@mpjgregoire (I will also add that it is well-known that the right does not succeed because of these radical ideas. It succeeds only when their opposition is divided. Same is true of the left.

Cf. BC Politics)

@mpjgregoire in short there is nothing interesting or innovative about Duhaime’s program. He is literally aping every single centre and right wing party in the democratic world. The National Post breathlessly holds him up as a lantern holder for the conservative movement. He is only following […]

@mpjgregoire come election time, the simplest answers get praised and rewarded. The challenges of governance await the victors. The reality of crisis management awaits them too. I have very little faith in the communications strategists, pollsters and populist podium bangers that they are […]

@mpjgregoire we have succeeded in raising a population to believe that government is a bad thing, that corporations are virtuous drivers of economic activity and that entire sectors of the economy (non-profits, social services, the arts, care-giving, community services) don’t exist or aren’t […]

@mpjgregoire it is now standard to run and get elected on the idea that

1. All deficits are bad
2. Corporate jobs cuts losses must be avoided at all costs.
3. Government job losses must be enacted as quickly as possible and will have no downstream effects.
4. Government waste always exists and […]

@mpjgregoire it is simplistic to think that government job cuts contribute to economic health while corporate jobs cuts diminish it.

Furthermore with the DOGE experiment still fresh in everyone’s minds, it is patently ridiculous to believe anyone who names a number like $47 billion in waste […]

@mpjgregoire even if folks in Quebec City feel their major employer is too big, how will their local economy cope with the loss of 15,000 or so good paying local jobs in a city where that number makes up 3% of all workers. The knock on effects would create a multiplayer throughout the city’s […]

@mpjgregoire on the one hand, we are this week decrying 60,000+ job losses in Canada. On the other we have leaders like this PROMISING to add another 20,000 to that number.

Why do we think that those 60,000 jobs were not also “wasteful” and products of bloated bureaucracy and corruption? The […]

@paige the parties who would be responsible for its implementation have been finely tuned and optimized to obtain and hold power in the current system. This creates a deep path dependancy which constrains any proposal that doesn’t look like what we already doing. The concentration of influence […]

@paige in BC we trusted citizens to design a system that would work for us. They spent a year designing it and put it to a vote. It received 58% of the votes in favour and a majority of people in every riding voted for it.

The threshold required to force its adoption was 60%. The government […]

@mpjgregoire I always found those prices charming. I think once with a friend we choose whiskies based on a random number between 1-100 applied to a price under $30 or something.

@mpjgregoire thanks. Just for you, the menu.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/jzq2ehqkr0f1m0ejeexm0/DamPub_WhiskeyMenu_COMPLETE.pdf?rlkey=e5exwdi3g1g0ukz0lnigyh83b&st=tbw5qg3e&dl=0

The end of an era. The Dam Pub in Meaford, Ontario closes.

https://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/the-parting-glass/

@harold just when I had a small thought again that maybe I should republish my blog posts on substack. Phew. Thanks for helping me remember why I dont in the first place.

This was a lot of words to try to avoid saying “Because Elon Musk is a fucking asshole.”

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/elon-musk-quebec-alberta-saskatchewan-separatism-9.7375364

@jfmezei @mpjgregoire this is good news. It means Alberta never existed so therefore it can never leave. Well done everyone!

All the ways sea levels get piled up on the west coast during storms and El Niño events. Fascinating!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/kelvin-wave-el-nino-climate-bc-9.7370049