Stories
U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policy may be chaotic and punitive, but he’s right about one thing: Canada’s agricultural supply management system has to go. Not because it’s unfair to America, though it is, but because it punishes Canadians. The price-fixing scheme limits consumer choice, requires a huge bureaucracy and prevents farmers from producing more in the face of shortages, forcing them instead to dump excess production. Worst of all, writes Gwyn Morgan, it drives up prices for milk, cheese, chicken, eggs and other essential foods — all for the benefit of a few thousand farmers, largely in Quebec. For Canada’s trade negotiators, argues Morgan, ending this mad racket should be job one.
Indigenous Reconciliation
What do children owe their parents? Love, honour and respect seem like a good start. But what of parents who were once political figures? Does the younger generation owe a duty of care to the beliefs of their forebears? In a fascinating study on the nexus of familial responsibility and present-day policy choices, Peter Best examines two recent cases of inter-generational conflict over Indigenous relations in Canada. One concerns Prime Minister Mark Carney and his father Robert. The other is a recent book on the work of noted aboriginal thinker William Wuttunee edited by his academic daughter. In each case, Best finds, the current generation has let down its ancestors – and left all of Canada worse off.
Euthanasia
In her autobiography, famed mystery novelist Agatha Christie wrote that, “The saddest thing in life and the hardest to live through, is the knowledge that there is someone you love very much whom you cannot save from suffering.” Christie was speaking as a parent watching her daughter learn that her husband had been killed at Normandy. Even sadder may be the plight of a parent with a severely ill or disabled child for whom there is no cure. But is it so sad as to warrant euthanasia? Anna Farrow takes an unflinching look at efforts to expand Canada’s MAID program to include babies. If Canada eventually legalizes the “compassionate” killing of infants, Farrow points out, it will be following in the heartless footsteps of the country that pioneered the concept – Nazi Germany.
Indigenous Reconciliation
Unfounded claims about buried bodies. Lies about missing children. Attacks on those who challenge the dominant narrative on Canada’s former Indian Residential Schools. This is just some of the ground Dead Wrong: How Canada Got the Residential School Story so Wrong covers in its look into the latest falsehoods and distortions spinning around the controversial issue. Dead Wrong – which officially launches today – is a follow-up to the best-seller Grave Error. In this exclusive preview, co-editor and noted historian Tom Flanagan recounts the many ways politicians, activists, the media and some Indigenous leaders have tried to suppress the truth, and warns of the latest and most dangerous tactic: the attempt to criminalize “Residential School Denialism” and use the power of the state to silence those who try to set the record straight.
Stories
Artificial intelligence is the most hyped, most feared and most misunderstood technology of our times. But just how worried should we be? Technology analyst Gleb Lisikh demonstrated in Part One of this series why large language models can’t be trusted to provide answers that are factual and true. In this instalment he shows why AI will have huge impacts all the same on how society functions. The technology can, in fact, make everything from finance to education and health care more efficient. And even though it merely mimics human thought and interaction, people will still rush to use it. Because, as even Lisikh admits, it’s so dang useful. Thankfully, a few simple rules can help you get the most out of it – and avoid being tricked.
Artificial Intelligence
In its earlier days, artificial intelligence was often mocked for giving users false or even absurd answers. But AI was feared as well, not least for its potential to do more harm than good. As it has advanced, AI has become seemingly more reliable. But can it ever produce unbiased truth? Technology analyst Gleb Lisikh opens up the black box of the large language models underlying today’s proliferating AI apps to reveal the misunderstanding – or hoax – at the core of that question. LLMs cannot think, Lisikh explains in Part I of this two-part series – nor can they seek the truth – because they just aren’t designed to.
Stories
Climate-obsessed politicians – Justin Trudeau in the vanguard – nearly destroyed the Canadian economy chasing emissions targets that are both unrealistic and pointless. Ottawa and the four biggest provinces have squandered $158 billion to create just 68,000 “clean” jobs. Meanwhile, fossil fuels are supplying a bigger share of Canada’s energy needs than ever. And now, leading U.S. officials and even eco-zealots like Bill Gates are re-evaluating their net-zero ideology. But that hasn’t gotten through to Prime Minister Mark Carney who, warns Gwyn Morgan, intends to inflict further punishment on an ailing country in pursuit of a delusional cause.
Economics
It has become widely accepted that capitalism has failed – that free markets exploit workers, hammer consumers and can’t be trusted as the bedrock of a liberal democracy. It’s why an unrepentant “democratic” socialist, Zohran Mamdani, can be elected mayor of New York and why Mark Carney can produce a budget with massive spending and increased government meddling yet still be hailed as a prudent manager. Matthew Lau isn’t having it. In this incisive critique, Lau demolishes four myths driving the modern attack on capitalism and explains how it is only free markets that make people richer, happier and more equal.
Future of Currency
“Cash is king, credit is a slave,” George N. McLean wrote in his classic 1890 book How to do Business. More than a century later, it’s still good advice – one that active pro-cash movements in many other countries are recognizing. So why does Ottawa seem determined to put its own banknotes out of commission? In the name of fighting international money-launderers, the Mark Carney government is proposing to outlaw all larger cash transactions and interfere with other key aspects of Canada’s cash economy. Through interviews with experts in business, social policy and politics, Peter Shawn Taylor examines the varied benefits cash provides and asks who stands to gain from a truly cashless society.
Religious Freedom
The modern welfare state owes much of its origins to religion. Blessed with ample resources and driven by a moral duty to improve the lives of those in their care, churches and religious orders in the Middle Ages created the first universities, hospitals, homeless shelters and food banks. More recently, however, the pendulum of power has swung mightily in favour of secular government. And now, with church attendance on the wane, those secular forces seem determined to destroy their spiritual competition once and for all. Examining a potentially devastating federal proposal to strip religious organizations of their charitable status, Anna Farrow considers the impact churches play in today’s civil society – and wonders how Canada’s less fortunate would fare in a world bereft of faith.
Literary Essay
After more than a decade living in the crush and chaos of Southeast Asia, writer Brock Eldon came back to Canada to root his young family in a place of promise and possibility. He found instead a country in an advanced state of administrative rot and a people who have abandoned ambition for shallow self-righteousness. In this provocative literary essay, Eldon explores the North he long imagined and discovers that returning is not the same as belonging.
Constitutional Balance
The federal government has long objected to provinces using the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ “notwithstanding” clause, arguing it lets them trample over the rights of Canadians. But that view, flawed as it is, is nothing compared to Ottawa’s latest gambit on this issue, writes Andrew Roman. Liberal Justice Minister Sean Fraser’s recent intervention in the case of Quebec’s Bill 21 asks the Supreme Court of Canada to declare limits on the use of the notwithstanding clause. This would amount to a backdoor amendment of the Constitution by the court, one that would give judges even more power and leave elected representatives even less scope to avoid or undo their harmful decisions. More than just an attack on provincial autonomy, writes Roman, it threatens to upset the balance at the heart of Canada’s federal democracy.
Anti-Semitism
It is probably beyond the imagination of most Canadians that they would ever face the kind of evil atrocity Israelis suffered on October 7, 2023. Or that we would find ourselves living next door to savage terrorists bent on our annihilation. But as Gwyn Morgan points out, it is critical to understand that reality as Israel’s struggle for existence carries on. The history of Israel is nothing short of miraculous. As Morgan personally observed on a tour of the world’s only Jewish state, Israelis have with determination and heart built a free, tolerant, prosperous and technologically-advanced democracy while surrounded by enemies. In the face of ruthless attacks by Hamas and the craven behaviour of supposed friends and allies who now lean in favour of the terrorists, Israel has reminded the rest of the world what real courage is.
Energy and Climate
“Decarbonized” oil is being touted as a way to bridge the policy chasm separating energy-rich Alberta and the climate-change-obsessed Mark Carney government. Take the carbon dioxide normally emitted during the production and processing of crude oil and store it underground, the thinking goes, and Canada can have it all: plentiful jobs, a thriving industry, burgeoning exports and falling greenhouse gas emissions. But is “decarbonized” oil really a potential panacea – or an oxymoron that makes no more sense than “dehydrated” water? In this original analysis, former National Energy Board member Ron Wallace evaluates whether a massive push for carbon capture and storage can transform Alberta into a “clean energy superpower” – or will merely saddle its industry and government with a technical boondoggle and unbearable costs while Eastern Canada’s refiners remain free to import dirty oil from abroad.
Aboriginal Lawfare
What’s the worst possible thing that can happen to a homeowner? It’s probably not a flooded basement, an infestation of rodents or things falling apart due to shoddy workmanship. It’s that the very concept of their ownership rights could be pulled out from under them. Such was the shocking outcome of a B.C. Supreme Court ruling over the summer which handed aboriginal title to a swath of B.C.’s Lower Mainland that has been privately owned and occupied by others in good faith for more than 150 years. On Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Peter Best takes a close look at the judge’s actions in the case of Cowichan Tribes v. Canada and reveals the many ways in which the court abandoned the precepts of impartiality and fact-based legal reasoning in order to come to the aid of the native claimants.