I went and saw John Ralston Saul speak this morning. He was in town with his 'consort', Her Excellency the Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson (whew). As the name might indicate, they were there with a huge entourage, with university presidents, fine arts profs, and various assistants.

Given this context, I thought it was pretty cool that Saul specially requested to speak to some students. If he hadn't, I most likely wouldn't have known he was there.

He gave a 15 minute speech on democracy and citizenship, and then left the remaining 45 minutes open for questions. I wish I had time to go over what he talked about, but in short, he stressed participation in the political process (and cheap education) as essential to building a healthy democracy.

Not too far off from alot of Nader's Concord Principles.