In the Hans Christian Andersen fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes, a vain leader struts around naked while expecting his subjects to admire his superior humanity. Today in Canada, political leaders strut around the country and the world swaddled in environmental vanity while expecting their subjects to welcome punitive carbon taxes and energy costs. Who will stand up to Justin Trudeau, Rachel Notley, Kathleen Wynne and the rest and say: “They’re only wearing a green fig leaf – and far from saving the planet, they’re making our country poorer!” Well, Paige MacPherson, for one.

For over a century “Goddamn the CPR” was an all-purpose curse unions, western farmers, and others used against the all-powerful Canadian railway. Today the curse could be repurposed to express frustration with the all-powerful CBC state media conglomerate. Critiquing its cost, bias, and programming is a recurring theme here at C2C, including in this piece by Fred Litwin.

Why does Jordan Peterson drive progressives nuts? Because he refuses to use their made-up pronouns? That hardly seems reason to compare him to Hitler. Clearly it’s something else. According to Mark Milke, Peterson is a proxy for a much bigger fight. It pits the Marxist idea that reality is a malleable, perfectible construct against the classical liberal view that reality is knowledge born of experience. The former is absolutist and authoritarian, the latter open to learning and debate, and the vicious campaign to discredit and silence Peterson reveals just how illiberal our society has become.

The battle for control of Alberta’s energy resources has been going since long before the famous Leduc oil strike in 1947, predating the foundation of the province itself. Jason Kenney’s arrival as Alberta’s new premier portends more fighting with the feds. The political landscape may have changed radically since the epic battles between Peter Lougheed and Pierre Trudeau, but the underlying constitutional issues remain. As George Koch warned, storm clouds have been gathering around the heated topics of energy and wealth transfers, and Canadians are likely headed for another period of punishing East-West conflict.

November 9 marked the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, which ultimately led to the end of Communism in Eastern Europe. No matter where it’s been tried, Communism has resulted in widespread poverty, death and loss of liberty. Yet the siren call of Communism continues to hold great appeal, especially for the young. Mark Jacka urges teachers and professors to remedy this “intergenerational ignorance.”

The math is not hard. New StatsCan data highlights an indelible link between lower taxes and less regulation and higher levels of investment and the productivity, jobs and growth that flow from it. The data also shows that natural resources remain, by far, Canada’s star attraction for investment. So why, wonders Matthew Lau, are Canadian governments working so hard to discourage resource investment with higher taxes and paralyzing regulation?

Oberto Oberti has been trying to build a year-round high-alpine ski resort in the Purcell Mountains of southeastern B.C. for almost 30 years. He has been obstructed every step of the way by governments, natives, environmentalists, NIMBYists, and competing ski resorts. This fall, Oberti’s Jumbo Glacier project finally caught a break, in a startling Supreme Court of Canada ruling against an aboriginal constitutional rights claim. But don’t break out the champagne powder just yet, cautions George Koch. His tale of institutionalized obstructionism shows how hard it is to build anything in Canada these days.

In the beginning, Canada was good, pure, and peaceful. Then the Europeans came, and it all went to hell. This creation and fall story has been cribbed from Genesis to frame today’s powerful aboriginal grievance and entitlement narrative. Its authors are now suggesting that redemption lies in a return to indigenous utopia. But the devil’s in the historical details, writes Hymie Rubenstein, and he was just as busy in pre-Columbian Canada as anywhere else.

When political leaders lose elections, most of them slink off to lick their wounds in private. Not Hillary Clinton and Michael Ignatieff. Both of them wrote books about how and why they lost. Tim Anderson reviews What Happened and Fire and Ashes and concludes that Clinton is the greater self-deluding narcissist.

It is awful for proud Canadians to hear former Governor-General Michelle Jean castigate us as a racist nation. Contemporary social justice warriors – Justin Trudeau primus inter pares – are fond of proclaiming Canada a backward, rights-abusing country, fully deserving of the world’s scorn and condemnation. Mark Jacka wonders if the left truly hates Canada.