Recently, the United Nations estimated that the population of Planet Earth had reached eight billion souls. Despite the chatter of the highly subsidized climate doomster complex this is quite an achievement - it certainly indicates that the carrying capacity of our...
Commentary
Wokeness kills Vancouver
“Harm reduction--somebody’s got a sense of humour, man. ‘Cuz that ain’t helping nobody, man. It’s helping everybody get high more.” Does passive policing and harm reduction improve health and safety? Vancouver is a living, breathing example to the contrary—or...
China’s “Truckers’ Convoy”
Anti-lockdown protests are now taking place across China - the Chinese equivalent of our Truckers’ Convoy. The protests are a reaction to the brutal policies that literally lock people in their apartments, when even one infection is detected. As in Canada, when...
Self-Hatred and Victimization: Addressing Indoctrination in Canadian Universities
On many Canadian university campuses, students are told that they need to be “allies” to marginalized groups. Today, we often focus on Indigenous populations, the LGBTQ+ community, and people of colour. Indigenous people are given, by far, a bigger spotlight because...
Featured News
PCR Test is Flimsy, Say Inventor and Courts
Every day, the television news tells people about new COVID-19-positive test results, but are they reliable? Kary Mullis, the late inventor of the diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19, explained how his test could be misused. So did a Portuguese...
Urban Containment Policy and Housing Affordability
The city of Ottawa is updating its Official Plan. Under consideration are expanding the urban boundary (urban growth boundary) and strengthening of its intensification (densification)policy. These strategies are components of urban containment policy. This report...
Coronavirus is our own Y2K
Twenty-one years ago, the world panicked over an invisible, media-hyped enemy. That enemy was Y2K, a problem whose shadow was much larger than its substance. Unfortunately, the “millennium bug” of that time may be the coronavirus of ours. The Y2K problem was this:...
Let’s be Realistic about Physical Distancing in Schools
These days, grocery shopping looks a little different than usual. People wait patiently outside the store in long, spaced-out, lineups. Direction arrows show customers where to move next. Customers stand at least 6 feet apart in the checkout lines. Cashiers carefully...
City Management 201: A COVID-19 Lesson for City Planners
As of now, Indigenous communities have been spared from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, although some health officials cautioned that the next two weeks will be important to see the extent of the outbreak in Indigenous communities. Unless that state of affairs...
COVID-19 Overshadows 75th Anniversary of Victory in Europe and the Lessons Learned
Seventy-five years ago Western Allied forces formally accepted the surrender of Nazi High Command leaders in Germany, ending World War II in Europe. The Wehrmacht fought the Soviet Red Army another day, surrendering on the 9th of May. Victory in Europe (VE) Day is...
A Miraculous Turn of Events
Never in my wildest dreams did I envision a day when I’d agree with anything filmmaker Michael Moore said – much less that he would agree with me. But mirabile dictu, his new film, Planet of the Humans, is as devastating an indictment of wind, solar and biofuel energy...
The Boomers’ Last Gasp
As this wave of the pandemic winds down, we should ask honest questions about our response to it. Although an accurate assessment of the lockdowns - closing schools and businesses - is months away, we need a plan to respond to a likely second fall wave. The Economist...
Provincial Governments and Hidden off the Book Debt
The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is staring bankruptcy in the eye. This is what we have heard in the news lately, and to be honest, it is not a fully incorrect assessment. As to the why, there is a mixture of reasons typical for provincial politics....
Game Over for Custodial Crypto Firms in Canada: Regulator Moves to Suffocate Exchanges with Securities Law
Canadian regulators are putting a crosshair on exchanges that hold cryptocurrencies for their clients. This business model, also called a custodial or centralized exchange, is prevalent all over the world but is headed for extinction in Canada, setting back the...
The end of America?
How do societies and cultures end? What causes the death of societies and cultures? It is not always the obvious threats. Today we are struggling with the coronavirus which has unfortunately sickened many and killed some Americans. The deaths are tragic, but so are...