Bill Gairdner

Bill Gairdner

Personal information
Born	October 19, 1940
Medal record Men's athletics Representing Canada Pan American Games 1963 Sao Paulo Decathlon

William ("Bill") Gairdner (born October 19, 1940 in Oakville, Ontario) attended Appleby College in Oakville, and is now a resident of Willowdale, Ontario. He is a retired track and field athlete, who represented Canada in the men's 400 m hurdles and the men's decathlon at the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. He was awarded a silver medal in decathlon event at the 1963 Pan American Games in Brazil.

Following his hurdling career, he applied himself to the field of academia. He gained his first M.A. in 1967 (studying Structural Linguistics at Stanford University) and then earned a second one at the institution in 1969 in English Literature and Creative Writing. A year later he graduated with a Ph.D. in English Literature from Stanford. He is a published author and, among his works, BPS Books have published The Trouble with Canada, The Trouble with Democracy and Oh, Oh, Canada!.

Viewpoints

In an interview in the Michael Coren Show, Gairdner asserted that all modern Western democracies are "out of control" due to deficit spending and debts. He said that Canada is nearing a precipice with Canada's health care system, what he considers to be a "mistake", taking up more and more of the nation's government budget. He also said that he thinks anything produced by government, which he sees motivated by "power and size", will end up costing twice as much as anything made by the private sector.

Bibliography

• The Trouble with Democracy: A Citizen Speaks Out (2001)
• The Book of Absolutes: A Critique of Relativism and a Defence of Universals (2008)

External links

• Canadian Olympic Committee
• William Gairdner Profile
• Profile of William Gairdner on BPS Books