Indigenous housing—especially in remote and northern locations—represents one of the intractable problems facing First Nation communities. The high cost of housing in these locations and the never-ending cycle of backlogs plague reserve communities across Canada....
Results for "joseph ques"
Profile Series: James Gladstone
In this age of Indigenous reconciliation, it is important to remember the Indigenous movers and shakers who have gone before and cleared the path for others. James Gladstone (1887-1971) was such an Indigenous person. In the Blackfoot language, he was known as...
Mr. Premier, Think Beyond the Pandemic to the Province’s Future Prosperity
The Nova Scotia Liberal Party has chosen a new leader and it is important to think about the policy priorities of the province’s incoming premier. Although an election does not need to be held until spring of 2022 (Nova Scotia is the only province without a fixed...
The Lobster Wars
A dispute and court case from northern Ontario may help us understand ongoing tensions over the lobster fisheries on the East Coast. The war over Indigenous fishing rights has played out before in Canadian history. As we reflect on recent violence in Nova Scotia over...
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What Must Be Done to Curb Canada’s Household Debt
Canada is struggling economically. From inflation and deficits to investment and employment, everything that should be up is down, and everything that should be down is up. One striking symptom of economic rot is household debt, which is rising faster than incomes....
Crown Utilities’ Unfair Advantages Reduce Competition, Innovation
Largely unique among state-owned enterprises, ‘SEOs’, worldwide, Canadian Crown corporations have two key advantages over current and future private sector competitors: non-taxable status and access to low-cost public sector borrowing rates. Other implicit edges...
The Tesla Disruption: Cab Drivers Beware!
The free market economy is beautiful in its simplicity: offer a service people want at a price people will pay for, and you will get your reward. For decades, cab drivers offered what buses could not—a ride on request from any location to anywhere else in a reasonable...
What Your Sons and Daughters Will Learn at University
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,...
Putting truth into Truth and Reconciliation
Fifty-one years ago, he was a young boy who came to a tragic end. Today he's a symbol for all that was wrong with this country's treatment of Indigenous people. So why is the story of Chanie Wenjack so full of imaginative fabrication? At age nine, Chanie, from Ogoki...
Should Canadian ‘Indigenous Knowledge’ be Open to Challenge?
Like post-secondary institutions in colonialized countries, the first Canadian universities had strong ties to religious institutions and to the alma maters of what their academics saw as their mother countries. By the late 1960s, secularity had become the norm, but...
Looking Beyond a National Inquiry
The Assembly of First Nations is proposing a national public inquiry to address the grave situation facing Aboriginal women in Canada. While many believe that a national inquiry is the answer, that may not in fact be the case. The issue is a serious one. Indeed,...
Towards a First Nations Education Act
The federal government has begun intensive consultations in preparing a First Nations Education Act. Right now, the Indian Act is silent on educational standards, or even any kind of educational system for that matter. The federal government aims to fill that gap by...
Yet more problems with Anderegg et al “denier black list” paper
In “Climate scientists’ “consensus” based on a myth” I described how one of the sources of the idea that 97% of climate experts agree there is a human-induced climate crisis—“Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change” by Doran and Zimmerman—was not a...
New approach needed at chiefs assembly on education
National Chief Shawn Atleo Shawn Atleo of the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) opened up the first session of the AFN's Special Chiefs Assembly on Education today. There were plenty of speeches and even some grandstanding vis-a-vis the federal government. But, let's...
The Man Who Saved Capitalism: Milton Friedman, who would have turned 100 on Tuesday, helped to make free markets popular again in the 20th century. His ideas are even more important today.
It’s a tragedy that Milton Friedman—born 100 years ago on July 31—did not live long enough to combat the big-government ideas that have formed the core of Obamanomics. It’s perhaps more tragic that our current president, who attended the University of Chicago where Friedman taught for decades, never fell under the influence of the world’s greatest champion of the free market. Imagine how much better things would have turned out, for Mr. Obama and the country.