Jyoti Gondek's unpopularity lies in her unwillingness to adhere to fundamental political wisdom
Recent ThinkHQ opinion polling shows Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek to be very unpopular. It is unusual to see such unpopularity so early for a new Calgary mayor, observers say. Why is she so unpopular? Gondek’s unpopularity is not only the result of troubled times and voter crankiness, as the mayor tried to explain – which…
Without that trust, public officials lose their social licence to govern
The heartbreaking death of Nathanael Spitzer, the cancer-stricken boy from Ponoka, exposed a most callous streak in Alberta’s medical bureaucracy. There’s no forgiving how Alberta Health Services appallingly used a child’s death to promote yet more COVID-19 fear. However, one should dismiss the promise from Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, Deena Hinshaw, to process…
Actions speak louder than words
The age-old expression that actions speak louder than words conveys an important insight: character is best judged through action. Anyone can say or promise anything, but following through requires ability, skill, discipline, and commitment. So the simplest test of character is to pay attention to deeds. Plutarch, the first-century Greek biographer, refined the test. He…
Declaring an environmental emergency without debate is manipulatively undemocratic
Calgary recently swore in its first female mayor, Jyoti Gondek, and she has already delivered a troubling message. A week earlier, less than 24 hours after winning the mayoral race, she gave her first post-election talk-radio interview to 630 CHED’s Ryan Jespersen, mostly involving a series of softball questions. He asked her the obligatory woke…
Jurisdictions with the most repressive lockdowns have higher death rates per case
The most mentioned reason for lockdowns has been the protection of health-care systems. The claim is that such protection saves lives. So is it fair to ask how well health systems are performing their lockdown life-saving duty? There are several points from which one can compare health jurisdictions and their fight against COVID-19. One can…
Even if everyone is vaccinated, the spread of infection won't stop
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s plan to treat the coronavirus as endemic is the way out of the COVID-19 crisis. That he has adopted provincial restrictions for the fourth time doesn’t negate the endemic approach. But his declaration that we have “a crisis of the unvaccinated” offers no solution. The newest health impositions reveal a vaccine…
Playing on fears, bribing and threatening to produce compliance is unconscionable
I am sorry to be so frank to a man whom I admired and from whom I expected good things. I confess that in younger days, I thought of Albertans mainly as people who cornered too slowly on mountain roads. But I learned, partly from you, that I must think much more of them than…
Vacuous electoral promises and virtue-signalling schemes won’t deliver the outcomes Indigenous Canadians need
Canada has consistently failed to make progress commensurate with the many lofty pronouncements and expectations on the Indigenous file. It’s a national shame that most Indigenous Canadians on reservations live far below acceptable socio-economic standards. Money isn’t the problem. By 2022, the federal budget allocations to Indigenous will have doubled since 2016 to nearly $25…
After all, the high demand for outdoor activities springs from a need for physical activity provoked by government Covid-19 restrictions
Rising costs to operate Alberta’s Kananaskis parks should come out of the province’s health budget. As soon as the provincial government imposed a lockdown in March 2020, Albertans headed outdoors in greater numbers than ever. However, the province and municipal governments soon restricted outdoor gatherings as well. Recall the hysterical complaints about seeing people walking…
We must free internal trade, reform banking and telecommunications and increase incentives for retraining
By Sara MacIntyre and Marco Navarro-Genie Frontier Centre for Public Policy Canadians want change. It’s been more than a generation since we’ve felt the kind of overreaching power of government we’ve experienced in the past year. Daily freedoms have been curtailed, millions of livelihoods impaired, savings drained and countless fines and arrests created for new…