In a Globe and Mail article on 5 May 2023 the National Centre For Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) finally publicly admitted that its Memorial Register is not a list of thousands of missing children buried in unmarked graves. It turns out the entire claim of thousands...
Michelle Cyca’s article in The Walrus about residential school denialism of May 4, 2023, gets one thing right. She mentions tuberculosis. Once. Like many who write about those who suffered at residential schools, Cyca seems oblivious to the context of the times – in...
Winnipeg City Hall recently proclaimed that Bishop Grandin Boulevard, Bishop Grandin Trail, and Grandin Street will be renamed, respectively, Abinojii Mikanah (Ojibway for 'A Children's Way'), Awisasak Meskanow (Cree for 'A Children's Way'), and Taapeewin Way (Michif...
Politicians have a trick of responding to questions on how they are addressing a public policy challenge by listing off the dollar amounts they have “invested.”Looked at closely, this is not answering the question that was asked, but engaging in obfuscation....
For many years, there has been debate about equalization and other transfer programs and their impact on Atlantic Canada and other regions. Much of this discussion has been technical and difficult to follow. The debate has also been misleading because it focused on...
On Monday, April 12, Alberta’s premier posted on social media his reaction to the protests that visited the steps of the Legislature and surrounded the proscribed ground of GraceLife Church (the premier’s words are posted here). Estimates put the crowd at the...
At the end of 2020, Alberta’s debt was estimated to be $98 billion, Manitoba’s was $28.6 billion and Saskatchewan’s stood at $15 billion. These debts are lower than Quebec’s ($220 billion) and Ontario’s ($448.9 billion), but concerns arise about their sustainability....
Can we trust our government and medical establishment? Not entirely. Some glimpses of Health Canada’s approach to prescription drug safety are less than assuring. Public policy should be guided towards more drug safety, not less. Health Canada was solely funded by...
Alberta’s debt has grown exponentially over the last decade, surging from under $10 billion in 2010 to $98 billion in 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has set off a trap that earlier provincial administrations laid by their excessive reliance on fossil-fuel revenues. On...
Canada’s energy security is top of the news this week with the threatened closure of Line 5, a cross-border Canadian oil pipeline that has been operating since the 1950s. It supplies nearly half of the Ontario and Quebec market for light crude oil, light synthetic...
The massive debt that Canada’s federal government and other governments around the world took on to face the economic and other fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic is the elephant in the room. This debt could soon become intolerably hard to service if interest rates...
In his 1776 seminal work, The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith wrote: “It always is and must be the interest of the great body of the people to buy whatever they want of those who sell it cheapest. The proposition is so very manifest that it seems ridiculous to take any...
Our prime minister said he would never reinstate the gun registry, nor would any Canadian government disarm the people. His legislative track record says otherwise. On September 22, 2010, our prime minister, who was then an MP, voted against a private member’s bill to...
The phrase “Build Back Better” has drawn ire globally after Western politicians seemingly relished the damaging impact of COVID-19 lockdown policies and the opportunity it offered to radically change our economies. Extremist, insensitive and ill-timed policy...
Who decided the nearly uniform messages we hear on the pandemic and what to do about it? Our politicians defer to doctors who, in turn, look to the World Health Organization (WHO). When we realize who pays the WHO, the senselessness makes sense. Leave it to the...