Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week rendezvous with destiny ...

No country for anyone:

Prime Minister Mark Carney said Wednesday that Canada will recognize a State of Palestine at the United Nations in September as he accused the Israeli government of failing to “prevent the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian disaster in Gaza.”

(Sidebar: let's make something clear - I don't think that Palestine is a real country, that its squatters are separate from the Arabs, or that giving them more land will stop them from murder and inbreeding. I never signed off on this.)

After meeting with his cabinet Wednesday, Carney told reporters that the recognition was conditional on the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, going forward with significant reforms which include demilitarization and holding a general election in 2026.

Carney said Canada’s longstanding hope for a two-state solution negotiated between the Palestinian Authority and Israel was “no longer tenable” because of the war in Gaza.

“The deepening suffering of civilians leaves no room for delay in co-ordinated international action to support peace, security, and the dignity of all human life,” Carney said.

“The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable and is rapidly deteriorating,” he added.

Carney’s announcement was immediately condemned by the Israeli embassy, which said it rewards the 2023 terrorist attacks against Israel that started the war in Gaza.

Carney has satiated his diverse voters base.

There is no point in moral preening now.

Expect everything to get worse because nothing will satisfy the mob that thinks rape, murder, and burning corpses is logical discourse.

From the most transparent government in the country's history:

The Department of Transport has sealed all records regarding Confederation Bridge tolls until November 2026. Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday had no comment on costs of ongoing subsidies to the Bridge operator whose investors included then-Transport Minister Anita Anand’s husband: “It is the taxpayer who is getting dinged on that.”

Only totalitarian states monitor day trips:

Federal agents last year tracked more than 44 million trips by Canadians driving back and forth across the border, says a Canada Border Services Agency report. Drivers were monitored under a little-known surveillance program approved by cabinet six years ago: “Do you feel comfortable?”

But deportees cannot be found.

Interesting.

You voted for it, Canada:

Most Canadians say they pay too much federal tax under a system that punishes the middle class, says in-house Canada Revenue Agency research. Almost two thirds of people surveyed agreed that “rich people have an easier time tax cheating than middle class Canadians.”

**

The average Canadian family spent 42.3 per cent of their income on taxes in 2024, according to a new study from the Fraser Institute.

The report from the Fraser Institute showed the average Canadian family, which it estimates to have earned an income of $114,289 last year, paid about $48,306 in total taxes to federal, provincial, and municipal governments.

“At a time when the cost of living is top of mind across the country, taxes remain the largest household expense for Canadian families,” said Jake Fuss, director of fiscal studies at the Fraser Institute in a news release.

Researchers said the average tax bill totals more than 35.5 per cent for housing, food and clothing combined. Broken down further, about 22 per cent was spent on housing, 11 per cent on food and two per cent on clothing.

The study found the average Canadian Family only spent 33.5 per cent of their income on taxes in 1961, with 56.5 per cent going to basic necessities.

Canada is the second-biggest country on the planet:

The Department of National Defence is relying on “approximately 300” members of the Canadian Armed Forces to patrol the territories, an area six times the size of France, according to figures detailed in a briefing note. Allies were welcome to send troops to the Canadian Arctic, it said: “New activities aim to support a near year-round military presence.”

Like China?

Vaguely related:

Canadian prosecutors have quietly dropped charges against a Chinese scientist in Vancouver accused of importing more than 100 kilograms of a narcotics precursor, raising serious questions about her connections to Chinese academic programs and networks suspected of links to espionage, foreign interference, and transnational crime, The Bureau has learned.

The 57-year-old chemist, referred to here as Dr. X due to the unusual termination of the case, has documented affiliations with Chinese institutions flagged for military research and intelligence collaboration. According to filings from a bio-pharmaceutical company with ties to the University of British Columbia that hired her to lead large-scale cannabinoid extraction, Dr. X was reportedly working within Canadian universities under Beijing’s “Talents” plan—a recruitment initiative expanded under President Xi Jinping and described by U.S. intelligence as a platform for espionage and dual-use technology transfer.

British Columbia court records confirm that Dr. X, a graduate of Zhejiang University—an institution associated with China’s Ministry of State Security—was charged in June 2022 with importing and exporting a controlled substance.

Sources familiar with the court file informed The Bureau that Dr. X was accused of importing over 100 kilograms of PMK ethyl glycidate, a synthetic chemical widely used in the production of MDMA (ecstasy). Dr. X was allegedly caught retrieving the shipment in Richmond, British Columbia.

The Bureau’s investigation into her international academic, corporate, and legal affiliations reveals links to suspects, residences, and shipping hubs in Vancouver associated with the Sam Gor syndicate—a sprawling transnational drug cartel including triad leaders based in Vancouver and Toronto, with documented ties to Chinese Communist Party–aligned foreign influence networks operating across North America.

Despite the gravity of the charges and over ten court appearances for Dr. X within three years, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada issued a stay of proceedings on March 31, 2025, quietly shelving the unreported case without public explanation.

(Sidebar: if only this alleged culprit set up bouncy castles.)

Some people are special:

A federal fund for exhumation of suspected graves at Indian Residential Schools is heavily oversubscribed, says a report. First Nations have applied for more than $700 million in funding, triple the original budget: “The actual number of individuals buried, or cemetery sites associated with Residential Schools, is unknown.”

It's only money and a non-monopoly entity:

Ontario has officially cancelled its $100-million contract with Starlink, but the province refuses to say how much it cost taxpayers to get out of the deal.

Energy and Mines Minister Stephen Lecce did not answer numerous questions Wednesday about the kill fee the province will have to pay Elon Musk's SpaceX.

"I can confirm we've cancelled the contract at this point, and we look forward to bringing forth alternatives to the people of Ontario so we can get people connected," Lecce said at an unrelated press conference.

Spite can be expensive.

Canada Is One of the World's Most Resource-Rich Countries ...

But we won't use any of them:

The federal government’s new law designed to fast-track major projects has put the true meaning of UNDRIP’s “free, prior and informed consent” provisions under the spotlight. At the core of the issue is a simple question: does “consent” mean an Indigenous veto over projects, even those in the public interest?

While the prime minister and his justice minister have tried to walk a delicate line to avoid making that commitment, British Columbia has gone all-in on the veto approach.

Under the auspices of B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People’s Act, Premier David Eby has admitted that provincially significant projects on Crown land will not be expedited under its own fast-track law without the consent of Indigenous groups. At the same time, an effective veto is already being written into a growing number of agreements with Indigenous groups covering vast swaths of the province.

One example is the shíshálh Foundation Agreement, which gives varying degrees of decision-making power over 1.2 million acres of public land on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast to an Indigenous government representing just 1,700 people. Under the agreement, all applications for all Land Act decisions in the region will now go through a shared, consent-based or even exclusive shíshálh decision-making process.

This agreement is rightly seen as a precursor to more deals across the province, despite the fact that its consent-based arrangements are exactly what forced the government to pause its contentious Land Act amendments last year after significant public blowback.

Government documents state that “consent” means that “both the Province and a First Nation must approve an authorization before it can be issued.” It is difficult to see how consent, in this case, amounts to anything other than veto, despite official denials in this regard  

In the shíshálh case, the consent provisions “require shíshálh Nation and B.C. to agree to the proposed activity before a provincial decision authorizing the activity.” In other words, even if a proposed activity is in the broader public interest, authorizations will not be issued without shíshálh Nation’s approval.

The agreement goes even further, with a commitment “to explore an exclusive decision-making agreement.” This “would recognize the ‘jurisdiction’ of shíshálh to make decisions in relation to specified matters, with the Province stepping back from decision-making on those matters.”

There is no legal basis in Canadian law for exclusive Indigenous decision-making over public lands, yet the province admits it would not be at the decision table at all — leaving the public interest totally unrepresented.

Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week yarn-fest ....

It’s just money:

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly yesterday announced $1.9 million in federal aid to a production company currently in bankruptcy proceedings. “Congratulations,” Joly said in announcing the subsidy for her hometown Just For Laughs Festival that owes creditors millions.

**

Canadians fear job losses with a recession likely by 2026, says in-house Bank of Canada research. The new data released yesterday followed Governor Tiff Macklem’s forecast that another interest rate cut was likely: “Consumers, especially young people, continued to report a higher-than-average chance of losing their job.”

 

All crimes are political.

But don’t take my word for it:

A Quebec woman who travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and marry one of its fighters, has pleaded guilty to one count of participating in the activities of a terrorist group.

A Quebec court judge agreed to a joint submission from the federal Crown and lawyers for Oumaima Chouay — she will serve one day in custody in addition to the 110 days she spent in pretrial detention, and be on probation for three years. As part of her guilty plea, three other terror-related charges were stayed.

**

Funnily enough, just last week, another notable convicted criminal recently got a sentence of seven years. His name is Jamal Joshua Malik Wheeler, whose criminal record in July 2023 included three attacks on total strangers on Edmonton’s public transit system. He mugged one transit rider using an axe, which got him a 14-month sentence. He punched another, sending him onto the LRT tracks. He sprayed three others with bear spray.

He was out on bail, conditions of which included staying away from public-transit property, when he fatally stabbed 52-year-old father of six Rukinisha Nkundabatware, a total stranger. Originally charged with second-degree murder, Wheeler was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter. And yes, his sentence was seven years — the ridiculously low end of the Crown’s ask.

And then on Monday, the Crown, defence and judge in a Quebec courtroom coughed up an absolute hall-of-fame sentence. In October 2014, Oumaima Chouay admits, she decamped for Turkey and then Syria, and signed up with the nice folks at ISIL. She married a fellow traveller, had two kids, and in 2017 was captured and imprisoned by Syrian Democratic Forces. Canada brought her home in 2022.

Chouay pleaded guilty to participating in a terrorist group’s activities, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years. Her sentence, no word of a lie: One day, plus three years of probation.

“The recommended sentence here takes into consideration the early, ongoing, demonstrated and independently evaluated steps … Chouay has taken to demonstrate remorse, take responsibility, (and) commit to fundamental change and a rejection of extremist ideology,” Director of Public Prosecutions George Dolhai said in a statement. “This addresses the ultimate goal of protecting the community.”

Accepting that for the sake of somewhat dubious argument, there are other goals to sentencing, among them denunciation and deterrence. Indeed, one argument for throwing the book at Lich and Barber is to redress public outrage over the Ottawa occupation. I dare say there’s a fair degree of public outrage in Canada over citizens taking up arms with ISIL and repeat offenders reoffending yet again while out on bail — sometimes with lethal consequences.

Apparently that’s not worthy of redress.

A popular grassroots movement that humiliated the village idiot is, as it seems, far more egregious a crime that joining a terrorist group or murder.

A real sh—hole:

Nanaimo, B.C.’s downtown drug experiment has failed to stabilize its overdose rate. It has managed, however, to line the city’s oldest streets with feces, garbage, hit-and-runs, doorway fires and damaged property — a situation so bad that city council, just last week, considered fortifying its parking lot with a 1.8-metre fence.

City council ultimately rejected that $412,000 proposal — which might be for the best, considering how everyone else in the area wouldn’t be entitled to its protection. But the fact it was even pondered to begin with is an indictment of “harm reduction” in the little city — and a warning to everyone else who wants to try it.

A good chunk of Nanaimo’s homeless services are concentrated downtown. Since December 2022, the city’s lone safe injection site is located to the immediate east of city hall. Prior to that, it was in a building across the street, where it caused escalating issues of “entrenched homelessness, open-air drug use, and street-level trafficking,” according to a report to council.

A two-minute drive to the southeast of city hall is another cluster of homeless services known as the Hub, which opened in January. Between the two is the city’s Nob Hill Park, which harbours disorder and is known as a place to avoid by locals, who, in turn, want the homeless services moved.

Resident Jean Fox, who lives steps from the park, told the council’s finance committee on Wednesday that her 82-year-old husband’s woodworking tools were stolen from their house as they slept; officers later recovered the tools from carts outside the Hub. As for the park, well, Fox can’t take her granddaughters there anymore because of all the drug users who sit there during the day.

“There’s human feces in the park,” she said. “They pull their pants down in front of our window that looks into the park and relieve themselves. They walk around with their pants hanging down and their bums hanging out.”

Anthony Gratl, currently renovating his rental house in the area — where he raised his son several years ago with no problems — reported that he “was attacked last week when I asked somebody to move off of my property.” Now, meth smokers congregate in the area, waiting for the pharmacy to open. “The situation is well out of control.”

Leslie Girard, another father in the area, has had to deal with garbage, physical and verbal abuse and even human feces at his fence since the Hub facility was opened in January. He reported that overnight shelter users even held a dog fight on one occasion.

The residents’ observations are backed by city statistics, which show that the RCMP has received just over 500 calls for service in the area surrounding the Hub from January to June. But even these are of limited use: the root cause of this widespread chaos — open-air drug use — is virtually off-limits for police.

 

And who is going to make them leave?:

For too long, Canadians have been misled about the benefits of largely unchecked immigration growth.

Between 2016 and 2023, an average of 612,000 people were admitted annually to Canada on a permanent and temporary basis. There were assurances made that it was all beneficial, while the consequences for housing, wages, or jobs were downplayed.

While in the past a well managed immigration system has been good for Canada, the most recent data reveal the supposed benefits of the Liberals’ mass immigration plans were all a sham.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) announced recently that advertised rents had fallen across major Canadian cities. The July 8 report projects that, compared to last year, the cost of renting a two-bedroom apartment declined in the first quarter of 2025 by 4.9 per cent in Vancouver, 3.7 per cent in Toronto, and 4.2 per cent in Halifax.

What is causing this relief?

According to the CMHC report, much of this decline occurred alongside the reduction in international students and non-permanent residents allowed into Canada.

This contradicts the received wisdom, and the views of lobby groups like the Century Initiative and others who downplayed or overlooked the impact of recklessly growing the population. As late as 2023, Macleans was publishing articles declaring that “limiting immigration isn’t the solution” to the housing crisis. If slashing the annual intake is not a silver bullet for fixing affordability, it certainly has not worsened it.

For years, immigrationists asserted that this immigration-driven demographic expansion was worth it, despite the risks of a dwindling housing supply, a rising cost of living, and a flooded job market.

 

Also:

The TFWP was designed as a stopgap — an emergency tool for employers unable to find domestic workers. In many industries, such as agriculture and seafood processing, that rationale still holds. But in food service — particularly in urban and suburban markets — it has become something else: A structural labour strategy aimed at suppressing wages, lowering turnover, and sidestepping long-term investments in human capital.

The numbers tell the story. In 2021, according to Statistics Canada, about 140,000 temporary residents — many under the TFWP — were employed in accommodation and food services, accounting for 17% of all temporary foreign workers in Canada. That same year, foreign nationals represented roughly 10% of the overall food service workforce. In certain quick-service chains, the concentration was even higher, effectively displacing Canadian youth from traditional workforce entry points.

Between 2018 and 2023, employer approvals for low-wage food service positions through the TFWP surged more than 4,800%. This is no longer a temporary fix — it is institutional dependency.

The economic cost is subtle but significant: A generation of young Canadians has been pushed to the sidelines. Historically, more than one-quarter of Canadians began their working lives in food service or hospitality. These jobs have long served as a training ground for interpersonal skills, time management, and resilience — essential soft skills for the broader labour market. We’ve now outsourced that social utility to temporary labour.

 

Tell me who owns without actually telling me who owns you:

Housing policy should reflect “the rich cultural mosaic of Canadian society” with Sharia loans, says a CMHC consultants’ report. Financing according to Muslim law “sets a precedent for inclusivity,” said the censored Access To information study: “The introduction of an element of Sharia law into the Canadian legislative regime would be a serious precedent.”

 

The real goal (aside from removing symbols of religions that curry no favour with the “post-national state” set) is get Canadians used to and even endorse and carry out what was heretofore considered distasteful and thuggish acts of censorship from past regimes:

The Liberal government is weighing the criminalization of displaying terror and hate symbols, a potentially precedent-setting move in Canada that has prompted concerns about civil liberties.

It’s not yet clear if a possible ban would focus on specific symbols, like the swastika, or if it would broadly cover any symbols related to designated terror groups. And no final decision has yet been made on whether to go through with the Criminal Code reforms, which were being mulled by the Trudeau government prior to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s ascent to the Liberal leadership and his victory in the spring election, according to a transition briefing to the minister of justice from March 2025 that was made public last week.

During that campaign, Carney’s Liberals, who are now preparing to introduce a crime bill this fall, committed to bail reforms, the criminalization of “obstruction” and “intimidation” outside of places of worship and other community spaces, among other things.

Criminalizing hate and terror symbols, however, was not in the Liberal platform, even though it has been requested repeatedly by Jewish groups in Canada.

In a statement to the Star, the Department of Justice confirmed the matter was still under consideration as the government looks at options for tackling a rising number of hate crimes, but it did not indicate what direction it was leaning towards.

 

Oh, I think we know.

 

We don’t have to trade with China:

A bioweapons expert likely to head the Trump administration’s top Pentagon post for countering weapons of mass destruction has charged in a new report that the Covid-19 pandemic was probably the result of a military-research-related accident in a Chinese laboratory, and that work at that lab may have been part of research China was conducting in possible violation of a treaty banning biological weapons.

The report also asserts that China knew even before the outbreak that the SARS-CoV-2 virus appeared to have severe, enduring neurological effects. “The risk of further neurological injury as the result of subsequent reinfection is unclear and should be an urgent research priority,” the report concludes.

**

The Canadian military and possibly the coast guard are keeping tabs on a Chinese research vessel as it returns to Arctic waters off Alaska for the second year in a row.

Data compiled by an independent researcher and ship tracker, Steffan Watkins, shows a Canadian air force CP-140 surveillance plane was flying in the vicinity of the Xue Long (Snow Dragon) 2 as it exited the Bering Strait on Sunday.

 The aircraft, according to Watkins's research, relocated to Anchorage, Alaska, from its base in Comox, B.C., on July 9. It has conducted four patrols since then, including the most recent one involving the vessel, which is China's first domestically built polar research ship.

 Despite publicly available flight tracking showing the CP-140's patrol route, the Department of National Defence would not confirm on Monday the presence of the aircraft.

 

We can't all be honour students:

Wow. If anyone was wondering how the Liberals got re-elected, this is how. pic.twitter.com/Ksviot4zlE

— G.M. Forbes (@gmforbes35) July 22, 2025

So, you're not a taxpayer then?

Also:

The Canadian Nurses Association’s 2025 Code of Ethics for Nurses denounces what it calls the “white, European-centric” foundations of modern medicine and compels nurses to adopt a broad set of radical, progressive political beliefs as part of their professional duties.

Regulated Canadian nurses are now required to align their conduct with a detailed set of political values — among them, social justice, gender ideology, Indigenous belief systems, and climate activism.

Nurses are now required to acknowledge “the historical and continuous impact that White, European-centric models of nursing and health have on the perpetuation of anti-Indigenous racism, anti- Black racism, and other types of racism.”

What can go wrong?

 

Canada the Most Unfair

Article 58 was not in that division of the Code dealing with political crimes; and nowhere was it categorized as “political.” No. It was included, with crimes against public order and organized gangsterism, in a division of “crimes against the state.” Thus the Criminal Code starts off by refusing to recognize anyone under its jurisdiction as a political offender. All are simply criminals.

 

(The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, pg. 70) 

 

All crimes in Canada are political:

Ottawa Crown prosecutors are seeking a seven-year prison sentence for Tamara Lich and an eight-year sentence for her co-accused Chris Barber over their roles in organizing the 2022 anti-mandate Freedom Convoy—despite acknowledging the protest was peaceful and largely non-violent.

The sentencing hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, July 23, in Ottawa. The Crown alleges the protest amounted to “mass mischief” and an “attack on essential values of democracy,” arguing the demonstration’s impact justifies lengthy prison terms. But the move reeks of political retribution, particularly given the lack of criminal history of the pair. 

 

Let this sink in: 

The ruling in question involved Mr. Samarpreet Singh, a student visa holder working as a Bell Canada technician, who was found guilty of "committing an indecent act with the intent to insult or offend" after he exposed himself to a female customer while alone with her in her basement apartment.

Regarding the sentencing, Garner wrote: "This pervert—who isn't a permanent resident—was given 90 days’ house arrest with a conditional sentence, so that it wouldn’t go on his permanent record, so he would have a chance to stay in Canada. He should be deported."

** 

Rukinisha Nkundabatware was stabbed to death by a random stranger on July 9th, 2023, as he tried to ride the LRT in Edmonton. He was 54 and left seven children behind. Ironically, he had escaped the violent, impoverished world of Congo, only to be murdered due to Canada’s pathetic justice system.

Jamal Wheeler killed Nkundabatware in cold blood. He didn’t know his victim nor was he provoked by the victim. Wheeler has a thing with trying to kill people at LRT stations. It's an established pattern for him.

He had been convicted for attacking people with pepper spray at a station.

He had been convicted for pushing a person onto the train tracks at a station and he had been convicted of attacking people with an axe at a station. Limp-wristed sentencing ensured Wheeler was released repeatedly until he finally managed to kill a man.

 

 

Your Wasteful, Controlling, Inept Government and You

Elbows up, everybody!:

Canada’s Privy Council Office (PCO) has a behavioural science unit established under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that quietly shapes public policy and influences citizen compliance through psychological experiments and data modelling.

The Impact and Innovation Unit (IIU), which bases its framework on a UK government initiative and tools issued by the World Health Organization (WHO), has quietly pioneered its approach to behaviour change using psychology, economics and social sciences for years  — but its role became most visible in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The IIU conducts behaviour-modifying trials and public “challenges” that test government communication strategies and incentives to encourage compliance with government objectives. 

According to an IIU summary of its first two years on its website, the government spent more than $720 million on “outcomes-based funding programs” and ran at least 10 behavioural trials aimed at altering public response.

 

You can't hate the village idiot enough. 

You just can't. 

 

Vaguely related:

So if you think a 16-year-old is capable of making decisions affecting the fate of the country, and perhaps even the course of world history, fine. But then why wouldn’t they be old enough to buy a bottle of Scotch, or drive without restrictions, or marry someone several years older than them?

It’s because society has set the age of 18 (or 19 in some Canadian provinces) as the cutoff point for when people become adults capable of making their own decisions in the eyes of the law.

There’s no doubt that this is an arbitrary number. Perhaps it should be 14 given that, throughout much of history, people that young were given adult responsibilities. Or maybe it should be closer to 30, around the time when the human brain stops developing.

Regardless, we need to come up with some number to legally differentiate the age at which parents are no longer responsible for their children and young adults are responsible for their own actions.

(Sidebar: good luck with that.) 

Yet given that England and Wales raised the age at which people can legally marry from 16 to 18 just two years ago, it seems odd that the country now wants to give new freedoms to people who just had other rights stripped away — not to mention the fact that the age at which people can legally run for office will remain at 18.

Only from a political perspective does this change make any sense.

YouGov polling in the 2024 election found that only eight per cent of 18-29-year-olds supported the Conservatives, while a plurality voted for Starmer’s Labour party. But support for the Tories increased steadily by age, peaking at 46 per cent (compared to 20 for Labour) among the over-70 crowd.

That pattern didn’t hold in the last Canadian election, when exit polls found that a plurality of young adults voted Conservative, while those over 55 tended to favour the Liberals. Yet historically, the left-right split based on age has generally held true in this country — and for good reason.

 

 

Some people are special: 

It would be unthinkable for Parliament to renege on trade protection for dairy farmers, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet said yesterday. Blanchet blamed media for unfairly criticizing the quota system, calling it “a matter of policy.”

 

Yes, the expensive protecting Quebec policy: 

Supply management (SM) is a complex set of government policies that restricts production, marketing, and trade of dairy and poultry in Canada. At its core, SM is a textbook cartel in which producers collude to fix production at the national level, and set prices charged to processors who make the consumer food products sold in restaurants and grocery stores. Such collusion is illegal in other industries — food and elsewhere — but is mandated in SM through government policies.

Some market outcomes of these policies are high and stable incomes for producers, high consumer prices for dairy and poultry products, and smaller farms. ...

First, the level of support provided to SM producers is much higher; the OECD estimates that SM policies in Canada account for approximately one-third of gross farm receipts for SM producers. This is multiples higher than support provided to field crop and other livestock producers. It is noteworthy, too, that recipients of this support are relatively high-income households; average household income for dairy and poultry farm families is more than double the average income of the Canadian households who pay for the support through higher food prices (approximately $245,000 for SM farm families compared to the Canadian average of $116,000).

Second, the source of funding for support to SM producers comes from an implicit tax on food, not from government transfers. This has important implications. Support to other agricultural producers is funded from government revenues, much of which is raised through a progressive tax system and does not significantly affect food prices.

On the other hand, SM’s implicit food tax has regressive distributional effects, imposing a heavier burden on low-income households who spend larger shares of their incomes on food; this implicit tax rate is five times higher for low-income households than for high-income households. Our research shows that support for SM is higher among people who support progressive redistribution policies, despite SM doing precisely the opposite through a regressive tax on consumers and by supporting the incomes of relatively high-income families.

The opacity of how cartelized production and import restrictions increase prices is a feature, not a bug, of the system. The effects of these policies are difficult to understand without formal training in economics. Also, these policy tools allow lobby groups to claim that the system isn’t subsidized ($5 billion in payments to SM interest groups in the wake of recent trade agreements notwithstanding), while at the same time, admitting that “consumers pay twice for most food, once through their taxes (whether they buy it or not), and again at the grocery counter,” with the exception of dairy, poultry and egg products.

 

The Soviets, too, had such a system. 

 

Also - so slavery IS acceptable in Canada: 

A group of Quebec business owners have launched a $300 million lawsuit against the federal government this month, arguing they’re facing bankruptcy if Ottawa goes ahead with its plan to reduce the number of foreign workers coming into Canada.

The heads of the 23 businesses, which make everything from steel products to winter jackets and airplane parts, say temporary foreign workers are essential to stay afloat.

With Ottawa is pushing to reduce the number of permits it issues, employers are upset.

“The federal government from 2021 to 2024 has said to those enterprises, ‘You can count on foreign workers as much as you like,’” said the lawyer representing the business owners, Frédéric Bérard. “And all of a sudden, they decided to flip the table and say, ‘Well, forget about that, we’re changing the rules.’”

He said the business owners want to cover their losses.

 

But what of adolescents who want summer employment?

Why hire outside the country when your friend's niece could use a job slinging ice cream?

And let's not forget the astronomical renting prices.

Perhaps we should let the youth vote.

After all, they know the party that is screwing them over. 

 

And:

New rental construction remains slow despite a multi-billion dollar tax holiday for builders enacted two years ago, new CMHC data show. Then-Housing Minister Sean Fraser had predicted the tax break would “have a major impact.” 

 

 

Oh, I would say that we got ripped off:

From 2021 to 2023, Canadians were told that prices jumped largely because of supply-chain bottlenecks, government spending on income supports and other pandemic-related issues.  

 If so, shouldn’t those temporary increases disappeared once the pandemic subsided and those glitches were repaired?

 While inflation may have since been tamed, Statistics Canada’s monthly inflation figures show that the pandemic-era price hikes survived.

Are consumers getting ripped off by not seeing prices slide back again?

Under typical circumstances, we would have seen some inflation, likely within the Bank of Canada’s “normal” band of between one and three per cent a year, even without the pandemic. Instead, the Consumer Price Index saw the annual rate jolt to 3.4 per cent in 2021, soar to 6.8 per cent in 2022, and load another nearly four per cent onto prices in 2023.  That additional inflation that was supposed to be because of the impacts of COVID-19.

 Yet, more than five years after the deadly virus started to spread, and two years after the pandemic was declared over, we seem to still be paying for those price hikes. ...

 Is there a chance that some of the pandemic spike in prices could still be eliminated if the world enjoys a period of relative peace, with no disruptive shocks?

Andolfatto, at the University of Miami, said prices could in theory still come down in some markets, but that would be a function of changes in supply and demand at that time, not anything to do with what occurred during the pandemic.

 But that’s unlikely to happen in Canada in the near term, Andolfatto said,  because governments haven’t taken steps to reduce the extra demand in the economy.  

 

 

 

Knowing the brain-trusts in this country, this totalitarian dictate will be screwed up upon implementation and it will certainly cost too much:

Federal consultants have been hired at an undisclosed cost to centralize all public requests for federal documents into one digital ID system, says the Department of Social Development. The proposal is so complex it required “expertise we don’t have in-house,” said a department briefing note: “We are moving to next steps.”

 

 

Again with the lumber:

The Canada-U.S. softwood lumber trade relationship has dealt with ups and downs, disputes and resolutions, for decades. Anxiety for Canadian exporters is reaching a fever pitch again as the U.S. threatens to more than double softwood lumber duties and add even steeper tariffs under a national security investigation.

 Canadian foresters, mills, and governments that enjoy taxes, economic spinoffs and stumpage fees from Crown land will feel the pain if they lose too much access to the massive U.S. market. But larger producers have been preparing for just this kind of contingency and have cleverly hedged their bets, building capacity in the U.S., where they can sell as much as they want to Americans, tariff-free.

 

 

There is no way that Carney will reduce the size of government nor will he let a pipeline be built.

Remember that he is the architect of a "carbon-free" region, not merely its shadow:

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government says it’s launching a spending review. And Ottawa’s union bosses are playing Chicken Little, yelling that the sky will fall if the government finally saves money.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees called the potential savings “draconian rollbacks” and promised to “fight to defend against the devastating impacts that Mr. Carney’s cuts will have.”

The Public Service Alliance of Canada says government savings “will hurt everyone in Canada who depends on vital public services.”

If more government spending and bureaucrats meant better results, why is everything from potholes to hospital wait times still a problem? All taxpayers seem to get out of the bureaucrat hiring binge are higher taxes and a bigger debt bill.

The numbers behind the bulging bureaucracy are bonkers.

The federal bureaucracy cost taxpayers $40 billion in 2016. The bureaucracy now costs taxpayers about $70 billion. That’s more than a 70% increase.

Ask yourself: Are you seeing anywhere close to 70% better services from Ottawa’s bureaucracy?

Taxpayers are paying for 99,000 more bureaucrats today than 10 years ago. Taxpayers would save about $7 billion annually had the federal bureaucracy grown in line with population growth over the last decade.

The Canada Revenue Agency added the second greatest number of employees over the decade, adding 13,015 employees since 2016 – a 33% increase.

Are you finding it any easier to reach CRA bureaucrats?

“We’re flooded with complaints,” the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson said, as filings about the CRA spiked 45% from pre-COVID levels.

The government also rubber-stamped more than $1.5 billion in bonuses since 2015 and handed out more than one million pay raises over the last four years.

What have bureaucrats done to merit extra taxpayer cash?

The government posts data on department performance results for the last five years. In three of those years, departments couldn’t meet half of their targets. Their best year was 2023, when departments met 52% of their targets.

Instead of fearmongering, government union bosses should be honest with their members about a simple truth: The biggest threat to bureaucrats’ paycheques is interest on the debt.

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Given that the Canadian economy relies so heavily on its resource sector for economic growth, Trudeau’s actions helped lead to the kind of anemic economic growth that Canada has experienced over the past 10 years. It’s what many refer to as the “lost decade.”

However, to ensure the lost decade doesn’t continue, and that the private sector does in fact come forward with a new pipeline proposal, there are a number of federal policies on the books that need to be repealed. As Smith said several weeks ago, “until we address the… terrible policies that have damaged investor confidence, we’re not going to get proponents coming forward with major projects.”

Two of those terrible policies are the tanker ban and the emissions cap, both of which the Carney government has said it intends to keep in place.

But a pipeline to B.C.’s north coast isn’t feasible if the tanker ban remains in place. The Trudeau-era cap on emissions for the oil and gas sector will have to go as well if Carney is serious about significantly expanding Canada’s oil and gas production.

Once again, Carney is putting the country’s energy future in a bind. On the one hand, he says an oil pipeline to the B.C. coast is likely to be labelled a project of national importance by his government. But on the other, he has empowered Eby with a veto and refuses to address the tanker ban and emissions cap policies that are, in Smith’s very own words, damaging investor confidence.