On November 7th and 8th , 2023, several important legal and fiscal issues will be argued before the Supreme Court of Canada in the Crown-Indigenous rights case: Restoule vs. Ontario and Canada. The main issue is whether the 19 th century treaties that Great Britain...
Aboriginal Futures
What NB’s Premier Is Saying With His Motion On Land Claims
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs is essentially saying “We don’t trust you” in the motion he introduced to protect New Brunswick property owners from a massive indigenous land claim. He is saying it to the indigenous politicians who are bringing the claim, to the...
Book Review – The 1867 Project
Book Review – Symposium – Reviewing The 1867 Project (3 of 3)
A Revised History of Canada
A Revised History of Canada – Symposium – Reviewing The 1867 Project (2 of 3)
Featured News
Leon Fontaine – A Passionate Canadian Thought Leader – RIP
This past weekend, we learned of the tragic and unexpected passing of Pastor Leon Fontaine at 59 years of age. Leon was a gifted leader playing many roles both nationally and internationally. He was, with his wife Sally, the senior Pastors at Springs Church with...
Public Inquiries and Public Trust
Testimony before the Public Order Emergency Commission reveals the case for government invoking the Emergencies Act is either weak or very weak. The Prime Minister was, in fact, opposed to members of his cabinet or senior public health officials meeting with protest...
Victimhood Sells – South Africa’s TRC
The Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission was styled after the South African Commission which was the first commission ever established to sort through claims and counter-claims in an attempt to get at the Truth. The South African TRC was established in 1996 by...
Conrad Black: No Exaggeration Needed
Once again we are indebted to the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and retired judge Brian Giesbrecht for their diligent research that has unearthed the proportions of some of the embellished claims about Canada’s past treatment of its Indigenous population and...
We Have Found Death Certificates for the Missing Children
1.0 Introduction For years there have been constant references to the death of Aboriginal children. It has been said that the death rate in residential schools was much higher than the death rate on the reserves, and that the schools were deathtraps. When the Truth...
Lockdowns Damage Vulnerable the Most
One clear takeaway from the convoy protest is the realization that pandemic restrictions and mandates are not affecting everyone equally. Liberal MP Joel Lightbound’s clever retort of, “Not everyone can still earn a living using their MacBook while at the cottage”...
Note to Americans: Education is Not Genocide
Things have taken a strange turn in Canada on the genocide front. Genocide? Canada? Those are words that you would not normally see together. Words like “polite” or “peaceful” might come to mind. But “genocide”, not so much. In fact, the picture of placid Canadians as...
Thinking Longer Term: Covid on First Nations
The pandemic is showing us the consequences of not adequately addressing housing and health care issues on Indigenous communities in Manitoba. Back in April 2020, I wrote an editorial that showed how Indigenous communities – while protected at first from the pandemic...
Permanent Astonishment – Showing a Way Forward
After a press interview several years ago Tomson Highway, author of Permanent Astonishment (Doubleday Canada, 2021) found himself sidelined by Indigenous and media elites for his apostacy in saying that some good things came out of residential schools. He said: Nine...
Restoule v. Ontario and Canada: A Weak Court of Appeal Win Contains the Seeds of a Practical Loss (Part 2 of 2)
An Interpretation of this Case The Restoule case raises novel, contentious, and potentially destabilizing issues of national importance which the people of Canada deserve to have settled by the Supreme Court. The trial judge, upheld by a narrow majority of the Court...
Restoule v. Ontario and Canada: A Weak Court of Appeal Win Contains the Seeds of a Practical Loss (Part 1 of 2)
Background In 1850, the 21 Ontario Indian bands along the north shores of lakes Huron and Superior, by the terms of the Robinson Treaties, surrendered and ceded to the Crown all their claims to ownership of the treaties territories in exchange for monies paid and to...