In my latest Epoch Times column I say the persistent interest of federal authorities in requiring us to show identity papers on demand reveals that whatever it is that our politicians claim to love out Canada it certainly isn’t our true legacy of liberty.
“Atlas Shrugged makes no sense to me: the good people I know [rich or poor] are not stingy with their skills and expertise or whatever contributions they can make – whether prayer, money, or time – toward the common good. I know this as a fact. It is the characters in Atlas Shrugged who opt out (sometimes with much hand wringing) who are by definition the second rate. From knowing so many good people, I knew Atlas Shrugged was bunk. But I was wrong – in an oblique way this book was prophetic, but it was not Atlas who had shrugged; the world sitting on Atlas’s shoulders decided to jump off. Two years ago in Canada, every institution in Canadian society rejected the help of their many dedicated volunteers, and outlawed public participation in clubs, amateur sports, education, and religious observance. Any gatherings of five or more were prohibited, even in our homes. Christmas and Easter were cancelled. Sunday Mass was cancelled. Religious services were outlawed; whereas liquor stores, pot shops, big box stores, and professional sports were all kept open. The lines of demarcation were obvious, if it freely benefited families, helped the elderly, or made life better for people it was cancelled. Youth curling? Gone. House league hockey? Gone. Public arenas? Locked. Public pools? Public parks? Public walking trails? Shut down, access blocked with padlocks and chains, patrolled by the police. People, including children, who dared ride a bike, skate on a patch of ice, slide down a hill on cardboard or skateboard in an empty parking lot were fined, sometimes pushed violently to the ground, and often arrested. Funerals, weddings, baptisms, first communions – these were outlawed. All of our social, religious, and media institutions collaborated. A few Christian congregations resisted and their pastors were arrested, sometime just for reading the Bible outdoors. The City of Toronto (among others) opened up snitch lines so people could report anyone who celebrated Christmas or Easter. Those who questioned even the more extreme capitulations to dictatorship were pilloried in the press for being anti-science. However, there were still children to raise, people who needed encouraging, teen-agers who needed to learn and play, swim, and play music. Spontaneously, without any central organization, house league hockey was re-started by invitation only, on frozen ponds and rinks behind barns and hedges away from the searching eyes of both officialdom and vindictive neighbors. At our home we raised the height of the fence so people could not see into our yard from the road, which allowed us to host Euchre tournaments, and Christmas feasts, live music events, with visitors parking behind a large woodpile away from view. Everywhere, priests said Mass in private homes with time-and-place communicated by word of mouth to those who could be trusted to keep quiet.”
David Beresford in Gilbert! The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #4 (March/April 2024)
In my latest Epoch Times column I say the Hogue inquiry did a spectacular, smug Establishment job of overlooking the key questions needed to restore public trust in our institutions, namely “Who were they?” and “What did they do?”
In my latest Epoch Times column I say one reason Canadian politicians are struggling to respond to Trump’s tariff threats is that most of them are closet mercantilists who just say they favour and understand free trade.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I complain that provincial conservative first minister Doug Ford is just as contemptuous of the legislature as federal liberal first minister Justin Trudeau… and legislators and we citizens let him get away with it.
“The reasonable people (for I know some quite reasonable people who allow me to talk to them), the rationalists, the liberal progressive people all say, ‘The Indian need is Independence; it must be a self-governing unit,’ and so on. Then they both say, ‘Let us hope no silly squabbles about religion will spoil this great unity,’ whether Imperial or National. Now I am so perverse that I think the religious squabbles are much less silly than the political squabbles. I am much more certain that there is such a thing as Islam than there is such a thing as India. I believe much more in the existence of a Hindoo than in the existence of an Indian. And I think the difficulties do arise from the doctrines; but much more from the trick of ignoring the doctrines.”
G.K. Chesterton in “The Thing They Left Out” in the New York American January 9, 1932 reprinted in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #2 (November/December 2023)
James “Madison was the Father of the Constitution, Architect of the Bill of Rights, and the only Secretary of State never to have left the country. The oldest of 12 children, he could read and write in seven languages. He attended the College of New Jersey (which became Princeton) instead of William and Mary – where Jefferson went and got all those Scottish Enlightenment Ideas.”
Dale Ahlquist in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 27 #3 (Jan.-Feb. 2024)
In my latest Epoch Times column I urge people to put aside small-minded, defeatist, timid claims that practically speaking Canada can only have the bad muddled policies it currently does, and write down what they really think is wrong and what they really think would fix it.