Unfit for Duty: It is Time to Rebuild the Canadian Armed Forces

In his judicial review of the Liberals’ response to the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest, Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley ruled that “there was no national emergency justifying the invocation of the Emergencies Act and the decision to do so was therefore unreasonable.” With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s draconian actions thus exposed as unnecessary and excessive – in other words, illegal and unconstitutional – what now awaits Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, who each face up to 10 years in jail for playing key roles in the protest? In the first of a two-part series, Lynne Cohen charts the lengthy and vindictive prosecution of the pair, from their first appearance in downtown Ottawa to their initial arrest and pre-trial treatment.

The recent collapse of the power grid in Cuba, plunging the island nation into darkness and grinding its meagre economy to a halt, served as a reminder of electricity’s centrality to modern civilization. That dependency is only expected to increase as more electric vehicles take to the road – and, writes Gwyn Morgan, as the tech sector’s voracious appetite for electrons expands unabated. Morgan pours a pail of cold water on the much-mooted “nuclear revival” that has yet to deliver any actual new electricity. He argues instead that what’s needed is clear-eyed recognition that the most reliable, most abundant, most flexible and most affordable energy source is a fossil fuel located in vast quantities right beneath North Americans’ feet.

The devil’s greatest trick, the saying goes, is in convincing the world he doesn’t exist. You could say the same thing about cancel culture. Supporters of this poisonous phenomenon often deny its very existence, claiming those who find themselves fired or publicly ostracized for running afoul of wokist demands are simply being held to account for their own actions. Yet Collin May is proof cancel culture is a real and dangerous thing. Combining rigorous scholarly research with his own personal experience as a target, May reveals how a cancellation takes shape, the characters involved and the roles they play, as well as how – and how not – to defend oneself against this modern-day scourge.

Climate change has ingrained itself so deeply in the public consciousness that it’s likely an article of faith that the foundational science was all conducted, tested and confirmed decades ago. Surely to goodness, exactly how carbon dioxide (CO₂) behaves in the atmosphere is “settled science”, right? That more CO₂ emitted equals more heat and higher temperature is a cornerstone of the ruling scientific paradigm. And yet, finds Jim Mason, the detailed dynamics of how, when and to what degree CO₂ transforms radiation into atmospheric heat are anything but settled. So much remains unknown that recent academic research inquiring whether CO₂ at its current atmospheric concentrations can even absorb more heat amounts to breaking new ground in climate science. If it can’t, notes Mason, then further changes in CO₂ levels not only won’t drive “global boiling”, they won’t have any impact on climate at all.

Among the fundamental freedoms guaranteed to all Canadians is the “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression.” The liberty to speak one’s mind and engage in public discussions forms the very foundation of Canada’s democracy. And it is under attack. Investigating a prolonged and often vicious debate in Powell River, B.C. – which includes the denunciation of white British Columbians as “subhuman” – Frances Widdowson reveals how residents have had their basic freedoms denied by a group of well-placed “reconciliation” activists determined to change the name of their city regardless of public opinion or historical fact. As Widdowson discovers, expressing oneself in Powell River has become a risky business.

If one were to rank contenders in the global trade wars, Canada would likely sit somewhere between pint-sized and pipsqueak. Then why would such a nation’s government choose frontal assault against the world’s biggest and most ruthless economic combatant, one wielding a range of weapons and tactics to organize a counter-attack? Yet this is just what the Justin Trudeau government has done in imposing massive import taxes on electric vehicles from China, writes Gwyn Morgan. And worse, Morgan notes, Trudeau & Co. are sacrificing farmers from western Canada on an altar dedicated to eastern auto workers – while taxing those farmers to help pay for the vast subsidies needed to keep the auto workers employed.

In a 2017 TV interview, then British Prime Minister Theresa May and her husband Philip caused a collective gasp when they admitted to splitting up “boy jobs” and “girl jobs” around the house. May went on to win the subsequent election, so her frankness did her career no harm. But the idea that tasks or occupations might be divided on the basis of sex can still cause public apoplexy. Unless, of course, the evidence shows women are better at something than men. In Part III of a special series on “tonic masculinity”, Peter Shawn Taylor looks at recent research suggesting female surgeons outperform male surgeons, and wonders what that means for life outside the operating room. (Part I can be read here and Part II can be read here.)

If there is a politico-historical thread running from Louis Riel and the buffalo-hunting Métis rebels in Confederation-era Manitoba, via Ottawa’s creation of three second-class Prairie provinces, followed by decades of friction over resource ownership and taxation, all the way to the convoys of diesel-powered trucks that rumbled into Ottawa to protest federal vaccine mandates in the winter of 2022, few have taken note. David Solway is one. As the main convoy leaders await a court verdict, Solway is taking the long view. He asserts that the truckers’ protest is a powerful contemporary manifestation of a recurring theme – perhaps the defining theme – of how Canada is governed, and to whose benefit. But while Canada’s late-19th century leaders were flawed men who made mistakes, Solway finds, the country’s current federal leadership appears outright bent on destruction.

What good is a man? Not much these days. With traditional male traits such as strength, competitiveness, independence and stoicism widely condemned as evidence of “toxic masculinity”, no one seems willing to celebrate manliness these days. Lynne Cohen is an exception to the rule. In Part II of a special series on the essential aspects of masculinity, Cohen offers a sensitive female perspective on what makes men timelessly irresistible. From gruff leather-clad bikers to balding, tie-wearing office workers and from university frat bros to selfless Ukrainian miners, Cohen finds something to adore about them all. Gather round, fellas, this love letter is to you. (Part I can be read here.)

“Environmental racism” is frequently tossed about Canadian society these days. But what does it actually mean? It’s not about favouring white spruce trees over black spruce trees. Rather, it involves the twisting of basic economic principles into a vicious, politically loaded accusation. The same sense of confusion is sown with other linguistic tricks such as “organizational elder abuse”, “excessive net profits”, “renovictions” and “stakeholder capitalism”. As left-wing politicians and activists seek to redefine fundamental economic and financial concepts as malign forces and to recast socialist objectives as free-market values, Peter Shawn Taylor offers puzzled readers a practical guide to navigating the etymological fog.

In 2019 the American Psychological Association declared traditional masculinity – defined as “anti-femininity, achievement, eschewal of the appearance of weakness, and adventure, risk, and violence…[and] self-reliance” – to be a “harmful” malady in need of diagnosis and correction. Since then, so-called toxic masculinity has cast a pall over all men by redefining male virtues as a danger to themselves and society. Lynne Cohen pushes back against this perspective, revealing the many ways in which acting like a man is not only normal but essential to societal success. In search of a way for men to be men again, Cohen promotes “tonic” masculinity as the necessary corrective to our era of anti-male hysteria.

Last week’s bombshell announcement that BC United, the former provincial Liberal Party, was suspending its campaign for this fall’s election and throwing its support behind the Conservative Party of B.C. revealed just how dramatically the province’s political landscape has changed. In the fourth instalment of C2C’s series on British Columbia, Geoff Russ charts how John Rustad’s Conservative Party went in a breathtakingly short time from moribund to upstart to centre-stage and favoured to win, and lays out the issues that divide Canada’s third-biggest province and will dominate the coming campaign.

“You can’t go home again,” American novelist Thomas Wolfe once wrote. Should the same advice apply to the home of Canada’s most important political personality? Greg Piasetzki first visited Bellevue House, one-time Kingston abode of Canada’s founding father Sir John A. Macdonald, when he was a university student in the 1970s. Now, following a controversial renovation of the site by Parks Canada that aims to tell “broader, more inclusive stories about Canada’s first prime minister” – a makeover that includes signs denouncing Macdonald as “a monster” in his own home – Piasetzki returns to Bellevue House to take the measure of the changes.

Barely a year ago the Conservative Party of B.C. was a two-seat rump in the B.C. legislature with an untested leader. Now it has moved ahead in the polls and is positioned to pull off a massive upset in October’s election. In the third instalment of our series on British Columbia, Geoff Russ charts the rise of the Conservatives on Canada’s West Coast, showing how the party’s brand of populism is part of a longstanding political tradition in B.C. going back to the days of W.A.C. Bennett and his Social Credit powerhouse. Russ explains how the upcoming election promises to be a showdown between debt-addicted “progressive” leftist politics and prudent, fiscally-responsible conservative populism.

If your only tool is a hammer, the old saying goes, then all you ever see are nails. In other words, if your beliefs are formed by ideology and prejudice, then all the “study” in the world will lead to you the same conclusion – the view you held all along. And so it is with the radical activists tasked by the Justin Trudeau government with formulating a “Black Justice Strategy”. Examining the report and its implications, Noah Jarvis finds a document infected with toxic racial animus, purporting to reform an imagined Canada that seethes with racial hatreds and injustice, and proposing to misapply U.S. “solutions” that have failed disastrously. Worst of all, Jarvis writes, it attempts to set the racial populations of a country of fundamental goodwill against one another.