Answering questions about the new book, The Couch, and podcasting in the nude.
We keep reinventing the same ideas with new labels again and again. Sometimes, they get called “right-wing”; sometimes, they get called “left-wing.” But statism is statism, whatever label you stick on it. Collectivism is tribalism whether you call it socialism or nationalism, fascism or Communism. The only really — really — new thing of the last 10,000 years is the miracle of liberal democratic capitalism, and I think we’re losing our commitment to it.
.. I will say that the reaction has been ridiculous. The idea that it’s racist to control your borders or copy Canada is bonkers. It’s also funny. Liberals love to insist that Europe or Canada or Scandinavia does things in a more enlightened way. But say, “Okay, let’s have Canada’s immigration policy or France’s national-security policies or Switzerland’s health-insurance system” and the same people freak out. So much of the “They do things better over there” stuff is really just a rationalization for people to say, “You should do what I want” or “America is backward because it doesn’t do what I want it to do.”
.. I think there’s a profound conservatism to all great fiction. If I had to define the essence of leftism in a single phrase, it’d be “the perfectibility of man.” This is the idea that stretches back past Rousseau and probably the Gnostics to Plato’s Republic. Before public policy or any ideological agenda, conservatism recognizes the bedrock fact that man is flawed. He can be good, but only by being civilized. That’s why science fiction is so conservative.
.. But I also think New York vs. D.C. debates are dumb. As I always say, it’s like the great Cornell-Harvard rivalry that everyone at Cornell knows about and no one at Harvard has heard of.
How Canada became an education superpower
In the most recent round of international Pisa tests, Canada was one of a handful of countries to appear in the top 10 for maths, science and reading.
.. At university level, Canada has the world’s highest proportion of working-age adults who have been through higher education – 55% compared with an average in OECD countries of 35%.
.. Canada does not even really have a national education system, it is based on autonomous provinces and it is hard to think of a bigger contrast between a city state such as Singapore and a sprawling land mass such as Canada.
.. The OECD, trying to understand Canada’s success in education, described the role of the federal government as “limited and sometimes non-existent”.
Also not widely recognised is that Canada has a high level of migrants in its school population.
More than a third of young adults in Canada are from families where both parents are from another country.
.. Another distinguishing feature is that Canada’s teachers are well paid by international standards – and entry into teaching is highly selective.
.. Rather than a country of extremes, Canada’s results show a very high average, with relatively little difference between advantaged and disadvantaged students.
.. In the most recent Pisa results for science, the variation in scores in Canada caused by socio-economic differences was 9%, compared with 20% in France and 17% in Singapore.
The equitable outcome goes a long way to explaining why Canada is doing so well in international tests. It does not have a tail of underachievement, often related to poverty.
.. Migrants coming to Canada, many from countries such as China, India and Pakistan, are often relatively well-educated and ambitious to see their children get into professional careers.
Prof Jerrim says these families have an immigrant “hunger” to succeed, and their high expectations are likely to boost school results for their children.
.. The universities are reaping the benefits of the Trump effect, with record levels of applications from overseas students seeing Canada as a North American alternative to the United States.
The liberals’ cult of Justin Trudeau
Justin Trudeau: Why Can’t He Be Our President?” asks the cover of the latest edition of Rolling Stone.
.. Trudeau couldn’t even get the nomination of the Democratic party.
.. Trudeau’s idyllic northern paradise is actually the world’s seventh-largest oil producer, and even Boy Band Angela Merkel doesn’t seem particularly eager to destroy the country’s fossil-fuel industry. Sensibly enough, he’s a big proponent of the Keystone Pipeline and Canada’s Kinder Morgan pipeline, which transports hydrocarbons between the oil sands of Alberta (which are “pockmarked,” RS gravely informs us, “like a B-52 bombing range”) and British Columbia.
.. “One of the things that we have to realize is we cannot get off gas, we cannot get off oil, fossil fuels tomorrow — it’s going to take a few decades,” he tells RS. “Maybe we can shorten it, but there’s going to have to be a transition time.”
.. So here’s Rolling Stone’s politics: We’ll forgive you for turning Earth into a coal-black cinder as long as you keep cheering for identity politics in these final moments of suffering we share together.
.. But if you really do want to live in a country led by Justin Trudeau, given that people not born American can’t actually be president of the United States, why not do what Rolling Stone writer Stephen Rodrick suggests in the kicker of his piece: “At this moment, Justin Trudeau’s Canada looks like a beautiful place to ride out an American storm.” Why won’t Justin’s American acolytes do what they keep promising to do and take off to the Great White North?
.. Lena Dunham is still among us despite her highly specific vow, “I know a lot of people have been threatening to do this, but I really will. I know a lovely place in Vancouver.” Actor Keegan-Michael Key similarly indicated he had a northern escape route planned out when he said Canada is, “like, ten minutes from Detroit,” adding, “That’s where I’m from; my mom lives there. It’d make her happy too.” Key has given no indication lately that he is following up on that.
.. It might just be that there is more to a country than who happens to be head of state at any given moment.
.. Our progressive friends, who alternate between saying, “Ha-ha, Trump can’t do anything!” and dressing up like extras from The Handmaid’s Tale, are proving yet again that their alarmism is meaningless. If any professional lefty actually gives any indication of being serious about leaving America, I’d be happy to start a Kickstarter campaign to pay for their moving expenses.
Canada’s Housing Boom Expected to Spark Rate Rise
In Canada, which was hit with an income shock after the downturn in prices of oil and other commodities, low rates have resulted in an extended period of loose money that has fueled a housing boom in pockets of the country.
.. even though inflation—at an annualized 1.3% rate in May—remains well below the central bank’s 2% target, and wage growth remains stubbornly low.
.. TD Securities, said it believed the central bank would hold off until October, arguing a rate rise now could hurt the Bank of Canada’s reputation as an inflation-targeting bank.
.. Six of the dealers surveyed added they expect Canada’s benchmark interest rate to hit 1% by the fall.
“Inflation isn’t pressing, but the economy is showing that it can easily live with interest rates a bit higher than they are at present and still generate solid growth,” said Avery Shenfeld, chief economist at CIBC World Markets.
.. Mr. Poloz said rate cuts delivered in 2015 have worked in helping the economy adjust to the income shock from lower energy prices, and that spare labor and production capacity in the economy was being “steadily” absorbed.
.. Mr. Shenfeld said one factor that may be driving the Bank of Canada is more concern about financial stability than it is letting on, highlighted by record levels of household debt and worries about a housing crash in Toronto and Vancouver.
“Why encourage excesses of debt?” he said. “We’ll trade off a bit of a delay in getting to 2% inflation if that gives sufficient benefits in financial stability.”