Carrying Water for Chinese Communists

Vincent J. Curtis

31 Mar 20

I did not expect the Hannon Times to reprint an editorial of the Beijing People’s Daily as one of its own, but there it is.

Justin Trudeau succored China with Canada’s now desperately needed reserves of medical PPE, after the WHO warned the world of the coming calamity.  But we’re supposed to believe that Justin’s critics are with merit because China is so grateful.  And now China is repaying our generosity by offering help in return.  Offering!  How nice!  When is that help supposed to get here – July?  The editorial didn’t say.

The communist Chinese government doesn’t feel gratitude.  They recognize fools and weakness, and know how to exploit it.

The communist Chinese regime lied about the nature and scale of the Wuhan outbreak when the world needed that information most.  And it’s still lying.  That lying put the rest of the world in danger, but the Chinese regime doesn’t care.  All they care about is the survival of their regime, which is why they lied.  They bungled the handling of the initial outbreak because they had to lie to themselves about the problem until it could no longer be ignored.

The communist Chinese government is utterly illegitimate, and even they know it.  They fear revolution.  They cannot afford to look incompetent, because competence is their only justification for holding on to power.

Inexplicably, some westerners still hold romantic notions about communist governments, as demonstrated by Trudeau’s actions and the Times' editorial.  Believe me, the Chinese government is comprised of cold-blooded killers – just ask the doctors in Wuhan who first spread the word to the outside world – if you can find them.

China can collect medical PPE domestically by taking it from regions they need to keep oppressed. The communists send it to Canada as “repayment.”  Stalin worked that way in the 1930s with food.  China is even now looking to expand its power and influence in the Third World by offering “help” to those countries to deal with the virus.  A Faustian bargain, at best, and entirely consistent with China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” to replace the U.S. as the dominant world power.

The point here is that lefties remain stupid, because there’s no fixing stupid.  Others like Chinese money.  It was a mistake sending precious reserves to China when we were going to need it here.  Criticism of Trudeau’s folly and weakness is entirely justified.  It was a mistake to continue receiving flights from China until the end of March.  Maybe it was romantic stupidity or maybe it was fear that led Trudeau to succor China, but to attack Trudeau’s critics as being without merit makes one wonder about the power and influence of the Chinese government in Canadian businesses.
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COVID-19 and single use plastics

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Mar 20

One of the lessons we learned, or relearned, from our experience with the pandemic is the value of single-use plastics.  Besides economy and convenience, single use plastics are hygienic.  Reusable bags and containers are not.

A new progressive-inspired hobby horse is the banning of single use plastics because they pollute the oceans.  To promote this hobby-horse, what is often suppressed is the content and geographic sources of this pollution.  It is not widely admitted that a large proportion of the plastics found in the ocean is abandoned fishing gear, and that the greatest sources of ocean pollution are ten rivers that empty into the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

Canada does not, as a practical matter, dispose of its municipal waste into the ocean.  If we did, the St. Lawrence River would be the greatest carrier of that pollution, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence would be one of the most polluted bodies of water in the world.  But it isn’t.

None of these facts mattered when Prime Minister Trudeau, thoughtless of hygiene, decided upon the policy of banning single use plastics.  Canada’s banning of single-use plastics would somehow halt the abandonment of fishing gear and stop the flow of plastics into the Indian and Pacific Oceans.  This must be what progressives call “following the science.”  Others would call it progressive narcissism.

Hopefully, our experience with this pandemic will cause the Trudeau government to rethink its position on the use of hygienic, single-use plastics.
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Pandemic justifies global warming skepticism

Vincent J. Curtis

27 Mar 20

The worst-case forecasts of coronavirus infection- and death rates, which were initially offered, are now seen as being extremely high.  With more experience and data coming in, the projections are becoming more realistic and reliable.  But how could the initial forecasts have been so wrong?

The mathematical modelling of pandemics is fairly straightforward – to a mathematician.  The model is pretty rigorous, so what could go wrong?  Like all models that are solutions to differential equations, the models are a general solution and produce what is called a “family” of curves.  Each individual member of the family is distinguished from the others by the values of the parameters and coefficients of the function, of the general solution.  If you put in the wrong numbers, the curve you get does not correspond to physical reality, and the forecast is “wrong.”.  As matters have progressed, better data is coming in and so the more realistic values being used and the pandemic forecasts are becoming more accurate – more realistic.

It is worth comparing what we are seeing with the mathematics and forecasts of the progress of the pandemic with the mathematics and forecasts of global warming.  The mathematical modelling of pandemics is straightforward, but the modelling of global temperatures is not.  We understand a lot about the spread of pandemics, and have numerous examples in the past to compare the models to.  But we lack good, historical temperature data from around the world, and even today vast swaths of the globe report no temperature data at all.  We have no historical thermometric data around the time of the medieval warm period or the little ice age to help study our models.  We simply do not know why theese occurred, which means the climate models may not account for all the variables.

The mathematics of forecasting the progress of pandemics is reliable, while the mathematics of modelling climate temperatures is crude and empirical – to say nothing of the problem of picking the right coefficient and parametric values to get the curve that corresponds to physical reality.

When the climate models came out forecasting catastrophe, my first reaction was “that’s interesting, worth more research, but too crude to base large decisions upon.”  However, politics took over from the science.  It was as though a fragment of thought answered the prayers of a political movement.  That fragment was seized upon as gospel truth; we simply couldn’t risk this forecast of the future being wrong, and therefore couldn’t be doubted.  Immediately, the focus turned away from the models, however crude, to the economic prescriptions demanded by the movement - all of which tended to the destruction of western economies.  Kind of like what we are seeing during the pandemic.

After twenty-five years of experience, we now see that all the climate models were extreme.  They all forecasted temperature increases much higher than the actually observed measurements.  Given the empirical nature of the models, we cannot tell if there is a fundamental flaw with the underlying mathematics or just with the selection of the values for the coefficients and parameters of the models.  Because of the extreme politics surrounding global warming, it is impossible for a dispassionate review of the entire theoretical basis for modelling global temperatures on a long-term basis.  Too many careers and reputations are at stake in the scientific community itself.

Looking back to 1995 and comparing the forecasts at that time to actual events, it is obvious that global warming skepticism was completely justified.  And since nothing has changed on the climate alarmism side, skepticism is more amply justified today, having been proven right for the last quarter century.

Understanding the mathematical modelling of the progress of a pandemic proves informative on another major issue of today; the modelling of climate.
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Canada ships COVID PPE to China

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Mar 20

No one can be more indignant and a spectacle of self-righteousness than a progressive caught with her pants down.  Such is the case with Canada’s Minster of Castigation and International Development Karina Gould.  Gould was defending Canada’s allocation of $50 million to help poor countries riddled with malaria, measles, and even Ebola, to cope with the coronavirus.

Oddly, China is on that list of poor countries needing Canada’s assistance.  In mid-February, after the WHO warned the world to batten down the hatches against the coming pandemic, the Trudeau government sent China sixteen tonnes of medical personal protective equipment from our own strategic stockpile, equipment we sorely need now.  China is the country where this equipment is made.  I wonder if China considers it a gift or a return for credit.

In a case of his left hand not knowing what his far-left hand is doing, Trudeau didn’t halt travelling from China to Canada until March 23^rd.  Besides sending China our medical PPE, we continued to accept, potentially, some of their coronavirus seedlings to care for.  We can’t be accused of racism or inhumanity in the midst of a crisis now, can we?

Minister Gould replied with righteous blather when asked to explain why Canada, with its $50 million grant money, was, in effect, increasing the number of bidders for the same supply of scarce resources.  All that does is drive up the price.  It’s all part of “our enlightened self-interest” assured Minister Gould, and we place ourselves at risk if we’re not thinking about the world’s poorest and most vulnerable, she says.

Speaking of the most vulnerable, Minister Gould’s deepest concern is found in her assurance that the allotment of money is not being diverted from “helping improve sexual and reproductive health of girls and women,” which is the verbose way of saying abortion.  Such is her “fierce commitment” to preserve development and humanitarian programs.  Minister Gould was not asked why continue paying for abortion when simply letting these pandemics rip gets the same job done free of charge.

The Trudeau government miscalculates a lot, but they are fierce in defending themselves, especially when they can feel that cold draft in the nether regions.
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Canada's DoJ lets us down on COVID-19 Emergency measures bill

Vincent J. Curtis

25 Mar 20


The late Senator Eugene Forsey, an expert on the Canadian constitution, was rolling in his grave.  Somewhere, the severed head of King Charles I of England was grinning in satisfaction.  The government of Justin Trudeau was asking parliament to be granted the powers that Charles I was beheaded for exercising.

Where the hell was the Department of Justice?  It is supposed to supervise the drafting of legislation, and say “you can’t do that!”  The Minister of Justice ought to have resigned.

Section 2 of the original COVID-19 emergency legislation would have granted the Trudeau government full powers, without further reference to parliament, to raise taxes, spend money, and borrow money on the credit of Canada as it saw fit for the next year and nine months.  Charles I tried something like that, paid the ultimate price for it; and his beheading established a constitutional precedent that holds to this day.

It is one thing to ask for emergency powers for a month or two, but to ask for a year and nine month raises the question of what parliament was going to be doing over that time – nothing?  Did Trudeau really think that the country couldn’t risk having a debate in parliament over a new tax or spend measure four or six months from now?  What was Trudeau planning?  A Nancy Pelosi like jamming of hobby-horses into an emergency measures bill?  Never let a good crisis go to waste!

Luckily, the bill passed the House without Section 2.  When the dust settles, there needs to be a reckoning with the Department of Justice, which is supposed to uphold law and constitutional precedent, and protect the government - and us - from such mistakes - or power grabs.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
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The viruses of tyranny and stupidity

Vincent J. Curtis

24 Mar 20

If progressives were serious about maintaining social distancing, they would recommend the smoking of cigars.

The viruses of tyranny and stupidity have deeply infected today’s progressives.  We have progressives who recommend the emptying of our jails to protect the prisoners from the coronavirus, and Minister of Health Hajdu who wants to throw people into jail for violating her orders to maintain social distancing.

Because history is no longer taught in school, we have one or more generations that do not know of the legal and constitutional workings that we are heir to.  King Charles I was beheaded for doing what Prime Minster Trudeau proposes to do – tax and spend without reference to parliament.  Never mind the excuses and justification, King Charles had his too.

The reason why we have a parliamentary democracy today is that the power of the purse lay with the House of Commons.  That power, in turn, is the legacy of the feudal customs of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes which prohibited the king from raising taxes beyond feudal custom without the consent of the people.  The king had his money, and the people theirs.  Since the thirteenth century, the consent of the people was expressed through the House of Commons.  Mr. Trudeau would casually do away with that custom.

It was the power of the purse that gradually wrested power from the executive king personally and placed it in a cabinet of parliamentary advisors to the king, advisors who commanded a majority in the House of Commons.  It is the executive power of the King that the cabinet – the King’s Ministers – exercises.  But no one must forget that taxing and spending can only be done by the consent of parliament as a whole, not on the say so of a parliamentary steering committee, one that doesn’t even happen to hold a majority in the House of Commons at the moment.

Today's Hannon Times' editorial recommendation of public shaming of scoffers is also ahistoric.  It follows more the pattern of the Chinese Red Guards than it does anything in British or Canadian history.  English-speaking people going back to the Germanic tribes never regarded themselves as an ant-hill; we always regarded ourselves as individuals with individual liberty.  So that should remain, whatever emergency or panic can be whipped up by authorities!

The liberties and rights of the people are at greatest risk whenever those with power think they can justify and get away with violating them.  Those rights include the right to be governed by a parliament, not merely by executive power.  And public shaming be damned.
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Listen to the scientist

Vincent J. Curtis

23 Mar 20

In a disjointed and lackluster column in today's Hannon Times, Geoffrey Stevens demonstrates declining skills as a propagandist.  If he knew what he was talking about, he would be dangerous; but he doesn’t, and isn’t.  He makes the usual demands of progressivism, expresses his snobbish distain for Donald Trump, and mixes in a curious tincture of protection of the communist Chinese regime in the column.

Progressivism can be summed up briefly: rule by experts, and the moral equivalent of war. Both of these are what Stevens demands for dealing with the pandemic.  The pandemic has quickly brought about the condition of the moral equivalent of war.  The rule by experts part comes from his “listen to the scientists” and the “Trump is a science denier” blather.  If Stevens genuinely believed in what he says, he would shut up and listen to me.

I’ve been a working research scientist for practically my entire career, and, among other things, have disputed vigorously the “man-caused global warming” nonsense since the beginning.  My article laughing at the just concluded Kyoto Accord was published in 1996, and since then I have seen all manner of dire forecasts prove to be completely wrong.

You see, science does not make judgements, particularly moral judgements.  All science does is discover and organize facts.  The question of what to do about those facts, the pandemic in this case, requires judgements about economics, diplomacy, and moral questions.  Science provides some, but not all, facts on which to make judgements in those realms.  If the politicians surrendered their power and roles to scientists, those scientists would be acting, not as scientists, but as politicians making political decisions!  When Minister Hajdu threatens to jail scoffers of her orders, is she acting as a scientist or a political thug? (Just an example.)

Stevens is at pains to protect the communist Chinese regime from criticism.  The Spanish flu is now, the “so-called ‘Spanish’ flu,’” which renders the expressions Wuhan virus or Chinese virus as signs of racism – just as the Chinese regime wants.  He said “the world was caught flat-footed,,,in large measure because decision-makers ignored or downplayed the warnings of scientists.”  If Stevens had said “China” instead of world, he would be right.  And the Chinese regime, afraid of its own illegitimacy, lied to the world about the explosion growing in its midst.  Nevertheless, Trump closed travel from China to a chorus of ‘xenophobe’ and ‘racist’ on the day after his impeachment trial ended.  Then, he closed travel from Europe after those oh-so-PC countries let themselves be thoroughly seeded with infected cases - but it’s Trump who’s the bad guy.

Meanwhile, the Trump Administration has been closely guided by its experts in its policy decisions.  A joint committee of experts and policy makers headed by Vice-President Pence meets daily and recommends action.  Dr. Fauci has stated publically that President Trump closely follows the recommendations of the committee and usually asks many penetrating questions after being briefed.  Other than surrendering their political offices to unelected agency heads, the Trump Administration is doing what it was elected to do.  Bleating about ‘listening to the scientists’ only proves that Stevens hasn’t been paying attention.

Steven’s column was practically ritualistic.  But when you apply his rubric and prayers to the actual facts, he proves to be more an out-of-touch propagandist than a journalist.
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Human Rights: a concept Progressives don't get

Vincent J. Curtis

21 Mar 20

Out of sheer boredom, I read Latham Hunter’s entire column today in the Hannon Times, headlined “How about the pandemic of poor literacy?”  She makes the moral allegations that people have a human right to literacy in particular, and a human right to an equal education in general.  To the Ontario Human Rights Commission enquiry into how children with learning disabilities are either provided, or denied, an equal education, she would say emphatically no, children with learning disabilities are not provided with an equal education by the province of Ontario.

Hunter engages in the usual left-wing babble about human rights, which can be briefly summed up as whatever we think good it is a human right to have, and the government must provide it.  This is how progressives disparage the genuine right to free speech into forcing a totally made up right to be called by whatever gender pronoun you happen to choose at that moment.

Literacy is not a human right; it is a human skill.  When we say a person reads at a grade six level, a high school level, or a university level, we are grading them as to their level of skill, not to a degree of right.  Primative cultures often had no written language, and so “literacy” in that language was impossible - and it is impossible to have a right to something that doesn’t exist.  So, the idea of a universal human “right” to literacy falls to the ground.

Nevertheless, in modern Ontario, literacy in English or French is a good: good for the individual to possess the knowledge and skill necessary to be literate, and also good for society as a whole to have a large proportion of its membership to be literate.  The job of teaching letters to the young in Ontario begins with the provincial government.  To fulfill that responsibility the province has set up standards, programs, school boards, and the vast array of other things that deliver teaching in Ontario.  But teaching is one thing, learning is another.  Human beings are capable of learning without teaching, but they learn much quicker with teaching.  An education is the result of a lifetime of learning.  The province teaches in a more or less standard way the material that its youth needs to learn.

So far, it is the right to equal treatment under the law that ensures that a student in Ontario receives teaching approved by the province.  It is up to the student in their learning to make best use of the teaching they receive, and, human beings being what they are, there is a wide range of learning outcomes.  Hunter and the OHRC make the characteristic left-wing mistake of requiring equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity.  The right lies in equality of opportunity, while equality of outcome is impossible, and the costs of trying to achieve that aren’t worth it.

Ontario does recognize that there are students with disabilities, and strives with more or less success to accommodate this reality.  To get there, we depart from human rights, which are universal, to the classification of human beings into groups, each group having its privileges.  In Hunter’s case, there is the person with dyslexia or some such learning disability.  Ontario has the financial power, and the education profession the sophistication, to deal separately with special cases, provided the type of problem has large enough numbers to warrant a special teaching approach.  One can argue that it is good that Ontario do this, but it is not a human right that Ontario do this because human rights pertain to individuals, not to groups.  If the provincial government threw up its hands and said it can no longer afford special programs, it might be a tragedy; it might be bad politically; but it would violate no one’s human rights because the human right is to equal treatment not to tailored special treatment.  (Remember, special categorization is done by government, and what government giveth, the government can taketh away.  Human rights are not granted by government, they are endowed by nature.)

A century ago, provincial education in Ontario stopped at grade ten.  To go higher, one had to pay one’s own way; and that is still the case to get post-secondary education.  Did it violate human rights that Ontario only paid for education to grade ten, (and there were no special programs then)?  Of course not, because the right is to equal treatment, not to reach a certain outcome, an outcome which changed over time.  Human rights are timeless things.

Progressives have always misunderstood the nature of human rights.  Compelling speech in some to satisfy a psychological need in others is a violation of the right to free speech of those so compelled.  Shutting down the speech of people you disagree profoundly with is not an act of free speech on your part – it is a violation of the right of free speech of the individual you don’t like, and of the right of their audience to hear what they have to say.  Equality of outcome is not a human right, in part because the concept pertains to groups not to individuals, and human rights belong to the individual.

When dealing with special cases, progressives refuse to understand that human rights, being universal in nature, do not apply to special cases qua special case, and so cannot properly be invoked.  But progressives do frequently and illicitly invoke human rights because of the rhetorical power of the call.  We can now see that the OHRC enquiry is wrongheaded, and ought to be ended.  For that matter, the OHRC has proven itself a greater threat to human rights than it is a protector, and so ought to be abolished.

As for Hunter’s argument, what she is complaining about boils down to having to spend her money to deal with her special case, and not the province spending its money to deal with it.  An education is the product of teaching and learning, and the province is only responsible for the teaching part; the student, each with their individual strengths and weaknesses, is responsible for the learning part.  An education is what the student makes of their learning opportunities.
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Climate Change and the COVID-19 pandemic

Vincent J. Curtis

20 Mar 20

Perhaps only a climate change skeptic would notice, but no one has been out there beating the climate change drum over the COVID-19 outbreak.  You would think that an actual global pandemic and catastrophe would be tailor-made for the CC propaganda machine.

But, so far, nothing but crickets.  The reason may well be that everyone knows how the coronavirus pandemic started.  It is deemed racist to observe that the virus developed in Wuhan, China, and that the Chinese government bungled its containment, so let’s just observe that Italy also bungled the handling of the epidemic and now counts more deaths from it than China.  Globalization has too many friends to observe that global air travel had more to do with the spread of the pandemic than CC did with its origin.

The origin of the virus and its spread has nothing to do with climate being hotter or colder or wetter or drier.  It seems sensible that disease would incubate better in warm, moist conditions, but we know that unusual climate did not obtain in China at the December, 2019, outbreak.  We also observe that the communist Chinese government has been deflecting inquiry into the origins of the outbreak, and that is significant.

One day, an unscrupulous CC propagandist will count the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of the consequences of global warming.  But let it be noted that, at the time, climate alarmists were silent.
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Social Liberals stick together, stooping to new low

Vincent J. Curtis

18 Mar 20

Today, the Hannon Times published an op-ed written by Jaime Watt and slugged, "Conservative candidate stoops to a new low." The candidate was for the position of the new leader of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC).  This person was excluded from pursuing the leadership by a decision of the party's central committee.  The person is James Karahanlios, who evidently is a social conservative.

It isn’t a new low for Torstar, just an interesting bargain between it and Jaime Watt, head of Navigator Ltd.  Watt gets to advertise his peculiar services, and Torstar gets a hit piece on a social conservative “troublemaker” in the CPC, James Karahanlios, whom few have heard of.  Proof of Mr. K’s troublemaker status was his “Axe the Carbon Tax” campaign.

Watt identifies as a Conservative, but is socially liberal.  The elimination of social conservatism politically leads immediately to the triumph of progressivism, and then the only differences between CPC and Liberals are degrees of “wokeness” and piffling differences over finance.

Watt makes several transparent pitches for his professional services as a political advice-giver: stating that “Canadian Muslims face uniquely vicious scrutiny for their faith,” “acceptance of homosexuality” having moved “in the right direction,” deplores “homophobic views” and writes movingly of the poor, “covered” Muslim woman asked to remove her veil by a public servant, as if showing your face in Canada were shameful.

In the course of this polemic, Watt can’t avoid pissing on his own shoes.  He writes admiringly that “Canada prides itself on the secularism of its public sphere” but then condemns Quebec’s Bill 21 which is intended to enforce secularism in the public sphere.  He writes a lachrymatory passage of the plight of “covered” Muslim women in Canada – the opposite of secularism in public.  Watt seems oblivious to the racism, misogyny, religious prejudice, and sheer backwardness of the culture he defends on grounds of liberalism - and that the point of Islam establishing enclaves in the western world is to bring that world slowly into submission to Sharia law, into that very backwardness.  This isn’t a secret to anyone who has studied the subject seriously.  If you believe in status of women, equality of marriage, religious tolerance, and secularism in the public sphere, you cannot but look with alarm at any rise of Sharia compliance, however innocent it may appear.  COVID-19 started out as a single case.

The reason for the rise of Trump in America is that social conservativism was effectively banished from the politics of Washington.  There was no difference between the parties on issues that mattered to a lot of people.  The full force of public shaming, condemnation, and the powers of government (yes, I mean spying) were leveled at those who bucked the progressive line.  There are lots of people in Canada who are social conservatives, even if you can’t see them from an office tower in downtown Toronto.  They’re the anchor to Watt’s and Torstar’s progressivism that’s trying to keep the good Canada brings to the world from self-destruction.

But Watt and Torstar are extremely comfortable with the progressive status quo, and that makes for a great bargain.  Torstar gets a hit piece on a social conservative with the weight of a CPC insider behind it, and Watt gets distributed advertisement for his professional services.

It’s not a new low, it’s business as usual.
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Aging Journos didn't learn from crises past

Vincent J. Curtis

16 Mar 2020

The Hannon Times ran an opinion piece today written by Geoffrey Stevens, slugged "Canada, U.S. responses reveals strengths and ability of our elected leaders."  Of course, it contrasted Trump's performance highly unfavorably in part because Stevens hates Trump and emotion colors perception.  The paper's editorial of today was slugged, "COVID-19 could end Trump 2020."  Guess what they're hoping for.

One expects that as a person gets older, they get wiser.  Aging journalists don’t get wiser, they moulder.

Take the case of Geoffrey Stevens, once head shed at Canada’s national fish wrap and who now fills his time as an indoctrinator at Moo U.  Stevens once loved Trudeau père and has since transferred that love to Trudeau fils.  Stevens hates Trump.  You would think that strong passions would be tempered by the weight of experience, but no.  Stevens has to place a big wet kiss on young Justin’s backside just to show spite for Trump.

Stevens holds that Canada’s response to the coronavirus has been splendid, particularly in comparison to that disastrous Trump (who has many character flaws.)  If it weren’t for an early gaffe by a Conservative named Doug Ford, Canada’s response would be nearly perfect.  The “unflappable” Chrystia Freeland is in charge, along with a new “rising star” Patty Hadju, and they have been “calm and reassuring” and other nausea-inducing blather.

Meanwhile, young Justin acted heroically by voluntarily placing himself in self-isolation – with his wife.  Heroic Justin runs and hides from the questioning and the criticism and the work, and leaves the management to his capable women subordinates.  This is the great example that Stevens compares favorably to Trump, who acted early and is in the trenches every day fighting the crisis in all its manifold aspects, running the country, and coping with rising panic.

The editors at the Hannon Times are battling their own mental acuity crisis.  They’re hoping Trump loses the next election on the basis of his alleged mishandling of the Covid crisis.  If they hadn’t dozed during the debate on Sunday, they would have seen why even CNN pronounced Trump a winner in the debate and both debaters as losers.  The Democrat party is choosing its candidate between socialism and senility.  The socialist would tackle the crisis through a time-consuming and rancorous revolution of the America health insurance system.  The senile guy would do everything Trump is doing, except it would be a Democrat doing it.

In a few weeks, the panic will have spent itself and sheer necessity will force society to begin resuming its normal routine.  The levels of infection will peak, and the robust American economic will shake itself awake.  The stock market will climb rapidly, and in the third quarter will give the sense of being healthy again.  Just when the America election rolls around!  And even if this sunny scenario doesn’t play out, the American people will have to choose between a tough-minded, accomplished, and capable leader who is not afraid to kick ass and take names, or an angry, incoherent guy who doesn’t always know where he is, but he sure wants to take your guns away.

With aging journos, it isn’t ‘older is wiser,’ it’s older and Wiser’s.
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For non-Canadian readers: The Globe and Mail calls itself, "Canada's national newspaper," Chrystia Freeland is Canada's Deputy Prime Minister, and Patty Hadju a member of the Trudeau cabinet; Wiser's is Canada's oldest brand of whiskey.   Moo U. refers to the University of Guelph, which started out as an agricultural college.

Big Mo demands Jizya for their neglected seniors.

Vincent J. Curtis

12 Mar 2020

Today, the Saltpork & Rind ran an op-ed from Dr. Abdelfettah Elkchirid and Juhan Zeb (no guarantees on spelling) slugged "Muslim senior face aging challenges.  The point of the whine was to demand that the government of infidels create seniors complexes especially catering to Muslims because Muslims in Canada are not doing for their seniors here what is allegedly done back in the old caliphate.  This is a transparent demand for a kind of Jizya, and behind that for another turn of the screw of Sharia supremacism.

The article lays down a whining premise for another piece of Sharia supremacism, paid for by the infidel government.  And the usual suspects of big Mo in Hamilton are named in it.

The argument begins by noting all the special things seniors are provided in Muslim countries.  Then it proceeds to observing that such things are not provided in Canada.  The conclusion is obvious: justice requires the government provide those special Islamic arrangements for the care of Muslim seniors, who can’t or won’t cope with western ways.

Muslims are strongly discouraged from sojourning in the land of the infidel.  So, what to do when large numbers of Muslims actually live there?  Why, create a little enclave of Dar al-Islam, a little “house of Islam” in the midst of “Dar al-Harb”, the land up for grabs, the “house of war,” or more simply, the land of the infidel!  An enclave is little no-go zone for western infidels.

And that’s what the article is leading up to.  Younger Muslims are not prepared to look after their seniors in the way they are in the old country, and so it is should be up to the infidel government to make special – Islamic – arrangements.  A form of Jizya – get it?

If the Muslim community want special arrangements for their seniors, then they should build them and fund them themselves.  Other communities have done it.
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Canada is fractured

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Mar 2020

The Hamilton Spectator published the letter below in their letters to the editoral column on March 10th.  It was written in response to an editorial slugged, "Canada isn't broken."  The paper edited the letter a bit, taking out some parts, I guess to tone down the criticsm.

There are degrees of broken.  Canada isn’t a Venezuela, Libya, or Syria.  No one would say the Spectator is broken.  But to argue that Canada isn’t broken merely to defend young Justin from the consequences of his weakness takes some pretty big blinders.

The protests against the pipeline by the so-called hereditary chiefs (Frank Alec took his ‘Chief Woos’ title off a woman, while she was still alive) has been going on for ten years.  The hereditary chiefs’ organization is in fact a corporation that is funded primarily from foreign sources – some being left wing trouble makers, others who have an economic interest in keeping Canadian resources off the market.  The chiefs were engaged in a struggle for power – who was going to control the fate of the Wetsuwet’en – elected band councils and elected chiefs, or them with their claim of royal status and foreign funding?

In the end, victory turned on who controlled the mobs.  And it wasn’t Sunny Ways who prevailed over Chief Intimidation.  He knuckled under, despite having the law and law enforcement on his side.  Justin’s dealing with the hereditary chiefs and cutting the legs out from under the legally recognized elected officials.  Whoever said democracy conferred legitimacy?  It’s who controls the mobs, and it isn’t Justin or the band councils.

Canada isn’t broken, it’s fractured.  A wrong move by Justin, and the weakening of the rule of law will become obvious.
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Bill C-8: Banning conversion therapy

Vincent J. Curtis

10 Mar 2020



Bill C-8 is a bill before the House of Commons of Canada that intends to criminalize so-call "conversion therapy" (CT).  Bill C-8 is an bizarre gesture by the Liberal party to a few extremists in the LGBT community.  To make it clear that C-8 is a gesture of support, indeed moral approbation, the Minister of Justice claimed that CT is “premised on a lie, that being LGBT is wrong and needs fixing.”

Let's disregard the obvious moral and psychological opinions in the Minister's statement and concentrate on the law as such.

The bill would criminalize: causing an adult to undergo CT against their will; performing CT on minors in Canada; and removing a minor from Canada for the purpose of CT - all punishable by up to five years imprisonment.  The bill would also make it an offense to profit from offering or advertising CT therapy.

Advertising is a form of speech, protected by the Charter, so banning advertising is already a problem.  What “therapy” looks like physically makes “offering CT” hard to prove, since we don't know what the therapy actually is, we know only an intended result.  Therfore, being paid for performing CT is also nebulous.

And what makes this bill truly bizarre is that it is criminalizing an intent.  Physical acts are objective, intent is not.  Besides, what makes “causing an adult to undergo CT against their will” different physically from kidnapping, something already criminal? (If, and I'm assuming here, CT involves a lot of talking combined with psychological pressure, the restraint necessary to hold an adult in that situation 'against their will' seems to amount to kidnapping.  So why focus on the intent of the talking, except as a favorable moral holding on the condition of being LGBT?)

Banning parents from having CT (whatever that therapy physically is) on their minor children is an extraordinary intervention of the government into the relationship between parents and child.  The admitted reason for such intervention is the Minister’s opinion that LGBT is not wrong and doesn’t need fixing.  Maybe parents think otherwise.  (Maybe the parents want grandchildren.  Maybe they see the unhappiness of many LGBT lives and want something better for their child.  Maybe they are church-going Christians who think LBGT acts are immoral and don't want their child to engage in those acts.)  Is a psychologist or a parish priest to be criminally liable for speaking against LGBT conduct?

In any case, upon conviction, the state will separate the parents from their child by five years of incarceration for the crime of daring to disagree with the opinion of the Minister.

CT must be some wild bugaboo in the LGBT community.  I've hardly heard about it.  Objectively, we don’t know what makes it different from talk.  It is unclear what objective physical acts should be criminalized.
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Do Lefties ever learn?

Vincent J. Curtis

8 Mar 2020

Yesterday's editorial by the Saltpork & Rind was its latest editorializing on the cancellation by the Ford government of a "pilot project" on guaranteed income that was started by the previous Wynne government the year before.  You would think the world was coming to an end because this great social experiment was canned, by a conservative.

The basic income research “pilot project”, a hobby-horse of Saltport & Rind editorializing, sought to resolve an important dilemma: whether Lefties were capable of learning from experience, or do they think the rest of us aren’t on to them?

You would think that the project was actually about research, when actually and politically it was the nose of another Marxist camel being poked into the tent.  We have plenty of experience with guaranteed basic income and income supplements.  What do you think welfare is?  UI?  The editorial mistakenly mentioned CPP (which isn’t a free giveaway).  Look at how Indians have fared since the Federal government guaranteed to look after them!  Every time the editorial mentions previous pilot projects, it proves that the research has already been done!

The pilot project was founded on a basic statistical folly common in sociology: the attempt to extrapolate to the general population from the basis of a small sample size.  Of course, there are going to be some success stories to boast about in the project – how else are they going to justify expanding it into a general program?  Success somewhere was guaranteed.  And we can see occasional success in the mass experiments with welfare on a grand scale.  Been there, done that.  A few diamonds out of a very large rough.

The Liberal party wanted to introduce a new program that would increase government power and control over people’s lives.  To fund a basic guaranteed income, taxes would have to be raised dramatically and the government would have to know a lot about you for you to receive it.  But over time, the cost of living and pay by employers would adjust to the reality of a basic income, and reduce the value of that basic income near to zero.  This isn’t hard to figure out.  And all that would be left then is the heightened government power and control.

Conservatives are opposed to more government power and higher taxes, and killed the basic income pilot project in its cradle – much to the shock and disappointment of the Lefties who either never learn, or who think we’re not on to them.  Basic income goes beyond Bismarkian social welfare – it is drawn straight from communist theory of from each – to each.

Another Marxian aspect to the editorial is that tactic of holding up Premier Doug Ford as an object of hate.  Ford is a liar.  Ford is cruel to the poor.  Ford ended Ontario’s historic world leadership in basic income.  Ford is anti-science.  Ford is of the wrong ideology.  Ford hurts our heroes.  And in case you missed the point, Doug Ford’s misogynist government is slugged right next to the editorial.

The editorial leaves the dilemma unresolved: is it that Lefties never learn from experience, or do they think the rest of us aren’t on to them?
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Doug Ford’s misogynist government?

Vincent J. Curtis

7 Mar 2020

Today, the Saltpork & Rind rand a piece - on the editorial page - slugged, "This women's Day, women are mobilizing against Doug Ford's misogynist government."  It was written by Patty Coates, President of the Ontario Federation of Labour.  The OFL is dominated by public sector unions, and many of these are dominated by women.  The article was a Marxian hate piece that I didn't expect to see in an ordinary newspaper, but there it was.  Funny, how the most "woke" are also the most oblivous to their own lack of sensitivity.  I take apart the argument, as if it were serious.

The piece by Patty Coates, president of the OFL, was an interesting blend of Trotskyism and late 20^th century identity politics.  A work of hate speech, it exhibited the intellectual level of a sign-painter who can’t spell.  By the end it is clear that Coates is protesting the erosion of her power base, not of the cause of women.

Doug Ford should be an object of hate because he is conservative.  The rest, that Ford is a misogynist, is farce.

Coates believes that Ford launched a misogynistic war on women the moment he took office, but offers no reason why he would do so.  To what end? is a question Coates never addresses.  Surely there must be a reason, but she offers none.  Cutting this or that program can be explained as conservative fiscal prudence, and without explaining why misogyny is the end being served rather than prudence, Coates does nothing but shout slogans of hate.

Coates muddles equity and equality, not understanding the difference.  She speaks of the Anti-racism Directorate as an avenue for women’s equality, which on the face of it seems to imply that women are a race.

No complaint of misogyny would be complete without exhibiting that old and long-discredited hobby-horse of ‘this class is paid less than that class.’  As in, “indigenous women child care workers are paid less than bank presidents!” Yes, they are, and Coates can’t figure out why.

Coates argues that the demotion of key women in Ford’s cabinet is a sign of misogyny, but what did it say of their initial appointment to those higher positions from which they were demoted?

As the head of an organization of unions, many of them public sector dominated by women, Coates is going to rabble rouse all she can in Trotskyite fashion – for the sake of her own job.


By the way, I can’t believe that this work of hate speech written by Coates could be selected by the editor of the SP&R.  Ford is held up as an object of hate on the grounds that he hates.  I get that the SP&R dislikes Ford, but surely something more refined was more fitting to express that view.
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Reconciliation gone mad

Vincent J. Curtis

5 Mar 2020


The Wetsuewet’en crisis is a case of reconciliation gone mad.  That First Nation has a total population of about 3,000 people, and is claiming 23.000 square kilometers of north central British Columbia as the land over which they hold title.  (Never mind the contradiction in claiming “title” when what is meant is “sovereignty.”  Title exists as a holding within a sovereignty – in this case Canada.  If you claim title, you implicitly recognize the sovereignty of Canada, since that is the sovereignty you claim title from.)

The B.C. Supreme Court rejected the extraordinarily large land claim, and upon appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada the Court declined to rule, instead offering a path to a negotiated political settlement.  Evidently, SCC wasn’t about to consent to the size of the claim either.  Since that 1997 decision, no negotiations have occurred, and some of the First Nation leadership maintain a maximalist position.  Neither side possesses the leverage to oblige compromise on the other.

The goverance of the Wetsuewet’en is complex and internally competitive.  It is capable of veto, but any positive action requires practical unanimity.  The First Nation is divided into five clans and further subdivided into thirteen houses.  There are thirteen hereditary chiefs, elected chiefs, and twenty band councils.  The bona fides of a “hereditary” chief is sketchy, and gang-leader is perhaps a more apt description of the office holder.  Physical violence seems not far below the surface.  The Office of Hereditary Chiefs is the political arm of this group, which is not recognized by either Ottawa or Victoria, and it is not clear how the group gets its funding.  There is speculation that donations from foreign sources pay to keep this group active.

The GasLink pipeline project followed the SCC recommended process to obtain permission to run the pipeline through the disputed land, and only a minority of the hereditary chiefs continue to oppose it.  These are the ones leading gang-like action blockading construction.

GasLink did its job, got the required permits, and in good faith began construction.  It is the impossibility of the Wetsuewet’en to govern themselves that is causing the problem.  The First Nation simply cannot take a decision and stick with it.  It cannot police itself.

Since the elected band councils and chiefs are prepared to do nothing to enforce their side of the bargain, there are only two options to complete the project.  The first is to outright bribe the gang-leaders sufficient for their avarice, and the other is to enforce the rule of law with strong federal police action and powerful legal consequences for the gangs.

Neither course amounts to reconciliation, but that is where this chimera has led us.
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Funny how they never blamed Bernie

Vincent J. Curtis

4 Mar 2020

The Saltpork & Rind ran an op-ed today from Mat Savelli, who is the undergraduate Chair at the Department of Health, Aging, and Society at McMaster University.  It is not clear what particular expertise he has behind the opinions he expressed.  He decided to condemn a political party in Germany, called the Alternative for Germany (AfD), for a mass murder conducted in that country last month.  The usual progressive logic of Guilt by Accusation is employed.

Progressives rarely miss an opportunity to politicize a tragedy, and Mat Savelli did not disappoint.  The tragedy in question is the mass shooting in Germany, in which Tobias Rathjen shot and killed nine people and wounding several others.  Savelli’s theory implicates the “far-right” (is there any other kind?) Alternative for Germany party (AfD) in the murders. (How a mad-man like Rathjen got a firearm in heavily gun-controlled Germany is another question.)

After a discursive admission that Rathjen was likely a clinical case of schizophrenia, Savelli implicates the AfD in the murders by drawing the in the “context” in which Rathjen’s schizophrenia expressed itself.  AfD was started in reaction against Angela Merkel’s admission of over a million Syrian refugees into Germany, and one of its central platform planks is opposition to immigration.  Rathjen chose to shoot-up “shisha” bars because that is where he expected to find “foreigners.”  Since the AfD is opposed to immigration, ergo, AfD is implicated in Rathjen’s mad killings.  It’s the context, you understand.

“Would Rathjen have chosen to murder…without the rise of AfD and its propaganda of anti-immigrant policies and discourse?  It’s possible, but it’s also extraordinarily unlikely,” says Savelli.

Funny, but nobody blamed Bernie Sanders when a “Bernie Bro” shot and nearly killed Republican Representative Steve Scalise.

Smearing political opponents for remote and unrelated tragedies is an old tactic of the Left.  That’s the game played by Mat Savelli.
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"Chief Woos" is a fake

Vincent J. Curtis

3 Mar 2020

Rebel News is reporting that Frank Alec, who claims to be the hereditary “Chief Woos” of the Wetsuwet’en First Nation, is in fact no such thing at all.  In Wetsuwet’en tradition, apparently, hereditary chiefs are passed through the matrilineal line, and the inheritor of the Chief Woos title was a woman.  Last year, Alec simply appropriated the title for himself on the basis of nothing.

This fake hereditary chief thus set of a nation-wide crisis on the basis of the legitimacy of his title.  What is even worse, is that the governments of British Columbia and Canada just negotiated a land claim settlement with “Chief Woos” over the Wetsuwet’en land claim, undermining the authority and legitimacy of the elected band councils and actual hereditary chiefs.

The question arises, what is the legitimacy of the settlement, given the fraudulent claim of the guy they negotiated it with?  It will be interesting to see if the legitimate band governance, the elected councils and legitimate hereditary chiefs, accept the settlement, given that Frank Alec has no authority to negotiate on behalf of the First Nation.

Regardless, the governments of B.C. and Canada did business with an imposter, undermined the governance of the Wetsuwet’en First Nation, embarrassed everyone, and may have settled nothing at all – perhaps making everything worse.
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Some reporting clips from Rebel News found on YouTube:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QxJ9RoL4lM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IRGcCN7mBQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RY2rpsn-z2k 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvHqWqGnakw

Simonds, Part II

Vincent J. Curtis

26 Nov 2019


Rather than be sent home from Italy humiliated, Simonds instead went to England in January, 1944, as GOC 2^nd Canadian Corps.  At 41, he was the youngest Corps commander in British Commonwealth forces.  Simonds immediately got rid of F.F. Worthington, the father of the Canadian Armoured Corps as GOC 4^th Armoured Division, replacing him with George Kitching.  He also replaced other McNaughton holdovers.

McNaughton left the Canadian army in Britain poorly trained.  Above the company level training was bad, and all-arms combat went unpracticed.  Simonds had a lot of preparing to do and little time to do it in.  Making matters worse, Crerar was appointed GOC 1^st Canadian Army, Simonds’ titular boss, though Montgomery was GOC 21^st Army Group, Crerar’s boss.

Simonds began by writing down his battle outlook for his staff, division, and brigade commanders.  He described the German method of defense, and held that the key to defeating it lay in repelling its counterattacks while maintaining sufficient reserves that forward movement could be resumed.  Any plan had to include forward movement of artillery support.  Stylistically, this was refighting the Battle of Hill 70 – bite and hold –  with an exploitation phase added.  Since divisional artillery could only support one brigade, attacks would be along narrow frontages.  That was the standard battle formula.

The 2^nd Canadian Corps was activated in France in July, 1944, and Simonds led the Corps through Operations Atlantic, Spring, Totalize, and Tractable before Monty let Crerar on the scene with the activation of the 1^st Canadian Army.  Atlantic saw the Canadians cross the Orne river, seize the southern half of Caen, and advance towards Verrières Ridge.  Spring was the disastrous attempt to seize the ridge, and saw the destruction of the Black Watch and the breaking of the South Saskatchewan Regiment, who were left unsupported on an exposed forward slope of a hill overlooked by German mortars and artillery.

After Spring, Simonds wanted Charles Foulkes, GOC 2^nd Div, who was responsible for the debacles (and, coincidentally, an old and future rival), fired.  Crerar prevented it, and eventually Foulkes was appointed Simonds’ equal as GOC 1^st Canadian Corps, and later CGS after the war ahead of Simonds.  Rod Keller was, however, let go as GOC 3^rd Div after Totalize, and Simonds fired George Kitching as GOC 4^th Div immediately after Tractable.  Today, Simonds would be accused of micro-managing his division commanders.

Coming from a military family and spending his entire life in the Regular army, Simonds had probably never been treated with kindness in his life.  He seems never to have learned the value of treating subordinates with kindness occasionally.  By his own admission, the tightly-wound Simonds was bad tempered, headstrong, and unable to tolerate fools.  He maintained a cold, glacial appearance, and he commanded rather than led.  He was innovative, hard-driving, and driven himself, as well as ambitious, ruthless, highly self-confident, and arrogant.

Simonds had poisonous personal relations with Crerar, and could not trust him.  His Brigade and Divisional commanders simply weren’t as competent as they should have been.  The cold, brainy Simonds was probably too impersonal towards his subordinates, commanding where he should have coached or encouraged.  When a boss thinks he is surrounded by idiots, the subordinates tend to act accordingly.  But after Verrières Ridge, the destruction of Worthington Force, and with Crerar looking to shaft him, it takes a mature man to maintain composure.

As a gunner through and through, Simonds cherished the belief that “artillery conquers, infantry occupies.”  Advancing the guns cost him time in his operations – time the Germans used to regroup.  He attacked along narrow fronts without thinking that a secondary attack would stretch the German defenses and might create opportunities of its own.

Confining himself to Corps HQ, the formulaic Simonds lacked the battlefield “touch” that Currie demonstrated at 2^nd Ypres, and Simonds’ chief antagonist in Normandy, Kurt Meyer, had.  His personality, gunner prejudices, and his poorly prepared instrument impaired his operations in Normandy.  Still, the technically proficient Simonds was a giant among Canadian generals in World War II. 
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Canada tied in knots because of Indian band internal power struggle

Vincent J. Curtis

2 Mar 20

News Item: Hereditary Chiefs and Ministers reach agreement on Wetsuwet'en land clamis.

What is becoming clear in the Wetsuwet’en crisis is that it all boils down to a power struggle within the band itself.  The struggle is over who gets the final say in band matters, the hereditary chiefs or the band councils.  It is also over the principle of unanimity versus majority rule.

While there were unresolved land claims with the band, there was no question that over undisputed land the band councils and a majority of hereditary chiefs favored the gas pipeline.  It was a minority of hereditary chiefs, and in particular one –Chief Woos – who claimed authority over lands still in dispute.  With a small number of followers, Chief Woos was able to set up a blockade across an access road, and thus began the crisis.

Canada was dragged through a three week crisis and had its economy disrupted over an internal power struggle within an Indian band.

Chief Woos’ cause would not have been long sustained but for opportunists who were looking to cause trouble across Canada.

The nature of Aboriginal title is not of a kingly or personal sovereignty.  Woo’s alleged authority does not arise from a fee simple ownership of the land in dispute, but because he is romantically attributed monarchial authority over the band whose land it is.  Canada acknowledges the authority of democratically elected representatives, not the claims of hereditary chiefs.

Canada cannot allow itself to be disrupted because an Indian band cannot get its political house in order, or from mistaken notions of band governance.
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Aboriginal Lawyer Attacks the Rule of Law. as "Convenience Weapon"

Vincent J. Curtis

29 Feb 20

The Saltport & Rind, in its Feb  29 edition, ran an op-ed piece written by lawyer Cory Shefman.  He works for Olthus Kleer Townshend LLP, representing Indiginous persons and organizations.  It was slugged, "Rule of law is a convenient weapon."  He attacked, not the law, but the rule of law, and made mention of a number of things which to modern ears may sound unjust.  Modern ears are unmindful of history going back seventy and more years.

The article written by lawyer Cory Shefman is lacking in philosophical refinement.  He fails to distinguish between the principle of the rule of law and what the law is in particular circumstances.  Here is the difference: the law can be changed, and changing the law is a vindication of the rule of law, for a change in law implicitly acknowledges that law must prevail.

The alternative to the rule of law is rule by force, and lawyers will find very little employment under a regime of rule by force.  If, in order to achieve a desired political outcome, the rule of law is discredited, changing the law is futile – for there is no reason to abide by it.  The principle of obedience to the law is no more, and it is the weak who are most at risk.

Mr. Shefman divides Canadians into two types, settlers and Indigenous.  The settlers are the evil doers, and Indigenous their innocent victims.  Mr. Shefman seems unaware of Ontario history, for the Haldimand Tract was purchased by the British from the Mississauga band in 1784 in order to provide a home in British North America for their Six Nations allies of the American Revolution.  Six Nations, though indigenous to North America, are settlers in Canada.

The anger and logical incoherence expressed in Shefman’s article are reflected in the illegal disruptions for spurious reasons in Ontario, as if they will affect matters in British Columbia

In his effort to show that settlers have been victimizing Aboriginals throughout Canadian history, Corey Shefman, makes reference to the year 1951.  He said that until 1951, the rule of law prohibited First Nations from hiring lawyers to protect their rights, and that Aboriginals had to get permission from the local Indian Agent to leave the reserve and get a job.

What is significant about 1951 is that that was the year the Canadian Citizenship Act came into effect.  Prior to that, Canadian citizenship did not exist.  We were British subjects.  Since Aboriginals were definitely not British subjects and did not want to be, by treaty they did not enjoy that legal status, or suffer any of its obligations, such as be subject to conscription or to pay taxes.  The adjudication of civil rights before a Canadian court was also problematic since rights laws did not then exist - all rights existed in the Common Law.  Treaty rights were Nation-to-Nation matters not justicible in Canadian courts.  And Canadian taxpayer dollars went to support treaty obligations, not to fight questionable legal battles then ultra vires of Canadian courts.

The principle at that time was to segregate Aboriginals.  British subjects could not settle on reserves or otherwise make use of Aboriginal territories.  If an Aboriginal chose to live in Canada, this is, off the reserve, the Indian Agent was there to make sure they understood the concept of paying provincial taxes and being personally responsible for debts.

The Second World War changed perceptions.  Some of these differences in legal status were obliterated by the passage of the Citizenship Act and by changes to the Indian Act in 1951, which together granted Aboriginals Canadian citizenship, whether they wanted it or not.  More significant changes happened with the passage of the Federal Bill of Rights in 1960.

It was the not the rule of law which changed, but the law itself.

When Shelman assails the rule of law, he completely misses the mark.
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