Free Republic

I am literally the worst-timed financial decision in the history of Canadian enterprise. And yet, I’m still here and fully digitized, aren’t I? Every morning, some downtown Toronto sandal-wearer retches at the sight of me for sale at the local newsstand. Every day, some NDP staffer on Parliament Hill sneaks into the bathroom so nobody can see them reading John Ivison on their phone. Journalism schools have entire classes taught by CBC burnouts on how I am a malevolent threat to truth and justice, and their students (bless their hearts) still hit me up for internships.... Well, let’s see who...

Despite his liberties with the truth, Trump has amassed the most faithful record of modern U.S. presidents in doing what he promised to do I was just reminded of Canada’s odd view of the United States by returning, for I think the third or fourth time, to Steve Paikin’s The Agenda on TVOntario, to respond to his questions about my recent book, Donald J. Trump, A President Like No Other (embarrassed descent to crass self-interest: please buy it). It is widely thought, and believed by most Canadians, that we know the United States better than anyone because we are so...

It’s difficult to mediate a grudge match between Donald Trump and the Pope. (Yes, it has come to this. But the less lament about the state of crazy in American politics, the better.) While visiting Mexico and encouraging the U.S. to address the growing humanitarian crisis afflicting migrants, Pope Francis responded to a question about Trump’s immigration policies. “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel,” he told journalists. Trump responded with his predictable humility. “For a religious leader to question a person’s faith...

He isn’t coming in cold, with an enormous backlog of unrealistic ambitions to ram through. Instead, the Tories have a solid idea of what they want to accomplish over the next four years. Having already elected him twice previously, Canadians won’t be looking for sudden miracles. Far from it: such is the level of exhaustion with politics that most Canadians will be delighted if the government just stays out of their face for the majority of the mandate. Harper, in effect, has four years to shepherd through legislation that should come as little surprise to anyone, and he has the...

It's been quite some time since Fess Parker -- coonskin cap on head and long rifle in hand -- half-sung, half-yodelled the great anthem of Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. Parker played the legendary frontiersman/congressman Crocket both on TV and in a feature film. He was also one of a number of singers who sent the song about Crockett onto the hit parade of the 1950s more than once. No question it's a song about a hero. We're told right in the first stanza that he was "born on a mountaintop," which is a pretty special way of...

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Haiti as a country has virtually ceased to exist. Downtown Port-au-Prince is an apocalyptic vision of hell. All the capital's institutions have literally collapsed - the National Palace, the Courts of Justice, the Catholic Cathedral, the port and most of downtown are shattered grey skeletons, surrounded by thousands of frightened, traumatized people. In the Champ de Mars, tens of thousands of people are camping out in the parks surrounding the crumpled National Palace.

Remember when Liberal leader Stephane Dion unveiled his carbon tax plan earlier this year? The green lobby was thrilled. It had finally found a mainstream politician ready to fight an election on a promise to implement a tax on heating fuels, diesel and other traditional sources of energy that households consume. Environmentalists were convinced voters would rally around the plan, particularly since the carbon tax and ensuing higher energy prices would be offset with tax cuts targeted to low-and modest-income earners. Canada was set to become a world leader in the climate change debate. Dreams of a carbon tax are...

Why does the Elections Canada Web site deem it necessary to offer a feature that breaks down each riding's candidates by gender? (They throw in a couple stick figures, one wearing a skirt, one wearing pants, just in case we're truly confused.) For one thing, even the weakest-minded of us should be able to figure out for ourselves whether a candidate has two X chromosomes or not. First, there's the candidate's name as a clue. And if that's not good enough ("Lee"s and "Leslie"s can be confusing), we can conduct further investigation ... like doing a two-second Google search. Second,...

Banning handguns is all the rage. Mayor David Miller's push for a national ban has been joined by other Canadian big-city mayors. Yet, dissatisfied with progress at the national level, Miller successfully asked city council this week to approve measures to further discourage gun ownership in Toronto, such as shutting down city-owned gun ranges. While it may seem obvious to many people that banning handguns will save lives and cut crime, the experience in the United States suggests differently. Two major U. S. cities -- Washington, D.C., and Chicago --have tried banning handguns. (The U. S. Supreme Court is soon...

MONTREAL -In a way, Stephane Dion's leadership problems began on Day One, in December, 2006, when 82% of the delegates to the Liberal convention voted for someone else on the first ballot. When Dion stormed from third place to overtake Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae, there were at least two other guys who thought they should have won. Actually three, counting Gerard Kennedy, who would have been third rather than fourth if a handful of his delegates hadn't parked with Martha Hall Findlay on the first ballot to reward her for an outstanding speech. In that sense, Dion wasn't even...

This Labour Day, I thought about the working class, the masses. No, honestly, I did. Okay, I was on the beach, but the folks around me lying on the sand had jobs they'll be getting back to this morning. They worked. They would be classed as workers. But they're not a homogeneous "working class," they're not conscripts in Karl Marx's "masses." The transformation of Labour Day, from a celebration of workers' solidarity to a cook-out, is the perfect precis of the history of Anglo-American capitalism. If you want to see what "the masses" are meant to look like, buy a...

My friend, noted Quebec academic and author Pierre Lemieux, submitted his firearms licence-renewal application directly to the Prime Minister's office this week. "Mr. Prime Minister," he wrote in a covering letter enclosing his Form 979, "I would like to suggest that you should enforce your own "laws" yourself. You will note that, as a proud descendant of the disobedient French Canadian coureurs de bois, I have not answered one of the form's indiscreet and obscene questions. I answered that my love affairs are none of your business." (Form 979 asks, among other things, about recently ended romantic relationships.) Atta boy,...

Nobody would trust terrorists in any other situation, but we journalists are such compassionate humanitarians that our brains freeze and our skepticism dissolves when Hezbollah utters two words, "innocent civilians." We believe them because on the ground in Lebanon we have no one else to believe. Of course, they can deal in fiction, lacking free and inquisitive reporters of their own. Nevertheless, nearly every journalist in the world seems willing to repeat Hezbollah figures on civilians killed by Israeli bombs, now one of the big issues of the crisis. But are the numbers accurate? How many of those "civilians" were...

He is found at the very, very end, these days, with little fanfare or triumphalism. If you blinked, in fact, you'd miss Him. But He is there, just the same, and -- to some people in the news media -- it is a very big deal, indeed. God, that is. At the conclusion of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's March 28 speech to the Conservative Party's national caucus, and his March 13 speech to our troops in Afghanistan, God is acknowledged, and His assistance is sought. "God bless Canada," said the Prime Minister on both of those occasions. And Mr. Harper...

Totalitarian movements have always featured the same myth: There is a people of God, and they have been afflicted by pollutants from within their society as well as cosmic forces from abroad. Then good people rise up in an act of rebellion and wipe out the evil influences. Essentially, it is the story of the apocalypse from the Book of Revelation. The pattern played out with Lenin and Stalin in Soviet Russia, with Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain and Hitler in Germany. The people of God were called the proletariat if you were a Bolshevik or a Stalinist. Or...

Canada's government run news organization, CBC news, had a story this morning about a fight between Reuters and the National Post, one of Canada's largest newspapers.

Israel's most urgent strategic need today is the completion of a comprehensive security fence along the edge of the West Bank. At home, failure to understand this vital effort is extraordinarily foolish. Abroad, those opposing this project are denying Israel the most elementary right of defence for its citizens while ensuring that the current conflict will be longer and bloodier. Controversies about the precise route of the fence are a needless distraction from this urgent task. Protect Israel's own territory now and deal with other areas later. The current, more limited, plan for the fence's route would affect a very...

News emerged on Friday that Paul Martin has asked United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to visit Canada. Mr. Annan, who met with the Prime Minister at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has agreed to address our Parliament in March. The subject of his presentation will be -- what else? -- the importance of the United Nations as an international organization. Mr. Martin is no doubt pleased with himself for scoring this coup. But rather than simply basking in the Secretary-General's Parliamentary bromides, we suggest the PM capitalize on the opportunity to convey to Mr. Annan the urgency of...

Israel's Ambassador to Sweden, Zvi Mazel, is in hot water with the Swedish Foreign Ministry in frigid Stockholm. While attending an art exhibition intended to complement an upcoming government-sponsored conference on "Preventing Genocide: Threats and Responsibilities," the ambassador unplugged three spotlights illuminating an exhibit entitled "Snow White and the Madness of Truth." Pictured in a small ship floating in a pool full of blood-coloured water, is a homicidal Snow White, not out of Hans Christian Anderson, but an Islamic Jihad homicide bomber who mass-murdered 22 Israeli Jews and Arabs at a Haifa cafe last October. Hanadi Jaradat is shown "with...

Our greatest responsibility is the active defence of the American people. Twenty-eight months have passed since September the 11th, 2001 -- over two years without an attack on American soil -- and it is tempting to believe that the danger is behind us. That hope is understandable, comforting -- and false. -- George W. Bush, State of the Union, Jan. 20, 2004 - - - The war on terrorism has been more successful than any of us dared imagine. Iraq is free. Afghanistan is freeish. Saddam is in jail. Osama bin Laden is in hiding. Two-thirds of al-Qaeda's known leadership...