As if on cue, governments in Canada once again told people to fear or even avoid much of what makes Christmas special – especially human togetherness. Happily, millions of Canadians carried on regardless and Christmas celebrations also rang out joyfully around the world – as they have for nearly 1,700 years. Urging us to see beyond the moment and the day’s headlines, Masha Krylova reminds us of some timeless ideas that, she believes, offer not only the reason but the means to cast aside fear and persevere. Merry Christmas!

Is each human being a unique individual of incalculable intrinsic worth, to be valued and respected in all circumstances? Or an interchangeable object to be managed, manipulated and used? And what might this have to do with Covid-19? Quite a lot, in fact. The pro-restrictions/pro-mask/pro-vaccine side has wrapped itself not only in the lab-coat of science but also, implicitly, in the robe of morality. Opponents aren’t just misinformed, misguided or even irrational, they’re bad. But is this really the case? David Solway examines the ethical concepts underlying – and, whether people realize it or not, shaping – the two main contesting viewpoints towards pandemic management.

From its origins flogging patent medicines in the early 19th century, corporate advertising has never been just about the product. Rather, it is meant to promote a sense of awareness and desire. With this in mind, what should we make of the recent deluge of TV commercials that suggest Canada is populated almost entirely by mixed-race families? With the fantasyland of advertising as his starting point, Aaron Nava probes the state of intermarriage in Canada, looking closely at our statistical record, what it means on a personal level and what it holds for our country’s future.

The digital era upended industries and ideas, including the belief that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Information was suddenly instant, infinite and without cost. Or seemingly so. As legacy news media declined or foundered altogether, the replacements struggled to create viable business models. Perhaps it was only a matter of time until agenda-driven organizations and governments stepped in to “lend a helping hand.” But what happens to “independence” when media are financially dependent on large organizations and journalists become wards of the state? Lifelong newspaperman, publisher and communications expert Peter Menzies explores the issue.

“Never let a good crisis go to waste” has become cliché because it has also become standard operating procedure for expansionist governments and unrestrained public health officials. Constitutional protections, the Common Law, common sense and common decency are often cast aside in the hunt to upend disfavoured industries, activities, groups or individuals. The official goal is almost always “safety.” Yet quite often, the targets were already in the political crosshairs. Doug Firby goes to the source in this originally reported account of the B.C. government’s destruction of a small and unpopular – but law-abiding and productive – niche in the agricultural sector.

As the cultural edifices of western civilization are torn down one by one, there’s one institution whose prestige and authority continues to grow – science. Respect for scientists has, in many quarters, been transformed into a form of worship. And questioning their authority akin to heresy. Yet this confidence is often misplaced. A disturbing number of scientists have been proven to be charlatans, their methods slipshod and their results bogus. Surveying numerous disciplines, Peter Shawn Taylor explains the implications of what’s known as the “replication crisis” and reveals how science is trying to fix itself. Even non-scientists should be paying attention.

Early this fall C2C Journal posed the question whether countries should rely so heavily on vaccination to subdue the Covid-19 pandemic – whether we could “inject our way” out of trouble. The massive autumn waves of infection in numerous heavily vaccinated countries should have prompted serious reflection – perhaps even a change in direction. Yet even as the latest mainstream research and recent events demonstrate that the vaccines are only partially protective and woefully temporary, our public authorities are further intensifying vaccination programs while crushing the lives of the unvaccinated. Gwyn Morgan, an early proponent of universal vaccination, puts the pieces together and demands that we consider a new approach.

It’s hard not to like electric vehicles. Or rather, it is becoming hard to express open dislike of them. They’re green, clean, quiet, fast, subsidized – and “free” to operate. And if the Liberal government has its way, EVs will soon be the only cars you can buy. It’s all settled! But perhaps it shouldn’t be. James Coggins parts the curtain of EV virtue-signalling and poses some basic questions that should have been answered by now if Canada is to cruise smoothly into its battery-operated future. Car owners and families, brace yourselves for a severe jolt, for Coggins uncovers a yawning vacuum of answers regarding the very fundamentals of building, financing and powering Canada’s soon-to-proliferate EV fleet.

In western Canada some large corporations now voluntarily provide services not only in English and French but Chinese. In cities across English-speaking Canada one can find shops and services emblazoned with virtually any language and form of writing known around the world – often without an English version alongside. Hardly anyone seemingly gives such practices a second thought. They certainly don’t spark bitter public debate. So why is one Canadian province so fixated on elevating one language above all and stamping out one other in particular? Drawing on his lived experience while applying the detachment of a historian, John Weissenberger chronicles the obsessive, ahistorical, unnecessary – and ongoing – campaign by Quebec’s francophone nationalists against the province’s English-speaking minority.

Taxes in Western countries were traditionally meant to raise money for necessary government expenditures. They weren’t supposed to shape individual behaviour, let alone attempt to turn taxpayers into better human beings. Free-market economists later added the principle that taxes should seek to minimize damage and distortion to both the economy and taxpayers. So what should we make of a new tax that is essentially moralistic in purpose, damaging to those least able to afford it and likely doomed to failure? Peter Shawn Taylor delves into debt-ridden Newfoundland and Labrador’s plan for a new tax on sugary beverages, and the formidable array of international evidence that argues against it.