The more I think about the 2025 Liberal leadership race results, the more I suspect the outcome.

They're trying too hard to make it look like it was a fair and democratic process.

85.9% for an "Outsider" who doesn't have a seat in the House of Commons. I mean, I don't like Freeland and Gould, but certainly they should have grabbed 10-15% of the first round votes. Carney is in despot territory with that result.

Here's some recent international examples of other dictators for comparison.

Vladimir Putin (Russia, 2024): Putin won the Russian presidential election with 88.48% of the vote on March 15-17, 2024.

Paul Kagame (Rwanda, 2024): Kagame secured 99.18% of the vote in the July 15, 2024, presidential election, extending his rule since 2000

Ilham Aliyev (Azerbaijan, 2024): Aliyev took 92.12% of the vote in the February 7, 2024, presidential election, called early after Azerbaijan’s military success in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Emmerson Mnangagwa (Zimbabwe, 2023): Mnangagwa won the August 23–24, 2023, presidential election with 76.8% of the vote

Politicians in western democracies rarely win with more than 50% of the popular vote, that's just the result of, fair, open, competitive elections.

1/ I find this part equally bizarre.

Registering for the Liberal party was free, which is why 400,000 people did it (including me).

Obtaining a ballot was very complicated. Voters had to prove their age, nationality and place of residence, either in person at a Canada Post outlet or online using a new App.

Some people were legitimately disqualified, but thousands also gave up out of frustration. Eventually 163,836 people qualified for a ballot.

Voting was open for a week, and 151,899 (92.7%) of eligible voters cast a ballot. That means that 11,937 people who went through the complicated registration process didn't bother voting.

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⚠️Inflation is on the rise again in Canada

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 1.9% year-over-year in January, following an increase of 1.8% in December.

In January, increased energy prices, notably for gasoline and natural gas, contributed the most to the acceleration. These price increases were partly offset by continued downward pressure on prices for products affected by the goods and services tax (GST)/harmonized sales tax (HST) break introduced in December.

Note: It's interesting that the Liberals will claim that removing the GST decreased inflation, but they won't say the same thing about the carbon tax.

1/ Prices for new passenger vehicles rise, while prices for used passenger vehicles fall in January.

2/

Update on Interprovincial Trade

Most Canadian businesses only sell in their own province (right column). The province that does the most interprovincial sale is Alberta.

1/

www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quoti… Interestingly, while most businesses don't sell to other provinces, almost 50% of the business BUY from another province.

What province are they buying from? Ontario.

2/

⚠️Alert ⚠️

Yesterday the Parliamentary Budget Officer put out this report, highlighting serious errors in the Fall Economic Update tabled by Freeland just before Christmas.

Here are his biggest concerns:

1) As the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) estimated last year, the Government’s 2023-24 budgetary deficit was worse than Budget 2024 indicated.

2) Given the uncertain and volatile global context, the Government’s economic scenarios downplay risks.

3) The demographic assumptions underpinning the Fall Economic Statement’s economic projection are not transparent, and likely inconsistent with current Government policy.

4) Expenses for contingent liabilities continue to grow and are an increasing source of fiscal risk.

5) The Public Service’s ability to produce timely, high-quality Public Accounts is deteriorating.

This should be discussed in the House of Commons, or in the Standing Committee on Finances, but unfortunately both have been suspended when Trudeau prorogued Parliament.

The media sure won't talk about this.

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pbo-dpb.ca/en/publication… The deficit is even worse than forecast.

Freeland said the deficit is in the $62 billion range. The PBO thinks there's an additional $15 billion.

We're also learning that the tax revenue expected from the changes to the capital gains inclusion rate might be null, so that could add another $10 billion to the deficit.

CAnada is facing a potential $90 billion deficit for this fiscal year.

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🧵Details on the equalization program.

This post created a lot of debate, and it became apparent very quickly that most Canadians don't have a clue about the difference between federal and provincial taxes, transfer payments, equalization payments and the complex relationship between Ottawa and the provinces.

I put together the following table, based on 2023 data. It's not perfect because I had to get information from half a dozen places, and it takes a lot of time to understand the various reports, and filter out what's relevant.

This is a summary of the federal taxes collected by Ottawa vs. the expenditures, sorted by province.

(I excluded the 3 territories because they're so small).

I'll go into detail in the following posts.

1/ The left side of the chart is the amount of federal taxes collected from every province.

Ottawa, through the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), collects provincial and federal taxes on behalf of all the provinces & territories, except Quebec. Quebec has it's own tax collection agency called Revenu Québec.

The column marked "Federal Personal Income Taxes Collected" is simply that. I did not include corporate taxes, provincial taxes, royalties or other fees.

Ontario has 14.2 million citizens, so it sends the most tax money to Ottawa. Followed by Quebec, AB and BC. Then it drops off quickly.

2/

🧵What is killing Albertans in record numbers, and why is our life expectancy going down?

The government usually publishes an annual report on causes of death, but they didn't for 2023, so I had to do my own research.

This chart (from Statista, based on Statistics Canada data) shows the annual deaths in Alberta from 2000 to 2023.

I added the trend arrows.

Up until 2019-2020 (red arrow) the number of annual deaths increased by about 2% annually. That was in line with an increasing overall population that was also slightly aging.

Then something dramatic started occurring in 2020-2021 (orange arrow). The number of deaths jumped for that year, and every year since. Not only that, but the annual change also increased to about 4%

1/
statista.com/statistics/568… In the past, the government of Alberta used to publish a report called "Leading Causes of Death" for a given year.

The last such report was published in September 2023 for the 2022 calendar year.

The report for 2023 is 15 months late, but something tells me the government won't publish this report any more, so I went looking for alternate sources of data....which I found.

open.alberta.ca/opendata/leadi…

2/

🧵Last week the Trudeau Liberals bypassed Parliament and used an Order in Council to once again attack Canadian gun owners.

The Liberals are confiscating legally acquired property from law-abiding citizens.

Who are Canadian gun owners?

P.S. I used the term gun, because I'm done using the politically correct term "firearm" just to appease bleeding hearts.

1/ As of December 31, 2023, there were 2,364,726 firearms licence holders in Canada. That's roughly 6% of our population.

There are an estimated 15 million households in Canada, so anywhere between 10% and 15% of households have at least one gun owner.

Those licences break down as follows:

Non-restricted Licence holders: 1,560,304
Minor's Licence holders: 12,222
Restricted Licence holders: 752,002
Prohibited Licence holders: 40,188

The graph below shows that the number of permit holders has been climbing steadily for decades.

2/

rcmp.ca/en/corporate-i…

🧵In 2022 Statistics Canada published a report entitled

"The Public Sector Universe"

In witch it stated:

"The size of Canada's public sector remains large"

1/ The public sector consists of all the departments controlled by the government (Fed., prov., municipal), which includes the general government sector and government business enterprises (GBEs), commonly referred to as public corporations.

In the 2022 report, there were 6,122 active units.

This table is all the departments spread across the country (4,310 in total)

2/

🧵A graphic designer fixes the 9 worst logos ever

1. Institute of Oriental Studies – Santa Catarina University 2. Kudawara Pharmacy

🧵Forest Fire update (so I have it for the record)

The season is basically over, we've had snow and below freezing temperatures for days.

There are currently 25 active fires in Alberta, all listed as "under control"

1/ Here's the stat's as of today (Nov 4, 2024)

2/

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🧵Democracy might be mathematically impossible, even with major reform to the way we vote.

The methods we're using to elect our leaders in Canada, are fundamentally irrational. This is not anecdotal, this is a well-established mathematical fact.

Here in Canada, we use a method left over from our British founders called "first past the post". It's simple. We ask the voters to mark one candidate as their favorite on a ballot. When the votes are counted,
the candidate with the most votes wins the election.

The winner is just the candidate with the most votes.

But first past the post has problems. If you are selecting representatives in a parliament, you can, and frequently do, get situations where the majority of the country did not vote for the party that ends up holding the power.

If there are 5 people on a ballot, someone can win with just 21% of the votes.

The graph below shows the results of all the Canadian federal elections held since 1867 (except for one in WWI). I plotted popular vote and the number of seats won, both as a percentage.

In the last century, the party that "won" the election, has almost never done so with the majority of votes (50% + 1).

So a party, which only a minority of the people voted for, ended up holding all of the power in government. Hardly seems fair.

1/ In recent years, it's been even worse than that, with parties that get more votes actually finishing second.

It happened three times in the last 50 years: 2021, 2019 & 1979.

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🧵5 years ago today I quit my 6 figure job and took myself out of the rat race. It was an impulsive decision made at a hockey game that I have never regretted.

How did it happen?

Note: Picture of me as a young engineer in Fox Creek (circa 1992).

1/ I spent the first 20 years of my oil & gas career living in mostly northern Alberta, working in the field, doing actual engineering.

I lived in Fox Creek, Fort Saskatchewan, Edson, Grande Prairie, Burstall, and DeWinton. I designed and supervised the construction of equipment like those shown below.

2/

🧵I finally updated all my spreadsheets with the data from the Parliamentary Budget Officer's latest report on the state ouf Canada's fiscal outlook (October 17, 2024)

Two major conclusions.

1) Things are getting worse.

2) The Parliamentary Budget Officer sucks at making forecasts and prediction. He's been wrong every year.

1/

pbo-dpb.ca/en/publication… Firstly, here is the core economic data used by the PBO for all his calculations and forecasts.

He's basically predicting some very agressive growth in the coming years, with a GDP climbing by 2% annually, inflation below 2% and the Bank of Canada's interest rate below 3%. (note: maybe wait a year before buying that house).

What's really interesting is that a super important input in all the calculations is the price of oil. Now why would that be? Don't answer, I'm being sarcastic.

Oil is a commodity that we produce, which is a cornerstone of our economy.

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🧵Who finances the government? Who pays taxes in Canada? The truth will surprise a few people.

1/ The T1 General form is the primary document used to file personal income taxes in Canada. It captures everything from total income to net income to taxable income. It also captures all your deduction, like medical expenses, carrying charges, personal exemption, RRSP contributions, education fees, etc.

Everyone who lives in Canada should file a tax return, especially if you want to claim a refund or collect some benefits. The T1 General lets you know whether you'll have a balance owing on your taxes or be due to receive a refund.

Millions of Canadians file a tax return every year.

2/

🧵 It's been raining for 3 days in Alberta, and most of the fire bans have now been lifted completely, or downgraded to advisories.

Looks like the 2024 forest fire season is coming to an end.

1/ This is new daily fires across Canada for August.

ciffc.net/statistics

We started the question and answer portion, and Danielle is encountering a lot of resistance. She's acknowledged that more kids are dying in Alberta now, than pre COVID. Her government is still analyzing the data.

They're still keeping all the roads in and out of Jasper closed to the general public.

You can't even stay behind to protect you own property without being threatened by the state in this country.

I've been getting texts and emails from locals for the last 3 days, expressing their frustration. I'm also getting a lot of examples of people with skills and equipment, willing and able to help, but getting turned away.

Towns like Hinton, Edson, Drayton Valley, Rocky Mountain House, were built by the oil patch. The people there have incredible skills, tools, knowledge and yet we're flying-in fire fighters from South Africa????

It makes no sense, unless you change your paradigm . Sample exchange between two heavy equipment operators from nearby Edson.

🧵CCP Investment Inc. is a corporation created 25 years ago to manage the pension money collected by government of Canada. It operates at "arms-length", meaning it's supposed to be independent.

It just released its annual report, and going through it has been a real eye opener. I had no idea just how bad the CPP is.

For starters, this huge organization, bloated with highly paid bureaucrats across all continents, managed to grow our investments by just 8% in 2023. The TSX had the exact same performance in 2023.

I manage my own personal investments through an iTrade account, and I generated 18.58% return in 2023. Any good Exchange Traded Fund offered by most banks with a 0.8% fee would have done equally well.

There are dozens of mutual funds around the world that manage $500 billion dollar portfolio and generate better returns.

Just to put things into perspective, Visa is work $500 billion US. Apple is worth almost $2 trillion.

1/

cppinvestments.com/the-fund/f2024… So why did the government created a separate corporation 25 years ago?

When the CPP was first introduced in 1965, Canada had almost 8 workers for every retiree.

A senior in 1972-1980 was receiving a pension that he/she had barely contributed to.

In those days the money collected through employee/employer contributions in a given year was enough to cover current liabilities, but not future ones.

In other words, workers weren't contributing to their own future pension.

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Live updates on the Alberta NDP leadership debate in Lethbridge.

So far it feels like a meeting of the Assembly of First Nations. We've had the obligatory land acknowledgment and now we're listening to a Blackfoot Elder deliver the opening prayer.

Weirdly, the person introducing him acknowledged that he got paid an honorarium and a few packs of cigarettes).

1/ Opening statement by Gill McGowan is all about winning over more people to the NDP. We need to be "More Tim Horton and Less Starbuck".

2/

🧵Why recall Calgary mayor Jyoti Gondek?

1) She increased this year's property taxes by a whopping 7.8%, when Calgarians can already barely make ends meet, while at the same time giving herself a personal raise.

1/ 2) She promoted 'defunding the police' by reducing the policing budget by $20 million and now crime in Calgary is at an all-time high. People are scared to ride the LRT.

2/

This graph shows the Alberta Government's annual budget (blue) vs. actual spent for the last 23 years.

The government went from $17.7 billion in 2000 to $68.3 billion in 2023.

The grey line is our population grown over the same time period, plotted with the same axis ratio, so that the relative slopes are correct.

Data from the government's annual reports


1/alberta.ca/government-and… Annual inflation for that time period averaged 2.18% per year. In other words, the 2023 budget of $68.3 billion, outpaced the inflation adjusted budget of $29.1 billion (see table below) by more than 2:1.

Keep in mind that governments in Canada are amongst the biggest contributors to inflation. If our governments kept spending and borrowing under control, inflation could easily be less than 1.5% annually.



2/bankofcanada.ca/rates/related/…