Don’t give campus censors more power — they’ll double down on woke agenda

From the MacDonald Laurier Institute

By Bruce Pardy

Expression on campus is already subject to the laws of the land, which prohibit assault, defamation, harassment, and more. The university has no need for a policy to adopt these laws and no power to avoid them.

Last Saturday, Liz Magill resigned as president of the University of Pennsylvania. Four days earlier she had testified before Congress about campus antisemitism. Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Penn’s code of conduct? “It is a context-dependent decision,” Magill equivocated. Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman launched a campaign calling for Magill to step down, along with the presidents of Harvard and MIT, who testified alongside her. Their reluctance to condemn revealed a double standard. That double standard, like the titillation of a scandal, has distracted from the bigger mistake. Universities should not police the content of expression on their campuses.

In 2019, I invited a member of Penn’s law school to give a lecture at Queen’s University, where I teach. Some students at my law school launched a petition to prevent the talk. To their credit, administrators at Queen’s did not heed the call, even though the professor I invited, Amy Wax, had become a controversial academic figure. In 2017, she championed “bourgeois culture” in an opinion essay in the Philadelphia Inquirer (with Larry Alexander of the University of San Diego). The piece suggested that the breakdown of post-Second World War norms was producing social decay. Some cultures are less able than others, it argued, to prepare people to be productive citizens. Students and professors condemned the column as hate speech. It was racist, white supremacist, xenophobic and “heteropatriarchal,” they said.

Wax was not deterred. She continued to comment about laws and policies on social welfare, affirmative action, immigration, and race. When she was critical of Penn Law’s affirmative action program, the dean barred her from teaching first-year law students. In June 2023, he filed a disciplinary complaint against her, seeking to strip her of tenure and fire her. It accused Wax of “intentional and incessant racist, sexist, xenophobic and homophobic actions and statements.” The complaint alleged that she had violated the university’s non-discrimination policies and Principles of Responsible Conduct. But unlike others, allegedly, on Penn’s campus, Wax had not called for, nor was she accused of calling for, violence or genocide. She continues to wait for a decision in her case.

For years, North American universities have embraced certain political causes and blacklisted others. To stay out of trouble, choose carefully what you say. You can accuse men of toxic masculinity, but don’t declare that transgender women are men. You can say that black lives matter, but not that white lives matter too. Don’t suggest that men on average are better at some things and women at others, even if that is what the data says. Don’t attribute differential achievement between races to anything but racism, even if the evidence says otherwise. Don’t eschew the ideology of equity, diversity, and inclusion if you want funding for your research project. You can blame white people for anything. And if the context is right, maybe you can call for the genocide of Jews. Double standards on speech have become embedded in university culture.

Universities should not supervise speech. Expression on campus is already subject to the laws of the land, which prohibit assault, defamation, harassment, and more. The university has no need for a policy to adopt these laws and no power to avoid them. If during class I accuse two colleagues of cheating on their taxes, they can sue me for defamation. If I advocate genocide, the police can charge me under the Criminal Code.

In principle, universities should be empty shells. Professors and students have opinions, but universities should not. But instead, they have become political institutions. They disapprove of expression that conflicts with their social justice mission. Speech on campus is more restricted than in the town square.

The principle that universities should not supervise speech has a legitimate exception. Expression should be free but should not interfere with the rights of others to speak and to listen. On campus, rules that limit how, when, and where you may shout from the rooftops preserve the rights of your peers. Any student or professor can opine about the Ukrainian war, but not during math class. Protesters can disagree with visiting speakers but have no right to shout them down. Such rules do not regulate the content of speech, but its time and place. If you write a column in the student newspaper or argue your case in a debate, you interfere with no one. The university should have no interest in what you say.

Penn donors helped push Magill out the door. In the face of rising antisemitism, more donors and alumni in the U.S. and Canada are urging their alma maters to punish hateful expression. They have good intentions but are making a mistake. They want universities to use an even larger stick to censure speech. Having witnessed universities exercise their powers poorly, they seek to give them more. Universities will not use that larger stick in the way these alumni intend. Instead, in the long run, they will double down on their double standards. They are more likely to wield the stick against the next Amy Wax than against woke anti-Semites.

The way to defeat double standards on speech is to demand no standards at all. Less, not more, oversight from universities on speech is the answer. If a campus mob advocates genocide, call the police. The police, not the universities, enforce the laws of the land.

Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University.

Related Topics:#BrucePardy #FreeSpeech #HateSpeech #MacdonaldLaurierInstitute

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Canada’s critical minerals are key to negotiating with Trump

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Ottawa’s muddy energy policy leaves more questions than answers

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Business

Canada’s critical minerals are key to negotiating with Trump

Published on June 18, 2025

Todayville

From Resource Works

By Geoff Russ

The United States wants to break its reliance on China for minerals, giving Canada a distinct advantage.

Trade issues were top of mind when United States President Donald Trump landed in Kananaskis, Alberta, for the G7 Summit. As he was met by Prime Minister Mark Carney, Canada’s vast supply of critical minerals loomed large over a potential trade deal between North America’s two largest countries.

Although Trump’s appearance at the G7 Summit was cut short by the outbreak of open hostilities between Iran and Israel, the occasion still marked a turning point in commercial and economic relations between Canada and the U.S. Whether they worsen or improve remains to be seen, but given Trump’s strategy of breaking American dependence on China for critical minerals, Canada is in a favourable position.

Despite the president’s early exit, he and Prime Minister Carney signed an accord that pledged to strike a Canada-US trade deal within 30 days.

Canada’s minerals are a natural advantage during trade talks due to the rise in worldwide demand for them. Without the minerals that Canada can produce and export, it is impossible to power modern industries like defence, renewable energy, and electric vehicles (EV).

Nickel, gallium, germanium, cobalt, graphite, and tungsten can all be found in Canada, and the U.S. will need them to maintain its leadership in the fields of technology and economics.

The fallout from Trump’s tough talk on tariff policy and his musings about annexing Canada have only increased the importance of mineral security. The president’s plan extends beyond the economy and is vital for his strategy of protecting American geopolitical interests.

Currently, the U.S. remains dependent on China for rare earth minerals, and this is a major handicap due to their rivalry with Beijing. Canada has been named as a key partner and ally in addressing that strategic gap.

Canada currently holds 34 critical minerals, offering a crucial potential advantage to the U.S. and a strategic alternative to the near-monopoly currently held by the Chinese. The Ring of Fire, a vast region of northern Ontario, is a treasure trove of critical minerals and has long been discussed as a future powerhouse of Canadian mining.

Ontario’s provincial government is spearheading the region’s development and is moving fast with legislation intended to speed up and streamline that process. In Ottawa, there is agreement between the Liberal government and Conservative opposition that the Ring of Fire needs to be developed to bolster the Canadian economy and national trade strategies.

Whether Canada comes away from the negotiations with the US in a stronger or weaker place will depend on the federal government’s willingness to make hard choices. One of those will be ramping up development, which can just as easily excite local communities as it can upset them.

One of the great drags on the Canadian economy over the past decade has been the inability to finish projects in a timely manner, especially in the natural resource sector. There was no good reason for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion to take over a decade to complete, and for new mines to still take nearly twice that amount of time to be completed.

Canada is already an energy powerhouse and can very easily turn itself into a superpower in that sector. With that should come the ambition to unlock our mineral potential to complement that. Whether it be energy, water, uranium, or minerals, Canada has everything it needs to become the democratic world’s supplier of choice in the modern economy.

Given that world trade is in flux and its future is uncertain, it is better for Canada to enter that future from a place of strength, not weakness. There is no other choice.

Economy

Ottawa’s muddy energy policy leaves more questions than answers

Published on June 18, 2025

Todayville

From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

Based on the recent throne speech (delivered by a King, no less) and subsequent periodic statements from Prime Minister Carney, the new federal government seems stuck in an ambiguous and ill-defined state of energy policy, leaving much open to question.

After meeting with the premiers earlier this month, the prime minister talked about “decarbonized barrels” of oil, which didn’t clarify matters much. We also have a stated goal of making Canada the world’s “leading energy superpower” in both clean and conventional energy. If “conventional energy” includes oil and gas (although we’re not sure), this could represent a reversal of the Trudeau government’s plan to phase-out fossil fuel use in Canada over the next few decades. Of course, if it only refers to hydro and nuclear (also forms of conventional energy) it might not.

According to the throne speech, the Carney government will work “closely with provinces, territories, and Indigenous Peoples to identify and catalyse projects of national significance. Projects that will connect Canada, that will deepen Canada’s ties with the world, and that will create high-paying jobs for generations.” That could mean more oil and gas pipelines, but then again, it might not—it might only refer to power transmission infrastructure for wind and solar power. Again, the government hasn’t been specific.

The throne speech was a bit more specific on the topic of regulatory reform and the federal impact assessment process for energy projects. Per the speech, a new “Major Federal Project Office” will ensure the time needed to approve projects will be reduced from the currently statutory limit of five years to two. Also, the government will strike cooperation agreements with interested provinces and territories within six months to establish a review standard of “one project, one review.” All of this, of course, is to take place while “upholding Canada’s world-leading environmental standards and its constitutional obligations to Indigenous Peoples.” However, what types of projects are likely to be approved is not discussed. Could be oil and gas, could be only wind and solar.

Potentially good stuff, but ill-defined, and without reference to the hard roadblocks the Trudeau government erected over the last decade that might thwart this vision.

For example, in 2019 the Trudeau government enacted Bill C-48 (a.k.a. the “Tanker Ban Bill”), which changed regulations for large oil transports coming and going from ports on British Columbia’s northern coast, effectively banning such shipments and limiting the ability of Canadian firms to export to non-U.S. markets. Scrapping C-48 would remove one obstacle from the government’s agenda.

In 2023, the Trudeau government introduced a cap on Canadian oil and gas-related greenhouse gas emissions, and in 2024, adopted major new regulations for methane emissions in the oil and gas sector, which will almost inevitably raise costs and curtail production. Removing these regulatory burdens from Canada’s energy sector would also help Canada achieve energy superpower status.

Finally, in 2024, the Trudeau government instituted new electricity regulations that will likely drive electricity rates through the roof, while ushering in an age of less-reliable electricity supply: a two-handed slap to Canadian energy consumers. Remember, the throne speech also called for building a more “affordable” Canada—eliminating these onerous regulations would help.

In summation, while the waters remain somewhat muddy, the Carney government appears to have some good ideas for Canadian energy policy. But it must act and enact some hard legislative and regulatory reforms to realize the positive promises of good policy.