As a journalist Chris Hedges spent nearly two decades filing ground-breaking stories in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He spent more than 15 years as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and in 2002 and was part of the The New York Times team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for the paper’s coverage of global terrorism.

Today, Hedges is a political tour-de-force, encouraging people around the world to question the underpinnings of our democratic institutions that might not be so democratic after all, and leading the charge for a more equitable society.

On this episode of Think, we travel to the 2013 Parkland Institute’s Fall Conference to hear Hedges deliver his keynote address ‘The Myth of Progress and the Collapse of Complex Societies.’

Clayton Thomas-Muller is a internationally renowned activist, writer, and public speaker focused on indigenous self-determination and environmental justice. On this week’s episode of Think, Thomas-Muller speaks about the power of people in saving Canada’s resources. The address, titled ‘The Rise of the Native Rights Based Strategic Framework: Canada’s Last Best Effort to Save the Common’ was delivered at the 2013 Parkland Institute Fall Conference.

According to acclaimed journalist and political pundit Andrew Coyne, there are cracks in Canada’s democratic institutions that urgently need to be fixed before they cause even further damage to our society.

“We have not become a dictatorship, but we are no longer quite a democracy,” Coyne said at this year’s Faculty of Law’s Merv Leitch Q.C. Memorial Lecture series that took place at the University of Alberta. “We no longer live under the system we think we do. We have the form of a democracy, but not the substance.”

On this week’s episode of Think, we proudly present Andrew Coyne’s lecture ‘The Alarming State of Canada’s Democracy’ that he delivered in Edmonton, Alberta on November 4th, 2013.

What’s worth fighting for in a world riddled by abuses of power, violence, and religious war? Robert Fisk has been writing about issues facing the Middle East for more than 30 years as a corespondent for The Independent. A steadfast pacifist, Fisk believes that journalism must always challenge the status quo, and always question common discourse.

This episode of CJSR’s Think presents Robert Fisk’s keynote lecture that he delivered in Edmonton on January 31st, 2013 as part of the University of Alberta’s International Week 2013. The lecture, entitled ‘Arab Awakening: Are we hearing the truth?’ probes deeply into the complex problems that the world is facing as we attempt to reconcile our societal differences, and presents Fisk’s perspectives on how we can begin to forge a path to global peace.

Seething Venom. That’s the only way to describe Christopher Hedges’ rousing keynote address, “Days of Destruction Days Of Revolt” that the pulitzer-prize winning journalist delivered as part of the Edmonton Public Library’s Freedom To Read Week.

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