Ian Campbell

Digital Editor @MLInstitute

[Jamie Sarkonak @sarkonakj]

My column today is on the Charter right to sell hard drugs. I argue that Justice Catherine Murray should be removed from the bench.

She embraced far-fetched ideas about drug use to undermine a widely accepted prohibition on *drug dealing* and even applauded the dealers who stood before her in court. A person who praises unlawful, objectively harmful behaviour because she agrees with the activism behind it cannot be trusted to preside over a court.
https://t.co/3YEIHwmWTj

[Asher Honickman @Honickman]

This is an important step in the right direction. But in taking it, we need to remember *why* the Fathers wanted to avoid Americanization.

The desire to unite the British North American colonies was not born of a hatred of all things American - in fact, Macdonald called the US Constitution "one of the most marvellous efforts of skill and organization that ever governed a free people."

The Fathers of Confederation pursued their goal because they wanted to build something distinct. They wanted to conserve the British constitution - including and especially parliamentary government and the monarchical principle - which they believed fostered a truer liberty. And they wanted to unite the founding peoples in a federation that both preserved cultural and regional distinctions through robust provincial power, while also empowering Parliament to legislate on the many things the British and French held in common.

More than a century and a half on, the Fathers' affirmative vision continues to permeate our laws, institutions and culture, despite being largely outside the public consciousness. But if we abandon that vision and define ourselves in purely oppositional terms, we will be unable to address the significant challenges before us - challenges that will remain long after Trump has left the White House. Elbows Up can produce righteous anger, but little else. Ultimately, if we want to secure our sovereignty and resist Americanization, then we must foster a deeper sense of what it means to be Canadian.

[Howard Anglin @howardanglin]

It is not “selective” to apply a clear moral standard. If you think it is, you’ve twisted yourself into a hot salted relativistic pretzel. People with principles are not afraid to make judgments, which includes recognising that some matters are black and white while others are shades of gray. The 9/11 attacks are jet black. If you can’t acknowledge this, I wouldn’t trust you to mow my lawn.

[Conrad Black @ConradMBlack]

Regrettably, an exchange on social media between two former CBC journalists, Keith Boag and Travis Dhanraj, was inflicted upon me today and it perfectly captures the invasive rot afflicting and spreading forth from the CBC's newsroom and college campuses into the collective consciousness of our society.

For reference, Mr. Dhanraj was given the high jump from the CBC last year when he attempted to gently nudge that organization in the direction of diversity of opinion. Mr. Boag, on the other hand, was a CBC lifer, retiring after 35 years of blissful ignorance to any opinion outside the CBC's ideological monoculture. The exchange comes within the context of a recent revelation (by Warren Kinsella) that the CBC’s senior director of journalistic standards was demanding avoidance of the t-word in describing the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Mr. Boag seems to be defending this position by categorizing 9/11 as a run-of-the-mill "attack on civilians for political purposes,” giving several other examples to imply there is no clear distinction between any instance of civilians being killed in pursuit of some political purpose. By implication, Osama bin Laden and Nelson Mandela (an implication Boag made explicitly in a subsequent exchange with Ezra Levant) are morally equivalent; they are either both terrorists or neither are. It is not a serious position. It is moral illiteracy formatted into the CBC's perverse style guide. Sadly, the idea is not original, or unique. In fact, it is the pervasive view on campuses and among large swathes of the Canadian media landscape. It is also very dangerous, and it needs to be answered.

Mr. Boag's position is bunk. If the “political purpose” in question is to kill and terrorize civilians in the service of global jihad or the extermination of a people, it belongs in a distinct category. That was 9/11. That was October 7. That was the Holocaust. These acts were genocidally motivated and carried out by groups that would never accept any peaceful resolution.

On the other hand, using decisive force to destroy war criminals who will never make peace, belongs in a completely different category. It is not terrorism. Israel’s campaign to destroy Hamas is a righteous cause. Israel is not only within its rights, but morally obligated to uproot the terrorist apparatus that hides behind its own population. And Israel should be lauded for the strategically disadvantageous lengths it has gone to limit Palestinian casualties, even while Hamas has tried to maximize them. Accusing Israel of genocide is either credulous stupidity or intellectually flaccid anti-Semitism attempting to disguise itself in a threadbare cloak of righteousness.

The atomic bomb was developed by the Allies and used to save lives and compel a surrender that would not otherwise have come. One may argue, and I would agree, that a demonstration on a remote island, a sort of nuclear warning shot, might have been preferable. Likewise, using another of Boag's examples, one could argue the ANC should have continued with their Gandhi-inspired peaceful protest movement even after the Sharpeville massacre. The fact is, no act of violence toward civilians, whether in pursuit of a greater good or not, should be whitewashed. But nor should they all be grouped lazily together, as Boag attempts to do, as if genocide and global domination were indistinguishable from self-defense or peace-through-strength. As if they can all be neatly filed away as “political reasons.”

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States did not proceed to conquer the world, though it could have with a four-year monopoly on nuclear weapons. It used it geostrategic leverage to rebuild Europe and Japan, establish the United Nations — which, believe it or not, was once a righteous and laudable organization — and strive for peace. Had the Nazis or Imperial Japan developed nuclear weapons first, no sane person believes they would have pursued the same strategy.

I should not unfairly single out Mr. Boag, as his perspective is plagiarized from an intellectually and historically illiterate world view that has been building up steam for 30 years. It is a view that dispenses with the indispensable distinction between good and evil. It is not moral seriousness. It is relativism, and it is contemptible. This mass amnesia about who the forces of good in the world are, and who the forces of evil are, is a serious problem. That this worldview has captured the CBC and so many North American campuses is not surprising, but it is a genuine cause for concern. The West has ceded too much of, and must reclaim, the moral high ground.

[CIJA @CIJAinfo]

Yesterday we reminded Canadians that @CBCNews refuses to call Hamas a terrorist organization. Today, reports of a leaked memo reveals they are now instructing staff not to call 9/11 a "terrorist attack."

Sanitizing the most infamous acts of terror in modern history as mere "hijackings that led to crashes" is a complete collapse of journalistic standards. Ideology should never replace facts at our national public broadcaster.

Read more here:
https://t.co/fSE6gLWhMb

[Ben Mulroney @BenMulroney]

Bill, I’m perfectly capable of reading and understanding the CBC’s logic. The problem is that what occurred on 911 is the textbook definition of “terrorism“. And I have a problem with a news organization not using terms that apply to situations. If the CBC is unwilling to call 911 terrorism without the cover of an expert as a hedge, I question their values, their perspective and their use of 1.6 billion of taxpayer dollars. You are free to have a different opinion, of course. Have a great night.

[Alan Fryer 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱 @alanfryermedia]

Unreal. @CBCNews journalists ordered not to call the deadliest terrorist attack against America a terrorist attack. A case of internal ideology trumping journalism.

[Ben Mulroney @BenMulroney]

When @jk_rowling made public her position on biological women/trans women, which led to a media onslaught that was so massive that it probably cannot be accurately measured, I don’t seem to recall a similar concern by organizations like Amnesty International.

[Committee for Academic Freedom @ComAcFreedom]

Cambridge University’s embattled “academic superstar”, Professor Jason Arday, reported fellow academic Dr David Harris, Professor Emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University, to the police after being challenged over apparent inconsistencies, errors and possible plagiarism in his work.

The Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF) has seen the entire correspondence, and it raises troubling questions about the use of harassment law as a shield against awkward scholarly scrutiny in an increasingly litigious, low-trust society.

Full story:

https://t.co/lNjN56qXjC

[Dan Robertson @pdrobertson]

The highest praise I can give to Lloyd Robertson is that I had no idea what his political views were. May he rest in peace.

[Lucas Meyer 🎙️ @meyer_lucas]

Lloyd Robertson was such a classic, throwback newsman that he one time broke down his own car collision.

Just give the man the mic and let the voice cook.

RIP to a true legend.

[Alan Fryer 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱 @alanfryermedia]

Oh man, this one hurts. It was another era, granted, but trust and tradition wasn’t just a network slogan, it’s what he practiced, it’s what he breathed, every day — working tirelessly to earn the trust of Canadians by insisting on traditional journalistic standards of accuracy, balance, fairness and speed. That’s what Lloyd demanded and what he expected from each and every one of us in his orbit. His unmistakable voice was both authoritative and soothing and live broadcasts is where he truly excelled. I was - and still am - honoured and privileged to have worked alongside such a titan of journalism for a quarter century. It’s often a rough and tumble business and Lloyd was one of the last true gentleman to practice it with integrity and class. Goodnight, old friend, and rest easy.

[Canada The Unknown Country @Canada_Unknown]

On this day in 1793, Scottish-Canadian explorer Sir Alexander Mackenzie reached the Pacific Ocean. It was the first crossing of the North American Continent north of Mexico, beating Lewis and Clark by 12 years, & is regarded as one of the greatest expeditions in Canadian history.

[Jamie Sarkonak @sarkonakj]

The problem with bringing over too many people too fast is that it cultures this attitude among newcomers: "I'm just as Canadian as you guys, so my lineage deserves recognition in your museums even though I've been here less than a generation."

[Royce Koop 🇨🇦 @RoyceKoop]

NEW COLUMN: Carney rewrote the rules so tax dollars could fund partisan advertising

"Canada Strong" was the Liberal Party's 2025 election slogan. Now it's on taxpayer-funded ads running non-stop.

For nearly a decade, strict rules banned partisan government advertising. Then Carney loosened them.

It's a pattern.

Meanwhile, Ottawa spent $78 million on ads last year, added $25 million more in November, and ran a $67 billion deficit.

The guardrails existed for a reason. Carney tore them down, one by one.

A government that advertises for itself with your money has stopped serving you and started using you.

https://t.co/uNV0NIqXlj

#cdnpoli #cdnpolitics

[The Moderate Case @TheModerateCase]

Stop saying “free.”

Start saying “funded by taxpayers.”

Thank you.

[Ian Campbell @Campbellian_]

Indeed. It's also just not a very original insight. Hardly a "new tale." It's well known that European goods travelled long distances into the interior of the continent through Indigenous trade networks ahead of the Europeans themselves. The HBC trade at Hudson Bay is another example where English traders went generations without meeting some of the tribes further inland who were acquiring their goods, like various metal products, as part of the mutually beneficial exchanging happening at the bay.

[Greg Lukianoff @glukianoff]

Disappointed to see this using the “conservative pounce” formulation.

I’m Gen X. All of us, including liberals like me, were there when we watched a nation filled with brilliant people put its best minds to making socialism work. It was an unparalleled disaster — not just economically, but environmentally, and certainly from a human rights perspective as well.

The fact that we now have people on both the right and the left who think Lenin was on to something, or that “real socialism has never been tried,” is mind-blowing. It represents a massive generational failure of our K–PhD system. They didn’t learn the history, philosophy, or economics that would have prevented them from falling for the same midwittery that too many of our grandparents fell for.

Sure, it sounds nice. Utopia always does. But it was a colossal disaster that we must not repeat.

So no, Axios. The news isn’t that the GOP is sounding the alarm. It’s that more genuine liberals aren’t.

[Jamie Sarkonak @sarkonakj]

Canadian Press used a photo of an Asiatic black bear in India to illustrate a story about a Canadian black bear. Completely different species. We don’t have those here!

I know not everyone is going to care, but I think it’s pretty bad that CP can’t get our wildlife correct

[Toby Young @toadmeister]

A museum has renamed itself after Left-wing activists mistakenly thought the 'SS' in its old name – 'SS Great Britain' – referred to 'Slave Ship'. Rather than tell them the truth, it pandered to their ignorance. https://t.co/Q6qApFiAS8