“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so,” said Mark Twain. This issue of C2C is devoted to nixing common misconceptions related to the Journal’s values of democratic governance, free markets, individual freedom, peace and security.
Some of the articles in this Issue will meet deep and wide opposition. That’s good. Deeply and widely held misconceptions withhold the most potential for better understanding.
Some of the greatest misconceptions relate to the project of a society that is simultaneously diverse, tolerant, and equal. The Quebec values charter controversy is just another instance of the project’s perennial tensions.
And so Paul Bunner takes on the thankless task of setting the record straight on the history of residential schools. Any serious assessment of Canada’s claim to be an inclusive and equal society must weigh the well-being of the country’s First Nations people.
Presently to be Aboriginal in Canada is to be disadvantaged on practically every social indicator. Almost every indicator turns on to the quality of education. The one-sided and hysterical debate over residential schools has cast a shadow over First Nations education that stifles a serious discussion of one of Canada’s most dire and urgent failings, and Bunner’s call for glasnost on Residential Schools is an important step.
Rory Leishman carefully documents the web of interactions between Canadian citizens and offshore terror groups, challenging the belief that multiculturalism has integrated all Canadians behind the values of Peace, Order, and Good Government.
Blaise Boehmer examines the belief—widely held in conservative circles at least, that Brad Wall’s Saskatchewan Party government has delivered the province from its socialist past. There is plenty more to do, especially for such a capable politician as Premier Wall.
Smugness breaks out across this vast land every time pundits rehearse the tale of Canada’s safe chartered banks and low federal debt. However Philip Cross, a former chief economic analyst at Statistics Canada, analyses the combined federal, provincial and municipal numbers. The 1990s may be back.
Peter Stockland meditates on the Catholic Church’s motivations with respect to same sex marriage and same sex relations in general. He argues that while people have every right to be offended by the Church’s stance, a close inspection of its documented position is far more nuanced than commonly reported.
Tim Anderson argues that the Senate is not useless. What has been discounted, Anderson argues, is a proper understanding of why the Fathers of Confederation installed it.
Angela Macleod Irons reviews The Righteous Mind, which tackles the view that conservatives don’t care. It argues from empirical evidence that they draw on a wider range of moral tools than their critics.
Finally, in an interview with economic historian Vincent Geloso, Nelson Peters teases out Geloso’s careful scholarship that dismisses the economic adulation given the Quiet Revolution in favour of a more defensible explanation.
It has been said that a good library contains something to offend everyone, but in a perfect world this issue will cause no offense. It should advance understanding about a wide range of Canada’s most urgent challenges. Enjoy.
David Seymour is editor of C2C Journal.
