Earlier this year, a group called Equity Matters asked the province to establish an education equity secretariat. They want this office to oversee equity officers working in Manitoba schools. Equity Matters wants to ensure that all Manitoba students are reflected in...
Culture Wars
Why Frances Widdowson Matters
Frances Widdowson probably isn't someone most Canadians recognize. I'm here to tell you why they should. In terms of Canada's intellectual culture, Frances Widdowson matters because she is a classic and prolific academic. In a time when demagoguery easily flourishes,...
Is Diversity Our Strength? Please
In response to a question about the Minneapolis policy to first fire white teachers before BIPOC teachers, the Democrat-affiliated panelist replies, “Diversity is our strength!” She would have actually answered the question if she had said, “Racism is our strength!”...
Trudeau and Biden Policies Serve Beijing’s Interests
President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appear to be doing all they can to advance the Chinese Communist Party in its goal of replacing the United States as the premier superpower and establishing Chinese world domination. Every policy of the two leaders...
Featured News
China’s Intensifying Estrangement and Nativism may Make its Scientific Progress Stagnate
One of the most notable features of Nazi regime in Germany was its anti-intellectualism. While it claimed to be in the forefront of scientific and technical advances, its ideology and totalitarian rule made free enquiry and interchange between scientists and other...
Evasive Accountability: A New Norm for Police and Security Services in Canada
Since the founding of this country, a totalitarian, closed form of government has been considered unacceptable and un-American. The public assumes they have the freedom to be left alone and to live a life in privacy, while the government is believed to be open...
Trial by Tweet
If anyone doubted that the #MeToo movement has ushered in a revolution, the political execution of Patrick Brown should put those doubts to rest. As in all revolutions, not all the heads that fall into the basket deserve to be there, the Madame Defarge’s of this...
Who Should Dole Out Justice?
The jury trial of Gerald Stanley for the murder of Colten Boushie marks a new development in criminal law. The trial itself was not unusual, a jury heard the evidence, deliberated, and acquitted the Saskatchewan farmer. It’s what followed the acquittal that is...
Can We Change History? The Ethnocentrism of Presentism
Recently I participated in a surprising conversation. At dinner with three anthropologists and a professional in the financial industry, one, an American, complained that Donald Trump, who did not win the popular vote, was elected to the Presidency illegitimately, due...
Rape Culture On Campus
Rape Culture on Campus Essay Philip Carl Salzman December 24, 2017 Rape is the physical entry into another person’s body without the consent of that person. Usually it involves the sex organs of at least one of the people. It is recognised in Western...
The Sir John A. Macdonald Prize
We will begin today’s article with a quiz. So, pencils out please, and answer the following question: what famous personality was described by an unadmiring biographer as “a thieving, fanatical Albanian dwarf”? I’ll give you the answer in a paragraph or two as we...
Booting Beyak – Conform or Get Out!
Senator Lynn Beyak has been expelled from caucus by the Conservative Party. The reasons for her removal were that “she allowed” racist posts to be placed on her website and refused to remove them when ordered to do so. In fact, I am one of the people quoted on her...
Canadian Culture in Cross-Cultural Perspective
The view that ‘‘There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,’’ put forward by the Prime Minister,[1] appears to be factually incorrect. In reality, notwithstanding Canada’s official multiculturalism policy[2], Canadian culture is firmly based in Western...
Smug Thinking – What will the Next Generation think?
The federal government has announced that it will compensate people who lost their jobs or were otherwise persecuted a generation ago simply because their sexual orientation did not fit the accepted norm of the day. This perfectly reflects modern thinking, and the...
The Myth of Indigenous Utopia
Genocide. Ethnic cleansing. Forced assimilation. Slavery. Racism. As much as mainstream history and traditional anthropology have shown these five phenomena to be near universal features of the human condition, they are mostly portrayed these days in the ivory tower,...