However much elected officials want to save lives, their only play going forward is to save the economy before the Covid fallout makes 2008 look like a picnic.

The collision between the authority of “expert” classes and the population they presume to rule is coming fast. Expect nothing less than a seismic rupture unless those planning to wreck the economy can do better than wonky computer models and snitch lines to intimidate the population.

Canada’s response to the virus has been in lockstep with the World Health Organization’s wandering policy on first identifying and then stopping Covid-19. It has been a disastrous failure. But Canada still preaches the WHO gospel.

Taking all the august scientific advice from his panel, Trump has balanced the fear of losing citizens against the real potential that the civil contract will unwind if people are denied work, pay and access to the society at large. If it fails he will be destroyed.

There will be casualties in the Great Coronavirus Episode of 2020. Many, regrettably, will be human. A few will be political and financial. And not a moment too soon.

You may not know it but Canada has a new amending formula for the constitution. It now reads hereditary leaders + American trust fund money/ activist Canada Supreme Court justices times a prime minister who won’t enforce laws equals: kiss your country goodbye.

It is the Liberals who have taken the ride on the Trudeau Party’s Leftward Express to coercion who have changed. And , like the GO train, that train is now stuck in the station, waiting for the tracks to clear.

Not many people know this, but I have been in remission for the better part of a decade now. Since the time I overcame ‘60s Progressive Syndrome— or, as we sufferers know it, The Clevers— it’s been a daily struggle, frankly. Just one precious Obama bumper sticker, one incendiary Robert DeNiro rant and I could be back in full-blown cleverness.

Some people write their own epitaph. So it was appropriate that, when news of Christie Blatchford's death came across social media on Wednesday, her churlish critics couldn’t help themselves. They chose her death to grind an ax about how she’d resisted the ideological show trials promoted by the Left.

In today’s Cancel Culture hysteria the line separating saints from sinners moves according to political expediency. Anyone not divining this moving target is then subject to an intimidation barrage that makes them wish they’d never been born. Because, as we’ve mentioned here before, the woke Left believes you’re free to an opinion— so long as it’s the same as their opinion

Hands up everyone who thought we would hear the words “Prince Harry” and “Westjet” in the same sentence? But the twain was met this week, with the sorta’-prince winging his way on Westjet to his new home in Victoria after a highly unsuccessful UK stay during which he seems to have antagonized just about everyone who ever cared for him in his days as a Royal.

Contemporary Canada is like Kieran Culkin’s rich-boy character Roman Roy in HBO’s series Succession. One magazine piece described Roy as “a wisecracking mash-up of Puck and Iago sheathed in an Armani suit.” He’s a glib observer, full of opinions, empty of resolve, listened to by no one of importance. Which is, of course, Canada under Trudeau. Like the foppish PM, Canada is not taken seriously any longer outside UN-approved echo chambers. All talk, no action

A vast swath of the left has hived itself off from the reality of America. They think Bette Midler is the typical American when most people actually think Dolly Parton is the typical American.  They convince themselves that their reality is your reality once you stop following Trump on Twitter.

The movie illustrates what’s been lost and what’s been gained in the transition to this new age of tampons in men’s rooms and reparations for the U.S. Civil War. While the past is an imperfect play, its actors saw fit to honour humanity by using forgiveness as a bridge to the future. Today’s actors seem only intent on burning all the bridges of the past. The statues are torn down. There will be no absolution in the Church of Bernie Sanders.

Condescend to the Americans electoral college if you will. But their Founders knew the addictive qualities of power. And the gullibility of the elites in believing their own manifest right to power. They put up strong barriers to separate the two.  Canadians, meanwhile, remain as marginalized as they were in 1867, captives of a class that believes in its own superiority.

Greta Thunberg and her followers are the hapless victims. In their acceptance of the fiery furnace to come there is only wealth transfer, rending of the garment and, as she so helpfully put it after TIME honoured her, putting the guilty up against the wall.

It was my privilege to join the Toronto Mike’d podcast this week. We talked about many of the highlights and lowlights in my 40 years in journalism/ writing/ tweeting. He was a generous host— I got a free Palma Pasta lasagna and some Great Lakes beer— and very well researched. You don’t know how rare that is with most interviews.

People with short attention spans— which includes virtually anyone working the corridors of today’s culture industries— do not remember that at one time libidinous independent behaviour from women was seen approvingly by feminists. In the thrall of the current Church Lady penumbra, they pretend that today’s inquisitions have been going on since the time of the pharaohs.

Many eyebrows were raised in the final week of the Canadian federal election when former U.S. president Barack Obama jumped in with a full-throated endorsement of his old chum Justin Trudeau. You only had to see Trudeau’s fevered mosh-pit performance the night he learned of the support to know he’d gotten a reprieve from POTUS 45.

One of the great benefits of Alberta’s place in Confederation is the amount of free advice the province receives from other provinces on how to comport itself. The well-meaning suggestions flow like a river. Grateful? You don’t know the half of it.