Ideas that change your world - September 2019 ISSUE 2

September 2019, Issue 2

WWW.FCPP.ORG

C

anadians Abandon Ownership Thanks to Mortgage Restrictions Fergus Hodgson, Commentary, Economy June 30, 2019

A

n uproar is brewing over real estate in Canada, fueled by a misguided attempt to protect willing homebuyers from themselves. Owners see prices declining, while prospective first-time owners find themselves locked out by mandated stress tests. As sought by lenders and industry experts, the federal regulator should ease stress-test requirements—if not eliminate them altogether—before they cause further harm and curtail construction and broader economic activity. A May 29 report, The False Binary: The Government Needs to Reframe Its Discussions about the Mortgage Stress Tests, reveals the painful impact. Will Dunning, chief economist at Mortgage Professionals Canada, estimates 100,000 Canadians, particularly millennials, have been unable to buy a house since the introduc“He calculated tion of new mortgage rules.

An April research paper from the Bank of Canada found that resale activity in housing has dropped to 2015 levels, around 450,000 units per year. According to Dunning, in normal circumstances there would be 13 percent—65,000—more resale units: “This shortfall can be interpreted as (to some degree) the continuing and substantial consequence of the stress tests.” We are already seeing the effects in the broader economy. On May 22, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), the fifth-largest lender in the nation, declared it has no growth expectations for this year. CIBC’s quarterly report shows its shares dropped by 4 percent and its net income by 2.4 percent. Further, determined homebuyers often resort to alternative-mortgage lenders, which charge even higher rates and are not subject to the same federal regulations, adding risk to the financial system.

18 percent of prospective buyers, who could currently afford having their own homes, have failed the stress tests.”

In January 2018, the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions (OSFI) required federally regulated lenders to test prospective borrowers’ ability to repay loans at an interest rate 2 percent above the actual contracted rate. Even though a homebuyer might get a bank to lend him money at 3.5 percent interest, he would have to qualify for a hypothetical 5.5 percent loan.

On its face, such a mandate seems wrongheaded, and it is. To be fair, though, the proponents sought to address what they perceived to be high default rates. Merely raising the threshold for approval, however, does nothing to help those struggling with insufficient purchasing power and constrained housing supplies. It merely keeps them at arms length from the market. Tightened Markets Banks initially welcomed the rules, believing they could stabilize notoriously rocky and variable housing markets. As documented by the Frontier Centre’s International Housing Affordability Survey, Canada has both the least and most affordable homes in North America: Vancouver and Moncton, respectively. However, the impact appears to have been all one-way traffic. House prices have fallen for the last three months.

1

Benjamin Tal, CIBC chief economist, released a report in April estimating the value of new mortgages in Canada had decreased by $25 billion or 8 percent in 2018. He attributed half of the decline to the stress tests.

A Blunt Instrument Dunning argues the tests assume an unrealistic scenario and do not take into account the future incomes of borrowers, which in many cases have a bright outlook. He calculated 18 percent of prospective buyers, who could currently afford having their own homes, have failed the stress tests. Rather than scrap the requirement entirely, he recommends a lower benchmark of 0.75 percentage points above the contracted rate. Real-estate boards and the Canadian Home Builders Association are also requesting urgent policy reforms. The real-estate sector, which made up one-fifth of the Canadian economy in 2017 and represented more than 75 percent of Canadian wealth in 2018, contend their own downturn is, in effect, everyone’s downturn. Dunning’s report shows housing construction has taken a notable hit: urban activity has fallen by 20 percent in 2019’s first quarter compared to the average activity from 2013 to 2017, and rural activity has fallen by 15 percent. Moreover, Dunning estimates 200,000 fewer jobs will be created in the next three years if the government keeps the stress tests.

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY “The economic impacts have barely begun, will develop slowly, and won’t be fully experienced until the second half of 2021,” he warns. However, Canadian authorities appear to be sceptical regarding the dampening impact of their regulations. While banks and other stakeholders lobby to reduce or withdraw stress tests from mortgage lending, the OSFI seeks to expand the policy to provincially administered loans. Even the International Monetary Fund shows naivete and

claims “a gradual slowdown in the housing market” is good news. One could dismiss the criticisms as self-serving pleas from interest groups. On the other hand, regulators are far from dispassionate seekers of the common good: they grudgingly admit mistakes and only change policies under significant pressure. Left unchecked, the fall in housing activity is fomenting the very economic hardship policymakers are supposedly preventing.

Research Associate Fergus Hodgson is the executive editor of Antigua Report, a publication and consultancy devoted to the economics of the Americas. In addition, he is a columnist with the Epoch Times, a podcaster and roving editor with Gold Newsletter, and an English-language advisor with Cedice Libertad of Venezuela. Previously, he was the founding editor in chief of the PanAm Post and the director of fiscal policy studies for the John Locke Foundation in North Carolina. He holds a bachelor of arts in economics from Boston University, a graduate diploma in political science from the University of Waikato, and a certificate in Cuban history from the University of Miami. A Canadian, Irish, and New Zealand citizen, he is a digital nomad who has lived in eight countries. Follow @FergHodgson.

2

WWW.FCPP.ORG

C

anadian Government Imposes ‘Social Justice’ on All Universities Philip Carl Salzman, Commentary, Culture Wars June 9, 2019

T

he Liberal government of Canada has formulated a new program to which all universities are expected to commit. It is called “Dimensions: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.” A “Charter” for “Dimensions” has been distributed to all university presidents, who are urged to sign, endorsing the program for their universities. Minister for Science and Sport Kirsty Duncan launched this program, using the “independent” funding councils—The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), The National Science and Engineering Council (NSERC), and The Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)—as the conduit for “Dimensions” grants. This is not the first time that Minister Duncan has imposed “equity, diversity, and inclusion” conditions for grants; in 2017, new diversity criteria were enunciated for the Canada Research Chair grants.

innovation and creativity.” In fact, no such evidence is ad duced or cited, and readers should be skeptical of unsubstantiated claims. Without evidence, it would be prudent to assume that the asserted relationship is fabricated and imaginary. What does “equity, diversity, and inclusion” mean in practice? It means that certain categories of people must favoured in academic competitions, while unfavoured categories of people must be excluded. The favoured must be put up for grants, or else the grants would not be forthcoming; conversely, unfavoured categories of people must be excluded from the competition, or else the grants would not be forthcoming. How are favoured and unfavoured categories of people decided? According to the Charter:

“ ‘Equality of results’ is far from

To advance institutional equity, The pressure continues through the liberal idea of “equality of diversity and inclusion, specific, subsequent grant years. Minister opportunity,” in which occupameasurable and sustainable acDuncan says, “Our government is tional, monetary, and academic tions are needed to counter syscommitted to promoting equity and diversity within research and achievement results vary accord- temic barriers, explicit and unbiases, and inequities. to supporting the next generation ing to the motivation, preferenc- conscious This includes addressing obstaof research leaders.” Ted Hewitt, president of the Social Sciences es, abilities, and commitments of cles faced by, but not limited to, women, Indigenous Peoples, perand Humanities Research Council individuals.” sons with disabilities, members of Canada and chair of the Canof visible minority or racialized ada Research Chairs Program groups, and members of LGBTQ2+ communities. Steering Committee assures us that they have “A strong action plan to address equity, diversity and inclusion.” The theory of “systemic barriers,” much loved by sociologists, attributes the different distributions of categories What is this “equity, diversity, and inclusion” in aid of? of people in society to prejudice and discrimination on According to the Charter of the Dimensions program, the the basis of race, gender, and ethnicity. A “social justice,” objective is “to foster increased research excellence, inequitable, diverse, and inclusive distribution would be for novation and creativity within the post-secondary sector each gender, race, and ethnic group to be represented in across all disciplines.” Who could object to “increased every department, faculty, and university, in every list of research excellence, innovation, and creativity,” which competition winners, in every new hire, according to its is the conventional and legitimate objective of research exact percentage in the general population. administrators? What is new here is the means by which these results would be allegedly brought about: “through This new criterion, “representation according to its exact increased equity, diversity and inclusion.” percentage in the general population,” has been institutionalized without any consent of the general population, According to the Charter, “The post-secondary research without any legislation, without any vote. It is an extreme community has the greatest potential to thrive when version of “equality,” an equality of results, the concept of members experience equitable, inclusive and unbiased equality that is favoured by radical socialists and commusystems and practices.” The NSERC press release annists, and which was imposed in failed societies such as nouncing the Dimensions program claims that “Evidence the USSR and Mao’s China. “Equality of results” is far from clearly shows that increasing equity, diversity and incluthe liberal idea of “equality of opportunity,” in which ocsion (EDI) in research environments enhances excellence,

3

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY cupational, monetary, and academic achievement results vary according to the motivation, preferences, abilities, and commitments of individuals. The theory of “systemic barriers” assumes that there is no material difference among people in regard to motivation, preferences, abilities, and commitments, and that all differences in statistical representation are the result of prejudice and discrimination. This is clearly false. One kind of evidence is the impressive statistical overrepresentation in prestigious fields by members of unpopular minorities, such as African Americans in professional sports, and East Asians and Jews in academia and other professions, which clearly was not the result of prejudice and discrimination against whites, people of European descent, and Christians. Another kind of evidence is the poor school performances of some minorities, at least partly due to cultural inclinations and social pathologies of crime and single parent families. A third kind of evidence is the differential preferences of members of different categories. Despite the full court press on the part of universities and professional organizations to recruit females to science and engineering, they remain heavily “underrepresented,” in spite of discrimination in favour of females and against males. Where females are free to choose, they choose social sciences, social work, law, or medicine, anything but natural science or engineering. The is true not only in North America, but in the feminist countries of Sweden and Norway, where fewer females choose science and engineering than anywhere in the world. A fourth kind of evidence is the poor results of decades of so-called “affirmative action,” discrimination in favour of “underrepresented” minorities. Not surprisingly, individuals from “underrepresented” minorities recruited with weak academic records, given special funding and provided with segregated “identity” housing, do poorly at university. Thus, there are many factors that influence “underrepresentation” of certain categories of individuals that are not “systemic barriers” involving prejudice and discrimination. Furthermore, if females are subject to “systemic barriers, explicit and unconscious biases, and inequities,” as the Charter claims, how can we explain that, according to StatsCan, “Women continue to outnumber men in most fields of study,” making up 56.2% of students, dominating in education, health, and related fields. Is it that females are discriminated against in funding? To take one important example, females account for 60% of the awardees in the Canada 150 Research Chairs Program. How can we explain why 56.2% female enrolment and 60% of female chairholders are not sufficient “equity, diversity, and inclusion,” requiring, according to the Dimensions program, even more places and benefits to females? The frantic search for First Nations students to recruit and First Nations professors to hire is seen in universities all across Canada. The main problem is the paucity of candidates. My own department made offers to three First Nations individuals, but was rebuffed. Still, the search goes

on, and posts designated for First Nations individuals are closed to others. Along with all of the wonderful inclusion of females, people of colour, First Nations, LGBT+, Muslims, etc., there is a necessary corollary: exclusion of people in other categories. The exclusion of males in favour of females begins early, in schools now devoted to feminism that discriminate against males. Under the guise of “diversity,” females are favoured in university admission and funding, and also in hiring, even though they are already in a large majority. The few fields in which men are prevalent, science, math, and engineering, are now targeted for recruiting females to replace males. Will “diversity” be satisfied when universities are 70% female, 80% female, or when males are totally excluded? “Inclusion” of First Nations individuals is fine, but when they are exclusively included, there is no room for others. For all of the student and faculty positions dedicated to First Nations, the following (and others) are excluded: Cambodian-Canadians, Vietnamese-Canadians, Mongolians, Koreans, Chinese, Fijians, Hawaiians, Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisian-Canadians, Turks, Syrians, Arabians, Iranian-Canadians, Pakistanis, Malians, Nigerians, Kenyans, Congolese, South Africans, Greeks, Italian-Canadians, Germans, French, et al.; you get the picture. Inclusion for the favoured few means exclusion for the rest. And what about those pesky overrepresented categories of people? To make room for the “underrepresented,” do we now put quotas limiting the number of people from overrepresented categories, the way Harvard has done with East Asian Americans? And as McGill and other institutions did in the past to keep out Jews? The “equity, diversity, and inclusion” ideology, often labelled “social justice,” is based on a neo-Marxist analysis of society that posits class conflict between various census categories of individuals: females vs. males, people of colour vs. whites, LGBT+ vs. heterosexuals, Muslims vs. Christians and Jews, First Nations vs. colonial settlers, etc., in which females, people of colour, LGBT+, Muslims, and First Nations have been oppressed, exploited, and victimized respectively by males, whites, heteros, Christians and Jews, and colonial settlers throughout all of history. “Social justice” theory thus portrays “the oppressors” as evil and deserving to be overthrown and marginalized. “Social justice” discourse thus vilifies “toxic” males, “racist” whites, etc., and “social justice” policies are aimed at turning the oppression tables by replacing males with females, whites with non-whites, and so on. That is why a supermajority of females is still “equity,” and “diversity” is limited to preferred genders, races, sexualities, and ethnicities. And why the “dead white men” who created Western culture and built Western Civilization should, according to “social justice” advocates, be boycotted. “Social justice” ideology is highly illiberal, in that it treats people not as individuals but as members of worldwide categories. In the name of “justice,” it treats all men as if they are the same, all whites as if they are the same, all “colonial settlers” as if they are the same, because, so the story goes, by means of their social structural position, they all have power and “privilege.” And all women, non-whites, and LGBT+ are the same, all victims! And although “social justice” claims that members of victim cat-

4

WWW.FCPP.ORG egories cannot be racists, sexist, or bigoted, because they have no power (sic), what is “social justice” but reverse racism, reverse sexism, and bigotry toward unfavoured categories of people? If the goal of the government’s Dimensions program is “to foster increased research excellence, innovation and creativity,” is the best means really to pick people by their reproductive plumbing, skin colour, sexual preference, religion, and ethnicity? Should not research-related criteria be the basis of selecting students and professors? When I was admitting students and hiring professors, I was interested in their grades, test scores, letters of reference, publications, statements of research interest, and I always picked the best in academic merit, irrespective of their reproductive plumbing, skin colour, sexual preference, religion, and ethnicity. I would have felt it to be absolutely wrong, as well as counterproductive, if any-

Senior Fellow

one had suggested it, to give any consideration to these non-academic, racial, gender, etc., factors. There is a kind of “diversity” that I do support strongly: intellectual diversity and diversity of opinion. It is only through the confrontation of different views, interpretations, and theories, together with evidentiary substantiation or refutation, that knowledge increases and improves. “Social justice,” with its “equity, diversity, and inclusion” of race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, has no room for diversity of opinion. No demonstration of that could be better than the Dimensions Charter Principles dictated by the Canadian government to all universities.

Philip Carl Salzman received his B.A from Antioch College, his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and he served as Professor of Anthropology at McGill University from 1968 to 2018. He founded the Commission on Nomadic Peoples of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, and its international journal, Nomadic Peoples, for which he received the IUAES Gold Award. In recent years, he has been a Senior Fellow at the University of St. Andrews, an Open Society International Scholar at the American University of Central Asia, an Erasmus Mundus International Fellow at the University of Catania, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has engaged in extensive ethnographic field research in Baluchistan (Iran), Gujarat and Rajasthan (India), and Sardinia (Italy) which has provided the foundation for many articles in academic journals, and for several books. His latest book is Classic Comparative Anthropology: Studies from the Tradition (2012). In public affairs, he was a member of Middle East Strategy at Harvard (2008-2010), a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (2004-2012), and is currently a member of the Academic Council of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Studies, a Fellow of the Middle East Forum (2015-), and a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (2016-). He has published articles and reports in the Middle East Forum, Gatestone Institute, the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, and the Macdonald Laurier Institute.

5

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY

P

rofile Series: Scott & Trent Young Joseph Quesnel, Profile Series March 4, 2019

T

rent and Scott Young are two Indigenous Australian entrepreneurs and business leaders who are proving that Indigenous entrepreneurs can be successful in all sorts of business ventures, including ones that are not tied to an Indigenous cultural focus. There is still a widely-held perception that Indigenous Australian businesses are limited to cultural areas such as Indigenous arts, bush food, and tourism operations.

Excellence award and the Young Guns Container Crew took out the Queensland Supply Chain Management category at the Supply Chain and Logistics Association of Australia Awards. The two brothers originally started out in professional rugby and both were headed towards careers in the National Rugby League (NRL). The business had very humble beginnings and was started for more practical reasons at the start. “It was pretty much just three guys in the back of a container in Brisbane and then a couple of guys from the football club … (it was about) finding work for guys who were pursuing their career but needed a bit of work to get them by,” Scott said, in an August 2015 interview with the Courier Mail. Trent Young said the brothers were inspired by the hard work of their mother and two grandfathers who ran farms in rural Queensland. On his LinkedIn profile, Trent Young wrote the following: “Trent attributes his business success largely to the exposure attained growing up with some of Australia’s best entrepreneurs, ‘farmers’.”

Instead the two brothers have decided to focus on building careers for younger workers in the open market. “We have created a stepping stone for these young guys into the workforce. We are passionate about giving them the support and confidence they need to find their feet both in society and professionally,” said managing director of Young Guns, a shipping container removal business, in an interview in May 2015 with the Courier Mail newspaper. The two brother’s family comes from the Koa people, an Indigenous group outside Winston, Queensland. “There is an aging population issue within the supply chain industry and here at Young Guns we believe we can usher in the next generation,” Young added. Although based in Brisbane, the business has offices in Sydney, Perth, and Melbourne. It now unloads an average of 140,000 shipping containers every year, and this is growing. The family-owned Indigenous business was founded in 2004 and focuses on the young and has employed more than 400 young people with the average age of 24. A few years ago, they were given the Queensland Industry

Also, on his LinkedIn profile, Trent mentioned how his rugby experience influenced his later business practices: “The basic principles of elite sporting teams have also provided significant learnings that Trent believes are easily transitioned to business. These learnings centre around resilience, the importance of extreme ownership and the creation of thriving environments where people are not just satisfied and productive but also engaged in creating the future- the organisation’s and their own.” They were also motivated by the autonomy they would receive by running their own business venture. They also wanted to build something tangible and lasting for their future families. Research shows that besides personal challenge, commitment to community and family was one of the main motivators for Indigenous entrepreneurial leaders. Michelle Evans and Ian Williamson are two scholars at Charles Stuart University and Melbourne Business School, respectively. They have produced a study (featured in a November 2015 edition of the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper) that looks at the experiences of Indigenous entrepreneurial leadership using a three-year longitudinal study. The study found that although they were as ambitious as other entrepreneurs (they wanted to double their

6

WWW.FCPP.ORG

7

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY employees over the next five years and they wanted to increase their revenues tenfold in the same period), they also wanted to improve future generations.

The brothers, of course, did focus on a business area that focuses on a product and service of interest to all Australians and in all communities.

Although the brothers are proud to be Indigenous, it is not the focus of their business or the service they provide. They also hire young workers from all cultural backgrounds. It might not even be noticed that there are two Indigenous Australian people at the helm of the venture. The Young Brothers are showing that Indigenous Australian entrepreneurs can enter into and succeed in all areas of business and don’t have to focus solely on Indigenous culture or identity to do so. In fact, the Evans and Williamson study found that Indigenous businesses that focused less on cultural products had higher revenues, which might be attributed to wider market appeal to all communities.

The rest, as they say, was history. Now, they employ hundreds of workers across the main state capitals of Australia. Now, it generates well over $20 million in revenue from packing and unpacking shipping containers for some of Australia’s largest multinational companies. According to the brothers, they intended over the next five years to raise their number of employees to 700 and they are exploring other markets including nearby New Zealand.

Research Fellow Joseph Quesnel is a research fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. A Northern Ontarian by background, Joseph is a graduate of McGill University, where he majored in political scienc and history, specializing in constitutional law and process. Joseph’s work has been published in newspapers all across Canada, including the Globe and Mail, the National Post, the Vancouver Sun, the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, the Montreal Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen, the Chronicle-Herald, the Telegraph Joiurnal, as well as many other newspapers. For more about Joseph Quesnel, visit www.fcpp.org.

8

WWW.FCPP.ORG

9

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY

10

WWW.FCPP.ORG

11

T

he Threat to Academic Freedom, Freedom of Inquiry and Academic Standards

Frances Widdowson, Commentary, Education June 6, 2019

I

n September 2018, the Office of Academic Indigenization provided Mount Royal University (MRU) faculty with a document entitled “Indigenizing Mount Royal’s Curricula: A Call For Engagement.” This document affirmed MRU’s “commit[ment] to indigenizing its curricula to ensure that all students graduate with a basic understanding of Indigenous content informed by Indigenous perspectives”, and encouraged faculty to transform their courses on this basis. These arguments for “curricula indigenization”, however, have not been subjected to any critical analysis. In fact, “Indigenizing Mount Royal’s Curricula” contains serious flaws and constitutes an unprecedented threat to academic freedom, freedom of inquiry and academic standards at MRU.

theoretical understanding? Finally, should anything that the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the UN Declaration say be accepted? For example, the document states that the TRC asserts that universities should “ensure all Canadians have a basic understanding of…this country’s history of cultural genocide”, when many would question this interpretation of the past. Should we not be analyzing the claims being made, rather than assuming that these political bodies created sacred texts that must be obeyed? Problems for Academic Freedom

“Indigenizing Mount Royal’s Curricula” states that “[a] s part of the Indigenization Strategy, every academic department will soon be asked to Indigenize its curricula The ill-conceived nature of “Indigenizing Mount Royal’s to ensure that every student who majors in a program in Curricula” is shown in the section “Why Indigenize?”. that department graduates, at a minimum, with a basic MRU should Indigenize, we are told, because “Indigeunderstanding of Indigenous nous people remain underrepcontent informed by Indigeresented among postsecondary nous perspectives. Goal 5 of the students, staff and faculty, and “It is well known that Indigenous Strategic Plan (ISP) indigenous content remains educational levels in the states that this content must marginalized”. The document Indigenous population are lower be the equivalent of at least 3.0 also asserts that Indigenization is also necessary to respond to than the Canadian average, and credits of coursework”. It also is asserted that there will be a the demands for Indigenization so discussions about artificially “[r]equest from the Office of that were made by the Truth increasing Indigenous the Provost and Vice-President, and Reconciliation Commission Academic that all departments (TRC), the UN Declaration of the representation should consider develop formal plans for IndigRights of Indigenous Peoples this.” enizing their major programs”. (UNDRIP), and the Royal ComThese plans, according to the mission on Aboriginal Peoples. document, “will be asked to include core Indigenous content consistent with the These reasons are political in nature, and are a distracTRC Calls to Action, including, ‘the history and legacy of tion from examining the academic implications of the residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on initiative. The reference to “Indigenous underrepresenthe Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal tation” just assumes that there should be proportionality rights, Indigenous teachings and practices, Indigenous without considering the qualifications of applicants. It law, and Aboriginal–Crown relations.’” is well known that educational levels in the Indigenous population are lower than the Canadian average, and so The Indigenous Strategic Plan was never approved by discussions about artificially increasing Indigenous repreMRU’s General Faculties Council. It was provided only sentation should consider this. as “information”. In spite of this, there is now an effort to use it to make significant changes to MRU curricula. Furthermore, it is not clear what is meant by increasing Faculty members should be the ones determining the “Indigenous content”. Does this concern subjects that inacademic requirements of their departments, and it is clude Indigenous people, such as Indigenous history and alarming that advocacy is driving such a fundamental Indigenous politics? Or is it a plea to include “Indigenous transformation of university programs. By presenting perspectives” regardless of whether or not they have the Indigenous Strategic Plan as “information”, MRU been shown to increase empirical knowledge and “Why Indigenize?”

12

WWW.FCPP.ORG administrators were able to circumvent potential faculty opposition to curricula Indigenization. Problems for Open Inquiry Although it could be argued that individual professors don’t have to participate in these Indigenization initiatives, and therefore it is not a threat to academic freedom, this ignores how Indigenization processes are creating a hostile climate for open inquiry. This has been a problem from the beginning, as is shown by the Indigenous Strategic Plan’s directive that the university “honour Indigenous experiences and identities.” As a result, “territorial acknowledgement” statements pretend to be factual, when their content is contested and are a matter for academic investigation. It is noted in “Indigenizing Mount Royal’s Curricula”, for example, that Treaty 7 “included a commitment to cross-cultural education that has not been honoured”, when there is no evidence that this is the case. These kinds of statements, apparently handed down from the university’s “Ministry of Truth”, indicate that the Indigenous Strategic Plan is intent on building a “culture of celebration” at MRU rather than one that encourages critical thinking and rigorous methods. Even worse, it is tacitly assumed that anyone who has reservations about Indigenization is not an “ally” of Indigenous people. This has created huge difficulties for faculty who question the hype. My criticisms of Indigenization, for example, have resulted in accusations that I am a “pathetic racist” with a “hateful perspective” who is damaging Mount Royal University’s reputation. Problems for Academic Standards The document refers to the Indigenous Strategic Plan’s goal “’to Indigenize Mount Royal University, to respect and embrace Indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing, to integrate Indigenous teachings and practices…’.” It goes on to state that “[w]e believe that the Indigenization Strategy provides a unique opportunity to propose innovative pedagogies and curricula that will benefit all students and programs on campus.” The assertions are bold, but there has been no attempt to evaluate their veracity. There is not even any definition of what “Indigenous knowledge”, “[Indigenous] ways of knowing”, “Indigenous teachings and practices”, and “Indigenous perspectives” are, or an attempt to determine how they differ from their non-indigenous counterparts. Below are three examples, which occurred at MRU, that are an indication of some of the problems that will face curricula Indigenization. On January 18, 2018, one of the Office of Academic Indigenization’s Co-Directors, Renae Watchman, invited Robert Curley, a Diné elder, to give a presentation on “Western Medicine vs. Traditional Healing Medicine”. This elder was asked a question from the audience as to what he recommended for the “gut problems” her child was experiencing. In response, the elder stated: “Rub corn pollen on his feet and do a sunrise ceremony”. Is this the kind of “Indigenous knowledge” that should be incorporated into our nursing program?

13

The second example concerns an indigenized course that was developed at MRU. When a non-indigenous professor attempted to teach the course, the Indigenous students enrolled said that a non-indigenous professor could not talk about Indigenous spirituality, which was perceived to be an essential part of the course. As a result of student opposition, the course was transferred to an Indigenous professor. Does Indigenization mean that some courses cannot be taught by non-indigenous professors? A third example concerns the biology program. At General Faculties Council on May 17, 2018, it was noted that the biology degree would have an indigenous component. This component consisted of the department “working with numerous community Elders and Knowledge Keepers” to ensure that biology students would obtain “a diverse knowledge base that includes the traditional Indigenous knowledge.” As Paul Johnston, an MRU professor in Earth Sciences, stated at the time: “[t]he difficulty here is that we are asking students to accept or at least be exposed to what I suspect is largely non-peer reviewed information or ideas in the science classroom. We don’t do that with any other ideas about biology from around the globe, for example ‘scientific creationism’, an idea espoused by millions, and so I am not sure why we would do it here. It may be that the Biology Program is incorporating peer-reviewed traditional Indigenous knowledge, and if so, that needs to be clearly stated in the letter. But, the statement I read, as it now stands, sends the wrong message to students, whether Indigenous or non-indigenous, that some information presented in the biology curriculum at this university is exempt from scientific rigor and scrutiny as practiced in science globally. I suggest that this can be somewhat remedied with a modification to at least the third sentence in this paragraph to read: ‘By including this course as a core requirement for the BSc Biology, all students will get an awareness of how Indigenous knowledge, as subject to systematic observational testing and/or experimental verification, helps to inform our understanding in biology.’” Dr. Johnston’s attempt to ensure scientific rigour in the biology degree was defeated, and this was due to the fact that Indigenization has encouraged the view that faculty should unconditionally support “indigenous knowledge” and “ways of knowing”. Conclusion The document “Indigenizing Mount Royal’s Curricula: A Call for Engagement”, therefore, provides no logical or reasoned answer to the question, “Why Indigenize?”, and its coerced support for incorporating “Indigenous knowledge” and “ways of knowing” will have negative consequences for academic freedom and open inquiry. The celebration of undefined “Indigenous perspectives” also will lead to an undermining of academic standards and inveigle the racially essentialist position that certain kinds of “knowledge” are dependent upon one’s ethnic background.

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY Research Fellow Frances Widdowson is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and Associate Professor in the Department in the Department of Economics, Justice, and Policy Studies at Mount Royal University. Frances Widdowson received an Honours B.A. and M.A. in political science at the University of Victoria, and a Ph.D. in political science from York University. She has taught at a number of universities in Ontario and the Maritimes, and worked for five years as a policy analyst for the Government of the Northwest Territories. Frances uses a political economy perspective in her research on aboriginal and environmental policy, as well as the politics of religion. Her most recent publication (co-written with Albert Howard), Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation, was short-listed for the Donner Prize. She is currently working on another book (also with Albert Howard) on the social effects of religion.

14

WWW.FCPP.ORG

A

Valuation of Canada Lands Corporation Limited Ian Madsen, Research Paper, Crown Corporations June 10, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Canada Lands Corporation Limited, or CLCL, is the Crown corporation which sells surplus federal land and buildings and also develops various parcels across the country. Using an intrinsic value method, and discounting to the present CLCL’s projected future free cash flows, as the company is today, fully taxable, the range of estimates is $300M to $2.1B, with a tighter range of a median (midpoint of the array of values) of $520M to a mean (simple average) of $680M. Under the market-based valuation system, CLCL’s value is estimated to range from $610M to $2.58B, with a median (midpoint of the array of values) of $920M and a mean (simple average) of $1.18B. Six of eight available valuation metrics were usable. INTRODUCTION Canada Lands Corporation Limited, A History Canada Lands Corporation Limited, or CLCL, is a federal Crown corporation tasked with selling off surplus federal properties and also participating in other property development with other goals, generally with municipal or provincial government involvement, or both. It is unusual, in that it is incorporated under the Business Corporations Act and pays full corporate income taxes. Nearly every part of Canada has been affected by its activities,

15

over decades.1 To quote the 2017-18 Annual Report, “CLCL works through its subsidiaries to ensure the innovative and commercially sound reintegration of former Government of Canada properties into local communities, as well as holding, investing in and managing certain attractions, while returning the best value to Canadians.” The Port of Old Montreal, the redevelopment of the old Canadian Forces Base in Calgary2 and the CN Tower in Toronto are examples of its projects and holdings.3 It is also charged with community redevelopment, with affordable housing and assisting Aboriginal communities (with procurement, employment, training and mentorship), in six developments in four cities.4 INTRINSIC VALUE, VALUATION OF CLCL AS A BUSINESS, USING DISCOUNTED FREE CASH FLOW The intrinsic value model uses a perpetuity with a constant growth rate and constant cost of capital. This is crudely but generally appropriate for a stable company in a slow-growth, mature sector. For the intrinsic value of CLCL, projecting future cash flow growth, and bringing it to a net present value, a relatively conservative approach was taken which could undervalue the company (see Table 1).

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY Each constituent (eg., revenue, cost of goods sold, interest expense, depreciation and amortization, administrative and sales expense) determining the final free cash flow was projected independently. The company’s free cash flow growth rate range was held to a restrained 2 to 4 percent, and the required rate of return or cost of capital range was from 5 to 9 percent. Projecting higher growth in the future could be reasonable, however alcoholic beverage production and sales is a very mature industry, although gambling and cannabis are higher growth, but more uncertain. CLCL’s cost of capital, given low expectations and high current valuations in the stock market, could well be lower than the range used (and thus raise its estimated value), although there is also a chance that interest rates and the rate of return investors demand on equity (share) investment could increase. The statutory tax rate used in calculations may be lower in the future, as there is continued global pressure to lower corporate tax rates, exemplified by the 2017 drop in US corporation income tax rates. The range of estimates is $300M to $2.1B, with a tighter range of a median (midpoint of the array of values) of $520M to a mean (simple average) of $680M. Using Net Income as a Proxy for Free Cash Flow, more usable results were revealed, see Table 1. MARKET-BASED VALUE: VALUATION OF CLCL USING STOCK MARKET AND FINANCIAL METRICS As noted in the Executive Summary, the ‘as is’ current value of the company ranges from $610M to $2.58B, with a median (midpoint of the array of values) of $920M and a mean (simple average) of $1.18B. Six of eight possible valuation metrics (Forward Price to Earnings, ‘P/E’; Price to Sales, ‘P/S’; Price to Book Value, ‘P/BV’; Enterprise Value to Revenue, ‘EV/Rev’; Enterprise Value to Earnings Before Interest, Taxes and Depreciation and Amortization, ‘EV/EBITDA’; and Price to Operating Cash Flow, ‘P/CF’) were usable. Please see the details of the models’ results in Table 2.

CONCLUSION This study used detailed historical financial statements, but the trends in net income, costs and capital expenditures may not be fully and reliably extrapolated. A more thorough appraisal prior to a proposed floating of CLCL shares on a stock market or before the company would be sold to private investors could and should determine a very different value for the company. As far as is known, the proceeds of such a sale would go to the federal government of Canada, unless Ottawa decides otherwise. APPENDIX 1: RATIONALE FOR DIVESTITURE OR PRIVATIZATION While it is up to the people through their elected representatives to decide if a Crown corporation or other government agency or entity should be sold or otherwise privatized and the proceeds used for the benefit of all citizens and taxpayers, there are some established reasons to embark on such a path, some or all of which are cited for divestiture of such enterprises but may not be applicable in any single, specific case. 1. The government has no mandate to own or run a commercial enterprise. The provision of citizens’ safety, security and justice is the government’s primary role, and its involvement in the economy should generally not extend beyond this. 2. Regulation can usually accomplish any public policy reason for direct involvement in an industry. If regulation is not easily feasible, then a direct contract or subsidy to any affected individuals, entity or entities may be more efficient or effective and less economically disruptive or costly. 3. If a government-controlled or sponsored enterprise has a monopoly position, nearmonopoly, or effective monopoly in a line or lines of business or businesses, then opportunities are lost in one or more

16

E

xpand Your Thinking

Visit www.fcpp.org

17

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY

18

WWW.FCPP.ORG commercial or potentially commercial sectors for entrepreneurs and investors to try to create and grow businesses to enrich and sustain themselves, employees, suppliers, and others. 4. A monopoly, near-monopoly, or effective monopoly market position by a governmentowned or sponsored entity could result in far higher prices for customers, the general public, or a section of the public, than would be the case in a fully competitive marketplace for the industry involved. 5. A government-owned or -sponsored enterprise may compete directly against private sector firms, which are owned by or employ citizens, or against individual citizens, all of whom the government is supposed to serve, not disadvantage. 6. The government-owned or -sponsored enterprise may compete unfairly against its private sector rivals in that it had or has access to lower-cost government-sourced and -guaranteed capital (debt). It may have a much larger debt component in its capital versus that which would be tolerated in the private sector. Thus, it may not have to meet high standards for profit and cost control, allowing it to offer lower than true free market-based competitive pricing. 7. Government-owned firms may not need to pay provincial or federal income taxes. This can allow such firms to supply goods or services more cheaply than the private sector companies they are competing with. 8. Government-owned or -sponsored enterprises may not have any kind of profit orientation or target, may be used as public policy vehicles and may be given preference in their activities or even in their transgressions, such as labour or environmental abuses. 9. Government-owned or -sponsored enterprises, by virtue of being public sector vehicles overseen by bureaucrats and politicians, may be places where favoured individuals find employment, particularly at management levels. 10. Since profit is a secondary goal of a governmt-owned or -sponsored enterprise, it is difficult to evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency or productivity of the enterprise or its employees. Consequently, these employees and assets may not be very productive or effective. 11. Government-owned or -sponsored enterprises are often creations of certain time-fixed circumstances and outlive whatever use or public policy role their creators may have conceived. Often, advances in technology; the modernization of transport, telecommunication or information technology; the evolution of the economy and available products and services and the increasing 1. 2. 3. 4.

19

See See See See

standard of living make these enterprises potentially obsolete. In the private sector, firms and individuals must adapt and evolve, or decline. 12. Government-owned or -sponsored enterprises perpetuate their possibly obsolete existences by virtue of the constituencies that build up around them: employees, managers, directors and bureaucrats, customers, suppliers and associated advocates or consultants. They can lobby to keep the enterprise going, despite dysfunction or losses. They are far more motivated to do so than are the taxpayers, whose average cost is much less per person and may be indirect, hidden or difficult to calculate. 13. Because they are not profit-oriented, government-owned or -sponsored enterprises are usually less efficient, and thus they lower the overall efficiency of the entire economy. This can make a whole nation less competitive than its global rivals are, whether nations or individual companies. The effects are worse the greater the government involvement in the economy. When taken to its most extreme, as happened in 20th-century communist nations, the countries were unable to compete against capitalist companies, despite their immense direct and indirect subsidies, government support and the lack of profit requirement. 14. Funds tied up in the capital of government-owned or -sponsored enterprises could be used to reduce government debt or lower taxes on individuals or corporations, which they could then spend or invest as they freely choose, and thus they could inject money back into the economy in more-lucrative and -constructive ways. 15. Governments, generally, have a poor record of picking winners, or creating or owning enterprises that have market-competitive profitability, or attractive returns on assets, equity, or even returns that exceed governments’ own cost of debt service. If, rarely, they actually do, it generally turns out that they have been provided unusually good market, operational, regulatory, or other conditions not available to other, investorowned firms. 16. The greater the number and size of government owned or government sponsored enterprises in an economy, the greater the size and power of the government, which is usually the largest single entity in society, increasing the dangers of abuse of power, including injuring individual citizens, companies, or groups. Effective capacity of opposition or recourse against this power diminishes as the portion of the economy the government occupies increases.

https://en.clc.ca/files/CLCL%20AR%202017-18%20EN%20(2).pdf https://en.clc.ca/files/CLCL%20AR%202017-18%20EN%20(2).pdf https://en.clc.ca/files/CLCL%20AR%202017-18%20EN%20(2).pdf https://en.clc.ca/files/CLCL%20AR%202017-18%20EN%20(2).pdf

p p p p

4. 22. 5. 8.

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY Senior Policy Analyst Ian Madsen, as an investment and financial analyst based in Surrey, BC, has extensive experience in portfolio and financial analysis. He has a BA in Economics from the University of Alberta and an MBA in Finance from the University of Toronto. He has managed institutional investment portfolios, lectured at colleges, managed investment research operations, in North America and overseas, and developed complex financial valuation models. He also ran his own investment counselling firm and advisory newsletter. He holds the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation and is a former president of the Saskatchewan and Edmonton CFA Societies. Past projects for the Frontier Centre have included valuations of SaskTel, SaskPower, ATB Financial, and SaskEnergy.

20

WWW.FCPP.ORG

F

ake Climate Science and Scientists Paul Driessen, Commentary, Climate May 31, 2019

T

he multi-colored placard in front of a $2-million home in North Center Chicago proudly proclaimed, “In this house we believe: No human is illegal” – and “Science is real” (plus a few other liberal mantras). I knew right away where the owners stood on climate change, and other hot-button political issues. They would likely tolerate no dissension or debate on “settled” climate science or any of the other topics. But they have it exactly backward on the science issue. Real science is not belief – or consensus, 97% or otherwise. Real science constantly asks questions, expresses skepticism, reexamines hypotheses and evidence. If debate, skepticism and empirical evidence are prohibited – it’s pseudo-science, at best.

sion and debate. They don’t let models or hypotheses become substitutes for real-world evidence and observations. They don’t alter or “homogenize” raw or historic data to make it look like the models actually work. They don’t hide their data and computer algorithms (AlGoreRythms?), restrict peer review to closed circles of like-minded colleagues who protect one another’s reputations and funding, claim “the debate is over,” or try to silence anyone who dares to ask inconvenient questions or find fault with their claims and models. They don’t concoct hockey stick temperature graphs that can be replicated by plugging in random numbers.

In the realm contemplated by the Chicago yard sign, we ought to be doing all we can to understand Earth’s highly complex, largely chaotic, frequently changing climate system – all we can to figure “The last thing fake/alarmist climate out how the sun and other powscientists want is a full-throated de- erful forces interact with each other. Only in that way can we bate with real climate scientists – a accurately predict future climate debate that forces them to defend changes, prepare for them, and their doomsday assertions, methodol- not waste money and resources chasing goblins. ogies, data manipulation … .“

Real science – and real scientists – seek to understand natural phenomena and processes. They pose hypotheses that they think best explain what they have witnessed, then test them against actual evidence, observations and experimental data. If the hypotheses (and predictions based on them) are borne out by their subsequent findings, the hypotheses become theories, rules, laws of nature – at least until someone finds new evidence that pokes holes in their assessments, or devises better explanations.

Real science does not involve simply declaring that you “believe” something, it’s not immutable doctrine. It doesn’t claim “science is real” – or demand that a particular scientific explanation be carved in stone. Earth-centric concepts gave way to a sun-centered solar system. Miasma disease beliefs surrendered to the germ theory. The certainty that continents are locked in place was replaced by plate tectonics (and the realization that you can’t stop continental drift, any more than you stop climate change). Real scientists often employ computers to analyze data more quickly and accurately, depict or model complex natural systems, or forecast future events or conditions. But they test their models against real-world evidence. If the models, observations and predictions don’t match up, real scientists modify or discard the models, and the hypotheses behind them. They engage in robust discus-

21

But instead, we have people in white lab coats masquerading as real scientists. They’re doing what I just explained true scientists don’t do. They also ignore fluctuations in solar energy output and numerous other powerful, interconnected natural forces that have driven climate change throughout Earth’s history. They look only (or 97% of the time) at carbon dioxide as the principle or sole driving force behind current and future climate changes – and blame every weather event, fire and walrus death on manmade CO2. Even worse, they let their biases drive their research and use their pseudo-science to justify demands that we eliminate all fossil fuel use, and all carbon dioxide and methane emissions, by little more than a decade from now. Otherwise, they claim, we will bring unprecedented cataclysms to people and planet. Not surprisingly, their bad behavior is applauded, funded and employed by politicians, environmentalists, journalists, celebrities, corporate executives, billionaires and others who have their own axes to grind, their own egos

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY to inflate – and their intense desire to profit from climate alarmism and pseudo-science. Worst of all, while they get rich and famous, their immoral actions impoverish billions and kill millions, by depriving them of the affordable, reliable fossil fuel energy that powers modern societies.

need to subject ourselves to punitive carbon taxes or the misery, poverty, deprivation, disease and death that banning fossil fuels would cause.

And still these slippery characters endlessly repeat the tired trope that they “believe in science” – and anyone who doesn’t agree to “keep fossil fuels in the ground” to stop climate change is a “science denier.”

Between the peak of the great global cooling scare in 1975 until around 1998, atmospheric carbon dioxide levels and temperatures did rise in rough conjunction. But then temperatures mostly flat-lined, while CO2 levels kept climbing. Now actual average global temperatures are already 1 degree F below the Garbage In-Garbage Out computer model predictions. Other alarmist forecasts are also out of touch with reality.

When these folks and the yard sign crowd brandish the term “science,” political analyst Robert Tracinski suggests, it is primarily to “provide a badge of tribal identity” – while ironically demonstrating that they have no real understanding of or interest in “the guiding principles of actual science.”

Instead of fearing rising CO2, we should thank it for making crop, forest and grassland plants grow faster and better, benefitting nature and humanity – especially in conjunction with slightly warmer temperatures that extend growing seasons, expand arable land and increase crop production.

Genuine climate scientist (and former chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology) Dr. Judith Curry echoes Tracinski. Politicians like Senator Elizabeth Warren use “science” as a way of “declaring belief in a proposition which is outside their knowledge and which they do not understand…. The purpose of the trope is to bypass any meaningful discussion of these separate questions, rolling them all into one package deal – and one political party ticket,” she explains.

The rate of sea level rise has not changed for over a century – and much of what alarmists attribute to climate change and rising seas is actually due to land subsidence and other factors.

The ultimate purpose of all this, of course, is to silence the dissenting voices of evidence- and reality-based climate science, block creation of a Presidential Committee on Climate Science, and ensure that the only debate is over which actions to take first to end fossil fuel use … and upend modern economies.

Human ingenuity and adaptability have enabled humans to survive and thrive in all sorts of climates, even during our far more primitive past. Allowed to use our brains, fossil fuels and technologies, we will deal just fine with whatever climate changes might confront us in the future. (Of course, another nature-driven Pleistocene-style glacier pulling 400 feet of water out of our oceans and crushing Northern Hemisphere forests and cities under mile-high walls of ice truly would be an existential threat to life as we know it.)

The last thing fake/alarmist climate scientists want is a full-throated debate with real climate scientists – a debate that forces them to defend their doomsday assertions, methodologies, data manipulation … and claims that solar and other powerful natural forces are minuscule or irrelevant compared to manmade carbon dioxide that constitutes less that 0.02% of Earth’s atmosphere (natural CO2 adds another 0.02%). Thankfully, there are many reasons for hope. For recognizing that we do not face a climate crisis, much less threats to our very existence. For realizing there is no

Weather is not becoming more extreme. In fact, Harvey was the first Category 3-5 hurricane to make US landfall in a record 12 years – and the number of violent F3 to F5 tornadoes has fallen from an average of 56 per year from 1950 to 1985 to only 34 per year since then.

So if NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio and other egotistical grand-standing politicians and fake climate scientists want to ban fossil fuels, glass-and-steel buildings, cows and even hotdogs – in the name of preventing “dangerous manmade climate change” – let them impose their schemes on themselves and their own families. The rest of us are tired of being made guinea pigs in their fake-science experiments.

PAUL DRIESSEN is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), public policy institutes that promote environmental stewardship, enhanced human health and welfare, and personal liberties and civil rights. He writes and speaks regularly on environmental, energy and economic development, malaria eradication, climate change, human rights, corporate social responsibility and sustainable development issues. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Times, Investor’s Business Daily, Risk Management, World Commerce Review and other periodicals. His book Eco-Imperialism: Green Power - Black Death documents the harm that environmental policies often have on poor families, by restricting access to life-enhancing modern technologies. He also wrote Cracking Big Green: Saving the world from the Save-the-Earth money machine (with Ron Arnold), Miracle Molecule: Carbon dioxide, gas of life, and Climate Hype Exposed. Paul received his BA in geology and ecology from Lawrence University and a JD from the University of Denver College of Law.

22

WWW.FCPP.ORG

A I

Modest Proposal Gerry Bowler, Commentary, Economy June 14, 2019

n 1970, Pierre Eliot Trudeau’s administration decided to cut diplomatic ties with one government claiming to rule China and to recognize another. Out went our acceptance of a long-time ally, the quasi-democratic Republic of China, based on the island of Taiwan, and in came the nasty tyranny known as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) under the loathsome Chairman Mao. This seemed a reasonable thing to do from an economic and raison d’état point of view. Though Canadian troops had been at war with Chinese forces only 17 years before in Korea, the PRC represented a huge potential market that the Taiwanese did not. And besides, Trudeau the Elder always had a soft spot for leftist dictators, as seen by his coziness with Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe, and Zhou Enlai. Canada’s recognition of the Beijing regime led the way to the PRC getting a seat on the UN Security Council and a global diplomatic shunning of Taiwan.

China. Is there a solution? Let me propose one.

Canada is in a dilemma. Releasing Ms. Weng will only encourage China to see us as a country it can shove around lawlessly and with impunity. Keeping her in custody (as our laws require) will invite more Chinese damage to our economy and citizens visiting or living in

No Canadian politician has the courage (or perhaps, foolhardiness) to take my advice, but if I were in charge of our foreign affairs I would make a well-publicized visit tomorrow to Taipei, the capital of the ROC, just to give the “basic dictatorship” some food for thought.

Canada’s balance of trade with China is in a deficit; that is, we import almost three times the value of Chinese goods than the amount we sell into China. This is very advantageous to the Beijing regime; we are its 8th largest partner but we run the third largest trade imbalance with it. Goods from China represent 12.7 % of Canadian imports but the Chinese market is less than 5% for Canadian exports. A trade war would be painful to both sides but undoubtedly the PRC would wince if we were serious in signalling that, when provoked, we fight.

But let us take this a step further. Since we are involved in an economic and moral conflict with China, why not do the entirely virtuous thing and withdraw our recognition of this genuinely evil clique in Beijing? Recall our embassy Almost fifty years later, Canastaff, students and business da and the People’s Republic of “Canada’s balance of trade with folk from the PRC, and exChina have reached a crisis in China is in a deficit; that is, we pel their diplomats, students, our relations. Despite our presmoney-laundering billionaires ent Prime Minister’s fondness import almost three times the and spies. And then – this is the for the PRC – it was the country value of Chinese goods than the good part – re-recognize the he said in 2013 that he admired amount we sell into China.” Republic of China on Taiwan. It the most, praising its “basic dicis now a true democracy and tatorship” for turning around its an industrial powerhouse of its economy – the Chinese are now own. Blood vessels would burst in the foreheads of the attempting to bully us into releasing one of their citizens gangsters in the Forbidden City, invective of the most whom we are temporarily holding on a US warrant. They bloodthirsty sort would fly against Canada, and much of have arrested two of our people, levied the death penthe world would secretly cheer us. Perhaps other counalty on two others, choked our trade in canola and pork, tries tired of China’s industrial espionage, flouting of refused to see our diplomats and warned us to cease our trade rules, interference in domestic affairs, and racist “white supremacism” and “actions that undermine the sinocentrism, would follow our lead. interests of China.”

Senior Fellow Gerry Bowler grew up in Saskatoon and earned his first two academic degrees from the University of Saskatchewan. He received his Ph.D. in History from King’s College, London with a dissertation on Protestant political theory of the Tudor period. He is an historian with eclectic interests. His writings range from academic texts on sixteenth-century Europe to the connection between Aristotle and professional wrestling. He was the founder of The Centre for the Study of Christianity and Popular Culture at Calgary’s Canadian Nazarene College and taught for 25 years at the University of Manitoba. Bowler is the editor of several books and the author of Europe in the Sixteenth Century, second edition, (Longman, 1989), The World Encyclopedia of Christmas (McClelland and Stewart, 2000), God and The Simpsons: The Spirituality of Springfield, (Dare: 2001), Santa Claus: A Biography (McClelland and Stewart, 2005), and several more.

23

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY

G

ender Self-Identification Brian Giesbrecht, Commentary, Culture Wars June 2, 2019

T

he transgender movement has made great strides in recent years advancing the cause of a marginalized minority. However, a claim of the movement – namely the absolute right of people to choose their gender, and have that gender choice legally enforced – is resulting in unfairness. This needs discussion. Gender dysphoria is a psychiatric disorder or condition involving an anatomical male who believes that he is actually a female in a man’s body (and the reverse for women). It affects about 1/10 of 1% of the population. However, this condition has received much attention in recent years, and has found its way into legislation and corporate policy. Gender self-identification involves the right of people to identify with the gender of their choice. So far, there is no issue here. People have a right to be gender nonconformists, or to believe in gender fluidity.

Or what about a man who said he felt that he was a woman and demanded admission to a women’s prison? This has happened. In that case the man proceeded to sexually assault women in the prison. Or what about a man who says he is a woman one day, (and is treated that way), but the next day says he feels like a child and demands to be treated as a child? Harvard University now has a policy that a person can change their gender from day to day, and other people must respect those changing decisions. So you could in theory be a fifty year old man one day, and a six year old girl the next day. And if you think that is a bizarre and extremely unlikely scenario, please Google this last example, and you will discover that there is exactly the person I described – a 52 year old man who dresses and acts like a 6 year old girl. He says that is who he feels himself to be, and he demands that society treat him that way.

“...just because a man thinks he Yale University now has tampons sale in the men’s bathroom. However, the problem comes is a woman doesn’t make him a for They say that boys can have pewhen that person, or others woman.” riods too. Welcome to the brave acting on their behalf, seeks to new world. compel others to recognize their gender choice as fact. But, just Remember Rachel Dolezal. She lived most of her life because a man thinks he is a woman doesn’t make him claiming to be a black person. — except that her para woman. Recent legislative attempts to compel others ents and all her ancestors were white. When her “racial to accept belief as fact are having perverse results. dysphoria” was exposed, she explained that she identified as a black person – ergo she was a black person. If Here are a few examples of actual cases that will higha man can choose to be a woman and must be accepted light the problem. as such, why can’t a person choose to belong to a different race? There are increasing numbers of men identifying as women who have entered womens’ sporting competiThen we get to the truly bizarre: a young man (or, at tions and dominated the events. This is unfair as men do least, he used to be) who is transitioning to be a Marbetter than women in sports involving physical strength. tian. So far, he has had his genitals removed and I am not sure what else. You might say that this man is very Then there are cases of female-identifying men choosill, but the transgender activists think that this all makes ing to use a women’s bathroom, or other private areas sense. where women normally expect only other women to be present. This can be be extremely uncomfortable- or Or what about “otherkin”. These are creatures we would even dangerous – for women when they are placed in call human beings who believe that they are not human, this situation. but animals of one variety or another. Some are cats, some are wolves. Society is expected to take this seriA related problem is that of men who pretend to be ously. Our current federal government could probably be gender dysphoric in order to gain access to women only persuaded to prosecute people who refuse to do so. areas. Domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centres are spaces where the presence of men could do great These are a few examples only of how the unrestricted damage to vulnerable women. right of gender self-identification leads to unfairness. 24

WWW.FCPP.ORG And if you can be whatever you want to be, what about age? There is a 70 year old Dutch man who doesn’t want to be 70 years old. He feels like a much younger man, so he insists on being one. He is prepared to give up his old age security if he can get his 20 or so years lopped off his birth birth certificate. He believes that he will do much better on the dating apps as a 50 year old than as a 70 year old. (Although my wife would object to the dating app part, I admit that I am on this fellow’s side in this fight – I’ll gladly take the twenty year deduction from my age).

says “We shouldn’t change our understanding of reality to celebrate your unique personhood”.

Until recently, those who spoke out about the perverseness of unrestricted gender self-identification tended to be people associated with right-wing groups or causes. The best known of these people in Canada is Professor Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto.

Dr. Cretella says that it is simply not true that people are born into the wrong bodies. These people have a delusion. Human sexuality is binary – that is, only a man and a woman together can produce a child. A woman has XX chromosomes and a man has XY chromosomes. There are 6500 genetic differences between men and women. No amount of surgery or chemical treatments – no matter how radical – can change these biological facts. The rare cases of intersex people – those born with physically incomplete genitalia – do not change this basic science.

But now voices from the left wing are saying essentially the same thing. Megan Murphy is one such person. She describes herself as a radical feminist, and speaks out against the wrong-headedness of some of the same samples I have listed above. Recently Ms. Murphy had her Twitter account closed, basically because she referred to a gender dysphoric man as “he”. Ms. Murphy is denouncing the Twitter decision. She and right-wing spokespeople are on the same page on this issue. This debate is far from over, of course. However, it seems that the tide may be starting to turn on this issue. Common sense might be making a bit of a comeback. People with gender dysphoria must be treated with respect and acceptance. They have an absolute right to identify however they wish. But privacy and safety should not be sacrificed for the sake of someone’s ideology. And, as Professor Gad Saad of Concordia University

Challenging the new orthodoxy is Dr. Michelle Cretella, M.D., the President of the American College of Pediatricians. Dr. Cretella says very frankly that someone’s mental illness is not a civil right. She goes further: she says that in her opinion today’s transgender ideology is responsible for large scale child abuse. That is, encouraging children to accept mutilating surgery and dangerous chemical treatments is a crime against nature.

In short, people who believe that they have been born into the wrong bodies are entitled to respectful treatment, but if they believe they are something that they are not, they are mentally ill, and should be treated that way. Forcing others to accept that delusion as reality is simply wrong. A million years of evolution have made this a world of women with XX chromosomes and men with XY chromosomes. A new social movement- no matter how worthy its original purpose – is unlikely to change that anytime soon.

Senior Fellow Brian Giesbrecht received his education at United College and The University of Manitoba, where he obtained his LLB in 1972. He worked with Walsh, Micay and Co., and then joined Legal Aid Manitoba in 1975 to become Senior Attorney and the first Area Director for western Manitoba in Brandon. Appointed to The Provincial Court (Family Division) in 1976, he heard child welfare cases and general family matters until he transfered to the Criminal Division in 1989. During his career he served on the National Family Court Committee, and various provincial court committees. He was an Associate Chief Judge from 1991 to 2005, and he became Acting Chief Judge in 1993. Mr. Giesbrecht has written extensively for various publications. His main theme has been the need to abolish The Indian Act and the separate systems of government that exist in Canada.

25

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY

A

lberta’s $15 Minimum Wage Doesn’t Help Workers Matthew Lau, Commentary, Economy May 23, 2019

D

uring the recent Alberta election campaign, with the province’s unemployment rate remaining stubbornly high relative to the rest of Canada with the exception of the Atlantic provinces, the now-governing United Conservative Party proposed reducing the minimum wage from $15 to $13 for workers below the age of 18. The benefits of this less restrictive wage floor for younger workers are clear. As a 2014 study by University of Toronto labour economist Morley Gunderson concluded, the “Canadian evidence has shown that a 10% increase in the minimum wage would lead to a 3% - 6% reduction in the employment of teens.”

This phenomenon was captured in the title of the study: “Happy Birthday, You’re Fired! The Effects of Age-Dependent Minimum Wage on Youth Employment Flow in the Netherlands.” Similarly, in Denmark, there is a very dramatic change in the employment opportunities for young workers when they become subject to a higher minimum wage. (While there is no statutory minimum wage in Denmark, there is effectively a minimum wage as a result of union and other agreements).

The corollary is that reducing the wage floor for teenagers under the age of 18 would increase the job opportunities available to them, giving them the work experience they need to climb the economic ladder.

As a recent study by economists Claus Thustrup Kreiner, Daniel Reck, and Peer Ebbesen Skov explained, when a worker in Denmark turns 18 they are subject to a 40 percent increase in the minimum wage. The result? “Employment falls by 33 percent and total input of hours decreases by 45 percent.”

Indeed, many jurisdictions around the world have a lower minimum wage for young workers, making it easier for them to find their first jobs. The unhappy flip side, however, is that as workers get older they lose the benefit of the less restrictive wage floor, which reduces their employment opportunities.

Similarly to the Dutch minimum wage, the Danish study found that the employment rate of workers, by age, rises steadily until a few months before age 18, at which point the employment rate declines markedly. At age 18, when the workers become subject to a higher minimum wage, the employment rate is sharply cut by one-third.

In the Netherlands, the minimum wage is phased in when a worker turns age 15, and is increased every year on the worker’s birthday until age 23, when they become subject to the full “adult” minimum wage. Younger workers do indeed benefit from the reduced minimum wage as it makes it easier to find jobs. But as their birthdays approach and a higher wage floor is about to kick in, there is an increased risk of job loss.

In Alberta, the decline in employment when workers reach age 18 would likely be less severe, since the minimum wage jump from $13 to $15 represents an increase of 15 percent, compared to the 40 percent increase in Denmark. Yet the experiences of Denmark and other jurisdictions show that the positive employment effects of a lower minimum wage should be extended to all workers, not just those under a certain age.

A 2015 study circulated by the Germany-based Institute of Labor economics analyzed the effect of the Dutch minimum wage, and concluded that there was “a significant increase in the probability of job separation” for young workers in the months closest to their birthday when they would be subject to a higher minimum wage.

The Alberta government is taking a step in the right direction by making it easier for the youngest workers to find their first job. However, being penalized with a wage floor hike that increases the risk of joblessness is a crummy way for workers to ring in their 18th birthdays. To reduce unemployment across the board, the minimum wage cut should be for workers of all ages.

Research Associate Matthew Lau is a Toronto writer focusing on economic principles and fiscal policy. He has written for the Financial Post and the Fraser Institute. Matthew holds a Bachelor of Commerce, with a specialization in finance and economics, from the University of Toronto.

26

WWW.FCPP.ORG

C

ommissars in Our Universities

Philip Carl Salzman, Essay, Culture Wars April 27, 2019

T

he term ‘politically correct’ was coined in the late 1920s by the Soviets and their ideological allies around the world to describe why the views of certain of the party faithful needed correction to the party line. Totalitarian movements and totalitarian societies strove to insure uniformity of thought: “Professor Frank Ellis at the University of Sheffield noted the term ‘political correctness’ was first used in the late 19th to the early 20th century when Vladimir Lenin began his rise to power. Ellis said that Marxist-Leninists and Maoists placed a heavy preeminence on being ideologically correct, both politically and theoretically. Essentially, a ‘forum for discussion,’ as Ellis described it, would impede the revolutionary spirit needed to upend the social order.” Leftist intellectuals were in the forefront of advancing communist ideology. “As pointed out by author William Lind, it was the intellectuals, such as Georg Lukacs, who believed culture needed to be rooted out before it could be replaced by a Marxist one. To do so, ‘critical theory’ came to fruition with the goal of destroying what it perceived to be old ways of thinking.” The goal was to replace support for liberal individualism and freedom with collectivism and obedience, and correspondingly to replace capitalism with communism. The Soviet Union assigned political officers to the military after the Russian Revolution. “The organization of the Soviet military underwent a series of transformations since its inception in 1917, including introductions of at least two specialized political officer positions—the politruk, also called political director, and the pompolit, also called deputy commander for political affairs. In historic and cultural contexts, these positions collectively are referred to as commissars, though this phrase often refers only to the politruk.” Political officers are assigned to units in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA): The three levels of political officers who serve as unit leaders (zhuguan) and deputy leaders are as follows (People’s Liberation Army Air Force 2010, Chapter 6, NASIC; China’s National Defense 2002): • Political commissars (zhengwei) are assigned to all organizations at the regiment level and above; • Political directors (jiaodaoyuan) are assigned to all battalion-level organizations; • Political instructors (zhidaoyuan) are assigned to all company-level organizations.

27

The three levels of political officers above have basically the same key responsibilities: • Implementing decisions made by the party committee; • Instilling party discipline among party members; • Providing political education to the troops within their organization; • Working with other components of the political work system. More explicitly, the commissar’s tasks were: • Spreading Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought among the rank and file; • Enhancing political consciousness; • Guaranteeing the CCP’s absolute leadership over the PLA; • Abiding by CCP’s line, policy; • Strengthening unity internally and externally enhancing combat capability of the troops. Commissars are not limited to the military. They are also embedded in other important institutions. Here is an example from international business: “The Chinese were effectively demanding that global corporation shift the entire Asian business out of their Indian operation and move it to China. All this might appear par for the course in the internal politics of multinational corporations. What was different here was that two of the Chinese executives involved were ranking members of the Communist Party of China – commissars, as they used to be called – and they were not merely making a sales pitch. The Westerners noticed a distinct ‘or else…’ in the proposals they were hearing from the Chinese colleagues.” In Chinese schools, the head teacher plays the role of the commissar: “In the organizational structure of a Chinese classroom the head teacher is responsible for 50 students’ study, behavior, and thought for three years. This organization is repeated from kindergarten to university, and from Beijing to Tibet. Back when the Communist Party was a revolutionary movement, a political commissar was responsible for the discipline and orthodoxy of each Party cell, and a ‘head teacher’ is basically the political commissar of a cell of 50 students. In Chinese high schools, having students study hard is not enough – correct thinking is the ultimate goal.” [emphasis added] Universities in the English-speaking world, and in particular universities in North America, have in the last

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY decades committed to an ideology as the basis of their functioning. Our political correctness is not the Marxism-Leninism of the Soviet Union, or the Maoism of China, but a kind of neo-marxism that is usually called “social justice” ideology. It stresses equality above all other values, and deals with people as members of categories or collectivities. Its guiding operational principle is “representation” on the basis of statistical presence in the general population. To illustrate, here is the “social justice” creed as set out by “Universities Canada” (previously “The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada”): 1. We believe our universities are enriched by diversity and inclusion. As leaders of universities that aspire to be diverse, fair and open, we will make our personal commitment to diversity and inclusion evident. 2. We commit our institutions to developing and/or maintaining an equity, diversity and inclusion action plan in consultation with students, faculty, staff and administrators, and particularly with individuals from under-represented groups. We commit to demonstrating progress over time. 3. We commit to taking action to provide equity of access and opportunity. To do so, we will identify and address barriers to, and provide supports for, the recruitment and retention of senior university leaders, university Board and Senate members, faculty, staff and students, particularly from under-represented groups. 4. We will work with our faculty and staff, search firms, and our governing boards to ensure that candidates from all backgrounds are provided support in their career progress and success in senior leadership positions at our institutions. 5. We will seek ways to integrate inclusive excellence throughout our university’s teaching, research, community engagement and governance. In doing so, we will engage with students, faculty, staff, our boards of governors, senates and alumni to raise awareness and encourage all efforts. 6. We will be guided in our efforts by evidence, including evidence of what works in addressing any barriers and obstacles that may discourage members of under-represented groups to advance. We commit to sharing evidence of practices that are working, in Canada and abroad, with higher education institutions. 7. Under-represented groups include those identified in the federal Employment Equity Act – women, visible minorities, Aboriginal peoples, and persons with disabilities – as well as, but not limited to, LGBTQ2+ people and men in female-dominated disciplines. This official statement is quite typical of statements by governments, academic associations, and universities. [11] They all make the unwarranted and unjustified ethical assumption that every organization and every unit must reflect the presence of various groups and categories in the general population. They all argue that diversity “enriches” universities, but rarely explain how, and when explanations are given, they are unsubstantiated by or contrary to evidence. They falsely hint or explicitly state that some categories are “underrepresented” due to bigotry and discrimination, and fail to present convincing evidence to support

this assertion. Finally, they recommend that special favor and privilege be granted to “underrepresented minorities,” thus justifying discrimination on the race, gender, sexual preference, ethnicity, etc. In other words, the objective of these “social justice” agendas is to include people in some categories while excluding people in other categories. “Inclusion” is only for favored categories of people. Universities seek practical methods for implementing “social justice” preferences to advance so-called “underrepresented minorities,” and to reduce the presence of people in undesirable categories, particularly white heterosexual males. This is how Universities Canada sets out the plan: Capacity building and culture change Expected outcome: Increased capacity at Canadian universities to integrate equity, diversity and inclusion in their teaching, research and governance. Supporting actions: 1. Build institutional capacity to support an equitable, diverse and inclusive organizational culture. 2. Build institutional capacity and culture to recruit diverse students, staff, faculty and administrators, and support their success. 3. Build institutional capacity and culture to integrate equity, diversity and inclusion considerations in research, teaching and learning. Who is responsible for carrying out these plans? A new type of bureaucrat has been invented to carry the burden of change to a politically correct culture in universities: the “diversity and inclusion” officer. There are usually multiple “diversity and inclusion” officers, ranging from vice president positions to positions in smaller units. For example, McGill University proudly announces “the creation of several new positions at McGill during the last two years, notably: the Senior Employment Equity Advisor, Senior Equity & Inclusion Advisor, and Equity Facilitator.” This is in addition to the Associate Provost (Equity and Academic Policy). The job of “diversity and inclusion” commissars is to impose and enforce politically correct thought and action. It is common that these political commissars are given powers of judge and jury, and powerful sanctions are at their disposal. For example, if a professor expresses opinions contrary to those of “social justice diversity and inclusion,” he or she can be sent for re-education, usually in courses given by external diversity “experts.” Or, even more “inclusive” are mandatory “diversity” courses for all professors. Politically incorrect professors, even those tenured and popular with students, are vulnerable to pressure and ultimately to dismissal. A McGill science professor who expressed incorrect views about feminism—a central component of “right thinking”—was warned by his dean to remain silent. In another case, Acadia University psychology Professor Rick Mehta, although having claims to being a “visible minority,” as we Canadians like to say, just would not get with the politically correct program. He called multiculturalism a “scam,” and was “accused as well of ‘denying the wage gap between men and women

28

WWW.FCPP.ORG and dismissing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a vehicle for ‘endless apologies and compensation.’” Furthermore, “Professor Mehta had offended the feminist establishment at Acadia by arguing for objective academic standards and against privileges for self-proclaimed victim groups.” His university informed him that “The University has a legal responsibility to provide an environment free from discrimination, sexual harassment, and personal harassment,” which apparently means that incorrect opinion, and thus diversity of opinion, is forbidden. Then Acadia University fired Professor Mehta. In another now infamous case, Wilfred Laurier University graduate student and teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd showed in her course a TVOntario current events program which featured a discussion of gender and gender pronouns by Professor Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto. Shepherd was called into a meeting with her supervisor, the head of her academic program, and the acting manager of the University’s Diversity and Equity Office. Shepherd was told that playing the Peterson clip was like “neutrally playing a speech by Hitler.” Peterson’s arguments were alleged to be “‘counter to the Canadian Human Rights Code, and that what had happened in class had been contrary to the university’s Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy; the manager [of the University’s Diversity and Equity Office] offered the view that it might have violated the Ontario Human Rights Code’.” The official commissars of the Diversity ad Equity Office, and the professors, were merely trying to correct Shepherd’s politically incorrect belief in the validity of a diversity of opinion, and the value of hearing different sides to issues. Shepherd had prudently recorded this meeting, and released it to the Canadian national press, where it was widely reported. In the face of public outcry against the suppression of academic freedom and free speech, the University and one of the professors backed down and wrote letters of apology. Shepherd is suing the University, as is Peterson. In many universities, diversity and inclusion officers have been charged with investigating complaints of sexual impropriety and sexual violence, in the U.S. under Title IX. In most cases, these officers are women, and dedicated feminists. They have been instrumental in prosecuting and persecuting innocent males falsely accused. In this enterprise in injustice, university adminis-

trations have relentlessly backed their diversity officers, even when the accused has been vindicated by independent experts. Where are we now? Our governments, academic agencies, and universities have rejected the liberal emphasis on individual academic merit and achievement in admissions and hiring, and replaced it with the illiberal principle of proportional representation of members of census categories. In practice, this means that favoring and benefiting members of alleged “underrepresented” minorities, such as females, people of color, indigenous people, homosexuals and transsexuals, and ethnics such as Muslims; and that the same time they disfavour and exclude members of alleged “overrepresented” categories, such as males, whites, heterosexuals, Christians, Jews, and Asians. But do not think this is reverse sexism, reverse racism, and bigotry; it is what today passes for “social justice.” In aid of this “social justice” agenda, various falsehoods are asserted, such as that “multiculturalism” is not a sociological oxymoron, but the highest morality; that all cultures and equally good and valuable; that biology does not influence our social roles and behavior (except for homosexuals); that females never lie and should always be believed; that ideas of merit and achievement are white male supremacism; and that a race-blind policy is racist, as is the statement that “all lives matter.” As it is forbidden to challenge these falsehoods, and anyone doing so will be attacked by student thugs or administration enforcers, and probably both, free speech, the marketplace of ideas, and diversity of opinion no longer exist in our universities. University administrations are vehemently committed to “social justice” ideology, and they have appointed a series of “diversity and inclusion” commissars to serve as enforcers to suppress any politically incorrect opinions. These enforcers hold the future of any student or employee in their hands, and will destroy any student or employee who expresses forbidden truths, or questions the “social justice” agenda. The totalitarian communist regimes have proven to be such a very useful example for our universities to follow.

Senior Fellow Philip Carl Salzman received his B.A from Antioch College, his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and he served as Professor of Anthropology at McGill University from 1968 to 2018. He founded the Commission on Nomadic Peoples of the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, and its international journal, Nomadic Peoples, for which he received the IUAES Gold Award. In recent years, he has been a Senior Fellow at the University of St. Andrews, an Open Society International Scholar at the American University of Central Asia, an Erasmus Mundus International Fellow at the University of Catania, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has engaged in extensive ethnographic field research in Baluchistan (Iran), Gujarat and Rajasthan (India), and Sardinia (Italy) which has provided the foundation for many articles in academic journals, and for several books. His latest book is Classic Comparative Anthropology: Studies from the Tradition (2012). In public affairs, he was a member of Middle East Strategy at Harvard (2008-2010), a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (2004-2012), and is currently a member of the Academic Council of the Canadian Institute for Jewish Studies, a Fellow of the Middle East Forum (2015-), and a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (2016-). He has published articles and reports in the Middle East Forum, Gatestone Institute, the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research, and the Macdonald Laurier Institute.

29

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY

30

WWW.FCPP.ORG

B

lue Gold Making Us Rich Brian Giesbrecht, Commentary, Environment July 3, 2019

“

W Bush

ater is more valuable than oil”- President George W.

Canada currently exports huge quantities of water to the United States and all over the world. As the world’s fifth largest exporter of agricultural products – which are composed mainly of water – huge amounts of Canadian water leave the country every day. Whole lakes are shipped in every direction by means of our vast and efficient agricultural system. And the world is a better place because of it. International customers get quality food to feed hungry populations. Canadian farmers prosper – and so does the rest of the country. Early explorers were simply astounded at the endless plains, fertile soil and the relatively predictable rainfall we are blessed with. Improved farming techniques and farming science have meant that each year there is more crop available for export. New crops come on – like canola and soybeans – and this means even more business for our agricultural export business. The more crop there is for export, the more water goes overseas, or down south. Nobody has ever complained about this natural and profitable process, and nobody ever will. Canada owes its success in large part to its agricultural sector, and no matter how much new technology comes on the scene, people will always need good food. The fact that so much water leaves our country every year in our agricultural exports troubles no one, nor should it. It is part of a natural cycle. Eventually that water comes back. Water leaves our country every day in thousands of other products as well. So, if a politician announced a sale to a foreign nation of a trillion gallons of water locked in agricultural products he would be praised. But just let that politician propose that a trillion gallons of bulk water be sold to a foreign country – especially to the United States – and he would have to run for cover. It would be the end of his or her political career. The fact is that most Canadians are per

fectly happy to sell Canadian water to the highest bidder when that water is contained in agricultural products, or the thousands of other export products that contain water, but we have some kind of visceral reaction when anyone dares to suggest that we should sell water that is not contained in something else. Over the years many schemes have been proposed for the large-scale sale of water. Massive diversions, dams, container ship transport. Almost all of these plans are shot down. Why is this so? What is going on here? The world is getting hotter, drier and thirstier. Demands for fresh water are growing louder all the time. In fact, wars have even been fought over water. To our south, the American Southwest is getting drier by the day. The Ogallala aquifer, from which the Southwest takes so much of its water, is drawing water at a rate eight times faster than it is being replenished. Anyone travelling to the Southwest and looking over at Glen Canyon Dam water level knows how far down that poor, overused Columbia River sinks every year. They need water, and we have it. Canadians should begin to look at water as a commodity- the “blue gold” that it is. It goes without saying that the ecological and environmental impediments to any water export plan must be dealt with intelligently. In some cases those plans will turn out to make no sense. But, in some cases they will. I suggest that much of our national aversion to any suggestion that water be sold to the American Southwest is just thinly disguised anti-Americanism. We should put such trivial emotions behind us and look at the big picture. Our water could help those incredibly productive places like Silicon Valley keep boosting our standard of living. Our water could turn that Southwest desert into a garden that can grow food for the world. And our water – our “blue gold” – can make us rich.

Senior Fellow Brian Giesbrecht received his education at United College and The University of Manitoba, where he obtained his LLB in 1972. He worked with Walsh, Micay and Co., and then joined Legal Aid Manitoba in 1975 to become Senior Attorney and the first Area Director for western Manitoba in Brandon. Appointed to The Provincial Court (Family Division) in 1976, he heard child welfare cases and general family matters until he transfered to the Criminal Division in 1989. During his career he served on the National Family Court Committee, and various provincial court committees. He was an Associate Chief Judge from 1991 to 2005, and he became Acting Chief Judge in 1993. Mr. Giesbrecht has written extensively for various publications. His main theme has been the need to abolish The Indian Act and the separate systems of government that exist in Canada.

31

FRONTIER CENTRE FOR PUBLIC POLICY

D

igital Charter Is Trojan Horse for Censorship Fergus Hodgson Commentary, Disruption June 18, 2019

O

n May 21st, the national government unveiled a lengthy “digital charter” with the noble goals of expanded internet access and more trust online. If one peels back the feel-good 10 principles and stated justifications, however, one finds a new weapon in the censor arsenal.

The Christchurch Call global strategy came in the wake of the New Zealand mass murder in March. The terrorist live-streamed on Facebook and then supporters quickly re-uploaded to YouTube and other platforms, straining content-moderation efforts.

“The platforms are failing their users, and they’re failing our citizens. They have to step up in a major way to counter disinformation,” The current Prime Minister said when he announced the charter on May 16th. “If they don’t, we will hold them to account and there will be meaningful financial consequences.”

Although the Christchurch case was clear, and the platform eliminated the file without state coercion, just who is an who is not an extremist can be in the eye of the beholder. Access Now, an advocacy group for digital rights, has criticized the Christchurch Call for its lack of precision in defining a “terrorist and violent extremist content, a concept that can vary between countries and in some cases can be used arbitrarily to harm human rights.”

Fines are one way to bend internet firms, along with broader interpretation and enforcement of hate-speech legislation. One impetus for the There is no shortage of warncharter is the Christchurch Call, a ing examples. In Fiji, a law pledge between 18 countries and “We are wrong to believe this aimed at online harassment tech giants Facebook, Twitter, happens only in the Third World has led to overreach and a Google, Microsoft, and Amazon or in authoritarian countries.“ chilling free-speech climate. “to eliminate terrorist and violent Bangladesh has throttled interextremist content online.” Cananet access ahead of elections, da signed the agreement on May while Benin has imposed a nationwide social-media 15th. blackout. After the latest terrorist attack in Sri Lanka, the government preemptively shut down all social-media The signatory governments plan to prohibit content “in a platforms to stop rumors. manner consistent with the rule of law and international human rights law, including freedom of expression.” Venezuela’s Chavista dictatorship routinely blocks However, in a more than symbolic gesture, the United streaming websites during opposition protests. As part States declined to join. This is consistent with the First of an arbitrary and wide-ranging secret inquiry into “fake Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees news,” the Brazilian Supreme Court this year censored a free speech—among other rights—as a bedrock of the story linking one of its members to a corrupt businessrepublic. man. Russia has criminalized insults against government officials or the state itself and the spreading of “lies.” Who Defines Terrorism, Extremism? There is no dispute that terrorists weaponize social We are wrong to believe this happens only in the Third media to maximize their impact, and social-media firms World or in authoritarian countries. France has empowhave a role to play in stopping such abuse. However, ered judges to order the removal of any content they politicians and tech firms can also co-opt legitimate deem fake during elections. Germany has enacted a law concerns to restrict speech, stifle criticism, and tilt public compelling social media to remove “hate speech,” and debates. Human Rights Watch has denounced this as “unaccountable, overbroad censorship” that “should be promptly The application of safety protections is already limiting reversed.” The United Kingdom wants to hold websites legitimate discussions deemed too extreme by censors. liable for “harmful” content posted by users, a proposal Debate over gender pronouns has led to a fine against a similar to Australia’s move to jail social-media execupeaceful, law-abiding man in British Columbia. Further, tives. The New Zealand government has made it a crime forthcoming subsidies for approved media outlets—not to merely possess the Churchland terrorist’s manifesto to mention CBC’s taxpayer funding—demonstrate how and has bullied the press to limit its coverage of the Canadian officials can easily incentivize submissive jourmassacre trial. nalism. Proponents of the complicated digital charter explicitly identify “fake news” as one of their chief targets.

32

WWW.FCPP.ORG These laws and regulations need not be applied extensively to chill speech online and foster a culture of self-censorship. As human-rights activist Yulia Gorbunova has noted, “authorities don’t really need to control millions of users. All they need to do is have a handful of criminal extremism cases to instill fear.” Across the Spectrum Bureaucrats who do not understand the bottom-up nature of the internet are paving the way for censorship across the world. Online communication has become the norm, and those who believe they will never be a target should consider the social-media accounts already being blocked or suspended. Heavy-handed moderation affects conservatives, progressives, and people who just threaten the status quo, so attempts to paint this as a one-sided problem are wrong.

Further, because there is no precise definition of extremism, social-media censors continue to err on the side of what is less likely to get them into trouble with authorities. Companies face little choice if they are to remain in business, as demonstrated by Google when it got into bed with the brutal Chinese regime. When all they have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail, both for state censors and centralized social-media moderators. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has documented “the vast spectrum of people silenced by social media platforms that inconsistently and erroneously apply terms of service (TOS) rules.” The digital charter exacerbates this problem and impedes the private reconciliation already underway between open access and safety protections.

Research Associate Fergus Hodgson is the executive editor of Antigua Report, a publication and consultancy devoted to the economics of the Americas. In addition, he is a columnist with the Epoch Times, a podcaster and roving editor with Gold Newsletter, and an English-language advisor with Cedice Libertad of Venezuela. Previously, he was the founding editor in chief of the PanAm Post and the director of fiscal policy studies for the John Locke Foundation in North Carolina. He holds a bachelor of arts in economics from Boston University, a graduate diploma in political science from the University of Waikato, and a certificate in Cuban history from the University of Miami. A Canadian, Irish, and New Zealand citizen, he is a digital nomad who has lived in eight countries. Follow @FergHodgson.

33

Donate online by visiting www.fcpp.org

34