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| A merrie mid-week, you prating knaves! |
His words resonate as millions of Canadians — like Matt Janes, pictured above — prepare to vote for Liberal Leader Mark Carney, who recently unveiled a $130-billion spending plan. The plan echoed Justin Trudeau’s mission to spend Canada into prosperity and offset what he calls "the biggest crisis of our lifetimes."
Carney points to the U.S. and Trump, to sway voters like Janes. But the truth is straightforward — Trudeau’s policies devastated Canada’s economy and Carney, at times, served as his economic adviser.
The real crisis is stupidity among voters — and Carney is capitalizing on it for the election.
This election isn't about Trump but rather the Liberal catastrophe that should have been prevented in 2015 (or sooner).
But no.
The Liberals (read: Carney) need the American bogey-man and other distractions to catch voters or they're screwed.
Running on records of economic ruin and loss of prestige on the global stage is just not a winning strategy.
The Tories are using a different strategy:
Liberal Mark Carney wants us to be better people, according to his definition of a woke, net-zero Canada, and he would also like us to pay for the privilege of self-improvement through taxes and inflation. His plan is simple, if you cannot afford fuel, you will not generate carbon dioxide and Canada under Mr. Carney's inspired leadership will have shown the world how to save itself from global warming.
And that is what would make you a better person.
Conservative Pierre Poilievre on the other hand, doesn't so much want to make the people better; he wants to make life better for people. ...
Three points, then.
First, don't buy the superiority of the 'central banker who understands the world' narrative.
On Saturday, Mr. Carney showed us his costed platform, the centrepiece of which was his intention to borrow another $200 billion over four years, $130 billion in year one.
Let that sink in.
$225 billion more in debt.
This would be on top of the $600 billion that his predecessor Justin Trudeau borrowed between 2015 and 2024, thereby doubling a deficit of $600 billion accumulated over the previous 148 years to $1.2 trillion. Significantly, it appears that was all done with Mr. Carney's banker advice and approval.
Also upon Mr. Carney's advice, a carbon tax has been levied for the last four years.
The result? Inflation, inflation and more inflation. People in Ontario who could manage ten years ago, now go to food banks. Half of Albertans are $200 a month from not being able to handle the bills.
So now, another $225 billion on top of all that, so that Mr. Carney can increase government spending by $130 billion in the first year alone.
The rest would be borrowed and spent — Mr. Carney prefers to say 'invested' — over the following three years.
Such is his promise to Canadians.
Amazingly, he's even making his predecessor look good. According to the most recent Fall Economic Statement, Mr. Trudeau was planning to borrow $100 billion less over the same period. Just the debt charges will be a further $5.6 billion more than Trudeau's plan. Altogether, interest charges already cost taxpayers more than $1 billion per week.
Second, while Mr. Poilievre's costed plan still calls for borrowing, it's a lot less — $34 billion over four years, as opposed to Mr. Carney's $225 billion — and includes a pledge to cut the deficit by 70 percent.
This is ambitious. Going cold turkey on debt reduction after nearly ten years of insouciant Liberal spending decisions is virtually impossible. (In Canada. Not so in the US, we note with approval.)
But Mr. Poilievre's plan also promises to cut $75 billion in taxes over four years, funded by spending reductions. That is at least a logical connection between intention and operation.
Indeed, the Conservative connection between unlocking resources to build homes and accelerate infrastructure projects liberates the private sector to do what, far more than the bureaucracies Mr. Carney lovingly contemplates, the private sector is best equipped to achieve.
Third, these two approaches, the Liberal and the Conservative are ciphers for the national mood.
Do Canadians want a government that for its legitimacy requires Canadians to be fearful — fearful of Donald Trump, of uncertainty, even of sunshine itself? Or, will Canadians choose a government that challenges them to be ambitious, to take the initiative for their own good and then liberates them to do it?
That might prevent an apocalyptic Canada.
Maybe.
It's certainly better than the robber-baron approach of tacking on the GST on homes.
Older voters are already have their homes.
In a disgusting display of apathy, these voters have agreed to vote for the candidate most likely to take their homes:
Caryma Sa’d has captured the definitive image of the Canadian federal election. Over the weekend, the independent journalist posted a photograph from an event in Brantford, Ontario for Mark Carney, the former Bank of England governor who has replaced Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader and prime minister. The pic shows an older gentleman appearing to give two middle fingers to the camera while similarly-aged Carney enthusiasts around him laugh. In isolation, just another snapshot from an ill-tempered election. In the context of this poll, a readymade icon of everything Carney’s critics say he stands for and everything his Conservative opponent Pierre Poilievre is against.
The two-finger salute has already become a meme. Legal scholar Yuan Yi Zhu tweeted the image with the caption: ‘The last thing you see before you are priced out of a house, forever.’ The YouTuber JJ McCullough combined it with a graph ranking real GDP-per-capita growth in OECD countries since 2015 — when the Liberals came to power — with Canada second from bottom. On Reddit, the man’s raised arms (and fingers) were mocked up as a Liberal poster complete with the slogan ‘elbows up’, a reference to Saskatchewanian hockey great Gordie Howe, a burly fellow prone to giving opponents the cubital treatment. (The term made a comeback in response to Donald Trump’s tariffs and threats to annex Canada, with Liberals in particular using it to rally the Canuck fighting spirit.) What might have been a fleeting moment of political bravado has been immortalised by Canada’s millennial and Gen Z Tories as the embodiment of boomer liberalism.Yes, I said millennial and Gen Z Tories. Electoral dynamics are a little topsy-turvy in the True North. As I noted on Coffee House last year, a significant segment of young’uns trend rightwards in Canada while the olds are the backbone of the centre-left vote. The election, which takes place on Monday, is forecast for a Liberal victory, with Carney’s Grits polling at 43 per cent to 37 per cent for Poilievre’s Tories. The crosstabs, however, reveal a stark generational divide. If the franchise was limited to 18-to-34 year olds, the Conservatives would narrowly win the contest; if only over 65s could vote, the Liberals’ victory would be even mightier.What’s that all about, then? In a word: boomers. The boomer, born roughly between 1946 and 1964, is the bête noire of Canadian right-wingery. He is a retired government employee on a generous public pension who came of age in times of plenty, bought his spacious house on the cheap, then pulled the ladder up behind him. He imagines himself to be an ageing hippie but grew up in North York in the Sixties where the closest he got to the counterculture was buying the White Album from Sam the Record Man.He watches, listens, streams and surfs the CBC. The progressive-minded public broadcaster is the source of all his independent thinking and Facebook the soapbox from which he regurgitates chapter and verse of last night’s edition of The National. If the CBC were a church, he would be a lay preacher. The Carney boomer reckons the young are lazy and entitled, Tory voters racist and stupid, and Americans crazy and tacky. He believes above all in the three most important Canadian values: peace, order and asset-hoarding.And his grandchildren have had it with gramps. As a young man, in the 1970s, he was hosed down with public spending and services by Trudeau père, and in the past decade, in his golden years, by Trudeau fils. His idea of paying it forward was to vote to ramp up immigration, stymie housebuilding, and shift the tax burden onto young workers. Between 1972 and 1976, at the height of Trudeaupia, housebuilding kept pace with demography, with annual population growth of 298,864 and annual housebuilding starts of 249,045.Compare this to 2022-24, the final years of Trudeaupia II, when the population shot up by 1,006,142 per annum — mostly thanks to immigration — but housebuilding starts languished at 249,161. (No, you’re not misreading that. Canada, with a population today of 41.5 million, is building the same number of houses per year as it did when the population was 23 million.) In 1980, the median family income was $23,894 (£12,917) and the median house price $47,200 (£25,000) but while the median family income hit $96,220 (£52,000) in 2020, the median cost of a house soared to $336,900 (£182,000). Little wonder that homeownership is going backwards: while 44.1 per cent of 25-to-29 year olds owned a home in 2011, that figure was down to 39.6 per cent by 2021. If only they hadn’t splurged so much on avocado toast.Boomers are going out of this world the way they came into it, on easy street, and whatever else might be said of them, they turn out to thank their benefactors at the polls. Since the mid-1960s, the Liberals have been in power for two-thirds of the time. The party is well aware where its support comes from, which is why Carney’s messaging is overtly targeted at seniors, complete with endorsements from fellow boomers and occasional Canadians Mike Myers and Neil Young, plus pledges to protect retirees’ savings from the impact of Trump’s tariffs. As National Post columnist Geoff Russ says, the Liberals are ‘mercenaries for the grey-haired and the asset-rich’. Meanwhile, Poilievre’s Conservatives are targeting working Canadians with promises to build 2.3 million new homes, cut taxes for first-time buyers, slash immigration and deport criminal migrants, and take an axe to federal spending. This is the platform that is winning over a considerable number of millennials and zoomers, while the baby boomers are flocking to the party of big-government progressivism.
Elbows and/or fingers up. #cdnpoli #Brantford #Elxn45 #ProtestMania pic.twitter.com/jTKswfmgVp
— Caryma Sa'd - Lawyer + Political Satirist (@CarymaRules) April 19, 2025
I thought that Carney wanted to take tougher approach against his Chinese fanciers:
Conservative candidate Joe Tay has suspended public campaigning in Don Valley North after Canadian security officials warned of threats tied to a Chinese government repression campaign targeting him.
Tay, a Hong Kong-Canadian democracy activist, faced a barrage of foreign interference, including mock “wanted” posters, disparaging online content, and efforts to suppress his name on Chinese-language social media platforms, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The campaign, linked to Hong Kong authorities and Beijing, intensified as Tay seeks a federal seat. The RCMP engaged with Tay to ensure his safety, prompting the candidate to halt in-person campaign events.
“My priority is the safety of my team and supporters,” Tay said in a statement.
Tay, who has a HK$1 million bounty on him from Hong Kong police for his pro-democracy activism, is among several Canadian politicians flagged for foreign interference risks.
Security officials briefed candidates on threats, with Tay’s case highlighting Beijing’s transnational efforts to silence critics abroad. The Conservative Party condemned the interference, calling for stronger measures to protect Canada’s electoral process.
“No candidate should face intimidation for their beliefs,” a party spokesperson said.
Paul Chiang, the former Liberal incumbent for Markham-Unionville, withdrew from the federal election on March 31 following backlash over comments he made in January suggesting people could claim the bounty by turning in Tay to the Chinese consulate in Toronto.
No one wants EVs, nor their pollution-causing batteries:
Electric vehicles were considered the way of the future just five short years ago. Today, the demand for electric vehicles (EVs) and EV battery plants is waning both in Canada and globally due to a wide range of factors.
Some of the issues cited in consumer surveys on purchasing EVs include the substantial cost disparity between EVs and gas-powered vehicles, worries about their driving range, reliability in cold weather, and the availability of charging facilities. Along with the repercussions of increased interest rates and inflation, all these factors have played a role in shaping consumer behaviour since 2020.
A consumer data report released in May 2024 by J.D. Power indicated that a notably smaller number of Canadians expressed interest in purchasing an electric vehicle compared to the year prior. Only 11 percent of new-vehicle shoppers in Canada say they are “very likely” to consider an EV for their next purchase, according to the report.
Why should we import sectarian violence?:
At least 26 people were killed and 17 others wounded after gunmen opened fire on a group of tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir, the worst assault in years targeting civilians in the restive region that has seen an anti-India rebellion for more than three decades.
Tuesday’s attack took place in the picturesque town of Pahalgam in the Himalayan mountains, popular with Indian visitors.
**
To my Canadian friends of Indian and Pakistani heritage — an honest question.
— DonaldBest.CA * DO NOT COMPLY (@DonaldBestCA) April 23, 2025
Another brutal “Convert or Die” massacre - this time in Pahalgam, Kashmir.
“Survivor accounts indicate the attackers targeted non-Muslims. They reportedly demanded victims recite Islamic verses and… https://t.co/GIfcox9KyC
The World Economic Forum announced on Tuesday that it has launched an investigation into its founder, Klaus Schwab, following a whistleblower letter alleging misconduct by the former chairman.The announcement came a day after the 87-year-old Schwab said he was resigning as chairman, effective immediately, without stating a reason.The Wall Street Journal, which first reported the probe, said an anonymous letter sent last week to the WEF's board raised concerns about its governance and workplace culture, including allegations that the Schwab family mixed their personal affairs with the forum's resources without proper oversight.The WEF "takes these allegations seriously, it emphasizes that they remain unproven, and will await the outcome of the investigation to comment further," the forum said in an emailed statement to Reuters. It did not provide details on the allegations.A spokesman for the Schwab family denied all the allegations in the whistleblower complaint, the Wall Street Journal reported. The spokesman also told the Journal that Klaus Schwab intends to file a lawsuit against whoever is behind the anonymous letter and "anybody who spreads these mistruths."
Elected officials and Catholic churchmen in Japan, too, mourn the loss of Pope Francis:
Japan joined the world in mourning after the Vatican proclaimed Pope Francis’ death on Easter Monday, commending the pontiff’s lifelong efforts in delivering the message of peace, which included a trip to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, in a statement issued Monday night, said he was extremely saddened to hear the news of the pope’s death.
“Since 2013, Pope Francis has dedicated himself to protecting the environment and promoting peaceful diplomacy with a strong voice supported by approximately 1.4 billion Catholics,” he said. “The demise of Pope Francis is not only a great loss for the people of Vatican and Catholics, but also for the international community.”
The prime minister and Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya also sent separate messages of condolence to the Vatican on Monday.
Japan's national flag was flown at half-staff in front of the Prime Minister's Office and other government buildings on Tuesday in mourning of the late pontiff, who is fondly remembered in the country for his historic 2019 visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki where he met with atomic bomb survivors and called on the world to abolish nuclear weapons. He was the first pope to visit Japan in 38 years.
Toshiyuki Mimaki, the co-chair of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nihon Hidankyo, a Japanese organization composed of atomic bombing survivors, said the pope’s death was “truly saddening.”
“Politicians stick to their respective ideologies and principles, which can lead to war, but the pope was different. He came across as a kind and compassionate person,” he said.
The Catholic community in Japan also mourned the loss of its leader.
In a letter addressed to members of the Catholic Church in Japan, Archbishop of Tokyo Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, who was made a cardinal by the late pope in December, offered his prayers and expressed his appreciation for the pope’s lifelong service.
“For the Church in Japan, it was a vivid and tangible experience of our shepherd's presence. We were spiritually set aflame by directly hearing his voice,” the cardinal wrote of the late pope’s Japan visit in 2019. “We have lost a powerful shepherd filled with love and compassion.”
The sister of Iwao Hakamata, a Catholic former death row inmate who was found not guilty and fully exonerated of a 1966 murder case last year, offered condolences during an interview, according to Jiji Press. Hideko Hakamata attended the papal Mass at the Tokyo Dome in 2019 in place of her brother, who could not attend due to illness, on Francis' invitation. They also received a letter and rosary from the late pope in January following the ex-boxer's exoneration.
With Francis' death, the Holy See is now vacant. The Catholic Church in Japan has two cardinals eligible to vote for a new pope — Kikuchi and Archbishop of Osaka-Takamatsu Thomas Aquinas Manyo Maeda, who Francis made a cardinal in 2018.
It will be only the second time in history that two Japanese cardinals join the conclave at the Sistine Chapel to elect a pope; in 2005, then-Cardinals Stephen Fumio Hamao and Peter Seiichi Shirayanagi voted in the conclave that elected Benedict XVI as the new pontiff following the death of Pope John Paul II.
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