I’ve heard it said that “Ninety-nine percent of politicians give the rest a bad name.” It is obviously a joke, yet it makes people laugh because most of us have a dim view of politics in general. Oliver Anthony’s Rich Men North of Richmond went viral because it tapped into this undercurrent of contempt that so many of us feel towards those who govern over us. Politics is a nasty business, and it brings out the nasty in us. The origin of politics is pain. Life is hard, and in time’s past it used to be much, much harder. For most of human history the death of children in their first year of life was common, childbirth was highly perilous, and life expectancy was less than a third what the world average is today. Plagues and famines could wipe out whole civilizations, and warfare was a constant concern. Our ancestors were desperate to protect themselves and their loved ones from the terrors of a dangerous and mysterious world. They formed alliances with each other, crafting laws and building walls, in order to strengthen and protect themselves. Distinguishing man from the animals was our awareness of time. The primitive mind would simply take everything they could get whenever they could get it, but man awoke to the idea that making sacrifices in the present could possibly bring about better things in the future. In the words of Jordan Peterson, “Long ago, in the dim mists of time, we began to realize that reality was structured as if it could be bargained with. We learned that behaving properly now, in the present – regulating our impulses, considering the plight of others – could bring rewards in the future, in a time and place that did not yet exist. We began to inhibit, control and organize our immediate impulses … Doing so was indistinguishable from organizing society: the discovery of the causal relationship between our efforts today and the quality of tomorrow motivated the social contract – the organization that enables today’s work to be stored, reliably (mostly in the form of promises from others)” (12 Rules for Life, pg. 164-65). This awareness is a double-edged sword, for being able to see the future means we can either prepare for it or live in terror of it. Death comes to all men, and sickness comes to most. Suffering is inevitable, and yet we are desperate to minimize or delay it in our lives and the lives of those we love. To forestall or escape suffering and sorrow, we render ourselves capable of tormenting and torturing others whilst justifying ourselves doing so. We’ll horde food in a time of famine and kill our enemy in times of war. We’ll cheat and lie and steal in direct proportion to our perception of the potential reward weighed against potential consequences. Politics is where ideology and economics merge together to shape the secular structures of our society. Politics is where people weigh the world they want against the sacrifices they are willing to make to bring it forth. Politics is the writing and rewriting of the social contract that binds civilizations together, where the weak negotiate with the strong what rights they will grant and what protections they will offer in exchange for that which will keep the strong strong. Politics is the collective exercise of voting for one’s own self-interests. It has the potential to enslave or liberate, to enrich lives or destroy them. Politics is the ultimate blood sport. There are two primary reasons why a person would choose to enter the political arena: idealism and ambition. Politics appeals to the idealist because it is the avenue to bring forth much desired changes, and politics appeals to the ambitious because it is a means to gaining power and prominence. Aristotle is one of the most influential political thinkers of all time. Aristotle understood that the qualities that enable men to gain power within a democracy (cruelty, ambition, and deceitfulness) were not necessarily the qualities one wants in a leader. He described an arena where men of ambition conspired endlessly against each other to gain influence. In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams represented this Aristotelian sentiment with the words: “Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” In the early 16 Century Niccolo Machiavelli presented his treatise on politics in two works, The Prince, and Discourses on Livy. It discussed how a prince may gain and secure his power, but it is also full of words of caution. Machiavelli’s political philosophy assumes that people are inherently bad. He wrote, “For of men it may generally be affirmed that they are thankless, fickle, false, studious to avoid danger, greedy of gain, devoted to you while you are able to confer benefits upon them … but in the hour of need they turn against you” (The Prince, Chapter 17). To those who must govern he advised, “They who lay the foundations of a State and furnish it with laws must, as is shown by all who have treated of civil government, and by examples of which history is full, assume that ‘all men are bad, and will always, when they have free field, give loose to their evil inclinations” (Discourses on Livy, Book 1, Chapter 3). The idealist always wants to bring about positive changes, and they often presume that the masses will thank them for doing so. Machiavelli offers them bleak warning: “it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them” (The Prince, Chapter 6). He further warned, “hatred is acquired as much by good works as by bad ones” (The Prince, Chapter 19). Party politics introduces a tribal dimension into the equation. We are a tribal creature. Our tribal loyalties can manifest in all sorts of ways, though we frequently form ties and loyalties based on how we identify and where we live. We are a tribal creature, and though you may not want to admit it, this probably skews the way you look at the world. You are much more likely to find fault with the other tribe while excusing the mistakes of your own. Those who watch team sports understand this principle all too well. We want every infraction of the opposing team penalized, and none of our own punished, and we feel that the Ref’s calls are incredibly biased against our team even when, objectively speaking, they aren’t. Tribalism is persuasive, and instinctual, and it frequently overrides reason. Prejudice often emerges because of the discomfort we feel in the presence of those possessed of different worldviews. People naturally assume their worldview is superior to others, and negative feelings can easily develop towards people who think differently. We feel more comfortable being around people who see the world much as we do. Polarization occurs because people with moderate views become less moderate the more they hang out with those who share that view. Because of the internet, we can access massive amounts of information on almost any topic, yet the siloing of individuals causes whole groups to become blind to the motives and ideas of others. People would rather demonize others than learn from them. This is instinctual. The amygdala exerts far more control over our perceptions and behaviors than most people like to admit. We are led by our emotions, but we pretend that we’re rational. Demonization leads to persecutions and oppressions, which can take many forms. Sadly, the worst actors among us will likely never stop to ask that now famous question, “Are we the baddies”? Political parties engage in mockery and slander simply because it works. Politics is a zero-sum game, so it tends to bring out the worst in us. Politicos know how gullible most people are, how quick they are to believe any bit of gossip that makes the other side look bad. Party leaders tend to garner the bulk of a society’s vitriol. We transfer upon them our anger, our frustration, and our contempt. In 2007, Beaver Magazine asked Canadians to vote on who was the worst Canadian. Four Prime Ministers made the top 10 list, and they just happened to be the men who dominated Canada’s political landscape from 1968 through to 2015. Pierre Trudeau “won” the contest, Brian Mulroney came fourth, Stephen Harper took sixth place, and Jean Chretien took eighth. Clifford Olson, a psychopath rapist who murdered 11 children, earning himself the nickname The Beast of British Columbia, finished ninth. Politicians aren’t actually the worst of us, but the game they play is too brutal for most of us to endure, and we judge them harshly because we mostly don’t understand the burdens of leadership. There isn’t much we can do to stop slander and disinformation. Mark Twain is sometimes credited with saying “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on”, but we should remember that this statement predated the invention of social media. Lies can now circle the globe multiple times before the truth can find its boots. Mark Twain also understood how complicit the news media was in all this. He wrote, “It has become a sarcastic proverb that a thing must be true if you saw it in a newspaper. That is the opinion intelligent people have of that lying vehicle in a nutshell. But the trouble is that the stupid people — who constitute the grand overwhelming majority of this and all other nations — do believe and are moulded and convinced by what they get out of a newspaper, and there is where the harm lies. Among us, the newspaper is a tremendous power. It can make or mar any man’s reputation. It has perfect freedom to call the best man in the land a fraud and a thief, and he is destroyed beyond help.” Again, social media brings this to a whole new level. If you are going to succeed in modern politics, you’ll have to master the art of answering the questions of journalists. Some are better at it than others, and there aren’t many who do it better that Pierre Poilievre, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. Recently, Poilievre gave a masterful performance dismantling a journalist’s attempts to depict him as a “populous” politician who has taken a page out of Trump’s playbook. Poilievre keeps asking the journalist (Don Urquhart, editor of the Times Chronicle) to explain himself as he calmly eats an apple. Poilievre posted the exchange to social media and it went viral. One clip on X (formerly Twitter) has over 14 million views. Even foreign pundits are talking about it. Conservatives are now fundraising off of it, a campaign titled “How Do You Like Them Apples”. For years now people have asked me my thoughts concerning Pierre Poilievre, and for years now I’ve given the same answer: I think Poilievre is the most talented politician Canada has produced in decades. I’m still trying to decide whether that’s a good thing. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

By Rav Arora It's easy to support liberal values such as tolerance, informed consent, and free speech in a political theory seminar, but moral emergencies provide the true test of one's principle commitments. One’s commitment to the foundational, noble ideals of Western, liberal society is most revealingly tested in times of emergency and mortal danger. Core principles such as individualism, bodily autonomy, tolerance, pluralism, and informed consent are easy to support in abstract theory — until such issues carry real societal ramifications and reputational costs. The past few years have provided no shortage of international uprisings surrounding race relations, viruses, vaccines, elections, and Middle Eastern affairs where peoples’ principle commitments immediately implode in the face of emotionally inflaming injustices (accurately understood or not). The recent appalling terrorist attack lead by Hamas in Israel took more than 1,300 lives while 200 civilians remain in hostage. In this time — just as in during the early waves of Covid, the killing of George Floyd, and the aftermath of 9/11 — human emotions are highly charged. Even the most sober-minded, objective observers will understandably have a hard time abstaining from descending into reactive outrage in response to horrifying images of child mutilations and Hamas kidnapping women. Horrific events in the Middle East have now sprung aggressive state measures across the West to clamp down on Hamas-sympathizing public expressions in the name of fighting anti-Semitic vitriol and terrorist activity. It is precisely in this time one’s support of free speech and opposition to cancel culture is proven as sincere and principled or politically self-advancing and ultimately fraudulent. Unfortunately, many prominent figures have failed this test. Several Western countries such as Germany, France, and the Netherlands have prohibited or threatened state intervention specifically for pro-Palestinian protests. In the U.K, the Home Secretary’s letter to police chiefs urging the crackdown of pro-Palestinian demonstrations which intimidate or target the Jewish community generated serious concerns among free speech advocates, but London’s Deputy Commissioner Dame Lynne Owens clarified that the mere “expression of support for the Palestinian people more broadly, including flying the Palestinian flag, does not, alone, constitute a criminal offence.” “What we cannot do is interpret support for the Palestinian cause more broadly as automatically being support for Hamas or any other proscribed group,” she stated. France’s interior minister Gérald Darmanin ordered a ban on all pro-Palestinian protests on the basis that it is “likely to generate public order disturbances.” “The organization of these prohibited demonstrations should lead to arrests,” he stated. One can’t help but wonder which public demonstrations — pro-life, Black Lives Matter, anti-Covid mandates, NBA championship celebrations etc — are immune from “likely” generating any form of disturbances in the state’s eye. In response to France’s ban, conservative commentator Dave Rubin (whose show I have appeared on several times) asserted, “Maybe the West has a chance.” “They’re calling for genocide,” he states in a following tweet responding to a commenter arguing, “Let them protest.” Indeed, a fringe minority of protests around the world have seen its attendants egregiously call for violence. In Sydney, Australia one pro-Palestine rally sparked genocidal chants of “gas the jews.” Another demonstration in Melbourne reportedly had a group of men stating they were “on the hunt to kill Jews.” As every sensible person can agree, individuals inciting violence against the Jewish community ought to be reprimanded and punished by the state. But this has been, by far, the exception, not the norm. Instead, the resounding sentiment across a number of rallies around the world has been a morally confused, misguided, and reprehensible glorification of Palestinian resistance in opposition to Israel. The Hamas terrorist attack is seen as a predictable and proportionate consequence of Israel’s perceived oppression. Journalists Olivia Reingold and Francesca Block carefully document the tenor of pro-Palestinian protests in Midtown Manhattan. Statements such as “Resistance is justified when people are oppressed!” and “Hamas is a logical conclusion for people struggling and uprising” at this protest capture the dominant ethos of the worldwide demonstrations. None of this speech is a call to violence. It should be protected and defended with all our ethical convictions — because free speech commitments matter most when our opponents and enemies are attacked. In Canada, Conservative Senator Leo Housakos sent a letter to Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver’s police departments asserting planned pro-Palestinian rallies “must be stopped.” “This is a matter of public safety," he goes on. The letter was written in response to The Palestinian Youth Movement’s Facebook posts advertising rallies in the aforementioned Canadian cities. The posts call on Canadians to “uplift and honour” the Hamas terrorists who carried out the “offensive attack” to murder and kidnap innocent Israeli civilians. As abhorrent as these views may be, they are not calls to violence and law enforcement should never ban such protests (which were peaceful across Canada). In the United States, free speech concerns surrounding this issue pertain not to protests but blacklists of students who signed onto a Harvard student group letter holding the “Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Vast legions of conservative thinkers and public figures have supported public blacklists of such students, including Megyn Kelly (someone who I personally consider a role model). Substack writer and blogger Max Meyer proceeded to create a “College Terror List” in response to billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman demanding that Harvard release the names of all of the students who signed the letter. This egregious precedent will surely come back to haunt conservatives who vigorously oppose “cancel culture.” Students who sign letters opposing Black Lives Matter or radical gender ideology may find themselves on a future blacklist, rendering themselves unhireable at progressive-owned companies. The sophistic conservative defence is that all signatories of the letter are genocidal maniacs. This is most certainly false. The vast majority of students arguably have a grossly incorrect view of history and the geopolitical context of the Hamas massacre, but they are not bloodthirsty barbarians cheering infanticide. To pretend otherwise is incredibly disingenuous. Megyn Kelly and Dave Rubin have every right not to hire individuals with morally misguided views, but demanding public lists is an extreme step in the wrong direction. At bare minimum, one need not be a Middle Eastern expert to recognize the moral depravity of celebrating jihadist “resistance” — rather than explicitly condemning terrorist activity (while sympathizing with the plight of Gazan civilians) — in the immediate aftermath of a heinous bloodbath. It would be similarly inhumane in an American context if protesters gathered by the thousands celebrating Blue Lives Matter (police officers’ heroism) in the day following an unjustifiable act of police brutality. Even if one is sympathetic to the suffering of Palestinians under the rule of a terrorist organization, failing to decry the barbaric actions of Hamas is an appalling moral failure that has been all-too-common across the West over the past week. And yet at the same time, free speech ought to be defended for views we consider even abhorrent and indefensible. Protests defending Palestinian resistance are legitimate expressions of free speech. Some individuals, such as my friend Kim Iversen, have also expressed rational concerns about Israeli excessive force in response to Hamas’ terror attack. None of these people — ranging from radical and morally compromised to sensible and humanitarian — should have their free speech rights curtailed. The West is indeed on the decline if large numbers of individuals in its borders hold values radically at odds with core liberalism — as conservatives correctly note — but criminalizing free speech under the guise of tolerance would undermine the West’s sacred value of free speech, not support it. Principles matter. Especially in times of emergency. Many people faced the same dilemma during Covid. Did the purported societal benefit (which quickly proved to be wildly false) of mandating Covid vaccines over-ride people’s foundational rights of informed consent and bodily autonomy? Governments around the world took the wrong side on this issue, barring its citizens from leaving the country, exercising at a gym, working in federally regulated jobs, and maintaining their livelihoods. Free speech was also attacked during Covid-19 in the name of preventing needless deaths. Should the tragic lives lost to Covid-19 give the state power to censor “misinformation” online discouraging potentially life-saving vaccination and promoting deranged conspiracy theories? The Missouri v. Biden case proves the federal government coerced social media companies to censor views that deviated from their public health agenda. These policies ought to be opposed not (merely) because the state’s version of the scientific facts were wrong time and time again, but because they infringed upon Americans’ First Amendment rights. Moral emergencies are the times when our principles are most vulnerable to negotiation and even complete collapse due to ideological views and emotionally charged reactions. Unfortunately, many public figures crusading against cancel culture have proven the priority of their ideological commitments first and foremost as they instantaneously discard their free speech jerseys now that governments around the West support their views and are willing to use their power to crack down on dissidents. To access this and other articles by Rav Arora, please consider subscribing to https://illusionconsensus.com

On October 11, 2023 the Liberals announced that they were extending the amnesty period for possession of approximately 1,500 prohibited (but legally purchased) firearms. Liberals have done this because they’ve failed to introduce a buyback program. They’ve had over three years to do so, but Liberals are now saying it’ll be done sometime after the next election – with polls suggesting they’re likely to lose that election. On May 1, 2020, the Prime Minister of Canada used an order-in-council to ban the purchase and sale of over 1,500 different models of firearms. This order came just 11 days after Canada’s worst mass-shooting event left 22 people dead in Nova Scotia. However, until the Liberals create a plan to buyback these prohibited weapons, they’ll remain in the hands of those who legally purchased them. The ban means that these guns may not be used, imported, or sold in Canada, so it leaves many gun owners in possession of property they can’t use and that they can’t sell. I have never owned a gun, never fired a gun, and I’ve never been a victim of a gun crime. My only desire in the gun debate is seeing Canada adopt policies that improve public safety. When I examine the types are arguments being advanced by the pro-gun and anti-gun lobbies, it seems to me that the arguments divide sharply along two ways of thinking. For those who think with their hearts, the anti-gun arguments seem to hit all the right notes. For those who think with their heads, the pro-gun arguments tend to prevail. Gun crimes are shocking and horrific, as all violent crimes tend to be, but are gun-bans the answer? Trudeau has declared, “as we see gun violence continue to rise, it is our duty to keep taking action.” But what if Liberals taking action is the reason gun violence has been rising? Harper’s Conservatives governed Canada from 2006 to 2015. During that period Canada’s total number of homicides increased just 0.6%, far below our population growth rate, and the total number of homicides involving firearms dropped by 6%. Trudeau’s Liberals took over in the last couple of months of 2015, and since 2015 we have seen Canada’s total number of homicides increase by 43%, and the total number involving firearms rise by 89.5%. Canada has a lot of guns, but we don’t really have a gun problem – at least, not yet. There are approximately 12.7 million firearms in civilian possession in Canada, and we rank 6th in the world in terms of gun possession / capita, yet Canada ranks 119th in terms of gun deaths / capita. Plato is reported to have said, “Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." Most of Canada’s licensed gun-owners are the good people who obey the law, which is why they are licensed. Most of Canada’s gun violence involves people who are bad, and the law is not effectively restraining their excesses. Depriving good people of the chance to defend themselves will only embolden bad people to do more bad things. One of the models banned by Trudeau is the AR-15. We have around 60,000 AR-15s registered. Despite their popularity an AR-15 has never been used in a mass shooting in Canada. That tells me that Canadian owners of AR-15s have collectively demonstrated that they can safely possess these firearms. Gun bans also don’t reduce gun violence when the guns being banned remain available to criminals. Chicago has very tough gun laws, and Chicago experiences a tremendous amount of gun violence. Bans grant criminals a massive advantage over the citizenry upon which they prey. Legal guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are an effective deterrent. In the United States, survey after survey demonstrate that defensive gun uses by victims vastly outstrip offensive uses by criminals. Mass shootings are tragic and emotional, and the anti-gun lobby relies on such events to push forward their agenda. However, these events don’t even provide them with good anecdotal evidence, demonstrating instead the futility of the policies that these activists want. Trudeau used Canada’s worst mass-shooting to justify his ban on “assault-style” weapons, and he used a mass shooting in Texas to implement a national freeze on handgun transfers, purchases and sales, yet none of the measures being introduced would have prevented either mass-shooting event. The Nova Scotia tragedy was the result of massive incompetence. The shooter got his rifles from the United States—illegally—and he should have been red-flagged in the system. As a 33-year-old, the shooter received a conditional discharge for repeatedly punching a 15-year-old kid for standing too close to his business. Another man beat on the boy with a crowbar, and then both men stomped on him while he was on the ground. The shooter pleaded guilty to this offence and was made to pay the victim $50, complete nine months of probation, and enter an anger-management program. This left him with no criminal record. Our system of justice failed, as did government-mandated anger management. There were reports that the shooter was illegally stockpiling weapons, but these were ignored by the RCMP. The provincial emergency alert system was never used to warn people that the shooter was masquerading as a cop, and for some reason, actual cops shot up a fire hall that was being used as an emergency refuge during the event. The police faced bureaucratic delays getting an aircraft to help track down the shooter. The RCMP helicopter was grounded for maintenance, and their fixed-wing aircraft was also unavailable. A military aircraft was available, but the RCMP had trouble passing the request up through official channels. Other resources that could have been mobilized simply weren’t, so for 13 hours the shooter was able to carry on with his rampage, always a step ahead of the police. This was a failure of law enforcement. Uvalde (2022) was much the same. The Uvalde police could not have done a worse job handling that situation. Law enforcement often does what it can, but they make mistakes, are slowed down by bureaucratic red tape, and are often understaffed. Their leadership are often politically partisan, and in recent days rank-and-file officers have had good cause to be quite demoralized. Complete reliance on police is impractical and untenable. People need to be able to look after their own security. Even if the police were consistently competent at doing their jobs, there will always be a delayed response. The police can’t be everywhere necessary to stop every crime. A popular adage proclaims that “A gun in hand is better than a cop on the phone”. Nova Scotia, Uvalde, Parkland, Christchurch, and dozens of other mass-shooting events all demonstrate that one cannot merely rely on police to protect you. Moreover, many potential mass shootings were only foiled because of the timely intervention of good guys with guns—many of whom were not in uniform. Texas keeps demonstrating just how much good a good guy with a gun can do. In 2017, the Sutherland Springs church shooter killed 26 people—the deadliest mass shooting in Texan history and the deadliest at an American place of worship. As with other incidents, law enforcement failed to do their job. The shooter should have been prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms and ammunition due to a domestic violence conviction while the shooter was in the U.S. Air Force, but the Air Force failed to record the conviction in the FBI National Crime Information Center database. The shooter was stopped by Stephen Willeford, a local resident and former firearms instructor who was armed with an AR-15. In 2019, another would-be mass shooter targeted a church in Texas. The West Freeway Church of Christ shooting saw two members of the congregation killed by the gunman before he was shot and killed by Jack Wilson, a former reserve deputy sheriff who was also a firearms instructor. The whole exchange lasted 6 seconds. Perhaps more importantly, guns are necessary to oppose tyranny. A disarmed population is powerless to respond to a foreign invader or a home-grown dictator. This is the chief justification for the second amendment in the United States, which reads, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The only rational and reasonably persuasive argument I’ve ever heard in support of banning guns concerns the use of guns by those committing suicide. Over 75 percent of Canadian firearm fatalities are suicides. A Stanford study found that male handgun owners were four times more likely to die by suicide than non-owners. While many might claim that people bent on suicide will just find another way, there is cause to believe that the lethality of the method chosen does impact upon the success rate, and when it comes to lethality, it is hard to beat a handgun. A compelling case can thus be made that banning guns will result in fewer suicides, yet I think this appeal ultimately fails. Governments are not really justified passing broadly applied and restrictive laws to protect me from myself. They are even less justified when those same laws prevent me from protecting myself from you or from them. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

Israel is at war. That reality will polarize the world, bringing division to the streets of many nations. In the West, the Left mostly supports the Palestinians, accusing Israel of being an apartheid state. They also complain that in recent years this conflict has resulted in only two Israeli deaths for every 13 Palestinians killed. The Right (especially evangelical Christians) mostly support Israel, insisting that Israel has the right to both exist and to defend itself. Most people in the West are incapable of understanding the centuries-old conflict between the Jews and Muslims, or its current manifestations. We lack the paradigm for understanding. Canada has been peaceful and secure for most of our existence. We gained our independence by patiently asking Great Britain for it. We didn’t have to fight a war to secure our sovereignty. In contrast, Israel was established in the wake of the Holocaust that saw half of all the Jews in the world killed, and their nation was birthed in an insurgency against British control. Israel faced bitter and violent opposition from their neighbors, and one day following their proclamation of statehood, five Arab nations invaded. Israel has been in a siege mentality ever since, surrounded on all fronts by hostile populations that desire their annihilation. Israel is a nation of 9.7 million people (74% Jewish, 21% Arab), and is surrounded by potential enemies whose populations vastly dwarf their own. The Arab League members who attacked Israel in 1948 have a combined population exceeding 220 million, and Iran (who funds Hamas and Hezbollah) has 87 million citizens. Israel has the world’s highest ratio of defense spending to GDP of all developed countries, and most Israelis are drafted into the military at the age of 18, with men typically serving three years and women two. And the Palestinians have never experienced sovereignty – not once since the days of Rome. In 1947 the UN presented their plan to partition the region into two sovereign states whilst leaving Jerusalem an international city directly controlled by neither side. The Jews accepted this plan, but the Arab League rejected it. Palestinian Arabs began attacking the Jewish settlements, and violence swept through the region with massacres and reprisals being launched by both sides. The Jews received orders from their leaders to hold their ground at all costs, but Arab nations urged Palestinians to flee their homes so they would not get caught in the crossfire as Arab armies drove Israel into the sea. However, the war did not go as the Arabs expected. Israel defeated her enemies and captured 60% of Arab Palestine. Jordan then annexed East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and Egypt took control of the Gaza Strip. During the Six Day War (1967), Israel expanded her borders, seizing control of the Golan Heights, Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank. 700,000 Palestinians were displaced in 1948, and ever since Israel and the Arabs have quarreled bitterly over what should happen to these refugees. Israel is not willing to allow all the displaced Palestinians to return, but the Arabs insist on there being a full-right of return. In 1959 the Arab League declared that no Arab state in the Middle East would grant citizenship to any Palestinian refugee. In the last sixty years, 700,000 original refugees have become 5.9 million, and they remain stateless refugees. About a third of them are still living in UN camps. They are denied citizenship even in Arab countries where they, their parents and their grandparents were born. In Gaza the Palestinians suffer a depth of privation that is quite foreign to the experience of most Westerners. When Hamas seized power in the Gaza in 2007, Israel responded by imposing a blockade that collapsed Gaza’s economy. The average salary in Gaza is about a quarter the average of Palestinians living in the West Bank, which is about a tenth the average in Israel. This privation has been exasperated by sporadic airstrikes from Israel, and by the corruption, cruelty, or incompetence of their own leaders. Westerners have rarely experienced the existential threats that Israelis and Palestinians have faced every day for decades. We also don’t understand their religious sentiments. Canada’s traditional attitude towards religion is laissez-faire. We tend to push religious considerations to the margins of our political calculations whilst embracing cultural and religious pluralism and tolerance. The idea that we might hate someone because of their religion is quite foreign to most of us, as is the idea that we’d be hated simply because of who or how we choose to worship. To be Jewish is to be connected to centuries of slander, suspicion, and persecution. It was with intense violence that Romans drove the Jews from Jerusalem in 70 AD. Since the Diaspora the Jewish people have existed as the other in most lands where they have settled. They are rendered distinct due to their adherence to Talmudic codes that govern their diet, dress, and disciplines. Pogroms have visited intense violence to their communities throughout these centuries. Many conspiracies are told concerning the Jews. The most famous of them is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a document purported to describe a Jewish plan for global domination. Created sometime around 1903, the Protocols were used to justify Russian pogroms that saw hundreds of Jews murdered. It has been translated into many languages and was widely disseminated during the 1920s and 1930s. The plan presented in the Protocols involved Jews subverting the morals of the non-Jewish world through their control of the banks and the press, ultimately culminating in the destruction of civilization. Hamas appears to regard it as authentic. For many Muslims, animosity towards the Jews is deeply woven into their religious traditions and beliefs. This animosity can be traced back to Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam. Muhammad’s first appeals went out to the Jews, but the Jews rejected Muhammad as a prophet and challenged his interpretations of their scriptures. The Qur’an depicts the Jews as deceivers, rebels against Allah, and the fiercest enemies of the Muslims. They are accused of being “prophet killers” (a claim repeated nine times in the Qur’an). The 1st Charter of Hamas (1988) gives us a lot of insight into their theology. The 1st Hamas Charter reads: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.' … The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him. … The land of Palestine is a holy possession consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it. … Palestine is an Islamic land... Since this is the case, the Liberation of Palestine is an individual duty for every Moslem wherever he may be. ... There is no solution for the Palestinian problem except by Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are but a waste of time, an exercise in futility. The day the enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In the face of the Jews' usurpation, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised.” The 1st Charter of Hamas also promotes antisemitic conspiracies. It states: “The enemies have been scheming for a long time ... and have accumulated huge and influential material wealth. With their money, they took control of the world media... With their money they stirred revolutions in various parts of the globe... They stood behind the French Revolution, the Communist Revolution and most of the revolutions we hear about ... With their money they formed secret organizations - such as the Freemasons, Rotary Clubs and the Lions - which are spreading around the world, in order to destroy societies and carry out Zionist interests ... They stood behind World War I ... and formed the League of Nations through which they could rule the world. They were behind World War II, through which they made huge financial gains ... There is no war going on anywhere without them having their finger in it. … Zionism scheming has no end, and after Palestine, they will covet expansion from the Nile to the Euphrates River. When they have finished digesting the area on which they have laid their hand, they will look forward to more expansion. Their scheme has been laid out in the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion'.” In 2017 Hamas issued a new charter which lays out their aspirations. It calls for the creation of a fully sovereign Palestinian state based on borders that existed prior to the Six Day War (1967), and Hamas insists that the whole of Jerusalem be its capital. According to this charter, “Not one stone of Jerusalem can be surrendered or relinquished.” They also insist on “The right of the Palestinian refugees and the displaced to return to their homes … whether in the lands occupied in 1948 or in 1967 (that is the whole of Palestine)”. Israel will never negotiate a two-state solution on such terms. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

Canada just marked its third holiday devoted to truth and reconciliation, but I’m dubious about whether we are still moving towards these lofty and noble goals. This new Canadian holiday was birthed in the aftermath of shocking media stories concerning the discovery in Canada of children being buried in mass-graves. The original story came out of Kamloops on May 27, 2021. In an apple orchard near the old Kamloops Indian Residential School, ground-penetrating radar detected over 200 anomalies that could be grave sites. It’s yet to be determined what those anomalies are. The New York Times ran with the headline “‘Horrible History’: Mass Grave of Indigenous Children Reported in Canada”. Citing the Associated Press, USA Today’s headline read “Mass grave with remains of 215 children found at Indigenous school in Canada, an 'unthinkable loss'”. These sorts of headlines set the tone. The problem is that no bodies have been discovered at the Kamloops site, excavations have still not been done, and the anomalies detected by ground penetrating radar could just as easily be septic field drainage tiles. The assumption that children were buried in that apple orchard is based on a very thin body of evidence. The reaction of Canadians to the story was remarkable. For months the flags of our nation were lowered to half mast, Canada Day celebrations were cancelled, and memorials sprang up across the country. In my town, one memorial involved dozens of baby shoes being placed on our courthouse steps. The phrase “Every Child Matters” became ubiquitous, and many Canadians went out and bought themselves an orange shirt so they could mark the new holiday that was created. Schools now have assemblies to mark the day, much like we do with Remembrance Day, and the Federal government set aside $40 billion to compensate survivors of the residential schools and reform Canada’s child welfare system. Some media outlets that reported on the discovery of mass-graves are now questioning that narrative. There still isn’t any hard evidence to support the claim that hundreds of children are buried in the various sites where anomalies have been detected. A few excavations have been done, but none have turned up bodies, and the Kamloops site has not been excavated – and may never be. This has led some people to deny that there was even a genocide. However, the claim that a genocide occurred doesn’t depend on the discovery of mass-graves, and never has. Unlike the mass-graves narrative, a rich body of evidence exists to prove conclusively that a genocide did indeed take place. Furthermore, the call for truth and reconciliation didn’t emerge in the wake of Kamloops 215. The first report on Truth and Reconciliation was published in 1996, and one can argue that the process began much earlier with the publication of the Red Paper in 1970 or the establishment of Blue Quills in 1971. For me, it began with a Social Justice course at UBC in the 1997-98 school year. It was then that I was introduced to the topic for the first time. I had studied Canadian history in high school and university, but I had learned almost nothing about residential schools prior to reading Roland David Chrisjohn’s The Circle Game: Shadows and Substance in the Indian Residential School Experience in Canada, which was published in 1997. This book, more than any other, influenced my decision to teach my students about residential schools when I began teaching Humanities in 2000. At the time there were no curricular requirements urging that residential schools be taught, and the history textbooks available in our schools contained almost nothing regarding these institutions. Our textbooks devoted many pages to discussing other Canadian crimes, like the internment of Japanese Canadians in WWII, but they were mostly silent on the issue of residential schools. The case laid out by Roland David Chrisjohn is compelling. The residential school system operated in Canada from the mid-1880s to the mid-1980s, though some schools pre-date and post-date these rough bookends. These schools continued to operate in Canada even after Canada signed the Geneva Convention on Genocide (1948). That convention defined genocide as “a) killing members of the group, b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, and e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” To establish that residential schools perpetrated a “genocide”, we must consider each criterion and examine the evidence. Regarding “killing members of the group”, the evidence is damning. In the early 20th Century, due to conditions present, diseases ran rampant through the schools killing thousands. The schools were incubators for the spread of preventable diseases, and there’s good reason to believe that this wasn’t merely the result of negligence or ignorance. In 1909, Dr. Peter Bryce, general medical superintendent for the Department of Indian Affairs, reported that mortality rates at residential schools in Western Canada ranged from 30% to 60%. Incredibly, these statistics did not become public until 1922, when Dr. Bryce published The Story of a National Crime: Being a Record of the Health Conditions of the Indians of Canada from 1904 to 1921. He alleged that the high mortality rates were frequently deliberate, with healthy children being exposed to children with tuberculosis. In 1920, Dr. F. A. Corbett found similar results to Dr. Bryce. It is sometimes asserted that more children would have died if left on the reserves as diseases ran rampant there as well. However, we don’t need to speculate regarding the veracity of such claims. We need only establish that the schools themselves left children unacceptably vulnerable, and that policies and procedures within these schools contributed directly to “killing members of the group”. Regarding “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group” and “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”, the evidence is equally damning. Most of these schools were chronically underfunded by the Federal government. Consequently, children were often malnourished, which greatly impaired their physical and mental development and well-being. Many children also suffered physical, mental, and sexual abuse within these schools, and incidents of abuse were rarely investigated or punished, leaving the perpetrators to operate with immunity. Regarding “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”, there’s evidence that young girls impregnated by men in authority were sometimes forced to have abortions, and that other girls were forced or coerced into being sterilized. As for the last criteria, “forcibly transferring children of the group to another group”, is this not precisely what the residential schools were designed to do? Transferring children to another group is considered genocide because it deliberately separates children from their culture, preventing its transference. It also visits intense harm upon families forced to endure this separation. From 1913 to 1932, Indian Affairs was run by the poet Duncan Campbell Scott. Scott promoted the goal of assimilation, writing, “The happiest future for the Indian race is absorption into the general population, and this is the object and policy of our government.” He later declared, “Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department”. Residential schools removed Aboriginal children from their families (sometimes through kidnapping by Indian Agents and the RCMP), keeping them for prolonged periods of time with the goal of assimilating them into the predominant European cultures. Many residential schools forbade children from speaking their native languages and practicing their cultural or religious rituals. Aboriginal customs and ways were declared to be inferior, and the children learned to be insulted and degraded. In 1920, Scott brought forward an amendment to the Indian Act that made it mandatory for all Indigenous children (ages of seven and fifteen) to attend school. In many places a residential school was the only option made available. Despite the grave concerns raised by Dr. Bryce and Dr. F.A. Corbett, the residential school system was expanded, and by 1930 there were over 80 institutions. It is likely that some of Canada’s residential schools met all five criteria for genocide, yet the Geneva Convention does not require that residential schools meet all five to establish that a genocide took place. Meeting just one criterion is sufficient. Describing residential schools as genocide should not be controversial. It is a statement that’s completely consistent with the criteria established by the Geneva Convention on Genocide, which Canada proudly helped draft. Many people today are finally acknowledging the destructive legacy of these schools. That legacy includes epidemics of unemployment, violence, and depression upon First Nations’ reserves. Communities were devastated and traumatized, and many children grew up never knowing their parents, and never learning how to be parents. This has contributed to a very high prevalence of crime, alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicide among First Nations reserves. In 2005, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler declared that the decision to house young Aboriginal Canadians in residential schools was "the single most harmful, disgraceful and racist act in our history." In 2008, Stephen Harper and the Government of Canada issued an historic apology to Canada’s First Nations. That apology declared: “The treatment of children in Indian Residential Schools is a sad chapter in our history. For more than a century, Indian Residential Schools separated over 150,000 Aboriginal children from their families and communities. […] Today, we recognize that this policy of assimilation was wrong, has caused great harm, and has no place in our country. […] The government now recognizes that the consequences of the Indian Residential Schools policy were profoundly negative, and that this policy has had a lasting and damaging impact on Aboriginal culture, heritage and language. […] The legacy of Indian Residential Schools has contributed to social problems that continue to exist in many communities today”. On October 27th, 2022, the House of Commons voted unanimously to recognize what unfolded inside residential schools as a genocide. The motion referred to the United Nations convention on genocide (1948), and its criteria. There isn’t much ground to dispute this claim because, according to the 1948 convention (which Canada signed and agreed to), residential schools were genocidal by design. But until evidence of mass graves emerges, more and more will reject this conclusion. They likely have a different idea in their minds of what a genocide entails, and they mostly have a sense that they have been lied to. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

Shortly after assuming office as Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau declared that Canada could be the “first post-national state”, adding, “There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada.” He did not say this to Canadians; Trudeau was speaking to the New York Times. Since Trudeau’s 2015 election – and possibly even before that – Canada has had no sense of purpose or clarity regarding its diplomatic priorities or its foreign affairs. Canada used to be regarded as an honest broker, a champion of human rights, as peacekeepers and humanitarians. However, that was the old Canada, the one that still had a sense of its own identity. For some time now, Canada has been a rudderless ship navigating the troubled waters of international affairs. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has careened from one diplomatic disaster to another. Trudeau’s first Minister of Foreign Affairs was Stephane Dion. Jocelyn Coulon, an adviser to Dion in Canada’s international affairs community, described Trudeau’s relationship to Dion as “glacial”, with Dion trying for over a year to get a private meeting with the Prime Minister. Coulon said that Trudeau’s inner circle cared “not at all” about questions of international policy. They mostly pursued photo ops and the chance to virtue signal on the international stage. In March 2016 Dion prepared to articulate Canada’s foreign-policy priorities, but Canada didn’t really have any. Trudeau wanted Dion to remind everyone about their accomplishments – but Canada didn’t really have any of those, either. So, on March 29, 2016, Dion spoke of how the concept of the honest broker suffered due to “moral relativism or the lack of strong convictions”. Dion then put Canada’s moral relativism on full display by giving the go-ahead for a $15 billion Saudi arms deal. Saudi Arabia is a repressive Islamic regime with an atrocious human rights record. They are oppressive to women and the LGBT and are perhaps the least “woke” nation on the planet. The arms would help support Saudi Arabia’s intervention into the Yemen Civil War, which has seen over 375,000 people killed and another 4 million displaced. On November 25, 2016, Fidel Castro died, and Trudeau issued some fawning praise of the brutal dictator who had lived in luxury whilst his people languished in poverty. This was not a-typical behavior for Trudeau. A 2018 report from UN Watch declared that Trudeau’s government had been quietly siding with the world’s worst tyrants and human rights abusers. UN Watch states that “Canada broke with the free world and joined Syria, Iran and North Korea by voting ‘no’ on eight separate measures that sought to hold Cuba accountable for widespread human rights violations”. Even after mysterious “sonic attacks” left Canadian and American diplomats and their families fleeing Cuba with brain injuries, gushing nosebleeds, intense nausea, and incapacitating headaches, Canada said nothing. One victim told the Globe and Mail, “We did not expect to be abandoned, or more precisely, sacrificed – that’s how we’re feeling now”. On January 6, 2017 - two days after Trudeau returned from a Christmas vacation on the Aga Khan’s private island that violated Canada’s Conflict of Interest Act - Dion was finally granted a private meeting with the Prime Minister. The meeting lasted only five minutes, and when it was over Dion was no longer Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs. He was also booted from Trudeau’s cabinet. Commenting afterwards, Dion declared, “I wish Chrystia the best of luck.” On January 10, 2017, Chrystia Freeland began a two-year tenure as Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, and she immediately came under a cloud of controversy because her maternal grandfather just happened to be a Nazi collaborator, and because she knew he was a Nazi collaborator yet portrayed him as a freedom fighter and said, “I am proud to honour [his] memory”. When the story broke, Freeland tried to dismiss it as Russian disinformation. She played the victim, and it worked. The media barely said a thing about it. On November 10, 2017, Trudeau was a no show for the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, leaving the leaders of ten other nations “gobsmacked”. One official declared, “He pulled out of the TPP at five minutes to midnight and then rocked up at the [East Asia Summit] like he belonged there”. Japan’s prime minister was apparently quite upset with Trudeau’s last-minute drama, especially since they did not know what Canada wanted, or why there was such a sudden change in Trudeau’s attitude. Trudeau would not say what problems Canada had with the deal. Apparently, being vague and impenetrably obtuse is how Canada now conducts highly volatile trade talks. Japan was not the only ally to take offense. One official declared that “The Canadians screwed everybody,” and in a fit of pique Australians moved to block Canada’s membership in the East Asia Summit. February 2018 saw Trudeau’s first disastrous trip to India. India became furious when Trudeau invited to one of his receptions a man convicted of attempting to murder an Indian Minister. The India trip also presented the world with the spectacle of Trudeau and his family dressing up in outlandish Indian attire everywhere they went. Dr. David Jabobs tweeted that “It’s as if Trudeau binge watched Bollywood movies from the 1970’s and assumed that they were an accurate reflection of modern India.” This visit was supposed to focus on strengthening the historic ties between Canada and India, but it was a diplomatic disaster that mostly just highlighted how good Trudeau was at embarrassing himself while wasting Canadian taxpayer dollars. Trudeau did manage to get India to invest $250 million in Canada, and all it took was a commitment for Canada to invest $750 million in India. The big priority for 2018 was the renegotiation of the NAFTA agreement. Trudeau and Freeland fought to morph NAFTA into a social justice trade agreement with a chapter on gender rights to promote gender equality. This was in sharp contrast to President Donald Trump’s approach. His goal was to deliver to America jobs, jobs, and more jobs. Trump punished Canada by imposing tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. To push back, Trudeau announced that we would target U.S.-made yogurt, Whiskies, candles, and sleeping bags. In June 2018, Canada hosted the G-7 summit, and as the delegates left the summit Trudeau held a press conference where he painted Trump as a bully, saying, “Canadians, we’re polite, we’re reasonable, but we also will not be pushed around”. In response Trump tweeted, “PM Justin Trudeau of Canada acted so meek and mild during our @g7 meetings, only to give a news conference after I left saying that, ‘US Tariffs were kind of insulting’ and he ‘will not be pushed around.’ Very dishonest & weak. Our Tariffs are in response to his of 270% in dairy!” Afterwards, the United States pursued a bilateral deal with Mexico, leaving Canada on the sidelines. August 2018 also saw a diplomatic row erupt between Canada and Saudi Arabia. A tweet from Freeland almost managed to extract Canada from that infamous Saudi arms deal. Some 200 characters by our Minister of Foreign Affairs triggered the Saudi regime so bad that they froze new trade and investment with Canada, expelled our ambassador, recalled theirs, and suspended an educational exchange program that brings 16,000 students to Canada each year. But the Saudi regime did not cancel the arms deal. So close! On August 27, 2018, the United States and Mexico struck a deal on NAFTA. Now Freeland had to bargain Canada’s way into that deal. In September, when the situation looked especially bleak, Freeland left negotiations to speak at the Taking on the Tyrant event in Toronto. This event called Trump a tyrant, comparing him to Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad. Republicans were not amused. In the end a deal was reached. The United States gained greater access to Canada’s dairy market, and Canada gave U.S. pharmaceuticals two extra years of copyright protection for new biologics. Online purchases from the United States became cheaper and easier, and companies like Google and Microsoft would no longer have to keep data centers in Canada. The deal included Buy American programs that would prevent Canadian companies from bidding on infrastructure projects launched by the American government (Mexico got a clause exempting them from such protectionist measures). The deal also left unresolved our disputes over softwood lumber, steel, and aluminum tariffs. The new trade deal was called USMCA. Even in its name Canada was put last. After the signing, Donald Trump said of Trudeau, “He’s a good man and he’s done a good job.” There is nothing even remotely patronizing in such praise. On December 1, 2018, Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Vancouver. Ms. Meng is the Chief Financial Officer of Huawei, and the daughter of its founder. Huawei is China’s largest private company, a telecom giant with over $77 billion in assets. More importantly, they’re a major sponsor of Hockey Night in Canada. Even though Ms. Meng broke no laws in Canada, the Americans decided to make Ms. Meng a bargaining chip in their trade talks, and they used our extradition treaty to hurl Canada into the midst of their trade war. It worked. China said that Ms. Meng’s arrest was “lawless”, “reasonless”, “ruthless”, and “extremely vicious”. They warned of “serious consequences”, and immediately detained a former Canadian diplomat, a Canadian businessman, and numerous others. Canada had to update its China travel advisory to read “risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws”, and China urged its citizens to “fully evaluate risks” before travelling to Canada. China’s ambassador to Canada, Lu Shaye, accused us of “Western egotism and white supremacy”, and to punish us, China imposed a 3-year ban on purchases of canola-oil from Canada, which likely cost Canadian farmers over $2 billion. In September 2021 Ms. Meng was permitted to return to China after striking a deal with U.S. prosecutors. That same day Canada secured the release of the two Canadian citizens China had detained and imprisoned. Things have not gotten any better in the post-Covid era. Canada is sending $billions to support the Ukrainian war effort while ignoring the needs of our own soldiers and our commitments to our NATO allies. There has been a scandal simmering over Chinese interference in the 2019 election, and in April 2023 Canadians learned that China has been operating “police stations” on our soil so to intimidate Chinese Canadians, including some Members of Parliament. This September things have really gone off the rails. First, Trudeau had to travel to India for a G7 summit. There were some hiccups, but at least Trudeau dressed himself in suits and ties. Then, on September 18, 2023, Trudeau implied that “agents of the government of India” played a role in the killing of a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. India reacted vehemently against the accusation, denying the allegation and accusing Canada of being a rogue state that harbors terrorists. On September 22, 2023, Canadian parliamentarians gave two standing ovations to Yaroslav Hunka. In 1943 Hunka volunteered to serve in the Waffen-SS Galician division, which was created by the Nazis and was responsible for the murder of thousands of Poles and Jews. Volodymr Zelenskyy, the President of the Ukraine, was in the chambers to address Canada’s House of Commons, and he stood with the rest of the chamber. Poland demanded an apology and may seek to extradite Hunka as a war criminal. Russia has capitalized on this mistake to reinforce their narrative that their invasion of the Ukraine was to "demilitarize and denazify" the country. The world is either laughing at us or shaking their fists at us. About the only ones who seem to like us are the folks at the World Economic Forum (WEF) – and well they should. Trudeau, acting as the first Prime Minister of the world’s first post-national state, has consistently prioritized the WEF agenda over Canada’s own interests, and Chrystia Freeland, who is Canada’s Deputy Prime Minister, remains on their Board of Trustees. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

One of the core principles of English common law is the presumption of innocence. This principle has traditionally been expressed by the Latin maxim ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat (“the burden of proof is on the one who declares, not on one who denies”). The presumption of innocence is a human right under the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, yet embittered by the difficulty of proving rape, assault, or sexual harassment beyond reasonable doubt, many today are advocating a very different principle, saying that a woman who makes an allegation ought to be believed. The recent storm swirling around Russell Brand began when five women made mostly anonymous allegations. At least one woman has accused him of rape; others accuse him of sexual assault and emotional abuse. These allegations concern a time when Brand was openly and notoriously promiscuous, some ten-to-twenty years ago. Brand does not deny all the allegations, but he has categorically denied what he regards as the “more serious allegations”, insisting that everything he did was consensual. Since the story broke, there have apparently been more allegations made. Police are investigating, but no charges have yet been laid. Politics appears to be dictating a lot of the reaction to these allegations. Brand has over six and a half million YouTube subscribers – what he calls his “awakening wonders”. He’s made enemies by questioning lockdown measures, vaccine mandates, and the media narrative surrounding the Russian-Ukraine conflict. He often calls out the mainstream media for their hypocrisy. Supporters are inclined to defend or excuse Brand, while opponents are trying to cancel him. YouTube has demonetized Brand’s channels, which is an action usually reserved for when the allegations are proven in court. The UK House of Commons Media Committee has asked Rumble to do likewise, but Rumble has refused. Rumble’s CEO, Chris Pavlovski, said they would not “join a cancel culture mob” or demonetize Brand’s channel “based solely on these media accusations.” Now people are trying to cancel Rumble. Some corporations have pulled their ads from the Rumble platform, including Burger King, ASOS, and HelloFresh. A lot of this is reminiscent of the #MeToo movement that shook things up back in 2017. #MeToo was largely the product of a single tweet sent in the wake of revelations regarding Harvey Weinstein’s sexual crimes. Alyssa Milano encouraged spreading the hashtag #MeToo to draw attention to sexual assault and harassment. Milano tweeted her idea on October 15th. October 16th the hashtag had been tweeted more than 500,000 times, and on Facebook it was used by more than 4.7 million people in 12 million posts. The #MeToo movement encouraged women to come forward with their allegations. In December 2017, Matt Damon created controversy when he said in an ABC News interview that there is a “spectrum” to behavior, that we live in a “culture of outrage”, and that “There’s a difference between patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation. Both of those behaviors need to be confronted and eradicated without question, but they shouldn’t be conflated.” He added, “All of that behavior needs to be confronted, but there is a continuum. On this end of the continuum where you have rape and child molestation or whatever, you know, that’s prison. That’s criminal behavior and it needs to be dealt with that way. The other stuff is just kind of shameful and gross... I just think that we have to start delineating between what these behaviors are.” In response to his comments, Alyssa Milano took to twitter to tell him, “There are different stages of cancer. Some more treatable than others. But it’s still cancer … I have been a victim of each component of the sexual assault spectrum of which you speak. They all hurt. And they are all connected to a patriarchy intertwined with normalized, accepted--even welcomed-- misogyny.” Matt Damon’s ex, Minnie Driver, tweeted, “Gosh it’s so *interesting how men with all these opinions about women’s differentiation between sexual misconduct, assault and rape reveal themselves to be utterly tone deaf and as a result, systemically part of the problem (*profoundly unsurprising)”. Try as he might, Matt Damon could not find a way to articulate the obvious point he was trying to make without inviting further attacks on his character. He eventually apologized for his comments and stopped trying to explain or clarify his position because his efforts were only making things worse. #MeToo movement caused significant embarrassment to Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, who was an ardent supporter. In January 2018, Justin Trudeau proclaimed that “Sexual harassment is a systemic problem and when women speak up, we have a responsibility to listen to them and to believe them.” However, when 18-year-old allegations surfaced against Trudeau, he stopped preaching that women should automatically be believed. Trudeau had attended the Kokanee Summit Festival in August 2000, and a reporter accused him of groping her, quoting Trudeau’s apology where he reportedly said, “If I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I never would have been so forward.”When these allegations resurfaced, Trudeau declared that he didn’t remember any “negative interactions.” Later he declared, “I’ve been reflecting very carefully on what I remember from that incident almost 20 years ago. I do not feel that I acted inappropriately in any way. But I respect the fact that someone else might have experienced that differently.” The ultimate #MeToo moment was the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of attempting to rape her when they were both teenagers. Shortly there-after two other women come forward - Deborah Ramirez and Julie Swetnick. Deborah Ramirez said that during the 1983-84 school year Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a drinking game at Yale University. She testified that she was so drunk she mistakenly thought his penis was a dildo. Before naming Kavanaugh, Ramirez told classmates she could not be certain it was Kavanaugh. The New Yorker sought a witness to confirm Ramirez’s story but could not find any. The only “corroboration” was a guy who claimed he heard about the incident from someone else, and that someone else had no memory of it. Kavanaugh categorically denied the allegation. Julie Swetnick claimed that as a teenager Kavanaugh organized rape-gangs with his buddies at the Georgetown Preparatory School, and that he was present when she was “gang raped” at a party. She said she had been present at many parties where gang rapes occurred prior to becoming a victim of one. Swetnick claimed that there were many witnesses, but none have come forward, and the story she told in a T.V. interview contradicted details in her affidavit. Kavanaugh vehemently denied the accusations, calling them a joke. Christine Blasey Ford testified that Kavanaugh “groped me and tried to take off my clothes,” and that “I believed he was going to rape me.” She said she was 100% certain that it was Kavanaugh. However, Ford could not say when the incident happened, where it happened, how she got there, how she got home, and she gave conflicting information regarding the incident, claiming at one point that there were four boys in the room when it happened, but later claiming that there were only two. Ford never spoke of the event for approximately 30 years, but then had the memory resurface when she was in therapy sessions with her husband. There was no way to verify Ford’s claims regarding Kavanaugh. The FBI investigated, but with no date or location to work off of, the scope of their investigation was quite limited. This led to accusations of a cover-up by Democrats. Kavanaugh categorically denied the allegation. On the strength of these allegations, Brett Kavanaugh had his name dragged through the mud. The ACLU ad compared Kavanaugh to Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton, and he was widely denounced by radical feminists as a serial rapist. His testimony before the Senate was mocked on Saturday Night Live, with Matt Damon playing Kavanaugh. Leftist media pundits presumed he was guilty despite the lack of corroborating evidence. This spawned a backlash from those who believe that the presumption of innocence was being violated. Many regarded these attacks against Kavanaugh as a politically motivated assault on due process and the rule of law. Alyssa Milano was among those publicly condemning Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearing, and this provoked a backlash against her. In 2012, Milano tweeted “Bill Clinton, I love you so much. Like crazy amounts of love.” The allegations against President Bill Clinton were objectively more credible than those made against Kavanaugh, and one of Bill Clinton’s accusers, Juanita Broaddrick, tweeted “Could you give us an update on this tweet @Alyssa_Milano REAL victims of Bill Clinton would like to hear from you or will you continue with your double standard bulls**t?” When questioned on the appearance of a double-standard, Alyssa Milano told CNN’s Chris Cuomo, “I don't think Bill Clinton should've gotten that benefit of the doubt, in hindsight.” Milano added, “we probably should've investigated the allegations against him as well.” Tim Pool (another YouTube influencer with a large audience) has taken a hard stance regarding the Russell Brand allegations. On his Timcast IRL program he’s declared, “I reject all of the accusations and allegations against Russell Brand outright”, adding, “I won’t give the benefit of the doubt. Sorry, not happening.” The justification he offers demonstrates how the #MeToo movement has destroyed its own brand. Pool spoke of how legal authorities have treated Julian Assange, who was “falsely accused”, and how for years Jeffery Epstein “gets away with it and gets protection from the media and the press, and then later it’s like whoops!” A lot of people believe that a double standard is being applied, and Russell Brand may well be the perfect example of it. He was ignored when he was a darling of the Left, including in 2017-18 when the #MeToo movement was most powerful. The media only started to care about Brand when Brand started to speak against their preferred narratives. Tim Pool’s entire complaint concerns the weaponization of allegations to serve political ends. He laments, “There are so many bad people and criminals who are getting away with everything that what we end up seeing is law enforcement chooses to go after certain people when it benefits them politically. That’s the nature of the West today. So, when I see 20-year-old accusations, it’s Brett Kavanaugh all over again. Sorry, I don’t care.” Pool later adds, “I think the weaponization of it is so thick and so intense I’m giving no one the benefit of the doubt.” In this we see the consequences of “believe all women” weaponized to serve political goals. It results in people who will believe no women – because as credible as an individual woman might be, the corrupt nature of the system compels extreme skepticism. I have no trouble believing that ten-to-twenty years ago Russell Brand crossed lines that ought not to have been crossed. The problem is that in the last few years whole institutions have been crossing lines that ought never be crossed, and Russell Brand is one of the key voices working to expose them when they do so. He has hurt their brand, so they’ve tried to destroy his. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

In the lead up to the 1 Million March 4 Children protest, union leaders across Canada appeared to panic. A video leaked of a Zoom meeting that included a lot of labor leaders from Ontario. These union leaders were caught on video describing marchers as “hatful”, “Far-Right”, “Fascists”, “bigots”, homophobes”, “transphobes”, and “Nazis”. The marchers were decried as “fundamentally racist”, and there was talk of taking “control of the messaging”. They discussed using union resources to resist and demoralize concerned parents who were being demonized throughout the 70-minute Zoom call. The video shows union leaders promoting a pretty aggressive form of cultural Marxism. The host of the Zoom call was Rob Halpin (he/him), the executive director for the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL). He informed the participants early in the video that “we won’t be sharing this publicly.” Also present was the OFL President, Patty Coates (she/her), with a trans-rights flag serving as her backdrop. These union bosses talked a lot about kindness, love, and inclusion, yet they were deeply intolerant and contemptuous of any parent or citizen who rejected their ideology regarding sex and gender. They appeared to exist in an ideological echo chamber. There was never a moment in the Zoom meeting when they didn’t use polarizing “us/them” language, and they seemed to presume that all the would-be marchers were motivated by hate and misinformation. Misinformation may well be driving much of this debate over our society’s wholesale embrace of the gender-affirmative model. Many trans-activists seem to imagine that their opinions regarding gender-affirmation and transitioning are well supported by a rich body of social and medical science. The gender-affirmative model is an experimental approach to treating children who manifest gender dysphoria. Its focus is on affirming a child’s gender identity. It does not try to discourage or “repair” it. This approach is child-led, and many of its advocates insist that it is pointless, dehumanizing, cruel and abusive to attempt to gatekeep a child’s medical transition. For trans-teens, transition can often involve taking hormones and puberty blockers, and getting top surgery to enlarge, reduce, or remove one’s breasts. Some teens also pursue bottom surgery. We are often told to trust “the science”, but this presumes that “the science” is trustworthy. An essential element of the scientific method is reproducibility, yet many social and medical studies can’t be reproduced. Indeed, a 2016 survey found that over 70% of researchers who have tried to reproduce another scientist's experiments simply failed in the attempt, and more than half could not reproduce the results of their own experiments. This has been called the “replication crisis”. When studies can’t be relied upon, many choose to embrace a consensus-based model to inform their opinion. The first problem is that the consensus is formed through a reliance on studies that can’t be relied upon. All the experts could be influenced by the same small sampling of studies, there being little else to inform their opinion. Moreover, few experts are inclined to doubt a study’s conclusion when it supports what they presume to be true. Many of them are predisposed to believing “the science”, so they often mistakenly presume that others have done their due diligence in evaluating the various studies that an ideology relies upon. Perhaps the greatest problem with the consensus-based model is that a consensus can be manufactured. Ideologies can be very persuasive, especially if one opinion is the only one being encountered day-to-day. Contrarians can be bullied into silence or bribed into switching sides. Demonstrably false ideologies can capture whole institutions. Those advocating a consensus-based model often presume that if most people say a stupid thing, it somehow ceases to be stupid. Indeed, these advocates often end up labelling as stupid anyone who rejects the consensus. We see this with those who insist that climate change is an existential crisis, or who advocated for mask-mandates, or who insisted that the mRNA vaccines were safe and effective. Those holding contrarian views on these issues aren’t just regarded as wrong; they’re vilified. The gender affirming approach relies on a consensus-based model and a few observational studies, and the selective nature of the studies that have been done don’t properly represent the realities playing out in clinics and classrooms. For children who have gender dysphoria, it remains unclear what treatment options offer the best outcomes. For everyone else, it remains unclear what impact affirmation efforts will have on them. The Dutch Protocol was developed in the Netherlands over twenty-years ago. It encourages the affirmation of the child’s desire to change their gender and involves the use of puberty blockers in treating gender dysphoria. Annelou deVries was the lead author of two Dutch studies that helped legitimize this gender-affirmative approach for trans-youth worldwide (deVries et al. 2011 and deVries et al. 2014). These Dutch studies found that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery effectively transformed young bodies and left patients satisfied with their appearance. However, both studies suffered from some serious methodological issues. The 2011 study focused on puberty blockers and carefully selected 70 cases from a larger pool of those who had completed their regiment of blockers and were ready to start cross-sex hormones. The structure of this study deliberately excluded anyone who developed problems while on puberty blockers, or who discontinue the treatment for other reasons. In evaluating whether the Dutch Protocol produces healthy outcomes, the 2011 deVries study begins by disqualifying cases where the outcomes have already proved to be problematic. The 2014 study examined these same patients as they continued their process through to surgery. However, 15 patients were dropped from the study. Some dropped because the treatment developed negative outcomes, including obesity and diabetes. There was also one death. The study did not evaluate the risk that hormones impair bone or brain development, a link that has long been hypothesized. The only clinically significant improvement identified in the 2014 study was the “disappearance” of gender dysphoria post-surgery. However, the study switched the female to male (and vice versa) in their before and after questionnaires, so the entire scoring mechanism was essentially reversed. A gender-incongruent patient answering the same question in the same way could easily register an immediate drop in their gender dysphoria score. This was then recorded as a positive outcome, though nothing may have changed. Replication is supposed to be the bedrock of scientific analysis, but almost no attempts have been made to replicate the Dutch studies. In the United Kingdom, Polly Carmichael led a team that tried to replicate the 2011 Dutch study, but the researchers failed to produce positive results, concluding that there was “no measurable benefit nor harm to psychological function in these young people”. Their analysis states, “This is in contrast to the Dutch study which reported improved psychological function across total problems.” In 2022, the advocates of affirmation celebrated the findings of a Seattle-based research study that was led by Diana Tordoff, a Postdoctoral Scholar with The PRIDE Study at Stanford University's School of Medicine. Tordoff’s team found that gender reassignment brings rapid benefits in the first year of treatment, reducing depression by an astonishing 60% and lowered suicide ideation by 73%. However, the rates of depression in the treated group didn’t change nearly as much as claimed. In the treatment group, the rate fell from 59% to 56%. The 60% claim derives from the fact that the untreated group saw their mental health deteriorate significantly against the pre-treatment baseline, with 86% suffering depression. Tordoff concluded that treatment prevented a worsening of one’s mental health, reducing depression by 60%. However, the data was incomplete. 80% of the untreated participants dropped out of the study before reaching the one-year mark. In contrast, 80% of those treated remained. These flaws and others are discussed at length in “The Myth of ‘Reliable Research’ in Pediatric Gender Medicine: A critical evaluation of the Dutch Studies—and research that has followed”, by E. Abbruzzese, Stephen B. Levine, and Julia W. Mason. Many health professionals want medical practices that follow evidence-based medicine (EBA). EBA recognizes that there is a hierarchy regarding the quality of information, with some sources being more reliable than others. The opinion of doctors would rank higher than the opinion of union bosses, but EBA still regards a doctor’s opinion as low-quality information. Observational studies, like those produced by deVries and Tordoff, are deemed to be slightly better. EBA has a dim view of the consensus-based approach, and instead favors systemic reviews which they regard as furnishing the highest degree of reliability. Systematic reviews don’t cherry-pick studies looking for desired outcomes. They look at all the available studies and carefully evaluate each study based on factors that might impact on its reliability. The systemic reviews tend to highlight a tremendous degree of uncertainty regarding the efficacy of gender-affirming treatments. Their findings are leading many nations to rethink their support of gender-affirming care. Sweden, Finland, France and the United Kingdom have all done U-turns, urging an abundance of caution and the need for tight restrictions on the use of hormones to treat adolescent children. England’s National Health Service (NHS) is the second largest single-payer healthcare system in the world. In 2022, after a systemic review, the NHS issued new draft guidance for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors, rejecting the “gender-affirming” approach, which it had previously endorsed. The NHS now regards social transition as a form of psychosocial intervention, and states that it is not a neutral act as it may have significant effects on psychological functioning. This shift by the NHS seems primarily driven by dramatically rising rates of young people being referred to clinics for gender-realignment services. It remains unclear why there has been such a dramatic increase in the number of children manifesting gender-dysphoria and gender-incongruence, and its possible that the affirmation paradigm - and its prevalence in schools and on social media platforms - could be a contributing factor. The NHS decision highlights the lack of scientific evidence supporting clinical decisions and reflects on the deterioration in the quality of care being offered due to the clinics being overwhelmed. The NHS is now strongly discouraging social gender transition in prepubertal children, and those children who are to receive hormone treatments will be prospectively enrolled into a research study so that the NHS can gather evidence regarding the benefits and harms associated with this intervention. The union leaders on that leaked Zoom call were odious in their absolute certainty that they were the good guys doing what was best for kids. I saw a lot of troubling conduct that might suggest that they weren’t, but I know that, ultimately, time will tell the story. Many jurisdictions are turning away from the gender-affirming approach after years of supporting it. They are being persuaded by new studies and the findings of systematic reviews. They are expressing uncertainty and calling for caution. Perhaps twenty years from now we’ll have a better picture of who the good guys were in this struggle. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

In terms of how best to treat a child with gender dysphoria, there are two dominant approaches – the gender affirming model, and what might best be described as a wait-and-see approach. In Canada, the affirmative model has become the standard approach adopted by many pediatrician clinics and educational systems, but it is not an approach supported by Canada’s most credentialed expert on treating children with gender dysphoria – Dr. Kenneth Zucker. Dr. Kenneth Zucker has published almost 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals, has been cited over 2000 times, and has produced a number of books, including Gender Identity Disorder and Psychosexual Problems in Children and Adolescents (1995). When the American Psychiatric Association began compiling the DSM-V in 2007, Dr. Zucker was selected to head the sexual and gender identity disorders section. The DSM-V was published in 2013. Dr. Zucker was also named Editor-in-Chief of Archives of Sexual Behavior in 2001. He served as the Psychologist-in-Chief at Toronto's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and has treated more than 650 children in his Gender Identity Clinic. He is controversial. When he was appointed to the DSM-V working group, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force quested the decision. Pro-affirming activists believe they understand the science better than Dr. Zucker, and they organized to shut his clinic down, saying that Dr. Zucker was trying to “convert” children who were transgender, leading them to accept their phenotypic sex. They went as far as to claim he was practicing “conversion therapy”, which Canada banned in 2022. Dr. Zucker refutes that allegation, and the American Psychiatric Association has declared that Dr. Zucker does not advocate conversion for transgender adults and opposes it for gay people under all circumstances. The allegation stems from his “wait-and-see” approach to treating transgender youth. Dr. Zucker has declared that parents set the goals for treatment at his clinic, and he has expressed a belief that preventing children from becoming transgender adults was an appropriate and ethical goal. He has also expressed the belief that socialization plays a major role in the formation of a trans identity and the decision to transition. In his clinic Dr. Zucker promoted an approach that was developed by gender identity researchers in the Netherlands and that is popular in Europe. This approach doesn't try to direct cross-gender expression, and it doesn't encourage early transitioning in most cases. It contrasts sharply with the gender-affirming approach, which prioritizes a child's right to define their own gender identity. The gender-affirming approach validates the child’s gender dysphoria, and often favors the early use of puberty-blockers, hormone therapies, and cosmetic surgeries. The most common surgical intervention among transgender teens is a bilateral mastectomy, and in Canada this surgery is performed on teens as young as 14. An example of Dr. Zucker’s approach to therapy is provided by Carol and her eldest son. When Carol's eldest son was four years old, he would dream he was a girl and sob when he woke up as a boy. Carol, a Toronto woman who works in education, says she and her husband had always honoured his preferences for stereotypically “girl” movies, toys and clothes, but incidents of bullying by some older boys worried them, and school was proving tricky, so, in 2007, they went to see Dr. Zucker. After lengthy family interviews and tests, Dr. Zucker laid out his recommended treatment. As Dr. Zucker explained it to Carol, his theory was to help kids value the “body they have.” It meant helping her son see that ”you may want to be a girl, but it's okay to be a boy.” Carol says she and her husband had only one agenda for their son: “It was 100 per cent about his happiness.” For the next year they visited the clinic twice a week, and then roughly once a week for nearly three years after that. Their son would have play therapy while Carol and her husband would meet with Dr. Zucker. Dr. Zucker told Carol that her son would most likely be gay, and that therapy was not working to change sexual orientation but to create a more “fluid” understanding of gender. They slowly took away the dolls and pink toys, with their son choosing which ones went first. According to Carol, her son was diagnosed as gifted and received help for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder after the clinic's assessment diagnosed it. His school situation improved and he made friends. Dr. Zucker always cautioned them to resist too much accommodation from his teachers: “Don't let the school make him a poster child,” Carol recalls him saying. “Don't let them parade him around for pink assemblies. This is his personal journey and we don't know where he is going to end up.” As Carol saw it, no direction was being prescribed – if her son still wanted to be a girl as he got older Dr. Zucker said hormone therapy was an option. “The work we did was centered around the whole idea that they are kind of young to make a decision, and if they are going to want to transition, we will know.” Carol believes that Dr. Zucker's advice worked for her son, who at the time of the interview was a popular gay 13-year-old who no longer talked about wanting to be a girl, though Carol says they are careful not to assume his path is set. “The biggest and most important thing I hold on to as a mother, was that when he was young, he would never talk about his future, never talk about himself as an adult.” Now, she says, he is making plans. “This was a healthy outcome for us.” She gives Dr. Zucker the credit: “I know the positive impact his therapy had on the culture of our family.” In December, 2015, Dr. Kenneth Zucker was summarily dismissed and his clinic shut down by the CAMH because affirmation advocates were complaining about his practices. The CAMH conducted a review of the clinic, and while the review found no evidence that Dr. Zucker was attempting to influence the gender identity of children, the clinic was deemed “overly conservative” and “out of step with emerging practices.” In December, 2017, the CBC cancelled the planned broadcast of a BBC documentary Transgender Kids: Who Knows Best? because pro-affirming activists accused the film of being “transphobic” and “harmful”. A prior investigation by the BBC had judged the film to be impartial, but activists complained that it was “biased towards the denial of trans+ children” because those seen as advocating this position appeared more credible than the ones appearing in opposition. The film prominently featured Dr. Zucker, and he drew the most criticism. In the film he declares that “Little kids can present with extreme gender dysphoria, but that doesn’t mean they’re all going to grow up to continue to have gender dysphoria.” Dr. Zucker quotes the DSM-V assertion (which he helped write) that approximately 80% of children exhibiting gender dysphoria will desist and become comfortable with their bodies after undergoing puberty. Critics dispute this claim, saying that the figure comes from flawed studies. The film featured pro-affirmation advocates, including Dr. Norman Spack, a pioneer of hormone replacement therapy for minors. Dr. Spack promotes gender transitions before a child’s body becomes shaped by the effects of puberty. The film also featured Dr. Hershel Russell, a Toronto psychotherapist who accused Dr. Zucker of practicing “reparative therapy”, saying, “The people doing it don’t use those words — that’s their problem”. Critics accused the documentary of lifting up the views of a “discredited” academic. Ultimately, Dr. Zucker was vindicated – sort-of. In 2018, Zucker prevailed in his lawsuit against his critics in the CAMH. The CAMH apologized to Zucker and agreed to pay him $586,000 in damages, legal fees, and interest – though the CAMH said it stood by its decision to close the child and youth gender identity clinic. According to the DSM-V, most children who experience gender dysphoria will grow up to identify with a gender that matches their biological sex. The DSM-V section on Gender Dysphoria (page 455) states that “Rates of persistence of gender dysphoria from childhood into adolescence or adulthood vary. In natal males, persistence has ranged from 2.2% to 30%. In natal females, persistence has ranged from 12% to 50%.” If it’s true that 75+ percent of pre-pubertal children with gender dysphoria will experience resolution by late adolescence, this is very significant, and warrants serious consideration. However, proponents of gender-affirming programs downplay the importance of this. The DSM-V also declares that for boys whose gender dysphoria does not persist, over 63% will self-identify as gay, while for girls the rate of self-identification as lesbians is lower, ranging from 32% to 50%. If it is true that 25 % will persist in their gender dysphoria as young adults, these 25% will probably be worse off for not having been affirmed so early, but the other 75% will probably be better off – especially as they will not have begun hormone treatments that have numerous serious health effects and will eventually leave them sterilized for life. Whether the benefits to the few outweigh the harm to the many is not something easily resolved. Currently, there is no medical or psychological test to determine which child will persist in their gender dysphoria as young adults. Children with gender dysphoria who persist in their gender dysphoria beyond puberty are more likely to also persist into adulthood. This is why Dr. Zucker regards it reasonable to affirm children who persist in their gender dysphoria beyond puberty, as well as those who present after puberty, and to proceed with cross-sex hormones after the child has reached 16 years of age. In contrast, proponents of gender theory often promote the use of hormone-blockers for prepubertal children. These can be administrated to children as young as 8 or 9 provided there is parental consent. People may think that Dr. Zucker is mistaken in some of his assumptions, or that his approach is outdated, but I don’t think one can reasonably dismiss him as a man motivated in his opinions by hatred towards the LGBTQ+ community. Dr. Zucker quarreled with the advocates of affirmation because he believed their approach is harmful, and that his is helpful. When thousands marched in the Millions March 4 Children, the advocates of affirmation rushed to vilify them. The collective body of marchers were denounced as hateful bigots, homophobes and transphobes, alt-right fascists, and conspiracy loons. I suspect that most of marchers were mislabeled. I suspect that most of them were people of goodwill who simply believe that the affirmation approach is harmful to children. A lot of energy and resources were expended to demonize the marchers. I personally wish that a little more was expended actually listening to them and considering their concerns - but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. After all, if Dr. Zucker with all his credentials and expertise could be so easily maligned and ignored, what hope do laymen have? Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

Timothy Knight, Chilliwack B.C., September 18, 2023 On September 20th, 2023, many Canadians are going to participate in the 1 Million March 4 Children. I don’t know if a million will march, but I anticipate that, whatever number take to the streets, vitriol shall flow like a river. The march has been organized by Kamel El-Cheikh, a Muslim activist, businessman, and resident of Ottawa who has grown concerned with schools “indoctrinating and sexualizing children with LGBT ideology”. According to the organizers, “Parents have had enough of secrets, exclusion in the name of inclusion, blatant overreach by schools, co-parenting with our governments, sexually explicit materials in schools, accusations of hate and abuse, reprimand for speaking the truth … We will stand up for our kids. #LeaveOurKidsAlone.” Counterprotests are also being organized. Community Solidarity Ottawa says that “While they claim to be in support of ‘parental rights,’ this is nothing more than yet another anti-2SLGBTQIA+ hate rally.” Antihate.ca called the march a “big tent of far-right and conspiratorial groups, including Christian Nationalists, COVID-19 conspiracy theorists, sovereign citizens, and anti-public education activists.” On September 14th, 2023, Clint Johnston, the President of the BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF), published a letter that labelled the march “as part of a co-ordinated attack on LGBTQ2S+ community members”, saying the movement uses “parental consent” as a “dog whistle for rising homophobia and transphobia”, and proclaiming that this movement “is concerning and must be stopped”. The letter declares that the movement is “misguided” and “ignorant”. When it comes to homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgender identities, there is very little that is not supremely contentious. As one approaches the various relevant issues, one inevitably risks falling into a quagmire of myopic opinions that proliferate on both sides of the false dichotomies polarizing debate. Invariably, both sides will define the issue as a moral one. If you possess the “wrong opinion”, it is because you are immoral – although maybe you are merely ignorant. The rationality, the motive, and the intention of the ones guilty of wrong think are generally disregarded. The issues at play here are complex. It should be obvious to anyone who delves into this quagmire that the issues are complex – yet even saying that the issues are complex invites rebuke, because to some, the issues are extraordinarily simple. The tendency is to regard the other as being malicious in their motives. Are educators indoctrinating (or grooming) children, or are they merely working to combat bullying and helping the most vulnerable members of a school community to feel included and celebrated? Are marchers motivated by hatred towards the LGBTQ+ community, or are they motivated by love for their children and an earnest desire to protect them? One might presume that each side regards their own motives and actions as virtuous. Each side believes they are acting to protect children, yet both sides accuse the other of abusing children. Much of the trouble stems from a breakdown in communication and confusion over the meaning of words. Decisions that directly impact on children are being made without parental consent, and many parents feel like their concerns are simply being ignored. They have been offered no opportunity to present their concerns and negotiate changes to the programs and policies transforming their school communities. In 2017, as debate about SOGI 123 was heating up in Chilliwack, Clint Johnston wrote a letter to the editor regarding the attempts of some school board trustees to discuss the SOGI policies and its curricular resources. Johnston was then the Second Vice-President of the BCTF, and he wrote that “there is no more discussion needed or possible. This is a Ministerial mandate with Ministry-approved and developed resources. This is a legal obligation of the school board centered on the BC Human Rights Code.” At the time, most parents in B.C. had not yet heard of SOGI 123. Angelina Ireland (a parent from Vancouver) said at the time that the implementation of SOGI 123 trampled on her rights as a parent to decide whether her kids learn about sexual orientation and gender identity. She declared, “Parental rights are being eroded. The Ministry of Education goes behind parents’ back and does not ask for permission … before they start discussing very mature subjects”. To evaluate the validity of the competing claims, one has to consider examples of the sorts of lessons taking place in the schools. One lesson, which has been an approved BCTF resource since 2016, is titled Learning About Our Bodies, and is meant for a K-3 audience (ages 4-8). The lesson’s overview reads “This activity helps children learn to integrate the sexual parts of their bodies with the rest of their bodies. The activity reinforces that the child is the owner of his/her body and must take responsibility for it. The teacher acknowledges that the private parts of the body are often ignored or given silly names, then provides the correct names. Next the children are given an opportunity to draw male and female external genitals on outline figures. The teacher makes clear that these parts are private, that they may feel good when they are touched, that touching is done only in private, and that, except for health reasons, no one has the right to touch someone else's private parts without permission.” The lesson is accompanied by a picture of a smiling girl holding a sign that reads “MY BODY BELONGS TO ME”. The lesson requires the use of two simple outlines of children, one with a vulva, one with a penis, scrotum, and testicles, each of which are covered with a bathing suit attached with tape. After naming non-private parts of the body, the bathing suits will be removed to reveal to students these private parts, first for the girl, then for the boy. Students will be given a worksheet with two simple body outlines, and told to give these bodies a face, hair, breasts, a belly button or naval, and finally, to draw a penis and testicles on the boy, and a vulva on the girl. The teacher is then supposed to write in the names of each body part, asking students to name them, and the children are encouraged to show their work to their parents. The lesson has attached to it a few links to other resources that address sexual and reproductive health, sexual orientation, and gender identity. These resources include www.scarleteen.com, which has sexuality and relationship content meant for teens and emerging adults. The website has a recent advice piece titled “How can I learn about kink as a minor”, and offers advice – which the site calls “quickies” – regarding things like “lube” and “masturbation”. A lesson like this invites a lot of different perspectives and mixed reactions. Some parents are pleased that this type of sexual education is starting this early. They see value in such a lesson. The Big Idea of the lesson is “Knowing about our bodies and making healthy choices helps us look after ourselves”, and the core competency it addresses is listed as “Personal Awareness and Responsibility: Well-being.” Other parents worry that kindergarten is too early for such a lesson, that the content is too mature for them, and they would rather that their children’s learning focus on the three R’s (reading, writing, and arithmetic – and yes, only one of these actually starts with an R). In terms of protecting students, one can presume that teaching young children that private parts “are usually covered by clothes or a bathing suit and that, except for health reasons, you have the right to decide who can touch them — because they are private” might help sexually abused children to recognize if they are being abused, and to perhaps report it to an adult who can intervene appropriately. However, there is a danger in teaching children that their private parts “may feel good when they are touched”, that it should only be done in private, and then suggesting to children that they can consent to being touched in these areas. Another major issue of contention involves Drag Queens reading stories to children. When they first appeared, these events were held at public-libraries, and parents had to voluntarily bring their children. In Ontario, these events are now taking place in public elementary schools, and some people are trying to make attendance at these events mandatory for all students. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) currently allows parents to opt-out of drag queen story time (students attend other activities while the event happens). However, allowing this opt-out clause has been decried by some activists as “hateful”, “outrageous”, and “dangerous”. They claim that it violates the Ontario Human Rights Code. Rico Rodriguez teaches in the TDSB. He is also a drag queen. He told the Toronto Star that “All the work that I have done myself personally and that others did before me has been destroyed, just by that statement that you can opt out, and that’s not right.” Others are incensed that these events are happening at all, and the number of PRIDE oriented events taking place alarms them. PRIDE parades are now taking place inside schools during school hours. Michael Higgins, writing for the National Post, declares that “For the left, it’s always a matter of black or white, never an acknowledgement that perhaps tolerance can go in more than one direction; you either opt-in or you’re out; you’re either with us or against us; it’s either our way or the highway to hell. But life isn’t like that. It’s never black or white. Life is lived among the greys; it’s a matter of negotiation and compromise because it’s messy, unpredictable, capricious and erratic.” People appear to have very different opinions regarding what “inclusion” and “diversity” mean. A teacher at Londonderry School in Edmonton was recorded by a Muslim student sharing her opinion on what inclusion entailed. She admonished the student for skipping a PRIDE event, saying, “If you want to be respected for who you are, if you don’t want to suffer prejudice for your religion, your colour of skin, your whatever, then you better give it back to people who are different than you. That’s how it works. It’s an exchange.” She then elaborated, “As I told you, in Uganda, literally if they think you’re gay, they will execute you. If you believe that kind of thing, then you don’t belong here. Because that is not what Canada believes. We believe in freedom. We believe that people can marry whomever they want. That is in the law. And if you don’t think that should be the law, you can’t be Canadian. You don’t belong here, and I mean it.” Inclusion must enable opinions of dissent, or it isn’t inclusion – but that’s just my opinion. That said, I actually agree very much with something the Londonberry teacher proclaimed. If you want to be respected for who you are, it is an exchange. It must be a reciprocal relationship. I think so much of the trouble we face today is because too many people have ignored this. They demand respect while issuing insults. I’m not sure it is possible for our society to escape all this vitriol and engage in a civil discussion regarding our differing perspectives and aspirations. So instead, we’ll have marches, and counter protests, and accusations of hatred, and counter allegations of grooming and indoctrination, and a stubborn refusal to negotiate, mediate, or re-evaluate.

Recently, Conservative delegates gathered in Quebec City to hear speeches and discuss party policies, and one key take away from this gathering is that Liberals want to re-open the abortion debate. Marci Ien is a Liberal MP and Trudeau’s Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth. On September 8, 2023, she tweeted “45 feminist organizations showed up today in Quebec to send a powerful message: a women’s right to choose is not up for debate. We couldn’t agree more.” Grammatical error aside, this is a clear statement regarding the Liberals position on abortion. They support it at any stage of a pregnancy and for any reason, and the issue is not up for debate. Conservative delegates were not debating a policy question concerning abortion. Pierre Poilievre, the party’s leader, is pro-choice, and while the party does have some pro-life MPs, the Conservative Party has the same official opinion on the issue as do the Liberals, and the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois, and the Greens. The Conservative Party’s policy statement on abortion is very succinct: “A Conservative Government will not support any legislation to regulate abortion”. Liberals say this issue is not up for debate, yet they keep bringing it up because they know that any debate on abortion will divide Conservatives and hurt them at the polls. The Liberals also know that Canadians equate the Conservatives with the Republicans south of the border. In the United States, republicans mostly champion pro-life legislation, and a lot of republicans celebrated the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Many in Canada regard abortion as an issue that was settled by the Supreme Court in 1988, but this belief isn’t correct. Historically, Canadian law protected the unborn, but Canada’s protection of the unborn began to unravel in 1969 when Justice Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau amended section 251 of the Criminal Code to allow abortions to be legally performed at accredited hospitals and with approval from the hospital’s Therapeutic Abortion Committee. Dr. Henry Morgentaler spearheaded the legal challenge of these rules. In his abortion clinic in Montreal, Morgentaler performed thousands of illegal abortions in defiance of the law. Morgentaler argued that the law forced women seeking an abortion to self-induce or turn to quack doctors (which risked the lives of women), and that unwanted children were often given away to institutions where they suffered enormous trauma, leaving them “anxious, depressed individuals with a grudge against society.” Morgentaler was charged and tried multiple times for defying Canada’s federal abortion law, but juries acquitted him. No one questioned whether Morgentaler had broken the law, but juries refused to enforce the law, first in Quebec, and then in Ontario. Both Quebec and Ontario tried to imprison Morgentaler by appealing these jury acquittals, and in 1988 the Supreme Court of Canada weighed in with its opinions. The Supreme Court ruled 5-2 that the federal abortion law violated section 7 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Section 7 says that “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice”. This ruling nullified Morgentaler’s conviction. Five judges offered three different opinions for striking down the law that restricted abortions. Justice Dickerson found that Section 251 forced some women to carry a fetus irrespective of her own “priorities and aspirations”, calling this an infringement of the security of the person. Justice Dickerson also argued that the Therapeutic Abortion Committee process was often unfair and arbitrary, and the delay it created put women at a higher risk of physical and mental harm. Justice Wilson argued that “The decision whether to terminate a pregnancy is essentially a moral decision, a matter of conscience. I do not think there is or can be any dispute about that. The question is: whose conscience? Is the conscience of the woman to be paramount or the conscience of the state? I believe, for the reasons I gave in discussing the right to liberty, that in a free and democratic society it must be the conscience of the individual.” These opinions notably omitted any analysis of whether the fetus has any rights protected by the Charter (like the “right to life”), leading many to conclude that, as far as the Supreme Court of Canada was concerned, a fetus has no rights. In 1990, Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government introduced Bill C-43, which would enable doctors to be sentenced to two-year jail-terms for providing abortions when a woman's health was not at risk. This would have criminalized the abortion providers, not the women who sought abortions (and historically there have been almost no cases of women being legally punished for getting an abortion), but the bill died in the Senate after a tie vote, leaving Canada without any federal legislation governing abortion. Provinces then began to quarrel with the courts over whether they had to allow abortions in clinics, or fund them. A 1995 amendment to the Canada Health Act declared that abortions were an essential medical service covered by health insurance. Whether they occur in clinics or hospitals is up to the provinces to decide. Today, section 223 of the Criminal Code says that a child becomes a human being only when it has completely proceeded, in a living state, from the body of its mother. Only full birth qualifies a person. This is done for legal reasons, since it is difficult to balance the rights of a mother and the rights of the baby that inhabits her body. It is easier, legally, to grant no rights to the fetus. On July 1st, 2008, Morgentaler was awarded the Order of Canada (Canada’s highest civilian award) for his “commitment to increased health care options for women, his determined efforts to influence Canadian public policy and his leadership in humanist and civil liberties organizations.” This was very controversial, resulting in several other Order of Canada members returning their emblems and leaving the Order because they did not want any association with Morgentaler. One year earlier, many Canadians voted in Beaver Magazine’s poll regarding who was the worst Canadian. Morgentaler finished 3rd in the poll, trailing after punk rocker Chris Hannah (whom many voted for as a joke), and former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, who “won”. The climate in Ottawa empowers politicians to proclaim themselves pro-choice and punishes politicians who refuse to do so. This is especially true within the Liberal Party itself. Prior to 2014, the Liberals had no party position on abortion, regarding it as a matter of conscience that should be left to each individual. Justin Trudeau had initially said that the beliefs of incumbent MPs would be “respected to a certain extent”. However, he soon realized that respecting their beliefs was irreconcilable with his beliefs, so he decreed that all his MPs were required to vote pro-choice in the House of Commons, no matter their personal thoughts or feelings. Clifford Lincoln, a former MP from Quebec, declared that Trudeau’s decision was “a fundamental departure from Liberal Party tradition. It is doctrinaire, judgmental and, in my modest view, the antithesis of liberalism.” Without warning, and only after he secured the leadership of the party, Trudeau decided to impose his opinion onto every one of his candidates and MPs. Pro-life candidates would not get past his vetting procedures, and incumbent MPs were expected to bend-the-knee. Pro-life Liberals were simply purged from the party. For the Conservatives, the issue is divisive, which is why recent leaders have worked hard to avoid the issue. This was the tactic first embraced by Stephen Harper, and it was adopted by his successor, Andrew Scheer, even though both men professed to being pro-life. So, the issue is settled, but not because of a 1988 Supreme Court ruling. There is simply no appetite to reopen this debate amongst most of Canada’s political class. Canada is the only county in the Western world that has no law restricting abortion, permitting it at any stage of a pregnancy and for any reason. Every party with a seat in parliament supports maintaining this status-quo. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

Someone close to me asked the other day, “Did you hear that PETA says drinking milk is an expression of White Supremacy?” I had not heard. It sounded like a Babylon Bee headline, yet it also sounded like something PETA might actually say. The person insisted that it was real, so I investigated. The story is actually a few years old. On March 7, 2017, Zachary Toliver posted an essay titled “Why Cow’s Milk Is the Perfect Drink for Supremacists”. In it, Toliver says that White Supremacists have embraced dairy milk as a “symbol of white supremacy”. Toliver wasn’t really interested in discussing White Supremacy. This was just his hook. The PETA author knew he could capitalize on a couple scenes in movies like Get Out and Inglorious Bastards, and some mocking behavior by non-fictional figures like Richard Spence (whose Twitter profile once proudly displayed a milk emoji, along with the declaration, “I’m very tolerant… lactose tolerant!”) The headline was clickbait, and it worked. Much of the attention the article received was ridicule, but numerous media outlets reported about it, and some academics even defended the claim as having some merit. In 2009, I was watching President Obama on CNBC, and during the interview the President swatted a fly. “PETA not going to like this”, I said jokingly. That night I saw a news report about how PETA had criticized the President for swatting a fly, and I rolled my eyes at their insanity. Though it wasn’t insanity. It was PETA being consistent with their overriding message and capitalizing on a moment to advance their cause. People were mostly mocking PETA’s response, but it gave PETA a chance to proselytize. PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said “We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals,” and PETA representative Alisa Mullins wrote, “Believe it or not, we’ve actually been contacted by multiple media outlets wanting to know PETA’s official response to the executive insect execution. In a nutshell, our position is this: He isn’t the Buddha, he’s a human being, and human beings have a long way to go before they think before they act.” PETA sent the President a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher to assist him in his future dealings with exoskeletal beings. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was founded in 1980 by Ingrid Newkirk, and it has become the most recognizable animal rights group in the world. Newkirk claimed “When it comes to feelings, a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. There is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights.” Newkirk is also famous for saying, “Thinkers may prepare revolutions, but bandits must carry them out”. PETA is a nonprofit corporation with nearly 400 employees and over 9 million members and supporters. Its core belief is that “Animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.” PETA directs the bulk of its energy towards four issues – factory farming, fur farming, animal testing, and the use of animals in entertainment. It also champions the vegan lifestyle. PETA has many critics. Some more radical elements of the animal rights movement believe that PETA’s media stunts trivialize animal rights, and that it is more an animal welfare group than a true animal rights group. Some feminists have criticized PETA’s anti-fur campaigns for its use of scantily clad or naked women, and PETA has faced criticism for distributing a children’s comic book entitled Your Mommy Kills Animals. Nude celebrities and provocative comic books are obvious attempts to grab headlines and increase exposure. People will mock them for their stunts, but some part of PETA’s message will muddle through the media filters that reject stories more banal in nature. When Zachary Toliver states that cow’s milk is the perfect drink for supremacists, he wasn’t talking about White Supremacist. He declared, “cow’s milk really is the perfect drink of choice for all (even unwitting) supremacists, since the dairy industry inflicts extreme violence on other living beings.” He goes on to declare, “Rape is perhaps the single most heinous crime involving both power and violence. But it’s standard procedure in the dairy industry.” He describes how the industry restrains cows on “rape racks” and shoves insemination instruments into them, and how at slaughterhouses “their throats are slit while they’re still conscious and some are skinned or dismembered while still alive.” Toliver uses inflammatory language to shock people out of their complacency. His argument is convoluted, but his closing appeal is simple enough. “Might Doesn’t Make Right,” he proclaims, adding “If you feel that all life should be free of violent control, choose soy, almond, rice, cashew, or coconut milk the next time that you go shopping or order coffee. With so many different types of cruelty-free, delicious milks on the market, opposing supremacists has never been easier.” His argument had nothing to do with race. It was about the violence one species visits onto another, and I am somewhat sympathetic to the argument he is trying to make. On this issue, I find myself aligning with two of the great Enlightenment thinkers, John Locke and Immanuel Kant. Locke argued that animals have feelings, so unnecessary cruelty towards them was morally wrong, and Kant argued that cruelty towards animals was wrong because it was bad for us. He said, “cruelty to animals is contrary to man's duty to himself, because it deadens in him the feeling of sympathy for their sufferings, and thus a natural tendency that is very useful to morality in relation to other human beings is weakened.” There is a lot of cruelty involved in factory farming, and some of it is unnecessary. I would like to see us adopt a more humane approach, but I am also sympathetic to market realities, and don’t want meat and dairy products to become too expensive for low and middle-class citizens to afford. I can sympathize with PETA’s ambitions and appreciate the reason they produce provocative messages, but I don’t think the answer is for everybody to go vegan, and I’m disinclined to do so myself. Is it immoral to consume meat and dairy products? I don’t believe so, but I also don’t intend to ridicule those who believe otherwise. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.