It’s time for Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives to move on from Aaron Gunn and leave residential school denialism behind once and for all. If the Conservatives are truly serious about “common sense,” they must unequivocally renounce residential school denialism—or else risk paying a political price on April 28.

The recent revelation that data offered up by a Toronto Metropolitan University research centre had for years systematically inflated the number of newspaper closures in Canada points up the weakness in Canadian media research. It’s a problem that academics have noted for decades and something I have been harping on for more than 20 years.

A non-political civil service, diversity, USAID, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Fulbright Scholarships, federal funding for scientific and medical research—the Washington Post, the Kennedy Center, the National Gallery of Art, Ivy League universities, “big law”—the great institutions of liberal America are falling to Trump like dominoes, one by one.

The notion that the Munk School promotes democracy, liberty, and freedom is tainted by its namesake’s legacy. The centre was bankrolled by a right-wing oligarch whose fortune was drawn from plunder, and who actively quashed critical reporting on his company’s global activities. If the professors ditching Yale for Munk have any awareness of these facts, they haven’t shown it.

Imposed from above during an economic emergency, rent control played a significant role both in curbing out-of-control inflation and solving the housing crisis Canada was experiencing at the time. A combination of robust rent control and concurrent investments in public housing saw housing prices fall by as much as 30 percent in real terms between 1975 and 1978.

In 1995 I moved to St. Petersburg and lived there for ten years. Although my antennas were always up for signals of a socialist spirit, or even just the memory of one, they registered none. My reaction was to dive deeper into the history of the 1917 revolution, and I began noticing things about it that were out of sync with my reading of Marx and Engels.

Politicians here in Canada have been quick to distance themselves from Trump because of his threats to annex the country as a 51st state. But at the same time as they grandstand about opposing Trump and his plans for the world, they continue along as partners in his effort to grow the market for oil and gas by any means necessary.

As the dangers that mining-affected communities and environment defenders continue to mount in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and other countries, Canadian mining companies such as Equinox Gold confirm their reputation as bullies, blind to everything but their profits, who use their political, economic and legal advantages to impose their will.

The law in authoritarian states protects the criminality of the powerful. It revokes due process, basic freedoms and the rights of citizenship. It is an instrument of repression. It is a very small step from the stripping of rights from a legal resident holding a green card to the stripping of rights of any citizen. This is what is coming.

Where do Danielle Smith’s loyalties lie? People asked this question after she revealed on MAGA-aligned media that she counselled Trump officials to pause the tariffs until after Canada’s federal election is over. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is close to Trump’s agenda, she said, but the trade war is boosting Liberal support.