Fraser Institute
Emperors of woke have no clothes and conservatives should say so

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
The major finding is that in Great Britain, Canada and the United States roughly one third of the population accept “woke” (progressive) views, while roughly two thirds reject those views.
However — and this is alarming — in all three countries that woke one-third controls all of the major institutions. The mainstream media, universities and civil service, for instance, are firmly controlled by the one-third woke.
Why do Conservatives go along with woke ideas, woke norms and above all woke people?
One of these days we’re going to be really sorry we didn’t stand up to this nonsense, when the proverbial little boy calls out that the emperor has no clothes. Men can be women? C’mon! You didn’t call that out at the time? Why not?
This is the question posed by Professor Eric Kaufman of England’s University of Buckingham. Kaufman, also an associate at the Ottawa-based Macdonald Laurier Institute, is a Canadian who has been living and teaching in England for the past 25 years. He has recently completed a survey on “wokeness.” (As reported here.) He was also interviewed by National Post’s rising star, Jamie Sarkonak.
Kaufman’s survey has important findings, particularly for Canada. The major finding is that in Great Britain, Canada and the United States roughly one third of the population accept “woke” (progressive) views, while roughly two thirds reject those views.
However — and this is alarming — in all three countries that woke one-third controls all of the major institutions. The mainstream media, universities and civil service, for instance, are firmly controlled by the one-third woke.
Rudi Dutschke’s long march through the institutions has arrived.
But even more concerning for Canadians should be Kaufman’s findings that pertain specifically to Canada.
That’s because he finds that while Great Britain’s Conservatives and America’s Republicans are ferociously pushing back against the extreme wokeness that is now so evident in all three countries, that is really not happening in Canada. Instead, Conservatives here have tended to knuckle under to the wokeness the Liberals so aggressively push. Any pushback has been extremely timid.
Why? How can that be? If Kaufman is right that at least two thirds of Canadians reject wokeism why is it that they have no one to represent their views?
- Is this the reason why Canada has now gained an international reputation as one of the most woke nations on earth?
- Where a Chief Justice actually feels comfortable about receiving no pushback when he claims that his Supreme Court is “the most progressive in the world”?
- And our prime minister is universally mocked as the wokest of the woke?
Does the timidity of the Conservatives on woke policies explain why the Canada we knew during the Harper and Chretien years seems to be slipping away from us?
If Kaufman’s findings are accurate, and our Conservatives are indeed submitting to woke policies — instead of representing the two thirds of Canadians who don’t want those policies — we should ask why.
Part of the reason would certainly be that the Liberals and the NDP have at every national election dishonestly attempted to use ‘socially conservative’ issues against all conservative parties — Reform, Alliance or today’s Conservative Party of Canada.
These progressive attacks were entirely spurious: conservatives have consistently stayed away from any discussion of limiting abortion access, or reversing gay marriage rights. Yet, the suggestion of a secret agenda of radical reforms is trotted out at every election, and in some eastern swing ridings appears to have been effective in keeping seats out of conservative hands.
Perhaps not surprisingly then, conservatives have consistently preferred to concentrate on bread and butter issues, and avoid the culture wars now raging.
However, with an increasingly assertive left insistent on imposing a woke agenda — even to the extent of approving a 50-year-old man sharing a locker room with teenage age girls, this preference to stay out of the fray is no longer available to them.
The example of Scott Moe’s introduction of his parents’ rights legislation is a clear sign that provincial conservatives realize that they must enter the fray. So is Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s statement that in Alberta, sex-change operations on children under 18 years of age will not be allowed. (A decision that surprised many, given the premier’s known libertarian predilections.)
In Ontario, education minister Stephen Lecce said last year that “parents must be fully involved and fully aware of what’s happening in the life of their children.” And let’s not forget that all this started in New Brunswick, when Premier Blaine Higgs made what looks now to be a modest proposal, that children under 16 would need parental permission to change their gender at school by switching names and pronouns.
In other words, provincial politicians get it. (At last.) Federal Conservatives should go do likewise.
So what should they say?
Here are three possible responses to woke policies — on the trans issue, indigenous issues and immigration.
There is no official list of woke beliefs, but probably the most extreme is the trans issue. Woke politicians state as a fact that a man who identifies as a woman is in fact a woman. Although this claim is quite astounding to the non-woke — who know it to be untrue — the woke accept it as gospel. Prime Minister Trudeau himself famously tweeted, “A trans woman is a woman.”
If tweets were just words in the blogosphere this wouldn’t matter. However, when the nation’s leader says the words they have consequences. So, Canada now has men in women’s prisons, men in women’s sports and most alarmingly — children having body parts removed and being administered life-altering drugs — all based on this single nonsensical woke belief that men can become women by saying so.
The Conservatives should directly confront this dangerous nonsense. Obviously, they should craft their message in measured tones. But this can be easily accomplished, when the woke belief they are correcting is so obviously wrong.
Here is an example of a completely factual, scientifically accurate and measured statement that would probably win the approval of — if Kaufman is right — two thirds of Canadians: “A trans woman is not a woman. Conservatives respect trans people and respect their right to live their lives as they choose. However, that does not include their admission into women’s only places, such as crisis centres and jails or entry into women’s sports.”
The indigenous issue is Canada’s version of wokeism’s central belief — namely critical race theory — we see playing out to the south of us.
This is the woke belief that race is all important; that any differences and disparities between races is the result of systemic racism; and that governments must aggressively erase all such differences by the use of affirmative action type policies.
For the one third it has completely displaced the Martin Luther King “content of character” philosophy that has been gospel with the two thirds for more than half a century.
Canada’s woke version regards all indigenous Canadians as being completely different from other Canadians. According to this eugenics-like view anyone born to indigenous parents, or even partly indigenous parents, has some innate ecological awareness and abilities that non-indigenous people lack. They also — uniquely among every other racial or ethnic group on the planet — always tell the truth. Their claims must be taken as the truth.
Professor Hymie Rubenstein coins the term “indigenous exceptionalism” in From Truth Comes Reconciliation to describe this unusual woke belief. The most extreme example of this woke indigenous belief can be seen in the now three-year-old claim that 215 indigenous children were killed under sinister circumstances at the Kamloops Indian Residential School and then secretly buried by the priests and nuns who had supposedly killed them.
To make this claim even more bizarre it was claimed that children “as young as six” were forced to dig the graves.
Apart from a radar report showing soil disturbances that could just as easily be tree roots as graves, this baseless claim was not only taken seriously by our woke government, but actively promoted. Not only did the federal government lower flags for six months, they promised $320 million to any other indigenous communities who wanted to make similar baseless claims. Of course, many quickly did.
These “murder and secret burial” stories followed years of steadily escalating exaggeration of the harm done at residential schools. While there is no doubt that many children had bad experiences at residential schools, there had previously been a recognition that many children had received educations there that would otherwise have been denied to them. However, the stories of horror were ramped up, bit by bit, until many Canadians were ready to accept the preposterous Kamloops claim and the others that followed like clockwork after the Liberals incentivised them with the $320,000,000.
By now, most of the two thirds probably realize that they haven’t been told the truth by the Trudeau government or the mainstream media. The Conservatives need not be so afraid of being called “anti-indigenous” or “anti-reconciliation” when addressing this topic. Conservative opposition leader Pierre Pollievre made a good start when he said, “Canadians deserve to know the truth,“ and stressed the need for historical accuracy.
However, he then went on to pander embarrassingly to the woke view, using their language about the “horror” of residential school. That is not historical accuracy at all.
Here is the kind of thing Conservatives should say about residential schools:
“There is no doubt that many indigenous children were harmed at residential schools. They have been compensated and they deserve every penny of that compensation. There is also no doubt that there were some bad apples who taught and worked at the institutions. However, many indigenous children received educations that would otherwise have been denied to them. And the great majority of the priests, nuns, ministers and employees at the school were decent people who did their jobs honestly and well. That too should be recognized.”
Finally, and probably the most important issue of all — immigration. The woke view, as articulated by the PM in the earliest days of his new administration is that Canada is a post-national nation. No one seemed to understand the implications of what he was saying — possibly including the PM.
But when he tweeted out that Canada was open to anyone who wanted to come the implications started to become clear: a “post national” state doesn’t have borders… Anyone is welcome to simply walk in.
This is a fundamental belief of the woke. It is also an absolutely ruinous idea for any nation that wants to continue functioning. We see today how this woke no-borders idea is playing out in America. Our cold winters save us from the huge influxes seen there, but the millions coming to Canada are making houses unaffordable anyway and putting enormous pressure on services for Canadians and new immigrants alike.
Conservatives should not be afraid to call the woke “no borders, unrestricted immigration policy” crazy, because that is what it is.
Here’s a possible talking point they could use:
“Canada is a nation of immigrants. We have always needed immigrants, and we always will. We welcome new immigrants from all parts of the world. However, in the past few years too many have come too fast. The pressure on housing affordability and services are hurting both resident Canadians and new immigrants alike. For that reason in the first year after we take power there will be a one-year moratorium on new immigration. During that time we will both implement policies to make houses more affordable and determine what immigration numbers should be in the next decade. Canada is not a post-national state with no core identity. It is a nation with a distinct culture, an honourable history and it needs borders and a policy of controlled immigration to preserve that culture and identity.”
I think that the two thirds would welcome such an approach. And vote for it.
We don’t have to live with ignorance enthroned.
Brian Giesbrecht, retired judge, is a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. First published here.
Automotive
Electric cars just another poor climate policy

From the Fraser Institute
The electric car is widely seen as a symbol of a simple, clean solution to climate change. In reality, it’s inefficient, reliant on massive subsidies, and leaves behind a trail of pollution and death that is seldom acknowledged.
We are constantly reminded by climate activists and politicians that electric cars are cleaner, cheaper, and better. Canada and many other countries have promised to prohibit the sale of new gas and diesel cars within a decade. But if electric cars are really so good, why would we need to ban the alternatives?
And why has Canada needed to subsidize each electric car with a minimum $5,000 from the federal government and more from provincial governments to get them bought? Many people are not sold on the idea of an electric car because they worry about having to plan out where and when to recharge. They don’t want to wait for an uncomfortable amount of time while recharging; they don’t want to pay significantly more for the electric car and then see its used-car value decline much faster. For people not privileged to own their own house, recharging is a real challenge. Surveys show that only 15 per cent of Canadians and 11 per cent of Americans want to buy an electric car.
The main environmental selling point of an electric car is that it doesn’t pollute. It is true that its engine doesn’t produce any CO₂ while driving, but it still emits carbon in other ways. Manufacturing the car generates emissions—especially producing the battery which requires a large amount of energy, mostly achieved with coal in China. So even when an electric car is being recharged with clean power in BC, over its lifetime it will emit about one-third of an equivalent gasoline car. When recharged in Alberta, it will emit almost three-quarters.
In some parts of the world, like India, so much of the power comes from coal that electric cars end up emitting more CO₂ than gasoline cars. Across the world, on average, the International Energy Agency estimates that an electric car using the global average mix of power sources over its lifetime will emit nearly half as much CO₂ as a gasoline-driven car, saving about 22 tonnes of CO₂.
But using an electric car to cut emissions is incredibly ineffective. On America’s longest-established carbon trading system, you could buy 22 tonnes of carbon emission cuts for about $660 (US$460). Yet, Ottawa is subsidizing every electric car to the tune of $5,000 or nearly ten times as much, which increases even more if provincial subsidies are included. And since about half of those electrical vehicles would have been bought anyway, it is likely that Canada has spent nearly twenty-times too much cutting CO₂ with electric cars than it could have. To put it differently, Canada could have cut twenty-times more CO₂ for the same amount of money.
Moreover, all these estimates assume that electric cars are driven as far as gasoline cars. They are not. In the US, nine-in-ten households with an electric car actually have one, two or more non-electric cars, with most including an SUV, truck or minivan. Moreover, the electric car is usually driven less than half as much as the other vehicles, which means the CO₂ emission reduction is much smaller. Subsidized electric cars are typically a ‘second’ car for rich people to show off their environmental credentials.
Electric cars are also 320–440 kilograms heavier than equivalent gasoline cars because of their enormous batteries. This means they will wear down roads faster, and cost societies more. They will also cause more air pollution by shredding more particulates from tire and road wear along with their brakes. Now, gasoline cars also pollute through combustion, but electric cars in total pollute more, both from tire and road wear and from forcing more power stations online, often the most polluting ones. The latest meta-study shows that overall electric cars are worse on particulate air pollution. Another study found that in two-thirds of US states, electric cars cause more of the most dangerous particulate air pollution than gasoline-powered cars.
These heavy electric cars are also more dangerous when involved in accidents, because heavy cars more often kill the other party. A study in Nature shows that in total, heavier electric cars will cause so many more deaths that the toll could outweigh the total climate benefits from reduced CO₂ emissions.
Many pundits suggest electric car sales will dominate gasoline cars within a few decades, but the reality is starkly different. A 2023-estimate from the Biden Administration shows that even in 2050, more than two-thirds of all cars globally will still be powered by gas or diesel.
Source: US Energy Information Administration, reference scenario, October 2023
Fossil fuel cars, vast majority is gasoline, also some diesel, all light duty vehicles, the remaining % is mostly LPG.
Electric vehicles will only take over when innovation has made them better and cheaper for real. For now, electric cars run not mostly on electricity but on bad policy and subsidies, costing hundreds of billions of dollars, blocking consumers from choosing the cars they want, and achieving virtually nothing for climate change.
2025 Federal Election
Fixing Canada’s immigration system should be next government’s top priority

From the Fraser Institute
Whichever party forms government after the April 28 election must put Canada’s broken immigration system at the top of the to-do list.
This country has one of the world’s lowest fertility rates. Were it not for immigration, our population would soon start to decline, just as it’s declining in dozens of other low-fertility countries around the world.
To avoid the social and economic tensions of an aging and declining population, the federal government should re-establish an immigration system that combines a high intake with strictly enforced regulations. Once Canadians see that program in place and working, public support for immigration should return.
Canada’s total fertility rate (the number of children, on average, a woman will have in her lifetime) has been declining, with the odd blip here and there, since the 1960s. In 1972, it fell below the replacement rate of 2.1.
According to Statistics Canada, the country’s fertility rate fell to a record low of 1.26 in 2023. That puts us in the company of other lowest-low fertility countries such as Italy (1.21), Japan (1.26) and South Korea (0.82).
Those three countries are all losing population. But Canada’s population continues to grow, with immigrants replacing the babies who aren’t born. The problem is that, in the years that followed the COVID-19 lockdowns, the population grew too much.
The Liberal government was unhappy that the pandemic had forced Canada to restrict immigration and concerned about post-pandemic labour shortages. To compensate, Ottawa set a target of 500,000 new permanent residents for 2025, double the already-high intake of about 250,000 a year that had served as a benchmark for the Conservative government of Stephen Harper and the Liberal governments of Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien.
Ottawa also loosened restrictions on temporary foreign worker permits and the admission of foreign students to colleges and universities. Both populations quickly exploded.
Employers preferred hiring workers from overseas rather than paying higher wages for native-born workers. Community colleges swelled their ranks with international students who were also issued work permits. Private colleges—Immigration Minister Marc Miller called them “puppy mills”—sprang up that offered no real education at all.
At the same time, the number of asylum claimants in Canada skyrocketed due to troubles overseas and relaxed entry procedures, reaching a total of 457,285 in 2024.
On January 1 of this year, Statistics Canada estimated that there were more than three million temporary residents in the country, pushing Canada’s population up above 41.5 million.
Their presence worsened housing shortages, suppressed wages and increased unemployment among younger workers. The public became alarmed at the huge influx of foreign residents.
For the first time in a quarter century, according to an Environics poll, a majority of Canadians believed there were too many immigrants coming into Canada.
Some may argue that the solution to Canada’s demographic challenges lie in adopting family-friendly policies that encourage couples to have children. But while governments improve parental supports and filter policies through a family-friendly lens—for example, houses with backyards are more family-friendly than high-rise towers—no government has been able to reverse declining fertility back up to the replacement rate of 2.1.
The steps to repairing Canada’s immigration mess lie in returning to first principles.
According to Statistics Canada, there were about 300,000 international students at postsecondary institutions when the Liberals came to power in 2015. Let’s return to those levels.
The temporary foreign worker program should be toughened up. The government recently implemented stricter Labour Market Impact Assessments, but even stricter rules may be needed to ensure that foreign workers are only brought in when local labour markets cannot meet employer needs, while paying workers a living wage.
New legislation should ensure that only asylum claimants who can demonstrate they are at risk of persecution or other harm in their home country are given refuge in Canada, and that the process for assessing claims is fair, swift and final. If necessary, the government should consider employing the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to protect such legislation from court challenges.
Finally, the government should admit fewer permanent residents under the family reunification stream and more from the economic stream. And the total admitted should be kept to around 1 per cent of the total population. That would still permit an extremely robust intake of about 450,000 new Canadians each year.
Restoring public confidence in Canada’s immigration system will take much longer than it took to undermine that confidence. But there can be no higher priority for the federal government. The country’s demographic future is at stake.
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