When I was a kid I played rugby. Not very well but I played. It was and is a brutal game. When I was a bit older I'd be invited to make up a side in club rugby. Which was great fun as after the game you'd drink beers with the opposing team. 1/ Scrolling through the sick takes of the theatre kids, TRAs, queer folk and purple hair leftists on the murder of Charlie Kirk it is pretty obvious that they didn't play team sports when they were kids. They lack the emotional control to be able to leave the game on the pitch. 2/

In hockey "elbowing" leads to a penalty. In their haste to stand up to the bad orange man, Team Canada broke the USMCA rules and imposed tariffs on exempt goods. Which got them sent to the penalty box. 1/ Yesterday (or the day before) Carney finally got a call through to Trump. At a guess Trump told him to stop violating the USMCA rules before there was any chance the US would consider a tariff deal. 2/

The wonderful @RealAndyLeeShow is wandering through grants given by Global Affairs Canada. Not quite curing river blindness in Sub-Saharan Africa. 1/

https://x.com/RealAndyLeeShow/status/1946982178166030572

What is referred to as "foreign aid" tends to push blob obsessions with gender and LGBT in foreign countries at great cost for no apparent benefit. I am generally against foreign aid on principle, but the grants Andy is turning up are simply boondoggles. 2/

It's interesting that the fracus between subsidy and indy media was, in many ways, more interesting than the English language debate itself. Largely because "leaders' debates" have ceased to be debates and have become sort of joint press conferences. 1/ The pollsters and marketeers who have taken over political campaigning recognize that the "average" voter is no longer the right target. Instead, you want to provoke certain emotions in the psychographics you need to win.

The ever valuable @RealAndyLeeShow and others are now routinely catching out Carney for lying about who he has met with in his past. And Carney is dodging questions about where he pays his taxes or if he is conflicted on heat pumps or modular housing. 1/ While subsidy media largely avoids such questions, even the Globe and Mail has called Carney out for lying about his contacts with Chinese business groups. The Liberal war room sees 18 long days stretching out to election day. 2/

Long of tooth National Post columnist wants us to know that @PierrePoilievre has to win in Ontario to win nationally. In other news, water is wet. 1/

https://x.com/nationalpost/status/1903431590971129955

McParland is pretty convinced that Pierre will have to hew closer to the middle ground of the @TashaKheiriddin Party of Toronto Conservatives if he is to stand any chance against the Carney led Liberals. 2/

And we're off. April 28 election day. Leave aside party politics and the horse race here are the issues which matter to me. 1/ Immigration and other newcomers: Canada is well past full. Immigrants, temporary workers, foreign students all use housing and services stretched beyond their limits. I will vote for the party which proposes the greatest reduction in numbers. 1/

As I expected, Carney is going to call an election on Sunday for either the end of April or first week of May. The Liberal war room are taking no chances with Carney's uneven performance off script. 1/ Carney will run on anti-Trump, Team Canada messaging and will be "seeking a mandate" from all of Canada to stand up to the bad orange man. We are about to see a spasm of ersatz Canadian patriotism. 2/

Reaction to today's Oval Office activities are an absolutely accurate indicator of the pro or anti-Trump sentiments of those reacting. From Euro astroturf in support of Z to subsidy journalists rising as one to condemn the bullying, they all hate Trump. 1/ For those of us who are not particularly offput by Trump 2.0 and his team, it was a rare glimpse into the way serious politicians are able to spot and slap down a phoney if he goes off script. 2/

Trump just ended the Libs cunning plan of running a campaign against tariffs, Trump and Alberta. Twitch and Carney were trying to wrap themselves in the Maple Leaf to avoid actually talking about real issues. That's over. 1/ Trudeau and Doug Ford's "Team Canada" is stillborn but Alberta now knows exactly what it is up against. I suspect one of the EOs signed today will reverse the halt of the Keystone pipeline. 2/

Excellent, very simple, thread on the WEF from Dr. Jacobs (who annoyingly, has blocked me for my COVID response scepticism). 1/

https://x.com/DrJacobsRad/status/1878485709838831788

The WEF's favourite "intellectual", Yuval Harari, has said that "globalism is dead if Trump was elected". Part of the globalist project is the WEF. It is where crazy ideas like "net zero" intersect with policy makers and corporate titans. 2/

It's official. The Lady of the House has decreed that as Trudeau is still PM no bubbly wine shall be drunk this morning. She's right, as always. There is nothing to celebrate. The goof is still in office. 1/ So Canada has three months of no Parliament and a lame duck PM who no foreign leader will even pretend to take seriously. And then? Well the grand Canadian institution of the Liberal Party will spit up a new leader who will have no mandate at all. 2/

There is much buzz but very little action around calls for Trudeau to resign. Various regional Liberal caucuses have called for resignation, individual Liberal MPs have said it was time to go. But he's not. 1/ At a certain point the legitimacy of a person's occupation of the Prime Minister's office collapses. Normally the sort of person who becomes Prime Minister is astute enough to recognize this and resign. Trudeau is not astute. 2/

Robyn Urback writing in the collapsing Globe and Mail suggests that Canada has lost its national identity and with it our pride in country. You can read the link in the first reply. I think she's wrong. 1/ Here's the link: 2/archive.ph/ya5MS

Things are happening fast in Ottawa. If a couple more Cabinet Ministers quit Trudeau is done. (He's likely done in any event.) If Singh somehow finds a back bone, the gov't is done. 1/ My son tells me that JWR has pointed out that losing your generals before a major battle (Trump tariffs) is a great way to lose that battle. She's right of course. My bet is that Twitch said, "You can't fire me, I quit." 2/

As ever Max cuts right to the heart of the idiocy which informs much of Canadian politics. But I am pretty sure he misses the actual point of Trudeau's response to Trump. 1/

https://x.com/MaximeBernier/status/1867641494183477754

Trudeau is a politician who does best when he is running against something. Last election he ran against the COVID virus and the filthy, selfish, unvaccinated. It was good enough to secure a minority gov't. 2/

Moving on...I talk a lot about how establishment/blob politics is all about managing decline, about scarcity - real or imagined - and how major parties and subsidy media accept that decline and scarcity as inevitable. 1/ I have been catching snippets of the Republican Convention and I have been struck by the fact the speakers seem to have trashed the whole climate change, net zero, sharing the scarcity fairly, script. 2/

CSIS delivered information on foreign election interference to the PMO/PM and there things get murky. Trudeau testified he didn't get, or at least didn't read the material. He may be lying but, no matter what, it speaks volumes about the current PMO. 1/ A properly run PMO recognizes that not every document sent for the PM's review needs to be read by the PM. There are a lot of documents and not a lot of time. So one of the functions of the PMO is to sort and set priorities. 2/

A Nanos poll indicates that Liberal support is less than 20% in all the tabs under 50. Apart from asking WTF is wrong with us old folks, this brings up some very good questions. 1/ I have three sons under 35, two in their early 20's. Smart, resourceful, able and hard working (except for the middle one at the moment but that's about to change. They are all social socialists in much the same way that I am a social Anglican. 2/

Seven premiers are calling on Ottawa to put a hold on the April 1 hike in the carbon tax which is smart politics. Will the Libs do it? I suspect they might simply because the carbon tax is increasingly unpopular and the hike will infuriate the public. 1/ Premier Smith of Alberta met with Trudeau this morning and came out saying that she saw JT as coming into alignment with Alberta's intention of reaching "net zero" by 2050. Smith has adopted the "net zero" language. Another win for the blob. 2/

By now most people have seen David Menzies of Rebel News get manhandled, arrested and handcuffed while trying to ask Twitch a question on a public street. Assorted lefties and Liberal apologists have chimed in with "but he's not a journalist, he's not the press." 1/ Canada now has two classes of jouralists: those who work for CRA certified news organizations and have memberships in the Parliamentary Press Gallery and those who do not. The Libs feel perfectly justified in ignoring all but the officially accredited. 2/