People claiming the US is getting nothing are again ignoring what came out in the Chat leak from last year, involving Hegseth, Gabbard, Vance, and so forth. One of their complaints was that the US was policing the region / ensuring trade routes for EU allies and Gulf states, without getting fully paid for the assets deployed in the region.

If Iran’s plan says the US leaves the region, and/or if the result is that Gulf states/EU take a more active role in the region going forward, and/or it results in those parties paying the US more to maintain a security presence in the area, those are all things that align to the objectives of the current administration. The media really needs to update their expectations / get a better read of what the administration’s objectives are – the right-wing is quite explicitly publishing things like Project 2025 / other ideological books that paint their roadmap in brutally plain terms, it really doesn’t take that much effort to dig up.

Another fun side thought, though entirely conjecture, is that the last time there was a major iranian conflict, it triggered significant recessions in many western nations. Canada, for example, had three things in the 80s that triggered interest rates to climb to 20%: Iranian energy crisis, US protectionism hammering the Canadian auto industry, and a softened global Canadian dollar/export problems. Almost seems like America’s attempting to force a similar issue. If their current gong show in the middle east triggers similar issues globally, it’d potentially even serve to help the states with their stated ambition to annex Canada via economic warfare.

Heh, anyone pointing out the Trump’s are birthright citizens seems to’ve missed the Trump gold card citizenship racket that’s paired with anything related to citizenship revocation. If they change the law, rich people just pay some money to buy a gold citizenship card. Trump’s family would likely get theirs paid for by tech bros, wouldn’t even need to pay out of pocket.

While white nationalist racists are a part of Trump’s base, and are likely in favour of this law getting changed, thinking it’ll help their agenda… it’s really just another attack on poor/middle class people.

At this point, as a non-American, I’m fine with them disenfranchising most of their population and declaring them non-citizens. For regulated industries, it’d make things like FATCA reporting much simpler, and it’s not as though those ‘citizens’ deserve any respect/special consideration – look at the guy they elected as their leader. Who they still follow. Even as he openly makes moves to strip them of their rights.

I dunno, with the AI surveillance state “improving” the kill chain in US wars (you all can bomb school children super effectively now, since AI tells you to! Can’t hold AI accountable!), and the arrest chain of “terrorist” protestors, I imagine that the cell phone location data from these protests could lead directly to certain changes in the USA. Certain changes that will help to populate all those new concentration camps with cheap prisoner labour to replace all the immigrants on the farms etc.

Canada’s population grows and shrinks based on Government Immigration policy decrees. Even when it wasn’t responsible for 100% of our population growth, Immigration’s been responsible for like 95% of our annual growth for decades. It’s sort of eugenics-like in nature, in that the government controls what nationality of people the country grows by, and which skills they arrive with (it also does a shit job of matching those skilled people to workplaces, but that’s a diff rant ;p). Local born populations have been declining for a long time, decades/generations, with the one exception being FN, which are growing considerably (where’s the equity at on this front?). If we had a population decline, it’s entirely planned by the government. Canada is a country where family trees go to die.

People whining about housing prices haven’t paid attention to the housing data. The real home price index has spikes and dips that line up to the inflows of immigrants. Ever since the liberals reversed course on immigration and put in caps on students etc, housing prices have been coming down in most areas. Like avg rent prices dropped by ~4% in Vancouver in 2024, and have been declining since. Housing prices similar, with sales in a total slump. These things pre-date the shift in American politics / international trade chaos – with the only big gov change being the change in immigration policy. Like the governing party didn’t even change, nor did they have any other major changes to other portfolios during that time frame. It seems like this sort of stuff doesn’t get reported on as much, cause it’d be anti-immigration and considered xenophobic/racist I guess, but in this case it does seem pretty clear cut to me.

It’s sorta funny – in the past, there’ve been many stories about countries like China fudging their GDP numbers through building fake cities that never get inhabited etc – legit criticisms. In Canada we took a different approach, fudging our GDP by cramming in people – we didn’t have real productivity gains, or organic growth born out of the prosperity of people living in Canada, but artificial growth, declining GDP per person, and increasingly unmanageable burdens on any system/business that targets sustainability. Inorganic and un-predictable growth doesn’t foster sustainable operations – if the fed suddenly opens the flood gates and lets in thousands of wolves, the flock of health-care providing sheep gets overwhelmed/devoured. Our universities had clearly become dependent on the revenue stream brought by a constant flow of rich immigrant students from outside our local ecosystem – they’re cutting jobs/programs like crazy as a result of the governments shift. I don’t think it’s that much of a mental stretch to reckon that other areas involving affordability / basic needs of locals have been similarly, negatively impacted by our governments approach to immigration.

Quebec’s used it for decades. Provinces could use it to ‘notwithstanding’ PP anti-trans legislation at a federal level if the conservatives get in next time around.

I don’t think your issue is with the mechanism, you’re just not in favour of how Alberta’s using it on this particular social issue.

who the heck is marlaina?

Our government throws a hissy fit over BC buying civilian ferries from a Chinese shipyard. But they put control of our military assets into the hands of foreign powers all the time.

What the hell.

Not a bad bit. None of the choices are good, even looking at fringe ones these days.

Greens are back with May as co leader, after having previously appointed a person based solely on DEI principles and watching that person burn the party horribly. Turns out appointing a black lesbian jewish pro-palestine lawyer woman didn’t automatically make her a good leader. Like their own party history is now a very clear, tangible, and credible argument against those sorts of initiatives. DEI is good in principle, but implementation has a bunch of issues – and the lefts inability to recognise that, even when literally suffering the consequences, is a problem that will alienate many voters. Even returning to May, is like saying the party has no other viable / worthwhile leaders around, which is a huge mark against in terms of stability for the party. The “pro-environmental” party should’ve had a significant uptick given all the climate disasters, like seeing towns burn to the ground. But they’re so warped in their politics now, their core messaging so scattershot amongst a bunch of harder-left wing concepts, that it’s dysfunctional as a party at best.

The NDP have Jagmeet Singh, who’s overtly racial in his politics. He’ll always rush up and hug his ethnic group / favour them at rallies etc – the optics of which isn’t lost on people who aren’t part of his demographic. The basic fact that his leadership win, and support, is heavily racially biased is not exactly a secret, nor is it something that will appeal to anyone outside of his race. Demanding that people who question/highlight this issue be labelled as racists, isn’t going to help the issue. Jagmeet also cratered Weir’s political career based on BS accusations, weaponizing inclusivity policies against a caucasian guy who could’ve been a rival for the leadership. Singh shielded Weir’s (non victim) accuser, when she was accused of misconduct with more tangible evidence (ie. an actual victim stepped forward to accuse her, where none stepped forward to accuse Weir – the victim was a guy though, so apparently the ‘believe the victim’ thing didn’t apply) – Weir got the boot immediately, Moore got coddled. Singh seems like a pampered lawyer from a wealthy background – his private sector work experience being working at his family’s law firm for a couple years. When elected, he just picked up a house in one of the more expensive areas of Vancouver like it was nothing – what’s a few million to a ‘working class’ leader afterall, pocket change. Draped in expensive swag, and with that background he masquerades as a candidate for the working class. Singh stands up and opines about the evil landlord class, while his wife is busy buying up investment condos to provide their family passive income as landlords. Even more, as an overtly religious guy from a minority religion, he alienates many – and faces really difficult challenges in areas such as Quebec. While many attest that it shouldn’t matter, real politics demands a realistic take on the electorate – if your party wants to win, don’t run leaders that explicitly alienate large segments of voters.

Neither alternative party tends to put together a proper platform. The less likely you are to have to make good on your commitments, the more extravagant you can make your promises. Yes, the two main parties fail frequently to deliver, but they’re still more realistic in scope during election time.