Mark Carney’s repeated claims that he loves, understands and respects Alberta have been met with deep skepticism in that province. But what if we took him at his word? What if the former Bank of Canada governor’s bespoke persona as condescending globalist prone to “net-zero” proclamations is just an elaborate ideological smokescreen? What if the federal Liberal leader is really a political sleeper agent, sent East by a cabal of crafty Albertans intent on gaining their independence? Seen this way, certain things do begin to make some semblance of sense. In an upside-down, post-truth world where satire is almost (if not quite) impossible, George Koch ponders the imponderable: that Laurentian Carney is actually a deep-cover Alberta separatist on the verge of pulling off his ultimate mission.

That everyone accused of violating the law deserves a strong defence is a truism of Canada’s legal system. But putting that ideal into practice requires lawyers not merely of competence but of courage and dedication. Lawrence Greenspon has spent 45 years protecting the rights of those at risk of being crushed by the state’s legal machinery. That includes his current client Tamara Lich, whom the Crown just days ago demanded be sentenced to two years in jail for her promotion of peaceful protest and free expression during the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest on Parliament Hill. Greenspon recently sat down with Lynne Cohen to share his thoughts on the verdict in Lich’s trial, his lengthy career inside and out of the courtroom, and navigating the complicated morality of criminal defence law.

A flood of advanced new artificial intelligence models is upon us, led by China’s DeepSeek. They purport to “think” and even to explain their reasoning. But are they really a step forward? In this original investigation, Gleb Lisikh – who previously took on ChatGPT to probe its political biases – engages with DeepSeek in a debate about systemic racism. Lisikh finds it doesn’t just spout propaganda but attempts to convince him using logical fallacies and outright fabrications. In a future where virtually all information and communication will be digital, a dominant technology that doesn’t care about the objectivity and quality of the information it provides – and even actively misleads people – is a terrifying prospect.

Taxes may be as inevitable as death. But for a while in Alberta, paying taxes was a decidedly different experience than anywhere else in the country – a time that also coincided with the greatest economic boom any province has experienced in Canada’s modern era. Tade Haghverdian charts the origins and fate of the famous “Alberta Advantage” – in particular its revolutionary flat income tax – in conversation with the concept’s founding father, former provincial treasurer Stockwell Day. As Alberta today struggles with the effects of nearly two decades of overspending and mounting debt, Day advises how the province can regain its crown as the country’s king of fiscal policy.

Art class was once among the most straightforward high school courses to teach. Show the students how to paint, mold, sketch or craft, and then let them explore their world. Today, however, like the rest of the teaching experience, art class can be a terrifying, even life-threatening event. Recounting the case of a young high school art teacher who was attacked by a student with a large pair of scissors, Brock Eldon looks into the recent and dramatic increase in violence in Canadian schools and asks what’s behind it. While teachers’ unions steadfastly claim insufficient education funding is the culprit, Eldon reviews the evidence and comes to a different, and far more worrisome, conclusion: it is teachers themselves who are largely to blame – reaping the woke whirlwind they have sown.