What Does the U.S. Have that Canada Needs? Open Primaries

The secret to every good magic trick, Michael Caine’s character explains in the 2006 movie The Prestige, is a willing audience. “You want to be fooled,” he says. Anyone watching the Oscar-nominated documentary film Sugarcane could find themselves slipping into a similar act of self-deception. Focused on a residential school in northern B.C., the Canadian-made Sugarcane withholds key facts, arranges other evidence in confusing ways and encourages viewers – already primed to think the worst of residential schools – to reach unfounded conclusions about what they’re actually seeing. Even professional movie critics have been fooled. Documentary filmmaker Michelle Stirling pulls back the curtain on the dark magic behind Sugarcane.

When the Métis were included in Canada’s 1982 Constitution as “aboriginal peoples”, some members complained that they’d been handed an “empty box” compared to the ample rights and treaties offered to Indian and Inuit people. Since then, however, Canada’s court system has been hard at work filling up that box. Now, with the signing of a “nation-to-nation” treaty late last year, Manitoba Métis have a box that’s positively overflowing with new rights, powers and federal cash. Peter Best explores how Canada came to recognize a fractious, landless, fully-assimilated, colonial-era group – a group that is actually represented by a corporation – as a nation with an inherent right to self-government, as well as the deeply problematic consequences of this decision.

Buildings and other public structures, the ancient Roman architectural master Vitruvius wrote, need to be sturdy and long-lasting, must efficiently fulfill the uses and serve the users for which they are intended – and should be pleasing to the eye. Today’s architecture, writes Michael Bonner, is none of these things. In most cases, it’s the opposite – and that is usually by intention, as “starchitects” foist awful designs on an increasingly unwilling public. Thankfully, writes Bonner, there are glimmerings of a way back towards public architecture that not only does its job but reflects timeless principles of form, function, quality and beauty.

Rather than breaking barriers to knowledge, these days universities seem more adept at breaking the norms of academic conduct. An apparently endless stream of cases involving data manipulation, plagiarism, retractions and other errors and deceptions by researchers ranging from obscure graduate students to world-famous scientific names is plaguing academia in Canada and around the world. But is this avalanche of academic malpractice – what one scientist bemoaned as “corrupt, incompetent, or scientifically meaningless research” – a sign of weakening standards? Or are we now just paying more attention? Examining several troubling examples and interviewing experts from the frontlines, Lynne Cohen probes the dark underbelly of academic fraud.

“It’s hard to imagine a more stupid or dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” Such was Thomas Sowell’s withering critique of bureaucracy – more relevant today than ever. The legendary economist was born to poor sharecroppers and began his career as an avowed Marxist before transforming himself into an insightful and influential critic of the left and all its smug self-regard. In this concise tribute, Gwyn Morgan shares some of Sowell’s sharpest thinking and explains what Canadians can learn from one of America’s greatest minds.

The English lyrics to “O Canada” have changed numerous times to keep pace with current fashion, most recently to insert the gender-neutral line “In all of us command.” Meanwhile, the French lyrics – including the ancient-sounding “As is thy arm ready to wield the sword, so also is it ready to carry the cross” – have remained fixed since 1880. This discrepancy in the treatment of the heritage of English and French Canada is not limited to the national anthem. Looking into the federal government’s recent cancellation of four significant figures from Canada’s past, historian Larry Ostola investigates the dubious double standard being wielded by Ottawa’s history censors.

Many Canadians think of the Supreme Court as a wise and august body that can be trusted to give the final word on the country’s most important issues. But what happens when most of its justices get it wrong? Former government litigator Jack Wright delves into the court’s landmark ruling upholding the federal carbon tax and uncovers mistakes, shoddy reasoning and unfounded conclusions. In this exclusive legal analysis, Wright finds that the key climate-related contentions at the heart of the court’s decision were made with no evidence presented, no oral arguments and no cross-examination – and are flat wrong. Now being held up as binding judicial precedent by climate activists looking for ever-more restrictive regulations, the decision is proving to be not just flawed but dangerous.

Human rights: we all have some, although many of us apparently want ever-more of them. Although they’re written into constitutions, they seem to be changing all the time. Activists demand new rights, human rights tribunals and courts discover or invent new ones almost out of thin air, and politicians are quick to take credit for granting or defending them. But where do human rights actually come from? And what are they based on? Patrick Keeney provides a timely reminder of Christianity’s essential role in providing the key ideas that established human rights, leading the Western world out of its darkest times, shaping a singular worldview and providing a priceless bequest for all humanity.

All of us have a favourite tune – perhaps a whole list of them. But when was the last time any of us asked ourselves what melody actually is, where it came from or how it differs from other pleasing sounds? The animating spirit of music, melody travels deep into the human soul, moves the heart like no other sound and can be traced to the dawn of humanity. But what is it? Probing the evanescent force that is melody, David Solway finds that while the metaphysics may remain forever enigmatic, posing the question is more than half the fun. In this most magical, joyful and musical of seasons, Solway provides a taste of honey that might just cause your heart to skip a beat as you look to the stars, sense the transcendent and hear the sounds of the heavens.

In its drive to stop climate change, the Justin Trudeau government in 2022 mandated that Canada get to a “net-zero” power grid by 2035, a time-frame subsequently extended to 2050. But is that feasible? In this exclusive analysis, nuclear physicist Jim Mason crunches the numbers to determine what would be required to replace electricity from fossil fuels with zero-emitting power. It turns out it would take so long and cost so much – hundreds of billions of dollars – that the policy is not just unrealistic, it’s ludicrous. And, Mason notes, that is before considering the soaring power demands from mandatory electric vehicles and home heat pumps, which come with their own elusive targets. The numbers don’t lie: a net-zero electricity system is a pointless delusion.

Canada has a long record of obscure knife laws. Did you know, for example, that cane swords are legal while comb knives are not? Or that starting in 2025 Manitoba will restrict the sale of machetes throughout the province? Meant to deter young gang members from using the imposing-looking bush knives as weapons, Manitoba’s new law sets a national precedent for knife control. And its proponents want it expanded in ways reminiscent of federal gun control, including bans, a knife registry and storage requirements. In interviewing experts and other key figures, however, Peter Shawn Taylor discovers that Manitoba’s “cutting-edge” law misses the point entirely.

Decades of government neglect and underfunding have left the Canadian Armed Forces a depleted, demoralized and nearly shattered force. The country is increasingly being ignored or even shunned by its traditional allies at a time when an increasingly dangerous world poses escalating national security risks. Canada must urgently rethink and rebuild its military to meet these challenges, safeguard its sovereignty and fulfill its obligations on the world stage, writes David Redman. In this clear-eyed assessment, the CAF veteran and crisis management expert sets out a pathway to renewal, explaining what the armed forces need to rebuild and how Canada’s political leaders – if they have the will and the intelligence – can make it happen.

Canada’s beleaguered economy has become beset with strikes called by unions demanding double-digit wage hikes in an era of constrained budgets and slim profit margins. The latest one, by Canada Post, is already inflicting great damage and threatens to drag on, perhaps right up to Christmas. Yet recent legislation passed by the Liberal government (pushed by the NDP) has made it more likely that major strikes will occur, and even more difficult for employers to try to continue functioning. This, writes Gwyn Morgan, is increasingly dividing Canada into a nation of “haves” – overpaid unionized workers – and “have nots” – everyone else. It is time, says Morgan, that someone stood up for the millions of Canadians victimized by power-wielding union bosses and the governments that enable them.

Few things about Donald Trump’s recent election are causing worse disarray worldwide than the incoming U.S. President’s vow to erect a tariff wall against all imports in order to spur a resurgence in American manufacturing might. Canada’s up to $200-billion-a-year worth of oil and natural gas exports lie at stake, feared to be among the new Administration’s tariff targets. But how strong is the basis for such fears? Probing the political psychology of Trump’s economic and trade policies and examining the intricate mechanism that is North America’s vast integrated oil and natural gas sector, George Koch illuminates the role Canadian energy can play in the U.S. economic revival and the Trump team’s geopolitical drive for global “energy dominance”.

The Justin Trudeau government’s decade-long determination to drive immigration numbers ever-higher – a policy that public outcry now has it scrambling away from – has obscured a rather important and discouraging phenomenon: more and more people are choosing to leave Canada. Emigration is the flipside of the immigration issue – a side that has been largely ignored. With the best and brightest among us increasingly leaving for better opportunity elsewhere, this growing trend reveals Canada is no longer the promised land it once was. Using the most recently released data and analysis, Scott Inniss uncovers why so many are voting with their feet.