Many Canadians retain a sentimental attachment to the RCMP born of its long and, until recently, distinguished record of public service. Even as crime rates rise worrisomely across Canada, however, the force’s crime-fighting competence has increasingly come into question and its image has been tarnished by a series of fiascos. In this comprehensive look at a force under fire, Doug Firby investigates why so many jurisdictions, most notably Alberta, are considering dropping the Mounties to build their own police forces – and why the strongest impetus for change might end up coming from Ottawa.

It wasn’t long ago that plant-based meat alternatives – fake meat – began to take over supermarket shelves and fast-food chains. Environmentalists and animal-right activists promised that shifting to a fully plant-based diet would make us all healthier and help solve global warming. Governments jumped in to rhapsodize and subsidize the next miracle food. But all that soon began to fizzle: consumers turned up their noses at fake meat, sales plummeted and restaurant chains began dropping it from menus. Chewing over the exaggerations and false claims behind fake meat, Doug Firby charts how this one-time centrepiece of woke foodies has been spat out by decidedly dissatisfied consumers.

Fretting and finger-pointing won’t fix a housing market suffering from spiraling prices and insufficient supply. At some point reality must be acknowledged. Nowhere is this problem more acute than in Vancouver, one of the world’s most overpriced real estate markets. Politicians say they want to improve affordability – and then pile on tax after tax. Bureaucrats say they want to help get things built – and then suffocate the approvals process with layers of unnecessary regulations. Residents tell pollsters they want more housing – and then fight tooth and nail against projects in their own neighbourhood. Through the eyes of embattled homeowners, market experts, politicians and industry players, Doug Firby surveys the hypocrisy of Vancouver’s broken housing landscape and finds practical ways to overcome it. Part Two of a special series on Canada’s housing crisis (Part One can be read here).

Officious municipal bureaucrats are nothing new, Kafkaesque permitting processes are routine, and nosy bylaw officers interfering with property owners, home-business operators or pet owners are a familiar sight. But what is going on in British Columbia’s Gulf Islands is on a whole different level. There, many long-time island residents and business owners fear that an out-of-control environmental “trust” stands to ruin their livelihoods, lifestyles and properties. Doug Firby investigates and finds ideology running roughshod over common sense, planning overriding practicality and panic over climate change crowding out the accommodation of human needs.

“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.

Going along to get along is an all-too-common human impulse. When the issue involves the world’s largest country wielding its standard foreign policy combination of limitless economic opportunity and menacing physical intimidation, that impulse can become irresistible. Some even attempt to elevate accommodation into a virtue. Not Michael Chong. His parents experienced the horrors of both fascism and communism first-hand. Today, Chong is not about to bow down to a new variant on an old tyranny: China’s Communist regime. Veteran journalist Doug Firby recently interviewed Chong, and below are the best portions of their conversation.

Urban parks were once amenities local residents escaped to – welcome refuges from the noisy chaos of city life where one could exercise, meet neighbours or simply commune with nature. Lately, however, many of these parks have become something residents desperately want to escape from. With dangerous, drug-infested homeless camps now occupying once-beloved downtown green spaces in numerous Canadian cities, and with governments seemingly incapable of stopping this invasion, it is has fallen to a few brave locals to lead the resistance. Veteran journalist Doug Firby recently sat down with one reluctant warrior, a former overseas journalist and neighbourhood mom from Vancouver who’d simply had enough.

Supporting or working to bring about “democratic” socialism has become an alluring option for ever-more voters across North America. It is ascending on clouds of virtuous intentions, high hopes and utopian goals, backed by elaborate theories, with good doses of anger and envy adding punch. Yet it has all been tried before – and failed calamitously, an unmitigated horror ending in ruination. Luckily, people who have personally lived through it are still around to tell the tale. Through the eyes of one survivor of Eastern European communism, Doug Firby issues a stark reminder of what real oppression looks like and a plea to younger Canadians to resist the seductive call of socialism.

There has been no shortage of advocates, naysayers, analysts and putative leaders circling the great question of Alberta and Saskatchewan’s future place inside or perhaps outside Canada. As in any functioning democracy, however, the outcome will be driven by the great mass of people in the middle. What they think and how they feel matters most. In this thorough piece of original reporting, Doug Firby gives voice to overlooked Albertans who are considering the issue deeply. While their opinions vary widely, they are united in their determination that their beloved province get it right this time.

Canadian health care can be world-class – if you can actually get some. If not, you might just die waiting. Other countries innovate, experiment and embrace change to improve their systems. Canada, not so much. Here, inertia, status quo protection and self-satisfaction reign. And don’t ever raise your voice in the waiting room or you’re liable to get kicked out for “abusing” the staff. Veteran journalist Doug Firby conducted a diagnosis of what ails our system – interviewing patients, talking to experts and reading key reports – and, in this exclusively reported feature, presents his prognosis.