Thinking About SNC-Lavalin
The whole SNC-Lavalin business is a mess. It contains a nasty combination of commercial, criminal, and political matters that need to be teased apart to make any sense of it.…
MgS
On Deferred Prosecution Agreements
With the uproar over SNC-Lavalin this past week, I decided it would be a worthwhile exercise to familiarize myself with this legal construct that the government introduced with Bill C-74…
In Response to Ron Ghitter
In the Saturday, February 2 edition of the Calgary Herald, former Senator and MLA Ron Ghitter published an opinion piece titled “O dysfunctional Canada, laments former senator Ghitter”. This piece…
Reasons To Dismantle The Current Party System
I've never been a big fan of the political party system. Partly because it's rare that party even remotely resembles the kind of perspective in government that I think we…
Let’s Stop Conflating Transgender and Toxic Masculinity
I ran across an essay that was trying to argue that somehow transgender activism was “peak male entitlement”. “The Wolf of Masculinity is Dressed Up in the Sheep’s Clothing of…
No, 2008 Wasn’t A Failure Of Socialism
In the Financial Post today, we have Terence Corcoran yammering on trying to claim that the 2008 Subprime Mortgage Crisis was the result of the evils of “socialism”. That the…
Conservatives in the Social Sciences
This was inspired by some of my own thoughts while listening to a CBC Ideas program on the lack of “conservative” academics in the Social Sciences. For the purposes of…
Whither NAFTA Negotiations Now?
After yesterday’s revelation that Trump is not negotiating with Canada in good faith, where do NAFTA negotiations go from here? Up to this point, I have chosen to be quiet…
On "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria"
About a year or so ago, we started hearing about "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria". This has primarily been a result of a "poster study abstract" by Lisa Littman. For the…
No, Maxime Bernier is not "Questioning An Orthodoxy"
So, CBC’s Neil MacDonald published this screed defending Maxime Bernier’s stream of tweets about “extreme multiculturalism” this week. In an e-mail conversation about it, here’s what I wrote, explaining why…
On Pride and Inclusiveness
So, according to the bright lights on the Calgary Herald’s editorial board, Pride needs to become about including everyone, including those who have a track record of oppressing the LGBT…
On Ending Political Tribalism
Political Tribalism is the idea of belonging to a particular political “tribe” (in Canada, that’s often expressed as a party) to the point of being utterly unwilling to consider ideas…
On Trump and the G7 Meeting
The meta messages coming from Trump over the G7 conference are interesting. It's not the actual messages themselves, but the the framework that they imply. On one hand, we have…
Tying A Few Things Together
I have written a few posts recently which criticize quite strongly the recent spate of conservative “we must cut everything” hysteria over Alberta’s budget: On Alberta’s Budget 2018 On Government…
About Hospitals … and Ian Brodie
So, this week Albertans were treated to a column from Ian Brodie on the subject of building hospitals. Mr. Brodie is a former Harper advisor, so we shouldn't be too…
About Carpay’s Bill 24 Lawsuit
So, apparently John Carpay has managed to persuade a bunch of fear-filled people to participate in an attempt to quash GSAs in Alberta schools. Carpay runs a Canadian version of…
Of Patterns and Puppetry
I’ve noticed a few patterns in this country’s right wing politics that make me deeply suspicious. Consider the following: 1) Andrew Scheer flies to London to “prepare a trade deal…
Junk Science: Universe As Simulation Theory
On CBC Radio's "The Current" this morning, there was a long segment about the bogus hypothesis that the universe we live in is really just a giant computer simulation. I've…
On Using Straw Man Arguments To Support "Conversion Therapy"
If you have been living under a rock for some time, you may not have noticed the uproar over so-called "conversion therapy" techniques. They have been declared unethical by the…