In my latest Epoch Times column, I ponder how our then-defence minister could possibly have said an advanced weapons system was “en route” to Ukraine courtesy of Canada back in April 2023 when in fact it wasn’t, still isn’t, and nobody seems to have a clue as to why.
In my latest Epoch Times column, I take up my own challenge from my 2023 year-ender and suggest five fundamental improvements we need in public policy in 2024.
In my latest Epoch Times column, I say 2023 feels like one of those years where trouble was plainly a-brewin’ but the storm had not yet really broken.
In my latest Loonie Politics column I write to Saint Nick saying never mind peace on Earth or fancy toys, I just want a Canadian government that isn’t smugly incompetent on every file.
“Whether written out somewhere or merely a collection in the back of your mind, you likely have a to-do list of things you want to get done. After all, life is busy and there often isn’t time to do everything you would like. But do you have a to-don’t list? Things that you’re planning not to do? A recent article in the Financial Times points to the often-neglected importance of the art of not doing. In the desire to be productive and accomplish goals, it’s easy to always focus your attention on what to do, rather than on what you know you want to avoid. As the author points out, however, ‘sometimes the absence of bad is more important than the presence of good.’ After all, history is littered with countless examples in which the feeling that something must be done has won out over the patient wariness of avoiding doing something wrong to disastrous effect.”
E-mail from Charalambos Dritsas of IG Wealth Management March 3, 2023
In Western Standard I present a review for the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy of Stephen Bown’s gripping Dominion: The Railway and the Rise of Canada, from colourful characters to poisonous whiskey to the crucial role of dynamite in building this nation and the West generally in the 19th century.
“I wish someone would explain to me why it isn’t necessary to show probable cause of fraud and get a warrant in order to audit a taxpayer.”
J. Budziszewski “The Underground Thomist” April 17, 2023
“Elsewhere Chesterton describes Progress as a rut, a false philosophy of fatalism and endless improvement. It is a promise of freedom, but the actual results are servitude – to the regulatory state, to the unforgiving corporation, to the latest fashionable idea, to the materialist mentality that is unwelcoming to and increasingly oppressive to the faith. But the answer is in faith, both immediately and ultimately. Instead of following the fashion and following the world, we are to follow Christ – and all that that entails. Chesterton says, ‘To take up the cross is not a servitude; it is something far more terrible and intimidating: a freedom.’”
“An Introduction to the writings of G.K. Chesterton” by Dale Ahlquist in Gilbert: The Magazine of the Society of G.K. Chesterton Vol. 25 #6 (July/August 2022)