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Hello and welcome to the thirtieth (!) issue of the Bright Morning newsletter. This week, our stories are about the phenomenon on social media whereby minority perspectives are presented as mainstream wisdom. This is something that we touched upon last week when the idea of “canceling” Canada Day was presented as common sense. As we will see here, this phenomenon extends across all subjects. Whether it is COVID or political revolutions, social media companies bait viewers with a trending topic and then switch the narrative to present the opposite of truth.
| COVID-19
Vaccine passports and fascism: two interlocked, minority perspectives
Readers of this newsletter will know how much we oppose the concept of vaccine passports. The idea that an individual should be coerced into displaying his or her medical information in order to access a service is nothing short of authoritarian fascism. It demands compliance and the subjugation of the individual. 
As well, the logical end point of vaccine passports is segregation. This is because there will always be a substantial minority of individuals who choose to refuse medical intervention - whether it is for personal, medical, or religious reasons - and if these individuals are barred from participating in basic quality of life activities (such as going to a restaurant, gym, or cinema), it sets the foundation for a two-tiered society. Since we live in what is supposed to be a liberal democracy, this is wrong. End of story.
There are a whole host of other issues with vaccine passports, (many of which we described back in April) but for now, we will just state that vaccine passports are no longer just a slow creep towards totalitarianism - they are an avalanche. This is because the corporate and legacy media outlets have been working overtime to suggest that we would all be “safer” if our lives were reduced to a series of checkpoints in which we submit our private medical information to nameless, faceless bureaucrats whom we do not know or trust. 
Take, for example, the manufactured controversy surrounding GoodLife Fitness in Canada. This past week, the fitness chain announced on Twitter that it is “not planning to require associates or members to be vaccinated to enter our locations. For privacy reasons, GoodLife will not disclose information regarding any individual associate’s vaccination status.” This was a good move from GoodLife - one that respects human rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Unfortunately, a very loud minority of activists disagreed with this stance and stated that they would be cancelling their memberships. Let’s be real here - these people probably didn't even have gym memberships. They saw an opportunity to display faux-virtue online and jumped on it. Nevertheless, CBC called the responses an “uproar.” But was it? We know that Twitter skews towards outrage. The platform is designed to spotlight the most deranged perspectives and present them as if they are mainstream. This is why the concept of “canceling” Canada Day was presented as normal, even though it was nothing more than the amplified barks of a few disillusioned journalists. So, is there any reason to believe it would be different here? 
Furthermore, why put GoodLife in the spotlight? CBC is acting as if GoodLife is the only business not requiring proof of vaccination to enter its facilities, but its policies are the same as 99.99% of businesses in Ontario. To date, there are only six businesses in Ontario that require proof of vaccination, and since Premier Ford announced that he will not be mandating vaccine passports, we do not expect this number to meaningfully increase. Thus, vaccine passports, like support for fascism itself, is an extreme minority perspective. It is just the latest issue to gain some traction on social media and mislead people into believing it is an acceptable idea. 
It isn’t.
| CULTURE
Revolting against communism? Not on Twitter

Good morning, and welcome to the 29th issue of the Bright Morning newsletter. 
Before we begin, we would like readers to consider the following quote from George Orwell’s classic, 1984, and keep it in mind as we proceed through the recent events and cultural updates from the past couple of weeks. As you will see, it seems strikingly relevant - almost prophetic. 
“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless Present in which the Party is always right.”
| CULTURE
In Defence of Canada Day
In Critical Social Justice (CSJ - the formal name for “woke ideology''), nothing is off limits. Not even national holidays, which are supposed to be a time when individuals and communities can set aside their political differences and celebrate the common fortune of living in a free(ish) nation. Instead, for the woke acolytes, the intention is not to celebrate a nation, but to problematize and deconstruct its history into a series of “powerful versus oppressed” narrative games, all without realizing that there is no society in existence that can withstand scrutiny under the microscope of Social Justice. 
This is what happened with the recent attempt  to “cancel” Canada Day upon the discovery of several mass graves at the locations of former residential schools. For our American friends, residential schools were a series of mandatory boarding schools for indigenous children that operated during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries in Canada. These schools were rife with abuse (both physical and sexual), assault, and even murder. It is estimated that up to 30,000 indigenous children died at these schools. Thus, when mass graves were uncovered and the remains of over 1,000 indigenous children were found, it was a reminder that Canada does, in fact, have an ugly history. 
It is not clear how a society ought to react during a time like this. People grieve and mourn in different ways. However, while we might not know what to do, we can at least make assumptions about what not to do. And one of those assumptions might be that it is unwise to use historical atrocities as a battering ram to delegitimize (or to use the CSJ term, “decolonize”) the present. But this is exactly what unfolded in Canada at the end of June. 
In the weeks leading up to Canada Day, a small number of far-left activists, amplified by social media, made “Cancel Canada Day” trend online. Legacy media outlets (notably the Toronto Star and CBC) were falling over each other to declare how “systemically racist” we are as a nation. And some of the most unpleasant and violent activists did what they do best - destroying (or encouraging the destruction of) property that does not belong to them. This was exemplified with the toppling of a statue of Egerton Ryerson at Ryerson University and the burning of Christian and Catholic Churches (at least 8, to date) all with the nodding approval of journalists (an amalgamation of journalist and activist) at the CBC. The Prime Minister has been silent about this violence, of course. A quick question: are there historical precedents where citizens are permitted to use violence as a means for settling historic grievances? Any at all?
If a person’s media diet consisted of only legacy sources, such as the Toronto Star or CBC, he might be misled to believe that these actions are normal, acceptable, and supported by the majority of the public. But he would be wrong. According to recent polls, at least 86% of Canadians disagree with the idea of “canceling” the national holiday and instead prefer to honour their nation and its progress, even if its history contains some reprehensible actions. Even more telling is that this sentiment is stronger amongst non-white and

Hello, and welcome back to Bright Morning. We apologize for our absence last week, but as readers are aware, summer is now upon us. Therefore, this would be a good time for us to mention that our uploads might be shorter, more spaced out, or clustered (depending on how busy we are) over the next couple of months. 
Fear not - we are not leaving this newsletter behind (we made this clear in our podcast from several weeks ago), but now that the nice weather is here, we believe the best thing to do is to take advantage of what we have all been waiting for: the end of the pandemic and the chance to resume our lives. 
However, as we are about to see, there are those who do not want to let go of the pandemic. In fact, they need the pandemic. TV doctors, public health bureaucrats, and other COVID celebrities have been working overtime to suggest that the pandemic is about to get worse, at a time when it has never been better. 
| COVID
Ontario: the only place in the world with a fourth wave
As of this week, Ontario is now the most locked-down region in the world. In fact, it might be one of the only locked down regions in the world (aside from the UK, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson extended the lockdown until July 19th after he returned home from his Gatsby-like party weekend at the G7). 
While every other province in Canada has plans to remove all lockdown restrictions (including mask mandates) within the first weeks of July, Premier Doug Ford has plans to continue implementing some form of restrictions, with no official end date in sight. Even though Ontario has met all of the criteria to move into Stage 3 of Ford’s so-called “Road Map to Reopening,” the Premier continues to insist that Ontario is still at risk of a “fourth wave.”
And where might Ford get this idea? Well, look no further than the Ontario Science Table (OST - best referred to as the Ontario Scientology Table, considering their standards for scientific rigour is akin to that of L. Ron Hubbard). 
Several members of the OST, in particular the TV doctor known as David Fisman (the same doctor who propagated a conspiracy theory about Sick Kids Hospital being a shill for the PC Party), have argued that the so-called Delta variant poses a major threat to the province. Ontario’s new Chief Medical Officer, Kieran Moore, has put forward the same argument. However, what Fisman and company have conveniently left out is evidence. To date, there have been no studies to support the assertion that the Delta variant is more deadly than any of the other so-called “variants of concern.” In fact, the evidence suggests the opposite. That is, no other region in the world where the Delta variant has become the dominant strain has experienced a surge in excess morbidity. It might be more transmissible, but the purpose of a virus is to spread, not to kill. Thus, as viruses evolve, they become less deadly over time, not more. So why has the OST left out this extremely important detail?
The answer, of course, is status. We mentioned this several weeks ago, but it is worth repeating here. Over the course of the pandemic, public health bureaucrats have had the luxury of serving as the de facto leaders of the province without being accountable to the public. It is not clear that these people are prepared to give up this power, either. And why would they? The power and prestige that comes with being regarded as a pseudo-divine figure is guaranteed to derange anyone. And so, as the pandemic winds down, what we are seeing is a perpetual raising of their rhetoric from our expert class. After all, their careers depend on it. 
We need language to identify this raising of the rhetoric. Words like “corruption” and “fraud” are simultaneously too vague and too pointed to be effective. Instead, the bureaucrats who speak in hyperbole about COVID might best be described as demonstrating what Douglas Murray refers to as Saint George in Retirement Syndrome. “After slaying th

Welcome back to another issue of Bright Morning! This week, we are pleased to bring you our sixth long-form podcast. In this episode, we discuss, among other things, the continuing lockdowns in Canada (surprise!). Specifically, we break down the hypocrisy of G7 leaders, Justin Trudeau, and what the satirical leadership of these individuals says about our culture as a whole. Then, we move on to discuss some surprising cultural shifts, some of which might suggest that “wokeness,” or Critical Social Justice, is nearing its natural endpoint. 
We hope that you enjoy this conversation! Until next week, thank you for your time. 


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brightmorning.substack.com

Hello, and welcome back to the Bright Morning newsletter. In case you missed it last week, we released our fifth long-form podcast discussion. In that episode, we spoke about the province of Ontario, vaccine passports, and we responded to what we believe was some rather disingenuous criticism of our work. It was a fun and light-hearted conversation - a nice shake-up from our usual style. 
Having said that, this week we were greeted with some stories that, among other things, were not that surprising. Instead, the events that transpired over the past week or so felt more like confirmation of what we have suspected all along: public health bureaucracies, in Canada and in America, have not been giving it to us straight. We have two case studies below to highlight how the faces of these institutions are more likely to dig in their heels and stick to the narrative, instead of demonstrating humility, when being confronted with evidence of their errors.
| PUBLIC HEALTH
Ontario: science vs. The Science™
Before we kick off, we need to establish the difference between science and The Science™. Science, as we have mentioned before, is a process that relies upon empiricism to test hypotheses and establish provisional truths. One of the core tenets of science is that we welcome new evidence if it disproves what we have all come to accept as truth, so long as the new evidence is subjected to the same, rigorous testing (or better). In other words, science must be falsifiable, otherwise it is no longer science, but dogma. 
The Science™, however, is dogma. It is the rigid, prescriptive, and often-wrong “solutions” or narratives that politicians and bureaucrats (who we once called “public health experts”) use to dismiss scientific evidence for some personal, reputational, or financial gain. So, when you hear a politician or bureaucrat utter the words “I am following the science” or “I believe in science,” it is unlikely that he is speaking about his commitment to the scientific method and empiricism. Instead, he is hanging onto The Science™ (his narrative) as if it is a life raft that is running out of air in the middle of an ocean storm. 
This brings us to the most recent update in Ontario, or as we like to refer to it, The Peoples’ Republic of Lockdown. After once again outsourcing his leadership to unelected bureaucrats by seeking “consensus” on whether or not schools are safe (they are), Premier Doug Ford announced that children will not be returning to in-person learning until September. In his speech to the public in which he attempted to justify this decision, Ford uttered some remarks that were either misleading or outright false. So, allow us to provide the fact check.
First, Ford stated that he did not “want to risk the health of our kids.” Schools are safe and children are safe in them. For the past several months, virtually every pediatrician and pediatric organization in Ontario has been begging Ford to open schools for in-person learning. Sick Kids Hospital wrote a letter in response to Ford’s search for “consensus” and stated that school closures facilitate a “substantial deterioration of mental health status among children and youth,” and that this “deterioration is now evident in the form of increased ambulatory care use and hospital admissions, most poignantly for children and youth with eating disorders.” Dr. Martha Fulford, Chief of Medicine at McMaster University Medical Centre, also appeared on CTV News to state that children “are not at risk from Covid,” even when accounting for the overhyped “variants of concern.” When faced with this criticism, David Fisman - one of the most vocal bureaucrats on the Ontario Science Table (OST) and a paid teachers’ union expert - did not counter with evidence, but deflected to a conspiracy theory in which he accused Sick Kids of being in bed with the PC Party (makes sense?) and then turned to a sarcastic remark about kids’

Good morning and welcome back to the Bright Morning newsletter. This week, we bring you our fifth long-form podcast. In this episode, we speak about the state of perpetual Covid lockdowns in Ontario (and Canada, more broadly), market retaliations to vaccine passports, and the difference between the Canadian and American responses to the pandemic. We also touch on the future of the newsletter, where we intend on taking the project, and our response to some of the more absurd misinterpretations of our work. 
This was a fun and light-hearted episode and we hope that you enjoy it. 
As always, please consider liking, sharing, and subscribing (if you have not yet done so). Thanks for your time, and we will catch up with you next week. 


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brightmorning.substack.com