this crisis was summed up by Jeffrey Simpson in the book The Missing News, where he said newspapers are “shrinking in size, personnel, ambition and, as a consequence, in their curiosity,” …. “I believe the result has been a diminution in quality.” (p64)

This is the context in which, ironically, it was possible to flourish as a much-sought-after investigative journalist who could get the story and get the quotes and as an editor. And it was also a time for opportunity, in particular as new media rose in importance, from cable and satellite television, to the rise of the Internet.

I broke original stories for Now Magazine as a member of their investigative reporting team, for Today’s Seniors as its Medical and Health Correspondent, and as a reporter for two Financial Times newsletters in London, UK. I also broke original stories as a freelancer for many other magazines and newspapers, including Hospital News, The Toronto Star, This Magazine, The Annex Gleaner, Flare, The Financial Post Magazine, Canadian Living, and others. I drew on strong contacts in health care, media, politics, international relations and the military. 

I was an editor for magazines, newspapers and newsletters as well, gaining invaluable experience and contacts. This included as Editor-in-Chief for start-up youth publication, Watch Magazine (see Case Study 2), and as Features Editor for Id Magazine (see Case Study 3). 

Themes covered included the uses – and abuses – of data, the impact of military engagements to uphold international law, how to re-structure health care when budgets are tight, with populations ageing, and technology and scientific advances quickly expanding options, the emerging new media world of cable and satellite television and the Internet, the sexual revolution 2.0, urbanization and how it re-shapes politics and community, international development, and youth culture. 

Story highlights include covering data concerns over Canada’s border screening measures, questions about the air quality of aircraft cabins, the debate over airstrikes in Bosnia, scandals involving peacekeepers in Somalia and reporting on the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, reforms to medical education in Canada, innovators in health care, the tug of war over health care spending during austerity measures, London, UK designers, the growing role of Nordic countries in cable and satellite television, the film financing scene in Europe and the UK, the new sexual revolution and its impact on cable and satellite television and the rising Internet, changes to Canada’s media industry, and Toronto’s embracing of the megacity concept and the political battles it sparked. 

I edited newsletters and newspapers aimed at specific communities, from Canada’s medical history community to part-time students. And had the privilege of helming a start-up youth magazine as its Editor-in-Chief to its commercial success (see Case Study 2). 

It was an exciting time of great change, best reflected by the fact in 1997 Id Magazine (Features Editor: see Case Study 3) was one of the first Canadian publications to regularly publish an online version (https://web-beta.archive.org/web/19970207103121/www.idmagazine.com).  

* “The last two recessions in Canada occurred in 1982 and 1990. … The most recent Canadian recession began in the second quarter of 1990 and over the next 12 months GDP fell by 3.2%. … The recovery from this recession was unusually slow; there was almost no growth between mid-1991 and mid-1992. This slow recovery was export driven.” (The Canadian Encyclopedia)

 “In early 1994, Canada’s economic situation was not that favourable—our economy was facing some rather serious problems.

 “… the recession here was more severe than in the United States.

“Working their way out of these difficulties was disruptive and painful for Canadian businesses. Defaults, restructurings, and downsizings became the order of the day. With all this, unemployment took a long time to recover from the 1990–91 recession and, in many instances, wages and salaries were frozen or reduced (Bank of Canada: Canada’s Economic Future: What Have We Learned from the 1990s?)

A small sample of published stories with links is below:  

Investigative Journalism 

An Abuse of Privilege?

Aid Organization Gives Overseas Hungry Diet Food

Artists Fear Indifference From Megacity

Casino Calamity: One Gambling Guru Thinks The Province Is Going Too Far

Counter Accusations Split Bathurst Quay Complex: Issues of Sexual Assault, Racism at Centre of Local Dispute

False Data Makes Border Screening Corruptible

New Student Group Seeks 30 Percent Tuition Hike

Peaceniks Questioning Air-raid Strategy in Bosnia

Safety at Stake

Somali Killings Reveal Ugly Side of Elite Regiment

Study Says Jetliner Air Quality Poses Health Risks: CUPE Takes on Airline Industry with Findings on Survey

Top Reporters Offer Military Media Handling Tips

Will the Megacity Mean Mega-privatization?

Will Niagara Falls Become the Northern Vegas?

Health and Medical

Changing Health Care Careers a Sign of the Times

Critics Blast Government Long-Term Care Reforms

Cut Services to Elderly, Says Doctors’ Survey … But Leave Our Salaries Alone!

Feds Call for AIDS, Blood System Inquiry: Some Seniors Infected

Government Urged to Limit Free Drugs for Seniors

Health Care on the Cutting Block: Ministry Hopes for Efficiency with Search and Destroy Tactics

Health Care in Danger

Lamas Against AIDS

New Legislation Will Allow Control of Medical Treatment

New Seniors’ Group Boosts ‘Grey Power’: Grey Panthers Chapter Opens with a Canadian Touch

Philippine Conference Tackles Asia’s AIDS Crisis

Private Firms Thrive as NDP ‘Reinvents’ Medicare

Psychiatric Care Lacking for Institutionalised Seniors

Seniors Falling Through the Health Care Cost Cracks

Specialists Want Cancer Treatments Universally Available

Take Two Big Doses of Humanity and Call Me in the Morning

Taking Medicine to the People: Four Innovators In Community Health

US Health Care Businesses Chasing Profits into Canada

Magazines

The Ethics of Soup: Grading Supermarket Shelves – For Profit

Freaky – The 70s Meant Something

Land of the Free, Home of the Bored

Man Out Of Time: The World Once Turned On the Ideas of this Guelph Grad, But Does the Economist John Kenneth Galbraith Know the Way Forward?

Oasis Has Arrogance, A Pile of Attitude and the Best Album of 1994

From Special Report: Sexual Dealing: Today’s Sex Toys Are Credit Cards & Cash: A Report On The Sex-For-Money Revolution

Redneck Renaissance: A Coterie of Journalists Turn Cracker Culture into a Leisure Lifestyle

Safety at Stake

Swing Shift: Sexual Liberation is Back in Style

Time Machines

Too Black

Media 

The Big Dump: CP’s New Operational Plan Leaves Critics with Questions Aplenty

Channel Regulation: Swedes will Fight Children’s Advertising all the Way

Do TV Porn Channels Degrade and Humiliate?

Is the UK Rushing to Watch TV Porn? 

Playboy ‘is not for sad and lonely single men’

TV’s Moral Guide in Question – Again

UK Laws on Satellite Porn Among Toughest in Europe

Undercurrents: A Cancellation at CBC TV Raises a Host of Issues for the Future

Special Reports

From Special Report: NMM (New Media Markets) Spotlight on the Emergence of Satellite Porn Channels in the UK

From Special Report: Sexual Dealing: Today’s Sex Toys Are Credit Cards & Cash: A Report on the Sex-for-Money Revolution

United Nations

Freedom of Expression: Introducing Investigative Journalism to Local Media in Mongolia

Starting from Scratch: The Challenge of Transition

State of Decay: Haiti Turns to Free-market Economics and the UN to Save Itself

Traffic Signs Bring Safety to the Streets

Magazines

Watch Magazine

Id Magazine

Newsletters

Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine

New Media Markets

Screen Finance

Blue Sky Bulletin

Other Resources

Ger Magazine: Issue 1

Ger Magazine: Issue 2

In Their Own Words: Selected Writings by Journalists on Mongolia, 1997-1999 (ISBN 99929-5-043-9) 

Mongolian Rock and Pop Book (ISBN 99929-5-018-8) 

Wild East: Travels in the New Mongolia (ISBN 1-55022-434-4)

Timeline 

1991: Begin career as investigative journalist and editor.

1992: Work as a Medical and Health Reporter for Today’s Seniors and as an Investigative Journalist for Now Magazine. Work as Editor and Writer for the Hannah Institute for the History of Medicine’s newsletter. 

1993: Published in many publications, including The Toronto Star, Canadian Living and This Magazine.

1994: Work on re-launch of Watch Magazine 2.0 and its expansion (see Case Study 2). 

1995: Work as reporter for two Financial Times newsletters in London, UK.

1996: Work on re-launch of Watch Magazine 3.0 and its expansion. Begin work at Id Magazine as its Features Editor (see Case Study 3).

1997: Begin two-year assignment with the United Nations mission in Mongolia (see Case Study 4). 

Testimonials 

David South … proved himself to be a penetrating, thorough and hard-working journalist. He produced a lot of very good stories …” Neil McCartney, Editor, Screen Finance, Telecom Markets and Mobile Communications, London, UK

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2025

Categories
Archive Blogroll Today's Seniors

New Legislation Will Allow Control Of Medical Treatment

By David South

Today’s Seniors (Canada), December 1993

It isn’t the nicest thing to think about, but if accident or illness strikes, you could end up receiving unwanted treatment. 

But in 1994 things will change. The living will or advance directive – a document clearly stating a patient’s wishes about how they want to be treated – will become part of the doctor-patient relationship. 

A trio of acts passed last December – the Advocacy Act, the Substitute Decisions Act and the Consent to Treatment Act – allow, albeit in rather vague language, for Ontarians to set out in advance which medical procedures they would or wouldn’t accept and let’s them name a proxy in case they are incapable of expressing their wishes. 

This vague language – intended to allow patients to customize their wishes – means that writing a living will can prove to be a troubling and confusing experience. 

To aid decision-making, the University of Toronto Centre for Bioethics is offering advice through a “model” living will. 

The centre’s Dr. Peter Singer has geared the “model” to meet Ontario legislation and to offer a guide for anybody who doesn’t know where to begin. 

“We put a lot of detail in the advance directive about states of incompetence people get into, and also the sorts of procedures providers might recommend in those health states.”

Singer sees living wills as an effective tool aiding patients to control their own health care.

“Unless the doctor is a longstanding friend it’s hard to know what patients want. As a practicing doctor, I have run into an incompetent person where their family member has no idea what sort of wishes the person would have wanted. The goal of a living will is to provide the personal care the patient would want.”

But there is a danger. Dr. Singer urges the need for informed and detailed language in a living will. 

“If I have a couple minutes to make a decision I need a document that gives me a lot of confidence that this person wouldn’t want this treatment.”

In an emergency, the doctor might not even know of the living will’s existence. Dr. Singer advises giving a copy to your family doctor, lawyer, or proxy, and keep one with you at all times. When so-called “smart” health cards come along, Dr. Singer would like to see the living will recorded on the magnetic strip along with other health information. 

Read more health and medical journalism here: Taking Medicine To The People: Four Innovators In Community Health

Read more about transforming medical history scholarship in Canada here: Hannah Institute For The History Of Medicine | 1992 – 1994

More from Canada’s Today’s Seniors

Feds Call For AIDS, Blood System Inquiry: Some Seniors Infected

Government Urged To Limit Free Drugs For Seniors

Health Care On The Cutting Block: Ministry Hopes For Efficiency With Search And Destroy Tactics

New Seniors’ Group Boosts ‘Grey Power’: Grey Panthers Chapter Opens With A Canadian Touch

Seniors Falling Through The Health Care Cost Cracks

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ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2021

Categories
Archive Blogroll id magazine

Man Out Of Time: The World Once Turned On The Ideas Of This Guelph Grad, But Does The Economist John Kenneth Galbraith Know The Way Forward?

By David South

Id Magazine (Canada), January 23 to February 5, 1997

John Kenneth Galbraith was photographed by David South at the University of Toronto.

It was with hungry enthusiasm that I rushed to hear the great liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith speak. It was with enormous disappointment that I found a genius emptied of solutions to the current political battles in today’s Ontario.

For those unfamiliar with Galbraith, think of him as a hybrid of the liberalism of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and the manner of Jimmy Stewart. Now 88, the former Guelph agricultural economist became a servant of the US government just as president Franklin Roosevelt was beginning to introduce the New Deal – today’s rusting welfare state – as a solution to the cruel hardships imposed on Americans as a result of the Great Depression. Galbraith rode out the Second World War in a senior government position as Roosevelt’s price-control czar. He later advised Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, before seeing his influence in American economic thought wane under Ronald Reagan’s Republicans.

Galbraith has long followed the ideas of British economist John Maynard Keynes, who believed goverments should keep money tight in good times, but should spend their way out of bad times to avoid undue hardship. Galbraith also made the plight of the poor one of the pillars of his economic theory, and criticized the unnecessary appetites and demands created by the goliath American advertizing industry. He has supported wage and price controls and once, in the 1930s, even wanted to join the American Communist Party.

Last week, Galbraith breezed into Toronto with his ivy league roadshow. Speaking to a stodgy crowd of liberals (and Liberals, including former prime minister Pierre Trudeau and failed Ontario leadership candidate Gerrard Kennedy) at the University of Toronto, Galbraith was at an institution that comes as close as Canada gets to his current stomping ground, Harvard.

Symbolically, Galbraith couldn’t have visited Ontario at a better time. The Conservative government of Mike Harris is in the middle of an ambitious campaign to reverse everything that Galbraith has stood for: budget deficits to avoid depressions; social programmes to prevent poverty; taxes on the rich to fund those programmes; government policy subservient to public good. Harris oozes contempt out of every pore for the pillars of Galbraith’s thinking. In fact Ontario, once the bedrock of Canadian liberalism, is now joining Alberta in dismantling the welfare state.

A graduate of the University of Guelph when it was still the Ontario Agricultural School, Galbraith took his bitter memories of farming in southern Ontario to the University of California, Berkeley and subsequently to the Roosevelt government.

In his day, Galbraith was amongst a rare species of mainstream economists that earned respect from the once-abundant Marxists who cluttered universities. Not that the Marxists liked his compromises and complicity with the American government, or his assertions that he could save capitalism. But they thought he softened up the system for some body blows to be delivered by the workers’ revolution.

I am a member of a generation that grew up on government largesse, well-funded public schools, family allowance, university grants, and make-work progammes. But we have seen a lot of that eroded over the past eight years, during a period of high unemployment not seen since the Depression. It was time to see if this titan of liberal thought had something new to say.

Galbraith’s talk had two main points: the market economy is the best system going; he supports a guaranted minimum salary to prevent poverty. Other than that, Galbraith’s speech was a rehash of the same ideas he has been mulling over for the past 50-plus years. It could be called Liberalism 101.

His speech was peppered with euphamisms like the “socially concerned.” Perhaps he was pulling his punches so as not to offend the “distinguished” audience. The most exciting moments displayed his dry wit: “In the United States , the war against the poor having now been won,” or “We, the socially concerned, do not seek the euthanasia of the rentier class.”

He struck out against annual balanced budgets because they have been used as an excuse in the US to cut off benefits to the poor. He also slammed the globalization-uber-alles philosophy that sees welfare policies as uncompetitive – a sentiment that doesn’t seem to be in vogue these days with liberals. Last week, Prime Minister Jean Chretien told the South Koreans they need to remove jobs-for-life provisions to join the global marketplace.

His ideas and his approach to communicating those ideas come from a special historical time. A time when governments under pressure from trade unions and the far-left and right political parties decided to make capitalism a little friendlier. But they needed advisers who could speak the language of the elite. Eloquent, confident, pragmatic – advisers who felt comfortable in the courts of the democratic government. They didn’t want hot-headed union guys or hectoring left-wing demagogues.

Galbraith takes credit for civilizing capitalism and ensuring its survival: “It would not have survived had it not been for our successful civilizing efforts. We, the socially concerned, are the custodians of the political tradition and action that saved classical capitalism from itself. We are frequently told to give credit where credit is due. Let us accept it when it is ours.”

Galbriath’s economic theories have always been grounded by morality, preferring to avoid being a servant to flow charts. It is his most insightful side. When many fear to speak in broad terms about current economic problems, where many fear to make connections, Galbraith has pieced the complex puzzle together, much to the frustration of those who believe capitalism should be left unfettered. It is his worthiest legacy.

The Galbraith Interview

You point out it is reforms that have given capitalism a new lease on life. What policies would alleviate the worst aspects of today’s capitalism?

We still have the oldest problem. (That is) to eliminate the cruelties that are inherent in the system. In the United States, and I imagine also in Canada, we still have the terrible problems of the urban poor, of the people who do not make it. I see one of the central tasks of our time is to do two things: to provide a safety net so that in a modern rich society we don’t let people starve, and that we provide the means for escape from urban poverty.

How would you elliminate poverty?

No novelty about that. Two things are absolutely essential. One, that there be a basic safety net. That we accept in a modern society that there has to be a level of income below which people are not allowed to go. I do not join this attack on welfare, this notion the poor should be allowed to starve. Another thing is a strong educational system, which allows people to escape from poverty in the next generation. Those are the two absolute essentials.

Should government just concentrate on ending poverty and abandon universal programmes like public health care?

You can always have a conversation that separates itself from the reality. I think in Canada if some politician or some political group wanted to repeal the health system, they would soon find themselves in considerable disfavour. If they were committed to allowing the poor to starve, they would get a reputation for cruelty that no civilized society would tolerate. And if they started saving money on the schools, as some already have, we would find out how absolutely essential good education is for economic and social well-being. So we have a difference between what is possible in oratory and what is possible in reality … When the axing comes, it is a good deal less popular than it is in the previous rhetoric.

Who do you think, within or outside political movements, represents the socially concerned today?

I don’t speak generally on this. There is in all countries a substantial voting and politically expressive group. In the United States it is the political left, in Britain it is the Labour Party, in France it is the socialists, in Germany the social democrats. They are broadly committed to the welfare state and I think will remain so.

Would you include the Liberal Party in Canada amongst those?

I would include a substantial part of the Liberal Party in the United States. The Liberal Party in Canada, like the Democrats in the United States, have a double orientation, on one hand to the welfare state and on the other hand a more centrist attitude. Both parties have an internal problem to resolve.

Do you think they have lost interest in the welfare state?

To some extent I regret that. We must take some responsibility for human suffering and human well-being.

You don’t see that with the Democrat Party?

I prefer it to the Republicans.

Are some of these policies like welfare reform in the US making it harder for the poor?

I was not in favour of welfare reform.

I grew up in a very poor household but was able to go to the University of Toronto because of various government policies. In fact, they have kept me from destitution. You have written about a culture of contentment that prevents further social reforms. Will it whither?

Those of us who have been associated with the welfare state have made a lot of people comfortable, happy and conservative. We have undermined our own political influence by our success.

Do you think current levels of high unemployment and economic stagnation might erode that contentment?

No, if we suffer another recession there will be a desperate effort to have the government do something about it. The present conservatism is an aspect of good times. We had it in the 1980s under Reagan.

Are we still in good times?

We still have a lot of people who have a problem. We should have sympathy.

Do you see any political parties in Canada who defend the welfare state?

I’ve lived all my life in the the United States and I’ve always avoided coming back to give Canada advice. As I said in my lecture, anybody who does that should have stayed in Canada for his own lifetime. Let Canadians look after their affairs in Canada.

You said the socially concerned don’t seek income equality. I guess that is where you split with socialists?

I accept the inevitable, that people are going to be different in aspirations, ability and luck and probably different in parentage. All of this is going to mean differences in income.

Citations

Political Governance of Capitalism: A Reassessment Beyond the Global Crisis by Helmut WillkeGerhard Willke, Edward Elgar, 2012

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2021/07/20/case-study-3-id-magazine-1996-1997-2/

https://davidsouthconsulting.org/2022/11/16/canadian-magazines-newspapers-1990s/

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5311-1052.

© David South Consulting 2023