Why would a responsible government not immediately issue a total ban on something that’s so explicitly dangerous?
Night hunting is an incredibly dangerous practice involving high-powered rifles capable of killing over a distance measured in kilometres. People have been killed as a result of this reckless activity and livestock slaughtered. It’s also responsible for an alarming decline in moose in Manitoba. It should not be allowed under any circumstances. The Manitoba government…
Indigenous teenagers around the world face problems they think are insurmountable. But there are solutions
The United Nations consistently includes New Zealand in its list of the happiest countries on the planet. Yet in the midst of all this happiness there’s very deep unhappiness: New Zealand’s teenage suicide rate is now the worst in the world. How can this profoundly unsettling anomaly be explained? The answer becomes apparent when the…
An overwhelming number of studies show that raising the minimum wage actually eliminates employment opportunities
What does the evidence about the impact of raising minimum wages actually say? It's one of the most contentious public policy debates of recent years. Opponents of raising the minimum wage say it will result in job losses – making it more expensive to hire workers means businesses will hire fewer workers. Supporters point to…
It’s not a too-generous minimum wage. It's the desire of other employers to hire workers whose value is beyond their current pay
Some people think it’s the government that protects workers, through minimum wage laws and regulations that ensure workers get a decent living wage and good working conditions. But in reality, minimum wages and labour regulations don’t protect workers at all – they actually reduce the protection workers enjoy. Take the case of a low-skilled worker…
The Crown corporation could be worth up to $30 billion if divested. But it could be worthless if it can’t realize its assets as cash
By Ian Madsen and Alexandra Burnett Frontier Centre for Public Policy Export Development Canada (EDC) is unable to convert its reported profits into cash, posing an increasing risk to Canadian taxpayers. And it has been funding ventures that are normally considered too risky for commercial banks to handle. EDC is a federal Crown corporation that…
Decades after the ’60s Scoop, we're no closer to a successful model to help children from troubled homes
The ’60s Scoop is back in the news again. And we're no closer to a solution to a problem that has plagued the nation for generations. The federal government has set aside $875 million for Indigenous adults who were adopted into non-Indigenous homes in the 1960s, ’70s and early ’80s. Those who accept the money…
B.C. still exports coal because to do otherwise would be to kill jobs in the province. The contrast with its pipeline stance is startling
Many opponents of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion justify their opposition by citing concerns about climate change and carbon emissions, but this raises some important questions. What about coal? Vancouver is North America's largest exporter of coal, one-third of it thermal coal for generating electricity. Vancouver exports U.S. coal because Oregon and Washington have stopped…
Public policy discourse needs to move away from where Indigenous issues are paramount to where they’re one set among many
Indigenous people too often seem to think that their rights are absolute or act as if their rights trump everything else. This attitude was seen clearly in a reaction from the Saskatchewan-based Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN) after the Saskatchewan government changed the policy regarding when people can hunt on summer pasture lands. All…
The science, culture and philosophy of the West have been embraced around the world. And millions still flock to our shores
“An anthropologist is someone who respects the distinctive values of every culture but his own. We in the West are all anthropologists now.” – Roger Kimball, The Fortunes of Permanence: Culture and Anarchy in an Age of America Soon after arriving at McGill University in 1968 from a year of ethnographic field research in Iran,…
If apologies must flow if reconciliation is to be achieved in Canada, native groups should also issue regrets for their bygone evils
By Gerry Bowler and Rod Clifton Frontier Centre for Public Policy The string of calls for public apologies continues unabated. How many apologies are enough? Yet again, demands have been made that Pope Francis apologize for the role that the Catholic Church played in the Indian Residential School system. His refusal to do so has…
Night hunting is an incredibly dangerous practice involving high-powered rifles capable of killing over a distance measured in kilometres. People have been killed as a result of this reckless activity and livestock slaughtered. It’s also responsible for an alarming decline in moose in Manitoba. It should not be allowed under any circumstances. The Manitoba government…
