Conrad Black: On COVID, and much else, Canada has taken leave of its senses

Canadian flag flies in front of the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. PHOTO BY THE CANADIAN PRESS

 Canada’s entire COVID lockdown policy, combined with our negligent failure to obtain adequate supplies of vaccine, has been a disaster, yet the Trudeau government is still preening itself about it, and the opposition isn’t scoring. It was obvious on the available facts almost a year ago that the COVID-19 survival rate was 99 per cent for healthy people up to 65, and approximately 95 per cent for the elderly and infirm and that the only successful approach was to pull out all stops to develop a vaccine while segregating the elderly and otherwise vulnerable and permitting the remaining 80 per cent of society to get on with their lives. As usual, Canada fell in with the U. Most of Europe wallowed in the exaggerated woes of the Coronavirus, but none more proudly and «systemically» than Canada. The latest flare-up of this misplaced, imitative, Canadian public policy lunacy has been around race.

Ryerson was a distinguished pioneer of public education in Ontario and like his co-authors of the native residential schools project, he sought to educate native children. Ryerson’s intentions were commendable and the University should dismiss these complaints. The discovery of hundreds of graves at a residential school site in British Columbia has naturally inspired another round of Canadian self flagellation. As I’ve often written before, the native people have substantial grievances and Canada’s policy towards them has generally failed, and we have to do better.

The residential schools question is much more ambiguous than has been represented in the summary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While some white people, like some people of all other races, have abused their positions, that justifies no collective guilt. The concept of white guilt is abusive. To cite the refreshingly original Canadian writer Irving Layton, «Philistinism is not Olympian serenity and the spitefulness of the weak is not moral indignation.» Canada should try to lead the world in addressing these issues constructively, and not in misplaced and simpleminded self-degradation.

That should be our answer to those trying to rename Ryerson University, evict John A. Macdonald from our national consciousness, and abolish Canada Day as a result of conjurations of misplaced shame.

Source: Conrad Black | NP