The bullshit is Oil cos can afford to build these things themselves, if they really want to. they’ve got permission, but they won’t throw down the money, because it wouldn’t be profitable for them. So why would it be profitable for Canada to do it?

It might create a few construction jobs short term, maybe. But realistically, the oil and gas industry relies pretty heavily on automation, and most of the companies involved are not even Canadian.

But you can still imagine convincing poeple to say they support the construction of a pipeline. “Do you think Canada needs to be more of a producer and net exporter of energy? Do you think energy production is leverage we can use to defend ourselves? Given that the petrol industry has significantly boosted Canada’s economy, and unemployment is above 6%, do you think we need these big expensive government projects to give people jobs? Do you worry about the resilience of the CPP given Canada’s dwindling manufacturing sector, or the decline of Canadian tech innovators?” etc etc etc

if you ask right (or arguably wrong) questions, you’ll get a yes. it may not reliably measure sentiment towards overreliance on the oil and gas industry.

or maybe it does, what do I know

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks

I should have voted for the NDP, and I should have convinced the rest of complex to also vote NDP. and the NDP should have campaigned here more than once, and reached the people who aren’t living in mcmansions and driving cybertrucks. and I should have volunteered for the NDP

forgive me

i mean, they aren’t wrong… but shut the fuck up Moscow?

Something about this… I would want the storage to be offline, and collected at the point of an event with signoff from a judge, not another flock of virtually 24/7 camera streaming data to a datacenter somewhere.

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I feel this. But also, you aren’t the only one in your community feeling like this. And you aren’t wrong, there is a lot of horror out there. But there are also a -lot- of people who give a shit, and we need to talk to each other more, face to face. We need to be building movements locally and having more of a shared understanding.

I want you to organize a barbecue with your neighbors, start a club, join a band, listen to the middle aged poet at open mic, whatever it is, and start listening to people around you. You have more in common with them than you think, and as a group, you can level each other out, enjoy life, and maybe even help steer the boat away from the iceberg, just a lil bit 🤏

can more canadians please let your mps know you’re not into having backdoors in supposedly secure platforms that criminals would take advantage of?

We’re easy marks, we grow up with no real identity to be proud of, no real connection to a canonical past, very little in common with our white neighbours. It’s very easy to make us blame tall women or ethnic and racial minorities for our problems, people who don’t line up with the fairy tale we’re told. We elect the folksy white guy who is looking out for himself and his rich friends, and when we can’t find a home we can afford or have to wait 4 hours in the ER, when we aren’t the center of the world, it’s easy to blame someone near us but superficially different, who we probably don’t even talk to because we are looking at screens 20 hours a day.

but we’re all in the same meat grinder together, except for the people turning the crank

Oil companies tend to be fairly multinational, and are perfectly able to spawn shell corporations or even hire local authentic corporations to push their aims. As an example, you can look at Lauren Chen, who operated Tenet Media, essentially a shell company to pay north americans to push a certain narrative to advance the aims of another group.

Would it be a huge shock to find out some conglomerate like Koch Industries or ExxonMobil were involved in an astroturf campaign in Alberta, or maybe the western cape, or other similar oil rich areas?

what are we even doing in this country dude?

I’ve been singing along in the car every time it comes on since last year. I am that much of a dork. great tune. Most of his work is a bit folky/bluegrassy for my taste but it grows on you

I don’t claim to have the most sophisticated view on this.

There are some attractive aspects to being a part of the EU at the moment, but they could become less attractive, after building a major dependence on them, at which point leaving would be extremely harmful and difficult. In some ways, a bit like being so close with the USA, but moreso. And while Canada’s voting could help to mitigate that in theory, the chairman of the IDU being Stephen Harper and our mass export of freaks like JP or Lauren Chen suggests we’re not unlikely to fuck it up (wish it were not so, it’d be almost like giving Florida EU membership).

I think what could make sense is having a very strong relationship with the EU, including some bilateral regulations, maybe even some pooled funding for shared purposes, without necessarily being fully managed by the EU, and without necessarily having undue influence within the EU.

clearly the greatest province in Canada

if they wanted people to raise families, they wouldn’t list detached houses with no yards (not even fancy mansions that are all over the place too) for (not joking) 4.6 million right off a major arterie, its absurd

I am opposed to antisemitism, I’ve seen people spewing some vile shit, and we don’t need to tolerate hate speech, especially that which is amplified on Twitter.

But we don’t need to conflate criticism of Israel or the violent settler colonialism with anti-semitism, and we don’t need to pretend it’s something other than what it is. If we did, what would that say about our own commitment to truth and reconciliation?

Everyone who can vote in the byelections in Toronto should try to keep them from having a majority, so that there’s more room to compromise a bit between labor and business

you just wrote a long shpiel about AI datacenter jobs none of us want in response to a topic about cuts to soft power and preventing the spread of an epidemic that killed millions in the 1980s

I think there are a number of tangible benefits, from public health to promoting Canada’s image and creating good will with trading partners. It’s also good for Canadian morale, where we can see ourselves as producing positive change in the world.

That said, we do need to invest in ourselves and create more positive change within our own country too, and maybe prioritize it more. But just because the US abandons soft power and diplomacy doesn’t mean we should too.

“we want a diplomatic solution! you know, the kind where you kidnap and sentence their leader to death, or just outright blow them up, and then extract any precious resources theyve got while propping up a corrupt west-friendly government after tearing up previous diplomatic agreements! you know, diplomacy!”