When Parliament unanimously passed its motion declaring that residential schools were genocide, it was probably inevitable that municipal and provincial elected bodies would follow. City councillors in Brandon, Man. are currently debating the following motion: “The...
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...
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...
Symposium – Reviewing the 1867 Project (1 of 3)
The choice we face is clear: a modest expansion of greenfield development or greater housing poverty For 18 years, I have been monitoring international housing affordability, as author or co-author of the Demographia Housing Affordability series. The latest...
The April 1982 Saskatchewan election proved to be a major turning point in the province's history. Over its nine years in office, the Devine government commenced and completed numerous policy initiatives in spite of considerable challenges including two recessions. ...
“Give me liberty or give me death” was a battle cry that many people will remember hearing, but few will recall the statesman who said it. Even fewer will know what it meant. These seven words concluded a speech given by Patrick Henry on March 23, 1775; a speech that...
The Cancel Culture has claimed another victim. Renowned poet George Elliott Clarke has backed out of giving the University of Regina’s Woodrow Lloyd Lecture over accusations from Indigenous activists that he associates with another poet who once did a bad thing. His...
British Columbia has become the first province to adopt the United Nations Declaration on Aboriginal Peoples (UNDRIP). Except for the opposition of a determined group of Conservative senators, the federal government would have adopted UNDRIP as actionable law before...
New Book: Let the People Speak In Let the People Speak, author and journalist Sheilla Jones raises an important question: are the well-documented social inequities in Indigenous communities—high levels of poverty, suicide, incarceration, children in care, family...
Society has become obsessed with identity. I am old enough to remember when there was only one channel on the television and just two sexes. Humans came packaged as either male or female and vive la différence! Now I am told that there are many, many “genders”:...
The federal government has made a pre-election promise to establish a single, universal pharmacare program that would cover all, or most, of the costs of prescription drugs for Canadians. The idea has been discussed for decades, but the public conversation has...
Maclean’s magazine once declared Winnipeg as “Canada’s most racist city.” Now it is Thunder Bay’s turn, a city in turmoil after a report slammed its overstretched police force (if not the entire city) for alleged “systemic racism” towards its Indigenous population....
As the final leg of the world-famous Bruce Trail – the country’s longest and oldest hiking trail – Ontario’s rugged Bruce Peninsula places a physical exclamation mark upon some of Canada’s most spectacular and well-loved scenery. Separating Lake Huron from Georgian...
When treaties were signed they were agreements to share Canada's growing prosperity with the original people of this land. It was a $4- to $5-annual payment for every man, woman and child back then. Today, it remains a $4 to $5 payment, depending on what treaty area...