In 1776, in a work titled Common Sense, Thomas Paine declared that “society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.” Some level of government is always going to be necessary, but governments tend to have a lot of bad tendencies. They become intolerable when they assume too much power with too little accountability. In the Shuswap region of British Columbia, people have a lot of cause to question the benevolence of government agencies that are supposed to serve and protect them. Many have been ruined by fire, and others are in danger of being ruined by water. On August 17th, 2023, a bushfire erupted in size, consuming many residential homes in the region. 270 structures were destroyed, and residents have a lot of questions. Stef and Jorne Weibe gave an interview to Drea Humphrey, the B.C. Bureau Chief Reporter for Rebel News, discussing their frustrations that the fire that burned down their town was “arson”. The fire had been deliberately set by the B.C. Wildfire Service. Stef Weibe said that they had been monitoring the Adams Lake fire, which was 12 kilometers away, and he took the day off work to fortify his home and others against the expected threat as predicted winds were deemed likely to shift the fire in their direction. They expected local residents to have a day to prepare, and he used the time that was available to get their son, dogs, and Stef’s mother out of harms way. They also prepped sprinklers, topping up cisterns, and used a backhoe to widen gaps between the trees and their homes. However, unbeknownst to the Weibe family, the B.C. Wildfire Service ignited a backburn much closer to their house, maybe a kilometer and half away, and then the B.C. Wildfire Service lost control of their own fire. This was the fire that claimed many homes in the area. Stef and Jorne Weibe managed to save their home and the homes of some neighbors, creating a containment wall that preserved about 15 structures, but the bushfire blew past them and burned down half their town. They contend that cops set up roadblocks that hampered the efforts of local residents. Regarding the B.C. Wildfire Service, Stef Weibe exclaims, “They weren’t doing anything to stop the fire or help in any way. All they were doing was trying to chase everybody out of the area and they were watching homes burn down”, adding, “they didn’t effectively do anything against this fire.” The B.C. Wildfire Service posted a notice about the planned backburn at a gas station approximately 10 kilometers from the Weibe’s house. This was at 3 pm, a couple of hours before erratic winds were anticipated to hit the area. That notice declared that there would be “erratic winds and potential convective cells” anticipated “at approximately 5 pm”, yet no special effort was made to alert nearby residents. Jorne Weibe reported that the Fire Department kept driving up and down their road during the period, but didn’t stop to talk to any of the residents. As the fire approached, the firefighters issued an evacuation order and retreated, leaving defiant residents to fend for themselves. Cliff Chapman, the Director of Provincial Operations for the B.C. Wildfire Service, issued statements to the press declaring, “we did our planned ignition under the conditions in which we planned for and it was largely successful”. He further elaborates, “That planned ignition saved hundreds of homes and properties along the north Shuswap”, yet he goes on to explain, “Unfortunately, with the wind that we knew was forecast and it was coming, that fire went above the control line that we burned off from and then swept back into the communities in the north Shuswap.” The backburn started by the B.C. Wildfire Service destroyed well over one hundred homes, so why does the B.C. Wildfire Service label this as “largely successful”? What criteria for judging success is the B.C. Wildfire Service using? Three members of the opposition B.C. United Party (Peter Milobar, Greg Kyllo, and Todd Stone) have been criticized by the provincial NDP government because they called for “critical supplies” to be sent to assist residents who fought to save their homes. Their appeal said, "These individuals should receive the supplies they need to continue to protect properties and structures in their communities. This government must order an end to this blockade of vital resources immediately". The governing NDP has accused the three MLAs of encouraging residents to “disobey orders from emergency responders”. The government claims that these residents were putting lives at risk – their own, and first responders. Elsewhere in the Shuswap region, government officials appear to be stripping farmers of their water rights. On August 17, 2023, farmers in Westwold were abruptly ordered to cease irrigation. Farmers who pump water from a 200-foot-deep aquifer have refused to comply with the order. The water they pump has no impact on local flow rates in the region’s rivers or streams, and because pumping is expensive, these farmers have already upgraded their irrigation systems to be very efficient. Their systems are 70% more effective than what was done in the past. Nevertheless, they now face fines for being noncompliant. Simon Hergott allows these farmers to voice their concerns in his recent documentary: Stolen Water – Waging War on Water Rights and B.C. Food Security. Clay Abel, one of the Westwold farmers, said that earlier in the year they had been told to cut back water usage by 30% and 50%. These were voluntary and they were complied with, but then a demand came to just stop using all water. “They gave us no notice”, he said. “We had just taken our second cut off and we need that water … the water has to go on to get the regrowth coming.” He reiterated, “They gave us no notice whatsoever for that.” John Benedict, another local farmer, declared, “There’s some people got new seeding. If they don’t get a reasonable amount of water the new seeding dies and they’ve lost a huge investment in seeds and fertilizer.” He adds, “There are things you can do to cope with low water, but it has to be organized and planned ahead of time.” He adds, “You just can’t come out and tell everybody to shut off your water. That’s making a bad situation a heck of a lot worse.” Benedict goes on to say, “If this is allowed to stand then your water rights don’t mean anything.” The farmers are frustrated by their inability to get answers. They have asked for a meeting with officials and are asking for someone to show them any science in support of the order. Russel Clemitson states that “they need to get their facts straight, their science. If they’ve got science, then show us.” Someone from the water office was supposed to be at the emergency meeting that occurred on Friday, August 18, 2023, but the official didn’t appear. Eric Buff declares, “The group has reached out, reached out, reached out, to no avail at this point.” He says they have gotten zero replies from all the levels of government they have tried to contact. The group has decided not to comply with the order. Buff asks, “why should we show the crown another pebble worth of respect if they cannot answer our questions.” Clemitson says, “My message is that the government has let us down. They’ve pushed us into registering our wells, transferring the water … they guaranteed us that we’d be still allowed to pump water.” The documentary closes with the statement that “As of August 28th, 2023, the Ministry has yet to attend a meeting or provide data that supports their order.” It is not possible for farmers to operate without some assurance that they will be able to water their crops. People have rights, and they ought to be able to get answers from their government when the orders coming from the government directly impact their lives and their livelihoods. Increasing control over basic necessities, non-responsiveness, and a lack of transparency are all hallmarks of totalitarian regimes. The greatest threat to a democracy is the tendency of bureaucratic agencies to creep towards autocratic governance. This threat exists when the government tries to be the master of the people, rather than the servant that answers to them. It exists when governments simply impose their will through intimidation and brute force whilst avoiding any type of self-scrutiny or self-reflection. The Shuswap has suffered due to fire and is struggling to address its issues with water, and many of its residents now regard the government with intense suspicion or animosity. They perceive the government as a hinderance, not a help. Can we blame them? Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

It was potentially “serious”, but not “very serious” misconduct. That was how a Spanish government legal panel labelled the now infamous kiss that Luis Rubiales gave to Jenni Hermoso. Rubiales is the President of the Spanish Football Federation, and he had just watched the women’s team defeat England to win their first ever World Cup. Hermoso was one of the stars on the team and in the tournament. In what Rubiales describes as a “moment of euphoria”, in the midst of what appeared to be a consensual hug, Rubiales took hold of Hermoso’s head with both hands and planted a kiss on her lips. It was over in a second, but the controversy looks like it will drag on for some time to come. Rubiales has been issued a 90-day suspension by FIFA, and while he has issued an apology for his conduct, he has also refused demands that he resign. Rubiales claims that the kiss was “mutual” and “consensual”, a claim that Hermoso disputes. She said she was a victim of an abuse of power and has accused the Spanish Football Federation of trying to pressure her into backing Rubiales. The Federation initially claimed that Hermoso was lying, threatening legal action, but in the wake of FIFA suspending Rubiales, the Federation is now urging their president to step down. The relationships between men and women often constitute a perilous frontier were the landscape rapidly changes and the rules are sporadically enforced. Why some incidents generate an upswell of condemnation, and others don’t, is something of a mystery. On May 8th, 1991, Paula Jones was escorted to the hotel room of the Governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton. Paula Jones has declared under oath that Clinton had Trooper Danny Ferguson escort her to Clinton's hotel room where Clinton made sexual advances that Jones rejected. Clinton eventually dropped both his trousers and his underwear and exposed himself, at which time Jones said she had to go. She claimed she kept quiet about the incident until 1994, when a David Brock story appeared in American Spector, telling a lurid account about an Arkansas employee named “Paula” offering to be Clinton's girlfriend. Angered by the story, Jones decided to file a sexual harassment suit against Bill Clinton just two days prior to a 3-year statute of limitations. Clinton and his defense team challenged Jones' right to bring a civil lawsuit against a sitting president, but the Supreme Court allowed the case to proceed. However, because there were no eyewitnesses to back up Jones' account, the accusations became a case of “he said, she said.” At the time of the incident, Jones had related the story to a friend, and there were other women willing to testify to similar behavior by Bill Clinton. Jones' lawyers decided to show the court a pattern of behavior by Clinton that involved repeated sexual relations with government employees. They subpoenaed women they suspected Clinton had affairs with, including Monica Lewinsky. On April 2nd, 1998, Judge Susan Webber Wright threw out Jones’ case, saying that Clinton's behavior may have been “boorish and offensive,” but these were just “brief and isolated episodes” which are acceptable between an employer and employee. There are two things about this ruling that have always bothered me. The first is its absurdity. This dismissal of the Paula Jones sexual harassment case was a great victory for sexist bosses, declaring that they may grope, grab and fondle their female employees without fear of repercussions­ as long as they keep such conduct brief, isolated, and they do not threaten to demote or fire their victims. They can even drop their pants and ask female subordinates for oral sex during work hours as long as they eventually take no for an answer. That a judge could render such an obviously flawed judgement is deeply troubling. What I find even more troubling is that most feminists of the day appeared to have been okay with this dismissal. One might have expected voices of outrage from feminists over the case, but for the most part the feminist camp was silent - so silent that in June, 1998, Time magazine's front cover asked, “Is Feminism Dead?” The National Organization for Women (NOW) announced that it would not submit a brief supporting Paula Jones' legal appeal. Gloria Steinem wrote a New York Times editorial defending Clinton, arguing that feminists must continue to stand behind him because Clinton is “vital” to preserving reproductive freedom and because he eventually took no for an answer. Even Anita Hill joined the smear campaign against Paula Jones. Anita Hill had famously brought allegations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas in 1991 when Thomas was being confirmed in his nomination to the Supreme Court. Her allegations helped raise awareness of sexual harassment, and she is sometimes credited with launching the Third Wave of feminism. Anita Hill wrote in the New York Times that Clinton could not be guilty of sexually harassing Paula Jones because “there is little evidence that Ms. Jones suffered employment-related repercussions as a result of the incident.” There was also little evidence that Anita Hill suffered employment-related repercussions as a result of Clarence Thomas's suggestively pointing out pubic hairs on his Coca-Cola can - one of Anita Hill's complaints - yet feminists mostly supported Anita Hill in 1991. Susan Faludi said, “I think we can safely conclude that Paula Jones will not expire from whatever a brief brush with Clinton might have entailed all those years ago; so far, she seems in the pink of health.” Faludi went on to argue that women must change their attitudes if they want to have power in the workplace, because one hallmark of having true power is not having to be reactive in your responses. Some of these attitudes reflected a new feminist focus on “power feminism”. Advanced by Naomi Wolf in her 1994 book Fire with Fire, “power feminism” is presented as the antithesis of “victim feminism”. Wolf contended that if women stopped focusing on all the things that were wrong with their lives and instead celebrated their power, they could bring oppression to an end. Wolf argued that women were being held back not primarily by societal discrimination, but by themselves, their victim narratives and reactive attitudes. She declared, “If we stay hunkered down, defensive and angry, we waste our energies.” Quoting Hillary Clinton (then the First Lady), Wolf added, “Who wants to walk around with clenched fists all the time?” The silence of feminists regarding Paula Jones, and the support they gave to Bill Clinton, was almost certainly motivated by political considerations. Bill Clinton was a Democrat who was regarded as an important ally of the feminist movement. Paula Jones appealed the decision, and on November 13th, 1998, Clinton settled with Jones for $850,000. President Clinton gave no apology. He no doubt hoped to put the whole episode behind him and move on, but in April 1999, the Paula Jones case morphed into the Monica Lewinsky affair. In his deposition for the Jones’ lawsuit, Clinton denied having “sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky, but strong evidence emerged that this was a lie – evidence in the form of Lewinsky’s own disclosures to a friend who was secretly recording their conversations, and a blue dress that still had the President’s semen on it. Clinton was found to be in contempt of court, and in 2001 he was stripped of his license to practice law for five years. Clinton was also impeached by Congress on December 19th, 1998, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, but convicting a president requires a two-thirds majority in the House, and the Republicans were unable to muster the required votes. While Bill Clinton offered the nation an apology for the Lewinsky affair, he never apologized for his many other misconducts. There were about a dozen accusers besides Paula Jones, and many allegations of a very serious nature, yet despite this, President Clinton appeared to suffer no serious backlash for all his boorish conduct and his abuses of power. When he left office in 2001, President Clinton had a Gallup poll approval rating of 65%, the highest rating for any departing president since Harry Truman. Luis Rubiales has apologized – twice, though he maintains that the kiss was “mutual and consented”, a product of the “spontaneity and happiness of the historic moment”. He will likely not recover from this lapse in judgment. People are marching in the streets of Spain demanding his resignation, and we are not living in an era that believes in forgiveness. The more he fights to keep his job, the more others will demand that he lose it. What a difference two decades make. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

In the wake of any disaster, people naturally want answers. They want to know why the disaster happened, and what could have been done to prevent it. They also want someone to blame. We have a lot of safeguards existing within our society, so when disaster strikes, it is usually the case that someone failed to do their job. Our judgment in these times is suspect at best. When we examine events after the fact, we have the benefit of hindsight, but hindsight introduces its own kind of delusion. While it sometimes grants us superior insight into what went wrong, it also tends to sweep away the confusion of that moment, which is the context in which decisions were actually made. Canada’s worst disaster was the Halifax Explosion of 1917. On December 6th, 1917, the people of Halifax looked out into the harbor and saw a ship on fire. They began to gather on the docks to watch the spectacle. Children stared out of school windows, intrigued and excited. The ship was the Mont Blanc, and it was on fire because it had collided with the Imo. The Mont Blanc was carrying almost 3000 tons of explosives, but the people on the shore, and those looking out school windows, could not know this. The Mont Blanc was not flying the red flag that would have warned them she was carrying explosives. On the shore, a dispatcher at the railway station named Vincent Coleman was advised of the danger. He sent a desperate telegraph to an approaching passenger train: “Hold up the train. Munitions ship on fire and making for Pier 6 … Goodbye boys.” That message, sent just before 9:00 am, probably saved the lives of three hundred passengers and crew aboard that train. Vincent Coleman was not so lucky. At 9:05 am, the Mont Blanc exploded. The blast disintegrated the ship. Most of the windows in Halifax were blown out by the shock wave, and about 1,600 people were killed by the blast. A mushroom-shaped cloud rose kilometers high, and parts of the ship and its cargo rained down on the area. Two square kilometers of Halifax were instantly flattened. The ship’s gun landed near Alboro Lake, two kilometers away. The stock of one of her anchors landed in woods five kilometers away, and rocks, presumably sucked up from the harbor bed, fell upon the city and the surrounding area. The blast created a tsunami that traveled across the shores of Dartmouth and destroyed a Micmac settlement in Tufts cove. Thousands of people were injured in the blast. Many spectators were left blind as glass windows shattered in their faces. Then the fires started. Overturned coal and wooden stoves triggered one blaze after another, adding to the chaos, and to make matters worse, by nightfall a blizzard had descended upon the city. The initial reaction was to blame the Germans. Rumors declared that Halifax had been attacked by German U-Boats or Zeppelins, or that it was sabotage. The Halifax Herald initially accused Halifax’s German population. These rumors were widely believed, and many German Canadians suffered harassment and persecution because of them. The pilotage blamed the Royal Canadian Navy, and the navy blamed the pilotage. There was a concerted effort to find a scapegoat, and when people moved on from the plausible yet baseless conspiracy theories blaming the Germans, their ire mostly landed on three men: Commander F. Evan Wyatt (the port’s chief examining officer), Francis Mackey (the harbour pilot who directed the Mont-Blanc into the basin where the collision occurred), and Aimé Le Medec (the captain of the Mont-Blanc). All three men had the audacity to have survived the disaster, all three were charge with manslaughter and criminal negligence, and all three cases failed to secure a conviction due to insufficient evidence. Francis Mackey had a spotless 24-year service record prior to the disaster, and the charges against him were dropped. It was an unpopular decision, but the ruling judge, Justice Benjamin Russell, determined that “so far from being negligent or careless, as charged in the information, [Mackey] had taken every possible care to prevent the collision which was about to be caused by the conduct of the Imo.” Many have held the Mont-Blanc captain responsible, even though the charges against him were also dropped. Le Medec should have flown the red flag to warn people about the explosives, and many believed that Le Medec could have minimized the tragedy by scuttling his ship or turning out to sea. Instead, Captain Le Medec ordered all hands to abandon ship. It is easy enough to say a thing should have been done than to do it, especially in a moment of utter chaos. The deck of the Mont-Blanc was engulfed in a chemical fire, picric acid and benzol. To extinguish that type of fire generally requires chemical foam. Captain Le Medic was denounced as a coward by many for abandoning ship, but he must have been a strange sort of coward as he was the last to leave the Mont-Blanc, ensuring every member of his crew escaped. He only lost one crew member to the disaster – Yves Quequiner, a twenty-year-old gunner who was hit by some flying debris, later dying from his injuries. The charges against the captain were dropped, and when Aimé Le Medec returned to France, he continued his military service and won the Legion of Honor for his bravery. F. Evan Wyatt was the only one whose case made it to trial. Wyatt was a darling of the city’s social elite. Earlier that same year the Halifax Herald claimed that “Commander Wyatt is without doubt one of the most popular men ever stationed in Halifax as a member of the naval service.” However, when the Halifax Herald stopped blaming the Germans for the explosion, it’s editor seemed to decide that Wyatt was most at fault. Prior to the disaster, Wyatt had written letters complaining of pilots not reporting the departure of their ships, and his last letter said that an accident was inevitable. The Imo left without permission from the examination officer, and Wyatt was not told of its departure. There was chaos in the harbor because a third ship that had lost power, and the Imo had found itself on the wrong side of the channel. None of this appeared to be Wyatt’s fault. At trial he was duly acquitted. There were many other questions asked in the wake of the disaster. Why was the Mont-Blanc loaded up with so much volatile material? Why wasn’t she anchored near the harbour entrance, far removed from where people lived? Why wasn’t the lane cleared of other ships? Simple safeguards appeared to have been ignored, placing the people of Halifax in greater peril than was necessary. The recent tragedy in Lāhainā draws some sharp parallels with Halifax. On August 8, 2023, an inferno destroyed much of Lāhainā. Over a 115 are confirmed dead, with over 388 still missing. Many of the dead are children. In the wake of this catastrophe, people have looked for scapegoats to blame as they seek answers for why this tragedy occurred. With Halifax, people rushed to blame the Germans. With Lāhainā, there was a lot of social media chatter about directed energy weapons. Government officials and the power company are pointing fingers at each other. The source of the Lāhainā fire appeared to be a brush fire ignited by downed power lines earlier that morning. The fire had been attended to by the Maui County Fire Department. It was thought to be “fully contained”, and the fire fighters were redirected to other parts of the island. Many residents had been ordered to shelter in place, and for much of the day Lāhainā was without power. In the afternoon the wildfire grew rapidly, aided by high winds, and as an inferno engulfed the city, residents were hindered from fleeing by a police barricade on the only road out of the town. Civil defense sirens did not sound an alarm, so many residents received no warning. The alerts on social media were confusing and reached only a few of the residents. Furthermore, firefighters within Lāhainā were stymied in their attempts to save the town because the fire hydrants lost water pressure. People have questions and are looking to cast blame. The possible culprits are many. Maui County is suing the electric company for not pre-emptively shutting off power when there were high winds and dry brush. The electric company refutes aspects of these allegations and blames the County fire fighters for moving on from a fire before it was fully extinguished. Heavy criticism has fallen on M. Kaleo Manuel, a state water official blamed for the decision to delay the release of water to help fight the fires. Regarding the water issue, Governor Josh Green said, “there’s been a great deal of water conflict on Maui for many years”, adding, “It’s important that we’re honest about this. People have been fighting against the release of water to fight fires. I’ll leave that to you to explore.” Herman Andaya, the Maui’s Emergency Management Agency Administrator, did not use the islands sirens to sound an alarm, and has been severely criticized for that decision. Asked if he regretted not sounding the alarms, Andaya answered, “I do not”. Andaya explained that residents might have mistakenly assumed it was a tsunami warning and rush to higher ground, which would have meant running towards the fire. However, the sirens exist to warn people of many different types of threats, including wildfires. Representative Jill Tokuda told CNN that the sirens should have been “our first line of defense.” Amid the criticism, Andaya resigned his post, citing health reasons. The police are scrambling to explain why they put up a barricade on the only road from the town. Many residents who died were trapped in their cars after being redirected by police officers. The justification for these barricades appears to be concerns over downed power lines, which were perhaps thought to still be live and dangerous if driven over too quickly. People were directed back towards Front Street where they were overtaken by an inferno. The Chief of Police, John Pelletier, is asking people to wait for the after action report before jumping to conclusions. He is promising that it will be “the longest after action that’s ever been”. Pelletier has himself become the focus of some conspiracy speculation as he was also the incident commander leading the response to the 2017 Vegas shooting that killed 58 and left hundreds injured. What are the odds? In time, people will gain a better picture of what likely happened in Lāhainā, though that same picture will also distort our understanding, disconnecting us from the chaos and confusion permeating the event. People will demand justice, insisting on there being someone to blame, yet there may well be too much blame to go around, with justice becoming yet another casualty. With Halifax, no one was ever held criminally responsible. With Lāhainā, I’m expecting a similar outcome. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

As I’m sure some of you have noticed, it is becoming increasingly difficult to have honest discussions about the things that divide our society. Few incidents better incapsulate just how difficult it has become than that 2017 drama surrounding James Damore and the Google memo. In July 2017, James Damore was one of many Google employees required to participate in a sensitivity/diversity training program, which he described as largely “shaming and ‘no, you can’t say that, that’s sexist.” Damore is a Harvard grad with high functioning autism. For months he harbored grievances over how Google was attempting to increase the number of minority and women hires with policies that were tantamount to reverse discrimination. When organizers of the program solicited feedback concerning their diversity training, Damore wrote a memo, approximately 10 pages long, in which he rendered a number of opinions, the most controversial being that gender disparities at Google might not be based on a culture that discriminates against women. When there was no response to the original memo, he modified the document, adding an opening statement, and sent it out on Google’s internal mailing lists and forums, eager for feedback. Damore’s memo opens with the statement, “I value diversity and inclusion, am not denying that sexism exists, and don’t endorse using stereotypes. When addressing the gap in representation in the population, we need to look at population level differences in distributions. If we can’t have an honest discussion about this, then we can never truly solve the problem.” He went on to say that “Differences in distributions of traits between men and women may in part explain why we don’t have 50% representation of women in tech and leadership. Discrimination to reach equal representation is unfair, divisive, and bad for business.” Damore backed up his argument citing research, which (according to Damore) reveals that “On average, men and women biologically differ in many ways” and that “These differences aren’t just socially constructed.” Damore said that women on average have more openness directed towards feelings and aesthetics, a stronger interest in people rather than things, extraversion expressed as gregariousness rather than assertiveness, higher agreeableness, and neuroticism (higher anxiety, lower stress tolerance). Stating that “We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism”, Damore proclaimed, “We always ask why we don’t see women in top leadership positions, but we never ask why we see so many men in these jobs. These positions often require long, stressful hours that may not be worth it if you want a balanced and fulfilling life. Status is the primary metric that men are judged on, pushing many men into these higher paying, less satisfying jobs for the status that they entail.” On August 5th, a version of the memo (omitting sources and graphs) was published by Gizmodo without Damore’s knowledge or consent. In the wake of its public release, a number of Google employees complained, and Damore found himself at the center of a national controversy. The memo spread like wildfire, and the reaction was often intense. One colleague emailed him, “You’re a misogynist and a terrible human. I will keep hounding you until one of us is fired. F**k you.” Another complained, “It has cost me at least two days of productivity and anger, and I am not even the target of its bigoted attacks.” That same manager said he would never work with Damore again. Another said, “I intend to silence these views. They are violently offensive.” Stoking the flames of controversy, NPR (National Public Radio) quoted a former Google software engineer, Kelly Ellis, who said some women at Google stayed home because the memo made them “uncomfortable going back to work.” After that the tweets tended to write themselves. One declared, “Women at Google defy stereotype by getting super-emotional and calling in sick over a man saying something they don't like.” Another said, “Emotional women skipped work because they were triggered by a memo that suggested that women are generally more emotional.” It is not clear whether there was any validity to Ellis’ claim. Danielle Brown, Google’s Vice President of Diversity, Integrity & Governance, issued a statement that declared, “Many of you have read an internal document shared by someone in our engineering organization, expressing views on the natural abilities and characteristics of different genders, as well as whether one can speak freely of these things at Google. And like many of you, I found that it advanced incorrect assumptions about gender. … Diversity and inclusion are a fundamental part of our values and the culture we continue to cultivate. We are unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success as a company, and we’ll continue to stand for that and be committed to it for the long haul.” Danielle Brown did not offer any evidence to refute Damore’s claims. She also didn’t seem to comprehend the irony of her position. It can reasonably be asserted that when James Damore suggested that Google is not overtly sexist in their hiring policies, Google emphatically declared, “YES WE ARE!” On August 7th, James Damore was fired for “advancing harmful gender stereotypes”, demonstrating just how tolerant Google is of “diversity” and “inclusion”. A number of psychologists waded into the debate. Richard Lippa of California State University, who Damore cited, said that the memo contained a “reasonably accurate” summary of the research on psychological differences between men and women, which does reveal that women on average tend to be more “people-oriented”, men being more “things-oriented”. Lippa declared, “I think there are ways of arguing against James Damore, from political viewpoints, for ideological reasons, and you can criticize the science, too,” he says, adding, “But the immediate response – ‘This is fake science’ – I don’t think that is doing any of us justice.” Michael Wiederman, a psychologist at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine, said Damore made a reasoned argument about why men could be more attuned to “climbing the hierarchy”. Cordelia Fine, a professor of psychology at the University of Melbourne, felt “torn in many different directions” by Damore. She said that his memo ignored vast swaths of research that show pervasive discrimination against women, and that it made dubious assumptions, but that his summary of the differences between the sexes was “more accurate and nuanced than what you sometimes find in the popular literature”. She proclaimed that the views he raised were “very familiar to me as part of my day-to-day research, and are not seen as especially controversial. So there was something quite extraordinary about someone losing their job for putting forward a view that is part of the scientific debate. And then to be so publicly shamed as well. I felt pretty sorry for him.” Many psychologists were less sympathetic, taking issue with Damore’s interpretation of the personality traits he associates with women, such as “agreeableness” and “neuroticism”, and castigating him for not having a better grasp of the literature. Janet Hyde, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, said that Damore “attached himself to what is actually a relatively small chunk of the psychological research literature and was unduly influenced by it.” The National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) weighed in on the controversy in January, 2018. One of their lawyers, Jayme Sophir, declared that James Damore was ultimately fired for things he said that were not protected under federal law, specifically his statements perpetuating stereotypes about women, and that his statements about women “were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment”. The James Damore controversy was a significant moment in the ever-evolving battle of the sexes, encapsulating a significant shift regarding the nature of our conversations. In 1992, Dr. John Gray (a relationship counselor) published Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. Similar to Damore, Gray argued that there were fundamental psychological differences between the sexes that are so significant that it is as if men and women are from distinct planets. His book even asserts that each sex can be understood in terms of distinct ways they respond to stress and stressful situations, and Gray did not always offer the same kind of qualifiers that Damore did. Even though his book has been criticized for advancing stereotypes, Gray was not pilloried for advancing such notions; quite the opposite. The book sold more than 50 million copies, and was the highest ranked work of non-fiction during the 1990s, spending 121 weeks on the bestseller list. One key aspect of the Damore Affair that was largely ignored was that Damore had autism. It can be challenging enough to predict or appreciate how one’s words might impact others; autism can significantly add to that challenge. If our society is incapable of mustering a little bit of grace for a well-intentioned individual with autism, what hope can there be for all the other contrarians amongst us? Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

Before he died in 1998, Julian Simon made a startling prediction. Simon, a professor of economics and a Senior Fellow with the Cato Institute (a libertarian think-tank), said, “This is my long-run forecast in brief: The material conditions of life will continue to get better for most people, in most countries, most of the time, indefinitely. Within a century or two, all nations and most of humanity will be at or above today’s Western living standards. I also speculate, however, that many people will continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse.” Julian Simon was an optimist at a time when many in the media and academia were predicting doom-and-gloom. Not much has changed. Pessimists and alarmists have long made dire predictions about the consequences of climate change and a plethora of other environmental challenges. These same pessimists usually insist that the world dismantle capitalism and embrace socialist remedies for its many woes. Paul Ehrlich was one such pessimist. In 1968, the Stanford biologist published The Population Bomb in 1968. The early editions of the book begin with the statement: “The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate…” Ehrlich’s mistake was failing to appreciate what human ingenuity can achieve. Norman Borlaug’s revolutionary work in biotechnology helped to develop high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties. Combining these new crops with modern agricultural production techniques transformed food production in Mexico, India, and Pakistan. Mexico became a net exporter of wheat in 1963, while India and Pakistan greatly increased their food security. From 1950 to 1992, the world's grain output saw an increase in yield of more than 150 percent. Labeled the “Green Revolution”, Borlaug is credited with having saved over a billion people from starvation, and in 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Without such high-yield agriculture, millions would have starved, but Borlaug demonstrated that where problems exist, solutions may yet be found. Incredibly, that Green Revolution was well underway when Ehrlich made his predictions. The Limits of Growth was published in 1972. This report presented the result of a computer simulation of exponential economic and population growth against a finite supply of resources, and its authors appeared to claim that we would run out of gold in 1981, silver in 1985, zinc in 1990, and oil in 1992. This assumed consistent exponential growth in consumption, and was based on existing reserves of each mineral. Julian Simon was not impressed. Simon argued that the underlying concepts of the report were fundamentally flawed because what constitutes a “resource” varies with time. He said that history demonstrates that as a resource becomes scarce, its price rises and more is found, or it is recycled more diligently, or new techniques result in less use of the resource until a better substitute can be found. In 1980, the pessimist and the optimist entered into one of the most famous wagers in history. It began when Paul Ehrlich declared, “If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Julian Simon offered to take that bet, but the agreed upon wager was actually on Simon’s belief that “the cost of non-government-controlled raw materials (including grain and oil) will not rise in the long run.” Ehrlich was challenged to choose five raw materials, and to set a start date. With $10,000 and their reputations riding on the wager, Simon insisted that the next decade would see the price of each resource decrease. Ehrlich confidently chose copper, chromium, nickel, tin and tungsten. Ehrlich lost. The total reserve supply of three of his metals increased during the decade, and prices declined for all five. The price of tin dropped because tin was mostly replaced by use of aluminum. Better mining technology allowed for the mining of vast nickel lodes. Tungsten fell due to increased use of ceramics in cookware. Chromium’s price fell due to better smelting techniques. Copper consumption plummeted when fiber optics replaced copper wires with glass. Julian Simon understood something that alarmist seem always to miss: the World has been running out of resources for generations. In 1914, the US Bureau of Mines estimated that oil reserves would run out in ten years. In 1939 the Department of the Interior said oil would only last 13 years. This warning was repeated in 1951, yet today, the oil reserve is large enough to last 53 years. This same trend applies to coal and natural gas. In 1973 we had enough gas for 47 years, but despite increasing the level of consumption by 90%, the reserve had grown to 55 years in 2000. Then new technological breakthroughs enable the exploitation of shale reserves, and by 2018 the reserve had grown to 400 years. Coal reserves are enough to last more than 200 years, and nuclear energy is essentially an unlimited resource: the energy of one gram of uranium-235 is equivalent to three tons of coal. The Limits of Growth claimed that we would run out of gold in 1981, silver in 1985, and zinc in 1990. Today there is enough gold in reserves to last over 30 years, enough silver to last 28, and enough zinc to last 55. We have a 200 year supply of aluminum and iron, which next to cement represent the largest portion of the world’s raw mineral expenditure, and we have over a 1,000 year supply of cement. Since making his prediction, Julian Simon is being proven right on almost every front. Life-expectancy at birth has risen dramatically in the developing countries and the world. Since 1970, the world’s average life expectancy has risen by 14 years to its present average of 72.3 years. Across the globe people are living 25% longer. Today, 11% of the world’s population lacks access to clean drinking water, down from 24% in 1990. For the first time in documented history the number of children dying every year has fallen below 10 million – the result of improved access to clean water and sanitation, increased immunization coverage, and the integrated delivery of essential health interventions. In 2017, 5.6 million children under the age of five died. In 1990, the death toll was 12.7 million. The World Infant Mortality Rate has fallen considerably. In 1950 it was over 150 infant deaths / 1000 live births. In all regions of the world save Africa, the infant mortality rate in 2013 was lower than it was in the developed world in 1950. In 2015, it was 32 deaths/1000 live births, down from 63/1000 in 1990. Over the last 65 years the global literacy rate increased by 4% every 5 years – from 42% in 1960 to 86% in 2015. Every 30 years we have become twice as efficient in the way we use energy, and nuclear power (the safest energy source with the lowest carbon footprint) is six times more prevalent than in 1970. Furthermore, in Western nations, gasoline is cleaner, and the air quality in our cities is vastly improved. Since 1990, there has been more than a 25% increase in food production / person even though the population has grown and the amount of farmland did not change much. Grain yields per hectare have risen by 2/3rds, and first world farmers have also reduced their dependency on pesticides. Things are consistently getting better, and yet, true to Julian Simon’s prediction, many people continue to think and say that the conditions of life are getting worse. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

When President Joe Biden visited Canada on March 23rd, 2023, he brought a very thoughtful gift for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau – an end to the Roxham Road debacle that had become a potent symbol of Canada’s recent struggles managing illegal migrants. Roxham Road is a dead-end road where migrants can easily cross over from New York State into Canada. During the last five years, most of the unauthorized migrants crossing into Canada on foot did so at Roxham Road. The RCMP intercepted 39,540 migrants in 2022, almost all of them (99%) at Roxham Road. In the United States, illegal immigration is a major political concern – especially for Republicans. It used to be a major concern of Democrats, but Democrats seem mostly concerned with how quickly these unauthorized migrants can be empowered to vote. Canadians are mostly left leaning. If Canada were part of the United States, polls suggest that it’d be a Democrat stronghold. Canadians tend to regard Republicans as xenophobes because Republicans often complain about the millions of undocumented migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico. The irony is that Republicans are mostly fighting to gain immigration policies and voting laws that have existed within Canada for decades, so Canadians condemn Republicans for wanting policies Canada already has. Adding to this hypocrisy, when thousands of illegal migrants started crossing into Canada at Roxham Road, Canadians were suddenly far less sanguine about the issue. Illegal immigration was not much of a Canadian concern prior to 2017, but then Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seemed to dissolve Canada’s borders with a tweet that read “To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada”. This tweet appeared to be in reaction to President Donald Trump imposing a four-month hold on refugees entering the United States. 2017 was also the year that the Trump Administration told approximately 59,000 Haitians, that they would likely be deported back to Haiti in 2019. These Haitians had lived in the U.S. under a temporary protected status following the devastating 2010 earthquake that killed over 200,000 people. Thousands of Haitians, fearful of deportation, began an exodus towards Canada. They were joined by thousands of others who were similarly fearful of losing their protective status. The problem was starting to generate headlines, and many of those headlines made mention of a dead-end road that few Canadians had previously heard of - Roxham Road. The Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA) has existed between Canada and the United States since 2004. Under STCA, Canada designates the United States as safe, so when an asylum seeker from a third country attempts to enter Canada from the United States, they are sent back. There are exceptions, and one glaring one is that the 2004 agreement only applied to asylum claimants who presented themselves at official border crossings. Prior to 2017, there weren’t many seeking to exploit this loophole. Roxham Road is not an official border crossing, so STCA did not apply to those who crossed there. Tens-of-thousands chose that little road as their point of entry. In the Summer of 2018, Conservatives were severely criticized for running an ad on Twitter addressing the issue. That ad is the art attached to this editorial. People describe the ad as “racist” and “unforgivable” because it showed a black man walking with luggage into Canada along side a headline that read “Trudeau’s holier-than-thou tweet causes migrant crisis”, which was pulled from the Financial Post newspaper. The photo used in the ad was of an actual person illegally crossing into Canada, and it was generally reflective of what was happening at Roxham Road. However, the Conservatives quickly pulled the ad, saying that the border situation was not about any one group of people. Immigration is an issue that has often been used to paint Conservatives as racists or xenophobes. It is easy to paint one’s opposition to immigration in such pejorative terms. However, Roxham Road became a problem for Trudeau because Roxham Road is in Quebec, and Quebec is probably the most xenophobic and entitled province in Canada. Quebec is also crucial to Trudeau’s hopes of getting re-elected. When Quebeckers get upset about an issue, federal politicians tend to notice. Trudeau softened the hit to Quebec by sending some of the migrants to other provinces. Thousands were sent to Niagara Falls, Ontario, because that city had a lot of hotel rooms. This imposed a great cost upon local taxpayers, especially no federal aid was earmarked to address the city’s needs. This influx increased demands on the city’s health services, schools, soup kitchens and food banks. In Niagara, homeless people were being evicted from local motels to make space for asylum applicants. The mayor of Niagara Falls, Jim Diodati, called this a crisis for his city, and told Canada’s Immigration Minister, Sean Fraser, “don’t just drop your problem on our doorstep.” On February 21st, 2023, Quebec Premier François Legault urged Trudeau to close Roxham Road because the influx of migrants had been a significant strain on the province’s resources. Trudeau emphasized that doing so would just shift the issue somewhere else, declaring, “The only way to effectively shutdown not just Roxham Road but the entire border to these irregular crossings is to renegotiate the Safe Third Country Agreement.” Trudeau knew what most did not – that there was a secret agreement to do just that. Trudeau had secured this secret agreement on March 29th, 2022. The Biden Administration and the Department of Homeland Security agreed to expand STCA to the whole border, and on March 24th, 2023, Trudeau was able to announce that “After midnight tonight, police and border officers will enforce the agreement and return irregular border crossers to the closest port of entry with the United States.” As part of the deal, Canada agreed to accept 15,000 Western Hemisphere migrants “on a humanitarian basis”. STCA is designed to prevent refugees from “asylum shopping”. Many believe that if someone flees their country of origin due to safety concerns, they should seek sanctuary in the first safe country they can reach. When they seek asylum elsewhere, it tends to indicate that their primary concern may not be safety. They may be shopping for nations that offer the most generous benefits. Canada shares a land border with only one country, so Canada is rarely the first safe country for those seeking asylum. STCA has its opponents. Since its creation STCA has faced legal challenges from the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International, and the Canadian Council of Churches. These organizations insist that the United States is not safe for all refugees. Their most recent challenge progressed all the way to Canada’s Supreme Court. The President of the Canadian Labour Congress, Bea Bruske, released a statement to express their concerns with the new bilateral agreement. Bruske declared, “We are deeply concerned by the recent decision between Canada and the United States to expand the Safe Third Country Agreement. Expanding the Agreement to the entire border, including Roxham Road, means that refugees crossing in both directions will be driven underground, forced to take even more dangerous routes, and put their safety and lives at risk. It will inevitably lead to harm and more deaths.” The New Democratic Party (NDP), which has been propping up Liberal Minority Governments since 2019, also opposes this expansion of STCA. The NDP Critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Jenny Kwan, said that “The NDP is deeply disturbed” by the announced expansion of STCA to the entire Canada-US border. She elaborates, “Given the widespread human rights implications of this decision, the NDP is also alarmed to learn these secretive negotiations took place without any consultation from stakeholders and experts. Further this more restrictive agreement between Canada and the US was signed in secret back in Ottawa on March 29, 2022, while a case was already before the Supreme Court of Canada. This is shocking and appalling.” Howard Anglin, who once served as Deputy Chief to Staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, thinks that expanding STCA to cover the whole border is a good step forward, but he also worries about loopholes remaining within the revised agreement. He warns that “the new protocol contains an exception for undocumented minors, which is a category we have seen exploited at the southern U.S. border with disastrous humanitarian consequences. There is no reason why unaccompanied minors cannot be dealt with in whichever country they entered first, just like any other migrant.” He adds, “Nothing is gained by creating an exception for them, and much could be lost. Specifically, it will create a dangerous incentive for unscrupulous human smugglers to send underage children on ahead, alone, so that their families can then avail themselves of the exception for relatives once the child is established in Canada.” Anglin calls this a “reckless oversight” that will “endanger vulnerable children”. Despite such concerns, Roxham Road is now closed, and that’s a big win for Justin Trudeau. The STCA announcement was a gift, and like many gifts, it was reciprocal. When Joe Biden’s plan to visit Canada was announced back in January 2023, Justin Trudeau announced that Canada would buy a U.S. missile defence system – valued at $406 million – for the Ukraine. Joe Biden’s gift to Canada is potentially more generous. Processing a refugee can cost upwards of $20,000 due to the cost of food, housing and amenities, and this sum does not include the cost of other social services, like healthcare and welfare. The new STCA agreement could easily save Canada more than $1 billion per year. However, asylum seekers continue to arrive. While people illegally walking across the border has dramatically been reduced, more and more asylum seekers are arriving by air. In June, 2023, the RCMP intercepted just 36 people crossing between the official border points, which contrasts to the 4,994 they intercepted in January. However, in June, the Canada Border Services Agency processed 4,350 claims at airports, as compared to 1,360 in June 2022. One might presume that those who once walked across the border are now just hopping aboard a plane to get into the country, but that does not account for most of this current shift. One needs a visa to get on a plane, and many who crossed at Roxham Road came from nations where it is difficult to secure a visa. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

Wun Feather, Bonnyville Alberta, June 20, 2023 As much as some special groups tell me that I am not supposed to refer to myself as an Indian, I have never done anything to give that name a reason to be ashamed. But, we have transitioned from being Noble Indians to being Aboriginal, and now I am supposed to call myself Indigenous. These are all names that the White Man has given me over the years. And make no mistake about it, I am not the least bit racially discriminatory when I say that. When I say that word, I mean it with honor and respect, and I just don't feel the need to use some other term for the sake of not offending anyone. One of the greatest Indian chiefs and family Headsmen I ever knew was my grandfather, Alex Chapman Bobb. His grandfather was Charles, and his father was Johnny, and his mother was Mathilda, who had five husbands before she passed away. Johnny and Matilda had loaned my grandfather to the Bobb family in a trade when he was a boy. Those kinds of things happened to children a lot back in the 1800s and early 1900s. He was always working extremely hard, so the only way I could get to know him was to trick him into taking me to work with him. One time, when he and I were the only ones on the log landing, a massive deer stopped by. My grandfather silently reached behind the seat of his old International Scout and slid out this .44 WCF lever action. He carefully loaded a round directly into the chamber from the open breach and took aim. It was like watching a silent gust of wind swirl past and brushing the leaves from the ground. The entire motion was so smooth. Bang went the rifle, and then he and I (I thought I was being helpful) cleaned that deer and carried it into the scout. I asked him about that awesome rifle as we headed home after work. The wheels of persuasion were working overtime in my brain because I knew darn well that I was his oldest grandchild. I had a cousin who I didn't know that well, who might be in line for that firearm, so I came right out and told the Elder that I wanted to be in the front of the line when it came time for him to pass it down. That old guy just told me that that gun meant nothing to me. His grandfather (Charles Chapman's dad, who never had an English name) had worked his butt off for two whole trapping seasons to have enough pelts to barter for the rifle. Grandpa Alex made it abundantly clear to me that if a person gets something for free and never has to work for it, the possession has no value to him. He told me of the grueling chores that he had to do to gain favor enough to be gifted that rifle. My heart has only felt that anxiety a few times in my life. I wanted that rifle so badly!! Not because it was a low number Winchester, but because it had been passed down from Hereditary Chief to Hereditary Chief, and in my mind, I knew that I had to impress my Elder enough to be considered. Well, to make a long story even longer, eventually, we moved to a different reserve in Northern BC, and that rifle only crossed my mind from time to time. In 1966, my mom had been blanketed, and an elders’ ceremony was held for her and her achievements. A few months later, I saw my dad put that old Winchester into the truck when he and I were heading to the trapline!! I almost passed out from bewilderment and confusion. I had so many questions!! Why did my dad have that rifle?? I knew darn well that it was the very same Winchester. It wasn't until a few months later that my dad handed it to me and said that I could get a moose with my mom's Winchester. And it wasn't until I was the ripened age of 14 and had my own hunting license that my dad took me aside and told me that grandpa and my mum had agreed that no one would ever get that rifle until they could prove that they respected it's past. Wholly suffering suckatash. Big boys don't cry, but maybe a bug flew into my eyes because I felt them leaking a bit. I am using the rifle to illustrate that absolutely everything in our lives will hold no value at all if it is given to us without a return on the investment. The same thing goes for my Indian name. The problem with many (not all) of the younger generations is that everything is just handed to them. They have actually become dependent on handouts from someone else. That makes it easy for them to complain because they have no "Skin in the game" as we used to call it. We need to get back to working hard and smart for everything that we have. But, it seems like our left leaning governments and society want us to be dependent upon their social programs. As long as they can take half of a working person's paycheck in taxes and charge taxes on everything else that we buy, that government can give the money that they collect away to other people who do not have to work hard for it. My grandfather passed away in 2004 at 92 years old. He had just completed a shift as a night watchman at the sawmill where he worked. As I work hard to be what they call Hereditary and a headsman to my family, I wonder if I will ever be as great an Indian as my grandfather was. I will be thinking of him as I drum an honor song during Aboriginal or Indigenous days. All the best, my friends. And If I offended anyone, feel free to let me know. The only way we can move forward is by recognizing the value that we place in respecting each other's culture and traditions.

Wun Feather, Bonnyville Alberta, May 24, 2023 As many of you know, I was running a bulldozer for my grandfather before I even went to school. Running cats and graders and backhoes or excavators came natural to me for some reason. So it made sense that while I was in post secondary, I went to work as an equipment operator in the mining, forestry, or Oil and Gas sectors in the early 1970's. Whoever needed a smooth operator, would hire me while classes were out, and I must admit that being a young Indian guy probably gave me a bit of an edge over most applicants. But that is not what I want to tell you today. I need to mention that the majority of the welding or equipment jobs that I had were all union jobs. And back in the 70's, people just naturally thought all union workers were NDP or Liberals. That really frosted my butt because I was running equipment to pay for my degrees. People talked about us union workers like we were all a bunch of slackers and no brained liberals who just wanted a big paycheck for an easy day of work. That is a terrible way of thinking. The majority of union workers put in an honest day of hard work, and they are smart enough to realize that if there is no energy or resource development, there are no jobs for them. In fact, a high percentage of the good paying jobs that were available in BC during the 70's and 80's completely disappeared once the NDP was in power there. In the 90's, some of the best trades people basically walked away from their nice homes in BC and headed to Alberta so they could support their families. A very high percentage of them are still here, just as I am. The NDP seemed to be more focused on giving people hand-outs than creating gainful employment for them. The NDP brag about these "Social Safety Nets", and programs for people who do not want to work, instead of realizing that for a person to hold their heads up high, they need a job. Proud people want to work hard and smart for their money, and they want to cash a paycheck that they earned for themselves every two weeks. I am disappointed when I hear people talk about my union friends like they are not smart enough to realize that an NDP government would destroy the Alberta economy, restrict our freedom, and help the Federal government take away all firearms from law abiding gun owners. This may be a surprise to a lot of people, but many Union workers are also hunters, trappers, and fishers! Many of them enjoy the great outdoors. Many of them like to go camping on the weekends and get away with their friends. They realize that an Alberta NDP government will work closely with the Federal NDP and Liberal partnership to destroy our rights and freedoms. It just makes sense that if Alberta gets an NDP government, the NDP will do everything they can to shut down industry related jobs. Hard working tradespeople will have to look elsewhere for work, and if they leave Alberta, the province will end up like BC is right now. Most of my mechanical and welding friends are working there on temporary jobs because BC lost most of their top producers when they chased away economic investment. The people who have pride and who want to work hard will move away. They will go where the work is. Please don't refer to all union workers as though they cannot or are not allowed to think for themselves. That would be a terrible existence. Being mandated to comply to a set standard is no way to live a life in a free and democratic society. Come to think of it, isn't that what the Federal Liberals and NDP want Canada to become. As far as I am concerned, we are born to be free, and it is up to us to fight for that freedom until we die. What you decide to do is your business.

Wun Feather, Bonnyville Alberta, April 24, 2023 This may seem like a silly photo, but I was the 15-year-old clown up front. By that age, I was a manager trainee at the Hudson Bay Company in Whitehorse YT. The Bay learned about me because I had been taking furs to other Hudson Bay trading posts like the one in Telegraph Creek for many years. Imagine their delight to find a First Nation guy with fur experience, who was looking for an after-school job where I could also work weekends. As the son and grandson and great grandson of hereditary Chiefs on my Nation, you would be surprised at how many members of other nations tease me about being Conservative. What they forget is that I have been working hard and contributing to Canada since 1967! I have worked very hard and smart for private individuals, corporations, and I have also had my own businesses. That's why I am Conservative. It isn't until a person like me wants to get ahead that he or she realizes that the government (actually, ALL governments) wants to take from the working classes, and give to the ones who are not as energetic. Oh sure, a lot of hard earned tax money goes towards education, transportation, emergency services and infrastructure, but lately governments have been more than obvious about spending the working people's money frivolously. In fact, they have spent so much of your money that they have to dream up other reasons for you to send in a higher percentage of your earnings each month. Like the Carbon Tax. Seriously. They just needed more money from you and me, and knew that we would revolt if they asked for more. But if they could dream up a planetary crisis of some sort, many young people would fall for that, and so that is what they have done. But, to our dismay, that was not enough tax money. They need more, and so they cranked up the liquor and cigarette taxes. Getting back to me being a clown in this photo, I realize the irony of it all. More than 50 years have gone by since this photo was taken. And every single one of those years, I have been paying into the Canadian tax system. Every single year. You would think that a man my age would retire, but in my culture, and before the inception of reserves, there was no such thing as welfare, and there was no such thing as retirement. Each member of the community would begin contributing as soon as they were old enough, and when they passed away, the giving stopped. Had I taken the path the government laid out for us Indian people, I could have reached this same age without paying a cent in taxes. It could be me teasing those silly fools who get up every morning and strive to get ahead. I could be calling them Conservatives and laughing as I cash my check. But no. When any of you on my friends list see me in town, feel free to stop and say hi to me. I will be happy to buy you lunch, or at very least a nice cup of coffee. We have something in common, you and I. Us hard working Canadians are being taken advantage of by the very worst Federal Government in the history of this nation. And sadly, it is us clowns who pay taxes who see the circus for what it is.

Wun Feather, Bonnyville Alberta, March 14, 2023 Over the years we have met some well meaning scientists and biologists who suggest that our Indian or First Nations or Metis medicines can be domestically grown in greenhouses for us so that the land they are on may be used for other purposes. You know, like rat roots, sweet grasses, chaga, black diamond Willow Fungus, by example. It's not the same! Our elders have taught us that as a medicine endures the cold frost of the winter months, it gets more resistant to Cold. As the medicines encounter drought, they become more resistant to dryness. Wind and rain and animals chewing on them just make them stronger!! You won't ever get that strength from a greenhouse grown medicine or a farm raised salmon. Men and women are the very same. As a boy learns to crawl, he grows calluses on his knees. As he goes to school and fights with other boys, he learns to roll with the punches. Whether he wins or loses, each experience makes him wiser and stronger and more capable to deal with life's vicissitudes. So get to the point Wun feather. My point is this. Our medicines need "experience" to heal us properly. They need to have gone through the good and the bad. It's the very same thing with our leadership. They need to have had time on the road of hard knocks. They need to have worked along-side of us to know what it is that we need in our social and economic environments to flourish. I know many men and women who make good leaders because of this. Unfortunately, none of them are leading the country or province of Alberta right now. When a person like me goes to a political gathering, and I look at the leadership, I see no one who I can relate with. I do not say this in a derogatory or discriminatory way. In fact, I am saddened and have almost lost hope at this point. Let's not give up hope.

By 2025, Canada’s Liberal government hopes to admit 500,000 immigrants. This doubles the immigration numbers that were typical during the Chretien, Martin, and Harper years. Immigration brings both benefits and challenges, and many people have expressed concerns regarding the detrimental impact immigration has upon the availability of affordable housing – especially in our largest cities. Canada admitted over 430,000 immigrants in 2022, and we build approximately 260,000 homes per year. There lies the problem. 430,000 immigrants generate a need for approximately 180,000 new homes, which means over 2/3rds of the homes being built are needed just to house these new arrivals. Canada has also seen a dramatic increase in “non-permanent residents” – estimated at 955,000 in 2022. The dramatic increase in the total number of them exerts a lot of additional pressure upon housing and rental markets. Canada is not keeping up with demand, especially in Toronto, Vancouver, and other cities that have become magnets for migrants. Immigrants account for 23 per cent of Canada's population, yet in 2021, 38% of homeowners in Canada were immigrants. In 2010, David Ley, a UBC geography professor emeritus, published Millionaire Migrants. Ley examined the impact of very wealthy immigrants on the cost of housing during the 25-year period spanning 1977 to 2002. He found a positive correlation coefficient of 0.94 between Vancouver and Toronto house prices and net international migration, a correlation he described as “unusually decisive.” This finding is consistent with the correlation between strong immigration and high housing prices in other global cities. Housing prices vary according to where immigrants live, and in Canada most immigrants choose to live in big cities like Toronto and Vancouver. According to an Oxford Economics study from May 2021, Vancouver, Toronto and Hamilton are the three least affordable cities in North America. The report says that homes in Canada are 34 percent more expensive than the median-income household can afford. The high cost of housing has essentially shut many Canadians, especially first-time buyers, right out of the home ownership market. Wealthy foreigners seeking to park their money in safe havens are also having an impact on the cost of housing in Canada, as are some wealthy immigrants. Daniel Hiebert found that wealthy immigrants transferring large financial resources into Canada were dramatically affecting the prices of high-end properties, but also raising the costs of low-end housing. Following protests in Vancouver in 2015, the BC government began collecting rigorous data on foreign buying, and they found that “foreign citizen buying” was about 13% in Vancouver, much higher than the 3-5% estimate previously put out by the real estate industry. This discovery prompted the B.C. government to act. In 2019 the province enacted the speculation and vacancy tax designed to discourage housing speculation and reduce the number of houses sitting vacant. A new report by CIBC Capital Markets reveals that “the overly rapid immigration problem is much more serious than most people realized.” Benjamin Tal, managing director and deputy chief economist at CIBC Capital Markets, states that “Any discussion regarding the housing market in Canada starts and ends with references to the growing number of new immigrants and to the government’s aggressive targets that are aimed at lifting the number of new immigrants by no less than 75 per cent relative to pre-pandemic levels by 2025. This in an environment in which the rental market is getting tighter by the day.” While the discussion about Canada’s housing crisis often centres around the high price of homes, perhaps a bigger concern should be how our policies are driving up the cost of renting. Renters typically have much lower household incomes as compared to homeowners, and unlike homeowners, they don’t benefit financially from the rising value of their primary asset. As John Pasalis reports, under the previous federal Conservative government, the average rent for a Toronto condominium went from $1,570 in 2006 to $1,866 in 2015, a $297 (or 19 percent) increase in nine years. In contrast, average rents under our current Liberal government have climbed from $1,866 in 2015 to $2,657 in 2022, a $791 (or 42 percent) increase in just seven years. Our post-secondary institutions are contributing a lot to this problem. In British Columbia, the annual tuition for foreign students is almost five times what domestic students pay, so post-secondary institutions are admitting as many foreign students as they can. Canada does not set targets for foreign study permit holders, so post-secondary institutions can admit as many students as they want each year. As these institutions maximize their profits, they bear no obligation to ensure there is adequate housing for the students they are admitting. The number of foreign study permit holders in Canada has climbed from 352,330 in 2015 to 621,565 in 2021. This comes at a time when many Canadians are struggling due to the rising costs of housing. When foreign students compete for the most affordable rentals in a community, they put pressure on low-income households looking for the same. The negative side effects of Canada’s immigration strategy are severely impacting the poorest and most marginalized communities in Canada—including many immigrant families. A new Public Policy Forum by the economist and former head of the B.C. public service, Don Wright, declares that “[t]here are multiple reasons why Canada’s housing has become so unaffordable, but it defies credulity to argue that high levels of immigration will not exacerbate the growing unaffordability of housing in Canada.” However, over the past few months we have seen a significant shift. More journalists, economists, and editorials are questioning the goal of our federal government’s immigration strategy and whether their current immigration targets are doing more harm than good. This is because the Liberal government’s narrative on this issue is crumbling – though the Liberal MPs don’t seem to have noticed. Sean Fraser, Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, has declared that “The solution to our housing shortage is not to close the door to newcomers, it will never be.” Fraser suggests that immigration is a solution to our problem. Addressing the annual Pathways to Prosperity National Conference, he declared, “We intend to bring skilled workers in, in larger numbers than was historically the case, who have the ability to work in home building.” The Liberals appear to believe that the housing issue can be solved by increasing the supply of laborers. They are ignoring how their policy massively increases demand, but they likely don’t expect much push back from the other opposition MPs. Howard Anglin is a doctoral student at Oxford University. He was previously Deputy Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and Principal Secretary to the Premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney. He calls immigration “The one factor in the housing bubble that our leaders won’t talk about.” He said that politicians talk about the need for more houses, but they’ve stopped talking about why we need them. Even though immigration is a factor that federal policymakers can directly control, for more than a decade any claim that Canada’s record high immigration levels may be a major driver of rising costs is almost immediately denounced as xenophobic. For that reason, most politicians refuse to draw the obvious link. Politicians used to be able to discuss the demand side of the housing issue. In 1976, Mike Harcourt (B.C. Premier, 1991-1996) declared, “First, it is essential that we relate both the local and the national housing problems to our immigration laws. Are we in fact merely trying to create new housing, as well as new employment opportunities, just to keep pace with the yearly average of 200,000 immigrants that Canada is admitting every year?” The former premier dared to ask, “Are we going to reduce the numbers of immigrants until we can kind of catch our breath in terms of housing and everything else? And/or are we going to increase the affordable housing, and other services for immigrant reception?” Vancouver’s mayor at the time, Art Phillips, declared, “I maintain that the primary approach to solving the housing problem in the Greater Vancouver area lies in the immediate reduction and future control of immigration.” Of course, if the Liberals are correct in their assertions that Canada can solve our housing issue through immigration, then we should expect that Canada’s immigration policy will yield improved market conditions moving forward. However, one must wonder why it hasn’t yet done so. Canada is now bringing in more immigrants than at any other time in its history, and we lead the G7 in the total percentage of immigrants, so why is our housing shortage also the most acute among the G7 nations? According to a Scotiabank report, Canada produces the fewest housing units per capita in the G7, and the problem is getting worse. The report states that “The number of housing units per 1,000 Canadians has been falling since 2016 owing to the sharp rise in population growth.” The report elaborates that “Heading into the pandemic, the supply of housing simply had not kept up with population growth, pointing to a near-record imbalance between the supply of housing and demand”. An extra 100,000 dwellings would have been required to maintain the ratio of housing units to population, so Canada has the worst rate in the G7, and the situation is getting worse, not better. According to the report, “Canada experienced an immigration-fuelled population boom since 2015 that saw population rise much more rapidly than new housing units were built. This population boom came to an abrupt stop in 2020 owing to COVID and saw the ratio of completions-to-population improve a bit, but that is likely to reverse course if the government manages to increase immigration levels in line with its stated ambition.” How bad is Canada lagging in this regard? In 2020, there were 424 housing units per 1,000 Canadians. In contrast, the G7 average is 471. Canada would need to build 1.8 million homes to reach this average. Politicians can issue platitudes about meeting our labor demands through immigration, but the evidence suggests that they have been failing in their attempt. It is important to note that labor shortage is just one hurdle hindering new housing starts. Since the pandemic there has been a significant spike in the cost of construction, and 2022 saw an eighteen-fold increase in the Bank of Canada’s interest rate. Rising interest rates are expected to decrease the number of starts in the foreseeable future as developers postpone project launches. Canada will likely need to increase home construction by 50% to keep pace with immigration, and this comes at a time when construction is likely to experience a decline. Rob Bogunovic serves as the editor at The Rubicon If you like our content, please consider subscribing and supporting our efforts.

Wun Feather, Bonnyville Alberta, March 4, 2023 When my mom married my dad, he was a forest ranger and a darn fine hunting guide. After they had four of us kids my dad wanted to pursue his masters in chemistry and biology, and so I remember him studying after hours and going back to UBC when I was 10. Maybe that's why he made me his ranch hand and wrangler when I was still a child. One summer when he was taking classes at UBC, we stopped by Dr Moore's home so my dad could get study material before we headed back to the ranch. As we were leaving Art's house, that dark rainy night, my dad spotted a slug slowly making its way across the sidewalk. He reached down and he carefully picked up the slug and placed it on the other side of the walkway. I recognized the smile on his face as he intended to impress his biology professor. To our surprise, after Art asked my dad why he did that, he proceeded to tell us that we had just interfered with the life of another living thing. He said, what if the slug was not destined for the other side? I listened intently because I had heard my Grandpa Alex Chapman say similar things. Just yesterday I watched a video of a person helping a baby three-toed sloth up a tree to where its mom was. The majority of people thought it was a kind and caring gesture. But here we go. Playing God with other creatures again. I see videos of wolves ripping the hind quarters out of a deer in the forest and people ask why the person wasted time taking a video instead of helping the deer. Well, believe it or not, that wolf was going to have to eat a deer that week whether we humans were witnesses or not. Let's take this one step further. The majority of people who jump to the aid of the underdog are what we call social justice warriors. Attention seekers who want to be recognized for all the good that they do for others. We status Indian people see it all the time. There are even people who argue that I can not call myself an Indian, even though I belong to an Indian Nation, have an Indian Status Card, and I am recognised as an Indian under section 35 of our Constitution act. Regardless, when our nations decide to protest or speak up against something, on our traditional lands, all of a sudden there are fair-skinned do-gooders marching in front of us. Wha-the-ell? (that was the name of our ranch) These phoney virtue signallers obviously think that we do not have the intelligence, the ability or the acumen to speak for ourselves! It is my sincerest desire that someday the people who do this who are most likely the same people who agree with a digital ID system in Canada, be required to show their STATUS CARDS before they can protest with us. Stop treating us like poor defenceless animals who need to be picked up off the sidewalk and carried to the other side! We North American Indigenous people have endured famishment and starvation over the centuries. We have fought fist to fist and arrow to arrow with wild creatures, other tribes and even the fair-skinned people who make their homes amongst us and have become our dearest friends and neighbours. What is ironic is that the majority of us all get along very well. It isn't until left-leaning liberals and the so-called United (who are as divisive as it gets) Nations come along and tell us how we should live our lives that all of Canada suffers. Many of you recognize that UNDRIP is just another holier-than-thou device hell-bent on creating more divisiveness between Indigenous people of the land and everyone else. What the UN fails to recognize is that Canada is a Treaty bound country. Like it or not, the treaties trump everything else. If the treaties had not been signed my ancestors would have continued to fight for the land that they had always known. If we want to make some changes in Canada, let's revisit the treaties. Bring them into the 21st century and have all sovereign nations at the bargaining table. Only this time, we will understand the language that is written and will have legal representation. We could discuss the medicine chest, and the boxes of ammunition, and maybe even address the five-dollar treaty payment that Treaty members get each year that has the queen's picture on it by example. In the beginning, I talked about how human beings interfere with other species. But even worse is the fact that we interfere with other nations. We poke our noses into other people's business all the time, and in reality, all that does is prolong the inevitable. As someone who has deeply traditional and cultural beliefs, I ask that the social justice warriors buy some computer games that they can spend hours playing - save some other world and leave ours alone. They have been using us Indigenous people as pawns in their game of chess, and it is time for them to leave us to fight or lose our own battles. If we make it across the sidewalks of life, at least we have our pride and we know that we did it our own way. Now let's get back to work and earn a livelihood for ourselves and our families. That is more challenging today than ever before.