Stand Up Comedy: Looking for work

I continue to enjoy writing and performing stand up comedy. My second set skewers the job search process. Between employers asking for impossible qualifications, expecting interviewees to be mind readers, and misleading applicants about what they're looking for, it's tough out there. Have a laugh as I describe the absurdity we have all experienced.

Podcast for Inquiry S04E23: The building blocks of corporate scandals: Guido Palazzo reveals the Dark Pattern

Corporate scandals are depressingly common, and it’s all too easy to chalk them up to individual bad apples. Unfortunately, this simple explanation is not accurate. Guido’s research led him to write The Dark Pattern: The hidden dynamics of corporate scandals, which details the nine building blocks that lead otherwise good people to do bad things. He explains the importance of context, why psychopaths are wildly overrepresented in corporate boardrooms, and the societal structures that too often lead to egregious behaviour from companies across the globe. 

Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts (Spotify Apple YouTube Music Deezer Player.fm), or listen here:  

A video recording is also available: 

Podcast for Inquiry S04E22: Andrew Coyne on the Crisis of Canadian Democracy

Andrew Coyne (@acoyne) is a columnist for The Globe and Mail and author of The Crisis of Canadian Democracy. In today’s episode, Andrew makes the case that Canadian democracy is headed for a crisis. He talks about the problems of Canada’s first past the post or “winner takes all” election system. The conversation includes an analysis of a wide range of issues: the diminishing contributions that MPs are allowed to make; how candidates, cabinet members, and even party leaders are selected; and the ever increasing concentration of power within the Prime Minister’s Office. Andrew outlines steps that can be taken to increase democratic representation in Canada that may avert a potential looming crisis of legitimacy.

 Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts (Spotify Apple YouTube Music Deezer Player.fm), or listen here:  

A video recording is also available: 

Review of Cardus webinar on Christianity and pluralism

This essay was first published in the November 2025 edition of the Centre for Inquiry Canada's monthly newsletter, Critical Links.

On September 9, Cardus (a Canadian think tank devoted to infusing faith into every aspect of society) held a webinar entitled, "Can Christians Fully Participate in 21st Century Pluralism?" I was interested in what they had to say, so I attended. 

Andrew Bennett is the Cardus Institute's Director of Faith Community Engagement. He was speaking with James Orr, Associate Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. 

Instead of starting the conversation with a definition of pluralism, Orr launched into an etymological history of the word, how it was a philosophical metaphysical and not a political term, and that politics is downstream of metaphysics. There was much name-dropping ("William James claimed that pluralism was reacting against Hegelian philosophy, but for Figgis pluralism is rooted in Augustinian pluralism"), but the erudite back and forth between Bennett and Orr shed little light on how to think of pluralism in the 21st century.

After indulging in several more diversions only tangentially related to the webinar's core question, Bennett and Orr finally came to talk about pluralism in a modern context, only to grossly mischaracterize it. According to Orr, the "risk of violence is increased by opening up the moral community at scale and at speed." Whereas earlier forms of pluralism provided a mediating buffer against the state, operating within a broadly shared conception of mutual flourishing and common good, today is very different, according to Orr. The secular liberal state as envisioned by John Rawls has no common perspective amongst the citizenry, and liberal individualism demands that people have sheer autonomy, without any obligation to others. 

I am familiar with much of Rawls' work, and this is not an argument I have heard him make. 

Eventually, Bennett and Orr asked: Is Christian participation in society limited? If so, who is doing the limiting? Is it the state? Are societal norms and taboos preventing Christians from being a part of public discourse? Perhaps Christians themselves have bought into the concept of the atomization of individuals devoid of a social fabric and withdrawn without external coercion?

Bennett noted that there is lots of participation by Christians in the public square, so perhaps this wasn't a significant issue.

I thought this was a key insight and worth pursuing - perhaps the answer to, "Can Christians Fully Participate in 21st Century Pluralism?" is a simple, "Yes." But Bennet and Orr pivoted immediately to asking whether an official presence of faith in the public square helps or hinders Christian participation in society. 

Bennett observed that an official Church risks becoming indistinguishable from the state, and that Canada has no established Church. He asked Orr, "Is the Church of England less free to engage in debates because of its status?"

Orr responded, "Yes." But rather than explain why, or how, the Church of England is constrained, Orr spoke about the impact the Covid epidemic had on people. Orr then went on a rant against the Church of England (an odd choice, in my opinion) for participating in "madcap, highly contentious, politicized schemes", such as paying a hundreds of millions of pounds in reparations when the Church has only 11 billion pounds in assets, while "parishes are closing up and down country". And yet Orr also said that he can't think of a time when the country has needed more of what the Church can offer. 

The rest of the conversation was not about whether Christians can participate in society, but how to infuse more Christianity into the world. Orr claimed that belief in God has tripled in the UK among 18-35 year olds (a surprising statistic, as every source I have found makes clear that faith in Britain is declining, with younger cohorts increasingly non-religious). He also stated that New Atheists are expressing regret, citing Ayaan Ali Hirsi Ali and Niall Ferguson as examples. (If this trend is more widespread, I have missed it.) Orr also finds the "intellectual credibility of Christianity" striking. (Again, Orr must travel in very different circles than I do.)

Orr made many unsubstantiated claims, including "Christianity feels new now", "Standard liberal policing in the public square has been dissolved on the Internet", "Liberal multiculturalism has dissolved connected communities", and "Affluenza has enabled us to forget the important things." Orr did not elaborate on any of these, so his meaning remains ambiguous.

Bennett brought the conversation's focus to Quebec. He asked Orr what the impact was of growing Muslim and Sikh populations on the public square, and how we occupy public square together as members of very different religions. Orr stated that secularists believe that secular and religion are antonyms, and that everything in the religion box is basically the same. He accused secularists of "tone deafness" by failing to understand the differences between Augustinian Christianity and Salafist Islam. He then went on to claim that "Islam is not compatible with post-Christian secular society."

The Webinar ended with an appeal for Christians to "animate the sacred". Orr is aghast that the English Prime Minister and leader of the opposition are atheists; "at least Farage is a Christian, even if not a great one." Orr noted that the young are drawn to evangelical forms of Christianity. In Orr's view, the "great challenge" is to "reverse engineer the fourth century."

Overall, I found the webinar disappointing. The little time devoted to the question at hand indicated that Christians are indeed full participants in society, but that this is insufficient in an increasingly secular world. The problem, according to Bennett and Orr, is not that Christians are somehow prevented from participating in society - it's that Christians are insufficiently Christian in the 21st century. What Bennett and Orr decry as societal decay, I consider to be social progress. May secularism and pluralism continue to progress throughout the 21st century, and beyond. 

Podcast for Inquiry S04E21: Once Upon a Prime with Sarah Hart

My conversation with Sarah starts with the connections between mathematics and literature, including references to Shakespeare, Herman Melville, George Eliot, Lewis Carroll, Douglas Adams, and more. Good writing has structure, and structure can be understood in mathematical terms. Sarah explains how mathematics can greatly enrich one’s enjoyment of literature, and how mathematics can be used to obfuscate rather than clarify. In some ways, being a female mathematician today is different - and in other ways similar! - as in the 19th century.  

Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts (Spotify Apple YouTube Music Deezer Player.fm), or listen here:  

A video recording is also available: 

Podcast for Inquiry S04E20: Modern Stoicism for modern life, with modern Stoic Donald Robertson

Donald Robertson (Substack) is a writer, cognitive-behavioural psychotherapist, and trainer. He is one of the founding members of the Modern Stoicism nonprofit, and the founder and president of the Plato’s Academy Centre nonprofit in Athens, Greece.

My conversation with Donald traces the path from ancient Stoicism to the modern day. The word stoicism had come to mean something very different over time, but that has started to change as Stoicism (the philosophy) has been more popular in recent years. Stoic principles lie at the heart of cognitive behavioural therapy, and we talk about how incorporating Stoic principles into one’s own life can lead to more emotional resilience, a greater sense of satisfaction, and more meaningful relationships with others.

Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts (Spotify Apple YouTube Music Deezer Player.fm), or listen here:  

A video recording is also available:  

Come see me perform stand up comedy!

Hello, friends!

I am taking the Advanced Stand-Up course at Comedy Bar, and the showcase for our class is coming up later this month. It's a funny group, and I'm looking forward to performing all new material. Come see me!

When: Wednesday, October 22nd at 7:00 PM

Where: Comedy Bar, 2800 Danforth Avenue, Toronto

Price: $15. You can buy ticket in advance here or at the door. 

I hope to see you there!

BCHA and Canadian Secular Alliance submit their brief on Quebec's Bill 21 to the Supreme Court of Canada

The following essay was first published in the October 2025 edition of Critical Links. 
The BCHA and CSA submitted their ten-page argument against Quebec's Bill 21 in September. (CFIC came out against Bill 21 back in 2019; see here and here and here and here for previous Critical Links articles).

There are fundamentally two arguments in the submission:

1. The Supreme Court of Canada has stated and reiterated several times that Canada is a secular nation, with a duty of neutrality in matters of religion. This duty is baked into the Charter.
2. What constitutes a religious symbol is a matter of personal perspective, and the state is incapable, even in principle, of making such a determination. Therefore, any law that requires the state to distinguish between religious and non-religious symbols is legally incoherent.

Let's get into a bit more detail on each of these points.

Canada is a secular nation beyond freedom of religion

The duty of state neutrality in matters of religion is an independent constitutional principle. It doesn't follow from freedom of religion; rather the freedom of religion clause of the Charter is an expression of the state's duty of neutrality. In fact, it is a democratic imperative, and is thus an inherent part of the Charter. There have been other unwritten principles read into the Charter, and it is appropriate to make this understanding, present and implicit since the Charter was ratified, explicit. State neutrality, as a duty, cannot be subsumed within a Charter right. Therefore the state must remain secular - neutral in matters of religion - even if the Charter provision guaranteeing freedom of religion is nullified by invoking the notwithstanding clause.

The state is incapable of determining what is a religious symbol

There is ample jurisprudence stating that "religious freedom is premised on the personal volition of individual believers" and variations on that theme. Therefore the practice of religion, and the meaning of its symbols, is individual and subjective. Some laws might have the effect of restricting religious freedom (e.g., wearing hard hats on a construction site), but that might be an acceptable cost for some social good (health and safety). But legislation intentionally restricting religion puts the state into the position of determining what is and is not religious expression. Christmas is a religious holiday, but are earrings in the shape of Christmas trees a religious symbol? It might be for some, and not for others. How is the state to decide? The state must maintain its neutral stance and not have a perspective, and thus Bill 21 is incompatible with Canada as a secular state.

Why did BCHA and CSA choose these arguments?

All interveners (38 of them - likely a record!) have just five minutes each for oral arguments, and only ten pages for a written submission. Given these restrictions, it's important to choose a limited number of propositions, so that they may be argued comprehensively. These arguments are at the heart of the purposes of BCHA and CSA, and if accepted will result in a just decision (striking down Bill 21) without the messiness of considering Section 33.

What other legal arguments are there against Bill 21?

There are several other ways to argue against Bill 21. 

One is that the use of the notwithstanding clause is inappropriate in this case, so the freedom of religion clause of the Charter still applies to this law. The Canadian federal government's submission, for example, will "urge the court to set limits on how the notwithstanding clause could be invoked" to avoid having provincial legislatures "indirectly amending the Constitution".

Another is to invoke section 1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which says the rights and freedoms it grants are "subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." Opponents of Bill 21 could argue that this law cannot be demonstrably justified.

Finally, there are sections of the Charter that are not covered by the notwithstanding clause. (Invoking the notwithstanding clause means certain rights guaranteed by the Charter do not apply to a particular piece of legislation, but other rights are not subject to this exemption.) Two such sections are s27 on multiculturalism, and s28 on equality between male and female persons. Given Quebec courts noted that the negative effects of the law, whatever its intentions, falls disproportionately upon Muslim women, the Court might rule Bill 21 to be unconstitutional on these grounds. Other interveners will be making this argument.

What will those who support Bill 21 say?

From a legal perspective, there are many arguments to be made in the bill's favour, . 

Quebec's duly elected government has passed this bill following the appropriate processes, and it is an overreach of the Supreme Court of Canada to intervene in Quebec's internal affairs. The Quebec government's submission will likely be along these lines.

Other arguments will focus on the freedom of religion clause of the Charter and the fact that Quebec invoked the notwithstanding clause. Some interveners may argue that Bill 21 does not violate anyone's freedom of religion, so such challenges to the law have no merit. Personally, I find this argument weak and doubt it will convince any of the Supreme Court Justices. However, a related one is much stronger: even if the bill violates freedom of religion and/or freedom of expression, these sections are covered by the notwithstanding clause and thus the bill cannot be struck down on this basis. This is essentially the logic of the decisions from the Quebec courts, and the Supreme Court may decide to rule similarly.

Another approach being taken by some interveners is to agree that Canada is a secular nation, and define secularism as the "separation of church and state". Since Bill 21 applies only to government employees, who are therefore representatives of the state in public-facing roles, Bill 21 is furthering the principle of secularism and there is no Charter violation. This is the basis of why several secular organizations support Bill 21.

This will be a long, complex, and hotly contested hearing. No date has yet been set, though it will likely be at some point in early 2026. A decision probably will not be published for at least six months after that.

CFIC will keep you up to date on this important case as it unfolds.

Podcast for Inquiry S04E19: Justin Ling on the right wing media ecosystem

Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) is an investigative journalist who writes the Bug-eyed and Shameless newsletter and recently published the book The 51st State Votes. 

Our conversation begins with the right wing media ecosystem, and its effect particularly on US politics. Justin explains why there isn’t really a counterpart on the left, and what makes Canada different from the United States in this regard. Leslie and Justin move on to democracy and authoritarianism on the international stage, and how to develop healthy media consumption habits in today’s world.

Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts (Spotify Apple YouTube Music Deezer Player.fm), or listen here:  

A video recording is also available: 

Podcast for Inquiry S04E18: The Examined Run with Sabrina Little

Podcast for Inquiry is back after its summer hiatus!

Sabrina Little is a philosopher, ultra-runner, and the author of The Examined Run: Why Good People Make Better Runners. She is a five-time U.S. National Champion in trail and ultrarunning, a former American Record Holder, and World Silver Medalist. 

In today’s episode, Sabrina answers the question: Why do good people make better runners? What are the performance enhancing virtues, and do they outweigh the performance enhancing vices? She talks about the difference in taking a short vs long term perspective, the importance and challenge of balancing the multiple areas of life that need your time and attention, what being competitive means, and how the same behaviours can be described in very different ways.

Support Podcast for Inquiry on Patreon, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts (Spotify Apple YouTube Music Deezer Player.fm), or listen here:  

A video recording is also available: