Is there any point in fact-checking Trump's tirades against renewable energy?

It's too depressing to go into all of the various lies about renewable energy and climate change that Donald Trump reeled off at his address to the UN General Assembly yesterday. Among other howlers, he reiterated his unfounded beliefs that renewable energy sources like wind and solar "don't work" and are "too expensive", called the Paris Agreement a "scam" and all of consensus climate science a "hoax", claimed China and Germany are pulling back from renewable energy, called the UN'S assessment of climate change impacts are "exaggerated" and "incorrect" and a "con job", that reducing carbon emissions costs jobs. His solution to all this? More "clean, beautiful coal".

Wow. It's hard to know where to start, but ABC has already fact-checked most of these ridiculous claims and outright lies, so I don't have to. As Trump strengthens his economic stranglehold over the rest of the world, he is more and more forthright in putting forward his own magical and unsubstantiated beliefs about global warming and clearly energy. 

What's still not clear to me is why. Is he really in the pocket of the American coal lobby? I find that hard to believe. Are his views all coloured by the wind turbines just offshore from his Scottish golf course? I can just about believe he is petty enough for that, but hard to think that his whole worldview has been changed by that. Is it just a "conservative" desire to return to the American dominance and global influence of the 1930s (1950s? 1890s?)? Again, it doesn't make much sense logically, but logic is nothing to do with it. People have been trying to psychoanalyze Trump for years, and remain perplexed. 

I guess all we can do is keep fact-checking Trump's nonsensical tirades. We're not going to change his mind; he only listens to himself. But there is a small chance - and I admit it's a small one - that his followers may be swayed by the truth. 

If we admit the truth to ourselves, though, perhaps a more likely outcome is that, if Trump keeps banging on about this stuff, he will persuade more and more people by sheer force of will.

Who was Charlie Kirk anyway, and is he now a MAGA martyr?

 Just so we know who we are talking about here, Charlie Kirk was a highly controversial figure with some pretty extreme right-wing views. 

• He was strongly anti-gay and -trans rights, and encouraged students to report university profs who embraced "gender ideology". 
• He was a strong supporter of gun rights and against gun control, and once publicly opined, "I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment" (pretty ironic, in retrospect). 
• He strongly opposed diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and affirmative action, and believed the 1964 Civil Rights Act was a huge mistake and that Martin Luther King was an "awful" person. 
• Despite supporting Israel's genocide in Gaza, he was vocally anti-Jew, believed in the "replacement theory" conspiracy, and thought that all Jews were  involved in anti-white activities.
• He was anti-Muslim even more than anti-Jew, calling Islam an existential threat to America.
• He was a climate change denier, arguing that there is no scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming, and that it is not important anyway.
• Just about the only thing Kirk was not against was free speech, although he was less supportive of free speech for leftists.

So, this is the person who Donald Trump called "Great, even Legendary". Certainly, he was not a nice guy, and it's no surprise he made a whole boatload of enemies in his short time in the glare of American media. 

Trump administration's claims of left-wing violence not a statistical fact

The Trump administration's narrative regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk is that "it were the left what done it". Because of course it is. They wouldn't miss an opportunity to score partisan points, however demonstrably false such a claim is.

However, they take it further by claiming that most political violence is instigated by the far left, also demonstrably false. JD Vance: "It is a statistical fact that most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far-Left". Donald Trump: "most of the violence is on the left". And, even worse, abandoning all sense of truth and prespective: "We have some pretty radical groups and they got away with murder".

Setting aside the fact that most Democrats in the USA are barely left of centre, let alone far- or extreme-left, the reality is the direct opposite of what the Trumpites would have us believe. For example, a Washington Post study from a few years ago concluded that "the surge reflects a growing threat from homegrown terrorism not seen in a quarter-century, with right-wing extremist attacks and plots greatly eclipsing those from the far left, and causing more deaths". A report by the Anti-Defamation League shows that over 70% of extremist attacks are fuelled by right-wing ideologies. Even a report by the libertarian Cato Institute found that far-right wing terrorists were responsible for over half of political killings, and the left wing just 22%. A Polish university study of political violence in the US and the world likewise: "far-right extremists have been responsible for more cases of political violence than far-left extremists. As our research shows, their attacks are more violent than those by left-wing extremists". There is more, none of it supporting the claims of Trump and Vance.

But, then, as JD Vance himself accidentally (or not) admitted, he is willing "to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention". Oops.

Some thoughts on our mental health crisis

Another interesting extended article in the Globe today, this one by British psychiatrist Sami Timimi, who specializes in treating children and teens. It seems to some extent to fly in the face of the conventional wisdom and zeitgeist on mental health.

Timimi seems skeptical of the reported levels of mental health problems in Western society, and particularly of the anecdotal reports and claims of individuals. It seems like everyone knows someone who has "mental health issues" these days, whether it be depression, anxiety, autism, ADHD, PTSD, or sometimes combinations of several of these. Like me, Mr. Timimi is questioning the validity of some of these claims, self-diagnoses and even professional diagnoses.

It's almost cool among young people (and their parents) these days to have a mental health condition or two. Even younger children (and certainly their parents) are well-versed in psychological lingo, and sprinkle their conversations with phrases like "the spectrum", "masking", "neurodiversity", "chemical imbalance", etc, with gay abandon. The ease of self-diagnosis using Dr. Google doesn't help, nor does the well-intentioned empathy and compassion about mental health in modern Western society.

Timimi sees this as evidence, not so much of psychological liberation and literacy, as of the tentacles of what he calls the Mental Health Industrial Complex worming its way into the minds of the masses. 

It seems indisputable that the prevalence of diagnosed conditions like depression, anxiety, autism and other mental health conditions, particularly in youth, has snowballed in recent years, and studies reveal a much greater number who see their mental health as "poor" or just "fair" compared to a few years ago. But, at the same time, investment in mental health treatment and research has also surged, and the stigmatization of mental health conditions reduced so mcuh that it is almost considered glamourous amongst some cohorts (like teenage girls). 

So, is the increased attention paid to mental health just not helping, or is it actually making things worse in some respects? Mr. Timimi has his suspicions that the latter may be happening, something he calls the "Treatment Prevalence Paradox". It's a brave move to say so openly, and he risks being ostracized by his own profession. 

He even goes so far as to suggest that the diagnosis of mental health issues, even by trained professionals, is so subjective as to be next to useless. For example, if he tells a patient that "depression is the presence of persistent low mood and negative thinking", that is little better than saying that a pain the head is cause by a headache.  And, unlike with other aspects of healthcare, even once a diagnosis is arrived at, there is rarely a causal agent that can be objectively identified, or even an obvious path of treatment to follow. His frustration with his own profession is palpable.

As for the battery of treatments and drugs offered by the Mental Health Industrial Complex, Mr. Timimi is equally scathing. Rather than rushing for a psychological assessment and medication, he has these thoughts: 

• Don't rush. Being able to tolerate, live through, and even find meaning in, low mood or anxiety is maybe a sign of resilence, not a marker of a disorder. So, don't jump into panic mode and look for an immediate professional diagnosis.
• Don't try too hard. Try not to critically compare your children with others and put pressure on them to conform. They may just be different.
• Don't fear emotions. Expressing (sometimes extreme) emotions and changing emotions is part of the process of growing up, and not a sign of psychological imbalance.
• Don't be controlling. Instead of looking for things that distress you about your child, try looking for things that you like instead.
• Don't obsess about concepts. Constantly using psych-speak like "meltdown" and "masking", and engaging in amateur diagnosis, might just increase your anxiety (and theirs!) about your child's mental health.

Brave and thought-provoking stuff. Mr. Timimi is saying, yes, arm yourself with knowledge, but don't obsess too much about your child's mental health. Sometimes they are just sad or worried; they don't necessarily have depression or clinical anxiety, and they don't necessarily need intervention or treatment.

Where we are with quantum computing

A lot has already been written about the burgeoning field of quantum technology, but a three-page "Field Guide to Quantum Tech" in the Business section of today's Globe and Mail is as good a summary as I have see of what quantum technology is, its promise and its challenges, and where we are with it (we, the World, and we, Canada). 

Thankfully, you don't need to know the details of quantum theory to understand its potential. Suffice it to say, quantum mechanics, the theory,  was developed in Europe in the 1920s, and it was so revolutionary that we are still trying to come to grips with it a century later. Despite its difficult concepts - Schrodinger's cat, spooky action at a distance, "if you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics", all that - it has proven to be a remarkably robust and comprehensive model of our real-world physical reality.

The main technology envisaged for quantum technology is quantum computing. At its simplest, while a conventional computer uses billions of microelectronic switches to manipulate the 1s and 0s ("bits") that computers use for even their most complex operations, a quantum computer can take advantage of "qubits", which may be in the form of tiny superconducting circuits, ions trapped in electromagnetic fields, or beams of light orientated in different ways. What makes them special, though, is that, according to quantum theory, they can exist in two possible states (á la Schrodinger's cat), so that they can represent 1s and 0s, but also a mix of both. Under QM, particles can be in more than one place at the same time, and can act as though they are connected even when separated by large distances.

When many qubits are linked together, they can make quantum computers incredibly fast, capable of calculations that would take conventional computers literally millions of years to complete. Not all computer tasks can be accelerated in this way, but potential applications include cryptography (the current model of RSA cryptography, derived by multiplying together two massive prime numbers, would be child's play for a quantum computer - that's also part of the challenge it represents), but also modelling financial risks, optimizing traffic flow or factory production lines, simulating the behaviour of molecules to discover new medicines or better batteries, unspecified military applications, and many other things we probably haven't even thought of yet.

That, at least, is the promise. However, qubits are hard to work with. They typically have to be isolated from the slightest disturbance, often in cryogenic facilities to minimize vibrations and maintain them at temperatures colder than deep space. In order to be "fault-tolerant", quantum systems need to dedicate many more (orders of magnitude more) qubits to protecting and keeping a check on those doing the actual calculating.

Challenges notwithstanding, many, even most, countries are ploughing oodles of money into quantum research (China, of course, is way out in front), and many important breakthroughs have already been achieved. Big hitters like IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Nvidia are investing heavily, although new discoveries (quantum leaps?) are just as likely to come from startups like Quantinuum, IonQ, PsiQuantum and Rigetti Computing in the USA, Photonics, Two Small Fish Ventures, D-Wave Quantum and Xanadu in Canada, or any number of lavishly state-funded outfits in China.

Either way, quantum computers are currently still far from operating at a commercial scale. We may be 5-10 years away from that, or it may be decades. It's not clear when quantum tech might yield big returns, or if it EVER will. A US government competition aims to determine if reliable and cost-effective quantum computers can be developed by 2033, which is seen as a moderately ambitious date (although don't be surprised if that competition gets cancelled by the anti-science Trump administration).

Canada is considered a reasonably major player globally, even if the financial investment in the country is small compared to players like Japan, Britain, USA, Germany, and of course China, whose quantum research and commercialization commitments almost matches the rest of the world combined. Within Canada, quantum research is mainly located in hotspots like the Kitchener-Waterloo- Cambridge triangle in Ontario, British Columbia's Lower Mainland, the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec, and the university of Calgary in Alberta.

Even if AI continues to develop to the extent that it too can immensely speed up numerical calculations and simulations, as some suggest, quantum computers can't be ignored, even if only because they have to potntial to render conventional cybersecurity obsolete. Some warn that encrypted data is already being harvested by nefarious agents for later unlocking by quantum computers.

And computing is not the only application the quantum revolution is affecting: the quantum sensing sector is already up and running. For example, quantum effects can be used to improve our measurement and modelling of the Earth's magnetic field, which is crucially used by navigation systems and smartphones. 

Quantum information systems are also already in use for communication and surveillance. For example, there is a form of quantum radar that can spot interlopers without revealing its own presence like conventional radar systems do. Countries across the world are exploring other military potentials for quantum tech.

Quantum stocks took off in 2024, thanks to some high-profile advances in the technology, and many private investors are keen to get in early for the Next Big Thing. In fact, as happened with AI, some analysts are warning that we are probably already in bubble territory, as people are investing on hype alone, without a deep understanding of the technology involved and its potential pitfalls.

We are still coming to grips with artificial intelligence (AI), learning what it can do, dealing with its abuse. It seems a stretch to be thinking about quantum technology too. But it is coming, either slowly or all of a sudden, and we need to be ready for it. 

Charlie Kirk's killer was not a card-carrying Democrat

MAGA Republicans are making the usual knee-jerk reactions and assertions that the shooter of far-right influencer Charlie Kirk was a Democrat, with many of them calling for bloody revenge and even the "end of democracy". I mean, it stands to reason right? Kirk was a rabid and extremely contentious right-winger; his killer must therefore be a rabid leftie, no?

Well, just as the attempted assassination of Donald Trump last year was not perpetrated by a disgruntled Democrat, neither was Kirk's more successful assassin an extreme-left firebrand Democrat. 

22-year old Utah resident Tyler Robinson is not Democrat, or even particularly politically active. His last voter registration was back in 2021, and public records show his political agitation to be "none". He also comes from a conservative family, although one family member asserted that "Robinson had become more political in recent years". But, still, this is a not a rabid extreme-left partisan we are talking about. 

This, of course, was not enough to stop Donald Trump from doubling down on the partisan rhetoric: "We have radical left lunatics out there, and we just have to beat the hell out of them". The next day: "The radicals on the left are the problem, and they're vicious and they're horrible and they're politically savvy." This, of course, is the Trump approach to bridging divides, and calming potentially violent escalation.

UPDATE

When Robinson was asked why he did it, he merely replied that Kirk "spreads too much hate" and that he had "had enough of his hatred". So, nothing to do with his right-wing policies and beliefs as such. Law enforcement officers that presented evidence about Robinson offered no indication that he was involved with any left-wing group, or that he had fallen under the sway of any particular leader.

Nevertheless, The Trump administration are surely going to use this as an excuse to target far-left groups, what Trump advisor Stephen killer calls a "vast domestic terror movement". Miller is not stupid, just slightly unhinged, so he knows there is no such thing, but he is willing to use Kirk's death to whip up a frenzy. "We will do it in Charlie's name", he says. Scary stuff. The spectre of authoritarianism creeps ever closer.

UPDATE

A few days later, Joshua Jahn shot up a Dallas ICE facility. The Trump people are trying to portray that as a partisan attack by the exteme left.

But Jahn too seems to have had no political affiliation to all and is described as "a Boy Scout fron north Texas", with a rather unhealthy love of video games and cannabis (and guns).

Of course, that won't stop Trump from framing him as a "loony leftist".

Brazil's Supreme Court less corrupt than America's

I've not often had much confidence in Brazilian politics, although current President Lula does seem to be somewhat of a calming and civilizing influence. Now, though, Brazil has shown itself head and shoulders above the USA, at least in terms of judicial ethics (not a very high bar, to be sure).

A panel of Brazil's Supreme Court justices has had the cojones to sentence ex-President Jair Bolsonaro to 27 years in jail for plotting a military coup after losing the 2022 election. Bolsonaro was quite clearly acting from the Donald Trump playbook when he reacted to the election loss, and Trump was an important model throughout his right-wing populist presidency. But, unlike the pusillanimous US Supreme Court, which is clearly willing to do whatever Trump requires of it, Brazil's maintained its independence and actually voted on the evidence (and there was plenty of damning evidence provided) and brought down a decision according to the law, not partisan politics. The panel's decision was 4-1.

Predictably enough, the Trump administration, lost in its bubble of delusion and misinformation, has expressed its surprise and disappointment with the Brazilian court's decision, calling it a witch hunt and unjust. Trump has already slapped 50% tariffs on Brazil for having the audacity to even put Bolsonaro on trial, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has vowed that there will almost certainly be further repercussions after this latest decision. But Lula seems refreshingly impervious to America's threats thus far.

The trial has gripped Brazil, and this decision may serve to further divide an already polarized country (sound familiar?) Bolsonaro's lawyers have of course said that they will appeal the decision, and keep appealing it until they get the decision they want - also straight out of the Trump playbook - but they may not find Brazil's courts as willing to play ball as America's.

Do the Brits really want to see the Bayeux Tapestry?

French President Emmanuel Macron has promised to loan the UK the famous thousand-year old Bayeux Tapestry as a gesture of goodwill.

Politicians and local authorities are lauding the decision. Conservators and museum people, on the other hand, are warning that the tapestry is way too fragile to transport (and is, of course, irreplaceable).

My first thought was: why would Britain want to admire a tapestry celebrating nearly two hundred years of conquest and oppression by a foreign force? Maybe the Brits are more broad-minded and urbane than I think, but my guess is that M. Macron is being overly optimistic 

Why is it alway men that engage in risky investing behaviour?

If you've ever wondered why it always seems to be guys that do all that investment in cryptocurrencies, meme stocks, sports gambling, even belief in Donald Trump and conspiracies theories, some new research purports to explain it (but fails, in my opinion).

The research, published in the journal Judgment and Decision Making (yes, that's the name of a scientific journal!), identifies something called the "confidence-information-distortion-confidence" cycle. This essentially says that, once men have an initial opinion on something - whether it be choosing a mortgage or insurance option, making investment decisions, choosing a financial advisor or going it alone - they tend to interpret any subsequent pieces of information, whether confirmatory or useful or relevant or not, as support for their initial assessment. Even if it shouldn't rationally affect their decision at all, each new item of information somehow increases their confidence that their original opinion was right. 

You could just call it "conviction bias", rather than the pseudo-science gobbledygook this study chooses to employ. And it's hardly surprising or news, is it? More to the point, it doesn't really explain why men are more affected by this logic blindness than women. But it remains a fact that some 61% of cryptocurrency investors are men, high-risk stock trading tends to be a male province by a two-to-one ratio, and sports betting is male thing by a three-to-one margin.

A study explaining why women are more risk-averse than men might be more useful. I imagine it has its origins in evolutionary biology or child-rearing or something of that sort. These things usually do.

Robert Kennedy Jr. hauled over the coals on vaccines

The US Senate committee investigating the actions and decisions of Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. is riveting America, not least for Kennedy's completely unrepentant fixation on walking back decades - nay, centuries - of research and settled science on vaccination.

He doesn't say so in so many words, but it's clear that Kennedy wants to get rid of ALL vaccinations. For now, he is contenting himself with limiting some important vaccines, including the COVID vaccine (which he calls the "most deadly in history", despite its clear role in saving thousands, maybe millions, of lives) and the hepatitis B and RSV vaccines. The spectre of the spread of preventable diseases like polio and measles running rampant through America once again is by no means improbable. (Florida has already revealed plans to repeal ALL vaccine requirements for schoolchildren!)

Kennedy has already dismissed many members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), including its director, as well as the entire panel of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and replaced them with known antivaccine activists. He is promising many more sackings in the near future of anyone who disagrees with his own wacky beliefs (which is almost all mainstream scientists). Many more have voluntarily resigned their positions, unable to work in such an environment. Even his family members are calling for him to step down, calling him a threat to the health of Americans!

The White House (or at least Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller) has publicly defended Kennedy, who has come under fire from politicians on both sides of the political divide. Miller called RFK Jr. "a crown jewel of this administration", in spite of the growing howls for his removal. Trump himself has remained suspiciously quiet about it all, contenting himself with saying that Kennedy "means very well" (faint praise indeed), and that "I like the fact that he's different".(ridiculous and childish). Trump seems to dither between strongly supporting vaccines and not. For example, he recently deadpanned, "Look, you have vaccines that work. They just pure and simple work. They're not controversial at all." OK.

As with so much that is happening in the Trump administration, it's hard to look away. But it's a depressing and unedifying spectacle to see so much good work (and so many good people) being wilfully destroyed in this way.

Why does everyone now hate Keir Starmer?

Keir Starmer and the Labour Party won a landslide victory in the UK elections a year ago (411 out of the 650 seats available), largely as a result of general dissatisfaction with the Tories' sorry performance over the preceding decade plus. The country, it seemed, was willing to give him carte blanche to follow a new political direction.

But, as I noted just recently, Labour's popularity is now down around 20%, barely above that of the Conservatives, and well behind the far-right Reform UK, which would win with a healthy majority if an election were held today. Luckily, no such election is planned. 69% of voters now have an unfavourable opinion of Labour, and Starmer's net favourability rating has sunk to an all-time low of -46%. In fact, even among Labour voters, his approval rating is -26%.

Now, Starmer has lost one of his most loyal lieutenants, Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, who resigned after details surfaced of her failure to pay the proper land tax on a new home, an egregious sin indeed.

And all this is in spite of what seem at face value to be a series of economic wins: trade deals with the US, India and the EU for example, reductions in NHS waiting lists, improvements to school services, etc.

So, how did Starmer manage to make such an almighty hash of it? Why is Starmer so unpopular?

Well, as is so often the case, cost of living issues are the main reason. Inflation is on the rise again, and the cost of electricity, gas and other fuels has risen even faster, with water and sewage costs increasing more than everything. These monthly bills are highly visible and top-of-mind for voters, and are a big influence on people's opinions. Cutting benefits for disabled people and winter fuel cuts didn't help the government's image either.

British business have also soured in Labour. Higher taxes on businesses are seen by many as "anti-growth", and limits imposed on immigration and foreign workers, as well as an arguably  laudable increase in the minimum wage and improved workers' rights, are all seen as increased burdens for small and medium-sized businesses in particular.

Ironically, in a country still reeling from the effects of the relatively flamboyant and bombastic Boris Johnson and even Nigel Farage, Starmer's lack of personality is also holding him back. You'd think the country would welcome a calm, thoughtful leader, but apparently his lack of charisma and his dull, plodding approach to politics is a distinct turn-off for many Britons. Many of his cabinet members are also not well-liked as personalities, and several (particularly Chancellor Rachel Reeves) are perceived as being out of their depths.

There were other contributing factors too - Starmer's initial reliance on, and subsequent sacking of, the unpopular advisor Sue Grey; the acceptance of free gifts ("freebiegate"); and others. After all, Starmer was supposed to be different from Boris and the others, right? 

Polling suggests that there are two types of Labour defectors: those who now prefer the Greens or Lib Dems - younger, predominantly female and better-educated, who largely feel that Labour under Starmer is too right-wing and "not Labour enough" - and those who have switched to Reform UK (really?!, yes!), who tend to be more working class and poorly-educated, and often Brexit leave voters, many of whose main complaint is that Labour has not controlled immigration well enough. 

Starmer's response to this has mainly been to lurch even further to the right on issues like immigration and trans rights, i.e. to chase those who have defected to Reform. But those same polls suggest that only 15% of those Reform defectors say they would consider voting Labour again, while nearly 60% of the defectors to the  Greens and Lib Dems say they might still vote Labour in the future. So, this seems like a bad choice on Starmer's part, and acting more like traditional Labour would probably help them more. It gets complicated, right?

So, predictably, there is no one underlying reason for Starmer's fall from grace, more of a perfect storm of minor factors, none the less damning for all that. What a mess!

Poilievre barking up the wrong tree on immigration

I had really hoped that we were over the gravelly, whining voice of Pierre Poilievre, complaining about every little thing the Liberals do. But it seems we are stuck with him in opposition for a while longer.

Some of the issues he has latched onto are clearly not winners, but Poilievre is willing to argue that black is white and fudge whatever statistics need fudging if he feels that it will pander to his right-wing base. One such issue is immigration.

Poilievre takes a tough stance on immigration, because that's what he thinks his base expects from him. Recently, he called for very hard caps on immigration, and specifically asserted that "We need more people leaving than coming for the next couple years". Even more recently he has called for the complete termination of the temporary foreign worker program, which industry and agriculture analysts say would be disastrous for the country.

But the point is that Poilievre is behind the times, and merely parroting talking points from his failed election bid that are no longer relevant or appropriate. After action taken by the Liberals, net immigration today is pretty much zero, and the Canadian population, once growing at a rapid and unsustainable clip, has already stopped growing. The uncontrolled influx of both overseas students and temporary foreign workers have already slowed to a much more manageable level.

Poilievre, as in his wont, is also misquoting some statistics on immigration, claiming that 105,000 temporary foreign workers have entered the country in just the first half of 2025, while the government's target was 83,000 for the full year. But in fact, most of that 105,000 were work permit renewals, and only 34,000 were new arrivals, well within the target. Similarly, new permits under the International Mobility Program, were well within targets, and not "out of control" as Poilievre claims. 

The Liberals are well into a program of reducing the numbers of temporary residents. According to Statistics Canada, population growth in the first quarter of 2025 was precisely zero, and the government's immigration plan is indeed for more people to leave Canada in 2025 than arrive. Poilievre is hopelessly out of touch.

Canada should be ready to circumvent Safe Third Country Agreement rules

Canada and America have long had a Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), whereby two civilized countries that both have robust protections for refugees agree that aliens and fugitives must claim asylum in the first country they arrive in, whether that be Canada or America, and cannot just pass through America to get to Canada, or vice versa.

That has worked pretty well since the Agreement was struck in 2004. But America under Donald Trump is no longer a civilized country, at least as regards immigration and refugees. Refugees turned back at the US-Canada border now run a very real risk of being repatriated back to the country they are fleeing (or even some other country they have never lived in and have no links with). This may put them at risk of imprisonment or worse for their political views or their sexual identity or orientation, or physical danger from an abusive spouse, etc. This is particularly important given that gender-based asylum claims are rarely recognized in the USA.

Luckily, there is a provision under the STCA agreement that allows border agents some latitude in their decisions. For example, there is an escalation protocol that can be triggered when there is "credible evidence" that someone will face inhumane treatment in the US, or faces a serious possibility of being deported to face torture or death.

Up until now, these "safety valves"  have hardly ever been used. But Canadian border agents should be officially reminded of this option, and they should be much more ready to employ it, lest some of the most vulnerable refugees be left at the mercy of an uncaring and draconian American immigration system.

Lies, damned lie and canola statistics

Saskatchewan's populist premier Scott Moe has a vastly inflated idea of his, and his province's, importance. 

Speaking about China's imposition of punitive tariffs on Canadian canola oil exports - a counter-measure to Canada's punitive tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles - Moe claims that: "This $43 to $45 billion Canadian canola industry that we have [is] employing just over 200,000 people", and reminds us that a good chunk of Canadian canola, although by no means all, is grown in Saskatchewan.

This would make canola a much more important industry than automobile production, for example, which contributes about $19 billion to Canada's GDP, and directly employs about 118,000 people. Except Moe's figures are wildly (Trump-ly!) off.

Moe's figures for canola come from the Canola Council of Canada, which clearly also has an exaggerated idea of their own self-worth, not to mention something of an axe to grind. Their figure of $43.7 billion (Moe's "to 45 billion" is just poetic license) includes a grossly inflated estimate of canola's indirect benefits to the country, according to the Trillium Network for Advance Manufacturing, an Ontario-based think tank.

They point out that Statistics Canada, the same source that identified the $19.2 figure for vehicle production, has canola's contribution to the economy at about $5 billion, and employment at around 21,000.

Well, that's quite a different story from Mr. Moe's! "Lies, damned lies, and statistics", as Benjamin Disraeli would have it? Or "I can prove anything by statistics except the truth", as another British Prime Minister, George Canning, asserted?

Quebec proposed ban on public prayer is just daft

Listen, I'm an atheist. I've made no bones about that throughout this blog, even celebrated it at times. But even I know that Quebec's bill to ban all prayer in public is a bad idea.

It's no secret that François Legault's Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party is stridently anti-religious, or pro-secularism as they might term it. They even have a Secularism Minister, Jean-François Roberge, in the Cabinet. They have already adopted a law requiring all immigrants to Quebec to "embrace the common culture" of the province, and have passed the contentious bill that would ban public workers from wearing any religious symbols in the course of their work (using the Charter's "notwithstanding clause" to avoid claims that it is unconstitutional).

This latest bill is another step down that road, and it too will require the use of the notwithstanding clause, because it too would be unconstitutional. 

It's also wrong-headed. For one thing, Legault has (accidentally or otherwise) admitted that, when he says he wants to ban prayer outdoors, he really wants to ban prayer outside of Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica, where pro-Palestine Muslims have been holding public prayer meetings for months now. He has said he wants to send "a very clear message to Islamists".

Don't get me wrong, I think prayer is stupid, whether Christian or Muslim. To think that some putative God is listening intently when individuals pray is the ultimate in solipsism, and seems sadly deluded. But if that's really what people want to spend their time doing, well, knock yourself out, I say. Passing a law to ban it is so completely against the letter and the spirit of Canadian law that only Quebec (and maybe Alberta, for different reasons) would have the chutzpah to even try it.

Canada should take in Russian dissidents awaiting deportation from USA

A little-known corollary of Donald Trump's immigration crack-down is that some prominent Russian dissidents face deportation back to Russia, even though it is clearly understood that they would then be immediately imprisoned, possibly tortured, and maybe even killed.

Yulia Navalnaya (wife of Alexey Navalny, and a high-profile anti-Putin activist in her own right), and the equally high-profile Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, all entered the USA legally under the CPB One program, and have been long awaiting a decision on their refugee petition. 

But Trump, in his single-minded anti-immigration push, has since terminated the CPB One program, and the three, along with many others ("several hundred opposition-minded Russians"), are being held in ICE detention centres before being deported back to Russia. Other much less important anti-Putin activists who have gone back to Russia are known to have received cursory trials and are currently languishing in prison, just like Navalny did for years before his untimely death.

Anyway, the three activists have officially called on Canada to take them in, to save them being deported to Russia. Surprisingly, there is no certainty that Canada will take them, perhaps the main stumbling block being the Safe Third Country Agreement that still exists between Canada and the US, despite the USA under Donald Trump being far from a safe place for refugees of any stripe. Exceptions and exemptions to the agreement are however possible, at the discretion of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, although the government has made no firm commitments so far.

Here's hoping that Canada shows more backbone than America, and agrees to take the three dissidents. There is a way to do it if there is a will.

McDonalds - Canadian owned?

As a vegetarian, I don't frequent McDonalds. I think I may have been in one, once in my life, mainly for the wifi. So, I hadn't realized that McDonalds restaurants in Canada are emblazoned with the by-line "Proudly locally owned and operated".

And look, they even have a little maple leaf on the logo!

But wait, McDonalds? It's an American company, no? In fact, it doesn't get much more American than McDonalds, does it? Oh, look, McDonalds in America, also say "Locally owned and operated".

So, what's the deal?.Canada-washing? Well, McDonalds restaurants are franchises. In fact, McDonalds Restaurants of Canada Ltd is a "master franchise" of McDonalds. So, yes, they are technically locally owned, I guess.

But really, it's pushing the issue a bit. I mean, it's still McDonalds, probably the most American thing you can think of, including apple pie (a weird version of which McDonalds also sells).

Trump's obsession with tariffs is tilting the world order

Trump's tariffs are wrong on so many levels it's hard to even encapsulate. But it's increasingly clear that they have fractured the tenuous relationships between many western (and other) nations, and weakened both the United States and its links with the rest of the world.

Who better, then, to take advantage of this unexpected geopolitical windfall than President Xi of China. No fool, Xi has been busy making hay while Trump has been busy making a fool of himself. A big part of that Chinese initiative is happening right now at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin, China.

Guests of honour at the meeting are Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, who, together with Xi, make an unholy trifecta of miscreants and renegades. But, let's remember, powerful miscreants and renegades. 

Trump's actions have pushed these unsavoury characters further and further into each others' orbits and interdependencies. They are already interconnected through the BRICS and BRICS+ groupings, but Trump's scattershot actions against the three can only serve to further cement their relationship, to the potential peril of the entire world.

China's spectacular military parade, marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, in front of Putin, Kim Jong Un and over two dozen other heads of state, only adds insult to injury, and certainly puts Trump's own recent military parade in a lot of shade.

The global order is tilting alarmingly. All thanks to Donald Trump.