Category: nannystate

Cultural Imperialism

Canada’s Bolsheviks Media nannystate New Governor 26 Comments

Were the latest CRTC mandates, and justifiable American opposition to them, the excuse for claiming a supposed threat to Quebecois culture and ending the trade talks? None of that would surprise me. In any case, it’s an incredibly stupid hill to die on and it sickens me that Canadians seem happy to go along with that.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has said the U.S. put pressure on Canada to adjust its position on rules around discoverability of content online, and that U.S. demands would have affected Canada’s ability to protect its culture, including the French language.

If Wishes Were Horses…

Canada’s Bolsheviks nannystate New Governor There Goes The Narrative 57 Comments

As of yesterday social media has been chock full of posts from Carney’s water carriers desperately trying to rationalize a defeat into victory. Good luck with that. All that remains now is to declare than any trade deal is a good deal so that the remaining provinces can safely lift the ban on American booze while hoping that no one remembers their idiocy.

“If I were leading the country, I’d fight. I think we should fight this guy,” he told the station.

Kinew said Manitoba still has to see some details, but if the booze goes back on shelves, his government reserves the right to pull it back off again if U.S. President Donald Trump changes terms.

 

Missing The Big Picture

Climate Cult nannystate New Governor 21 Comments

Here’s an idea: tell water and sewer utilities to levy sufficient charges to cover the cost of capital improvements and replacement of infrastructure. Then the federal and provincial governments can put their money into real infrastructure projects such as twinning the trans-Canada highway in northern Ontario and BC. We ought to be ashamed of the fact that Mexico has more sensible highway systems than we do.

Ontario and Ottawa are announcing up to $1 billion to help municipalities in the province build infrastructure for more homes.

The money will go to municipalities that do not collect development charges for things like roads, bridges and water systems.

Le Syndrome De Stockholm

Canada’s Bolsheviks Insufferable Twits nannystate Our Diversities 19 Comments

As a Manitoban, sometimes I console myself with the knowledge that at least I don’t live in Quebec. Over there, the party that champions the cause of government inspectors telling you how to spell hamburger is trying to assure Anglophones that there’s really nothing to worry about if you vote for them.

“Underneath that pledge is also the fact the anglos don’t fear the PQ any more since anglos and francos share the same realities and concerns. Public discourse has too often encouraged the mistaken belief that the concerns of French-speaking and English-speaking Quebecers are fundamentally at odds.

The Uniparty State

Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing Little Known Facts nannystate 38 Comments

I’ve noticed that political party lines are becoming increasingly blurred these days, and not just in Canada. Are we getting to the point where we don’t have many real choices any more, or is that just the way it’s always been?

Under socialism, government owns the means of production, which the U.S. government increasingly wants to do. In June, through $750 million in investments, it took minority equity stakes in two semiconductor companies. In July, through up to $874 million in additional funding, it took minority equity stakes in six more and increased its ownership of a seventh. The Cato Institute counts 30 companies in the federal government’s expanded corporate portfolio. “Republicans warning that communists are taking over the Democratic Party might first ask why their own administration is so eager to have the government acquire pieces of private companies,” Cato analyst Tad DeHaven suggested.

 

Unintended Consequences?

Canada’s Bolsheviks nannystate New Governor There Goes The Narrative 24 Comments

Can someone make this make sense? With the Carney government having raised tariffs on imported steel, some Western Canadian users of steel now find that they’re uncompetitive. Rather than instantly resolve the problem by dropping the tariffs, taxpayers will instead be forced to cover half the shipping costs of steel orders from mills in the east.

Under a new Commodities Sectoral Support Program announced on Monday, steel shippers can apply for a rebate that will offset 50 per cent of the costs to ship domestic steel by rail or marine transport across provinces and territories.

“There’s no rebar business in B.C. that’s flourishing right now,” Michaud said. “Everybody is doing the work, just at a massively reduced profit margin. Shipping it from the East is just not very good financially.”

Awash With Idiocy

Canada’s Bolsheviks Climate Cult Media nannystate Science Y2Kyoto 23 Comments

Faced with widespread backpedaling on the most useless aspects of  the climate science cult, hacks like Gwynne Dyer just double down: since we can’t jettison fossil fuels fast enough, let’s just embark on an attempt to do nothing less than geoengineer the weather as if the earth were connected to a house thermostat. What could possibly go wrong?

Cutting our carbon dioxide and methane emissions, while it is still vital, cannot act fast enough….

What can act fast enough is Solar Radiation Management (SRM for short). That includes any technique that reflects some incoming sunlight back into space and cools the planet, but the most promising one involves putting some reflective substance into the stratosphere.

Math Is Hard

nannystate Surveillance State 9 Comments

Assuming that New Brunswick puts the seized cigarettes back on the shelf and eventually collects the tax, the cost of the enforcement efforts still amount to a net loss to taxpayers.

Authorities in New Brunswick say they’ve seized millions of contraband cigarettes that represent $1.1 million in lost tax revenue.

Today’s announcement by public safety officials was the first since the province’s Liberal government invested $1.2 million to support contraband enforcement in the spring budget.

 

Post-Industrial Society

More Money Than Brains nannystate New Governor 35 Comments

Ignoring the obvious contradiction in the funding announcement, why are we throwing even more tax dollars at a chronic money loser? There was a time when Canada built plenty of locomotives, but apparently we lost all that knowledge and now need to relearn it. Who knew?

“Locomotive assembly is returning to Canada,” Transport Minister Steven MacKinnon said Wednesday at a news conference in Montreal, where the plant will be built.

Ottawa says the trains will be built by Switzerland-based Stadler. The first nine are to be built in Spain, while the remaining 36 will be built in Canada after Canadian workers learn how to assemble them from their Spanish counterparts.

 

Money For Nothing

Media nannystate New Governor 9 Comments

It’s all well and good to end the requirements for useless ingredients for streaming services, but why turn around and pay streamers directly for stuff no one watches?

The federal government will “eliminate” the financial contribution requirement for streamers set by the CRTC and replace it with government funding, it said in a court document.

Nonetheless, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether this will actually happen or not.

The office of Culture Minister Marc Miller did not immediately respond when asked to clarify the government’s stance or state whether the government plans to eliminate the contribution requirement permanently or temporarily.

 

Strangled Assets

Canada’s Bolsheviks Gradually Then Suddenly It's Probably Nothing nannystate 13 Comments

I can identify another problem with supply mismanagement: if it were to end, your assets may suddenly be worth a lot less than they used to be, maybe even less than your debts.

A company that earns guaranteed margins because a regulation, exclusive contract or closed market keeps competitors out tends to stop doing the things that keep a business sharp. It stops scrutinizing its cost structure, investing in efficiency or asking how it would cope or what it would charge if its customers had somewhere else to go. The protection may feel like a moat. In practice, it is closer to an anaesthetic.

We Demand That Atlas Shrugs!

Climate Cult Democrats nannystate Y2Kyoto 16 Comments

It seems that New York is taking a cue from Manitoba: let’s make up phony reasons to reject private sector investment. God forbid that industrial infrastructure should use energy….

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order Tuesday imposing the country’s first statewide moratorium on hyperscale data centers, which house thousands of computer servers and require massive amounts of energy and a steady supply of water to keep cool.

Hard Pass On The Low Hanging Fruit

Canada’s Bolsheviks nannystate New Governor 41 Comments

The Liberals could make some easy, win/win concessions to the US on trade if they really wanted to. They are the only party that could afford to dismantle supply mismanagement, electorally speaking. And Blubber Dougie would fold like a cheap tent on the booze ban if Carney insisted. But Canadians seem to prefer the passive aggressive route instead.

The U.S. has also complained about Canada’s administration of dairy import quotas created under USMCA and raised concerns over milk pricing policies and market ‌access for U.S. dairy products. Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government ⁠has said previously supply management will not be on the negotiating table.

Torrent Of Crickets

Media nannystate New Governor 19 Comments

If a Tory government ever did what the Liberals just did with those unsold condominiums, the torrent of criticism would be more like a tsunami with the mainstream media pulling out all the stops to pile on the government. Just sayin’…

Prime Minister Mark Carney has faced a torrent of criticism since June 18, when he announced a plan to work with the B.C. government that he said would help homebuyers struggling to save for a down payment.

Carney has since said his government did not explain the program well.

Keir Starmer’s Britain

Great Moments In Socialism nannystate 24 Comments

Where the foxes caper unmolested, the government packs your school lunch and while swapping out the desk fan for a permanent cooling system might seem like an appealing solution following this summer’s record-breaking heatwave…

… installing one without proper authorisation can carry serious repercussions. Breaching planning regulations – even unintentionally – can leave homeowners having to submit a retrospective application.

Should this be turned down, the council can issue an enforcement notice demanding the air conditioning unit be taken down. Defying this notice is illegal and, if disregarded, could lead to prosecution.

Fitting a permanent air con unit without planning permission can also have considerable implications should the homeowner decide to put the property on the market. To finalise the sale, sellers must be able to demonstrate they obtained the required approvals. Without this, homeowners will need to either lodge a retrospective application or remove the alteration entirely.

More: “Air-con engineers told The Telegraph that they had been called out to remove perfectly operational units worth thousands of pounds across London.”

Farkas Around And Find Out

nannystate The Urban Bigot 13 Comments

How it started: Calgary city councillors have voted not to change the rules capping late-night sound levels during the Calgary Stampede, despite encouragement from the provincial government.

How it’s going.

Officials with Country Thunder Alberta announced the cancellation of the 2026 music festival on Wednesday, which was set to be held this weekend.

In a news release, officials cited “city-created safety and operational barriers” as the reason behind the decision.

“After exhaustive efforts to find a workable path forward, the organization has determined that conditions created by the City of Calgary, including active construction surrounding the festival site and new restrictive sound limitations, make it impossible to stage the event for 2026,” they said.

Cuba Libre?

Little Known Facts nannystate There Goes The Narrative 6 Comments

Buried in the story about Cuba instituting some free market reforms is an interesting tidbit about loosening restrictions on imports. The common narrative implies that Cuba’s inability to function economically is a result of trade sanctions imposed by the US. But the reality is that many of Cuba’s sanctions are actually self-imposed: it’s less the case that Cubans can’t buy foreign brake pads for their cars because the US won’t allow it, but more the case that communist officialdom has always stood in their way.

The plan includes more space for private businesses, imports and exports without state intermediation, free hiring of personnel, authorization for private banks and investment by Cubans abroad. It even permits fast-food chains to establish themselves on the island.

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation