“La révolution est dans la rue,” as the excitable French like to say. The same holds true in placid Canada. After receiving four photo radar tickets for going just slightly over the speed limit in Ottawa, John Robson declares the current proliferation of automated speed cameras to be a revolution in how Canada’s streets are policed, and an outrageous violation of the principles of fundamental justice. Robson is not alone in his outrage. While Ontario cities eagerly embrace these cash-hungry Robocops – one municipality expects to issue at least one ticket per year to every local driver – the masses are pushing back. In Alberta, for example, the “photo radar cash cow” is already on its way to the slaughterhouse. Robson’s denunciation of speed camera tyranny offers a manifesto for drivers everywhere.

There was a time in “the true North strong and free” you could follow your dreams as long as you didn’t hurt other people. Then came “social licence” and suddenly, from energy pipelines to the B.C. grizzly bear hunt, things got banned for being unpopular, a.k.a. “socially unacceptable”. That ominous change sets Canada on the well-worn path to the tyranny of the majority, writes John Robson.

Our self-appointed cultural guardians have once again targeted a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald in Charlottetown. To them, Canada’s first Prime Minister fails to meet today’s pristine moral standards and so must be sent down the memory-hole. John Robson thinks Canadians need the confident humility that comes of knowing flawed people can still be giants.

Why is it that those who most vehemently proclaim their own virtue are inevitably those who have some nasty skeletons rattling around in the closet? Take our virtue-signalling PM and his recently unearthed penchant for dressing in blackface, the ne plus ultra of progressive sins. Covering one’s face in black paint isn’t illegal, of course, but it is an affront to contemporary mores. To unpack the distinction between law and morality, John Robson looks at Lord Devlin’s 1965 book, The Enforcement of Morals. Robson makes clear that breaking the law may be one thing, but offending the moral code of the age can extract an even greater price.

An Ontario nurse enroute to Detroit to help with the coronavirus pandemic was caught at the border with 150 pounds of marijuana and faces serious jail time. For John Robson, we can legalize pot without disrupting the world. The “cat is out of the baggie”, and there may be situations where lighting a joint, like having a cocktail, may be just the thing.

Even as the thud that announces the arrival of the morning newspaper on his doorstep grows ever fainter, John Robson’s coffee cup is more than half full. Good riddance to the boring liberal pablum that has dominated Canadian print media for over a century, he writes. The Internet, for all its faults, heralds the imminent return of healthy journalistic anarchy, with salutary implications for democracy, as editorial creators and distributors re-learn that content is king and advertising is secondary to commercial success.

An idea that was born as an article in the Fall 2014 edition of C2C Journal has been made into a video documentary by its author, John Robson. True, Strong and Free: Fixing Canada’s Constitution explains how the solid constitutional framework we inherited from Great Britain was undone by the “botched” amendments of 1982. In defiance of the current political and media consensus that it’s too difficult and dangerous to reopen the constitution, Robson makes a compelling argument that it can and must be reopened to repair the damage to our parliamentary democracy.

“Look in the mirror,” former Alberta Premier Jim Prentice told voters just before they gave his government a mighty heave ho. Albertans had plenty of reasons to be mad at Prentice, but the mirror comment was the last straw. How dare he blame us for Alberta’s problems? But if not us, then who? Millions of Americans will elect either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump president of the United States this fall. Both are manifestly unfit for the job and four years hence voters will be madder than ever. This vicious circle won’t be broken, writes John Robson, until voters own up to their role in it.

Senator Mike Duffy may go to jail and he may bring down the Conservative government. He may eventually be judged the single most important cause of the abolition of the Canadian Senate. His name may join “carpetbaggery” and “featherbedding” as a new synonym for gross opportunism and petty corruption. But even if none of that happens, his place in Canadian history is assured, because C2C contributor John Robson has written an epic doggerel poem in the great comedic literary tradition of Robert Service that elevates Mike Duffy to the status of Dan Magrew and Sam McGee. Maybe even higher, because the only thing fictional about Mike is where he lives.

A Constitution ought to be inspiring and functional. Canada’s is neither. Instead of a clear set of governing principles, it’s a mass of contradictions. Instead of a framework for democratic evolution, it marginalizes legislators. The 1982 Framers vandalized the work of the 1867 Founders, put the country in a Constitutional straightjacket, and left our fate to the Courts. However risky and difficult another attempt at reform might be, John Robson says it’s time to take the plunge.