Everyone knows that Canada is in trouble. Like other countries, this country has been racked by various waves of COVID-19 for almost two years. But COVID-19 is not the most troubling issue. Let me explain. Remember at the beginning of the pandemic, we didn’t expect...
A B.C. Indigenous leader who advised Prime Minister Stephen Harper on the contents of the landmark 2008 government residential schools apology has said that Canadians must not succumb to black and white thinking about the schools’ legacy. Despite his opposition to the...
The failures of mainstream Canadian media and proof of public thirst for alternatives was never more apparent than in February. The best chance for people to use their own eyes and ears to take in the trucker protests in Ottawa came from the alternative press. Should...
Imagine if a city suddenly fined people hundreds of dollars for something they regularly did hundreds of times a year? That’s exactly what the City of Regina and many other municipalities have done by banning single use plastic bags. One article is barely room enough...
Fact-checking, how wonderful. They take us past the spin and straight to the real truth. Or maybe not. A closer look at almost every fact-checking organization shows a great deal of politics and vested interests involved. Years ago, I went to Snopes.com whenever...
In his new book, There is no Difference, Ontario lawyer Peter Best begins a long-repressed national conversation about Canada’s legal and social relations with its Indigenous peoples. Mr. Best asks: Why can not Nelson Mandela’s goal and vision of “one set of laws for...
It is time for a fundamental course change by Atlantic Canadians respecting equalization and other regional subsidies. Earlier this week I made a presentation to independent Senators in Ottawa on this subject, in which I advised them that Canada’s regional subsidies...
Canada's spy agencies want access to your encrypted communication, and they have a ploy to get it without going through Parliament. Australia is where the action is taking place since she has fewer constitutional protections for privacy. The 2018 Assistance and Access...
The US government is pressuring Canada to block telecommunications companies from using equipment provided by Huawei, a Chinese company, when building our 5G cellular network for smartphones. Their logic is along the lines of “we don’t have actual evidence that China...
In high school and college, I competed in debate tournaments across the state and country. I clearly remember many occasions when a debate team’s plan would include abolishing some government program. Inevitably, the opponents would ask, “What will you replace it...
Rural crime has received a lot of attention lately. For Douglas Cuthand, an Indigenous Saskatchewan columnist, the phrase ‘rural crime‘ is code for crimes committed by Indigenous thugs. In Saskatchewan, and likely for Alberta and Manitoba as well, an Indigenous man is...
The Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women Inquiry (MMIW) was back in the news recently. They asked the federal government for a two year extension on their mandate, and an additional $50,000,000. They have apparently already burned through the $54,000,000 they had...
Universities in the 20th century were dedicated to the advancement of knowledge. Scholarship and research were pursued, and diverse opinions were exchanged and argued in the “marketplace of ideas.” This is no longer the case. Particularly in the social sciences,...
Many advocates for cultural diversity have a sudden change of heart when the topic turns to Canada's "cultural industries." As they say in Argentina, for money, the monkey will dance. What constitutes Canadian heritage, given her complex milieu, tends to be in the eye...