Robyn Urback
While National Newswatch does not keep an archive of external articles for longer than 6 months, we do keep all articles written by contributors who post directly to our site. Here you will find all of the contributed and linked external articles from Robyn Urback.
The Supreme Court used a far-fetched hypothetical to axe minimum sentences for child pornography
The members of Canada’s Supreme Court have such wonderful imaginations. They are able to look at the facts of a case – or a couple, as recently brought before them regarding prison sentences for accessing and possessing child pornography – and invent an entirely unrelated and far-fetched scenario in order to strike down a mandatory minimum sentence as unconstitutional. It’s...
Canada needs to rein in spending. How about we stop handing out billions to wealthy seniors?
Forty years ago, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney touched a hot stove. He announced that his government would partially de-index Old Age Security benefits from inflation, and very quickly, the smell of burning flesh began wafting through Ottawa. NDP MP Simon de Jong charged that Mr. Mulroney was breaking a “sacred trust” with Canadian seniors. “Two and a half million elderly...
The American right discovers that it loves cancel culture, too
This is not cancel culture, the right insists, as it scours the internet, searching for heretics. Iconoclasts will be identified – shamed, reported, and maybe even investigated – to ensure they are punished for their unacceptable opinions. This hunt is not limited to those who celebrated the assassination of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, which is arguably legitimate grounds for termination...
Charlie Kirk is a sick nation’s sacrifice
The right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk has become a casualty of a version of America he believed could be resisted, simply, with words. Mr. Kirk built a political empire based on the premise that ideas could lead to great victories; that a high school kid could write an op-ed for Breitbart and, just four years later, speak on stage at the...
The NDP remains an unserious party for a serious time
Maybe the NDP will get its act together. Maybe it will become a real political party, a viable third option, a progressive voice in a political ecosystem where Prime Minister Mark Carney has so graciously yielded the floor. Mr. Carney uttered the word “austerity” last week in describing what to expect from his upcoming budget. That term was verboten under...
Quebec shouldn’t ban street prayer. Municipalities should enforce existing laws
Every week, for the last several months, Islamic afternoon prayers have been held outside Montreal’s Notre-Dame Basilica. The prayers are hosted by the group Montreal4Palestine, which has used the space outside the church to protest Israel’s continuing war in Gaza. It’s either a beautiful or egregiously provocative scene, depending on how you look at it. Beautiful for what it illustrates...
Carney’s reciprocal tariff retreat might seem like a betrayal, but it makes sense
“Elbows up” was always a campaign-winning but policy-losing strategy. We have all unfortunately become students of the mercurial menace that is Donald Trump, and we know that the U.S. President is less a serious negotiating partner than an obstinate toddler – and you don’t go “elbows up” against toddlers for the simple reason that they are, in a word, insane...
Memo to Mark Carney: Canada’s existential crisis is in health care
Months ago, Canadians were told we were in an emergency. U.S. President Donald Trump “wants to break us, so America can own us,” said then-candidate Mark Carney, who would successfully sell Canadians on his readiness for real change. “We will not let that happen.” Mr. Carney made the case that the tariffs being threatened by Mr. Trump constituted “the most...
Gary Anandasangaree must resign as Public Safety Minister
It would be tolerable – though just barely – if Gary Anandasangaree was, say, minister of Fisheries, or minister of Artificial Intelligence. One does not need to know about gun licensing, for example, to work on a transition plan away from open net-pen salmon farming on the West coast; a firewall preventing a minister from weighing in on matters involving...
Did we really have to make this D-list MAGA singer famous in Canada?
The continuing controversy involving Sean Feucht, the American Christian rocker and MAGA darling who has been denied permits for his concerts all across Eastern Canada, has become just dreadfully irritating. It is irritating to watch Mr. Feucht’s critics conflate his opinions – on abortion (he’s against it), on homosexuality (he believes it is a perversion of God’s will), on the...
#MeToo changed our culture, but it couldn’t change our courts
The whole world changed in the near-decade between two of the most high-profile sexual assault trials in recent Canadian history. But inside the courtroom, it was as if no time had passed at all. Outside, the world had been fundamentally reordered by a pandemic, by a reality TV star twice elected U.S. President, by the murder of a Black man...
Mark Carney should add the gun buyback program to his kill list
Prime Minister Mark Carney wasted no time in axing a signature Justin Trudeau policy the moment he took on the job. It wasn’t that the carbon tax was bad policy, per se, or focused on the wrong target or poorly administered or needlessly bureaucratic. Indeed, Mr. Carney was broadly supportive of carbon pricing as a mechanism to curb greenhouse gas...
The digital services tax was bad policy, but killing it now makes us look terribly weak
Maybe Prime Minister Mark Carney’s elbows were getting tired. He kept them up the entire campaign, and well, that was enough to get the job done (the job, notably, being winning the election – not standing up to U.S. President Donald Trump). And now that the election is over, Mr. Carney has allowed himself some moments of rest.
Considering accessory to manslaughter? Don’t worry, you’ll get to keep your gym membership
An Ontario court justice has sent a strong message to criminal thugs all across the province who might find themselves in a scenario where they could help a friend evade justice: Go ahead. You won’t necessarily go to jail. In fact, you might be able to keep your gym membership. In July, 2023, in the Leslieville area of Toronto, Khalila...
Mark Carney’s early moves are making the Conservatives look like waterboys
Ever since the election, the Conservative Party has been giving off strong “loser energy” vibes. It’s not simply that the party failed to form government, or even that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre lost his own seat (though it certainly doesn’t help that he’s forced to press his nose up against the House’s stained glass windows). It’s more so the air...
We need a by-election in Terrebonne
In a less partisan, more conciliatory political environment, there would be cross-partisan consensus about the need for a by-election in the Quebec riding of Terrebonne. It’s not simply that the margin of victory was razor-thin, with the Liberals’ Tatiana Auguste winning the riding by a single vote. Nor is it about the flip-flopping of the result: Terrebonne was first won...
Danielle Smith is against forest fires, but she’ll leave this lighter right here
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith absolutely, unequivocally does not want to see a cockfight. She’s merely provoking these specially bred roosters and will soon release them together in a pen. Whatever happens, happens. She has been adamant in her opposition to forest fires. “They’re dangerous,” she says, as she gingerly places a pack of matches on a pile of dry leaves...
Mass murderers spending life in prison is good, actually. But we don’t need the notwithstanding clause to make it happen
Over the years, reams of analysis have skewered the Canadian Supreme Court’s decision in R v. Bissonnette, which declared it unconstitutional to sentence offenders to consecutive periods of parole ineligibility on the grounds that it constitutes “cruel and unusual punishment.” But the decision is so myopic, so deleterious to the public’s perception of the fairness of our justice system, that...
Pierre Poilievre has a women problem
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre caused a bit of a stir online this week when he gave a shoutout to the enfeebled ovaries (and low-motile sperm) of this great nation when addressing millennials’ struggle to enter the housing market. “We will not forget,” he said, during a campaign stop in New Brunswick, “that young 36-year-old couple whose biological clock is running...
Mark Carney is offering voters the other guy’s ideas, without the other guy
If the last near-decade has proven any adage true, it’s that the Liberals are terrible at governing, but exceptional at campaigning. Campaigns are when you get to announce things; governance is when you’re supposed to follow through. Unfortunately for Canada, the Trudeau Liberals conflated the former with the latter, behaving as if announcing a plan – a framework for a...
Pierre Poilievre’s strength is as an attack dog. But he’s growling against the wrong target
A moment of silence, please, for the devastating loss that the Conservative Party of Canada still hasn’t fully recognized – or come to terms with. The Tories surely thought they had the coming election in the bag: it would be a carbon-tax election against a deeply unpopular prime minister, after which Pierre Poilievre would form government with a commanding majority...
Infection point: How vaccine mandates killed the Justin Trudeau brand
Two different Justin Trudeaus stood outside Rideau Cottage nearly five years apart, each version of the Prime Minister delivering an address that, together, defined the arc of his time in leadership. The first Trudeau stood alone, but he had the support of his caucus, and his country, behind him. He had a beard and a slight wave to his hair...
Society’s brainworms have gotten so bad, we can’t even recognize a swastika as a hate symbol
Shopify, the Ottawa-based multinational e-commerce company, was faced with a dilemma this week: One of its customers was selling T-shirts with swastikas on them using its platform, and the company was facing pressure to take down the store. But oh, free speech! What to do, what to do?! That customer was rap superstar Kanye West, who now goes by Ye...
Chrystia Freeland pitches Trump’s animosity for her as her strength. It’s her incorrigible weakness
“I want to let you in on a little secret,” says Chrystia Freeland in her video pitch to become the next leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. “Donald Trump doesn’t like me very much.” This is, according to the person hoping to steer the country through the next fours years of Mr. Trump’s recalcitrant tumult, to her advantage. “I’m...
How we went from Trudeaumania 2.0 to a resignation at Rideau Cottage
It’s difficult to recall, watching a defeated man finally yield to his fate outside Rideau Cottage this week, just how fervently Canadians fell for Justin Trudeau more than a decade ago. It was like Trudeaumania redux: he’d get stopped for selfies on the street, make headline news for appearing shirtless in public, and would absolutely electrify crowds of thousands of...