Despite the wreckage wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic – social disintegration, ruined lives, physical and economic tolls – the governments and public officials who “managed” the emergency have been decidedly uninterested in assessing their performance. Except in Alberta, where a government-appointed panel just released its Final Report. Though predictably attacked by politicians, media and “experts” who can abide no dissent, the report makes many sensible recommendations, Barry Cooper finds. The report calls for emergency management experts – not doctors or health care bureaucrats – to be in charge when such disasters strike, with politicians who are accountable to the people making the key decisions. Most important, the report demands much stronger protection for the individual freedoms that panic-stricken governments and overbearing professional organizations so readily quashed.
Results for "Marco"
A Just Transition for the CBC
The influence of traditional print and broadcast news media has dropped dramatically. Even with handsome government handouts, many of them are barely alive today. In the market transition that is taking place, out of the slump of the old media a few new ones, such as...
The “Just Transition” risks being deadly to the West
The “Just Transition” legislation that Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh want to introduce represents terrible news for hydrocarbon energy producers and workers in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The “People-Centred Just Transition” federal proposal sends up red flags from...
Great Covid Gaslight Underway
The Great COVID Gaslighting is underway. I will leave it to historians to determine when and who precisely launched it, but it is certainly here. Gaslighting is a form of manipulation. In one of its manifestations, it is a crude attempt at altering reality to conceal...
Featured News
Weaponizing the Law
The indictment of former U.S. president Donald Trump for crimes invented by his political opponents is the most egregious example yet seen of the weaponizing of the law. The United States is now full of examples. However, in Canada, we also see the law being...
“Looking At” Seizing Control Over Western Canada’s Natural Resources
OTTAWA, REGINA - Last week, two things happened that could have profound impacts on natural resources development in Saskatchewan. One is a hint the federal government might want to take control of natural resources away from the provinces, and the other is the...
More Repression Does Not Save More COVID-19 Sick
The most mentioned reason for lockdowns has been the protection of health systems. The claim is that such protection saves lives. So, it is fair to ask how health systems are performing in their lockdown life-saving duty? There are several points from which one can...
The Endemic Path is the Way Out
The Alberta premier’s plan to treat the coronavirus as endemic was the way out of the COVID crisis. That he is once again adopting restrictions for the province, for the fourth time, does not negate the endemic approach. But his declaration, paraphrasing President...
The Pawlowski Decision
In the Alberta Health Services v. Artur Pawlowski and Dawid Pawlowski decision last September, a Court of Queen’s Bench justice found the two brothers in contempt of court. The Pawlowski brothers openly challenged health ordinances and court orders and did not deny...
Sandinistas Crushing Nicaragua’s Journalists
Liberty of expression is the oxygen of democratic arrangements. As journalists exercise their craft independently and unencumbered, they are canaries in the political coal mine. By this gauge, if left untreated, Nicaragua’s polity will be eroding towards...
It All Began in China
Timelines associated with the spread of COVID-19 have changed over the past year and, with new information, may change again in the future. There seems to be widespread agreement in publicly available sources that individuals with odd flu-like illnesses were observed...
History – The Changing Tides of Revisionism
“For better than a century many historians have found it useful to employ a Fabian tactic against critics in related fields of intellectual endeavor. The tactic works like this: when criticized by social scientists for the softness of his method, the crudity of his...
Truth is the Road to Reconciliation
Canada has consistently failed to make progress that is commensurate with so many lofty pronouncements and expectations on the Indigenous file. By statistics alone, it is a national shame that most Indigenous Canadians on reservations live far below acceptable...
Kananaskis User Fees are Highly Inappropriate
Excess costs for Kananaskis parks access should be paid from the health budget. As soon as the government locked Albertans down in March 2020, Calgarians headed outdoors in greater numbers than ever. However, soon thereafter the provincial and municipal governments...
The Modest Recharge: Transformative Post-COVID Economic Recovery for Canada
Canadians want change. It has been more than a generation since we have felt the overreaching power of government as in the past year. Daily freedoms have been curtailed, millions of livelihoods impaired, savings drained and countless fines and arrests created for new...