Time was that riding public transit was a tad déclassé, reserved for kids, little old ladies and people who hadn’t quite arrived, or never would. Songs like The Guess Who’s “Bus Rider” depicted its dreariness and repetitiveness. Nowadays, hopping the LRT or subway is cool, a virtuous act signalling environmental wokeness and “moving on” from the automobile. The riding experience, naturellement, needs to meet the steep expectations of current gens. And that doesn’t come cheap. James R. Coggins outlines the political game played by federal and municipal politicians that’s seeing tens of billions of dollars being shovelled into city coffers for lavish urban transit schemes, while country dwellers pay part of the freight and receive little but neglect and carbon taxes in return.

The causes and state of relations between Western and Central Canada are usually viewed through a political, economic, fiscal, geographic or at times demographic lens. Less common is looking at who rules, why, what they have done and what they are like. That would be the “Laurentian Elite”. Despite its profound role in shaping Canada, discussing it still seems mainly to interest political junkies. As a proud and concerned Westerner who grew up and was educated amidst the Laurentian Elite only to escape its clutches, John Weissenberger rips away the veil and deconstructs what he regards as this decaying class.

What’s old is new again, and that extends well beyond aviator shades and flat-billed caps into the political realm. New again and, sometimes, even more urgent than the first time. The federal votes had barely been counted last month before calls erupted to dust off the Alberta Agenda, aka, the “Firewall Letter” of 2001. Some see its measures as forming Alberta’s first big step towards independence; others hope the same policies would help douse separatist flames. Just as quickly, opponents confidently pronounced all of the Agenda’s items unworkable. Tom Flanagan, co-author of the original Alberta Agenda, reviews its five policy recommendations and evaluates their merits in the light of current circumstances.

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.

Another federal election, another devastating outcome for the West. This time around, however, Western Canadians aren’t feeling much like putting up with being shut out. ‘Wexit’ is one response to the perpetual hammer-lock central Canada has on Ottawa. Here’s another – the re-tooling of the federal Conservatives into an exclusively western-based party that fights for regional interests as aggressively and single-mindedly as the Bloc Québécois does for Quebec. University of Calgary political scientist Barry Cooper takes a close look at how a Bloc West party could come about, and the obstacles it would face.

Veteran British journalist Suzanne Moore has been hounded from The Guardian for her supposed “transphobia.” Paul Stanway, reviewing Mark Milke’s The Victim Cult, discusses Milke’s argument that foolishly elevating claims of weakness, suffering and hurt to virtues compels us to focus on what divides rather than unites us.

History, as they say, repeats – first as tragedy, then farce. Justin Trudeau’s insistence on replicating just about every wrong-headed policy of his father’s, and then some, seems to roll both into one. It’s farcical as spectacle, but tragic for the victims – us. After just four years with junior at the wheel, Canada’s formerly robust public finances, a bequest of Conservative predecessor Stephen Harper and ironically of an earlier Liberal, are already circling the drain. Gwyn Morgan tracks the sad descent of Canada’s financial position and the burden to be borne by “Generation Screwed”.

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.

A book’s significance doesn’t always lie in its literary quality. Poor writing, storytelling and plot might be fatal for a novelist, but politicians can often get away with all this and more. Their work’s importance lies in the insight provided into the mind of the person who presumes to rule, or participate in ruling, a country. Brian Giesbrecht finds it is just so with Jody Wilson-Raybould’s From Where I Stand. The public’s heroine in the SNC-Lavalin affair just won re-election as an Independent MP and, for good or ill, is likely to influence Canadian public policy for many years to come.

Promising to upend entire sectors of the economy with no costs or other downsides has become so habitual on the political left that it has almost faded to political background noise. But the costs are real – in few areas more so than “alternative”, “green” or “sustainable” energy. The Green Party’s claim to conjure up millions of jobs by driving down emissions is an instalment in this fantasy genre. James Coggins systematically dissects one aspect of the Green program – its plan to plaster millions of Canadian rooftops with solar panels – and finds it wanting.