The Canadian Dissident

During this year's federal election campaign, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet sparked outrage by suggesting that Canada is “an artificial country with very little meaning.”  Despite the media and political backlash, Blanchet is right. Every country in the world is an artificial, man-made construct. However, Canada is especially artificial.  Canadians are not united by geography, climate, politics, values, religion, or language. This has always been true, since 1867 when Québec, Ontario, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick were united into one country. The original four provinces had different histories, different ethnicities, and different political aspirations. Canada has always existed as a pragmatic compromise.  The only thing that Canadians from coast to coast to coast have in common is that we are all living on land taken by force from Indigenous nations. The Indigenous nations of the land are diverse and not confined to the arbitrary borders of Canada. Desp...

Front page of the New York Times on March 20, 2003 In March 2003, the United States invaded Iraq based on a web of lies spun by President George W. Bush. Americans expected to find weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological weapons, as well as a program to develop nuclear weapons. After years of searching, inspectors determined that Iraq in fact did not have any weapons of mass destruction and no concrete plans to develop them. The Costs of War Project at Brown University recently estimated 550,000 to 580,000 people have been killed  by the war in Iraq and Syria since 2003, and "several times as many may have died due to indirect causes such as preventable diseases." There are also approximately 15 million Iraqis and Syrians currently displaced by the war. The US and Canada still have troops stationed in Iraq.  Yesterday the Canadian government extended its military mission in Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon for another 2 years. Canadian troops wi...

Hidden in the basement of the Earth Sciences Building at the University of Alberta are an array of dinosaurs: Gorgosaurus, Stegoceras, and Pachycephalosaurus, to name just a few. The University of Alberta's museums are free and open to all, but due to nonexistent advertising and limited hours, they sit empty and silent most days. The Earth Sciences Building is home to two small but impressive museums. The Paleontology Museum showcases a variety of fossils, including dinosaurs, trilobites (cute little sea bugs that went extinct 251 million years ago), and the huge sea monster Dunkleosteus (pictured below).  If you've ever wanted to touch dinosaur bones, this is your chance! There's a table of fossils you can touch, including a dinosaur leg bone. Just down the hall is the Mineralogy and Petrology Museum , home to a large collection of rocks and minerals. Over 1000 specimens are on display, from diamonds to meteorites. The dinosaurs are probably the most popular exhibit at th...

How we study and remember history affects our world in the present. In other words, remembering and commemorating military history is a political act. For that reason, as Remembrance Day approaches, I think it's healthy to question how we remember our country's wars. Remembrance Day in Canada focusses on Canadian and allied soldiers, especially those who were killed and injured in combat. Because all of Canada's wars in the 20th and 21st centuries have been fought overseas, far from the eyes of the Canadian public, we haven't witnessed first-hand the horrific toll war takes on civilians. Modern wars usually kill more civilians than combatants, and many of those who survive lose their homes, their jobs, their families and friends, even their limbs. Civilians don't sign up to live in a war zone, unlike soldiers paid to kill. They are left without choice, caught in the middle of state-sponsored violence. In World War II civilian casualties far outnumbered military cas...

On September 11th, 2001 the Twin Towers fell and the world changed. In the United States, Canada, and much of the Western world a culture of fear set in and came to dominate the next 2 decades.  This was primarily a fear of Islamic terrorism, but 9/11 also brought about a general sense of uncertainty and fear that continues to this day. For the next 20 years  our politics, media, culture, and Zeitgeist as a whole would be characterized by a strong sense of fear, often bordering on paranoia. 9/11 triggered a wave of xenophobia in both the US and Canada. Islam, immigrants, and anything seen as foreign were treated with suspicion and fear. Unfortunately this attitude never really went away. Even now Islamophobia is still a major problem . Over the last 20 years apocalyptic media has become increasingly popular, with dozens of movies depicting apocalypses and post-apocalyptic worlds. In 2005 Steven Spielberg included imagery reminiscent of 9/11 in his film adaptation of  War...