The way Hamas thinks leaves Israel no choice
Barry Cooper, Western Standard, November 7, 2023 During the past few weeks there has been considerable pushback against the lies, deceptions, denials and verbal rubbish regarding the responsibility of Hamas for the massacre of Israelis on October 7 as well as the deaths of Palestinian civilians following the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) response. A lot […]
Where is the evidence that Canada is systemically racist?
White men earn less income than four of 11 visible minorities, white women less than seven of 11. It’s hard to see discrimination in that Matthew Lau, Financial Post, November 3, 2023 The idea that systemic discrimination is widespread in Canada guides federal government policy. The prime minister’s 2021 mandate letters to his cabinet ministers […]
Explaining Hamas, Islam and the treatment of women
Raheel Raza, Western Standard, Oct. 28, 2023 If Canadians wish to understand the diverse sects within Islam and why some, such as Hamas and other fundamentalist versions, have little respect for women—Islamic, or Jewish women raped and captured in the Hamas attack on Israel in early October—it helps to understand pre-Islamic Arab society and various […]
The big difference between the Holocaust and the Hamas attack — Israel can fight back
Jack Mintz, Financial Post, October 27, 2023 A simple but powerful gesture. When visiting Thessaloniki in Greece just recently, my wife and I came across four Israeli tourists placing flowers at the Holocaust Memorial in memory of those Jews slaughtered by Hamas on Oct. 7. Thessaloniki’s Jewish community, once known as the Jerusalem of the Balkans, […]
Social justice fallacies—and other sub-par thinking: Matthew Lau reviews Thomas Sowell’s latest book
Matthew Lau, Financial Post, October 20, 2023 A review of Thomas Sowell’s Social Justice Fallacies Thomas Sowell, age 93, a famed economist and author of more than 40 books, last month published his latest: Social Justice Fallacies. In it he asserts plain facts such as that life is unfair and central planners are fallible, realities […]
The idiocy of moral equivalence
Barry Cooper, Western Standard, October 13, 2023 Military historians often use the term ‘asymmetric warfare’ to describe the recent terrorist attack by Hamas on Israel. They use this language to avoid considering the moral implications of terrorism or to refuse to distinguish between uniformed soldiers operating within military formations conforming to the laws of war […]
Five reasons why Canadians should support Israel
Mark Milke, Western Standard, October 14, 2023 In the wake of pro-Hamas celebrations across Canada after that terrorist group’s attack on Israel—this where mothers, grandmothers, and children were kidnapped and where Rave festival partygoers were raped and at least 260 massacred, and where 40 babies were murdered—it is now necessary to point out what should […]
Thank you, Canada!
Happy Thanksgiving! A Lebanese immigrant’s journey to freedom and safety _ Rima Azar, Western Standard, October 7, 2023 This Thanksgiving weekend, I have deep feelings of gratitude and love for Canada, my adoptive country. My background: I was born in a tiny, sadly problematic yet beautiful Mediterranean country — Lebanon, one with multiple armed conflicts […]
University’s ‘grand purpose’ misses point of learning
Barry Cooper, Western Standard, September 22, 2023 The old-fashioned tradition of a humane and literary education has implicitly been pronounced dead by the latest communication from the president and vice-chancellor of the University of Calgary. His email was widely disseminated under the auspices of the Office of Advancement. These are the people in the administration […]
Guess who is teaching kids they’re racist? Ontario teacher’s unions
David Millard Haskell, Western Standard, September 17, 2023 Last week, Peel district schools reportedly purged all library books written before 2008. But this incident is just one of many questionable moves made by schools across Ontario in recent years. For example, in mid-summer 2022, the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario began distributing new lesson plans […]
Let’s teach students the full history of world slavery, including its abolition
Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth
British Columbia’s greatest judge deserves a fair trial of his own
Sir Matthew Baillie Begbie was, by colonial standards, the most liberal, open-minded and minority-positive jurist of his day Peter Shawn Taylor, National Post, August 30, 2023 In March 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized for another in the apparently endless list of wrongs perpetrated by previous governments of Canada. This time the aggrieved party was […]
A new challenge for Canadians of any colour: Remixed racism
Jamil Jivani, August 26, 2023, Western Standard For centuries, black Canadians have been part of inspiring political and social movements aimed at pushing Canada to live up to its ideals. When black men and women pressed for equality of opportunity, we challenged Canada to truly be a land where the rule of law reigns supreme […]
A friendly reassessment of the British Empire
A review of Nigel Biggar’s Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning Bruce Gilley, Western Standard, July 29, 2023 There is a delightful irony when a priest tells the secular laity to be less confident in its moral dogmas. Nigel Biggar, professor of theology at Oxford, is that priest and he has posted his theses about the British […]
It’s time to cancel “cancel culture”
RCMP have been a net positive force for Canada Mark Milke, National Post August 9,2023 As an example of how absurd the apologize-for-everything reflex has become in Canada, consider the recent apology for plowing an RCMP logo and Mountie image into an Alberta farm field. The background: the organizers of the Edmonton Corn Maze plow a logo into […]
Why NATO democracies should support Ukraine
Three reasons why isolationists are wrong on Ukraine Waller Newell, The Western Standard, July 20, 2023 The decision last week by the majority of U.S. congressmen and senators to continue to fund Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself— $300 million in security assistance for Ukraine authorized by the House of Representatives—was a welcome reminder that despite […]
Pierre Trudeau was right about individual liberty, unlike his son
Mark Milke, Western Standard, June 26, 2023 “Your rights take priority over those of the state… The collectivity is not the bearer of rights: it receives the rights it exercises from the citizens.” — Pierre Trudeau, Cité Libre dinner speech, Montreal, October 1992 It is time to debunk a nonsensical myth that has metastasized in […]
How Canada’s secular religion of cultural self-hate took hold
Critical theory, postmodernism, social justice and critical race theory have morphed into the dominant ideology Bruce Pardy, National Post, June 24, 2023 Modern Western civilization grew out of the Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries. The ascendancy of reason in human affairs produced the scientific method and later the Industrial Revolution. Add in the rule […]
We need a new museum to reclaim our history
We need a new museum to reclaim our history from those who want to topple it The true historical contributions of Sir John A. Macdonald, Henry Dundas and Egerton Ryerson must not be forgotten Lynn McDonald, National Post, June 7, 2023 Winnipeg is justly proud of its Canadian Museum for Human Rights, which opened in 2014, […]
Erase our history, erase ourselves
Changes to Canadian passport the latest example of tearing down Canada Jack Mintz, Financial Post, May 19, 2023 The Trudeau government has come under fire for dropping historical symbols from the Canadian Royal Crown and our national passport. I recently renewed my passport, which I was happy to receive by mail within 20 working days. […]
Sir John A Macdonald and the fog of cancel culture
Contrary to anti-Macdonald propaganda, he was a defender and supporter of Canada’s indigenous peoples By Greg Piasetzki, The Western Standard, March 23, 2023 There is an ancient axiom that “truth is the first casualty of war” and apparently it is just as true in cultural wars as in shooting wars. The turmoil of the last […]
“Where are you from?” is a polite question
Rima Azar and Mark Milke, The Western Standard, February 8, 2023 Just before Christmas, the former “Lady in Waiting” to the late Queen Elizabeth, Lady Susan Hussey, apologized for what some asserted was a racist question: “Where are you from?” Lady Hussey asked the question to Ngozi Fulani, founder of charity in the United Kingdom. When Fulani noted […]
Little good will come from adding race to driver’s licences
Rima Azar, Edmonton Journal, November 9, 2022 In response to the Alberta government’s redesign of driver’s licences and other identification to prevent counterfeiting, the majority of Edmonton Police Commission members have weighed in with an additional proposal: that the racial identity of Albertans be included on their driver’s licences. The Edmonton Police Service’s justification for collecting […]
Why care about cities? Because they matter to human flourishing
Mark Milke, Calgary Herald, November 3, 2022 See the 5-minute video on this column here. When local voters across British Columbia recently ushered in a new slate of mayors and councillors— Vancouver’s wholesale turnover being the best example — citizens sent a message: We like our cities and we love our neighbourhoods, so stop making them less desirable […]
What Rishi Sunak’s rise says about skin colour: It’s irrelevant
Mark Milke, Financial Post, November 2, 2022 As Rishi Sunak settles in as British prime minister, it’s time to revisit claims about racism in the Anglosphere, including the widespread assertions of systemic/institutional racism that now inform and in many cases guide public policy, corporate hiring and university staffing and admissions. That includes even federal government procurement contracts, […]
How should we think about Queen Elizabeth and past empires?
Mark Milke, The Western Standard, September 24, 2022 With the death of Queen Elizabeth II after 70 years on the throne and as head of state for the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other nations with historic ties to Great Britain, the late monarch was generally celebrated for her service to her country and […]
Canada’s robust history of freedom
Mark Milke, Financial Post, August 3, 2022 Earlier this year, I stumbled across a framed copy of the Canadian Bill of Rights, the liberty-expanding law promulgated by then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and passed by Parliament in 1960. I read the document years ago but seeing it up close reminded me of Canada’s long tradition of freedom, ranging […]
Memo to the right: Stop acting like the left
Mark Milke, Financial Post, August 2, 2022 The ideological and political left has long engaged in anti-reality thinking and behaviour. Now the right is in danger of making the same mistake. Let’s begin with the left’s errors: Modern-day versions of such behaviour include: the Occupy Wall Street movement; environmental activists blocking pipelines, mines, and forestry […]
The woke utopians are wrong: Canada should be celebrated
There are many reasons to celebrate Canada on Canada Day Mark Milke, Financial Post, June 30, 2022 To understand why it’s popular among the chattering classes to trash Canada this time of year, it helps to understand the power of utopian thinking. In past centuries, utopian movements sprang from religious impulses and secular versions of […]
Why all Canadians should be monarchists
Mark Milke, The Western Standard, June 4, 2022 A few years back while browsing through an antique shop in a small town in southern British Columbia, I spotted a “retro” print: A framed picture of Queen Elizabeth II. The photograph appeared as if had been from the early 1960s, back when it would have hung […]
Canada’s military advised to go woke
By Mark Milke, May 28, 2022, National Review After Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February and its war on the same ever since, you would think that Western policy-makers would grasp how critical it is to ensure that our militaries are well-funded, well-equipped, and ready to defend our allies in NATO — just in case. […]
Memo to politicians: Stop using teens to front your agendas
By Martin Mrazik and Mark Milke, Financial Post, April 7, 2022 A recent newspaper story about a “handful” of students and activists gathered outside Sir John A. Macdonald high school in Calgary reported the views of a 13-year-old boy who, not surprisingly, decried the existence of a school named after Canada’s first prime minister. The reasons were […]
Home Depot’s economically-challenged “privilege” memorandum
By Mark Milke, Western Standard, March 23, 2022 When Jordan Peterson recently tweeted out a copy of Home Depot’s “white privilege” memorandum given to its staff, it rightly caused a stir: Yet another corporation’s DIE’s (diversity, equity and inclusion) staff parroting a simplistic academic theory. The memo offered up the usual assumption one’s skin colour […]
Smashed windows. Crime is headed in the wrong direction in Canada—thanks to politicians and justices
B.C. crime is headed in the wrong direction—and it starts with the attitudes and policies of those in charge. By Mark Milke, The Orca, March 7, 2022 Over the past several years, a 75-year-old friend in Kelowna had his truck broken into, his supposedly secure storage facility unit cracked open with thousands of dollars of […]
We need direct democracy in Canada: The Swiss and Americans have it
By Mark Milke, The Western Standard, February 22, 2022 To understand why a vast gulf exists between Canada’s chattering classes—many politicians, some journalists, and a plethora of academics—and citizens on multiple issues, including most recently the self-described Freedom Convoy, it has much to do with the lack of a regular “feedback mechanism” that exists in […]
The Cultural Revolution up north
By Mark Milke, National Review, January 31, 2022 Earlier this month, Jordan Peterson, the most famous cultural export from Canada since Marshall McLuhan, announced that he was resigning as a tenured professor of psychology at the University of Toronto. He’d achieved Canadian fame a few years ago for pushing back against forced speech at the university. After an appearance […]
