"Made in Canada" or "Product of Canada"?

Many Canadians are trying their best to "Buy Canadian" these days, partly as a patriotic finger in the eye to Donald Trump, and partly in an attempt to wean ourselves American products so that the Trump tariffs are more limited in their effectiveness. But it's not easy, and it's not even easy to tell what is Canadian and what isn't.

As we study labels we've never even bothered to look at before, people are noticing that some products say "Made in Canada" and some say "Product of Canada". Most people probably assume that these are one and the same thing. But, it turns out, they are not. And, just to complicate things, what they do mean varies, depending on whether it relates to a food items or a non-food items. 

For non-food items, Competition Bureau Canada rules that "Product of Canada" means that 98% of the item is Canadian content, while "Made in Canada" can mean anything above 51%. 

For food items, "Product of Canada" means that "all or virtually all major ingredients, processing and labour used to make the food product are Canadian" (this definition comes from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency). "Made in Canada", on the other hand, merely means that the "last substantial transformation of the product occurred in Canada, even if some ingredients are from other countries". (Hence, products like olive oil can be "Made in Canada".)

Just to confuse things, there's also "Prepared in Canada", which, similar to "Made in Canada", means that the final production step occurred in Canada, but the ingredients could come from anywhere.

So, generally speaking, "Product of Canada" good, "Made in Canada" not so good (but better than nothing).

It's a good indication of how few people understand the difference between the two labels that substantially more people preferred "Made in Canada" items over "Product of Canada" until it is explained to them what the labels actually mean, when their preferences change dramatically!

Kennedy fails in first test

In Robert F. Kennedy Jr's first major challenge as US Health Secretary, the maverick anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist - elevated to power and influence by another maverick - has failed miserably (and predictably).

A major measles outbreak in West Texas has now infected at least 124 people in a largely unvaccinated Mennonite region, and 18 have been hospitalized. Now, the first child has died from it, the first such death in a decade.

Kennedy's response? "We're watching it ... we're going to continue to follow it". Watching people die does not seem like a very robust response.

Kennedy went further to try to downplay the situation, claiming that there have been four measles outbreaks this year in the US already (technically, an "outbreak" constitutes three or more related cases), compared to sixteen last year, "so it's not unusual to have measles outbreaks very year". And we're supposed to be reassured by that?

Measles was deemed eradicated in the USA in 2000, 40 years after the introduction of a safe and very effective measles vaccination. It lost its elimination status in 2019 with a large outbreak in New York state and others elsewhere, and there have been many more such outbreaks since. CDC notes that vaccination rates have gone down from 95.2% to 92.7% over the last four years, in which there has been a lot of vaccination misinformation.

And with Kennedy in charge, nothing is going to get better any time soon.

Trump's squeezing of Ukraine is a global embarrassment

In a move of unbelievable callousness and boorishness, Donald Trump is looking to recoup money the USA - in an earlier, kinder incarnation under Joe Biden - has freely given to Ukraine over the last three years for its existential fight against an expansionist Russia. There was never any talk of repayment, but now Trump wants to change that, mainly because he is mean, greedy and amoral.

Desperate, and with its hands tied, Ukraine sees itself as having no alternative but to accede to Trump's demands of half of Ukraine's rare earth minerals, and the establishment of a joint investment fund for Ukraine's eventual reconstruction. This is a slight improvement over Trump's initial demand of $500 billion in mineral wealth from the already cash-strapped country. Ukraine sees this deal as the only way to keep the USA on-side, although it does not as yet include any firm security guarantees or even guarantees of future aid. The assumption is that the US will want to protect its investments.

Trump claims that the US has already donated between $300 billion and $350 billion to Ukraine since the Russian invasion. The actual figure is probably somewhere between $119 billion and $182 billion, depending on different estimates. A lot of money, to be sure, but certainly not $350 billion (or $500 billion). By some estimates, Europe has actually given Ukraine even more than the US, and these were certainly not loans, as Trump tried to claim recently, quickly corrected by Emmanuel Macron.

And neither were the US's aid donations loans. Trump can't (or shouldn't be able to) turn round now and demand the money back. If this is the "art of the deal", then the civilized West should want no part of it. The guy is a global embarrassment.

UPDATE

The video of President Zelenskyy "negotiating" with Donald Trump and JD Vance, in the Oval Office of the White House, must be seen to be believed. This is Trump and Vance's idea of diplomacy - like a couple of schoolyard bullies who throw their weight around, repeat things over and over again, and don't allow their victim to get a word in edgewise. 

It was a deliberate public humiliation, the two working together like a tag team to bait, browbeat and berate Zelenskyy. The fact that the whole thing was televised, while unprecedented, was surely no accident. The unabashedly anti-Ukraine Vance was usually the instigator, but as soon as Trump felt himself being contradicted, he was off, no holds barred. So this, captured on prime-time TV, was Donald Trump's much-vaunted "art of the deal", which seems to involve being in an unassailable position in the first place, and then threatening and shouting down your opponent!

Time after time, both Americans kept insisting that Zelenskyy was not thankful enough, that he was disrespectful. Indeed, respect - obeisance, you might say - seemed to be the thing both men were most interested in. Zelenskyy, on the other hand, was concerned with the continued existence of his country, and the number of lives his countrymen will continue to lose. Reasonably enough, he does not want to sign away his country's mineral wealth to a rapacious USA and get nothing in return. The contrast between the two points of view was palpable, even if Trump and Vance were oblivious to it. Zelenskyy's anger and frustration were totally understandable.

Zelenskyy actually has no reason to be thankful to the Republican Party, which did its level best to block President Biden's generous support of Ukraine over the last three years, and is now seeking to distance itself as far as possible from American involvement. And, as Zelenskyy repeatedly tried to interject into the barrage of abuse against him, he has thanked America many times.

Zelenskyy, unlike most of Trump's recent sycophantic, pusillanimous visitors (looking at you, Keir Starmer), was willing to fight back against the bullies, albeit in what is probably his third language. Suffice to say, he left without signing away Ukraine's mineral wealth, for which Ukraine should probably be thankful.

Trump and Vance, for all their repeated insistence on respect from Zelenskyy, lost any respect anyone might have had for them. Most of the world reiterated their support for Ukraine after the debacle, although usually with very muted criticism of Trump (everyone is scared stiff to cross him). Only American Republicans supported and praised their Glorious Leader's "performance", increasingly isolated on the world stage. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin contented himself with silently rubbing his hands with glee.

Women leading the growing political defiance in Iran

As one of the very few foreign journalists allowed in to report on the political and social conditions in Iran, the Globe and Mail's Geoffrey York centre-fold article on the growing political and religious defiance in Iran is eye-opening.

When Mohamad Khatami was elected Iranian president on a reformist/liberalization platform in the late 90s, there were wild hopes that the Iranian people could rise from under the cruel yoke of an Islamic fundamentalism that, in particular, mandated repression of women, through the police state of the revolutionary guard and the much-hated "morality police". But Khatami's attempts at liberalization were soon clamped down and rolled back by the "authorities" (i.e. the religious leadership and the police).

Since the election of new "reformist" presidents like Ebrahim Raisi in 2021 and Masoud Pezeshkian in 2024, and building on the widespread protests following the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini in 2022, there has been a growing quiet defiance in Iran. Iranian women are openly defying the fundamentalist rules of the theocracy, quite literally letting their their hair down in public places. The younger generation in particular is leading this brave defiance. 

These women are still risking arrest, but increasingly the police are overlooking such contraventions. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this year, Iranian Vice-President Mohammad Javad Zarif said, "If you go to the streets of Tehran, you see that here are women who are not covering their hair. It's against the law, but the government has decided not to put women under pressure. This was a promise that President Pezeshkian made. He did not implement the law, with the consent of the leadership. So, we are moving in the right direction."

Iranian hardliners slammed Zarif's interview, and many women were somewhat disgusted at the government's attempt to take credit for a protest that they themselves had instigated (and for which they still run the risk of summary arrest). But this is nevertheless an extraordinary development in modern Iran, and gives hope that eventually the country will be able to shake off the stifling chains of its Islamist theocracy. 

And, never forget, it is grass-roots Iranian women that are leading the charge here.

Canada can still beat the US at some things

"We'd like you to kick their asses again because you don't boo the United States of America ... we look forward to the United States beating our soon-to-be 51st state, Canada".

So blustered US Vice President JD Vance (never trust a man who won't use his first name...) just before the Four Nations Face-Off hockey final. Trump, too, added some forgettable supposedly-humorous comments on the game.

So, how did that go, guys? Well, it went 3-2 to Canada. Prime Minister Trudeau taunted Trump on X after the game, saying, "You can't take our country - and you can't take our game". And, it turns out, yes, you can boo the United States of America, and still come out on top. The USA may be a big, rich bully, but Canada can still win at some things.

Imagine living in today's USA

This is hilarious, depressing and scary, all at once.

A Canadian put a post on X and BlueSky, defending Canada against American extremism. The post - which read,"For a US President to refer to the Prime Minister of Canada as 'Governor' isn't just rude. It's a hostile act." - was pretty tame. And indeed it hardly registered a blip on BlueSky (which is mainly populated by refugees from the increasingly toxic X).

On X, however, the post completely blew up. Responses ranged from "Get over it, it was a joke" to "Yeah, but it's Canada, so who gives a fuck?", "Fuck Canada", "Trudeau deserves it because he's a jerk, and anyway he insulted Trump too", "Whuddya gonna do about it, pussy?", "Come and do something about it. I'd love to see you little maple syrup gay boys try something", and worse. Choice epithets included "cuck", "bitch", "coward", "drama queen", "beta male", "soy boy", "libtard", "snowflake", "butt-hurt", "faggot", "pansy", "trans communist", "Good Jew".

Wow.

Just the choices of terms of abuse alone give a pretty good idea of where Trump's America's head is right now. And the vitriol, the absolute disdain and contempt for anything approaching liberalism or even impartiality, is a thing to behold. 

There's a lot of bad feeling in Canada these days, and a lot of divisiveness, negativism and even hostility (thanks almost entirely to Pierre Poilievre and his populist shtick). But, God, am I glad I don't have to live in the USA. It's hard enough living next door.

Trump administration's approach to diplomacy is to reject it

God, the Trump administration really knows how to piss people off. And it's not just Trump himself, but those who are hanging on his coat-tails seem to think they also have a God-given right to hector, berate, cajole and generally come over all smug, supercilious and disdainful.

The latest of many such examples is Vice President J D Vance's speech to the European Union at the Munich Security Conference. Accusing European governments of retreating from their core values and ignoring voter concerns about immigration and free speech, Vance's address was met with a disbelieving silence. Yes, this was the Trump administration lecturing Europe about the state of their democracy! Later, many delegates were much louder in their condemnation (except Germany's fascist AfD party, which thought the speech was "excellent").

It's not just that he failed to read the room; he made no attempt to read the room. Trump and those he sends out to spread his ill-advised gospel are so arrogant, so cocksure, that they don't think twice about saying whatever the hell they want. International diplomacy has given way to bullying and intimidation.

Trump's idea of a "deal" for Ukraine is peak arrogance

As usual, Donald Trump just doesn't get it, living as he does on a complete different planet from the rest of us.

Inserting himself into yet another situation where he's not really wanted, Trump is "making deals" with global pariah, Vladimir Putin, presenting a peace plan for the 3-year old war in Ukraine without even involving Ukraine (or Europe).

Trump is desperate to earn himself the Nobel Peace Prize, and his simplistic conception of brokering peace is to offer his buddy Putin whatever he wants, Ukraine be damned. So, as far as he is concerned, Russia can keep the Donbas and anything else they might have illegally annexed, and he is quite happy to conclude a deal - on behalf of Ukraine - assuring that Ukraine will never join NATO (another of Putin's stipulations), which would be the only thing standing between Ukraine and another invasion by Russia a few years down the road, to finish the job once and for all.

"I think I have the power to end this war", says Trump. Well, yes, if you mean by giving part (or even all) of Ukraine to bro-buddy Vladimir Putin. But that's not, it should be noted, the point.

Trump doesn't care about Ukraine, nor does he care about morality or  "doing the right thing". That is not who he is. All he cares about is his legacy and what makes money for the USA. With gob-smacking cynicism, he is tying further support for Ukraine to American access to Ukrainian rare earth minerals. He blithely deadpans, "They may be Russian someday or they may not be Russian someday". His scorn and arrogance knows no bounds.

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is being understandably carefully in his public remarks about Trump, buy he must be seething inside. Europe is, perhaps rashly, being less careful in its language, using phrases like "dictated peace", "appeasement" and "dirty deal". Trump has already made clear that he is not willing to bankroll Ukraine further, and has even indicated that Europe can no longer rely on the USA's help with its own security. Let's hope it doesn't get any worse.

UPDATE

It's already getting worse. In one of his many unguarded moments, Trump even accused Ukraine of starting the war. Repeating Putin's claims that it was not Russia but Ukraine that started the wars in 2014 and 2022, Trump said, 

"I hear they're upset at not having a seat. Well, they've had a seat for three years and a long time before that. This could have been settled very easily. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal."

Unbelievable. What world does he live in?

And then of course he just waded in and made everything even worse, as is his wont, calling Zelenskyy a "dictator" for not holding elections while the country is under martial law after the Russian invasion, and questioning his legitimacy in office (a common Russian theme). (UPDATE: Later, Trump would say about this incident, "Did I say that? I can't believe I said that. Next question", trying to laugh it off.)

He further claimed that Zelenskyy's approval rating - Trump's measure of legitimacy, where TV ratings are not available - is down at 4%. No-one is very sure where he plucked that particular figure from. The most recent official survey, earlier this month, has Zelenskyy at 57% - down from 77% at the end of 2023, granted, but 4%?

How far has this bare-faced attempt at American-Russian revisionism gone? Well, as we approach the three-year mark of the war, the US is openly resisting a joint G7 statement condemning Russian aggression in Ukraine. Washington is apparently "concerned" at the way in which the war is being framed in the proposed statement. Trump has also proposed that Russia be allowed back into the G7, from which it was ejected after annexing Crimea back in 2014. Just what kind of hold does Putin have over Trump and his feckless Republican lackeys?

Where the far right wing hangs out

The Globe and Mail's Guide to Trumpism's Online Universe (or Donald Trump's Social Spheres, as the online version of the article title inexplicably gets re-translated) is an eye-opening introduction to America's  right-wing media landscape and its most important social platforms. Eye-opening not least because I've never even heard of some of them (perhaps not that surprising given that I'm 65, British-Canadian, and my politics swing left to green). 

The big five platforms favoured by Trump and his supporters are:

• Truth Social - launched by Trump in 2022 after he was expelled from Twitter (remember Twitter?), this is where Trump and VP JD Vance make most of their announcements. Its power users include Sean Hannity, Charlie Kirk, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jack Posibiek, and is the regular hang-out for aspiring right-wing politicians and the alt-right media, which then disseminate the posts across the Internet as a whole. There are no guard rails and pretty much anything goes. Monthly users, though, only number 4.68 million, paltry compared to many other platforms.
• X - once called Twitter, until Elon Musk bought it in 2022, rolled back monitoring and moderation, and reinstated myriad accounts that had been suspended due to policy and hate-speech violations, including those of white nationalists, neo-Nazis and conspiracy theorists. Now, it's the go-to platform for those people and for Musk himself, especially given that it has 425 million monthly users. Democrats have abandoned X in droves, and Republican users are now in a strong majority. Offensive memes and AI deepfakes abound, with few to no boundaries or moderation.
• Kick - a Twitch copy with much looser moderation policies around hate speech, harassment and sexual content (Twitch, if you're not familiar, is a video platform for 20-something video game players). Adin Ross, banned from Twitch for his hateful slurs, is Kick's guru, and gaming is only an excuse for rants by white supremacists, racists and misogynists (including Nick Fuentes, Andrew Rate, Vivek Ramaswamy and Trump himself). Monthly users number a mind-boggling 12.5 million.
• YouTube - by far the most popular platform, with 1.7 billion monthly users, frequented by the left and right alike, but its algorithm has been shown to (intentionally or not) drive viewers from more mainstream content to content promoting radical and violent ideas. It is considered a major vehicle for "red-pilling" (converting people to far-right beliefs). "Manosphere" luminaries like Joe Rogan, the Nelk Boys, Logan and Jake Paul and Theo Von are among the most influential right-wing players with YouTube channels.
• Rumble - A Canadian-made YouTube alternative, started in 2013, which has been particularly embraced by far right influencers and others who were kicked off YouTube for violating platform rules, including Russell Brand, Dan Bongino, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Steven Crowder and Donald Trump Jr. Here you can see endless videos on pseudo-science, conspiracy theories, paramilitary groups and general alt-right politics, along with 12.6 million other monthly users (and growing).

There are many others, even less well-known including Gab, Parler, Gettr. None of them have any serious moderation (which is, of course, considered woke, liberal, mollycoddling interference), so anything goes - and indeed, is encouraged - including deepfakes, offensive memes, and outright hatespeech. 

The left has nothing like this network. BlueSky may be the closest thing, but it is merely a more heavily-moderated version of X, to which many on the left have decamped in order to escape the toxicity of current-day X. It is not pro-left as such, merely a platform trying to maintain some objectivity and truth. It does not allow the kind of showmanship and outright lies the pro-right outlets do. With this unfair advantage, it's hardly surprising that the far right is in the ascendance at the moment.

Do Americans approve of what Trump is doing?

From what I hear and read, most people outside of the USA think that Donald Trump is an idiot, and that his slash and burn approach to politics since his election, both nationally and internationally, has been nothing short of disastrous. But what do Americans think of the show so far?

A CBS News poll suggests that they're actually pretty happy, generally speaking, with a few provisos. Which gives a good (if scary) indication of where the American people's heads are right now.

70% think he is doing exactly what he promised in his election campaign, and they're probably not far wrong there. But 53% give him an overall approval rating, compared to 47% who disapprove, which is actually more than the margin in the popular vote of the election (49.8% to 48.3%). People find him tough, energetic, focussed and effective (they're probably not wrong there either, much as I wish they were).

On more specific issues, 59% approve of his program to deport illegal immigrants, and 64% approve of his sending troops to the Mexican border, although 52% disapprove of large detention centres for deportees. Amazingly, 54% approve of his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict, although only 13% think that the US taking over Gaza is a good idea, compared to 47% who think it is a bad idea (again amazingly, 40% are not sure!)

His single biggest failing in the eyes of the US population is in his inability to lower prices, although why anyone would have thought that was possible, I'm not sure. 66% think he is not doing enough on that front, which was a major part of his election platform. 

And those tariffs? Well, 56% favour tariffs on China, but there is much less enthusiasm for tariffs on America's allies: 44% favour tariffs on Mexico (56% are against them), 40% on Europe (60% against), and 38% on Canada (62% against). Which makes me feel very, very slightly better...

Elon Musk's role in the government is not very popular either. Just 23% think he should have a lot of influence over government operations and spending (which is what he seems to have), 28% some influence, 18% not much influence, and 30% no influence at all. The Republican-Democrat breakdown of that vote is even more stark than with most of the others; he is a very polarizing guy.

All in all, a mixed bag, but a surprisingly positive reception for some of the wacky stunts Trump has been pulling during his first month of power. I had hoped for a general uprising of the people - not going to happen.

Drake-Lamar beef is bewildering

Full disclosure, I'm not a huge fan of either Drake or Kendrick Lamar (or of rap in general, tbh). But I'm still a bit bemused by all the fuss over this ongoing "beef" between them, which became even more public after Lamar's star billing at this year's Super Bowl and his performance of the song Not Like Us.

Probably the two biggest rap stars in the world right now, they have been "dissing" each other for years now, but it came to a head with Lamar's allegations (originally veiled, later fully-realized) that Drake has had sexual relations with underage fans, and maybe even has a young girlfriend hidden away somewhere. 

"Say, Drake, I hear you like 'em young ... Tryna strike a chord and I hear it's A Minor ... Certified Lover Boy? Certified pedophile". It doesn't get much more in-your-face than that!

Drake has responded with his own diss tracks against Lamar, and most recently by suing Lamar's record label for releasing Not Like Us, which of course has only met with ridicule from the macho hip-hop crowd.

But hold on, what evidence has Lamar for his allegations, in verse and otherwise? Drake has challenged him to reveal his proof, to no avail. I've read several articles on the subject, and nowhere have I seen any kind of proof being offered. Maybe it has to go to court before such minor details need to be addressed?

It's not clear to me exactly what you can say in a song, and avoid being accused of slander and libel. But surely you can't go around accusing people of being pedophiles and expect to get away with it? Can you?

It seems to me that this whole diss thing is just a way of selling more music and making more money (not that either of them need it!) Not Like Us saw a 430% increase in streams after the Super Bowl half-time show, reaching a billion streams on Spotify alone.

There are also allegations (also as yet unproven) that Lamar's song streams, particularly of Not Like Us, have been artificially inflated by the likes of Spotify and Universal Music Group. The whole thing looks very sordid.  Maybe they just have nothing better to do than exercise their inflated egos.

Governor General has some explaining to do regarding Buffy Sainte-Marie's cancellation

Buffy Sainte-Marie has had her Order of Canada revoked ("terminated" seems to be the official description; "scrapped" is what it actually is), because some people think she is just not Indigenous enough. She has been officially and summarily cancelled and is now persona non grata.

As I have commented before, a CBC Fifth Estate documentary about a year ago (whose findings were contested) found some documents that contradicted some of Ms. Sainte-Marie's claims of Indigenous ancestry. Many (but by no means all) Indigenous people were outraged, and called for her to be punished. And so now, a year later, we have this.

Except it doesn't really make much sense to me. See, the thing is, she was given the prestigious award of the Order of Canada back in 1997 for her decades of activism in support of First Nations and Métis, and for raising awareness of political and social issues as they affect Indigenous people. That hasn't changed. Her decades of work are as valuable and influential now as they were in 1997. So, why revoke ("terminate") her Order of Canada?

Well, because some people - mainly Indigenous people, the very people whom Ms. Sainte-Marie helped and paved the way for - have campaigned tirelessly to have her honour removed. No official reason was given by the Office of the Secretary of the Governor General for her removal, but the usual justifications are a criminal conviction or "conduct that may undermine the integrity of the order". She hasn't been convicted of anything, so I guess it must be the latter.

But, in my humble opinion as a mere settler, it is the Office of the Governor General itself (and perhaps Mary Simon, Canada's first Indigenous Governor General - her personal role in this has yet to be made clear) that has undermined its own integrity by this action. I don't think we have heard the last of this.

Mark Carney has injected some life (and hope) into Liberal chances

Well, this is heartening. A new poll about which Canadian politicians would be best at dealing with Donald Trump, puts Mark Carney streets ahead.

It's not that I'm a huge fan of the Liberals. But I am a huge anti-fan of the Conservatives, particularly the current incarnation under Pierre Poilievre, who I see as the most dangerous and destabilizing force in Canadian politics in many a year.

Asked "Which of the following politicians would do the best job at negotiating with President Trump", 40% responded Mark Carney, 26% Pierre Poilievre, 13% Chrystia Freeland, and 1% Karina Gould (the rest being either unsure or think it would make no difference). 

That's a surprise considering how untested and inexperienced Carney is in national and international politics. No-one doubts that he is a smart cookie and more than able to carry an argument, but is he battle-hardened enough?

The size of this advantage gives me some hope that Poilievre may not be a slam dunk for the federal election which is expected later this spring. I may have to hold my nose to vote Liberal, but I'll do it to keep Poilievre's hands off power.

UPDATE

A new Ipsos Reid poll in late February actually has the Liberals with 38% to the Conservatives' 36%, the first time the Liberals have led in polls since the heady days of 2021. This overturns a 26% deficit just six weeks ago!

When is progress not really progress?

I'm currently manfully ploughing my way through Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari. Subtitled A Brief History of Humankind, it's a thick tome of anthropology, evolutionary psychology, history and politics, a tour de force of grand scope that attempts nothing less than a critical summary of the whole of human history (and prehistory).

It's full of fascinating observations and surprising conclusions (and I'm less than a quarter of the way through!) It is written in an engaging, no-nonsense style, albeit with the weight of copious analysis and academic research behind it.

Just to take one example, starting about 10,000-11,000 years ago, humankind across the world started gradually moving away from a nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a more settled agricultural life, cultivating a much more limited number of crops and animals. This was the so-alled Agricultural Revolution, usually considered one of the most important steps in human progress, and a great leap forward in our development.

Harari, however, calls it "History's Biggest Fraud". He argues that the Agricultural Revolution was not evidence of humanity's increasing intelligence, not was it the renunciation of a gruelling, dangerous hunter-gatherer lifestyle in favour of a pleasanter, easy-living, bucolic life of farming.

Rather, the new farmers typically had an even harder life than before: backbreaking work clearing fields, weeding, building fences, guarding against pests, watering, collecting animal faeces to nourish the soil, etc, etc. Yes, it allowed for greater food production, albeit of a much more limited and less healthy variety of foods, and the improved food supply and settled homes allowed for more babies to be born. But more babies needed more food, and babies were fed cereals rather than breast-milk to allow the mothers to work more, reducing their immune systems, and leading to many more infant deaths.

It doesn't end there. If the staple crop failed due to an infestation or bad weather, peasants died by the thousands. Tribe-against-tribe violence increased, as the best agricultural land was fought over tooth and nail. Infections and diseases flourished in the busier, closer, more enclosed living quarters. Forests were cleared to make room for mono-culture plantings, a process still going on today. Once free-roaming animals were domesticated, penned, whipped, harnessed, even mutilated and tortured, before being unceremoniously slaughtered at a young age, all in the interests of human food production.

And, once the process was started, and populations were continuously growing, there was just no going back to the old hunter-gatherer lifestyle. This is what Harari calls the "luxury trap", and he describes a couple of interesting modern analogies. 

College graduates take demanding jobs in high-powered firms, vowing to work hard, earn lots of money and retire at 35. But, by the time they reach that age, they have large mortgages, children in school, houses in the suburbs, and a taste for the high life. There is no easy way to retire, and they continue to slave away for decades.

Another modern example: when email arrived, people stopped spending so much time writing, addressing and posting physical letters, and then waiting days or weeks for a reply, opting instead for the ease and convenience of firing off a quick email, and expecting an almost immediate reply. But now people dash off emails for the slightest of reasons, not just when there is something important to relate, and we are all tied to our over-full inboxes, stressed and anxious. Progress?

I'm looking forward to the next three quarters of the book.

Norway breaks more EV records

I know I keep writing about little Norway, but it is a pretty special place. The latest from Troll Land is that almost 96% of the cars sold in Norway during the month of January 2025 were electric. 8,954 of the 9,343 cars sold were all-electric and, of the 50 most-sold models, only two were non-electric (the first of which came in 33rd place).

So, as places like Canada and the US.(and even Europe to a lesser extent) are seeing a serious retrenchment and backlash against electric vehicles, mainly as a result of Donald Trump's efforts, Norway forges ahead on its own path, doing the right thing and not giving in to commercial pressures and populist rhetoric. They expect to reach 100% electric cars later this year, ten years ahead of the EU, for example, which has a goal of 2035.

And they are doing this not by  banning the sale of internal combustion engines by a certain date like the EU and others, but by continuing to offer generous tax tax breaks on EVs, which make them more than competitive with heavily-taxed gas models.

Is this modern capitalism?

There wa a rather striking graphic in yesterday's Globe and Mail that didn't appear in the online version of the article for some reason, so I have copied it here.

It shows the progress of a vehicle being manufactured in North America. It shows just how complex and integrated the process is these days. But to me, more thsn anything, it shows just how convoluted and carbon-intense it has become.

It starts in Mexico with the metal casing. Then it goes up to Canada, where the crankshaft is re-finished. Then down to the US for further finishing ofnrhe crankshaft. Then back to Canada, where the crankshaft is incorporated into the engine. Back to a US assembly plant. Back to Canada for painting and trims. And finally back to the US to be sold to a consumer.

Now, that's kind of ridiculous, isn't it? Re-finishing in one country, then more re-finishing in another? A vehicle in the US has to go to Canada to be painted before returning to the US for sale? 

And it's not just cars, of course. Canada exports aluminum to the USA, they make cans, and then they export them BACK to Canada for beer, pop, etc, containers. Ridiculous!

It just seems so inefficient, although no doubt it is justified by economies of scale or labour practices or some other such considerations. But the unnecessary transportation costs and the alarming carbon footprint this system entails is surely hard to justify. Is this the state of modern capitalism in some of the most advanced countries in the world. Crazy.

What is Canada's role in US's illegal drug problem really?

Much as I hate to return to the subject of Donald Trump, which only serves to gratify his narcissistic tendencies, there is just so much wrong with his recent imposition of a 25% tariff on Canadian (and Mexican and Chinese) imports that it is hard to just let it go. 

American business groups and companies, politicians, and even regular American folk (even Republicans!), are complaining about it because they understand, as Trump seems not to, that it is not grounded in economic reality. It is not a way of correcting the balance of payments deficit with Canada, not is it helping American businesses or the country as a whole. 

In fact, it is not an economic measure at all, it is merely a kind of punishment for us not being American, a pressure tactic to get us to do what he wants. Purely and simply it is bullying; he does it because he can.

One of Trump's main beefs with Canada - other than just the fact that we are way too liberal about everything - is that he thinks that the American fentanyl problem is huge and Canadian-made. He has made it clear that, in his twisted mind, this is one of the main reasons for the tariff move.

Setting aside the fact that the demand for illegal drugs in the USA is very much an American thing - we don't create the demand! - Trump's claims that fentanyl is killing 250,000 - 300,000 American a year, as he said during his inaugural address, is clearly nonsense. (White House spokesperson Katherine Leavitt's claim that fentanyl is killing "tens of millions of Americans" is just laughable.)

It turns out that, at its worst (2022 - 2023), America's total drug overdose deaths were around 114,000, and that is from fentanyl, methamphetamine, heroin, cocaine and all other drugs. Not to be sneezed at, to be sure, but not anything like the figures Trump or his lackeys quote. Furthermore, since then, this figure has been plummeting, falling below 90,000 deaths for the first time in a decade.

As for Canada's role in all this, yes, there is some fentanyl finding its way from Canada to the USA, but less than 1%  of America's fentanyl comes from Canada, as Justin Trudeau pointed out in a speech on the tariffs, a figure backed up by the US Drug Enforcement Administration. We supply fewer illegal drugs to the US than they supply to us! A handy DEA report on fentanyl flow to the USA shows that China and Mexico are the major culprits, with India becoming a player (Canada is not even mentioned). 

Trump's blather about Canada's increasing contribution to narcotics distribution and the activities of Mexican drug cartels on Canadian soil is just that, blather. In 2024, for example, 43 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the US-Canadian border, compared to about 21,148 pounds at the US-Mexico border, putting Canada's contribition at about 0.2%. (UPDATE: Actually, it turns out that a third of even that small amount of 43 pounds was misreported: it was seized in Spokane, Washington, about 150 kilometres from the Canadian border, and traced to three Mexican nationals!) Also, both of those figures are already on the decline, as both Mexico and Canada clamp down on illegal activities. 

Furthermore, of the drugs that are seized at the US-Canada border, fentanyl makes up about 0.05%, an almost vanishingly small percentage. The vast majority is marijuana, khat (a relatively mild stimulant, particularly popular with Somalis) and cocaine. 

In fact, more drugs come into Canada from the USA than the other way round (to say nothing of the number of guns coming our way), and that flow is on the increase. So, in reality, it's the US that needs to get its act together not Canada.

It is a similar situation with illegal immigration from Canada to the USA, another irritant that Trump quotes as a major reason behind the tariffs. Trump insists that "millions and millions" of illegal aliens are crossing from Canada to the USA every year. US Customs and Border Protection data tells a different story: in 2024, US Border Patrol apprehended 23,721 illegal immigrants at their northern border (about 1.5% of the total), as compared to about 1.5 million apprehensions at the Mexican border. Also, more people crossed illegally from the US to Canada than the other way round. Natch.

Now, I don't expect Trump to listen to any of these figures. He does what he wants, and no amount of logic and statistics are going to get in the way of that. But it makes me feel better to get it off my chest. Trump, meanwhile, needs to look into why so many Americans are hooked on drugs and not leading better lives in the land of the free.

Foreign interference? Treason? Meh...

Remember all the hoo-hah a few months ago about foreign interference in the Canadian electoral and political systems? There was talk of the "witting and semi-witting" participation of Canadian politicians in political meddling by Chinese, Indian, Russian and a bunch of other ne'erdowells. Hell, there was even talk of "traitors" and treason".

It was a big deal, and there was much tearing of hair and soul-searching, and not a little finger-pointing and partisan shouting. A detailed and wide-ranging public inquiry was called for.

Well, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue's final report has just been released and the conclusions are ... well, "underwhelming" is the word that springs to mind. There is absolutely "no evidence of 'traitors' " among Canadian lawmakers, and the country's democratic institutions remain "robust in the face of foreign interference" attempts. It's all a bit of a let-down quite honestly.

Some of the more outré claims and allegations should probably be walked back, preferably with apologies. But don't expect that in today's polarized, hyper-partisan atmosphere.

Mind you, Mme. Hogue didn't give a complete unconditional pass. She notes that some politicians had been found to be "behaving naively" and displaying "questionable" ethics and "concerning conduct", but nothing that had not been happening for many years previously. The few attempts to curry favour with lawmakers remain "margin and largely ineffective", and there is no need for "widespread alarm". Critically, the results of the last two elections were not swayed by any of the antics of foreign actors.

She did also make 51 recommendations to further safeguard future elections, most of which will be implemented in time for the next federal election in just a few short months' time. She also pointed to the general climate of nastiness and disinformation that has become the norm now, since Trump's successes with it south of the border, suggesting that this is probably a much bigger problem than direct interference by state actors.

Brexit - five years on

Happy Fifth Anniversary, Brexit! Or is it? Believe it or not, it has been 5 years to the day since Britain severed political ties with the European Union, on January 31st 2020 (and four years since it left the European single market and customs union).

So, how has  that gone?

Not that well, it seems, although maybe not quite as disastrously as I might have predicted. 

Setting aside the way in which it has divided British society, setting family members and long-standing friends against each other in acrimonious political dispute, Brexit's effect on Britain's trade has been generally negative, economists agree, but not entirely so. 

Exports of goods are substantially down, as expected, although different studies disagree as to how much (6%? 30%?), with smaller companies being disproportiately affected. But exports of services from the UK (advertising. management consulting, information technology, etc) are up, a lot. Overall, the Office for Budget Responsibility estimates that the UK's economy has taken about a £100 billion hit.(about 4%) as a result of Brexit.

On immigration, a major plank of the Brexit campaign, results have also been mixed. Net immigration from Europe has indeed fallen a bit, but immigration from the rest of the world has increased by a lot more. So, net immigration has actually increased, by quite a lot! 

Travel in and out of the UK/EU has not changed that much, although plans to introduce ETA/ETIAS permits to later this year will make the administration even more burdensome and expensive, in both directions, and this may (or may not) have a dampening effect on travel.

Likewise, Brexit was supposed to give the UK much more independence in the laws it can pass. But thousands of "retained EU laws" were passed in the UK just after Brexit announcement. And only a small proportion of those (mainly small obscure regulations, at that) were repealed by the various Conservative governments, so UK law actually still reflects EU law pretty closely.

And has Brexit actually saved the UK bags of money, as the Leave campaign promised? Yes, around £18 billion a year in public sector contributions to the EU are no longer being paid out. But, at the same time, £5 billion a year in agricultural funding from the EU has stopped, and $4 billion a year in "rebates" on EU Budget contributions further whittles down the annual saving to around £9 billion. Add to that £21.3 billion in official Brexit Withdrawal Agreement payments to the EU, and the UK has hardly seen any overall savings yet, although that may yet start to materialize in the years to come (there are still many unknowns involved).

For example, after Brexit, the UK did stop paying into the Horizon pan-European scientific research scheme, from which it used to be a net beneficiary, in terms of science grants, etc). But in 2023, it decided to re-join the scheme, even though it is now a net payer to the tune of about £2 billion a year.

So, as ever in politics, nothing is ever simple, certainly not as simple as populists like Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage assured the British public. And now, with a more conciliatory Labour government in power, the future may be even more difficult to predict.