Renewables blamed for Iberian power outage - again!

Predictable as clockwork, some people are blaming renewables for yesterday's massive electricity blackout in Spain and Portugal (and some parts of Southern France). "Net zero blamed for blackout chaos" blared a headline in Britain's Daily Telegraph, for example, even though various experts interviewed in the article did NOT in fact come to that conclusion.

It happens every time, but, just as predictably, they are quite wrong. It is still not clear exactly what did cause the blackouts, which were rectified pretty quickly, but it seems to have been a grid problem, not a renewables supply problem. Some 2MW of renewable power was disconnected, but as a RESULT of the grid disturbance, not as a cause. In a statement, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez specifically ruled out renewable or nuclear energy as a cause of the outage, calling such claims "lies" and "ignorance".

Both Spain and Portugal do have a high proportion of renewable energy in their grids, but they have developed over the years good systems for handling intermittent sources of energy, and have a robust system of energy storage in place. I wish we had something comparable.

The actual causes of the blackout are still being studied, whatever the Daily Telegraph may have already decided.

Trump not the only factor in Canadian election

The Liberals have been returned to power with a strong minority government (just 4 seats away from a majority as I write this, although with over a dozen seats still too close to call, a majority is still a possibility). And this from a party that, just two short months ago, was languishing 24 percentage points back from the Conservatives. How was this miracle accomplished?

Well, read pretty much any article, whether Canadian or American (even the BBC and the Times of India), and the answer would seems to be Donald Trump and his bizarre fixation with tariffs. Trump himself seems happy to take credit for it: "You know, until I came along, remember that the conservative was leading by 25 points. Then I was disliked by enough of the Canadians that I've thrown the election into a close call, right?"

Of course, this is just the narcissist in Trump seeking the limelight anywhere it can find it. But not everything is about Trump all the time (even though it might seem like it).

For one thing, Trump didn't DELIBERATELY manage the Canadian election. He is also on record, repeatedly, as saying that he doesn't really care who wins the Canadian election. Indeed, you'd think he would actually have preferred Poilievre to win, given that he is much closer to Trump in his politics (although that very closeness may have had something to do with Poilievre's decline - in that respect at least, Trump's ascension may have indirectly precipitated the Conservatives' rout).

But a bunch of other factors led to the extraordinary Liberal turnaround too, not just Trump. 

For example, the precipitate decline of the NDP under Jagmeet Singh (culminating in Singh's defeat in his own riding and his subsequent step down as leader, as the NDP's seat count tanked from 25 to 7, losing party status in the process), and to a lesser extent of the Bloc Québécois under Yves-François Blanchet (which saw a reduction in seats from 32 to 23, although they may still hold the balance of power, depending on how the final results pan out). With  these two parties more less out of the picture, the left vote was not hopelessly split for once, something that has quietly benefitted the Conservatives for decades now: this was the closest thing to a two-party race in decades.

Although Poilievre has enjoyed good polls for the last couple of years, until very recently, I'm not sure that Canadians ever really warmed to him as a person (even after an attempted media makeover). Something about his hectoring tone and that grating voice, his negative, disdainful and patronizing attitude, his bludgeoning use of three-word slogans - none of that really endeared him to the average Joe in the Canadian street. And when people actually had to vote in a consequential election, rather than just in a throwaway poll question, they realized they couldn't quite stomach the man.

The single most important factor in the Liberals' rise and the Conservatives' fall, though, was undoubtedly the resignation of the unpopular Justin Trudeau (whatever you might think about Trudeau, no politician retains popularity for more than ten years). That, and the subsequent election of Mark Carney as Liberal leader, was when the polls really started to change, not the election of Donald Trump.

And finally, given the chaos going on around the world (and not just Trump), Canadians judiciously decided to vote for a calm, sensible, smart operator who has experience in dealing with economic crises, rather than for a guy with anger issues who dispenses simplistic three-word slogans. Yes, voters saw Mark Carney as the best PM candidate to deal with Trump, but also to deal with inflation, productivity and all the other things a Prime Minister is supposed to manage.

And finally finally, remember that Canada uses the "Westminster system" of elections - we don't vote for a leader for the country like Americans do, we vote for individual regional MPs and it is the plurality of elected MPs that dictates who we have as Prime Minister. I think this is important. Some voters may still vote according to the leader they want to see, but most are voting for individual MPs and the policy platforms of the party as a whole. The cult of personality does not hold sway here like it does in the US.

So, yes, Trump was a factor in the Canadian election. But don't be fooled by simplistic media reporting into thinking that he was the only factor. That only serves to boost his ego still further. And that's the last think we need.

Disgraced Liberal candidate endorses Conservatives

Ruby Dalla is a nasty piece of work. I saw her interviewed after she was officially disqualified as a Liberal leadership candidate for violating many different leadership voting and expenses rules. Of course, she denied all culpability - very few politicians actually admit to errors these days, they just bluster their way through it; we can thank Donald Trump for that - and of course she accused the Liberal Party of discrimination, as a woman, as a visible minority, and probably as a few other things as well.

Well, clearly Ms. Dalla did not forget this embarrassment, because just yesterday, the day before the federal election, she chose to publicly whine about it again, and effectively endorse Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives. "Make the right choice for change", she advises, parroting Poilievre's favourite by-line.

So, not really a died-in-the-wool Liberal after all, just a professional politician on the make, willing to take whatever steps she needs to get a bit of power and influence. It seems to me that the Liberals dodged a bullet with her. Don't be surprised to see her standing as a Conservative sometime soon. If they'll have her, that is.

What would Poilievre actually do about the DEI initiatives he despises?

Pierre Poilievre doesn't like to be characterized that way, but some of his policies are dangerously close to those of Donald Trump. One example is his crusade against DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) policies in government contracts and grant-giving.

DEI initiatives are meant to address systemic inequalities and racism in government dealings, and they were a particular focus of the Trudeau government, which even set up a DEI ministry to deal with such matters (a ministry that Mark Carney has since removed, astutely taking out in the process one of Poilievre's major debate points).

The Conservatives, on the other hand, airily dismiss such equity concerns as "woke ideology" and "woke culture", in the universal language after all those opposed to dealing with inequities and inequalities, and argue that such mandates wrongly prioritize race or gender over merit. Their election platform talks about a "woke criminal justice agenda" and a "woke agenda on spending", and Poilievre regularly says in his campaign speeches that "we need to reverse that, get back to Canadian values" (by which he presumably means white Canadian values or, more specifically, Conservative values). This plays very well with some segments of his core support, however un-Canadian it may actually be.

When pressed, Poilievre seems unable or unwilling to elaborate on exactly how he would deal with all this "woke" nonsense - presumably, he doesn't actually know - but we have seen how America has been dealing with it in Donald Trump's presidential orders and the rapacious work of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

I'm not saying that Poilievre would necessarily institute such a draconian crusade as has been occurring south of the border (although, with the precedent set, that is a possibility). But, like a dangerous iceberg hidden beneath the surface, this is just one of the many matters on which I don't trust Poilievre, a potential atrocity lurking behind relatively innocuous and reasonable-sounding words.

Yes, there is still a war in Gaza

In case you were wondering, due to the almost complete absence of coverage in the mainstream daily news cycle, there is still a war going on in Gaza. Or rather, there is an ongoing genocide going on, because "war" presupposes two sides engaging each other.

In fact, the war in Gaza is probably as bad as it has ever been, but it hardly makes an appearance in the news because it's no longer, well, new. (Similar to the ongoing war in Ukraine - yes, that one's still going too.) 

The latest dispatch from Gaza describes how the World Food Program agency, which has been providing most of the hot meals for the beleaguered people of Gaza, has now officially run out of food because Israeli forces are still enforcing the closure of all crossings from the outside world into Gaza. Food stockpiled during an earlier ceasefire has now all but run out, and 2.3 million Palestinians are starving. Thousands of tons of food supplies are currently stuck at the border crossing.

Remember much earlier in the war, when there was great international outrage at the Israelis blocking access to food supplies? Well, that is happening now, and in fact this is the longest closure Gaza has ever faced. And yet it is hardly being reported. Israel says it has to enforce the blockade because they can't risk food supplies being siphoned off by Hamas, something of which there is no good evidence anyway, but I think we know their real motives.

Oh, and Palestinians continue to be killed in large number by Israeli bombs, 78 in just the last 24 hours. The Israeli military issues short-notice orders to residents of particular towns to evacuate (to where?), and then proceeds to blow up what remains of the housing stock there. Like I say, not really a war, more of an ethnic cleansing.

Liberals are aping rhe Conservatives to get elected

With the federal election up for grabs next Monday, and the two top parties almost neck-and-neck in the polls, it's becoming increasingly difficult to tell the Liberals and Conservatives apart.

Part of Mark Carney's strategy when he became Liberal leader last month was clearly to try to steal Pierre Poilievre's thunder by adopting a bunch of Conservative platform policies and claiming them as his own. Thus, within days of assuming the leadership, Carney vowed to scrap the consumer carbon tax and to walk back unpopular plans to increase the capital gains tax inclusion rate. 

On many other issues, from housing to pipelines to maternity benefits to unbalanced budgets, the two parties are now pretty much in lockstep, regardless of their previous stances, as the Liberals pull out all the stops to try to be all things to all people. 

This is partly a ploy by the Liberals to distance themselves from any policy that might remotely be considered to be unpopular or controversial, but it is partly to take away any vote-winning advantage from the Conservatives. It makes (political) sense that the Liberals try to remove as many policy objections as possible, and to try to make the election more about individuals than platforms. That way they can take advantage of many people's instinctive dislike of Pierre Poilievre, and their apparent trust in Carney to deal with the Trump administration.

It has been quite a successful strategy for them, marked by a miraculous come-back in the polls from about 25% behind to 5% in front (although slightly softening in recent days). But it's most disconcerting to see the Liberals espousing populist policies they once vociferously objected to, and it doesn't really feel very good, I have to say. But if it's the only way to ensure that Pierre Poilievre doesn't get his greasy mitts on power, then I will go along with it.

I have to assume that both candidates are deliberately steering their platform policies towards the centre in order to get elected, and that, once elected, their true colours will come out. Thus, Poilievre would almost certainly veer sharply towards the right if elected - of that, I have long been convinced. The best I can hope is that, once elected, Mark Carney will also revert to form and veer further to the left, re-establishing his concern for the environment among other things, which seems to have been all but abandoned during this election campaign.

That is my hope. But that's really not how politics is supposed to work.

Toronto gets a(nother) new area code

It used to be that you saw a 416 area code, and you knew that a caller was from Toronto. Well, that's still true, but in addition Toronto is getting yet another area code as the region starts to run out of new phone numbers to accommodate its burgeoning population.

After the old 416 code, 647 was allocated to Toronto in 2001, followed by 437 in 2013 when that still wasn't enough. Now, starting this month, 942 will also be a Toronto area code. 

It's getting to the stage that it's hard to remember all the codes, so it's not so easy to see that you have local call coming in or an international spam call.

Tories wilfully misinterpret Liberal research document

You may have heard a rather desperate Pierre Poilievre talking about it, or read some hyperbolic inflammatory pieces by various right-wing outlets. Canada's conservatives seem to see it as a kind of Hail Mary pass that might arrest their precipitous decline in the polls in the run-up the next week's federal election.

I'm referring, of course, to a policy document published by Policy Horizons Canada, a "foresight organization" that explores trends and possible future scenarios for the government, with a view to helping it develop robust and resilient policies to deal with potential future problems.

As Poilievre sees it, "The report paints a terrifying picture of a spiral of economic depression and cost inflation. What they are anticipating on the current trajectory is a total meltdown, a societal breakdown in Canada if we stay on the current track". 

Other right-wing political hacks, like Rick Bell or David Staples or Michael Higgins, paint even more garish pictures, choosing to deliberately misinterpret the report's function.

The particular Policy Horizons report in question, entitled "Future Lives: Social Mobility in Question", explores the possibility of a scenario whereby Canadians may find themselves stuck in the socioeconomic condition of their birth and even face downward social mobility in a 2040 world where post-secondary education may no longer offer a path to social mobility, and where expanding AI has shrunk the value of human labour.

It is not, as Policy Horizons is at pains to point out, a prediction of the future under current or future Liberal policies, as the Conservatives claim. Rather, it is just one scenario that may or may not transpire after the efforts of several different governments over the next 15 years. And, quite honestly, kudos to the Liberal government for even trying to look that far ahead, given the uncertain times we live in!

So, the report is nothing to do with the Liberals' "current trajectory", whatever Poilievre & Co would like you to think. Rather, this is the Conservatives clutching at straws as they face down another potential electoral loss.

The argument against religious and "philosophical" vaccination exemptions

Kudos to Globe and Mail health columnist André Picard for once again telling it like it is, this time regarding the morality of vaccinations.

The column begins by noting that first California then New York have already passed laws over the last ten years disallowing parents from refusing vaccinations for their kids on so-called religious or philosophical grounds (an exemption on medical grounds remains for those with severe allergies to some ingredients of vaccines, or severe immune deficiencies). 

I had no idea this had been pushed through - in 2015 and 2019 respectively - and I can imagine it was pretty contentious. Both states, let it be said, were reacting to major measles outbreaks, mainly among religious (Jewish) communities.

Well, Ontario is currently going through its worst measles outbreak in three decades, with its origins in the vaccine-resistant Mennonite community. Isn't it time Ontario passed such a law, along with a determined educational effort to win over the vaccine-hesitant?

As Mr. Picard explains, it is currently way too easy to claim an exemption from childhood vaccinations on religious or "philosophical" grounds. Resistance to vaccinations is not a tenet of any major religion; religious anti-vaxxers are just making their own interpretations of religious beliefs, usually something along the lines of they feel it interrupts the divine plan for a person's life, or it is interfering with God's will in some ill-defined way. The "philosophical" objection is even more woolly, usually to do with "parental rights" to decide what is best for their own children.

Freedom of religion is one thing, but it was never meant to exempt people from their societal obligations, such as protecting the health and well-being of children (their own and others'). As has been codified in major court cases, the state cannot tell you what to think, but it can tell you what do, especially where it involves the greater good of society. Religionists and libertarians hate that, but it's true. 

Personal beliefs do not supersede the public good or the laws of the land. Just as we don't allow patents to beat their children, or marry them off as minors, and just as we insist on seat belts in cars to save lives (remember the fuss when that was instituted?), we should not be allowing those with anti-science views to harm others. We should not be mollifying the selfish and the self-righteous at the expense of the general populace, as Mr. Picard notes.

The truth about Canada's debt ratio

The Liberal government has, for years now, made a virtue of claims that Canada has the lowest net-debt-to-GDP ratio among G7 countries. The Conservative opposition, predictably, say that this is misleading, and a better measure is the gross-debt-to-GDP ratio, in which Canada appears as, not the worst, as they often try to insinuate, but somewhere in the middle. 

Conservative mouthpieces like the Fraser Institute, for example, can smugly claim that "we're deeper in debt than Ottawa tells us". But that is at least as disingenuous as the original Liberal claim. Both parties are cherry-picking data to suit their political ends.

What, then, is the truth behind it all?

Firstly, it is worth looking at what "net" and "gross" actually mean in this context. Gross debt is the total public liabilities held by a country (federal, provincial and municipal), including things like Treasury bonds, public service pension liabilities, etc. Net debt is gross debt minus public financial assets held (land, buildings, financial assets like pension plans, etc). Which you consider the better measure of a country's financial health seems largely to be a political decision: there is merit in both measures.

In comparative terms, Canada is indeed a leader in net-debt-to-GDP: its ratio in 2023 was just 14%, compared to Germany and USA (both 95%), France 99%, Italy (129%) and Japan (161%). This is in large part due to the substantial non-government investments of the Canada Pension Plan and the Quebec Pension Plan.

In gross-debt-to-GDP, Canada had a ratio of 107% in 2023, less than France (111%), USA (123%), Italy (135%) and Japan (249%), but more than UK (101%) and Germany (63%). All in all, not a bad showing,  and below the G7 average. It is also projected to improve by 2029, putting it second behind only Germany in the G7.

There are those who argue that net-debt-to-GDP ratio is actually a superior measure of a country's financial health and strength. Whatever you think about that, it's certainly a stretch to argue that Canada's public debt is out of hand and that it's all the Liberal government's fault over the last ten years.

So, did Pope Francis change the world?

With the death yesterday of Pope Francis, the conversation naturally moves to his legacy and whether he actually made (or indeed could make) any difference in the real world.

It seems undeniable that Francis, a humble and modest individual by papal standards, was something of a radical firebrand (again by papal standards). He was not afraid to involve himself in messy political and social issues. He worked to challenge and change Catholic orthodoxy, for example through his progressive comments on climate change, homosexuality and gender issues, migration and refugees, indigenous people, divorce and nuclear weapons, incurring the wrath of the more conservative wing of the Catholic establishment in the process. 

Some activists, of course, think he didn't go far enough, and that he squandered his position of power and influence, and it's true that he steered clear of issues like abortion, clerical abuse, celibacy and women in the priesthood, among other issues that he might have been expected to weigh in on. In particular, there are questions about whether Francis did enough to deal with sexual abuse by clergy members.

He also sought to redefine and modernize the role of a pope in the modern world. As popes go, he was a breath of fresh air, especially after the stuffy, traditionalistic and reactionary papacies of John Paul and Benedict who preceded him. He had a sense of humour, and the irony would not have been lost on him that almost his final public engagement was with US Vice-President JD Vance, who embodies pretty much everything he railed against during his 12-year papal tenure.

Did he change the world, though? Despite being the leader and spokesperson for the estimated 1.4 billion Catholics worldwide, it's not at all clear that anything he did or said has moved the needle on anything important in any sphere of life. Sure, he may have made some gay Catholics feel a bit better about themselves, and he may have caused a few people to think more seriously about their carbon footprint. But, however nice a guy he may have been, and however pure his motives, how can he be said to have actually made the world a better place? He may well have changed the Catholic Church (and about time too!), but he didn't really change the world.

As we speak, a real live Conclave is about to take place to elect a new pope. During his tenure, Francis elevated a lot of younger, global-south bishops to the status of cardinal, so it will be interesting to see whether another progressive is voted in to continue Francis' work - a BLACK pope, even! - or whether there is a conservative backlash from the Italian/European base to vote in one of their own, to arrest the madness, as they see it.

Alberta thumping the tub again

"Proud Canadian" Michelle Smith has been playing the secession card during the current federal election, all while maintaining that she will not interfere in the federal vote. "A referendum on Alberta's independence is an inevitability", she says, trying not to interfere.

Her mentor, Preston Manning, has likewise inserted his oar, claiming in a Globe and Mail interview that "a vote for the Carney Liberals is a vote for Western secession - a vote for the breakup of Canada as we know it".

However, it's all smoke and mirrors because Albertans don't really want to secede. A new Angus Reid poll suggests that only 30% of Albertans (and 33% of Saskatchewaners) would consider separating from Canada, whether to join the USA or to go it alone.

So, really this is just Alberta stoking up dissent. In fact, interfering in the election.

Trump imposes tariffs on uninhabited islands

Canada, unexpectedly, seems to avoided the worst of Trump's tariffs thus far. But countries across the world are having to deal with them, including some rather bizarre ones.

Heard Island and MacDonald Islands are external territories of Australia, although closer to Antarctica than to Australia. They are tiny, uninhabited, barren piles of volcanic rock, covered in glaciers and home only to a colony of penguins. They are only accessible by a two-week boat journey from Perth, and it is believed the last time they were visited by people was some ten years ago.

But even these little islands - among the remotest places on earth and not even countries in their own right - have not escaped the attentions of Donald Trump's zealous tariff administrators. They too will see tariffs of 10% levied on any goods exported to the USA. This is because, the World Bank shows them as having exported US$1.4 of "machinery and electrical" goods to the US in 2022, although no-one seems to know quite what this might have been, given that there are no people and no buildings on the islands.

Are the penguins engaging in some clandestine business ventures that Australia knows nothing about? Anthony Scaramucci, Trump's ex communications chief, and now a vocal critic, quipped, "These penguins have been ripping us off for years". Good for the Trump administration for spotting this.