Meat-packing plants in Alberta and Ontario are shut or running reduced lines as they grapple with Covid-19 outbreaks. The livestock industry is also under siege from methane-crazed environmentalists. Peter Shawn Taylor suggests that instead of taxing cattle, Canadians should feed the world by taking the lead in responsible beef production.

One of Donald Trump’s blustery campaign promises was “if I’m president, you’re going to see Merry Christmas in department stores again, believe me.” A slap at Christophobes, it was typical of his politically incorrect comments on everything from feminism to climate change, terrorism to refugees. With President Trump setting the tone, writes Nigel Hannaford, the public square will become a much noisier, ruder and freer place.

The tribunes of the social justice movement want two things above all else; protection from hurt feelings and the overthrow of Western Civilization. Those objectives are not as incongruous as they seem. A core value of Western Civilization is, or was, stoicism – from which sprang virtues like courage, sacrifice, and loyalty. Without stoicism, we are a society of grievances competing for state protections and entitlements. This way lies ruin, writes Daniel Bezalel Richardsen, in an essay informed by the Meditations of second century stoic philosopher and Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

University campuses are the last place on earth you’d expect to find a hawkish fiscal lobby like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation trolling for support. But that’s exactly where they’ve taken their Generation Screwed campaign, right to the young people who are being saddled with a massive intergenerational debt by their elders. The message is going over really well with most students, writes campaign executive director Aaron Gunn, despite concerted resistance from some students’ unions, school administrators, and the usual suspects in campus social justice crowd.

This year the George Jonas Freedom Award was presented to the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS), a non-profit organization that promotes freedom in teaching, research and scholarship at post-secondary institutions across Canada. Mark Mercer, SAFS president, argues academic freedom and free speech are foundational university values.

Just yesterday Toronto opened its first Chick-Fil-A restaurant and the event was, as expected, met with protests. Dan Cathy, the chain’s CEO, believes in the “biblical definition of the family unit” and has donated millions to conservative causes, some of which take exception to the LGBTQ agenda. Fred Litwin, a long-time gay rights advocate, looks at how we arrived at our current fixation with gender identity, suggesting that LGBTQ is only the beginning. The longest acronym to date is LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA, but there may be no end to the proliferation of sexual identities. It’s time, says Litwin, to fight back against this dangerous foolishness.

The University of Chicago’s English Department recently announced it is only accepting new graduate students if they intend to “work in or with” Black Studies. Patrick Keeney’s review of Unsafe Space: The Crisis of Free Speech on Campus charts how political correctness is eroding the university mission of methodical discovery and the teaching of truths.

One of the ways the left has dominated political discourse and activism on university campuses for many decades is through PIRGs – Public Interest Research Groups. Founded in 1971 by American progressive pioneer Ralph Nader, the secret of PIRGs’ success was a steady stream of funding from mandatory student fees. But now, tired of seeing their money used for politically correct causes, some Canadian students are organizing successful “NOPIRG” campaigns to end those fees. Queen’s University anti-PIRG activist Vanessa Walsh reports from the front lines.

The President of Haverford College is just the latest North American university administrator to abase herself in front of a woke student body. John Carpay and Michael Kennedy describe the Canadian campaign to protect and advance the free and frank exchange of ideas on Canadian campuses.