Politics

Future of Science
Time was when nearly everyone – even schoolkids – understood and accepted that geologic time was measured in tens if not hundreds of millions of years, a barely-fathomable vastness that animated our awe over the Age of Dinosaurs or the mysterious arrival of intelligent, upright apes. So how to explain the small but determined scientific movement intent on winning acceptance that geology can now be measured in a comparative blink of an eye, and that humanity has entered a new geological epoch defined by…itself? Applying his professional geologist’s scientific rigour and his amateur cultural historian’s perspective, John Weissenberger urges scientists to maintain a measure of humility, to recall the bitter lessons of past pseudo-scientific fiascos, and to be wary of the pitfalls of activist science pursuing political ends.
Pandemic Science and Politics
Unceasingly masked up, we are now marching through the 16th month of the Covid-19 pandemic. With potential new health crises around the corner, it is time to ask whether the public mask mandate is justified. Although media “fact-checkers” would surely say otherwise, as would most political leaders and public health officials, the effectiveness of masking against Covid-19 is not scientifically proven. In Part I of a special two-part report on the science around population-wide mask use, Masha V. Krylova reminds us how it all began in March 2020 and explains that not all “emerging evidence” is of equal scientific quality – nor uniformly conclusive.
Defending Mobility Rights
Influence-peddling. Self-dealing. Nepotism. Junketeering. The ways politicians can betray the public trust are legion. But should this list include behaviour that not only abides by the law, but offers a welcome example of independent thought and self-care? Politicians from diverse parties across Canada have been excoriated and, in some instances, dramatically punished for going abroad for personal reasons during the holiday season. While this may contravene government “recommendations” to stay home, C2C Journal editor George Koch argues passionately that all Canadians – including those whom we elected – should be allowed to act as the law permits. And that includes international travel.
Attack on Free Trade
The mutual gains created by international trade have been well-established since 1817, when economist David Ricardo first explained why Portugal sold wine to Britain, and Britain traded cloth to Portugal. Capitalizing on each’s “comparative advantage,” Ricardo observed, raised overall incomes and left consumers better off in both countries. The same still holds today. Yet our current global pandemic has many claiming self-sufficiency in all things is not only a virtue, but a national necessity. With Canada’s future prosperity at risk from an outbreak of Covid-19 inspired protectionism, Peter Shawn Taylor explains just what’s at stake and offers a stout defence of classic free trade principles.
Neighbourhood Watch
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.
Collective Guilt
It is fair to say that nearly any Canadian feels empathy towards the survivors of Indian Residential Schools, is glad they are being compensated and wants justice visited upon the abusers. But who was actually at fault? Individual perpetrators? The churches that ran the schools? The government that ordered them established? Canadian officialdom has decided that, in fact it’s every one of us – even those who immigrated from overseas or were born 150 years after the schools were set up. With the deep empathy and unique authority of a survivor of abuse at the hands of people entrusted with his care and education, David J. MacKinnon issues a defence of the Canadian people and a denunciation of the doctrine of collective guilt.
Rescuing History
To a Canadian of good will and fair disposition, the hostility of “protesters” who vandalize or tear down statues commemorating Canada’s past is as mysterious as it is unnerving. Where does such anger come from? And short of unconditional surrender and abject self-abasement, what is to be done to satisfy these urges? Applying a veteran educator’s perspective, Patrick Keeney finds the problem rooted in progressive reforms that have gradually debased the education of four generations of North American children, leaving the youth of today not just willfully ignorant of their past but openly hostile towards it. With a necessary note of optimism, Keeney proposes the solution is to be found – and the battle must be joined – in the soil whence it sprang.
Pandemic Management
Remember those anxious days last January when news of a deadly new virus first appeared out of China and then, like an avalanche gathering speed, spread to Italy, Spain and France? Remember how no one seemed to know what to do as the contagion made its way to our shores? If only our governments had a plan – a plan to arrest the disease and protect us from the collateral damage of our own clumsy responses. Drawing on decades of high-level experience in military and civil emergency planning and preparation, David Redman explains what went wrong with Canada’s planning process, how the errors heightened a tidal wave of fear, and what it will take to rebuild confidence in government.
Saving the Planet
Carbon dioxide emissions are a globe-girdling phenomenon driven by industrialization, and atmospheric gases obviously don’t care about national boundaries. So it’s distinctly weird that some left-leaning governments, Canada’s Liberals among them, insist that recognized emissions reductions must take place right here at home! Isn’t the goal “saving the planet”? In fact Canada has a clean-burning energy resource that’s voluminously abundant and economically accessible with current technology – and which the world can’t get enough of. As Gwyn Morgan writes, jobs, wealth-creation, tax-revenue and environmental improvement on a global scale all await, if only governments dropped their ideological blinkers.
High Culture and Politics
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.

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