If there is a politico-historical thread running from Louis Riel and the buffalo-hunting Métis rebels in Confederation-era Manitoba, via Ottawa’s creation of three second-class Prairie provinces, followed by decades of friction over resource ownership and taxation, all the way to the convoys of diesel-powered trucks that rumbled into Ottawa to protest federal vaccine mandates in the winter of 2022, few have taken note. David Solway is one. As the main convoy leaders await a court verdict, Solway is taking the long view. He asserts that the truckers’ protest is a powerful contemporary manifestation of a recurring theme – perhaps the defining theme – of how Canada is governed, and to whose benefit. But while Canada’s late-19th century leaders were flawed men who made mistakes, Solway finds, the country’s current federal leadership appears outright bent on destruction.

It is the most improbable of political ventures, the most far-fetched of stories. A nation that returns conquered lands to countries that attack it. A people who provide material aid and medical care to those who mistrust them. A culture that laughs at its brushes with extinction. And a stirring embodiment of the Western idea in a lonely and vulnerable outpost. David Solway examines Israel and finds a modern Jewish homeland whose Diamond Jubilee next month merits international celebration, a model the world should be shooting for, not shooting at, a country that provides an image of the possible while serving as a touchstone of the real.

In these, the longest nights of midwinter, Canada feels as “northern” as it ever gets. Though we may dream of beaches and warm sunshine, our nation is second only to Russia in its sheer northern expanses, and most Canadians still seem to think of themselves as northerners, even if reluctant ones. But what is the north? Does it, in one writer’s words, dazzle with the promise of “the luminous, pearl, interior day”? Is it, as another put it, “a physical challenge and a hard thought”? Or does it signify something else entirely? David Solway harnesses an impressive troupe of writers and artists to help him explore these questions, finding that, for some, heading North can be a one-way journey.

“When a clown enters the palace, he does not become king. The palace becomes a circus.” That ancient Turkish proverb applies equally well to North America’s current education system. Here smugly ignorant “students” collide with dogma-driven “educators” fixated on ideological indoctrination. The result is a fetid system that’s no longer capable of nurturing literate citizens, but instead is focused on cranking out institutional foot soldiers for the cultural revolution. Having spent most of his career working in this decaying palace, David Solway has every reason to be bitter. Yet his own experiences tutoring the seemingly unteachable, changes afoot in the educational firmament and the growing alarm of parents have him hoping still.

“As a valued customer, a dedicated member of our expert team will be with you very shortly.” All of us encounter variations on this ubiquitous line – at minimum insincere, exaggerated and misleading, if not deliberately false. Many of us barely even notice, while nearly all have given up fighting it. But what does it actually take to inure a culture to misdirection, deception and falsehood – to lying? What is the motive source that would seek such comprehensive degradation? And where might it lead? David Solway explores how lying has become institutionalized into a structural component of cultural and political life, seeing its origins in deep recesses of human nature, its contours outlined by theologians of ancient times – and its dreadful potential exploited and put to unprecedented uses today.

It is perhaps one mark of how far the public discourse has been skewed and our perspectives warped that we even need to remind ourselves of this simple fact: mask-wearing is not “normal.” Nor, except in a few situations, is it good. David Solway applies scientific evidence, psychology and philosophy to this erudite discussion of the deeper – and mostly dire – implications of mass masking during the pandemic, an enforced yet often eagerly embraced practice that, he warns, has rendered many of us travesties of our own humanity. Solway also reminds us of the eternal magic of the human face – one of the keys to our individuality, humanity and childhood development.

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.

Do you ever wonder just what makes them tick? No, not your significant-other, navel-gazing kids, increasingly eccentric parents or curmudgeonly plumber. That’s easy. No, those on the left. At least, the key cadres who generate, repeat and advance the ideas that have seduced generation of our seemingly most intelligent youth, ideas that go on to bankrupt national treasuries, impoverish populations, gnaw away at ancient freedoms and ruin well-functioning institutions. After decades spent pondering and being stumped by the leftist psyche, David Solway explains how he arrived at an artfully simple way to unravel it all.

“We’re all in this together” has been endlessly repeated throughout the pandemic – often in the same breath as we’re told to stay home and are barred from interacting with nearly anyone or doing any of the things we once did “together.” Far from bringing us together, one of the perverse aspects of society’s response to Covid-19 has been to drive people of different views even farther apart. Preserving one’s intellectual elbow-room to think and judge has been hard enough for independent minds like David Solway. Even harder, and far sadder, has been attempting to converse with people who could benefit from a few fresh thoughts. Part Three of a special series. Part One can be found here and Part Two here.

Fascinated by the metaphysics of the city, 20th century Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico produced jarring urban scenes bereft of people and normal human bustle. He meant to trigger contemplation; he didn’t actually hate people. The tiny minds who run our governments, control our public health agencies and staff our hospital system seem to have taken de Chirico’s metaphorical presentations as an operating blueprint, for in David Solway’s view they have delivered a globe-girdling art installation using the world’s cities as their canvas. From soaring commercial vacancy rates and boarded-up businesses in hundreds of the world’s second-tier cities to the moonscape that Manhattan has largely become, Solway denounces the incalculable damage wrought not by SARS-CoV-2 itself – but the government response to it.