As the International Olympic Committee (IOC) moves towards new rules on who can compete in women’s categories — covering testosterone levels, genetic tests and bans — a quiet truth emerges: these policies impact all women, not just trans women. They force all women to defend their bodies and prove what’s inside, deepening divides instead of bridging them. Under the guise of protecting women, these laws revive the age-old question: who counts as a woman and who decides?

The proposed rules will issue a ban on all women who have undergone male puberty and will cover athletes with Differences of Sex Development (DSD). Individuals with DSD are raised as girls from birth but possess male chromosomes and male levels of testosterone. If these bans apply to “male levels of testosterone,” we have to ask: who defines that? And what happens when millions of cis women fall outside that definition?

In June, the government announced an increase of $9 billion for the Canadian Armed Forces, including higher recruitment targets for the primary reserve. Two days later The Globe and Mail published an article praising Carney’s military funding. Just this week, The National Post celebrated the “rebuilding” of Canada’s military through Carney’s $9-billion funding package.

For now, Carney’s plans to beef up the military rely on volunteers. But elite media is making the case for a mandatory national service that includes joining the military. We’ve seen these calls in Maclean’s, The National Post, and PNI Atlantic News (the Maritimes arm of the mammoth Postmedia news network).

I was determined to return to Portapique before the snow fell. Anyone who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder will understand why returning to the scene would trigger and heighten the flashbacks, nightmares, and panic attacks I experienced that summer. I knew it would be gruelling and awful, but I felt I needed to go. My sisters Janice and Maureen questioned if I was ready, concerned it would be too much for me. My clinical therapist warned it was risky for my mental health. Despite their cautions, I desperately wanted to find proof of my experience.

In November 2021, photojournalist Amber Bracken was on assignment for The Narwhal, reporting from northwestern British Columbia. She was documenting tensions over the construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline through Wet’suwet’en territory.

Amber was handcuffed, held in a cell for three nights and had her camera gear and photographs seized — all for doing her job.

We believe this was a clear violation of her Charter rights — and The Narwhal’s. So we sued the RCMP to take a stand for press freedom. Now, our trial is underway.

In 1978, the Czech dissident Václav Havel wrote an essay called “The Power of the Powerless.” In it, he asked a simple question: How did the communist system sustain itself?

And his answer began with a greengrocer. Every morning, this shopkeeper places a sign in his window: “Workers of the world, unite!” He does not believe it. No one does. But he places the sign anyway to avoid trouble, to signal compliance, to get along. And because every shopkeeper on every street does the same, the system persists. Not through violence alone but through the participation of ordinary people in rituals they privately know to be false.

Havel called this “living within a lie.” The system’s power comes not from its truth but from everyone’s willingness to perform as if it were true. And its fragility comes from the same source: when even one person stops performing, when the greengrocer removes his sign, the illusion begins to crack.

Kyra Wilson, grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, told rally participants that First Nations people are “always having to wait for government to make a decision on how much our lives matter.”

She said that part of the problem is that funding and resources for First Nations emergency management fall under the control of federal and provincial governments.

I was in my fourth season as a fire tower lookout in northwestern Alberta, where I was tasked with spotting smoke from a hundred-foot-high tower and alerting firefighting crews to potential burns. However, while surveying the land, my eyes were often drawn to an abundance of wildlife: migratory birds, moose and their gangly legged calves, mysterious lynx, and groundhogs that emerged from their dens, standing on guard like foot soldiers. The cabin beneath the tower, my base camp, gave me an on-the-ground perspective. If I wasn’t watching for fire from the tower, I was watching for wildlife from my cabin windows.

To wit, some non-disabled people consider disability accommodation akin to a favour, an unfair advantage. The rationale for legal protections of disability accommodation disproves that: society is designed for non-disabled people—which inherently disadvantages disabled people. That’s why it is illegal for employers and service providers to deny reasonable, necessary disability accommodation under human rights law. In academia, however, a cynical skepticism abounds: Are too many people receiving disability accommodation? Do those receiving accommodation actually need it? Does disability accommodation decrease a university education’s quality? Are people faking disability to get an easier ride?

In December 2025, for example, The Atlantic published a piece arguing that rich kids, especially at elite US colleges and universities, were “taking advantage of an easily gamed system” by racking up diagnoses for disabilities they didn’t actually have so as to “gain an unfair edge.”

In 2024, in a Chronicle of Higher Education article originally entitled “Do Colleges Provide Too Many Disability Accommodations?” US religion professor Alan Levinovitz wrote, “Students and instructors are rightfully concerned about fairness and compromised rigor,” and said “students who don’t need them” were skating by with accommodations. This set off the Twittersphere; Levinovitz lashed out at disabled leaders who criticized his piece, and then defended himself with an offensive descriptor, asking whether one critic knew if his parents “suffered from” disabilities. (The article title was changed following the protests.)

Over the last decade, Prolife Alberta has rebuilt a dormant party into a unique political entity focused on influencing legislators rather than getting its own candidates elected. As a registered party, Prolife Alberta isn’t bound by restrictions placed on charities or political advocacy groups, making it the “only political pro-life organization that can issue tax receipts and engage in politics—including during provincial elections,” according to its website.

But you won’t find Ruhl taking credit for the party’s successes. In fact, you won’t find much information about Ruhl at all.

He doesn’t talk to the media. His own party’s website includes no photo or bio or even a single mention of him. Aside from a name signed on Elections Alberta documents, there’s virtually no trace of Ruhl to be found online.

Allan Ruhl, however, has a comparatively large public presence as a traditionalist Catholic commentator and podcast host. Writing for online magazines like OnePeterFive and on AllanRuhl.com, he blends conservative apologetics with conspiratorial themes in his critique of the anti-Christian “abominations” he says are undermining Western civilization—democracy, freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

The new policy means Canada will allow foreign-controlled multinationals to qualify as “Canadian” simply by running revenue and some employment through a local subsidiary. Take General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems. With plants across Quebec, it dominates the production of bullets, shells, missiles, and explosives in Canada. But the firm is American. The policy thus invites the very gaming it is supposed to stop. If this approach persists, a Canadian mailing address will be considered as important as who owns or controls the company. The result will be a system that continues to bind us to foreign allies rather than supporting and growing our own.

Walking down the aisles of one of “Canada’s” major groceries, it’s rare to see Indigenous food products. Even in smaller, independently-owned retailers, they are still few and far between. Fish might be from Alaska and seaweed from Japan, despite being plentiful on the coast of “British Columbia” and harvested by local First Nations. There are many “Canadian” products big and small, but Indigenous producers, as well as their local traditional foods, are rare. Where are the Indigenous goods?

I don’t remember why I chose White; maybe it was the fact that she wasn’t the usual Marxist-Leninist or lonely Communist one found on the ballot, or maybe it was the fact that hers was basically a single-issue party, and that issue barely resonated with voters. Sure, people liked animals, but they liked a robust economy even more. I was also living in her riding, so knew full well she had no shot at being competitive, let alone winning. She had a better chance of being eaten by a tiger.

In any case, she agreed to be profiled, and I spent a few days with her in the lead-up to the election, hanging out at the party’s rescue cat–adorned headquarters near the city’s East Chinatown, accompanying her to an all-candidates debate, and following her on the campaign trail.

Carney’s own department, the Privy Council Office, has been one of the worst performers in the access to information system. In the span of about two years, the office was peppered with an extraordinary 87 legal orders to release documents after initially refusing to provide them to requesters. That’s up from zero orders in the previous three years. Little surprise, then, that bureaucrats have been quietly recommending curbs on the information commissioner’s ability to issue such orders.

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The next day, Mukhtar felt a sinking feeling as he watched videos of crowds of people stomping over those documents and Israeli jets bombing the Kafr Sousa security complex in Damascus, where multiple branches of the security services kept offices. He pictured thousands of records, some offering insights into the fates of what the Syrian Network for Human Rights estimates to be more than 170,000 still missing, going up in flames. “A big chaos will come,” he thought as he picked up his mobile phone to call his bosses at SJAC and tell them they should send him to the capital.

Alberta’s premier and her highly irresponsible campaign to enable, legitimize and support Alberta separatism and some of its most unsavoury self-appointed proponents has introduced a very high level of risk to any investments in Alberta, let alone the kind of multi-billion-dollar spending required to build pipelines hither and yon, as Smith demands, or construct new oilsands extraction mines.

In 2019, “British Columbia” unanimously passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.

It was celebrated as a major step toward working with First Nations in a better, more equal way.

But a court ruling last month seems to be contributing to a change of heart for Premier David Eby.

On Dec. 5, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled the government’s obligations under the Declaration Act are legally enforceable.

Eby is now arguing judges shouldn’t be setting the province’s reconciliation agenda. And he says he is willing to change the law to make sure they can’t.

Canadian readers, from the prime minister on down, may be inclined to take comfort in the US NSS on the grounds that Canada gets no real mention. Silence is golden? No talk of annexation, border security laxity, trade relations, access to critical minerals, defence spending, or the Arctic. But to take comfort would be a serious mistake.

There are two reasons for this. One is that Prime Minister Mark Carney has described Canada as the most European of non-European countries, and he means it. It is illustrated in his ongoing support for Ukraine, his commitment to NATO, his emphasis on the Euro-Atlantic security zone, his search of new defence development opportunities with Europe, and his drive to expand economic partnerships as part of a major commitment to diversify Canadian trade beyond the US. London and Paris were the first trips he made overseas after becoming prime minister. In the meantime, Carney’s pursuit of what he once called a new comprehensive economic and security relationship with the US is going nowhere.

Canada could easily become a Europe-like problem in the hairline of Trumpian policies: elite-governed rather than populist, moderate centrist rather than far right in political orientation. Canada could be in the same sights as European countries, whose politics need a “course correction” with help from the US. Think of how the Liberal government treated the poor, well-meaning populists of the so-called “Freedom Convoy” protests, whose coffers were filled with US dollars, whose ideas were supported by American MAGA commentators, whom Trump himself backed. A little memory jog might be in order. Here is what Trump said in support of the “Freedom Convoy” protest back in February 2022: “The Freedom Convoy is peacefully protesting the harsh policies of the far left lunatic Justin Trudeau who has destroyed Canada with insane COVID mandates.”

The Liberal government’s new immigration legislation, which was passed in the House of Commons yesterday (December 11) and is on the verge of being made into law, is rooted in rhetoric that casts migrants as “dangerous” and “unwanted”—rhetoric that the very Liberal ministers overseeing it once blasted the Conservatives for engaging in.

More lanes simply means more cars on the road — a concept known as induced demand that is best illustrated by the fact that when the Ford government lifted provincial tolls off sections of the usually quiet Highway 407 last June, those stretches soon became busy. Meanwhile, there’s still no shortage of traffic on the 401.

But lifting those tolls was moving in the opposite direction of a proven solution for crowded streets: charging drivers through tolls and congestion pricing has worked in New York, reducing traffic congestion by 11 per cent since 2024. Instead, Ontario has killed several tolls and outlawed congestion pricing in its most recent budget.

"The year even saw editor Cara McKenna travel to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in “New York City,” she reported on the proceedings and met fellow members of the global Indigenous News Alliance.

The partnerships didn’t end there. We continued to collaborate on powerful stories with allied media across the continent, for instance:

• Investigating melting northern ice roads (with Grist in the “United States”);

• Witnessing Łingít herring fishers co-existing with grey whales (with “U.S.”-based High Country News);

• Revitalizing Stó:lō fish weirs (with the Narwhal);

• Honouring a missing Anishininew mother in “Winnipeg” (with Ricochet);

• Highlighting a massive Nlaka’pamux solar energy project (also with Narwhal)."

For workers and their families in Canada, the year has been rough. About one in five Canadians experience high financial pressure, according to data collected by the Angus Reid Institute. This financial pressure is driven by relatively high job insecurity, difficulty putting food on the table and higher debt levels. Many of these families are bracing for even more financial hardship in the new year, with 60 per cent expecting an increased level of difficulty in 2026.

Left-leaning Canadians and centrists breathed a sigh of relief when Poilievre wasn’t elected, but they still ended up with a small c-conservative in fiscal matters at the helm. Perhaps none of us really got what we wanted, but, as the song goes, maybe we got what we needed in these turbulent times. It’s too soon to tell.

In a show of unity, Canadians rallied together defiantly, boycotting U.S. products and refusing to travel south of the border. Soon, news of illegal arrests and ICE disappearing people made it obvious that staying put was no longer just a political statement but a survival tactic as well.

Like many social assistance policies, opposition to guaranteed income is driven by a deep-seated fear of fraud — of “freeloaders” benefiting from the taxes of hard-working, morally upright citizens. Our collective delusion that we live in a meritocracy is operationalized into a punitive framework that rationalizes who deserves help and who does not.

As a result, we spend enormous administrative effort policing eligibility, while leaving many people without adequate help. Poverty persists not because we lack resources, but because we mistrust the people who need them.

As organizers gear up for what’s likely to come in 2026, it’s important to recognize that, despite everything, social movements still scored notable victories in 2025.

Sugaring had been a bucolic springtime activity, replete with priests sprinkling the sugar bush with holy water to help the run of sap, horse-drawn sleds to gather sap from the maple trees, and eager families gathered in the sugar shack around the billowing steam from the evaporator, happy to taste the sweet elixir of spring. But as the maple syrup industry evolved, it crashed into the industrial realities of the twentieth century, and here our story veers pell-mell into the world of big business, market capitalism, razor-thin margins, predatory monopolistic enterprises, technical innovation and industrial expansion, arson, rebellion, and theft—all set against the backdrop of unpredictable weather.