Health experts and politicians camouflage their failure by using the only weapon left in their arsenal - instilling fear
We recently marked the anniversary of the COVID-19 confinements that were only supposed to last for only a few weeks. In many ways, fear became the pandemic. Different people drive the COVID-19 fear, but its principal generators are statisticians and the medical bureaucrats – the experts ‘advising’ the politicians, who in turn display appearances of…
Excellence is not determined by birthplace but by an approach to success
There is wisdom in the longstanding adage about offering unsolicited advice, which is independent of whether the advice given is good, bad or petty. This is because it’s difficult to offer unsolicited advice without actively joining or appearing to join a busybody club. Publicly given ‘advice’ always begs the question of intentions, agendas and ambitions.…
Seven months since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, against evidence and common sense, media, elected officials and health experts continue peddling the panic that gripped them in March. Almost daily, headlines announce new records in the number of COVID-19 cases. The federal health minister, the chief medical officer and the prime minister are ringing bells…
Given that infections don’t by a long shot equal hospitalizations, civil libertarians are rightly sounding warning bells
On Sept. 18, Israel became the first developed country to launch a second COVID-19 lockdown. It came four months after the first lockdown – instituted in March – ended. How Israeli citizens have reacted to the unsustainable nature of renewed lockdowns is instructive for the Canadian jurisdictions that have increased a rhetoric of fear about…
Be skeptical when claims indiscriminately vilify an entire community of scholars and workers
The University of Calgary has admitted to being a systemically racist institution against Blacks, Indigenous people and other people of colour. The revelation by its executive team has hardly received any attention. The shocking admission was made on June 24, which coincidentally is when John Cabot landed in Newfoundland in 1497. Only three weeks earlier,…
The image of the hip and virtuous leader that some media and voters hold of our prime minister is not what leaders of other nations see
After boastfully declaring that he would enhance Canada’s place on the international scene, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau failed in his bid to secure a United Nations Security Council seat. Canada’s place in the world has been effectively eroded under his watch. Foreign policy matters, so Trudeau is right in drawing attention to it in his…
We trampled, in fear, over memory and institutions, obsessively protective and morally dismissive of dignity and human life
The schizophrenic aspects of Canadian culture and their influence on governments’ behaviour are increasingly evident. The most palpable example lies in how we trampled, in fear, over memory and institutions, obsessively protective and morally dismissive of dignity and human life simultaneously. The COVID-19 lockdown has been a strange time for people who are struggling to…
Political spin to distract from the disaster in senior care centres will solve nothing. The industrial warehousing model must be questioned
The COVID-19 lockdown sought to protect the health-care system and the most vulnerable. Health authorities quite early identified that the elderly and those with chronic conditions were most vulnerable. Various leaders reminded us that among those most at risk were members of the Greatest Generation, the Canadian men and women who defeated the Nazi scourge.…
The Swedish achievement in the face of international panic lies in remaining true to political traditions and democracy
Much attention has been given to Sweden for its distinct approach to COVID-19 among Western nations. As more jurisdictions wrestle with lifting economic restrictions, Sweden is praised and condemned. People readily condemn Prime Minister Stefan Löfven’s Social Democrat (Sweden’s NDP equivalent) government for not emulating China and for violating what Swedish academicians called the “lockdown…
The authors of a letter to Trudeau say most aid should be expedited but for oil companies, which need to be trapped in a bureaucratic nightmare
When professors around the country were busy figuring ways to deliver their classes online, two faculty members at the University of Alberta wrote a letter and enlisted the endorsement of 200-plus of their leisured colleagues at 33 universities in Canada. A crisis must not be wasted. From the privileged positions of publicly-paid jobs, the Alberta…
We recently marked the anniversary of the COVID-19 confinements that were only supposed to last for only a few weeks. In many ways, fear became the pandemic. Different people drive the COVID-19 fear, but its principal generators are statisticians and the medical bureaucrats – the experts ‘advising’ the politicians, who in turn display appearances of…
