The reported discovery of unmarked graves at former Indian Residential Schools confirmed what many Canadians thought they already knew about this now-discredited system. But how much of this foundational knowledge is actually true? Did “all” Indigenous children attend residential schools? Were they forced to go? Was this done over the objections of their parents and chiefs? How did the buried students die? And what, in turn, was the system’s real purpose? In Part Two of this special three-part series, Hymie Rubenstein digs deep into the historical record in the search for answers to these difficult questions.

Airports are not just crucial pieces of transportation infrastructure, they’re also economic engines for the cities and regions they serve. But airports require vast amounts of capital to build, run and modernize. With governments at all levels mired in debt, who will supply that capital? Across most of the world, it’s private-sector investors – something expressly forbidden in Canada. Drawing on expert opinion and insight, Peter Shawn Taylor makes the case for allowing this country’s airports to join the modern world by accessing equity markets. But first they’ll have to free themselves from Canada’s antiquated and burdensome airport policy.

We inhabit an age when science – and even more so, scientists and other experts – are revered and exercise pervasive influence over government policy and public life. Much of the public, it seems, has come to assume that science is the source of all knowledge and truth. Accordingly, new policies, laws or regulations are routinely claimed to be “driven by the science.” But is all of this justified? Is it really science-based? Does science itself have no limits? Drawing on the wisdom of his lifelong scientific career, Jim Mason reviews essential characteristics of science and warns how hubris and ambition can steer scientists and governments very far from the path of science. For voters to properly assess the merits of claims and “solutions” drawing their authority from science, Mason believes it is essential that they understand some fundamental things about science itself.

Fascinated by the metaphysics of the city, 20th century Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico produced jarring urban scenes bereft of people and normal human bustle. He meant to trigger contemplation; he didn’t actually hate people. The tiny minds who run our governments, control our public health agencies and staff our hospital system seem to have taken de Chirico’s metaphorical presentations as an operating blueprint, for in David Solway’s view they have delivered a globe-girdling art installation using the world’s cities as their canvas. From soaring commercial vacancy rates and boarded-up businesses in hundreds of the world’s second-tier cities to the moonscape that Manhattan has largely become, Solway denounces the incalculable damage wrought not by SARS-CoV-2 itself – but the government response to it.

When disturbing evidence is unearthed that points to malfeasance by individuals, organizations or entire countries, it is understandable that feelings would run high among the aggrieved parties. But are unrestrained emotionalism, exaggeration and wild accusation the proper responses for politicians, experts, commentators and the population at large? How does this help a nation get at the truth, pursue justice or settle accounts – let alone move the parties along the path of forgiveness and reconciliation? In Part One of this special three-part series, Hymie Rubenstein sorts through the heated claims and allegations and sets forth what is actually known about the unmarked graves at Canada’s former Indian Residential Schools.

It is clear that “progressives” are intent on rewriting, discrediting or wiping out the past. That context helps to clarify the left’s horror at Alberta’s proposed new K-6 school curriculum. Its fact-based approach to elementary schooling includes the history of Western civilization back to its beginnings, and to progressives, that simply cannot stand. With the curriculum’s comment period open until next spring, the controversy continues to boil. A lifelong educator, Patrick Keeney well knows what progressives have been up to. Keeney sees this as the moment when parents and all those who believe in a genuinely liberal education can take back our schools.

The zeal with which many politicians push environmental policies seems in almost inverse proportion to their practicality. The more expensive, unrealistic, utopian and unachievable, the more it animates them. Justin Trudeau and his key ministers are the apotheosis of this tendency, appearing determined to wreck western Canada’s economy and ruin the prosperity of millions in an impossible quest to “save the planet.” The economic carnage and impoverishment they’ll wreak seems almost like a feature rather than a bug, worn like a national hairshirt or display of religious penance. Gwyn Morgan, however, believes it’s still possible to craft a Canadian emissions reduction strategy based on facts and economic opportunity rather than ideology and fantasy. Canada, he explains, “can do good by doing well” – reducing global emissions by exporting to eager markets around the world a Canadian natural resource that we have in practically unlimited supply.

Just a few years ago we passed them on the street without a second thought. Today, they’re political minefields. Statues are one way for a society to remember its heroes and its great moments. But amid a rethinking of our past, perhaps we need a new way to decide which heroes are worthy of remembering, and which moments were truly great. Setting aside the heated rhetoric and rampant vandalism currently determining the fate of Canada’s statues of historical figures, Lloyd W. Robertson surveys the global experience and looks for ways to reconcile public memorials from the past with present-day concerns.   

Some of us are old enough to remember when the entertainment industry’s primary objective was to entertain us rather than indoctrinate or proselytize. If political causes were pushed, it was conducted subtly; open activism was relegated to a few mercurial directors. That, of course, was a long time ago. But now come signs the public has had enough of Hollywood’s incessant preaching. Patrick Keeney notes the recent travails of the movie business’ most famous awards shows and explores what might be done to move beyond an entertainment diet of all-leftism, all-the-time.

A bright young woman – let’s call her Kylie – heads off to university. She had a great childhood and loves her family, but now learns from her prof that they are oppressors. She meets some other cool students, all members of groups victimized by the evil system of which she and her parents have been active if unwitting parts. Suddenly, Kylie gets it. She’s woke! Her soul lights up. The world must be remade and, now that Kylie is with the enlightened, she will help save the future. It all seems very new and exciting. In fact, it’s deeply reminiscent of something that was done before – nearly two millennia ago – and which the perspective of time has rendered absurd if not exactly comical. Drawing on a solid body of scholarship, Tom Flanagan goes back to ancient Gnosticism to illuminate the derivative nature of today’s wokeness and its connection to Progressive identity politics.

Despite all the attention paid to vulnerable groups in Canada these days, there’s one notable minority that garners no attention or concern. Professors and students with a conservative worldview constitute a small percentage at Canada’s universities. But instead of being tolerated, they’re often treated with disdain – if not outright hostility – by administration and their peers. Drawing on ample academic research as well as his own personal experiences at Wilfrid Laurier University, Professor David Millard Haskell reveals what it means to be a conservative on campus in 2021.

Celebrating the fact of one’s country’s existence, its survival through the adversities of history and its positive or uplifting attributes is a fact of life the world over, even in tyrannies and oligarchies. Nearly everyone can find something to love about the place they call home. Yet this is apparently not the case for many inhabitants of present-day Canada, who claim that what was once the self-described “greatest country in the world” has suddenly become a systemically racist hell-hole. Despite such pressure from the woke mob and their elite enablers, however, the editors of C2C Journal find much that is not merely defensible about Canada, but praiseworthy and downright glorious.

Covid-19 has been studied exhaustively – or so we all assume – and the scientific verdicts on the key aspects are in and unequivocal – or so we are told. In fact, there are glaring scientific gaps concerning some of the basic questions about Covid-19, and shocking failures to order the highest-quality research into answering them. Instead, the “narrative” dominates: wear your mask! In Part II of this special two-part report, Masha V. Krylova follows the science, exploring more of the research surrounding this key issue and discussing the most recent exhaustive scientific evidence of the transpiring health risks of prolonged mask-wearing.

There are those who still love the Canada that is and was. Some are immigrants, and some don’t even live in Canada at all. Like Gourav Jaswal. The Goa, India-based entrepreneur is appalled at our country’s seeming descent into self-loathing. Last month, Jaswal made his case in a major national newspaper. In this follow-up piece he talks about the affecting experience of receiving a torrent of e-mails from patriotic Canadians, and the disturbing fact that virtually all who wrote him feel they are no longer allowed to speak freely in their own country.

Criticism of Bill C-10, the Liberals’ controversial update of federal broadcasting legislation, has so far focused on the threat it may pose to your right to post cat videos on YouTube. As troubling as that may sound, the truth is much, much worse. Former CRTC vice-chair Peter Menzies looks back at the bill’s three-year long gestation and finds a government regulator with an antique worldview determined to enforce its will on a future of infinite possibilities. There’s far more at stake here than your adorable kitten’s latest pratfall.