Links - 17th April 2026 (2)

NN on X - "I’ve been racking my brain trying to understand what, exactly, the modern Democrat Party offers the American voter. And I’m genuinely asking. I’ve tried to remove my bias, step outside myself, and look at this from a neutral perspective…but I still can’t figure it out.
Mass amnesty does nothing for the average American.
Higher taxes to subsidize millions of illegal migrants do nothing for the average American.
Releasing violent repeat offenders back onto the streets and then gaslighting the public about “restorative justice” does nothing but hurt the average American.
Homeless “initiatives” that burn billions w no accountability help no one except the nonprofits running the grift. Our schools are a nightmare, discipline is gone, standards keep dropping, and parents who speak up are smeared as extremists. Then look at everything else:
• Energy policies that make everyday life more expensive, from gas to groceries
• DEI hiring that values ideology over competence- in medicine, aviation, law, and government…and somehow we’re all supposed to pretend this makes our country stronger.
• Child gender experiments that would have been illegal a decade ago, now framed as “healthcare,” w lifelong consequences we’re not allowed to question.
• Massive taxpayer fraud, whether it’s homeless nonprofits, childcare programs, Medicaid mills, unemployment theft, or “migrant emergency funding” that mysteriously vanishes into thin air.
• Open borders that flood working class communities with costs, crime, and competition for jobs and housing.
And even the two systems that were meant to help struggling Americans, healthcare and welfare, have become catastrophic liabilities.
• Endless welfare expansions w zero accountability. A safety net is good, but Democrats turned it into a political bribe… it is a system of permanent dependence instead of temporary stability.
• Healthcare subsidies that were supposed to make coverage affordable… but ended up raising premiums for everyone not on a government plan. The average family now pays more for healthcare than rent. How is that helping voters?
Every solution creates three new problems, none of which they ever fix.  So what is the upside for the average American voter? What are Democrat voters actually getting in return for their loyalty?  Because from where I’m standing, the only people winning under Democrat policies are:
➤ bureaucrats
➤ illegals
➤ activists
➤ NGOs
➤ government contractors
➤ and politicians who create chaos and then fundraise off the damage.
Everyone else pays the price."

Bin Xie on X - "China has way more college students than the USA — 11 million graduations each year, top the world. So China should be #1 in tech innovation and invention as well as scientific discovery, right?  Wrong!  USA is still #1! What’s the reason? A research paper published in July 2021 on Nature — Human Behavior gives the answer: Critical thinking skills levels in STEM education, that makes big difference.  The researchers compared STEM education in China, India, Russia and USA and found out that STEM undergraduates in the three countries show no significant gains — and sometimes declines—in critical thinking skills over four years of college, trailing behind the U.S..   While Chinese students start with higher critical thinking and academic skills than their Indian and Russian counterparts, all three nations see stagnation or drops in these skills during their final two years.
Initial Levels: At the start of university, Chinese STEM students have a "large head start" in critical thinking and academic skills compared to students in India and Russia. Specifically, they score 1.4 to 1.5 standard deviations higher than Indian peers and 0.3 to 0.5 higher than Russian peers.
Skill Gains (4 Years): Students in all three countries do not experience significant gains in critical thinking over their four-year degree.
Declines: Studies indicate that critical thinking skills in China, India, and Russia often decline during the final two years of college.
Comparison to US: Unlike the three countries, students in the US demonstrate significant gains in critical thinking skills over four years.
Despite high initial skill levels, Chinese students' critical thinking and academic skills (math/physics) show little to no improvement, OFTEN DECLINING IN THE FINAL TWO YEARS (look at the chart below — students in China decline the most). This is attributed to less demanding, classroom-focused, and low-stakes assessment environments where students are almost guaranteed to graduate.  You may think this research must be done by some crazy White supremacists with strong racial bias. Not true. The majority of the researchers in this study are Chinese in America.  This explains why China still wants to send their students to America for education, and wants Chinese scientists and engineers in USA to go back — China’s education system simply cannot produce highly creative talents.  So they have to get talented scientists and engineers from America, and keep copying and stealing from USA."
Sam B. on X - "Lol. China has millions of graduates that now ride uber bikes."

Chilling photo shows tourist's SELFIE with snow leopard seconds before being brutally mauled & left covered in blood - "A SMILING selfie shows the moment before a skier was mauled by a snow leopard and left with blood pouring from her face. The tourist spotted the dangerous predator while skiing off-piste and rushed over to get a cute snap with the wild beast. Seconds later, the big cat pounced and left the woman with serious injuries...  The tourist was on her way back to her hotel in the resort town of Koktokay, in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, when she spotted the rare cat in a wooded area nearby...   She was able to get a foreboding selfie with the beast, before it suddenly lunged at her.  The leopard mauled at her face and even bit down on her skull with its sharp jaws, according to witnesses... fortunately the predator was unable to penetrate her thick ski helmet.  A brave ski instructor eventually chased away the cat by frantically waving his poles."

Why I Have to Conduct Raccoon Research in a Bikini #science #animals - YouTube

Meme - "My dear, I'm going to the horse races today, so I'll be back late."
"Don't bother. I called that mare. She won't be racing tonight"

Meme - "Jesus watching me get railed in a sundress by a trans catgirl waifu >UwU<
Oh hell yeah, these are the sins I died for"

Meme - "@darezuka
Translated from Japanese by Grok
Don't RT lewd art -> Your feed gets flooded with pointless arguments, flame wars, and gossip news. Eventually your heart grows barren and you lose your freedom.
Do RT lewd art -> The algorithm starts prioritizing lewd art and shows it to you first. Your heart stays calm with no waves stirred up, and you become free."

Meme - "no idea"
"just got a very nice laser projector and it came with a built in operating system that auto plays ads. already making me insane"
Unofficial BBCNews (UK) Bot @bbcnews...: "Why do Gen Z have a growing appetite for retro tech?"

illuminatibot on X - "The job of the mainstream media today is to make you think that the views of 10 percent of the country are actually the views of 90 percent of the country."

S'pore woman places foodpanda priority order at 7:41pm on New Year's Eve, food arrives at 3:40am on Jan. 1 - "Due to the delay, the food arrived past the safe consumption period, she said, and was allegedly unrefrigerated for hours, resulting in it going bad.  Lim's attempts to contact foodpanda's customer service to request for a refund were also rejected and she was informed that her case would be recorded as feedback."

19F) my dad found my horse dildo and I honestly want to die. : r/copypasta - "I still live at home and this happened last night. My dad knocked on my door because I asked for his help moving my bed. I hid my box of toys in the closet but my horse dildo is obviously huge so I just shoved it under the mattress. My bed has wheels but is very heavy and I wanted to move my dresser and my bed across the room for a different more open layout. We moved the dresser and started moving the bed but one of the wheels was stuck and my dad said, "It'd be easier if we got the mattress off." The sheets were off since I was washing them it was just the mattress. He lifted it RIGHT WHERE I KNEW THE TOY WAS and I said "NO WAIT!" But it was too late. He lifted the mattress and said "What is tha-....fuck!" and put the mattress back down. His face was bright red and he couldn't make eye contact with me and he said, "I'm gonna go go have a beer real quick. Lets try this again in a few minutes okay?" I said "Okay." and after he left I hid my toy in the dresser and he came back after a few minutes and said "Is it ok for us to take the mattress off?" I nodded and he lifted it and propped it against the wall and we moved the solid wood frame and he helped put the mattress back. I said, "Listen, dad about what you saw..." and he put his hand up shook his head and said "I don't know what you're talking about I didn't see anything other than a bed and a mattress." We talked about other things for a sec and he went back downstairs while I tried to forget that my father just saw my giant horse dildo and now knows that I own one. I was honestly so embarrassed I cried after he left."

M'sian man, 38, pretends to be US 'sugar daddy', forces 3 S'pore-based women to have sex with driver, who was also himworld - "An unemployed Malaysian man living in Malaysia with his wife and children posed as multiple characters in a ploy to ensnare three Singapore-based women to engage in sadistic sex with him.  On Jan. 13, 2026, Rajwant Singh Gill Narajan Singh, 38, was sentenced to 12 years' jail and 15 strokes of the cane for crimes involving two of the women...   Gill played two main personas, the first was a wealthy Caucasian "sugar daddy" named "Michael Nolan", "Mike" or "Thomas".  He pretended to be an "American trader living on a yacht in Lumut, Perak, Malaysia".  The second persona was that of "Sam" or "Raj", a driver who utilised a "soft" and good-natured personality to appeal to the victims on compassionate grounds.  Often, "Sam" would offer his help to victims in the extortion process by pretending to settle the debts enforced by "Mike" as a form of goodwill.  He used both personas to coerce the victims into "demeaning and intrusive sexual acts for his pleasure" and to assess whether to threaten or comfort them in the extortion process.  He would scout for victims on Tinder before offering the "paid" arrangements, which established a "dominant-submissive relationship" from the start.     "Absolute obedience, instant submission to unreasonable and perverted demands, and even apologising after being humiliatingly insulted, were status quo if they were to earn their keep."  Gill deceived the victims into believing that he would pay large sums of money, which he never intended to pay.  He would instruct the victims to send nude photographs and explicit videos of themselves to blackmail them and coerce them to have sexual intercourse with "Sam"...   PW2 suffered immense physical abuse; court documents stated that Gill had engaged "a dominatrix to flog her, causing severe pain and numerous open wounds".      "She performed intensely demeaning acts for the accused’s pleasure"... Gill made baseless claims and "claimed trial to the bitter end", forcing victims to relive their trauma.  He ensured that his offences were harder to detect by acting across national borders and by moving conversations from Tinder to WhatsApp, an end-to-end encrypted service.  Gill was arrested in a joint covert operation between the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and Royal Malaysian Police Force (PDRM) and "significant resources were utilised in carrying out this operation"."

PepsiCo to cut prices on popular chips like Doritos and Cheetos
The power of SNAP cuts

James Hickman on X - "PepsiCo spent $2.8 million last year lobbying to keep junk food eligible for food stamps.  Then RFK got 18 states to ban SNAP purchases of soda, candy, and processed snacks. Within a week, PepsiCo cut Doritos, Lay's, and Tostitos prices by up to 15%.  The CEO blamed "affordability." But the timing tells the real story.  SNAP is a $100 billion-a-year program. According to the USDA, 20 cents of every SNAP dollar goes to junk food. Frito-Lay products appeared in 7.2% of all SNAP shopping trips.  The moment the government stopped subsidizing demand, PepsiCo had to compete on price. No regulation. No price caps. No antitrust probe. The subsidy disappeared, and the market corrected overnight.  Now consider that this same pattern — government money in, prices up — plays out in college tuition, healthcare, defense, and every other industry with a guaranteed government buyer.  Pepsi was one company, one product line, one program. Imagine what happens when the subsidies stop across the board."

kevin smith on X - "You ever think the reason food is so expensive Is because like 50 million people are getting it for free"
The okayest poster there is on X - "Kevin, food stamps actually make food cheaper for the rest of us by subsidizing food producers, it's ok to admit you have no idea how agricultural subsidies work in this country"
Left wingers are economically illiterate, as usual

Matt Forney on X - "New Hampshire is living refutation of the blackpiller lie that "there is no political solution" (a nonsensical phrase) or "you can't vote your way out of this." 20 years ago, New Hampshire had been invaded by Massholes and was well on its way to becoming Vermont. It swung hard left in election after election and the Massholes were working overtime to make it just as awful as the state they fled. But the right got organized. They started fighting back, organizing to win elections and entrench right-wing policy. They took over the GOP at the grassroots level and purged all the cucks. The Republicans now hold every statewide elected position and both chambers of the legislature and are cementing the right-wing counterrevolution, driving the Massholes back to their shitty homeland. Next, they'll start purging the Democrats out of federal offices and winning the state for Republicans in presidential elections. If right-wingers had just given up, sat out elections, and did nothing, then New Hampshire would look like Colorado or Virginia right now. Instead, libtards are literally fleeing the state and the government is passing anti-libtard laws literally named after Charlie Kirk, something no Middle American state has done. There is no substitute for engaging with the political system. You don't sit out elections impotently whining or retreat to build some cult compound in the woods. You play the game and you play it to win. Because even if you aren't interested in politics, politics is interested in you."

Thread by @Chowpinglee on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Everyone: “Book your flight on a Tuesday at 3 pm, you’ll get the cheapest tickets!” As an airline veteran, this is a B.S. myth. Timing matters, but not in the way you think. If you've ever felt cheated by sudden price hikes, this is what most airlines don’t want you to know:
The best strategies to score cheap tickets according to conventional wisdom:
• Off-peak tickets
• Flexible destinations
• Flights with stopovers
These help. But to game the system, it helps to understand how airlines price their tickets.
Ever wondered why airline ticket prices fluctuate faster than you can keep up?  It's not you. It's intentionally designed that way.  Think AI-driven madness.  Let's dive in:
Air fares have gone through a full makeover since the 1970s.  In 1974, a NYC to LA round-trip cost $1,442 (in today's dollars).  Then came the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act.  Today, that same flight costs $268.  An 81% drop. But how?  Airlines use a secret code: Booking Classes.  Not just economy or business. There's an alphabet soup of fare levels.  F = full fare first class J = full-fare business Y = full fare economy  But it gets crazy:
American Airlines and British Airways use D, C, R, I for discount business.  United uses J, C, D, Z, P.  United also uses R for premium economy.  Do you follow?  If that's not complicated enough, guess what:
A Boston to San Francisco round-trip has over 25 MILLION different valid fares. Where does all this insanity come from? Two words: AI algorithms.
• Leisure vs. business
• Past booking data
• Competitor prices
• Fuel costs
• Seasonal demand
Here's where it gets creepy:
Airlines profile YOU.  Ever notice that prices are always higher the 2nd time you check?  It’s not a coincidence. It’s because…  They stalk you.
• Track searches
• Analyze behavior
• Fast-changing prices
So how can you beat the system?
Pro tip: The "Tuesday at 3 PM" booking myth is NOT TRUE.  Instead:
• Be flexible with dates
• Use incognito mode to game the algorithm
• Set up price alerts
Remember: Timing matters, but it's not everything.
Another factor that tilts the odds in your favor: The "Southwest Effect".  When low-cost carriers joined the game, big airlines scrambled to match prices.  A 2013 MIT study showed major fare drops when Southwest and the rest started new routes.  The competition between the airlines is good news for us.  But understand this:  Airlines aren't just selling you a seat.  They're selling an experience:
• Baggage fees
• Seat selection
• Priority boarding
• In-flight Wi-Fi
In 2015, these "extras" raked in $59.2 billion — and the figure grows 20% per year.  So what does this mean for us travelers? The all-inclusive ticket is a thing of the past.  What works for the airlines now is to:
• Unbundle service
• Offer dirt-cheap base fares
• With à la carte add-ons
If you want cheap tickets, try to pay only the base fare.
TLDR: Airline pricing is a complex dance of supply, demand, and data.
To score deals:
• Be flexible with dates
• Use incognito mode
• Set up price alerts
• Go without the à la carte add-ons"
Weird. Left wingers tell us that regulation always protects consumers and is good

Susceptibility to Mental Illness May Have Helped Humans Adapt over the Millennia - "Randolph Nesse, a professor of life sciences at Arizona State University, attributes high rates of psychiatric disorders to natural selection operating on our genes without paying heed to our emotional well-being...  In his new book, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry, Nesse recruits the framework of evolutionary medicine to make a case for why psychiatric disorders persist despite their debilitating consequences. Some conditions, like depression and anxiety, may have developed from normal, advantageous emotions. Others, such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, result from genetic mutations that may have been beneficial in less extreme manifestations of a trait...
there are two very different categories of illness that should be kept separate. One is the emotional disorders, which are potentially normal, useful responses to situations. And in all such responses, variability and sensitivity are influenced by lots of different genes.  There are also mental disorders that are the most severe ones that are just plain old genetic diseases: bipolar disease and autism and schizophrenia. They’re genetic diseases, and whether you get them or not is overwhelmingly dependent on what genes you have. But why would a strong, inheritable trait that cuts fitness by half not be selected against? I think this is one of the deepest mysteries in psychiatry... For bipolar disease, the reduction in the number of offspring is not very great at all, so it might be that there’s not much selection acting there. And what if a tendency to be bipolar resulted in having even more children?... Maybe many of us have tendencies to grand ambitions and mood swings that probably aren’t good for us but might lend to grand successes on occasion, and that might lead to great reproductive success.  Then there’s the “cliff edge” effect, which is the possibility that some traits are pushed very far towards a peak that’s close to a place where fitness collapses for a few percent of the population... I find many of my patients feel like they’re abnormal if they are told, “You have an anxiety disorder, you have a depressive disorder.” Talk with them a little bit about the fact that there are advantages to anxiety and that low moods might have meaning. It might not just be something that’s broken in you, it might be that your emotions are trying to tell you something. I think that makes many people feel less like they’re defective."

Hamtramck City Council votes to allow animal sacrifice for religious purposes - "After months of debate, the city council has voted to allow the practice of animal sacrifice, for religious purposes, in Hamtramck.  The decision ultimately came down to a more than 30-year-old U.S. Supreme Court ruling that says cities cannot infringe on religious freedom under the first amendment.  The act of animal sacrifice is often practiced among Muslims during Eid.  “Our city is dirty enough. We don't want to make it more dirty,” a Hamtramck resident said during a city hall meeting.  “Really ridiculous catastrophic resolution,” another one said. "If it’s not passed then we are ready to take it to courts for religious rights because it is constitution."... Many people, including Muslim residents, were against it citing sanitary concerns if the animals are sacrificed in a home and not in a sterile environment, especially in the tight neighborhoods of Hamtramck.  The ordinance that was passed Tuesday night says religious sacrificing of animals can be done as long as it is done legally and humanely."

Christopher Barnard on X - "Colorado is an experiment in failed progressive governance (D+16 since 2013) Violent crime up 60%+ (vs 3% nat’l average) Median home price $600k (vs nat’l $400k average) Drug ODs up 3x Homelessness up 150% Everyone was moving to CO. Now people are leaving at historic levels"

OC coffee shop secretly operating as strip club - "Inside DD Café in Garden Grove, the women are serving a lot more than coffee. FOX 11's undercover cameras captured female servers providing lap dances, offering private dances for cash, and telling customers they could bring alcohol inside for a fee.  City records show DD Café, located at 10552 McFadden Ave., is licensed only as a coffee shop."

Meme - "True Story. Red Riding Hood"
"So, you were the one who found the wolf at your grandmother's"
"Listen, I have a thing for older broads, ok"
"So when you say you "ate" Grandma..."
"Listen, I know how to please a woman."
"Years of therapy. Turn off the camera!"
"War and Peas"

Lord Sewell: I tried to warn Britain about the curse of identity politics

This just kicks the problem further upstream ignoring, for example, the possibility that more black children are indeed educationally subnormal. 

Lord Sewell: I tried to warn Britain about the curse of identity politics
Racial disparity is not the same as racism. Conflating them is devastating for public policy 

"Valdo Calocane is a black man with a long history of severe mental illness. But during a clinical assessment, some years ago, professionals discussed research showing that young black men are disproportionately detained under mental health legislation in Britain.

And after deliberation, they decided compulsory detention might be inappropriate for Calocane. Community monitoring, they concluded, would be a “safe and reasonable alternative”.

It wasn’t. On June 13, 2023, Calocane fatally stabbed three people in Nottingham: students Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Barnaby Webber, both 19, and a 65-year-old school caretaker named Ian Coates.

A psychotic man who should have been detained for his mental illness was released into the world; and three innocent people died. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that ideology – not public safety – played some role in shaping the ultimately fatal decision to release him.

This tragedy could have been avoided. Five years ago this month, and two years before the Nottingham murders, Boris Johnson’s government published the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report, which I chaired. The central argument was simple but proved controversial to many: racial disparities are not automatically evidence of racism.

Disparity and discrimination are not the same thing. That black men are more likely to be detained, for example, should not be seen as evidence of racism.

If data shows that one racial group is over-represented in a particular outcome, there may be many explanations – culture, history, geography, class, family structure, health patterns, or institutional practice. The question is not whether disparities exist, but why.

That distinction matters enormously. If disparities are automatically interpreted as racism, then institutions begin to operate under intense pressure to avoid outcomes that might look unequal – even when the unequal outcome might actually be the correct professional judgment. The risk is that evidence is replaced by moral signalling.

Mental health was one of the clearest examples we identified. Activists often point to the disproportionate detention of black men under the Mental Health Act as evidence of systemic racism. But the evidence suggested something more complex: a deep mistrust of mental health services within some communities.

That mistrust has historical roots. In the 1960s, black children were disproportionately labelled “educationally sub-normal” and sent to special schools. The suspicion of institutions did not appear out of thin air. For many families, these experiences created a generational narrative that public services were not neutral providers of care but agents of discrimination.

But today the pattern we see is different: too many young black men engage with mental health services far too late, often when they are already in crisis. Families frequently avoid the system until a situation becomes dangerous.

The result is a tragic cycle. When intervention finally occurs, it often happens in emergency conditions. Police may be involved. Compulsory detention becomes more likely. The statistics then appear to confirm the narrative of discrimination, even though the underlying causes may lie earlier in the chain of events.

That is not the product of a racist conspiracy within psychiatry. It is the result of delayed engagement, untreated illness and a mistrust of institutions.

Yet, in recent years, another force has begun to influence how professionals interpret these disparities: the moral pressure of identity politics.

A new orthodoxy

Across public institutions, a powerful new orthodoxy has taken hold. Racial inequality is assumed to be the product of systemic racism, unless proven otherwise. Any attempt to question this assumption risks accusations of insensitivity or worse.

The incentive structure is clear: it is far safer professionally to err on the side of avoiding any action that might appear discriminatory.

This dynamic is often described as “white guilt” – a pervasive anxiety among institutions, particularly those led by white professionals, that they might be perpetuating racial injustice. That anxiety can lead to overcorrection.

White guilt does not always appear in crude or obvious forms. It often manifests subtly, through cautious decision-making, hesitancy, and a reluctance to exercise authority in situations where race might later be invoked as an explanation. Professionals become acutely aware that any decision affecting a minority individual could be scrutinised through the lens of discrimination.

The result is a kind of institutional paralysis. Instead of asking “what is the safest decision based on clinical evidence?”, decision-makers may also ask, consciously or unconsciously, “how will this decision look through the prism of race?”

When that calculation enters the room, the quality of judgment inevitably changes.

This tragic story in Nottingham makes me angry because our report tried to challenge exactly this kind of thinking. We argued that professionals must not allow ideological assumptions about racism to distort clinical judgment. But the reaction to our work was ferocious.

Activist groups, public sector unions and parts of the corporate world denounced the report. Media outlets – terrified of being labelled racist – amplified the outrage. Several of my fellow commissioners, most of whom were themselves from ethnic minority backgrounds, were vilified online and professionally punished.

The cancellation reached absurd heights in March 2022 when the University of Nottingham, where I earned my PhD, rescinded an honorary doctorate it had awarded me for my work in education. They said the report was too controversial.

The irony is hard to miss. Calocane was also a Nottingham student. It was there that he first experienced hallucinations.

If the progressive gatekeepers around him had read our report with an open mind, they might have found a warning about politically distorted practice in mental health services. Perhaps then he would have been detained and three people would still be alive.

The passage activists hated most was our call for community responsibility:

“The Commission”, we wrote, “does not believe the evidence supports claims of discrimination within psychiatry. The challenge is convincing vulnerable people in ethnic minorities that mental healthcare is neither a threat nor a punishment, but something genuinely helpful.”

For some critics, even raising the possibility of cultural or community factors was unacceptable. The prevailing narrative demanded that institutions bear primary responsibility for disparities.

But ignoring cultural factors helps nobody. If mistrust of services delays treatment, then addressing that mistrust is essential. Pretending the problem lies elsewhere simply prolongs the suffering.

In fact, attitudes are slowly changing. Increasing numbers of patients are recognising their vulnerability and seeking help earlier – sometimes even requesting sectioning themselves.

British schools are not institutionally racist

Our report applied the same forensic analysis we applied to psychiatry across other fields, from education to employment. And again, in many cases, disparities had more to do with other factors – like class, geography and family stability – than race.

Critics said we were too optimistic. They insisted racism seeped into every pore of British society.

But what we exposed was something else: Britain had drunk deeply from the dangerous elixir of identity politics.

Across academia, politics and civil society, moral status became tied to racial victimhood. If you were black, it was implied, the system must be against you. If you were white, you were assumed to benefit from invisible privilege.

This framework reshaped public debate. Complex social problems were compressed into a simple moral narrative of oppressors and oppressed. The concept of white guilt became a powerful cultural force, encouraging institutions to apologise for historical injustices and scrutinise every disparity for evidence of prejudice.

But the danger of this mindset is that it can blind us to other realities. When we examined outcomes across groups, we found something that disrupted the narrative: the white working class is often doing worst of all.

Nowhere is this clearer than in education. According to data published last year, just 34 per cent of white British boys on free school meals reached the expected GCSE standard in English and maths. Among black Caribbean boys on free school meals it was 35 per cent. But among black African boys it was 59 per cent and for Chinese boys it was 82 per cent.

These figures challenge the idea that racial identity alone determines disadvantage. They suggest that class, family stability and local environment may be more powerful predictors of life outcomes.

Family structure, in particular, is one of the strongest predictors of success.

Only two in 10 poor white children live with married parents today, compared with almost six in 10 among poor children in non-white families. Growing up in a stable two-parent household predicts life chances more strongly than many of the characteristics dominating modern equality debates.

For years, pointing this out was treated as politically dangerous. To discuss family breakdown risked accusations of “blaming the victim”. But ignoring such realities helps no one – least of all the children growing up within them.

Five years ago, saying this publicly could get you branded a racist. Today even Labour ministers acknowledge it. The Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has spoken openly about the need for targeted programmes for poor white boys.

That shift is one of the report’s quiet legacies. The goal was never to deny racism where it exists. Racism does occur, and it should be confronted wherever it appears. But reducing every disparity to racism creates a distorted understanding of society – and bad policy decisions.

The purpose of the Commission was to bring evidence back into the centre of the debate. To remind policymakers that social problems rarely have single causes. And to argue that communities themselves must play a role in solving the challenges they face.

The deeper problem we identified was cultural: a political environment in which identity had replaced analysis. When racial identity becomes the primary lens through which all outcomes are judged, evidence struggles to compete with ideology.

Over the last five years we have seen the political consequences of this vacuum. Parties such as Reform UK have gained traction by speaking to voters who feel ignored by elite debates about race and privilege.

The Commission warned this could happen. When mainstream politics refuses to discuss uncomfortable truths, others will step in to fill the silence.

We also argued for a school curriculum that celebrated Britain’s intellectual and cultural achievements rather than treating the nation primarily as a story of oppression. A balanced curriculum should acknowledge historical injustice while also recognising the writers, scientists and inventors who shaped modern Britain.

As a junior minister, Kemi Badenoch deserves credit for fighting to keep the spirit of the report alive, even when some senior figures seemed hesitant. She understood that the Commission was not about denying racism but defending evidence-based policymaking.

That principle matters more than ever today. Because when identity politics replaces evidence, the consequences are not just intellectual. Sometimes they are deadly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Links - 17th April 2026 (1 - Diversity [including Harry Potter Reboot])

Meme - "You don't belong in this School. Filthy BlackBlood! And keep your filthy monkey hands away from Lily! Snigerrus!"
Hang im upside down james! Teach dat monkey!"
"Grand Wizard James P."

Bit Paine ⚡️ on X - "I’m once again reminding you that people don’t hate racially diverse casting; they hate 1) double standards, 2) badly made films, and 3) the injection of the leftist political messaging in every single piece of media.   The racebending of Snape and Hermione checks all the boxes, but is most egregious because of 3:
1) Hermione spends the majority of the films being called a “mudblood” by the blond white kid.
2) Snape is likewise bullied, ostracized, and distrusted. Accused of crimes he did not commit. Literally strung up and tortured by a bunch of white boys after being rejected by the white girl he had a crush on.
Casting a mixed-race girl to play Hermione and a Black guy to play Snape inserts obvious modern racial political overtones into all of these interactions that distract from the story and the characters. That these two characters in particular were race-bended while others were recast as virtual carbon copies means this decision cannot credibly be given the benefit of the doubt.   People don’t want everything to be about leftist politics. They’re sick of it. It cheapens the writing, which already addressed the themes of eugenics, slavery, totalitarianism, propaganda, discrimination, and social ostracism, but did so using world-building and metaphor in a politically agnostic way. It examined themes in the abstract rather than being one step removed from a political yard sign. This is what good writers and filmmakers do because it universalizes the message and doesn’t insult the intelligence of the audience.
WHEN HERMIONE IS CALLED A MUDBLOOD, IT’S AN ALLEGORY FOR EUGENICS
 Yeah, no shit, everyone with a brain already got that. They didn’t need it spelled out by casting a mixed girl.   (By the way, the American South is not the only time in history that people have cared about bloodline purity, so you haven’t deepened the allegory by underlining it in red marker; you cheapened and provincialized it)  People just want good writing and filmmaking. They don’t want everything everywhere to be a vessel for hack writers and leftist propagandists. And they’re not racist for wanting that. But you’re making them racist by making everything about race and politicizing beloved media in the process."

livviepope: Book moments: 1/? - "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, chapter 14.  ‘I told you to shut up about my dad!’ Harry yelled. ‘I know the truth, all right? He saved your life! Dumbledore told me! You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for my dad!’  Snape’s sallow skin had gone the colour of sour milk.  ‘And did the Headmaster tell you the circumstances in which your father saved my life?’ he whispered. ‘Or did he consider the details too unpleasant for precious Potter’s delicate ears?’"
If you don't think Snape can be black, you're racist

dataconny on X - "Deathly Hallows, Chapter 32, "The Elder Wand." 'And now Snape looked at Voldemort, and Snape’s face was like a death mask. It was marble white'"

Greg on X - "1. "Professor Snape, the Potions master, was a thin, greasy-haired man with a pale, sneering face." (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 8)
2. "Snape's pale face was twisted in a snarl." (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, Chapter 13)"

Brody on X - "Snape-the-teenager had a stringy, pallid look about him, like a plant kept in the dark. His hair was lank and greasy and was flopping onto the table, his hooked nose barely half an inch from the surface of the parchment as he scribbled." Order of the pheonix ch 28"

Ryan Kinel - RK Outpost on X - "I've actually read all of the books, unlike you, so I'll help you out. Snape is described several times as "pale", multiple times as having "pallid" and "sallow" skin, once as the "color of sour milk", and since even that isn't enough, it's described quite literally as "marble white" during his last confrontation with Voldemort in Deathly Hallows. Hope that helps, you retarded fuck."

Meme - Christina Hoff Sommers @CHSommers: "If the whole industry had been rapidly expanding at the time, you could perhaps have pulled this off in a graceful way. But it was at best stagnant, so what we got was exactly what Savage says - a brief but intense period when the hiring bar for white men became very high. One of the big flaws of affirmative action as a framework is that nobody ever wants to say "colleges discriminated against Asian applicants and that was good" or that "elite media did a young white man hiring freeze and that was good.""
Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias: "One of several fatal flaws with affirmative action as a paradigm is that when it happens, its proponents don't ever really want to make the case for it - you're supposed to deny it's going on."

Thread by @HistoricHive on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - [On race swapping] "A collective groan, the predictable 'why do you even care?'—and then memory-holed within a week.  Why do they keep doing this, and what should the response be?  Short 🧵
History enthusiasts will scoff, but this is of little concern to streaming platforms, who cater to a large, impressionable audience.  This audience, mostly unfamiliar with Cleopatra's Ptolemaic lineage, the ethnic composition of London in 1940, etc. are treated to 'docuseries'. Here, intriguing yet mostly inconsequential figures are playfully reimagined as black, in a format often resembling a drama... But the viewer is allowed, and indeed persuaded, to believe that what they see is accurate.  An array of 'historians', with credentials to match, provide compelling testimony to Cleopatra's blackness:  (That this was included in the trailer is entirely intentional.)
Occasionally, a figure of great renown is begrudgingly covered. Unable to deceive the viewer in appearance, the protagonist is reduced in other ways:
Napoleon: abusive, petulant cuckold
Alexander: part-time conqueror, full-time homosexual
Caesar: compared to Trump (?) ⬇️
In Britain, such media is complemented by a wider state-funded effort to assure the public that black people have not only 'been here from the start', but indeed built Britain.  ⬇️ Aired on CBBC, the British government's channel for children.
The indoctrination continues through to higher education...  Terms like 'Anglo-Saxon', which dare to suggest the existence of an English ethnicity, are bravely dismantled...  The ambiguous “Early Medieval English” is the preferred alternative.
So what is the goal?  To assuage the head-spinning changes to the ethnic composition of Europe & America?  Or to instil in ethnic minorities the sense that they have a greater stake in their host nations? Perhaps more importantly, what is the appropriate response to the deliberately subversion of your history?  Few comparative examples exist. In 20th century Germany & Russia, the perceived subversive forces were purged. History is being reimagined as truth to shore up legitimacy of the real world status quo, but the distortion of facts has consequences.  A younger generation, inquisitive in thought and independent in the search of truth, will not forget the subversion of their heritage."

Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers on X - "The AP is concerned that there are too few Somalis snowboarding for the Swedish Olympic team. Every time you think the media has evolved to be more sophisticated and serious since the 2012-2020 era, you get an item like this."

Delta flight attendant works with all-Black crew for the first - "A Delta flight attendant captured a special moment in her career - the first time she's worked with an all-Black crew during a flight.   It was a regular work day for Felicia Kaye at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. She had picked up the flight last minute to get extra hours and was preparing to fly from Atlanta to Kansas City...   Although a first for Kaye, this isn't the first time an all-Black crew has operated a Delta flight, according to the airline...   The Delta employee said she's excited to see it happen more often.   "The company is so progressive. Delta is so diverse, and it just really, really made me feel Delta proud," Kaye said."
Considering that this is statistically much less likely than an all-white flight if it were a random draw...

Meme - Some dude @NWordBiden: "In 2024 black people committed 80x more murders than tornadoes did"
Feru @ferupity: "White people really not scared of shit but diversity omg."
Brandon Copic @BrandonCopicWx: "Congrats to @BryceShelton01 and @tornadopaigeyy. on their engagement! *proposal with tornado in background*"

Meme - "HELLEN FROM 'TROY' (2004) *Diane Kruger*
HELLEN FROM 'THE ODYSSEY' (2026) *Lupita Nyong'o*"
Race aside, this face would only launch garbage ships

Meme - i/o @eyeslasho: "I don't remember an extended period of time in which black actors consistently played three-dimensional characters in movies.  Prior to the 60s, they barely existed. In the 60s, they became pets for liberal screenwriters. The 70s brought a mixture of stereotyping, condescension, and saintliness. In the 80s, black lead characters tended to be charismatic but one-dimensional. By the 90s, there was an introduction of some nuance and realism in the roles they played, but by the 2000s, black actors generally reverted to a second-fiddle presence and were once again too often imbued with white guilt-generated nobility and saintliness. They were almost never the bad guys or incompetent or violent.  If anything, independent moviemakers of the last decade or so are doing work in which black characters have a fuller range of characteristics and situations, even though the progressive impulse to make sure they don't fall into "stereotype" remains."
Coddled affluent professional @feelsdesperate: "Paraphrasing Walter Kirn:  I’m old enough to remember when black people had good roles and interesting characters in movies and weren’t two dimensional ideological props."

U of A staff, students speak out against move to axe EDI from hiring policy - "The University of Alberta is proposing to eliminate Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) from its hiring policy.  The move comes a year after the school’s president announced the U of A was moving away from the term, saying it had become polarizing for some.   In the current university recruitment policy, the recommendation is when two candidates are similarly qualified for a position, hiring panels should favour candidates from historically under-represented groups.   A draft recruitment policy heading to the board of governors for approval removes that practice and eliminates references to the university’s commitments to correct employment disadvantages...  some members of the university say they worry it shows a lack of transparency and walks back commitments... “EDI statements are sometimes creative works of fiction — not really how people run their research groups,” one respondent said.  “Being worried or scared to say a joke or comment that will come back at you. Wanting to be yourself but also not offending people,” another participant told facilitators.  A note from another respondent shared that some feel left out."
Left wingers get very upset when you ban racial and sexual discrimination, and other forms of discrimination

Thread by @Afinetheorem on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Wild Canada fact: they established a "Canada Research Chair" program to hire top global researchers. Added new rules so that makeup must match Canada's domestic gender/racial makeup (though most candidates are intl!). Result: you *literally* can't hire a white guy for a CRC.  I mean that, literally. At U Toronto, until 2030 you can't even put a white guy up - no matter if it was a Nobel Prize winner. And to be clear, this was the federal government's *main policy* to recruit top researchers from abroad. Interesting to see challenge from Calgary...
And yes, I really do mean literally: Put this in the set of "policies that will cause political blowback when they become more salient". We don't have to do this!"

Jan Jekielek on X - "“Every single NIH employee had to write… a loyalty oath to DEI principles.”  Dr. Jay Bhattacharya reveals that the woke ideology infected science over the past 20 years.  “None of it actually translated over to better health for anybody.”  It’s worse than we think.  “Over the last 15-20 years, the NIH incorporated into its agenda things I can only characterize as political agendas rather than scientific agendas.”  “Probably the most prominent example of this is DEI.”  “If you’re a researcher outside the NIH, the ticket to getting extra, relatively easy funds was to promise to do DEI research.”  “Much of that research had no real scientific basis at all” and did not translate into better health outcomes for minorities or anyone else.  And here’s what worse:  “At the end of the year, the NIH would often have some money left over.”  “The NIH program officers would go to the people who were doing these projects… and say, ‘look, we have some money left over, if you propose a diversity supplement,’—meaning essentially some DEI add-on that wasn’t actually good science—‘then you can get access to extra money for your research.’”  “It was basically wasting taxpayer money that had no chance of improving the health of anybody.”  “We’ve gotten rid of all that.”  @NIHDirector_Jay  @DrJBhattacharya"

The Direct and Spillover Effects of Large-Scale Affirmative Action at an Elite Brazilian University
arctotherium on X - "Brazilian study finds that affirmative action has a strong negative effect on the wages of non-affirmative action admits (19% more AA-admits => 14% lower wages of highly-ranked students). Why? Less enrollment in top firms, less networking, and less measured learning."

GeroDoc on X - "👇When people call the DEI craze “race marxism” it’s not just done to call up the spectre of communism in people’s heads. It’s because it’s precisely a racialized version of the ideology that literally rotted out the USSR from the inside.  Soviet Russia installed mediocrities and idiots into positions of power because they were the “proletariat” who mouthed the right things about the anti-capitalist struggle, who then proceeded to make sure nothing worked for anyone.  The HBO miniseries “Chernobyl“ has an unforgettable scene in it which features a  party functionary - a sneering corpulent deputy secretary named Garanin whom it is revealed that prior to the communist revolution worked in a shoe factory.   Yet, in the HBO series, he wielded power to the degree where he made life or death decisions about nuclear safety.   It’s worth noting that many historians see the Chernobyl disaster as a key event that eventually brought down the Soviet Union"

Nick Sortor on X - "🚨 NOW: DC and Maryland Democrats are STILL pumping raw sewage DIRECTLY into waterways leading to the Potomac River, with NO end in sight Where the hell are the environmentalists??! Oh that’s right — they don’t care, b/c this isn’t politically expedient"

End Wokeness on X - "DC Water Chair Unique Morris Hughes: "The disruption work that I'm doing is I am on a mission to make sure black & brown kids" get careers They just had a historic sewage spill"

Meme - End Wokeness @EndWokeness: "The worst sewage spill in U.S. history. but at least DC Water's staff is 82% "BIPOC""
"WATER EQUITY FOR ALL. Employee Equity. 82% BIPOC Representation. 32% Female Leadership"
Clearly, diversity improves performance. Imagine how much worse it'd be without DEI?

Meme - Bob Grotz: "Group photo reflecting the community that is responsible for the massive sewage spill into the Potomac."
End Wokeness @EndWokeness: "The worst sewage spill in US, history, but at least DC Water's leadership is "diverse""

DC Water CEO: 'We Had Too Many White Men in Charge' - "every time we hear stories about companies that have sacrificed competency for skin color, disaster strikes.  "

Curtis Houck on X - "Here we go, folks. The left and the media are going to turn this spring and summer's putrid-smelling Potomac into Trump's fault and no one else's. Not D.C. Water, not D.C. government, not Maryland. Trump."

White Papers Policy Institute on X - "Lee Kuan Yew tried to reverse engineer the norms of Anglo-Protestant society and discovered you can't within a diverse environment.  As a result Singapore is one of the most paternalistic states in the world with a lot of race based laws and system designed to 'manage' diversity.  The presidency is rotated based on race, where you can live is determined by race, part of your paycheck is given to official state sanctioned racial 'self-help' organizations.  You can go to jail for hurting the feelings of other racial groups.  If Singapore is the best example of how to run a diverse society you should not want to live in a diverse society."

Meme - "Western culture portrayed by Westerners *Black man in King and Conqueror* *Black Jodie Turner-Smith as Anne Boleyn with Black Paapa Essiedu as her brother George* *Black Earl Morcar of Northumbria and Black sister [?]* *Black King Edward VI in My Lady Jane*
Western culture portrayed by the Japanese *Frieren: Beyond Journey's End ballroom dance*"

Meme - Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry: "Every year they create a fake competition to show an immigrant making the best baguette. Obviously it's not impossible for an immigrant to make a good baguette but as a reference here are the most recent winners of the Meilleur Apprenti de France contest, craftsmen who are judged by actual professional peers on merit and not an unknown fake jury."
meilleursouvriersdefrance: *photo of mostly white people*
Embassy of France in the U.S. @franceintheus: "Congratulations to Sithamparappillai Jegatheepan of the Fournil Didot bakery for winning the Best Baguette in Paris Competition (aka the Grand Prix de la baguette de tradition francaise)! Jegatheepan now has a one-year contract to supply daily bread to the Elysee Palace."
Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry @pegobry_en: "3.8 on Google. Lmao"
"Fournil Didot 3.8"
Trust the Experts!

Crémieux on X - "The Nazis dismissed scientists who were Jewish or considered "politically unreliable" This persistently negatively impacted the number of scientific publications written by affected departments By contrast, bombing effects on department physical capital were small and transient"
Crémieux on X - "Just as the Nazis' dismissal of Jewish scientists reduced their scientific productivity, dismissing Jewish medical doctors hurt Germany. Jews were 17% of physicians and 0.7% of the population in 1933. When Jewish physicians were booted from their jobs, infant mortality rose:"
Clearly, this proves that if you don't fire white men to promote unqualified black women, you get worse results

Living Room Enjoyer on X - "If you go to campus tours of the top 25 universities today, admissions officials will *brag* about how they reject students with perfect scores in favor of accepting 'well-rounded' applicants (read: minority NGO-aspirants) with average scores."
Living Room Enjoyer on X - "Almost all scholarships are explicitly restricted to specific minority groups and thus de jure unavailable to bright American teenagers. The menial share of scholarship funds open to all applicants are presided over by boards who favor minorities anyway, AND they are the subject of intense competition from oriental striver types who tailor their children’s lives to be optimally competitive in the college admissions process. White kids who aren’t immersed in coastal striver culture, no matter how bright, are never in the running."
Budman on X - "I remember being young and believing in equality. Then I started looking into college and I couldn't apply to 75% of scholarships because I was white and male. They still had access to my 25%. And I started wondering: if they need that much help, are they really equal to me?"

Chris Brunet on X - "The @UofT  just posted a job opening for a tenure-stream professor of Computational Biology and Data Science  no white men allowed   "Selection will be limited to candidates who identify as members of one or more of the four federally-designated groups: women and gender minorities (those who identify as women, trans, nonbinary, Two-Spirit, and gender fluid, based on the gender identity that best describes applicants at the current time), racialized persons/visible minorities, Indigenous Peoples, persons with disabilities.""
Lucy Hargreaves on X - "what most people don't know is that the Canada Research Chairs program has already EXCEEDED it's 2029 equity targets makes you wonder why these discriminatory hiring practices remain in place"

Jonathan Kay on X - "if you’re wondering why a generation of Canadian academics has been encouraged to identify as “gender fluid” or “non-binary,” completely meaningless terms that are basically astrological signs for upper middle class neurotics, it’s because it’s the only way they can get a job"

Jonathan Kay on X - "BC’s public broadcaster reserves 50% of its funded documentary slots for BIPOC producers. 25% is reserved for Indigenous producers alone. But it shot past that benchmark. The real figure is 42%. (In the 2021 census, 6% of BC identified as indigenous)"

Defiant L’s on X - "Michelle Obama: "All my scores said I did not belong in Princeton… and people saw my skin color and they said 'you are aiming too high'""
When she ironically made a case for why affirmative action is bad for black people. Of course, she goes on after the excerpted bit with the usual left wing dogma to claim that athletes and legacy admissions are affirmative action too

Links - 16th April 2026 (2 - Homelessness)

Homelessness isn’t just a housing problem - "Despite more than 200 social agencies and non-profits operating in in the Downtown East Side, the problem just keeps getting worse, Brodie said. And part of the problem may be that homelessness is viewed too much through the lens of housing stock shortages. “To our mind, the biggest problem is that we're calling it a homelessness problem,” she said. “But it's not it's not just about homelessness. This is mental illness and drug addiction.” While some people who are living in tents, on the streets and in temporary shelters are homeless because they simply can’t find affordable housing, it is estimated that half to two-thirds of the homeless population in the Greater Vancouver region have some form of mental health issue, drug addiction, or both. An estimated 7,655 individuals were identified as homeless in B.C., according to the 2018 Report on Homelessness. Fifty-six per cent of respondents reported an addiction, 40% reported having a mental illness and 33% had a physical disability. To address the drug addiction problem on the Downtown East Side, a four pillars approach was adopted. Those pillars included prevention, treatment, enforcement and harm reduction. But key pillars of that approach are missing, Brodie said – enforcement being one of them. “There's no enforcement because the police have been have been literally handcuffed from doing their jobs,” Brodie said. “What we're doing isn't working,” Krog said. “The numbers are not diminishing, the severity is worse. The social costs are horrendous.” With respect to mental illness, and how it has led to so many mentally ill and drug addicted people living on the streets, one nexus is the deinstitutionalization of mental health that occurred throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout North America, large mental hospitals like Riverview Hospital in Coquitlam were shut down. The idea was to build smaller, community based homes and support services where people with mental illness could live and receive the support they need in their own communities. But to a large extent, that second phase of deinstitutionalization was never followed through on... Julian Somers, a clinical psychologist at Simon Fraser University and director of SFU’s Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction, agrees with Trudeau that decriminalization is no silver bullet. “Nobody has been cured of addiction with a drug,” he said. “There’s no publication showing that…. increasing the supply of drugs to a population improves health. In fact, it’s the opposite. What people need is genuine care and material support.”"

Toronto MP Baber calls out Mayor Chow, 'outright crazy' shelter plan - "Baber said the Wilson site is “particularly ill-conceived,” sitting between Pierre Laporte Middle School and a daycare centre. He also worries it’s too close to a shelter near Jane St. — at 1677 Wilson Ave. — which was the scene of a stabbing murder last month . Pasternak told the Sun that operation is “a case study in how a shelter comes off the rails,” lacking in day programming and essential supports... “We now know, regretfully, that Toronto city shelters are handing out drug paraphernalia to their residents,” Baber added. “The Toronto homeless shelters are no longer just homeless shelters. They have turned into satellites for the so-called drug-injection sites.” (In a statement, the City of Toronto said the new shelters “will not be safe consumption sites or offer safe consumption services,” but will “provide health services” as defined in the city’s shelter standards, which includes giving out “safer drug use equipment.”)... At one point, committee members Jamaal Myers, Josh Matlow and Brad Bradford pressed Perks on why citizens weren’t allowed to discuss the six sites in question being used as homeless shelters. “The report mentions shelters multiple times … but the deputants are not allowed to talk about shelters,” Myers said. Bradford pushed harder. “I know you want to keep that in a very tight little box today, but that’s probably not why 80 people took their time to be here and provide feedback to this committee today,” Bradford said, to cheers from waiting speakers."
Allowing free and open debate is a Danger to Democracy
If you define euthanasia as "healthcare", you can also frame euthanasia opponents as being against providing "healthcare"

Attempt by Waterloo to clear a homeless encampment again blocked by a judge - "A judge has blocked the region of Waterloo from dismantling a homeless encampment located in an area that the region plans to use as a transit hub"
Damn car lobby making it hard to improve public transit!

Woman was living inside rooftop grocery store sign with computer and coffee maker for a year - "Contractors curious about an extension cord on the roof of a Michigan grocery store made a startling discovery: A 34-year-old woman was living inside the business sign, with enough space for a computer, printer and coffee maker, police said.  “She was homeless,” Officer Brennon Warren of the Midland Police Department said Thursday. “It’s a story that makes you scratch your head, just somebody living up in a sign.”  The woman, whose name was not released, told police she had a job elsewhere but had been living inside the Family Fare sign for roughly a year...   “There was some flooring that was laid down. A mini desk,” he said. “Her clothing. A Keurig coffee maker. A printer and a computer — things you’d have in your home.”  The woman was able to get electricity through a power cord plugged into an outlet on the roof, Warren said.  There was no sign of a ladder. Warren said it’s possible the woman made her way to the roof by climbing up elsewhere behind the store or other retail businesses.  “I honestly don’t know how she was getting up there. She didn’t indicate, either,” he said."

Why is Yonge St such a mess : r/toRANTo - "I dont care about "its always been this way", its such a stupid excuse. Yonge st from union to bloor is a complete disaster. It is FILLED with crackheads and crazy people at every block, who are a threat to everyone including themselves. So many of the parks are unusable!! I cant tell you how annoying it is that one of the best streets in Toronto, with such rich diversity, transit and stores is ruined by the normalization of drugs. No other major city puts these injection sites right on the main street of the city!!! The city needs to take itself seriously if it wants to be "world class", you dont let mess like this into your main streets, this is litearlly YONGE ST, how could you let it be filled with drugs and homelessness! Invest in mental health hospitals, or shelters, but dont let them on the street! As fucked up as it sounds, they need to help them somewhere thats not the main core of the city. This is so stupid. Its not even the entirety of downtown, fort york, king, bloor are not like this, only yonge is this extreme."

I was the only tourist at a seaside hotel – every other guest was homeless - "The problem arises due to councils having a legal duty to provide shelter to those at risk of homelessness. A lack of affordable rental properties and a dearth of council homes means that most turn to hotels as a stopgap solution... Given the vast sums of money going into private coffers, it seems reasonable to ask whether Whitehall has inadvertently created a “hotel-industrial complex”, in which certain less scrupulous operators prioritise government contracts over providing rooms to tourists and commuters. Unless things change dramatically, what started with a handful of emergency rooms in a Travelodge may prove much closer to the mythical Hotel California: easy enough to check in, but near impossible to leave."

Pictured: Homeless man who battered 'kind' woman, 36, to death with a mallet just days after taking him into her £1.3million flat - "A homeless man who battered a woman to death with a mallet just days after she took him into her £1.3million flat has been pictured for the first time.   Apapale Adoum, 39, is facing a life sentence after he admitted murdering Victoria Adams, 36, at her home in Hammersmith, west London, on February 9... Adoum had met her just three days earlier on February 6 when he was living in a homeless shelter.  She had invited him to stay with her but later wrote a note to ask him to leave."

Labour blasted for 'funding illegal immigrants' instead of 'supporting homeless' as city encampment grows in London's richest borough - "Nearly a dozen tents now line Edgware Road, once a clear and quiet bypass, as homelessness surges in London's wealthiest borough - prompting criticism of Labour for "funding illegal immigrants hotels" while neglecting rough sleepers.

The law protects the rights of the most vulnerable among us to live in filth and despair. I'm tired of how homelessness and addiction take up so much oxygen in the social discourse. : r/ilovebc - "More addicts on the street means more money given to the 250+ "aid" agencies throughout the area from all three levels of government plus their charitable statuses which means they don't pay taxes.  SRO's and injection sites facilitate drug dealing and property fencing, the area around them becomes visibly worse off within weeks of one opening up, and the people in charge never seem to live anywhere near these places.  If even 200 of the most prolific addicts were put in a facility and/or jail, the crime rate would drop by double digits overnight."

Law protects the rights of most vulnerable to live in filth, despair | Vancouver Sun - "In 2014, Vancouver Sun reporter Lori Culbert and I wrote a weeklong series of stories identifying the government social welfare programs — and their cost to taxpayers — in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. The numbers were staggering: Over 100 programs existed just for housing. Thirty provided health care, 30 offered family services and a miscellany of another 100 services — including a food bank for pets — brought the total to 260 social welfare agencies operating solely within the eight square blocks of the DTES. Those 260 programs served just 6,500 clients. Five years earlier, in 2009, Province reporter David Carrigg also did a survey of the programs available in the DTES, and he identified 174 social welfare agencies offering services to about 5,000 clients... in the five years between Carrigg’s survey and Culbert’s and mine, not only had the number of people needing help grown but so had the number of agencies serving them. And the cost to taxpayers? Over $360 million annually.  That astounding figure — almost a million dollars a day — did little to satisfy the DTES’s voracious appetite for tax dollars. More to the point, it did nothing to eradicate the misery and living conditions of the people who lived there.  Quite the opposite. Rather than winning the war on poverty — and what a quaint phrase that seems now — governments engineered a truce, with the unstated understanding that if they couldn’t solve the problem or spend their way out of it, they could contain it. Those 260 social service bureaucracies weren’t solutions to an intractable problem; they were barricades. They ghettoized their impoverished clientele by concentrating the services on which they depended.  And let’s be honest: The public was complicit in this, and content for it to continue as long as the misery stayed confined within the borders of the DTES.  And yet here we are. The squalor spreads. It corrodes a once-vibrant downtown core. It infiltrates the suburbs. Daily acts of random violence and vandalism have become normalized, while a cornucopia of drugs — some decriminalized, some tolerated, many deadly — act as accelerants...  Nothing, absolutely nothing, has worked. Over the decades, the problem has been studied to death — admittedly, a poor choice of words — with consultants and academics and the legions of poverty industry advocates offering up solutions that ultimately fail. They fail because they’re predicated on two simple criteria:
1. Give us more money.
2. Give us more of everything — housing, hospital beds, food banks, drugs, injection sites, counselling or — and this is always implicit — empathy, with a side order of collective guilt...
the author laments that it has been the public’s and governments’ norm “to daily bypass our downtrodden, our homeless, our addicted or mentally ill on the street as though they are either invisible or merely equivalent to lampposts” — to which I have to reply: ‘Are you f—ng kidding me?’  The public and its governments have done exactly the opposite and, short of bathing their feet with Christ-like piety, have directed billions of tax dollars not only to ease the suffering of the homeless, the addicted and the mentally ill, but also to make them completely dependent upon those dollars.  Another Sun story — this one again by Culbert — examined the merits of involuntary care through the experiences of three addicts who underwent the process, and while two saw it as beneficial and helped them get clean, the third condemned it as “dehumanizing” and a cause of her PTSD. Though she no longer does drugs, she said that if she relapses she would prefer to take her chances with street drugs that could possibly kill her rather than be readmitted to hospital against her will.  Well, OK, I thought, ‘You’re an adult. Good for you for having the honesty to express that choice, however idiotic I may find it.’  But what I thought was missing in her testimonial was (a) any appreciation of the monumentally expensive efforts governments and the public had tried to make on her behalf, however ill-informed she may have believed those attempts to be, and (b) her failure to recognize the destructive effects that a relapse would have not just on her own health and family, but, more importantly, also on the collective health of the public, who would be asked to offer up yet more money, and deal yet again with her relapse — providing she survives it...  I’m tired of the endless, self-regenerating calls for more studies and more funding when all I see is a colossal waste of money and effort leading to no improvement. I’m tired of how homelessness and addiction take up so much oxygen in the social discourse. I’m tired of civil rights that supersede my own, and treat the right to defecate in the streets with greater regard than my right to be offended by it.  Finally, I’m tired of a social welfare system that not only encourages dependency, but refuses, out of moral timidity, to also admit its complicity in it, and which shies away from asking hard questions about personal responsibility and the consideration of measures more draconian than safe injection sites — measures like a return to complete drug criminalization, a higher threshold of minimum sentences for trafficking, the establishment of rehabilitation centres or work camps exclusively in wilderness areas far from the temptations of cities, the discontinuation of any efforts that facilitate drug use, and yes, the robust expansion of an involuntary care system.  It’s also my opinion that none of these measures, given the current legal climate, will become reality, at least for the foreseeable future. Under our Constitution and the Criminal Code, the law, in its majestic equality, protects the rights of the most vulnerable among us to live in filth and despair, and, as so often happens, bring about their own deaths.  How enlightened we have become! What progress we have made! We’ve reached that point when now sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets and stealing one’s daily bread are no longer evidence of a system’s failure.  They are the system."
Clearly, the problem is they don't spend enough money

BC NDP finally admits to problems in supportive housing - "The New Democrats finally acknowledged this week that B.C.’s supportive housing projects have become havens for violence, weapons, fires, and drug use, confirming what critics have been saying for months and, in some cases, years.  They also conceded that the government had made the problems worse by amending the Residential Tenancy Act to make it harder to evict the worst-case abusers from supportive housing.  But they continued to delay fixing the problems they themselves had compounded. Rather they appointed a working group to come up with remedies, perhaps including repeal of the NDP-authored changes to the Act. As recently as May, Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon had rebuffed pleas for regulatory and legislative relief from the mostly non-profit providers of supportive housing for homelessness, mental illness and drug addiction.  “I believe people are safe,” Kahlon said at the time. “And I believe they are much safer than if they were in encampments or sleeping in parks. It is safer not only for the public, but it is also safer for individuals.”  Yet there was Kahlon on Monday, presiding over a news conference where he pretty much conceded that the critics were right all along.  Yes, there was a growing problem of drug-taking in supportive housing.  “We’re seeing a greater shift toward smoking fentanyl instead of injecting, many of our supportive housing sites — in fact, most — have policies in place saying no smoking in your room. We also have concerns that we had supportive housing projects that had higher levels of fentanyl in the air.” Yes, there were chronic rule breakers.  “When you have individuals that consistently break the rules, that have a difficult time functioning in our supportive housing sites. … We have some individuals that have been offered housing, but they can’t find a way to stay in that housing because they can’t follow simple rules.”  Yes, there were some genuinely bad actors.  “What I also see is some people trying to prey on vulnerable people at supportive housing, and that’s unacceptable. And we are open to whatever measures are needed to keep everyone safe — workers, people living there in the community.” Yes, the government’s legislative changes had made it harder to catch the worst offenders and harder still to evict them.  “We have heard from providers that they need more authority to take action and keep people safe, and we will be working with our partners to find a path forward that ensures people can live in a safe, inclusive and supportive environment.”  And there was growing evidence of trouble, ranging from the death of one person in a project in Victoria to the chaos surrounding three hotels turned into rooming houses on Granville Street in Vancouver... as Kahlon now concedes, the main victims of predatory rule breakers are the very people that the New Democrats sought to protect...  Amazing it took him and his colleagues this long to figure it out... Still, this is not exactly a rush job — the alarm bells began ringing a long time ago on the problems with supportive housing.  The grudging response is entirely in keeping with the NDP’s response to earlier criticism of its policies regarding decriminalization, open drug use, safer supply and repeat violent offenders.  First came the claim that all was well. Then the attacks on anyone daring to challenge the NDP narrative. Kahlon last year accused supportive housing critics of “punching down to score political points” on drug addicts, homelessness, the mentally ill and other vulnerable people.  Then, after all the denials and recriminations, they concede the critics have a point and announce a plan to fix things.  It’s the Eby government method: It starts doing the right thing only after it has exhausted all the other options."
Weird. We're told that Housing First is the way to go

After repeated denials, B.C. NDP admits to problems inside supportive housing. But despite a rising tide of concerns, the NDP is taking a go-slow approach to making changes. : r/ilovebc - "Half of them should be in a mental institution and half of them should be in prison. Give them free money and housing, this is the result."
"Yeah many of these people simply cannot be integrated in to modern society. It’s pointless trying anymore. It would be great if it could happen, like turning water into gold. But that doesn’t mean we should continue to try failed methods."
"And taxpayer funded narcotics."

Meme - Man to park bench with bars in the middle: "WHERE CAN THE HOMELESS SLEEP WITH THIS HOSTILE ARCHITECTURE?"
Homeless person on floor with bumps: "I TRIED YOUR APARTMENT BUT SOME JERK LOCKED THE FRONT DOOR."

Homeless man kills Good Samaritan after she asks him to move out - "A homeless man, invited into a Good Samaritan’s home, bludgeoned her to death with a mallet days later after she had asked him to move out.  Victoria Adams, 37, met Apapale Adoum, 39, at a homeless shelter on Feb 6 and invited him to stay at her flat in Hammersmith, west London. Adoum attacked the mother of four with severe force on Feb 9.  Prosecutors told the Old Bailey that the homeless man “attacked and killed her because she asked him to move out of her home”... the defendant had a history of violence and was carrying two knives and a screwdriver when he was arrested at the scene... doum had a history of violence against women and had been released from prison in July 2024.  In 2018, he broke a woman’s jaw and gave her a black eye, and in 2024 he attacked two female prison officers, punching one of them in the face, knocking her out.  In an outburst in the dock, Adoum denied being a woman beater, saying: “I’m just violent. That’s my problem. I’m a bad man for that, don’t make me out to be a coward.”"

Why are animals allowed at RBC? : r/rbc - "Banker here. It’s most definitely drugged out homeless people. I’ve had to walk around them, passed out covered in needles, just to get to my office in the morning."
"How about you lazy pricks just clean up your spaces?"
The homeless lobby think the whole of society has a duty to serve the homeless, who can do no wrong, because they have been wronged by society

Unconditional cash transfers reduce homelessness - "These findings are based on exploratory analyses in a modestly sized sample that represents a high-functioning subset (e.g., 31% screen-in rate) of the total homeless population in Vancouver. Thus, our results may not extend to people who are chronically homeless or experience higher severity of substance use, alcohol use, or psychiatric symptoms"
This doesn't stop left wingers sharing memes misrepresenting the experiment to try to expand the homeless-industrial complex

Duncan Ramada sues BC Housing for 'extensive' damages allegedly caused by unhoused tenants over pandemic - "A hotel repurposed to house homeless people in the Cowichan Valley during the COVID-19 pandemic is suing BC Housing, alleging its unhoused tenants left behind ‘extensive’ damages when they moved out.  Funded by the province through the Rapid Relief Fund and BC Housing, in 2020 the Ramada in Duncan began to offer a stable place to live for nearly half of the Cowichan Valley’s homeless population.  Two years later, as tenants moved out in the spring of 2022, a fight over who should coordinate and pay for repairs as a result of the unhoused tenants ensued.  “Effectively, the hotel had been trashed,” Nick Both, the Ramada Duncan manager testified in court Tuesday.  Both says the hotel needed “a full gut” before it was operable and fit for human habitation."

Duncan Ramada sues BC Housing for 'extensive' damages allegedly caused by unhoused tenants over pandemic : r/ilovebc - "Have you seen the mess they leave around their tents? Who would have thought they would damage their free rooms."
Duncan Ramada sues BC Housing for 'extensive' damages allegedly caused by unhoused tenants over pandemic : r/ilovebc - "Who could imagine the homeless wouldn't take care of their free housing?"
"I frequently have to do visits to these units in my town. They're full of garbage, rotting food, fire hazards, and stolen property. One of the complexes had 3 units permanently condemned within the first year."

Duncan Ramada sues BC Housing for 'extensive' damages allegedly caused by unhoused tenants over pandemic : r/ilovebc - "Fun fact: BC Housing used a lot of hotels across the lower mainland during the pandemic and many of those hotels still took regular guests. You can look-up reviews and it's absolutely hilarious. It's best when they include photos. For example, check the lowest ratings for "Travelodge by Wyndham Langley":
   "Would rate 0 if I could, clear signs of drug use in my room. 7 separate occasions the RCMP were called to the premises. Constant racket, would not ever stay here again."
&
   "The room was really smelly we couldn’t stand the smell the beds where very weak very uncomfortable we couldn’t sleep the whole night worst experience of our life I wouldn’t recommend this place to anyone there where drug addictis smoking outside our room horrible"
&
   "Warning do not stay at this Travelodge location, hotel is full of drug addicts and low lives. Discusting place. Not a place for family's or single professionals, only drug addicts. They will also not refund your money if you cut your stay shorter. Super scam! I Will be contacting Travelodge main office. Travelodge is a good well respected hotel but not this location!""

Obstruction of the Justices: Why We Need the Notwithstanding Clause More than Ever

From 2023:

Obstruction of the Justices: Why We Need the Notwithstanding Clause More than Ever
When Ontario Premier Doug Ford invoked the Charter’s “notwithstanding” clause in back-to-work legislation last fall, he became just the latest political leader to be pilloried for using it. Loudly condemned as an instrument of oppression, the notwithstanding clause has been under attack for decades as a political expedient that should never be used. But as Gordon Lee argues, the clause was a carefully considered addition to the Charter intended to safeguard democratic legislatures from the whims of activist judges. And with a Supreme Court that continues to invent rights and expand its power, we are going to need it more and more.  

Few issues today arouse more anger and fear-mongering in Canada than the “notwithstanding” clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Many among our governing elites, academia and well-funded activist groups have declared the clause nothing less than a grave danger to Canadian society. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, for example, has said the clause is “dangerous to every person regardless of their political beliefs,” while Nathalie Des Rosiers, a former law school dean and the current Principal of Massey College at the University of Toronto, declared its use “lethal to the protection of all rights.” Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden has called the clause undemocratic despite the fact that, when it’s invoked, it is done by elected representatives to override a decision made by unelected judges.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been equally strident, saying “all Canadians” should “be very concerned about” the use of the notwithstanding clause, while NDP MP Matthew Green described Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s use of the clause to keep schools open as “the trampling of constitutional rights,” seemingly unaware that the notwithstanding clause is itself a constitutional right given to Parliament and provincial legislatures, enshrined in Section 33 of the Charter.

Prominent among the arguments advanced – and seemingly persuasive – is that the use of the notwithstanding clause runs contrary to the intent of those who drafted and signed the Charter in 1982. A group of law professors argued in 2018, for example, that the infrequent use of the clause was “precisely what the framers of the Constitution had hoped and predicted.” Many critics believe it was merely a regrettable political expediency adopted to assure passage of the Charter – which had been subject to long and contentious negotiations – but only to be used in truly rare and exceptional cases.

There are, however, several problems with this argument. First, as constitutional law scholar Geoff Sigalet has argued, several framers did not hold such expectations. Many of those involved have been clear that the clause was meant precisely to give elected officials the final say on legislation and was seen as a necessary addition. Even then, the notwithstanding clause has been used very rarely. Over more than 40 years, it’s been used just 21 times by the federal government and all provinces combined. Given the thousands of laws and regulations passed in that period, this should hardly raise alarm bells. Finally, those who appeal to the framers’ alleged intent ignore the other side of the story: that the Supreme Court of Canada has in several key decisions involving the Charter chosen to ignore or even denigrate the framers’ intent.

There are many examples of judicial activism where judges have gone beyond what the Constitution clearly states – inventing rights unknown or unimagined by those who drafted and signed the document. Judges becoming de-facto legislators would seem to pose a danger to Canada’s form of democracy. With no other way to redirect Canada’s top court and its unelected judges, the notwithstanding clause has become necessary to protect Canadians from the Court’s increasingly policy-driven if not downright arbitrary decisions.

The Court Invents the Right to Strike

One recent example of judicial activism is the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Section 2(d) of the Charter, which states that everyone has the freedom of association. In 1987, the court ruled that s. 2(d) did not give unions a constitutional right to collective bargaining or to strike. This understanding stood for many years.

In 2007, however, the Court suddenly changed its mind and invented a right under s. 2(d) to engage in collective bargaining. Eight years later, the Court went much further. At the time, Saskatchewan was suffering through a lengthy and debilitating strike by essential workers. Nurses, snow-plow operators and prison workers walked off the job. The strike meant surgeries cancelled, those near death denied admission to palliative care, and children’s health care services significantly reduced. To ensure this would never happen again, the provincial government passed a law to prevent essential workers from striking.

A group of unions challenged the law, and despite the strike’s effects and its own prior rulings to the contrary, in its 2015 Saskatchewan Federation of Labour decision the Supreme Court struck down the law by invoking a newly-invented constitutional right to strike. Justice Rosalie Abella, whom one prominent scholar has called “Canada’s foremost activist judge,” wrote the opinion, declaring confidently that “[i]t seems to me to be the time to give this conclusion constitutional benediction.” While undoubtedly self-assured in tone, Abella’s use of the word “benediction” – a religious term referring to a pastor delivering God’s blessing upon grateful congregants – presents a disturbing view of how Canada’s most powerful judges see their relationship to the nation’s citizens.

The Saskatchewan Federation of Labour decision has given immense power to unions, particularly those in the public sector. When education workers in Ontario planned to walk off the job last fall, which would have closed thousands of schools indefinitely, they did so with the Supreme Court’s blessing. When Ontario’s government invoked the notwithstanding clause in back-to-work legislation (later revoked), it was pilloried in the media for doing so. Of course, there would be no need for the clause if the Court had not suddenly invented a constitutional right to strike, which the Charter’s framers never envisioned.

Ignore the Original Meaning

Section 2(d) is not the only Charter provision whose original meaning the Supreme Court has ignored. The most glaring example is the Court’s interpretation of s. 7, which states that “everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.”

According to several key drafters of the Charter, s. 7 applied only to procedural rights and did not give courts authority to invent new substantive rights. Procedural rights refer to basic rights like a fair hearing or trial – rights based on the legal process, in other words. Substantive rights are much broader and more amorphous. They are essentially practices to which a court has decided to extend constitutional protection. Assisted suicide is one prominent example, a practice which has nothing to do with ensuring a fair procedure before a court or tribunal, but which the Supreme Court declared was a substantive right under s. 7 in its 2015 Carter decision.

Three people who played key roles in drafting the Charter all testified that s. 7 did not give courts the power to invent new substantive rights: Jean Chrétien, the then federal minister of justice; Barry Strayer, assistant deputy minister; and Roger Tassé, deputy minister. But in 1985, the Court dismissed this testimony by simply declaring that the drafters’ statements about the Charter’s meaning deserved only “minimal weight.” The premiers who actually signed the Charter, which was not even four years old at the time, were all still alive and presumably could have been consulted. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court ruled in the 1985 BC Motor Vehicle Reference that s. 7 entitled courts to invent new substantive rights.

The Court also declared it would ignore s. 7’s original meaning because the justices personally believed the Charter should be interpreted as a “living tree.” Living tree constitutionalism essentially allows judges to ignore the ordinary meaning of words and insert their own beliefs into their country’s Constitution. Multiple scholars have pointed out serious issues with the coherence of living tree constitutionalism as a matter of legal interpretation, but the Supreme Court has ignored the growing criticism as it continues to cite the analogy, most recently in June 2022.

The Court has used its newfound power under s. 7 to overrule Parliament on several highly contentious moral and political issues: abortion, prostitution, supervised taxpayer-funded sites to consume dangerous drugs, and euthanasia. In so doing, it has silenced the voice of Canadians and imposed its own views on the country through judicial fiat.

Math Tests are Racist

A third Charter provision whose original meaning the Supreme Court has discarded is s. 15(1), which bars discrimination by governments on a number of grounds such as race and sex. For decades, s. 15(1) was targeted at intentional discrimination. Three years ago the Supreme Court simply ditched that important concept in Fraser v. Attorney General (Canada), a case which challenged an unequal distribution of pension benefits as discriminatory.

In Fraser, the Court ruled that if a law or program results in different outcomes between demographic groups then it is discriminatory and unconstitutional, even without wrongful intent and even if disparities in outcome can be traced to non-discriminatory explanations, such as merit. In other words, Fraser basically deemed any law or program which results in anything but rigidly equal outcomes for every single demographic group presumptively illegal.

By 2021 Fraser’s illogical reasoning was on full display when an Ontario court struck down the province’s requirement that elementary and high school math teachers pass a grade-level math test. The court concluded that because there were differences in passing rates among teachers of different races, requiring math teachers to pass a math test was racist and unconstitutional.

By attributing differences in academic performance to discrimination, when these differences can be explained by other factors, the Court arrived at a legally and philosophically poor decision that threatens to do untold damage to individuals and society. Having teachers who cannot understand the concepts they are being paid to teach students bodes poorly for Canada’s youth. It also undermines if not effectively outlaws the concept of rewarding individual hard work and merit – a necessary element of any successful society.

As Kerry Sun and Yuan Yi Zhu wrote about this case, “[W]hen the courts insist on undoing such judgments on the basis of a flawed interpretation of a Charter right, the legislature may be duty-bound to invoke the notwithstanding clause.” When courts are outlawing standardized math tests, which have been used by human civilization since ancient times, things have clearly gone off the rails.

The “Human Dignity” of Mass Murderers

As shocking as it may be, banning math tests is not Canada’s most egregious example of judicial activism. That distinction belongs to the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on s. 12, which states that “everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.” The Court has taken that to mean that dangerous criminals should be entitled to more lenient sentences. Despite a growing number of Canadians wanting stronger sentencing laws, and Parliament responding, the Supreme Court has struck down a number of such laws and encouraged lower courts to follow in their footsteps.

The most recent of these decisions came just two months ago, in the case of R v. Hills, when the Court struck down a mandatory minimum sentence for intentionally discharging a firearm in a populated area. The justices acknowledged that the mandatory minimum sentence would not be grossly disproportionate for the individual in the case, who had fired at a passing car. It could have stopped there, but instead the Court decided to strike down the entire law on the basis of a fictional individual whom it imagined could be similarly charged and sentenced for firing a paintball gun at a shed, complaining that, “[I]t would outrage Canadians to learn that an offender can receive four years of imprisonment for firing a paintball gun at a home.”

The Court called its use of fictional, imaginary scenarios to strike down mandatory minimum sentences “reasonable hypotheticals” – despite being unable to point to a single instance in which anyone had actually been arrested, let alone convicted, for shooting a paintball gun at a shed. In her dissent in Hills, Justice Suzanne Côté wrote that the “hypothetical is ‘more imaginary than real’ and is not a sound basis on which to nullify Parliament’s considered response to a serious and complex issue.”

The court has nevertheless continued to use fictional scenarios in other cases to strike down mandatory minimum sentences for gun and drug-related offences. The Court has called the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which like the Charter’s s. 12 prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, “highly relevant” to understanding s. 12. But, as Justice Thomas Wakeling of the Alberta Court of Appeal correctly noted in 2020, “[T]he United States Supreme Court bases its decisions on real-world scenarios – not hypotheticals so unlikely to occur that no one should make important decisions in reliance on them.” Instead of duly evaluating Wakeling’s concerns, the Supreme Court of Canada in Hills refused to engage with the substance of his criticism and haughtily waved off Wakeling’s contention as “lack[ing] merit.”

Emboldened by the Supreme Court, there have been over 100 decisions by lower courts over the last eight years striking down mandatory minimum jail sentences, often using similarly fanciful scenarios. Striking laws based on imaginary scenarios is judicial activism of a particularly dangerous kind, as it may involve putting serious criminals back on the streets.

The Court is also rapidly moving outside the Canadian moral mainstream. In last June’s Bissonnette decision, it sided with Alexandre Bissonnette, the mass murderer who had opened fire in a crowded mosque prayer room, killing six innocent worshippers. The Court decreed that every mass murderer be given “a realistic possibility of applying for parole” because prohibiting it would be “degrading in nature and thus incompatible with human dignity.” The decision devoted much more attention to the supposed dignity of the criminal than to his victims, who received passing mention.

Henceforth every Canadian mass murderer, a category which includes serial killers like Robert Pickton and Paul Bernardo, will be able to apply for parole after just 25 years behind bars, the same sentence they would have received had they killed one person, essentially providing a grotesque sentencing “discount” for each additional murder committed.

Just weeks after the Bissonnette decision, two mass murderers received such sentencing discounts. Alek Minassian, the man who sped a rented van down a busy Toronto sidewalk and murdered ten women in 2018, received the same sentence he would have received if he only killed one person, as did an Oshawa man who murdered his ex-girlfriend and her two children. Although the Crown had asked that this murderer be ineligible for parole for 75 years, to reflect the three people he murdered, and despite his taunting of his victims’ families in court, the sentencing judge stated that because of the Supreme Court’s Bissonnette ruling, “a consecutive period of parole ineligibility cannot be imposed.” In recent months, numerous mass murderers have become eligible for lesser sentences, which means that some of the most violent criminals in Canadian society could be back out on the streets earlier than previously thought.

By comparison, last month a New York judge sentenced Payton Gendron, who murdered ten black Americans and livestreamed his slaughter in a racially-motivated attack, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In New Zealand, a judge sentenced Brenton Tarrant, who murdered 51 in two Christchurch mosques and who also live-streamed his slaughter, to life in prison without the possibility of parole. According to Canada’s Supreme Court, however, these sentences are “degrading” and “incompatible with human dignity.” It would seem more reasonable to call the Supreme Court’s position incompatible with justice.

What “Notwithstanding” was Supposed to Mean

In light of all this, it is important to recall that the notwithstanding clause was intended specifically to push back against unreasonable court decisions. In 1981, then-Justice Minister Chrétien stated clearly that the clause would allow legislatures to quickly “correct absurd situations” resulting from court decisions.

It was Peter Lougheed, then the Alberta premier, who suggested the clause in the final negotiations on the Constitution in 1981. Lougheed was backed by Allan Blakeney and Sterling Lyon, the premiers of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, respectively. Lougheed pointed out in a 1991 lecture that such a clause was hardly unusual; the Alberta Bill of Rights, the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms and, for that matter, the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights all had similar provisions. “We needed to have the supremacy of the legislature over the courts,” Lougheed explained. “We did not [want] to be in a position where public policy was being dictated or determined by non-elected people.”

Despite later protests over its use, Chrétien used similar language to explain its inclusion. It would, he said in 1981, “ensure that legislatures rather than judges would have the final say on important matters of public policy.” Then-Saskatchewan Premier Allan Blakeney saw the clause as necessary to ensure that the state could, for economic or social reasons, or because other rights were found in the circumstances to be more important, choose to override a Charter-protected right.

Lougheed made it clear that not only was the clause necessary, his government would be perfectly willing to use it. In 1983 he warned that Alberta would invoke the clause if the Supreme Court interpreted s. 2(d) to include a right to strike (which it refrained from doing for over 20 years). That was far from the most notable instance of such a vow. Pierre Trudeau, who spearheaded the Charter’s development, promised to use the notwithstanding clause if the courts ever interpreted the Charter to find a constitutional right to abortion. In a 1981 letter to Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter, Archbishop of Toronto, Trudeau wrote: “Should a court decide at some future date that sections 7 or 15 do establish a right to abortion on demand, Parliament will continue to legislate on the matter by overriding the court’s decision.”

Brian Peckford, then the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, was another key figure in the Constitutional negotiations and is the last living premier to have signed the Charter. In an email exchange with C2C Journal, Peckford asserted that using the clause is a proper response to judicial activism and called the modern assertion that it was a matter of political expediency meant to be used only rarely simply “invalid.” Peckford does not agree with “living tree” exponents, either. In a blog post last year, he wrote that for judges to change the plain meaning of the Constitution “isn’t democracy – this is rule by the unelected, which is the antithesis of parliamentary democracy. It’s time Canadians stood up and opposed such judicial interference.”

Thankfully, there has been a growing recognition in recent years of that need to push back. In the recent Conservative Party of Canada leadership race, multiple candidates including winner Pierre Poilievre promised to use the notwithstanding clause to keep mass murderers behind bars. Similarly, Tyler Shandro, Alberta’s Minister of Justice, has asked Ottawa to use the clause to reverse the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision striking down mandatory registration of convicted sex offenders, a decision which has benefitted rapists, domestic abusers and pedophiles.

Ultimately, those who appeal to the framers’ intent to argue against using the notwithstanding clause ignore that the courts themselves have interpreted the Constitution far beyond anything imagined by the framers. Lougheed, for one, certainly saw it occurring. In a 2002 interview he recalled expressing concern that the Charter would “let the courts take the place of elected parliamentarians. My God, that’s what’s happened.” Restoring a proper balance of powers will require elected governments to confront judicial activism. Invoking the notwithstanding clause is not only constitutional and democratic, but increasingly necessary to protect Canadians from the Supreme Court’s harmful decisions.

Selective Protection

Some Canadians worry that the notwithstanding clause could shield blatant violations of personal freedoms, as Quebec has been widely criticized for doing with Bill 21, which bars civil servants from wearing visible religious symbols at work. They should take some comfort in the clause’s built-in safeguard of a five-year time limit, however, requiring it then to be reinvoked by the legislature. Of course, voters still have the final say with their democratic right to oust any government that uses the clause to infringe on widely supported rights.

And while Bill 21 clearly infringes upon the right to religious freedom, there is no guarantee that judges would protect such rights any more than a provincial government. When several provincial law societies refused to accredit Trinity Western University because the law societies did not like the school’s faith-based code of conduct, for example, the Supreme Court sided with the law societies, even though the Court itself acknowledged that the law societies’ actions had infringed religious freedom rights. As well, retired Supreme Court Justice Claire L’Heureux-Dubé, a hero of the left, was an outspoken supporter of banning civil servants from wearing visible religious symbols.

Courts have also repeatedly upheld violations of constitutional rights, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic when judges across the country upheld severe restrictions on liberty, speech, religion and conscience. Even in the last few months, courts have upheld Covid-19 vaccine mandates at colleges and universities, and even ordered that a woman whose survival depended on receiving an organ transplant remain ineligible to receive one unless she got vaccinated. On other issues, such as assisted suicide, Ontario’s highest court upheld a policy forcing doctors who do not support euthanasia to provide effective referrals, or else face punishment and the loss of their licence and livelihood.

In essence, the fear that the notwithstanding clause will prevent courts from protecting fundamental rights is misplaced, because courts are not doing a good job of protecting fundamental rights in the first place. Instead, they tend to expand protections for certain constituencies, generally those beloved by the progressive left, such as violent criminals, with no democratic accountability or check on their power.

Despite repeated assurances that Canada’s judiciary is not political, since gaining office in 2015 the Justin Trudeau government has appointed dozens of Liberal Party donors and failed candidates to the bench. Similarly, its “Independent Advisory Board” tasked with appointing Supreme Court justices is deeply partisan. Under Trudeau, this committee has been chaired by defeated Liberal politician Wade MacLauchlan and former prime minister Kim Campbell, who has repeatedly criticized Conservative Party leaders over many years, while several Board members have prominently advocated for left-leaning causes.

At the Supreme Court itself, Chief Justice Richard Wagner has actually boasted that he is “very proud” to call his court “the most progressive [court] in the world.” In 2022, Wagner described the Freedom Convoy as “deplorable” and accused convoy protestors of “tak[ing] other citizens hostage.” While Wagner has no problem using incendiary language to describe Canadians he disagrees with, he did not condemn the burning of dozens of churches in 2021, the deliberate destruction of statues and monuments across Canada, or the targeting of critical infrastructure and energy workers in western Canada.

Wagner is not alone in wading into politics. His predecessor, Beverley McLachlin, infamously compared Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper to a pet dog and has been involved in other dubious situations, while retired Justice Louise Arbour sharply attacked the Harper government’s foreign policy. Last year, now-retired Justice Abella likened the pro-life legal movement and the United States Supreme Court’s overturning of the Roe v. Wade abortion decision to upholding white supremacy and racial segregation. In doing so, Abella effectively accused Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court and a man who grew up in the shackles of racial segregation, of endorsing a reading of the Constitution that could bring back this odious practice.

The oft–repeated myth that Canadian judges are apolitical is clearly false. When judges strike down laws passed by Parliament and instead impose their personal views onto the country, they make decisions that are profoundly political in nature.

The way the Supreme Court has interpreted the Charter – by disregarding its original intended meaning, inventing new rights, and expanding its power to strike down legislation – has made it the most powerful political institution in Canada today. Nine unelected lawyers can nullify a unanimous vote in Parliament, as the Court did when it restored the ability of mass murderers to apply for parole. Even as they churn out decision after decision that is couched in the language of rights and professes the best of intentions, Canada’s judges and courts are proving to be ever-less reliable guardians of Canadians’ constitutional rights.

Without the notwithstanding clause, victims of crime and ordinary Canadians have no way to protect themselves from harmful court decisions. Ultimately, if one believes that judges should always have the final say on every single issue of importance to Canadians, there is no need for the notwithstanding clause. On the other hand, if one believes that judges can make bad and harmful decisions and that Canadians have the right to a voice in shaping the laws that they are governed by, then the notwithstanding clause is essential to preserving Canadian democracy.