Canadians are regularly harangued about how their nation and its institutions, including the RCMP, ostensibly brutalized Indigenous people to the point of “genocide.” But the fact is, the RCMP proved among the best friend Indigenous people had. Robert MacBain tells the near-forgotten story of how its predecessor force, the North-West Mounted Police, saved one of Canada’s largest groups of Indigenous tribes from a terrible fate. Drawing from contemporaneous accounts, including the words of prominent chiefs, MacBain recounts how the force protected the Blackfoot from the depredations of the whiskey trade, winning their friendship and trust. It was about as far from genocidal behaviour as can be.

As Covid-19 recedes, a worldwide evaluation of how the pandemic was handled is finally underway. As much as governments, public health leaders and official science want to avoid questions, others with courage and determination are digging in and finding answers, including Canada’s privately organized National Citizens Inquiry. Margret Kopala examines the damage done by misguided public health measures and presents disturbing new evidence that vaccines were not only pointless but have caused injury and death on a horrific scale. And she reveals how efforts to fight back in the courts and against the media are gaining traction. As more information comes out, the truth about the greatest disaster of our time is becoming clearer.

When his son was disqualified from a summer course offered by his local high school because he wasn’t black, Gleb Lisikh was troubled, but curious. Surely such discriminatory and segregationist practices could not be sanctioned by Ontario’s Ministry of Education. So began a disturbing odyssey through the province’s human rights machinery, where Lisikh found discrimination not just tolerated but encouraged, provided the targets were of the correct race. He also soon discovered that “race” itself has been reimagined as a “social construct” that includes everything from diet and clothing to leisure preferences – things that not long ago were reviled as odious stereotypes. This is Lisikh’s account.

As Canadian universities descend into apparent madness – hiring for skin colour rather than merit, enforcing draconian speech codes and unravelling the ancient protection of academic tenure – one voice has been resolute in demanding a return to higher standards in higher education. Mark Mercer, president of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship since 2015, has proved Canada’s pre-eminent defender of Enlightenment values throughout the academy. In a wide-ranging discussion with C2C Journal’s Patrick Keeney, Mercer charts the origins of our current Woke revolution, the overarching significance of academic freedom and how its loss is affecting life both on and off campus. It may not be a happy story, but it is a necessary one.

The coronation of King Charles III led many Canadians to ask, once again, a simple question: Why should an old man in a land across the sea be our head of state, simply because his ancestors were? It’s a good question, and the case against the monarchy seems powerful. Jamie C. Weir takes on the key arguments and explains why an antiquated and undemocratic institution remains the centrepiece of Canada’s unique political culture, provides a profound and even magical link to our past, and serves as an essential bulwark against the two political death-traps of anarchy and tyranny.

Canadians, we are often told, are a caring and sharing people. Perhaps Canada’s federal workers and their union bosses failed to read the memo, for their recent behaviour has been the opposite: callous and greedy. After coasting through the pandemic “working from home” on full salary, Canada’s “public servants” threw tantrums over returning to the office, demanded an enormous pay increase – then went on strike and blockaded federal facilities. This week they came out of the process richer and even more coddled. Gwyn Morgan charts the federal government’s cave-in to its unionized employees and the ever-growing disparity in compensation between them and the private-sector workers who are taxed to pay for it all. Part II of a special series (Part I is here).

The freedom to choose whether or not to work is surely the most basic of worker rights. Without it, no one can ever truly be master of their own labour. Yet the federal government is planning to remove this fundamental choice from 1 million Canadian workers. And for reasons of naked self-interest. In the wake of the PSAC strike, Lynne Cohen looks at Ottawa’s plan to worsen labour relations by banning replacement workers throughout the federal civil service and across the myriad of crucial federally-regulated industries, including banking, telecom and transportation. Based on economic evidence and expert opinion, Cohen reveals the damage such a move will cause – and why potential solutions seem so far away. Part I of a special two-part series.