As Canada’s courts continue to invent novel new rights for Canadians, conflicts with law-making governments become ever-more common. Decisions that are political in nature are increasingly made by unelected but intrusive judges, eroding the authority of legislatures – and the sovereignty of the people who elected them. It is time to swing the pendulum back, asserts Grant A. Brown. And the Charter’s “notwithstanding” clause, he believes, is a legitimate constitutional means to do so. This logic was on display last week when the Ontario government used the notwithstanding clause in back-to-work legislation meant to keep the province’s schools open. While a deal this week with the union representing illegally striking educational support workers led Doug Ford’s government to withdraw the law, its purpose was served. Are other provinces taking note? 

In Part One of this special series, Lynne Cohen chronicled the story of how early vaccines were created and the amazing individuals who brought them into being. Vaccines are one of humanity’s signal achievements, saving hundreds of millions of lives. Yet is that reason enough to abandon all skepticism regarding Covid-19 inoculations? Are they just like the smallpox vaccine of 225 years ago or the polio vaccine from the 1950s – or do they work differently? And if so, in what ways? Grant A. Brown takes a careful, evidence-based look at these important questions, beginning with an overview of viruses and how standard vaccines behave, and then comparing that with the key characteristics, behaviour and performance of the latest Covid-19 vaccines.

Among 2020’s many unfortunate pandemic casualties was the Stratford Festival. Today it’s anybody’s guess how, when or whether the beloved cultural institution, held annually in the Ontario town named for the hometown of William Shakespeare, can restart. But, writes Grant A. Brown, serious wounds were already being inflicted upon the festival – from within. A Stratford resident and business owner, Brown brings a lifelong Shakespeare lover’s perspective to his dissection of the progressive degradation of the great playwright’s greatest works and the garbling of his eternally revealing insights into human nature.

It is one sign of the remorseless march of the administrative state that appeals to Canada’s Constitution appear almost quaint, as well as typically toothless. The news media often frame provincial objections to federal encroachments as claims or perceptions rather than testable assertions, as if Canada’s constitutional documents comprise long-lost secret scrolls written in a dead language. It has been Canada’s judges, however, who have most decisively tipped the balance in favour of federal supremacy in more and more areas. No case has proved too small to keep the process rolling. Not even, as Grant A. Brown reports, a dispute over a simple Ontario government sticker that even the judge had to concede was factually accurate.

While it remains too soon to tell whether the WE Charity scandal will finally be the one that truly sticks to the Liberals and their leader, it has entirely consumed Justin Trudeau’s Covid-crisis bounce. Opposition parties are attempting to delve deeper, and even the mainstream media have shown more than a passing interest. It could get nasty indeed for the Liberals. Yet as Grant A. Brown points out, there’s so much more! As bad as WE may be, Brown urges us hold on a second and keep most of our outrage in reserve, for there’s a lot more Liberal wrongdoing where that came from.

When Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada Beverley McLachlin stepped down in 2017, she was regarded as one of the most consequential jurists in Canadian history, largely due to her court’s activist approach to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Her career arc was also widely considered a triumph of progressive feminism in the face of an entrenched legal patriarchy. That reputation is due for a re-assessment. Grant A. Brown sifts through the evidence of McLachlin’s autobiography and various post-retirement missteps, and unearths what he feels is a surprising lack of principle, objectivity and sound reasoning.

In the past month’s anti-pipeline protests and blockades, Andrew Scheer seemed to find his voice at last. But for him it is too late. The Conservative Party of Canada is choosing a new leader. Much advice has been received, often urging the party to slide to the left. But perhaps its future hinges on a leadership candidate who brings a fresh set of clothes to the spring season: intelligence and courage. Maybe the key is to ignore the left-wing pundits and activists, ditch the focus groups and spurn the consultants. How about picking a leader who displays a keen mind guided by conservative principles and steadied by political bravery? That would be a new ensemble indeed. Grant A. Brown has something to say on the subject.

Secret video recordings. Former counter-terrorism policemen interrogating a lone journalist over his recent book and promotional lawn signs. Insults and accusations of bullying. Potentially draconian fines and even jail time over spending $501 or more on a perfectly legal service that thousands of businesses use daily. Grant A. Brown chronicles Act I of the tragicomic battle between free speech warrior Ezra Levant of Rebel News and the Commissioner of Canada Elections – and warns that free speech rights for all of us are again under threat.

If climate catastrophe doesn’t get us in the long run, it seems our own prime minister is fixin’ to do so right now. Gone are even lip service to jobs and development; now it’s all about getting Canada to “net-zero emissions” at literally any cost. Thousands of jobs going up in smoke is just a typical day’s work. Grant A. Brown sifts through the 17 “top priorities” in Justin Trudeau’s grandiloquent “mandate letter” to his new environment minister and unearths the utopian scheme shrouded under the unfocused haze. Brown also shows that the “gender-based” employment impacts our woke prime minister is so eager for are already happening – and the results ain’t pretty.

Whenever an electoral challenger crashes and burns, it’s standard for party to dump leader and start afresh. But the federal Conservatives’ ambiguous results last week make deciding the fate of leader Andrew Scheer anything but a no-brainer. The party added 26 seats and won the popular vote. But it lost ground in Quebec and, above all, Ontario, falling far short of general expectations and the widely expected outcome just 10 days before the October 21 vote. For Grant A. Brown, the verdict is in: Scheer is a congenitally flawed politician and won’t improve with time.