Chrystia Freeland - folk hero or party apparatchik

There is a danger that outgoing Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland comes to be seen as some sort of folk hero or avenging angel after she dramatically resigned from the Liberal Cabinet this past Monday. Let's not get too carried away here, though.

Sure, she stood up to an increasingly tyrannical Justin Trudeau, by resigning and refusing to push through the latest of his "costly political gimmicks" (the GST holiday, which will be implemented anyway, and a planned $200 per head cash rebate, which probably won't).

But Ms. Freeland has been in the country's driver's seat economically for the last four or five years, and she has presided over an unprecedented government spending spree, culminating in the latest budget deficit of $61.9 billion (over 50% more than her forecast of $40 billion). It's a bit rich for her to suddenly have qualms about an additional $3 billion. 

Sure, some of that unprecedented spending was necessary, and some of it was desirable, but some of does seem to be bloat. And no, it doesn't substantially worsen Canada's debt to GDP ratio, which remains the best in the G7, and certainly multiples better than the USA's.

But has Ms. Freeland been a paragon of a Finance Minister, struggling to rein in the worst of Mr. Trudeau's spendthrift tendencies? Not really. She has been right there with him.

Was she, as Minister of International Affairs and Foreign Affairs, even instrumental in saving Canada from Donald Trump's worst instincts during the renegotiation of the Canada-US-Mexico free trade deal in 2018, and the catalyst for the Canada-EU trade deal signed in 2016, as I have been reading recently? Hard to say, and there are those who say her contribution has been overstated.

Whether Ms. Freeland will use this break with Trudeau as a platform to launch a Liberal leadership bid remains to be seen. Personally, I don't think I can stomach her slow-motion, explaining-to-a-five-year-old public speaking technique, however smart she may be. 

Ms. Freeland is currently riding a wave of approbation and acclaim, not least due to the judicious early publication of a flattering biography (Chrystia: From Peace River to Parliament Hill). But I think that her reinvention as a feminist icon may be be premature, or at least hyperbolic. Rather, I see her as a loyal Trudeau acolyte, a high-level functionary, but not really a dynamic live-wire and visionary.

Granted, she has managed to avoid significant scandals, despite being at the forefront of the Liberal government for the best part of a decade, which is probably a feat worthy of celebration. But she doesn't inspire me, and I think the Liberals need a clean break with the old guard if they want to be taken seriously in a few years time.

Breaking news: expedition to prove that the Earth is round

A group of prominent flat-earthers made a (very expensive) trip down to Antarctica to see first-hand whether there was indeed 24-hour sunlight there at this time of year.

For some reason, they seem to accept the premise that, if there is 24 hours of sun at the Pole, then that is sufficient evidence that the Earth is indeed round (spherical), not flat. Why they would accept that particular piece of evidence and not all the other evidence pointing towards a round earth is not clear. 

And why they felt the need to go to the South Pole, not the much more accessible (and much cheaper) North Pole at a different time of year, is also not clear. But then, they were not actually paying for it - some Colorado church was picking up the tab, again, for unknown reasons. And why they couldn't go just partway to the Pole and see the hours of sunlight increase to arrive at the same conclusion is likewise a mystery....

There are many more baffling aspects to this expedition, which are just too depressing to go into here. But, hey, this is not a scientific endeavour after all; logic need not apply. One of them explains, "Actually, what I am is somebody who has left the cult of science". But wait, testing a hypothesis by empirical observation? Isn't that pretty much the definition of the scientific method.

You'll be relieved to know that they did indeed find 24 hours of sunlight at the South Pole, and that at least some of them now accept that the Earth is indeed round. Phew!

Good riddance to Jordan Peterson

Right-wind firebrand Jordan Peterson is leaving Canada to live and work in the USA. He says of Canada, "It's become uncomfortable for me", both in his local neighbourhood and in his work as a psychologist. Uncomfortable for YOU? How do you think WE feel?

Good riddance! One less idiot to deal with here. I'm sure he'll be much happier in Trump's America. Hell, he'll probably get a cabinet position.

Doug Ford shows us what "unhelpful" really looks like

Speaking over overreach, the Canadian premiers are once again taking aim at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, this time when he had the audacity to question the wisdom of electing Donald Trump.

At a gala event for Equal Voice, Trudeau declared himself a proud feminist and bemoaned the fact that America had, for a second time, failed to elect a woman to the highest office in the land (not that Canada has actually ever done that...)

In doing so, of course, Trudeau effectively dissed Donald Trump, always a dangerous tactic but arguably one that should not be shied away from, where appropriate. Trump himself, who rarely lets an insult pass unanswered, has not bothered to respond specifically to that barb, suggesting that it's really not that important in the scheme of things. (Elon Musk did, but then he's even more anal about these things.)

But the premiers of Canada - who are supposed to be on Canada's side, but are really only on their own side - couldn't resist taking pot-shots at Trudeau, presumably to score a few cheap points towards their own re-election propects. Ontario's Doug Ford in particular came out swinging, saying repeatedly that Trudeau's comments were "not helpful at all".

But then, in a public presser about how to respond to Donald Trump's threat to impose hefty tariffs on Canada (and everyone else), Ford blustered about how Ontario will cut off all the electrical power the province exports to the USA. "It would turn off the lights to a million and half Americans". Ooh, scary!

Talk about "not helpful"! This once again shows just how naive Ford is, even in comparison with Trump, and what a poor grasp of international relations and negotiations he has. Somewhere in the first few pages of the manual it probably says, "Don't shoot your wad in the first two minutes".  Such a move would certainly risk much more economic damage to Ontario and Canada than the US would ever incur. As one public policy expert put it, "I'd be very careful about trying to get into a full war where they have a gun and we have a knife". 

Most of the other premiers quickly distanced themselves from Ford, Alberta's Danielle Smith being particularly vocal in assuring everyone that Alberta would never cut off its exports to the USA. At this point, it's mainly an exercise in damage limitation. Good job, Dougie.

Israel overreaches again, this time in Syria

I'm kind of surprised that there hasn't been more push-back and outrage at Israel's latest enormities.

While Syria is going through tough times and social ructions in the political vacuum that has followed the ousting of dictator Bashar al-Assad, Israel has basically invaded the country, taking over the Golan Heights buffer zone and strategically important Mount Hermon, as well as bombing Syria's military assets, destroying an estimated 90% of its surface-to-air missiles among other targets.

Although Israel maintains the capture of Mount Hermon, which is a scant 35km from the Syrian capital Damascus, is a "temporary measure", all of its actions represent an immense overreach. Israel is not actually at war with Syria (or they weren't). So, what are they doing occupying parts of it, and destroying the miltary capability of a sovereign nation? And talk about kicking a guy when he's down!

Netanyahu intones, "We have no intention to intervene in Syria's internal affairs", but then who believes a word THAT guy says these days. Does destroying their military and occupying their territory not count as "intervention"? He further explains that the actions were necessary in order to "take care of our security". What about Syria's security? 

As usual, everyone is scared stiff of criticizing Israel for fear of being labelled anti-semitic. But this is an unconscionable overextension of Israel's already excessive power.

A surprising nunber of Canadians want to join the USA

Most people think that Donald Trump was joking when he suggested that Canada should become the 51st state of the USA, with Trudeau as its governor. But you never can tell with Trump.

Trudeau hasn't graced Trump's post with a response, jokey or otherwise. But a Leger poll about Canadian opinions on the matter is alarming to say the least. You might expect that precisely NO Canadians would want to become  minor part of the USA, but you would be wrong.

In fact, according to the poll, 13% of Canadians would apparently be quite happy being part of an American state, with 82% not. The demographic breakdown is even more alarming when you consider that 19% of men would vote in favour of such an arrangement (compared to just 7% of women). Perhaps predictably, the proportion of Conservative voters who want to be part of the experiment in neo-fascism down south is higher than Liberals (Conservatives 21%; Liberals 10%; NDP 6%; the People's Party, for what it's worth, 25%). Also not surprising, the Atlantic provinces are less enthusiastic (7%), Quebec and Ontario middling (12% and 11%), and the Prairie provinces and Alberta the most gung-ho (18% and 19%).

It comes as a salutary reminder that, however much we may disdain Americans for being taken in by Trump and his nonsense, Canada too has more than its fair share of idiots.

To read or not to read

There was a brave and impassioned article by celebrated Canadian author Lawrence Hill in the weekend Globe and Mail about his use of the N-word in his books (no, I'm not going to write it out - do you think I'm stupid?)

Still perhaps the single most loaded word in the English language, Hill explains that he includes it in his novels, as do many other Black authors like Austin Clarke, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, et al, for authenticity. But it does out schools looking to teach the books in a difficult position because the work can apparently be "triggering" for many young Black people, and school boards feel the need to "protect" their young people from such mental strain. Hill believes that they need to "own" the word, or "reclaim" it, and that readers - Black and White - should face up to the reality of its historical use.

The article was prompted by the many letters Mr. Hill receives about how various school boards have.not exactly banned his books - particularly The Book of Negroes, his best known and most-awarded book - but stipulated that they should not be used for mandatory coursework, only made available for voluntary use in the school library.

Mr. Hill, however, maintains that this is tantamount to a ban - an assertion I would probably diasagree with, on balance - and that such policies are depriving students of the opportunity to read some great books by Black authors, and depriving Black authors of a valuable new audience. 

Again, on balance, I would probably disagree. I didn't read any Black authors during my schooling in 1960s and 1970s England, but I have read and enjoyed many since then. Should students be FORCED to read Black and Indigenous authors for the good of their immortal souls? That would be a radical notion indeed. Should they even be allocated study spots in proportion to their demographic numbers? That would also get complicated when you start trying to be inclusive of the various Asian, African, Latino, etc, sub-sets, and women, queer authors, etc, no doubt also want their share of the market.

There are so many worthy and well-written works of literature out there - most of them written by dead white guys as it happens - it's a real quagmire deciding who should be studied by Canadian students. The bottom line, though, should be that this a study of English literature, not politics, sociology or anthropology. 

There are many great books that are relatively uncontentious and inoffensive (including by Black authors). We do not have to push the envelope all the time, andnwe can still learn about sentence construction, literary styles and grammar without having to go through all this hand-wringing and recrimination.

Presidential pardons are getting out of hand

The whole system of presidential pardons in America is broken and wrong. I know US presidents have been doing it since the year dot (well, since George Washington anyway), and I know it's enshrined in the US Constitution, but it doesn't make any real sense and it is quite clearly open to abuse.

Joe Biden, hot on the heels of his horrible and embarrassing decision to pardon his own son for his criminal acts (possibly the worst decision of his whole presidency, and a huge black stain on his legacy), has just pardoned 39 other criminals accused of non-violent crimes (mainly drug-related), and commuted the sentences of about 1,500 others (mainly those who had their prison sentences interrupted by OVID), in the largest single-day act of clemency in modern American history. And he may not be finished yet.

Donald Trump has already vowed to pardon the imprisoned January 6th Capitol rioters "on Day 1". These are convicted criminals, many of them violent, whom Trump seems to see as political prisoners and maligned patriots. Biden is also said to be mullling the idea of pre-emptively pardoning (now, THERE's a concept!) the legal investigators of the January 6th coup attempt, in the full knowledge that Trump will be coming after them (and unspecified other politcal opponents) as soon as he gains power. It's all getting a bit ridiculous.

People who are in American prison are there because the courts, after due deliberation and legal cases that are often lengthy and complex, deemed that they have broken the laws of the land. It's not a perfect system, but it's pretty good. Who are these presidents, who think they know better than the courts, or who rely on the partisan political advice of others, who are they to second-guess the whole system of due process and legal precedent?

Canada's Supreme Court to finally test excessive use of "notwithstanding clause"

Canadian courts are finally taking to task those provincial governments - like Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan - that are routinely and willfully using the "notwithstanding clause" in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to pass legislation that is clearly contrary to human rights in the country.

Section 33 of the Charter, which effectively allows governments to override parts of the document, has always been a controversial element, and was always intended as a tool of last resort, only to be invoked in extremely rare circumstances. But, increasingly in recent years, some provincial governments have been using it to justify their own controversial motions, even invoking it pre-emptively, in the full knowledge that the legislation they are proposing is illegal under the Charter, as Ontario Premier Doug Ford did just this week. It has never been invoked at the federal level, but Pierre Poilievre - of course it would be him! - says he would be open to using it to push through dubious legislation on legal sentencing and bail.

It's frankly ridiculous that such a clause exists at all - it only exists to allow governments to break the law of the land - but given that it does, it should be used extremely sparingly and judiciously. The latest crop of (mainly conservative) populist politicians seem to feel this does not apply to them.

But now, finally, the Supreme Court of Canada is set to take on a case - brought by the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and teacher Ichrak Nour el Hak - appealing Quebec's Bill 21 (which seeks to ban public service employees from wearing religious symbols like crosses or hijabs). As part of this case, the Supreme Court must look at whether Quebec can hide behind the notwithstanding clause to push through such legislation.

Bring it on, I say. The notwithstanding clause is an unconscionable anachronism, but, given that it exists, it should at least be limited to the kinds of extremely rare circumstances envisaged by the Charter's authors, not just to allow unscrupulous governments to pass bad legislation.

Birthright citizenship is NOT a peculiarly American idea, nor is it illegal

President-elect Trump (how I hate to write that!) has often made a big deal about his plan to end birthright citizenship in the USA, which.for some reason he finds unfair and un-American, even illegal.

Birthright citizenship is the idea that any child born in the USA can take American citizenship, regardless of the citizenship status of the parents. Trump wants to end that, basically because he doesn't like immigrants of any sort. He argues that the current system is a "wilful misinterpretation" of the Constitution, an idea put into his head by wacko lawyer (now disbarred) John Eastman. 

In fact, the language in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution is very clear, and many judges and even conservative lawyers have rejected Eastman's fringe theory.

What really rankles, though, is Trump's deliberate lying in interviews on the subject: "You know, we're the only country that has it". Er, no. Canada has unconditional birthright citizenship at birth. Mexico has it. Brazil has it. In fact, pretty much all of North and South America has it, along with the Caribbean and some African countries, as the Library of Congress confirms. I'm pretty sure Trump knows that, but as usual he is willing to lie to make a point.

Montreal dance ticket pricing ruled discriminatory

However much you might believe that there is rampant anti-Black discrimination thoughout Canadian society, it's still hard to get on board with a Montreal community centre's BIPOC ticket pricing for its Shake La Cabane family dance night event.

The event was advertised as $25.83 general admission or $15.18 for anyone "Black, Indigenous or People of Colour". The event's organizers justified it as a "micro-reparation" for a discriminated population, "in the name of solidarity, not charity", and mentioned a couple of examples in the USA as precedent.

But they were forced to backtrack and cancel the event after a public outcry and the attentions of various Quebec politicians. Oh, and an opinion from the Quebec Human Rights Commission that such a policy violated the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms, specifically Section 10, which calls for the "full and equal recognition and exercise of [a person's] human rights and freedoms, without distinction, exclusion or preference based on race".

I guess it seemed like a good idea at the time.

How do we deal with Syria now?

In the aftermath of the whirlwind collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, there are lots of unanswered, and possibly unanswerable, questions, at least until the dust settles a bit more.

One thing that is happening is that some countries, including the UK, France, Germany and several other European countries, are immediately suspending asylum applications from Syria. (Canada has made no such moves.) Why the rush? Why the precipitate reaction, within hours of the regime's fall?

A steady stream of Syrians have been fleeing the country for years now. But the main reason for the asylum claims has been that they are fleeing the murderous Assad regime, and that of course no longer applies, so the argument goes. Indeed, some Syrian refugees in the diaspora may be looking to return to Syria. In addition, any Syrian refugees leaving now may well be members of the failed Assad regime itself, something I hadn't thought about.

The other major issue that is still very much up in the air is how to deal with Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main architects of the uprising, and presumably the likely mainstay of any new government for the country. Problem is, HTS is a proscribed terrorist organization according to the US, UK, EU and Canada, so this makes diplomatic and political dealings verboten.

In their defence, HTS did break with Islamic State as long ago as 2016, and they have tried to tread a more moderate path since then. Several countries are already looking into de-proscribing HTS in a hurry, although it's a bit embarrassing that they would only seek this move now, when push has come to shove.

As for some of the other Islamist organizations involved in the putsch, some of whom are at least as suspect from a diplomatic point of view, I guess each will be considered according to their merits in good time. 

But no-one saw this coming, and reactions to it will not be swift, and will necessarily be cautious.

Another senseless mass killing in Haiti

Witchcraft is alive and well and living in Haiti. Or at least that's what a local warlord believes.

A lot of bad stuff happens in benighted Haiti, but this is among the worst. Monel Felix, better known as Mikano, a gang leader from Wharf Jérémie in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, called in a voodoo priest when his son mysteriously sickened and died, and the priest blamed the boy's death on some elderly locals practising witchcraft. Leaving nothing to chance, Mikano ordered the old folks rounded up and shot or stabbed to death. At least 110 deaths have been confirmed, and maybe as many as 184 according to some sources. The mutilated bodies were burned in the streets.

Spiralling gang violence in Haiti has resulted in at least 5,000 deaths so far this year, but this adds a whole new horrific twist to the situation. The boy probably died due to the disease-ridden unsanitary conditions in Haiti since order broke down last year, but Mikano chose to believe a voodoo priest instead. And his henchmen chose to carry out his mad orders. What a place!

Republican attitudes to their electoral system entirely dependent on who wins

It's hardly news - and hardly unexpected - but recent polls of American Republicans' attitudes toward their electoral system have miraculously completely changed.

In 2020, just 21% of Republicans believed that the elections were well run and administered. In 2024, that percentage has shot up to 93%! 

So, what changed? Well, nothing really. The US electoral system, janky as it has always been, has not been changed. The only thing that changed is that, in 2020 the Republicans lost, and in 2024 they won. 

The attitude change was influenced - nay, directed - by Donald Trump, of course, who spent most of 2024 spreading baseless claims about election cheating in preparation for a possible loss. When it turns out that he won, the claims, no longer needed, suddenly disappeared. It's almost enough to make you cynical...

Meanwhile, Democratic voters did see the electoral system as slightly less reliable in 2024 than in 2016 or 2020, showing that they are not completely immune to the same kind of sollipsistic magical thinking (it's known as the "winners effect"). But it only went down from 96% to 84%, proving that many more Democrats than Republicans live in the real world.

The anti-woke backlash takes control

An article in the Globe and Mail succinctly summarizes the pressures on big businesses to cave in to the anti-woke sentiments that are in the ascendancy in the USA.

There are anti-woke campaigners and influencers out there diligently and assiduously working to persuade American companies that ESG (environmental, social and governance) and DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) policies are anti-business and, hell, anti-American. Several Conservative states have also been pushing hard in this respect, and with Donald Trump taking the helm at the federal level, you just know that there will be even more pressure on companies to abandon any progressive developments they may have been experimenting with.

Once such American conservative influencer is Robby Starbuck (presumably not his real name), who boasts that his campaigns have been instrumental in causing companies like Deere & Co, Harley Davidson Inc, Molson-Coors Beverage Co and Walmart Inc to pull back from DEI policies (changing their hiring practices, pulling out of relationships with equity groups, cutting funding for pride parades, etc). 

Starbuck reckons that he has persuaded companies worth over $2 trillion to change their policies away from DEI and ESG, leading to "better workplace environments as a result". Here is his shtick: "Companies can clearly see the America wants normalcy back. The era of wokeness is dying right in front of our eyes ... We are now the trend not the anomaly." *Sigh*

The article does point out that, thus far at least, Canada has NOT been following this disturbing trend. Indeed, the Globe and Mail's Board Games corporate ranking shows that Canadian companies have make significant strides in ESG and DEI in the last couple of years. But, already, some Canadian companies are making changes in their US operations to accommodate the changing climate there.

And, of course, when America sneezes, Canada catches a cold (or worse). With anti-woke campaigners and legislators already hard at work in conservative provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan, you can see the tide turning and the backlash beginning here too. If and when Pierre Poilievre gets elected (more of a "when"), it will take off in earnest. Years of effort and painfully slow progress down the drain in the blink of an eye.

Politics in Namibia (really!)

We are currently travelling around the deserts and savannas of Namibia, and it so happens that there will be a general election while we are here.

Now, you'd be forgiven for knowing nothing about Namibian politics. It's a small country of 3 million people (well, actually a BIG country of 3 million people), and there's not much that happens here that impacts the larger world. In fact, for an African country, it has been remarkably stable and democratic since it gained independence from South Africa in 1990, and rarely makes news for anything.

The country has been ruled by SWAPO, the political party of the South West Africa People's Organization that led Namibia to independence back in the late 1980s. And, much like the ANC in South Africa, it is starting to get a bit stale and corrupt. 

When outgoing President Hage Geingob died of cancer in February of this year, his vice-president Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah became SWAPO's presidential candidate. She is very much an old-school establishment candidate (she was a member of the SWAPO Central Committee back in the 1970s and 1980s), and she is still considered the front runner in the upcoming election.

But change is in the air. A relatively new party, going under the rather awkward moniker Independent Patriots for Change (IPC), is making inroads into SWAPO's traditional fiefdom. They made a good showing in the 2020 local elections, and party founder Panduleni Itula (ex-dentist and lawyer) finished in second place in the 2019 presidential elections. He is expected to do even better this year, and, judging by the posters we are seeing on the streets, that looks more than likely.

UPDATE

Well, so much for that. SWAPO candidate Ms. Nandi-Ndaitwah won handily, despite a palpable groundswell of public opinion in favour of change. 

Apparently, SWAPO (which also won a majority in the National Assembly) retained its strength in rural areas and among older voters who remember SWAPO's role in the independence struggle. 

In the end it wasn't even close, with SWAPO polling 57% in the presidential race and the second place IPC just 26%, although Itula and IPC are vowing that they will not accept the result because of rhe "deeply flawed" electoral process, marred by technical difficulties, ballot paper shortages, and delayed and extended voting in some areas. Don't hold your breath, though. 

Taliban continues to erase Afghan women

The Taliban in Afghanistan are starting to jump the shark with a series of new proclamations that are pretty hard to take seriously (unless of course you are Afghan, particularly an Afghan woman).

Already banned from showing flesh of any kind, looking at men they are not related to, and singing, reciting and reading aloud in public, a new Taliban edict has now come down disallowing women from being heard at all, even by other women. So, they cannot sing or play music, they cannot hold down a job of any kind, they cannot hold conversations with one another, they cannot even pray or recite Quranic verses:."Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear". 

Because? Well, female voices are potential instruments oftemptation and vice, don't you know? 

At the risk of incurring punishments that include beatings, detentions, torture, rape and even death, Aghan women are gradually being completely erased.

For what it's worth, men are now obliged to cover their bodies from their navel to their knees when they are outside their home, so no more of that naked shopping, guys! The Taliban's laws are becoming increasingly restrictive and bizarre, some of them worthy of a Monty Python sketch were they not so distressing and sad.

Buyers' remorse in Dearborn, Michigan

Arab-Americans, such as those in the  Arab-majority city of Dearborn, Michigan, made quite a song and dance about how they where going to "punish" Kamal Harris amd the Democrats for not being loud enough in their support for the beleaguered Arabs of the Middle East. I have already commented on how silly and short-sighted this was.

After the election, there is probably a lot of buyers' remorse in Dearborn (not that their votes either way would actually have swung the result, of course). The city voted 42% for Trump, 36% for Harris and 18% for Green Party candidate Jill Stein (which, as a vote against Harris, effectively counts as a vote for Trump). American Muslim voters in general voted 53% for Stein, 21% for Trump and 20% for Harris.

Well, I hope they are pleased with themselves. They have helped elect a Muslim-hating, ultra-pro-Israel President and Congress. Some of them will get deported. As one Muslim commentator put it, having seen some of Trump's pro-Israel cabinet nominations, "it does looked like our community has been played". You don't say! But the important thing is that they really showed those Democrats, eh?

What we need to do for the next four years

The deep thinkers of the Globe and Mail (and every other media outlet) have been doing their analysis of how America managed to elect an idiot like Trump, and how the world has to pivot to deal with a second Trump term.

Regarding the latter, I was particularly struck by Doug Saunders article on how to replace a US-sized hole in the free world, most of which make good sense to me.

Given that Trump has served notice that he is not interested in the USA doing the right thing in the wider world, and that he is much more concerned with making his own little fiefdom cozy and secure, Saunders suggests three steps that the remaining free and democratic countries must take to take up the slack.

Firstly, they need to get their own houses in order. Canada, Europe and the rest of the free world will need legitimate, stable democracies and rules-based governments if we are to make it through four years of Trump rudderlessness and isolation. Part of that, in Canada's case, is that Justin Trudeau needs to get out of the way of a 2024 Canadian election, so that Canada has a stable working government, of whatever political complexion, BEFORE Trump takes the reins in early 2025.

Second, they need to come as close as possible to national unity as soon as possible. As several Liberal left-of-centre governments can expect to be replaced by conservative ones in the current milieu, they must still try and cleave to the centre and consensus politics in the face of what they will have to respond to from a Trump administration (e.g. retreat from Ukraine and the Middle East, tariffs, environmental backtracking, etc).

And third, accept that all of this will be expensive. Just as with the pandemic, now is not the time for scrimping and austerity. We will need to up our spending on Ukraine if the US bails, as well as on national security in general in a world that will probably become rapidly more unstable. US tariffs will make everything more expensive, both in America and everywhere else. Suck it up; it will not last forever.

None of this is welcome news, but it is probably wise advice. None of those happy, celebrating Republican faces you have seen on the news have thought through this stuff, and neither do they care (they just think they may be a bit better off next year, and have to deal with fewer people of colour). But we do have to think about it. If America burns, we need stay safe and keep the world turning.

How to concede an election

Last comment on the US election, for now at least.

Kamala Harris' concession speech drew some major contrasts with the Republicans four years ago. With class and poise, she took the high road, saying, "We must accept the results of this election ... We will engage in a peaceful transfer of power". Imagine Donald Trump saying that!

This was not some pusillanimous capitulation, though. "While I concede this election, I do not concede the fight that fuelled this campaign", she said, possibly setting herself up for another fight (likely not with old man Trump) in four years time. 

I don't believe that she performed poorly in the election. I don't believe any other Democrat candidate would have done any better. It just wasn't to be.

Who's to blame for America's election debacle

As half of America and much of the rest of the world is in mourning after Donald Trump's shocking landslide.presidential election win, the inevitable search for a scapegoat has begun.

Some are blaming Black men, particularly as earlier opinion polls had shown them unconvinced by Kamala Harris, with many of them even drifting towards Trump. But according to exit polls, Black voting at the actual election followed very closely their voting during the 2020 election, i.e. overwhelmingly Democrat (Harris 86% and Trump 12%, compared to Harris 87% and Trump 12% in 2020). As in 2020, Black women were much more strongly Democratic than Black men (women 92%, men 78%, broadly similar to 2020). So, they can't be blamed.

What about the Arab-American vote? I have already railed against the ridiculous idea of Arab-Americans witholding their traditional Democratic vote in order to "punish" Harris and Biden in some way, particularly given that Trump is even more rabidly pro-Israel than either Biden or Harris.

But it looks like many of.those Arab-American single-issue voters DID follow through on their threats. For example, in Arab-majority Dearborn, MI, where Joe Biden won by 17,400 votes in 2020, the city went to Trump by more than 2,600 votes. So, whether they voted for Trump, or for third party Jill Stein of the Greens, or just didn't vote at all, the end result is the same: they helped to hand the election to Trump. And - go figure - they have ended up with a stridently anti-Muslim, pro-Israel President-Elect Senate and House of Representatives. Good job, guys. Who could have seen that coming? Er....

So, yes, some blame does attach to Arab-Americans for the predicament the country (and they themselves) find themselves in. It's hard to feel sympathetic, even if they will likely find themselves in the thick of the first wave of Trump's mass deportations of immigrants. That's what single issue voting gets you. But the Arab-American contingent is not actually that large (although larger than you might have thought). So, just how much blame attaches to them is unclear.

The Latino community is much larger, though, about 20% of the population these days. And, yes, they too abandoned the Democrats for reasons that are also not entirely clear to me, continuing their gradual shift to the right (notwithstanding offensive jokes about Puerto Rico at Trump rallies).

But clearly something else happened too - other, that is, than young, testosterone-fuelled rural guys voting for an octogenarian would-be dictator (almost the definition of an urban elite, despite what he says).

The big one, from exit poll data, is white women. Yes, those blowsy, bottle-blonde, slightly overweight, middle-aged women in inappropriate tight clothing you see holding signs behind Trump in all those televised rallies. White women make up 37% of the entire electorate, and I think we CAN legitimately blame them. Yes, Kamala Harris is a woman, and she made a point of campaigning on women's issues, but apparently issues like the economy and immigration outweighed issues like abortion rights and health care, for white women at least. She actually polled worse with women than her Democratic predecessors. Even younger women flocked to the old lecher. It makes no sense to me.

Of course, this kind of granular postmortem analysis is of limted usefulness, particularly in this particular case, where voters are more likely voting according to their social identity and partisan loyalty, i.e. rational considerations don't come into it.

It's also subject to the phenomenon known as "The Pundit's Fallacy" (or, to give it a more scientific label, "motivated reasoning"). This is the idea that political analysts, to a greater or lesser extent, tend to attribute their own opinions to voters. That is, they assume that the policies and beliefs that they hold with themselves are the most advantageous for the country but also for any party looking to get itself elected. This may, of course, not be the case.

Whether you believe that the "fault" for the Democrats losing this election was Joe Biden's (for not handing over the leadership earlier), Kamala Harris' (for not pandering more to the left wing, or to the right wing), or any or all of the various subsets of American society mentioned above, the bottom line is: I am severely disappointed with the American public, pretty much all of them. 

What really rankles is that so many of them couldn't tell the difference between the lies and the (few) truths Trump offered, between the jokes and the threats, between policy announcements and logorrheic drivel. Or, worse, that they could and ignored it anyway because it served their own selfish ends. Kamala Harris repeatedly appealed to their better natures in her campaign, but they threw it back in her face (or maybe they have no better natures).

One of the biggest casualties of this election is respect: Trump's win has vindicated his controversial aggressive campaigning "style". Populists and would-be dictators around the world have been looking on and the see that it's okay to lie, insult, play the victim, and generally engage in ad hominen character assassination. What's more, it works. The Democrats do still have the moral high ground here, but the results show that moral high ground does not win elections.

How do you tell when Trump "jumps the shark"?

It's hard to tell when Donald Trump is "jumping the shark", the guy is in an almost permanent state of shark-jumping. But maybe this was it.

Here's video of Trump at a rally in Milwaukee, masturbating and fellating a microphone. I kid you not. Maybe there was some context, you say? Nope. This was just Trump complaining (again) about the incompetent and "stupid" guys who set up his microphones. I mean, who wouldn't resort to similated sex acts if their microphone didn't work?

I'm sure the Trump faithful are lapping it up [sic]. Trump supporters are not big on policy announcements, empthy, that sort of thing. They are just there for some entertainment, preferably low-brow and not too intellectually taxing [sic], and Mr. Trump is happy to oblige. "Presidential"? What's that got to do with anything?

The US elections are not just about the next president

There's a timely article in the Globe about the OTHER elections going on in the USA. The presidential election takes up so much media oxygen, and it's so hard to look away, that it's easy to forget that there are also elections for Senate and House of Representatives going on this Tuesday, and these are also really important for the US, for Canada, and for the rest of the world.

One third of Senate Seats (34 out of 100) are up for grabs, as are all 435 House seats. Whoever becomes President, will either be constrained or aided by the make-up of the new Congress. Yes, there is still the possibility of executive orders (effectively presidential decrees, not requiring a vote by Congress), an expedient of which Donald Trump was particularly fond (he used them 220 times in his four years, compared to just 143 by Joe Biden in his), but Congress will still be critical for the passage of major legislation.

The Democrats currently have a slim majority in the Senate, but 19 of the 34 seats being contested are Democratic holdings, with only 11 being Republican, so the Dems face a large potential risk. 14 of the 34 seats in play are considered solidly Democrat and 11 solidly Republican. So, 9 could go either way and, in particular, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are considered too close to call.

In the House of Representatives, where the Republicans currently have a three-seat majority, no less than 25 seats are seen as toss-ups, 14 of which have a Republican incumbent and 8 a Democrat incumbent (3 seats are currently vacant). It is almost impossible to predict where this will go.

So, as with the presidential election, things sit on a knife-edge both in the Senate and in the House of Representatives, and a few votes here or there in a handful of swing states could make a huge difference in how the next four years go. Scary stuff, but fascinating.

Expect the US election to go wrong, seriously wrong

The American democratic system - once thought so sturdy and robust, the envy of the world - has never looked so flimsy and fragile. 

The Electoral College system itself, Byzantine in its unnecessary complexity and rife with internal inconsistencies, as I have explored in a previous post, is already quite capable of converting a substantial popular vote majority into an effective loss (as we have seen). The whole antiquated system is shot through with what I have charitably termed "vagaries", which are open to exploitation by capable but unscrupilous hands.

Another excellent article by Andrew Coyne in the Globe and Mail lists some of the many ways this system can be gamed or weaponized. Trump's plan, should he lose, is to tie up the election results in certain states in legal knots long enough to prevent the certification of Electoral College votes within the statutory time limit (as far as I can tell from what I have read, this is December 17th). Tame election administrators can be called on to refuse to certify apparently clear vote results, or Republican-controlled state legislators can be pressed into setting aside the results. 

If neither party can be legally said to have won the Electoral College, the 12th Amendment of the Constitution allows for it to be thrown over to the newly-elected House of Representatives to decide. Of course, this is not by a normal majority of the House's members, but by a vote of its state delegations, i.e. one vote per state, of which the Republicans will probably hold a majority, regardless of the actual elected Representatives. Other options also exist, such as tossing out electors in some states to manufacture a Republican win despite the popular vote and even the Electoral College vote (yes, apparently it's technically possible). Did I mention Byzantine?

And it doesn't end with the Electoral College. Gerrymandered electoral districts make a mockery of one-person-one-vote rhetoric, and the Republicans in particular have been hard at work manufacturing more such inequities. 

A badly-unbalanced Supreme Court is now stacked with extreme partisans willing to sacrifice judicial fairness and ethical judgement for partisan political advantage, as it has repeatedly demonstrated over the last few years. So. if any of the legal wrangling mentioned above ends up at the Supreme Court, you know how it will end before it even starts.

All this is well-known, but Trump and the current band of feckless Republican enablers have blown these weaknesses up into unprecedented dangerous territory with their willingness to pursue suspect and often downright illegal avenues of procedure in their lust for power. 

Trump has made no secret that he will not accept a Democratic victory, even one that plays by the rules, Byzantine though they may be. He has repeatedly said that there is no way the Democrats can win without cheating, and has been preparing the way for such a claim for months now, laying the groundwork to challenge the results if he loses. 

He is already claiming that election fraud is under way, from millions of fictitious illegal migrants voting Democrat to fraudulent overseas ballots to tampered election machines in swing states. According to him, all of these ploys are supposedly aiding the Democratic vote. None of it is true: despite what Trump says, electoral fraud is exceedingly rare in the USA, as several inquiries and court cases after the 2020 vote have confirmed.

What IS happening is widespread intimidation and harassment of voters and electoral workers by Republican "poll-watchers", who are being trained to be "assertive" and "aggressive" in their work. While monitoring elections might seem like a good idea in principle, extreme partisan monitoring can work against the stated goal of fairness. Armed and mask-wearing poll-watchers like we saw in Texas and Arizona in 2022 are not just trying to maintain fairness, and Republican poll-watchers in North Carolina were accused of blocking access to poll booths and generally disrupting the electoral process. 

Some Republican states like Florida, Texas and Missouri, on the other hand, are refusing to let the normal Justice Department  election monitors enter polling stations on election day. I'm not sure how legal that is.

The latest security twist comes from the Sheriff Lieutenant of Springfield, Ohio (yes the same place accused by Republicans of eating cats and dogs...), who has vowed not to help Democrats requiring security aid, only Republicans. It doesn't get much more ridiculous than that, does it?

Anyway, you can expect Trump to declare victory on Tuesday, whatever actually transpires. What happens then is extremely uncertain, but it will probably involve weeks of chaos and, quite likely, violence. We here in Canada like to denigrate our own political and electoral systems, and they are certainly not perfect. But God, am I glad I'm not American! 

Half of the voting population of the United states appears quite content to vote in a guy they see as a "straight talker" who "tells it like it is" and who will release them from the "woke liberalism" that is strangling their starry-eyed notion of America. They seem oblivious, or wilfully ignorant, of what is happening behind the scenes, even though the information is out there. When the chaos and violence descends on their country, as surely it will, they will all have been complicit.

UCP not right wing enough for Take Back Alberta

The United Conservative Party (UCP) of Alberta is having its annual general meeting in Red Deer, among reports that the party is anything but united.

Specifically, the meeting will be voting on whether Premier Danielle Smith, who has been at the helm of the UCP since October 2022, is fit to continue leading the party. Ms. Smith is regarded by the rest of Canada as a rabid right-wing hawk, but most of the grievances against her leadership seem to be coming from the RIGHT of her party, particularly groupings like Take Back Alberta and the 1905 Committee that helped get her elected in the first place.

Take Back Alberta seems still to be hung up on opposition to COVID-19 restrictions - remember those? - although they also claim to be exercised by "freedom, accountability and healthcare choices" in some vague, general way. For some reason, many of them feel that, for all Smith's radical and extreme legislative agenda over the last couple of years, she has been something of a "disappointment" to Take Back Alberta. Which is a scary  thought.

These people would not be out of place in Texas or Wyoming. They seem very out of place in Canada.

UPDATE

In the end, Smith won a resounding 91.5% of the UCP vote, so I guess she's right-wing enough after all. Not exactly the "stern message" her right flank was thinking of...

If you are losing track of Trump's lies...

It's no secret that Donald Trump lies. A lot. It's easy to lose track of just how many mistruths he has spun over the years, even from.wrrk to week and day to day. 

Yes, Joe Biden is not above the odd fib from time to time, and even the much more careful Kamala Harris is not entirely squeaky clean (as even CNN admits). But no politician EVER has lied as much as Donald Trump. Neither he nor his people bother to refute allegations of lying - they just don't really care, and it's just seen as part of Trump's campaign style and indeed his whole persona.

So, thanks to a recent CNN article that neatly summaries Trump's main recent lying campaigns, without literally listing them all which would be tedious (and depressing). It makes sobering reading, not least because half of Americans either believe them or just don't care. 

As I have argued elsewhere, though, the sheer amount of lying that happens in politics these days - not just by Trump, but mainly as a result of Trump's campaigning "style" - is ushering in a period of political cynicism and nihilism that makes a complete mockery of our democratic systems.

Amazing photo of damaged cars

There is an extraordinary photo on the Internet of cars stacked on top of each other in Valencia, Spain, after the catastrophic flash floods there.

I have no idea how such a thing could happen, but I'm pretty sure it's not a doctored image. Amazing.

And, in case you were wondering, the weird m, destructive weather that hit Spain, and that dropped a year's worth of rain in just a few hours was due to a phenomenon called DANA - Depression Aislada en Niveles Altas, or isolated depression at high levels.

Why the Washington Post is "choosing" not to endorse a presidental candidate

While one multibillionaire, Elon Musk, continues to make a fool of himself appearing as a trained pet at Donald Trump's rallies, another multibillionaire, Jeff Bezos, has waded into the fray too, although he has tried his best to hide it.

The Washington Post has decided, for the first time in 30 years, not to endorse one or other of the US presidential candidates. But this wasn't an editorial decision, it was a decision handed down by the paper's new owner, one Jeff Bezos.

According to sources within the newspaper, an endorsement for Kamala Harris had been written and drafted ready, but was put on hold at the last minute and not published. Some.staffers and reporters have laid the blame squarely at Bezos' feet, and many others are disgusted at this "stab in the back", this "insult" to staff and readers.

Essentially, this was Bezos bottling out. His companies have billions of dollars worth of contracts with the federal government, and he does not want to be accused of partisanship, particularly if a certain vindictive ex-president wins the race. Trump's disgraceful behaviour has been effective once again, and he will see this as an invitation to further intimidate the US press in the future.

UPDATE

A very similar thing seems to have happened at the Los Angeles Times, as billionaire owner Patrick Soon-Shiong overruled an editorial intention to endorse Kamala Harris.

This time, though, according to the owner's activist daughter at least, the reasoning was different, and clearer. It was over Harris's continued support and arming of Israel. Probably also at the back if his mind, though, was the figure of a vindictive, avenging Trump.

Either way, this is not how things are supposed to work on a free and open country.

First Nations childcare deal creating divisions among Indigenous bands

The Assembly of First Nations has voted to reject a huge $47.8 billion childcare agreement with the Canadian federal government.

267 of the 414 chiefs represented at the meeting (64%) voted against the offer, presumably on the grounds that they think they can get more. That's a lot of money to turn down. The money is to allow First Nations to set up and run their own child welfare service.

The debate has turned quite acrimonious, setting band against band, with some chiefs vowing to cut ties with those who are refusing the deal, and going it alone. As one chief opined, "I will not gamble with $47.8 billion that could change the lives of our future generations because my ego tells me I can do better". Ouch.

And gambling is right. Any day now could see a snap election, and then it won't be the free-spending Liberals in power, but the stingy Conservatives. If I were them, I'd take the money and run.

Xi and Putin's new world order dance routine

What's with the weird pose by Chinese President Xi and Russian President Putin at a photo op at the BRICS summit at Kazan recently?

As Putin outlined his "vision of a new democratic world order" [sic] to the expander BRICS delegates, this photo really stands out to me. Was it just coincidence that they were both digging in their jacket pockets at the same time? Was it part of a dance routine? A nod to Napoleon Bonaparte? Is it maybe some new kind of salute? Will we all have do this in the new world order? I'd like to know.

Ontario medical school announcement addresses a non-existent problem

The Ford government made a big splashy campaign-style announcement yesterday that it would be slashing the number of out-of-province students attending Ontario's six medical schools, with 95% of the spots being reserved for Ontario students.

This is clearly Doug Ford jumping on the runaway bandwagon of Pierre Poilievre's anti-immigrant sentiment. Ford said in the announcement that he had been told that 18% of Ontario's college and university students were international students, although it later transpired that that figure relates to graduate students, and is anyway nothing to do with medical sudents in particular.

The thing is, only 0.3% of undergraduate medical students in Ontario are actually international students. This amounts to all of 11 students out of 3,732 in the academic year 2022-23, and three of those were from the US. This number for 2023-24 was down to 10. Three of the six Ontario medical schools had no foreign students at all.

Granted, about 12% of medical school students were from other Canadian provinces, and this would be capped at 5% under Ford's new rules, but I'm not sure that is what Ford's supporters would have gleaned from the announcement (nor am I sure that is a problem that necessarily needs fixing).

Either way, none of this is going to address in any meaningful way Ontario's housing crises or the family medicine doctors shortage (which in fact, might get slightly worse as a result of this announcement). What we really need is more medical schools, and more money pumped into the training system (although, to be fair, two new medical schools, at Toronto Metropolitan University amd York University, have been separately announced).

 But, anyway, Ford got some useful sound-bites and media coverage out of it.

How many Russians are dying in Ukraine, and how do Russians feel about it?

While the US election and the ongoing Israeli war against the Arab world sucks up all the oxygen in the world news, it's sometimes hard to remember that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is also still going on in the background.

Now almost three years old, that war has settled into something of a stalemate, although in recent weeks and months Russia has started to make more progress, even if painfully slowly. The map of Russian gains in Ukraine does not seem to have changed a whole lot over the last couple of years but, while a year ago Ukraine seemed to be clawing back small parcels of territory, today the small gains are mainly going Russia's way.

But what really stuck me listening to one of the Economist's excellent briefings on the situation in Ukraine was the statistic that Russia is losing 1,200 soldiers a day for the bare metres of land they have been able to gain. That's staggering figure. The Guardian's figure is around 1,000 in Russian losses each day, but the shock remains. Estimates of total deaths throughout the war are in the range of 115,000 to 160,000, which means that current losses are higher than ever.

Now, sure, Russia is a big country with a population of around 144 millon, but that is still a lot of bad news arriving into the country each and every day, and it makes you wonder how long the Russian people can stomach it, for the sake of Valdimir Putin's personal legacy (and little else). 

For now, Russia is managing to find replacements for the thousands dying on the front lines by basically throwing money at it: the upfront payment for new recruits is now up to 3 million roubles (about C$42,000), and the monthly minimum wage is up to the equivalent of C$3,150, about four times the average salary in Russia. Plus, of course, they are sending in North Korean troops.

But already, Russians are much less gung-ho about the war than they were. Contrary to official polls in Russia, some independent polling has shown that as many as 84% want Russia to concentrate more on domestic affairs rather than on a useless war, and 63%  want to see a peace treaty with mutual concessions. Not that they have much control over the country's policies...

Many Arab-Americans will vote for Trump (don't ask me why)

More bizarro stuff from America. A YouGov poll of Arab-Americans shows that that demographic intends to turn out in force for the upcoming presidential elections, and that they are likely to vote in slightly greater numbers for Donald Trump than for Kamala Harris. They also apparently consider the situation in the Middle East to be more important than any domestic issues like the economy, immigration, affordability, etc.

It seems that they are so cross with Joe Biden and the Democrats for continuing to support and arm Israel in the Gaza/Lebanon conflict that they will vote for literally anyone else. So, they would vote for Donald Trump, who is even more pro-Israel than Kamala Harris, and who is campaigning on a promise of mass deportations of immigrants living in the USA.

Here's a quote from a Muslim iman at a Trump rally in Novi, Michigan: "We as Muslims stand with President Trump because he promises peace not war". It's mind-boggling stuff. Are they really that naive and uninformed?

Look at it another way, if you like: if you don't like Kamala Harris' policies on Israel, she is a reasonable person and she MAY be open to change; Donald Trump, on the other hand, will NOT change.

There are many things about this election that seem to us outsIders to make absolutely no sense, but this is a real headscratcher. Now, maybe these people are just grandstanding for the sake of the poll in an attempt to shake up the Democrats' policies, and maybe wiser heads will prevail on the day. But don't count on it.

Why would Transnistria even bother seceding from Moldova?

As the little East European country of Moldova goes to the polls in a general election in which the pro-Europe incumbent party is hoping to consolidate power and make membership of the EU a reality, it is fighting against Russian electoral meddling and disinformation. Like Russia doesn't have anything better to do right now...

One of the hot issues in Moldova is the would-be breakaway region of Transnistria, a tiny isolated sliver of land on the Moldovan border with Ukraine. It has remained defiantly pro-Russian, even as Moldova, like most of the rest of the region, looks westward toward Europe as a way of extricating itself from Russian dominance. It usually hosts some 1,500 Russian troops, and remains a persistent thorn in Moldova's side.

Transnistria wants to be independent of Moldova. It even went to war over it briefly in 1992, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It has its own constitution, flag, national anthem, and coat of arms. But pretty much nobody considers it an independent state (apart possibly from Russia), and it is internationally recognized as just another part of Moldova. Moldova has warned, though, that if Russia defeats and annexes Ukraine, little Transnistria is likely to be the next Ukraine, which would give it a platform to invade Moldova.

The thing that gets me, though, is that Transnistria is TINY. It has a population of about 400,000 and an area of around 4,000 square kilometres. That makes it significantly smaller than the city of Toronto and MUCH less populated. It would be the equivalent of, say, the city of Saskatoon wanting to secede from Canada.

It's not even THAT Russian. Ethnically, it's population is split about evenly between Russians, Ukrainians and Moldovan/Romanians, although almost half have duel Russian citizenship. 

So, why would it be so vociferous about wanting to split from Moldova? Does it really want to declare its vassalage to Russia, after all that went down during its time in the USSR? Maybe Moldova is not the best state to belong to, but it can't possibly be worse than being an entirely insignificant part of the Russian Empire. The whole thing seems bizarre to me.

UPDATE

Well, Moldova barely managed to avoid a very awkward situation by narrowly voting to continue its commitment to joining the EU, by a 50.46% to 49.54% margin in a referendum, alongside the elections, which were so close they are going to a second round of voting next month.

UPDATE UPDATE

And let's not forget that neighbouring Georgia is also going through a similar existential election, which is also effectively a referendum on whether the country should cleave closer to Europe or fall back into Russia's orbit. Four out of five Georgians apparently support joining the EU, but the increasingly authoritarian and divisive incumbent president has tried to frame the election as a choice between peace with Russia and war with Russia, a framing that is particularly poignant since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

Well, Georgia has gone over to the dark side, as it gave a decisive electoral victory to the ruling, Russia-appeasing "Georgian Dream" party. And it wasn't even that close, although there are multiple allegations of vote buying, voter intimidation and ballot stuffing.

Higher electricity production and costs in pursuit of an AI delusion

If, like me, younare deeply suspicious of artificial intelligence (AI) and the current infatuation with it, you might have read the latest news from Ontario's power system operator with some alarm and despondency.

AI is the flavour of the year this year. It is an ingredient in pretty much everything, even things that might seem to have no relationship with information technology. I'm pretty sure that some of the things that claim to be "AI-enhanced" or whatever are actually just using regular old fashioned computer analysis, not actually machine learning, but still...

In fact, AI, in the face of all the claims and ambitions for it, seems to me to be somewhat underperforming. It hasn't revolutionized healthcare; it hasn't cured world poverty; it hasn't really done much at all in concrete terms. Like 5G cell service, AI is a technology that is being pursued at breakneck speed, without a whole lot of compelling reason, largely just because it's there and it's trendy.

As we have come to understand too, AI is also a huge power hog. All those data centres, all that computing power, all the cooling requirements, they require an unprecedented amount of electricity.

Now, Ontario's Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) has issued a report saying that it expects electricity demand in the province to grow by 75% by 2050. Industrial electricity demand is predicted to rise by 58% by 2035. I'm not sure we should necessarily believe self-serving predictions from the supply industry itself, but it is clear that some level of demand increase is to be expected.

Now, to be fair, this is not just as a result of Ontario's AI ambitions. It is also a result of the general electrification of life, from electric cars to heat pumps. But AI considerations are front and centre of the report.

All that, in itself, is not necessarily such a bad thing. The problem arises in that Premier Doug Ford and his current crop of Conservative lackeys can not be relied on to make sensible decisions about energy production in the province. Ford has a record of favouring gas and nuclear plants, despite the fact that water, wind, solar and battery storage are much cheaper, faster, and cleaner options these days. But logic, clear thinking and progressive ideas are not Ford's strong suits. 

So, we, the taxpayers, could be saddled with decades of higher costs and polluted air as a result of AI pretensions that amount to little more than jumping on the bandwagon and a bad case of FOMO.

Supply management system is inherently wasteful

If, like me, Canada's dairy supply management system - which is designed to control output of dairy products, keep prices stable and, theoretically at least, protect Canadian farmers' jobs - makes little or no sense, then you might be further bewildered by the news, based on the Dairy Farmers of Canada's own figures, that 7% of all milk produced is dumped, unceremoniously thrown away, as a result of the system.

Since 2012, between 6.8 and 10 billion litres of raw milk, representing about 7% of total production, and worth at least $6.7 billion, has just been tipped down the drain, ostensibly to avoid "costly surpluses" as the Canadian Dairy Commission says. That would be enough to supply over 4 million people annually. 

The disposed milk, which is in fact a costly surplus however you slice it, also led to the release of 8.4 million tonnes of greenhouse gases (equivalent to the emissions of about 350,000 has-powered cars).

Part of the reason for this dumping is that quotas have not been properly adjusted to the changing diets of many Canadians today, who may drink less milk or prefer plant-based alternatives.

And yet, here we have Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet arm-twisting the Liberal government into protecting the controversial supply management system during international trade negotiations, effectively setting it in stone. Most of our trade partners, not to mention our own agricultural sector, hate the system, which they see as indefensible government meddling, possibly even illegal under international trade rules. Several of our "allies" have taken offence at it, and New Zealand is currently taking Canada to court over it. And yet we still have it, and some are even looking to strengthen it.

Reflections on conservatism

A good part of the ideology of Conservatism revolves around resisting change. The name itself tells you that - it's nothing to do with  conserving nature or biodiversity or anything as positive as that; it's about conserving the past. 

A few snippets from current and recent political campaigns makes this painfully obvious, and gives an idea of what more thoughtful progressive parties are up against.

Take the Trump campaign in America, for instance. Here's a typical quote from a Trump supporter: "It's slowly slipping away from us. Anyone that's a Trump supporter wants an old America back, the best America back." Here's another (in reference to electic cars): "I don't trust them. I want it to be the way it always was, with a good old-fashioned car." As though nothing has improved over the life of this 82- year old Michigan voter...

Canada's Pierre Poilievre, with his particular penchant for overstatement and exaggeration (for political effect), is only evoking the conservative hankering for "the good old days" when he calls the country's carbon tax an "existential threat to our economy and our way of life", that will surely lead to "mass hunger and malnutrition", even, somehow, to "nuclear winter". I would assume that he doesn't actually believe this stuff, but he knows that it will appeal to his change-resistant political base.

"Traditional family values" is also a recurrent conservative article of faith, although many conservatives might be hard-pressed  to say what exactly that means. In practice, it seems to mean opposition to expressions of individuality in sexuality (even though individualism is supposed to another core conservative tenet) and to anything vaguely connected to LGBTQ issues, trans rights, a liberal sex education, and support for what have become known recently as "parents' rights" or "parental rights" (the right to force kids to follow parent's rules and values).

The largely Conservative-led Brexit movement in the UK also relied on a hankering for a return to the old glory days of a resplendant British Empire (like cutting ties with all of Europe was somehow going to achieve that!), with slogans like "we want our country back", "take back control", "make Britain white again", etc. Most of it was disingenuous, misleading and hopelessly idealistic, but it deliberately and shamelessly leveraged a (largely spurious) nostalgia for better past times. It also demonstrated how Conservatives ARE actually willing to change things, but only in the service of undoing progressive advances and returning to more old-fashioned ways of doing things.

Anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe is just another example of this denial of change. White Europeans in France Germany, Austria, Italy and many other places see their countries changing, and one of the most obvious manifestations of that is the colour of people's faces and the language they speak. Thus, the burgeoning hard- right parties are openly (and quite successfully) running on platforms of drastic immigration reforms and even the repatriation of existing immigrants. This, regardless of the fact that much of their economies, and much of their ability to weather turbulent economic times, relies on immigrant labour, particularly as birth rates in western countries continues to tank and populations skew ever older. *Sigh*

Change is sometimes hard, granted. But burying your head in the sand and pretending that the past was better than the present, or some envisioned future, is surely a poor response. That way, we would still have slavery, capital punishment, hymns instead of pop music, a coal-dominated power system, and unadulterated patriarchy. Change - constant change, even - is hard but necessary. Just don't expect a Conservative government of any stripe to provide that.

Chronic medical conditions set to explode in coming years

There's a rather extraordinary chart in today's paper showing the expected growth of chronic medical conditions in Ontario over the next 20 years.

So, everything is going up. But over twenty years, with the population expected to continue increasing dramatically and the average age of the population also continuing its upward trend, maybe you would expect everything to go up. What's extraordinary is the AMOUNT certain conditions are expected to increase by. 

According to forecasts, Ontario's population is expected to increase by about 39% over the next 23 years, which gives us a pretty good benchmarks against which to compare other forecasts. According to the Dalla Lana School of Public Health report, though, Renal Failure is expected to increase by an astounding 361.5%, Hearing Loss by 224.1%, Osteoporosis by 123.5%, Cancer by 120.6%, Dementia by 119.4%, Diabetes by 119.7%, etc, etc. 

These are huge increases which will put our already ailing healthcare system into a cardiac arrest of its own. These figures are just for Ontario, but you can expect the rest of the country to go along the same lines. 

And what's with the Renal Failure stat? What are we doing to our kidneys that will lead to such an explosion of failures in the next twenty years? Well, Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is apparently largely caused by other chronic contitions, like diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity, all of which are also on the increase. But 361.5%? Yow!

Is the end of truth the end of democracy?

Here's just one example among very many of the post-truth world we live in today.

At a boat parade in Jupiter, Florida, in support of Donald Trump (yes, I know, a boat parade!), some of the boats were openly displaying swastikas and neo-Nazi insignia and changing racist slogans. When there was an outcry from Democrats about it, Trump campaign officials merely claimed, with no evidence offered or attempted, that it was a "false flag event" by "liberal activists". 

This, in spite of the positive identifications of known members of the Order of the Black Sun and the Goyim Defense League (yes, these are the names of real neo-Nazi organizations!)

This kind of spurious but effective shut-down has now become the first line of defence and attack, almost a knee-jerk reaction to any potential set-back. There is no longer any attempt at making the argument convincing, or at least partially true. It is enough to provide social media with an alternative talking point, and to parry and negate any potential political damage.

So, if all that's needed to shut down a legitimate protest is a barefaced, unfounded lie, then what is the value - what is the point - of any protest, any debate? Given that the majority of Trump's election campaign at this point is based on random unsubstantiated claims and outright lies, often, it seems, conjured on the spur of the moment, what is the point of even trying to refute them?

Trump's supporters will apparently believe pretty much anything he tells them, either out of ignorance or out of willful suspension of disbelief, there seems to be no legitimate way he can be stopped from lying. Many other populists, from Netanyahu to Orbán to Erdoğan to Modi to Poilievre, have taken this approach, often with great success. Most of them have taken their lead from Trump, who has single-handledly moved the Overton window on what is considered politically acceptable. 

Another corollary of this epidemic of lies is that people who tell the truth are often not believed, because the automatic assumption is that they are just lying. So, when Kamala Harris corrects Trump's wild assertions about a tanking US economy, pointing out (correctly) that the American economy has never been stronger - inflation is down, consumer demand is strong, employment and wages are up, new business starts are up, stock markets are in record territory, etc, etc, a booming economy by any definition - Trump supporters just ignore it as more partisan extreme-left lies, because that's what Trump has told them to think. So, a huge proportion of voters are not even looking at the whole picture, content to muddle along in their town little silo.

Is this, then, the end of democracy as we know it? If voters are not basing their decisions on reality, what value does an election actually hold? If Trump wins because he is a better liar, should it even count?

Another bizarre Trump town hall

Donald Trump's presidential campaign just jeeps getting weirder. At a town hall event in Oaks, Pennsylvania (no, I've never heard of it either), a couple of audience members fainted due to excessive heat in the hall. Trump too was clearly feeling the heat but, rather than cancelling the whole thing, he decided to turn it into a rather listless dance party, calling for music to be played for the final 40 minutes of the meeting.

"Who the hell wants more questions?", he quipped, "Let's just listen to music". And he proceeded to do just that, requesting a bizarre mix of music to be played instead, ranging from "Ave Maria" to a medley of songs by artists who have specifically called him out for using their music for his own political purposes, including Sinéad O'Connor and Guns n Roses.

Throughout, Trump stood there, bobbing his head, swaying gently, occasionally doing his familiar grandad dance. Many among the bemused audience started to leave, but the old guy seemed to be enjoying himself.

A Trump spokesperson commented on Twitter (sorry, X) that "something very special is happening in Pennsylvania". Well, he certainly got that right.

Support for Trump increases in Canada - wait, what?

Canadians regularly poo-poo Americans and their creepy love affair with Donald Trump. We often smugly assure ourselves that it could never happen here. I do it regularly in these very posts.

But then Trump-Lite, in the form of Pierre Poilievre, turns up, and all bets are off. And now, an Environics poll has looked at Canadians' attitudes to Trump, and it is shocking to see just how those attitudes have changed in the four years since 2020.

Canadians are still MUCH more likely to prefer Democratic nominee Kamala Harris to Donald Trump, by a landslide margin of 60% to 21%. So, things haven't got THAT bad. But that 21% was 15% back in 2020, and the support for the Democrats was 67% not 60% (with Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee). So, there has been a significant shift.

Perhaps even more worrying is the breakdown of that Canadian support for Trump. It's no surprise that Conservatives are much more likely to prefer Trump than Liberals, NDP or Bloc Québécois (44%, compared to 8%, 6% and 7% respectively), and support for Kamala Harris is, unexpectedly, centred on progressive Canadians (Bloc 89%, Liberals 85%, NDP 82%, compared to a measly 36% among Conservatives).

But it is notable that support for Trump is much higher among younger Canadians: 28% for 18-34 year olds and 27% among 35-54 years olds, compared to just 13% among those over 55 (the cohort in which I am proud to number myself). I don't know any of these people, and neither does my 29-year old university-educated daughter, but clearly they exist.

Even more stark is the gender split, with 36% of Canadian men between 18-34 years old preferring Trump to Harris. That 36% was just 24% among the same demographic (young men) in 2020. Combine that with Canadian party affiliation, and we see that 48% of young male Conservatives would support Donald Trump, a truly scary statistic.

Call it the Poilievre Effect, put it down to discontent with prices and the housing situation. Explain it however you like, but it is a real thing. If Donald Trump were running in Canada today, he would still lose embarrassingly, but his star would appear to be in the ascendancy.

What really caused the Liberals' slide from grace?

Jeffrey Simpson's analysis of "the long slide of the Trudeau Liberals", which he neatly categorizes under "the four i's" - incumbency, inflation, immigration and identity - is interesting enough as far as it goes, but simplistic and insufficient.

A simple thought experiment suffices to refute much of it. Imagine if, instead of Justin Trudeau and the Liberals, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives had been in power for the last nine years.

They would still be suffering from the incumbency curse - few governments survive more than three consecutive elections, and none since the very different world of more than a century ago. The longer you stay in power, the more people you upset: that's just the way it is, across the globe.

The spike in inflation is not a specifically Canadian thing, and not controllable by individal governments. Pretty much every country in the world has been affected by inflation in the aftermath of the COVID pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and other geopolitical vagaries. Poilievre and the Conservatives would have been affected by it too, and any protestations that the Liberals made it worse than it should have been is little more than political grandstanding.

Immigration is a big one in the list of four factors, and who would have expected that just a few short years ago, when Canadians were unreservedly pro-immigration (I have my own views on that too). Inflation has also been a strong determinant on this issue, and it can be argued that the Liberals dropped the ball to some extent by poor regulation of immigration policies. But if Poilievre had been in charge, it's quite possible that he would have pushed things too far in the other direction: we NEED immigration to keep our economy afloat, that much is incontrovertible, although the exact level needed is a tough call.

And finally, by "identity", Mr. Simpson means that the Liberals used to be the party of patriotism. I think it's many years since the Conservatives donned that mantle. But, anyway, I'm not wholly convinced that patriotism is a huge vote-winner in Canada, nor that the Trudeau Liberals have been specifically instrumental in abandoning it.

Anyway, an interesting piece. I'm just not sure I go along with most of it.

Some long-held scientific truths are being challenged

An interesting article in today's Globe and Mail describes how some long-held scientific beliefs, particularly in the human fields of psychology, sociology and economics, are being challenged, and successfully.

For example, if has long been held that making more money does not in fact make people any happier. This is supposed to be scientifically proven, and the paper's principal author, Daniel Kahneman, went on to earn a Nobel Prize and a Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work. But a young fellow at the University of Pennsylvania published a paper in 2021 refuting that finding, and explaining why. So, it turns out that, generally speaking, more money does indeed make you more happy. Which is kind of what I always thought...

Other long-held scientific theories are also starting to topple. For example, the idea that forcing yourself to smile (e.g. by biting on a pen top) actually makes you feel better and happier - more recent data suggests that any such effect is negligible and not significant. 

In the same way, it turns out that: listening to Mozart doesn't actually make you smarter, despite some "scientific" evidence that assures us it does; posing as Superman doesn't actually make you behave more confidently; your ability to resist eating a marshmallow (delayed gratification) as a kid does not lead to success as an adult; etc.

If the results of a scientific experiment cannot be repeated and validated, then it's no longer good or definitive science. Some of the disproven spurious science was merely the result of innocent mistakes or sloppy methodology; some of the data may have been deliberately manipulated. Either way, if the results cannot be replicated, the science cannot stand.

The article, however, encourages the authors of two contradictory papers  on a subject to collaborate - "adversarial collaboration", in the jargon - rather then just butting heads, becoming sworn enemies, and never speaking to each other ever again. That way, the issue can be resolved once and for all, and better science can emerge.