If Kamala Harris were proposing that the federal government take ownership stakes in private companies, I can hazard a guess that Republicans would loudly oppose it. What’s going on with a party that has traditionally opposed government ownership of the means of production?
The Trump administration is in talks with the likes of Rigetti Computing (RGTI), IonQ (IONQ) and D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) to take equity stakes in them in exchange for federal funding, according to the Wall Street Journal.
At this point, I doubt that any measures are going to amount to anything other than flogging a dead horse.
Ottawa said the corporation is losing about $10 million per day, despite providing a $1-billion injection earlier this year to keep it operational. Since 2018, Canada Post has accumulated more than $5 billion in losses including more than $1 billion last year alone.
But Canada Post’s business model is meant to support communities across the country — especially those in remote locations who are hardest for private firms to reach — rather than chase profits, said Ann Armstrong, a professor at the University of Toronto’s Institute for Management and Innovation.
“There is something sacrosanct about a postal service,” she said.
“It seems to me the model is perfectly viable and needs to be preserved, if perhaps costs and so on need to be adjusted.”
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s plan to let the Canada Revenue Agency automatically file millions of Canadians’ tax returns is facing backlash from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which says the month-long consultation preceding the rollout was a “sham” designed to rubber-stamp a power grab by bureaucrats.
The CRA’s consultation ran for only one month, from September 9 to October 9, ending just a day before Carney’s announcement on Friday. The consultation sought online feedback from individuals and organizations about expanding “automatic tax filing” services.
The government says the program, starting in 2026, will help up to 5.5 million low-income Canadians receive benefits they’re missing, such as the GST/HST credit and Canada Child Benefit.
Critics, however, say Ottawa’s timeline shows the outcome was pre-determined.
“Carney plans to give CRA more power with automatic tax filing,” said Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s Federal Director Franco Terrazzano. “Trusting the taxman to do your return is like trusting your dog to protect your burger. CRA acting as both tax filer and tax collector is a serious conflict of interest.”
Terrazzano mocked the idea that meaningful input was possible within hours of the consultation closing. “There’s no way bureaucrats pulled an all-nighter reading through thousands of submissions before sending Carney out to make an announcement the next morning,” he said. “Asking Canadians for their opinion and then ignoring them isn’t a good look. This was a sham consultation.”
The federation argues the plan will give unprecedented control to the same agency responsible for collecting taxes. “The CRA can barely answer the phone, so Carney shouldn’t be giving those bureaucrats more busy work,” Terrazzano said. “The CRA is a bloated mess, and Carney should be cutting the cost of bureaucracy, not scheming up ways to give it more power over taxpayers.”
Related bloated mess.
One possible reason why gold is setting new records in dollar terms is fear of default; i.e. a growing realization that some governments are on the verge of stiffing their creditors. Today, default is becoming a possibility not just for third world backwaters, but for large economies such as France. The reasons are simple enough, as this video explains. France is spending itself into oblivion thanks to pensions that pay out more in benefits than a working person earns.
In response to the decision to close an Ontario liquor bottling plant, Ontario consumers may soon be unable to buy liquor made in Gimli, Manitoba. So much for inter-provincial free trade.
“A message to all the bigwigs at Diageo: I swear to God, those bottles of Crown Royal are coming off the LCBO shelves. When the last person walks out through that door, we’re going to make sure LCBO takes off their brands because we need to stick together,” Ford said during a union rally in Brampton on Saturday.
Diageo also noted that the company will continue to have a presence in Canada, including their Canadian headquarters and warehouse operations in the Greater Toronto Area.
Not to worry. I’m sure this thing will pay for itself.
Canada recorded a slightly higher C$7.79 billion ($5.59 billion) budget deficit for the first four months of the 2025/26 fiscal year as government expenditures grew faster than revenues, the finance ministry said on Friday.
By comparison, the deficit in the same period a year earlier had been C$7.30 billion, it said in a statement.
Our family farm used to have mail delivery to the top of our lane but that was discontinued sometime in the early 1960s. After that, we picked up our mail in a small town. In 1970, that post office closed and we used a community mailbox which is still in service to this day. Miraculously, the sky didn’t fall.
The Canadian Union of Postal Workers went on strike Thursday after the government announced door-to-door mail delivery would end for nearly all households within the next decade.
Canada Post said the strike will mean mail and parcels will not be processed or delivered for the duration of the strike and no new items will be accepted.
…all is forgiven.
Pam Bondi is probably going to have to walk this statement back. The First Amendment actually protects hate speech, provided that no threat of physical violence was made against a specific individual. We already have laws against criminal threats, so there’s no need to conflate that with hate speech. You might not like someone’s advocacy of political violence or even assassination, but as long as no identifiable individual was mentioned, you can’t be prosecuted for it. At least not in the United States. And we’re all well aware of what happens in other nations when hate speech becomes a criminal offense all on its own.
“Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment,” Bondi wrote. “It’s a crime. For far too long, we’ve watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over.”
Another less than encouraging comment from Bondi, this time over a business that did not want to print some posters for a vigil held to honor Charlie Kirk.
“Businesses cannot discriminate. If you wanna go in and print posters with Charlie’s pictures on them for a vigil, you have to let them do that. We can prosecute you for that,” Bondi said during a Monday appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
In 2 minutes Gord Magill explains every problem with the trucking industry and why 80,000lb+ missiles are being launched into school buses and minivans.
Of course they had to clip me at my rantiest and angriest and dropping too many F bombs, but after spending the last 8 months doing nothing but reading intensely bad news about the industry three generations of my family have dedicated themselves to … I hope you understand. https://t.co/vypbInmByz
— Gord ‘Anti-Social Media Defluencer’ Magill (@GordMagill) September 16, 2025
Best health care system in the world, huh?
The family says he was triaged at 10 p.m., but it would be more than eight hours before he saw a doctor, despite his mother’s repeated requests for help.
“I kept worrying that they’re going to think I’m such a nuisance. And I don’t want them to think that I’d be making such a fuss, and then they ignored us more,” she told CTV News.
The fact of the matter is that John Q. Public is generally okay with the borrowing spree, no matter what the province or level of government. If there’s any negative consequences to an exponential rise in debt, most voters have pushed that concern to the back of their minds.
The province said its deficit is now projected to be $668.7 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year, up from the $549 million forecast in the March budget. Revenues are expected to be $59.6 million lower than forecast in the budget, and expenses are projected to be $60 million higher than the March estimate.
The fact of the matter is that most voters only want spending cuts for items that they consider non-essential. Of course, the definition of non-essential varies so widely that the preferences of each voting bloc pretty much creates a log jam effect whereby no significant spending cuts can ever be implemented.
The report, to be released Thursday by the C.D. Howe Institute, says the Carney government’s spending review will only include about one-third of all federal program spending and is expected to save no more than $22 billion by 2028-29. The think tank says that’s less than half the $50 billion in savings that are needed to return federal government coffers to “a fair and prudent path” that would see Ottawa’s debt-to-GDP ratio stop climbing.
My grandfather’s house, built in 1902, is still standing today despite having been built and later completely remodeled without any building permits at all. Yet statements like “You can’t construct a home without building permits” appear to ascribe metaphysical properties to legislative edicts; not having a building permit is treated as the equivalent of defying the law of gravity. In any case, the reason for skirting building inspection should be obvious: the moment you improve your property, your tax bill goes up.
The owners of a palatial home in West Vancouver, recently assessed at more than $6.7 million, have been ordered to demolish a building resembling a small residence and constructed without permits, at the back of their property.
“I can’t recall ever seeing a case like this,” West Vancouver District mayor Mark Sager told Global News in an interview Monday. “You can’t construct a home without building permits.”
Please stop what you’re doing for this important message from Susan Holt, the premier of New Brunswick.
BREAKING — The wildfire narrative has changed
Liberal leaders have realized the "hiking causes fires" isnt working
NOW
They are telling Canadians that "we're banning you from the woods because you could break your leg" walking your dog. WHAT?!? pic.twitter.com/rzY1tAhv4v
— Tablesalt (@Tablesalt13) August 11, 2025
@JohnLeePettim13: With $16.5 billion in revenue, Nova Scotia spends $1.1 million on wildfire equipment and training, $35 million on growing the green economy, and $80 million on school lunch programs. No wonder they can’t control their wildfires.
Never forget that they hate you.
Who knew that Elbows Up meant shooting yourself in the foot?
While the pickles are assembled in Green Bay, Wis., Oakland said the company buys 11 million pounds of Ontario cucumbers every year and said all the lids on the jars come from an Ontario manufacturer.
Now, the company finds itself in an awkward situation or — some might even say — a pickle.
Sales are down about 25 per cent in the last three months, according to Oakland, who said, going forward, the company will buy fewer pickles and lids from its Canadian partners.
Aside from the alleged need to retaliate for Trump’s trade policies, there’s likely another reason for stiff tariffs on used cars imported into Canada from the US: since the federal government seems adamant that the EV sales mandates are here to stay, they have to close off the escape routes.
What was expected to be a $106,000 purchase, adding up to over $145,000 with taxes and tariffs included. And Gillespie said the unexpected costs won’t stop when the vehicle arrives.“My insurance is going to be based on $145,000,” Gillespie said.
The retaliatory tariff is aimed to de-incentivize Canadians from purchasing American-made cars.
Even for the CBC, I have to admit that they explain the supply mismanagement situation pretty decently, particularly regarding the troublesome import quota issue. So while it is possible for American dairy products to get into Canada tariff free, importers first have to convince Canadian processors to allocate production space to them. I’d hazard a guess that they would have to pay for that space, which is why it doesn’t happen very often. Overall production quantities are ultimately limited by the intricate Canadian dairy pricing mechanism; in other words, consumers must be prevented from getting a bargain.
CUSMA sets import quotas for 14 categories of dairy products. That allows an annual volume of each category to enter Canada tariff-free, and any imports exceeding the quota would get hit with sky-high tariffs of 200 per cent or more.
Much of the quota volume is allocated to major Canadian-owned dairy processing companies such as Saputo and Agropur. Industry analysts on both sides of the border say such companies have little incentive to import U.S. products that would compete with their own.