After more than a decade living in the crush and chaos of Southeast Asia, writer Brock Eldon came back to Canada to root his young family in a place of promise and possibility. He found instead a country in an advanced state of administrative rot and a people who have abandoned ambition for shallow self-righteousness. In this provocative literary essay, Eldon explores the North he long imagined and discovers that returning is not the same as belonging.

Most Canadians would likely never have heard of conservative American Christian singer Sean Feucht had city councils and government officials not spent their summers shutting him down. But this latest exercise in censorship would hardly be possible, explains constitutional lawyer Josh Dehaas, had Canada’s courts not spent the last few decades arbitrarily expanding the definition of harmful expression. In this perceptive and accessible essay, Dehaas walks through the legal decisions that have eroded the simple, clear conception of free speech that once guided the English-speaking democracies and exposes the flawed thinking that has made Canada what it is today: a country where a performer can be banned before he has said – or sung – a word.

The sight of King Charles III receiving salutes and inspecting troops in Ottawa before delivering last month’s Speech from the Throne was more than just a bit of nostalgia. It was a potent reminder of Canada’s history and distinct political culture. In this provocative essay, Jamie Weir argues that Canada, facing a frostier neighbour to the south, should lead a revitalization of links among Commonwealth nations. Canada alongside Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom could form a major economic, diplomatic and military bloc: the “CANZUK” nations. United by a long, shared history of freedom and the rule of law under constitutional monarchy, CANZUK could become a beacon of liberty and prosperity in a darkening multipolar world.

For years the Justin Trudeau government was hostile to the very idea of new oil or natural gas pipelines – right up until U.S. President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on Canadian exports and an all-out trade war loomed. Now Ottawa suddenly thinks west-east pipelines enabling Canadian crude to access global markets are a good idea. Or claims to. Industry veteran Gwyn Morgan, for one, is skeptical. First of all, it’s unlikely that pipeline companies would even want to invest in a country that has become incapable of getting anything done. And the Liberals’ record of quashing development and forcing Canadian oil to be sold at a discount to the U.S. shows they lack basic economic intelligence. Even with Trudeau soon gone, why would they do the sensible thing now?

The secret to every good magic trick, Michael Caine’s character explains in the 2006 movie The Prestige, is a willing audience. “You want to be fooled,” he says. Anyone watching the Oscar-nominated documentary film Sugarcane could find themselves slipping into a similar act of self-deception. Focused on a residential school in northern B.C., the Canadian-made Sugarcane withholds key facts, arranges other evidence in confusing ways and encourages viewers – already primed to think the worst of residential schools – to reach unfounded conclusions about what they’re actually seeing. Even professional movie critics have been fooled. Documentary filmmaker Michelle Stirling pulls back the curtain on the dark magic behind Sugarcane.

Amidst the jostling theories about the nature of education, the philosopher G.K. Chesterton once succinctly summarized it as “simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.” But what if that soul is being torn apart from within? What if today’s kids are told to despise almost everything about yesterday, in order to prepare them to overturn society tomorrow? James Pew traces the path of so-called “critical pedagogy” from the fever-dream of a Brazilian communist, to the guiding doctrine of an internationally celebrated Canadian teacher-training institute, and onward to the classroom activities in a growing number of Canadian schools. Part I of an extended series on the state of education in Canada.

In a breathless 1999 article on the opening of Canada’s top-security National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg, the Canadian Medical Association Journal described the facility as “the place where science fiction movies would be shot.” The writer was fascinated by the various containment devices and security measures designed to keep “the bad boys from the world of virology: Ebola, Marburg, Lassa” from escaping. But what if insiders could easily evade all those sci-fi features in order to help Canada’s enemies? In the first of a two-part series, Peter Shawn Taylor looks into the trove of newly-unclassified evidence regarding the role of NML scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng in aiding China’s expanding quest for the study – and potential military use – of those virus bad boys.

For many Canadians, figuring out the differences between a savings account and chequing account is all the banking knowledge they really want. Understanding how Bitcoin works or what a blockchain does seems overwhelming and irrelevant. Yet knowing your way around these digital banking innovations may soon prove vital to protecting your privacy and pushing back against government overreach. Using the experience of last year’s Freedom Convoy as his guide, Gleb Lisikh explains the nuances of cryptocurrencies, their strengths – and weaknesses – as bulwarks against financial censorship and why the Bank of Canada is suddenly so interested in creating its own cashless currency.

The South Nahanni River is widely recognized as the Holy Grail of Canada’s wild rivers. Paddlers, hikers and nature lovers all dream of experiencing first-hand the wonders of this fabled river in a national park in the Northwest Territories. But how did it earn such a reputation? In the concluding installment of a series that began with his account of a recent canoe trip through the Nahanni’s famous canyons, Peter Shawn Taylor charts the creation and evolution of the river’s aura as a remote place filled with mystery and adventure. From native myths to early 20th century hysteria about headless prospectors to its stature today as a premier bucket-list item, the Nahanni has carved out a permanent place in our national consciousness. It may be Canada’s greatest brand. Here’s how it happened. Part I can be read here.

Among Canada’s active bucket-list crowd, canoeing the South Nahanni River is often found at the very top of the page. This fabled river in a national park in the southwestern corner of the Northwest Territories is remote, expensive to access and, at times, quite challenging. It is also spectacularly rewarding. And while the number of people fortunate enough to see this area number only in the hundreds annually, it looms large in Canada’s national consciousness. Peter Shawn Taylor recently returned from a multi-week trip that revealed the Nahanni in all its splendour and fury. In Part I of a two-part series, Taylor recounts his time on the river and what it means to complete the journey.