Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
@emmettmacfarlane.com
Professor of political science. Author. Dad.
Constitutional law, rights, governing institutions, and Canadian politics.
Books: Legislating under the Charter; Constitutional Pariah; Governing from the Bench
Constitutional law, rights, governing institutions, and Canadian politics.
Books: Legislating under the Charter; Constitutional Pariah; Governing from the Bench
Pinned
Rights and Parliamentary Systems in Canada and Beyond - University of Toronto Press
utppublishing.com
You can now order my latest edited book, "Rights and Parliamentary Systems in Canada and Beyond." Check out the amazing table of contents here: utppublishing.com/doi/book/10....
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
"And while the budget pours money into infrastructure and emphasizes resource extraction, it fails to leverage our country’s most significant economic drivers: people, research and education."
In case you missed it over the weekend, my op-ed on the federal budget.
GIFT LINK - My Toronto Star op-ed on the federal budget, and the failure to account for provincial action on post-secondary education. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
November 11, 2025 at 1:35 AM
"And while the budget pours money into infrastructure and emphasizes resource extraction, it fails to leverage our country’s most significant economic drivers: people, research and education."
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
proof that science mis- and disinformation are effective and have profound consequences for society. This is a shameful milestone.
UPDATE: Canada has announced that it has lost its measles elimination status.
This is a direct result of the increase in anti-vax disinformation, which has caused large, sustained outbreaks in the country over the last year.
This is a direct result of the increase in anti-vax disinformation, which has caused large, sustained outbreaks in the country over the last year.
November 10, 2025 at 8:09 PM
proof that science mis- and disinformation are effective and have profound consequences for society. This is a shameful milestone.
Ditto, since it's literally what I'm studying right now!
I am interested in what this looks like in practice
Canadian PM Mark Carney: "Large American online platforms have become seas of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, islamophobia and hate in all its forms... My government will act."
#cdnpoli
#cdnpoli
November 10, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Ditto, since it's literally what I'm studying right now!
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
I am interested in what this looks like in practice
Canadian PM Mark Carney: "Large American online platforms have become seas of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, islamophobia and hate in all its forms... My government will act."
#cdnpoli
#cdnpoli
November 10, 2025 at 8:01 PM
I am interested in what this looks like in practice
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
In case you missed it over the weekend, my op-ed on the federal budget.
GIFT LINK - My Toronto Star op-ed on the federal budget, and the failure to account for provincial action on post-secondary education. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
Mark Carney’s budget is blind to the real causes of Canada’s problems
The prime minister's first budget emphasizes infrastructure and resource extraction but fails to leverage our most significant economic drivers.
www.thestar.com
November 10, 2025 at 1:38 PM
In case you missed it over the weekend, my op-ed on the federal budget.
Curious, as a non-expert in criminal law, whether the 'circumstantial evidence' is distinct in sexual assault context or consistent with other criminal cases. If the former, is this concerning for presumption of innocence?
In a decision that tries to clarify consent in sexual assault cases, the Supreme Court of Canada has found that when the ability to give it is in question, trial judges should consider direct and circumstantial evidence. @journodale.bsky.social has the story. www.nationalmagazine.ca/en-ca/articl...
Supreme Court throws doubt into questions of deference
Observers say lack of consistency will create problems for appellate courts about when they should intervene
www.nationalmagazine.ca
November 10, 2025 at 6:30 PM
Curious, as a non-expert in criminal law, whether the 'circumstantial evidence' is distinct in sexual assault context or consistent with other criminal cases. If the former, is this concerning for presumption of innocence?
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
Blueskyism is actually a fantasy of Bluesky, formed by ignorance and reactionary hope (that this place is full of stereotypes that justify them hanging out with the less objectionable Nazis).
the hipsters, they’re ordering double frufru mocha soy frappuccino. doesn’t anybody order a black coffee anymore
November 10, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Blueskyism is actually a fantasy of Bluesky, formed by ignorance and reactionary hope (that this place is full of stereotypes that justify them hanging out with the less objectionable Nazis).
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
No proof will ever be enough for the denialists but here’s yet another example of the thing they say isn’t happening - children’s remains being returned to their families. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
After 8 decades, Alma Beaulieu, who died at an N.W.T. residential school, is home | CBC News
For generations, the family of five-year-old Alma Beaulieu didn’t know what happened when she died at St. Joseph’s Residential School in Fort Resolution, N.W.T. More than 80 years later, Alma's sister...
www.cbc.ca
November 10, 2025 at 4:47 PM
No proof will ever be enough for the denialists but here’s yet another example of the thing they say isn’t happening - children’s remains being returned to their families. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
In other words, they're idiots.
seems to me that those democrats inclined not to fight perceive themselves as living through a somewhat ordinary cycle of presidential overreach and backlash and not something much more significant and dangerous
November 10, 2025 at 2:28 PM
In other words, they're idiots.
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
You're a business journalist and you didn't think to ask Sinclair Broadcasting any questions about whether its sagging revenues had anything to do with a historically clumsy attempt to censor a comedian on behalf of our dim president?
November 10, 2025 at 2:19 PM
You're a business journalist and you didn't think to ask Sinclair Broadcasting any questions about whether its sagging revenues had anything to do with a historically clumsy attempt to censor a comedian on behalf of our dim president?
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
New post: further notwithstanding clause mythbusting, to follow-up on my op-ed in the National Post last week.
Notwithstanding Myths
The case for the notwithstanding clause rests on misunderstanding or misdirection.
doubleaspect.blog
November 10, 2025 at 2:17 PM
New post: further notwithstanding clause mythbusting, to follow-up on my op-ed in the National Post last week.
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
Remarkable that these pardons were announced the same day that a federal judge published this piece.
November 10, 2025 at 5:25 AM
Remarkable that these pardons were announced the same day that a federal judge published this piece.
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
"Without stable financial support, [Canada's] university sector — an economic driver orders of magnitude larger than any resource sector — is under existential threat."
This is excellent.
This is excellent.
GIFT LINK - My Toronto Star op-ed on the federal budget, and the failure to account for provincial action on post-secondary education. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
Mark Carney’s budget is blind to the real causes of Canada’s problems
The prime minister's first budget emphasizes infrastructure and resource extraction but fails to leverage our most significant economic drivers.
www.thestar.com
November 10, 2025 at 2:02 PM
"Without stable financial support, [Canada's] university sector — an economic driver orders of magnitude larger than any resource sector — is under existential threat."
This is excellent.
This is excellent.
In case you missed it over the weekend, my op-ed on the federal budget.
GIFT LINK - My Toronto Star op-ed on the federal budget, and the failure to account for provincial action on post-secondary education. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
Mark Carney’s budget is blind to the real causes of Canada’s problems
The prime minister's first budget emphasizes infrastructure and resource extraction but fails to leverage our most significant economic drivers.
www.thestar.com
November 10, 2025 at 1:38 PM
In case you missed it over the weekend, my op-ed on the federal budget.
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
What a preventable tragedy caused by a disinformation grievance industrial complex. Shameful.
Canada expected to lose long-standing measles-elimination status on Monday, by @kkirkup.bsky.social www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/art... via @theglobeandmail.com
Canada expected to lose long-standing measles-elimination status
If the country loses its status, public-health researchers say the return of endemic measles would carry serious health consequences
www.theglobeandmail.com
November 10, 2025 at 3:13 AM
What a preventable tragedy caused by a disinformation grievance industrial complex. Shameful.
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
If this had been Biden it would be front page news.
“I, (then state your name), do solemnly swear…”
Trump getting booed at the Commanders game
November 9, 2025 at 11:59 PM
If this had been Biden it would be front page news.
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
The UCP’s excuses for using the notwithstanding clause — “because we can,” “because we have to,” and “because we say so” — do not meet Lougheed's standards.
My latest.
open.substack.com/pub/drjaredw...
My latest.
open.substack.com/pub/drjaredw...
Defying the Lougheed Doctrine
The UCP's repeated use of the notwithstanding is fundamentally unconservative (and un-Albertan).
open.substack.com
November 9, 2025 at 10:38 PM
The UCP’s excuses for using the notwithstanding clause — “because we can,” “because we have to,” and “because we say so” — do not meet Lougheed's standards.
My latest.
open.substack.com/pub/drjaredw...
My latest.
open.substack.com/pub/drjaredw...
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
Strikes me that arguments that AI will make xy & z intellectual work obsolete are broadly similar to arguing that food delivery apps make kitchens obsolete.
At a superficial level you understand the point, but there's no escaping the fact that someone in the process needs to know how to fkn cook.
At a superficial level you understand the point, but there's no escaping the fact that someone in the process needs to know how to fkn cook.
November 9, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Strikes me that arguments that AI will make xy & z intellectual work obsolete are broadly similar to arguing that food delivery apps make kitchens obsolete.
At a superficial level you understand the point, but there's no escaping the fact that someone in the process needs to know how to fkn cook.
At a superficial level you understand the point, but there's no escaping the fact that someone in the process needs to know how to fkn cook.
The challenge of teaching a new course: late into the term, as it gets busier and busier with grading and other stuff, you still also have to write lectures from scratch.
November 9, 2025 at 6:08 PM
The challenge of teaching a new course: late into the term, as it gets busier and busier with grading and other stuff, you still also have to write lectures from scratch.
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
When we get through this, the people who did this need to go to jail for a very long time.
40 men Trump sent to CECOT tell the NYT they were beaten, tortured, and sexually assaulted. The details are worse than you can imagine.
We can’t let them get away with this. Miller and the other architects of this sadism need to go to prison.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/w...
We can’t let them get away with this. Miller and the other architects of this sadism need to go to prison.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/08/w...
‘You Are All Terrorists’: Four Months in a Salvadoran Prison
www.nytimes.com
November 9, 2025 at 2:27 AM
When we get through this, the people who did this need to go to jail for a very long time.
Nope. Support for immigration strengthened long after those demographics changed.
I think that support for immigration and multiculturalism started to erode as fewer and fewer white faces from Europe were interested in immigrating to Canada. Just a hunch without looking at official data.
November 9, 2025 at 1:24 AM
Nope. Support for immigration strengthened long after those demographics changed.
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
The dumbest people in the world, before you get to the fact that they have all been marinated in evil and sleaze
DHS head reportedly authorized purchase of 10 engineless Spirit Airlines planes that airline didn’t own | Kristi Noem | The Guardian www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
DHS head reportedly authorized purchase of 10 engineless Spirit Airlines planes that airline didn’t own
Wall Street Journal reports Kristi Noem arranged purchase to expand deportation flights and for personal travel
www.theguardian.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:30 AM
The dumbest people in the world, before you get to the fact that they have all been marinated in evil and sleaze
Hell, from the 1980s all the way through the Harper years, support for relatively *high* immigration enjoyed a bipartisan, cross-ideological consensus in Canada. Only now, with this fucked up right-wing populist bullshit happening, have we started turning against it.
I kind of feel this way too. Conservatives used to be all about fiscal responsibility and low taxes and low immigration and all. Now they’re just cuckoo bananas.
November 9, 2025 at 12:40 AM
Hell, from the 1980s all the way through the Harper years, support for relatively *high* immigration enjoyed a bipartisan, cross-ideological consensus in Canada. Only now, with this fucked up right-wing populist bullshit happening, have we started turning against it.
The contemporary political right really is a fucking cancer.
Two panels commemorating the contribution of Black American soldiers towards the liberation of the Netherlands in World War Two have been quietly removed from a cemetery in Limburg. It follows a complaint by right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission.
November 9, 2025 at 12:27 AM
The contemporary political right really is a fucking cancer.
Reposted by Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦
GIFT LINK - My Toronto Star op-ed on the federal budget, and the failure to account for provincial action on post-secondary education. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
Mark Carney’s budget is blind to the real causes of Canada’s problems
The prime minister's first budget emphasizes infrastructure and resource extraction but fails to leverage our most significant economic drivers.
www.thestar.com
November 7, 2025 at 4:48 PM
GIFT LINK - My Toronto Star op-ed on the federal budget, and the failure to account for provincial action on post-secondary education. www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...