It's hard to imagine a doomsday scenario with higher stakes, more exaggeration and greater calls for government intervention. It's just moral panic
Canadian Thanksgiving was a blast for climate change propagandists. Monday’s turkey was in the oven as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that increasing carbon dioxide would destroy the Earth. Elsewhere, there was an explosion at Canada’s largest oil refinery. The next day, a pipeline exploded in British Columbia. It was described by…
We need a way to drill down to the science and legality related to Trans Mountain. We need to replace cacophony with compromise
The last few months have illustrated how we now argue in public in Canada and the picture is not encouraging. I’m referring to what many think of as the great pipeline debate: the pros and cons of the Kinder Morgan diluted bitumen Trans Mountain pipeline expansion from the Alberta oilsands to tidewater in Vancouver. We…
Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson's attacks on Trans Mountain pipeline based on falsehoods and nonsensical enviro-rhetoric
By Kenneth P. Green and Elmira Aliakbari The Fraser Institute Not content with his ongoing opposition to the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion at home, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson is agitating against the project in the United States. “I don’t think this project will go – I really don’t – based on the resistance…
Television has taken it upon itself to correct social wrongs. But it doesn't fairly represent the mosaic of our society
Television programs not only entertain, they also influence our ideas about society and culture. These messages aren’t meant to solely and accurately reflect social reality – they’re also meant to shape that reality. People and their actions and opinions are presented as if they’re typical and to be emulated. These programs offer a view of…
To maintain secrecy, large U.S. environmental foundations simply "purchased" the co-operation of Canadian organizations to stop Alberta oil from reaching international markets
“The meek will inherit the earth … if that’s okay with everybody else,” goes the old joke. When it comes to developing Canada’s energy sector, that trite joke seems all too true. The Northern Gateway, Energy East, and Pacific NorthWest LNG pipeline proposals have been scrapped. Scotiabank estimates that the Canadian economy forfeits $15.6 billion…
The entire episode feels increasingly like a Russian intelligence operation designed to create political turmoil in the U.S. and exacerbate social tensions
The Kremlin’s favourite soap opera these days is the ongoing investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Each new episode is followed intently. It’s unclear whether popcorn or caviar is served, and whether fans at the Kremlin consider the program a drama or a comedy. Its popularity, however, is indisputable. The investigation…
The international media is so blind in its disdain for Trump that they are whitewashing the crimes of one of the world’s most repressive regimes
The government of Kim Jong-un is one of the world’s most repressive, holding North Korea’s 25 million people in a virtual slave state. A third or more of North Koreans suffer from malnutrition. The regime’s penal camps are among the harshest on Earth, with a reported 20 per cent of inmates dying within 12 months…
Being a teacher means making sure your students are exposed to more than one perspective
There’s a fine line between teaching and brainwashing. Teaching informs students about the world around them and helps them become critical thinkers. In contrast, brainwashing provides students with heavily skewed information that leads to one predetermined conclusion. It’s easy to mix these two things up if we aren’t careful. People who work in schools are…
News reporting has always been susceptible to allegations of spin and slant, cherry-picking and calculation
It’s been a defining characteristic of 2017. U.S. President Donald Trump claims that all negative stories are fake news. The media indignantly responds by casting themselves as pursuers of nothing but the truth. They are, in their view, shining light in the darkness. Then, as with CNN and ABC News last week, the media egregiously…
Cheap shots from both sides won't get us closer to solutions about managing our planet's future – and the potential impact on billions of lives
“Blatherskite.” “Trained seal.” “Dim-witted saboteur.” “A piece of sh--.” All these terms have been deemed “unparliamentary language” in Canada; use of them, and 102 other specified pieces of verbal abuse, may result in penalties levied by the Speaker of the House of Commons upon members of Parliament. To this list we must now add “climate…
Canadian Thanksgiving was a blast for climate change propagandists. Monday’s turkey was in the oven as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned that increasing carbon dioxide would destroy the Earth. Elsewhere, there was an explosion at Canada’s largest oil refinery. The next day, a pipeline exploded in British Columbia. It was described by…
