Nice day to travel. I am off to the Vancouver Resource Investors Conference on Sunday but taking the ferry later on today. Should be interesting with silver over $100 and gold at nearly $5000. 1/ VRIC is all about junior exploration and development companies. There will be a few "producers" on the floor but 90% of the attendees are about soil samples and drill results. They are years away from production. 2/

In his speech yesterday Carney acknowledged that the idea of a rules based international order was a fiction that people went along with because it suited their agendas. I think he was right but there are other fictions propped up by agendas. 1/ The entire construct of "net zero" is predicated on the attribution of climate change to increases in the amounts of "greenhouse gases" in the atmosphere. Gov'ts the world over pretend that "net zero" will change this. 2/

Read Carney's Davos speech. As these sorts of speeches go it was pretty good. And it was an excellent summary of what Carney is trying to achieve as he jets from place to place. Here's the transcript. 1/ nationalpost.com/news/canada/ma… Recognizing that Canada is a middle power and that building relationships with other middle powers is a good thing is stating the blindingly obvious. It also is oblivious to the fact that we have one, overwhelmingly important relationship. 2/

Beautiful, crisp, Fall day on the Island. The nights are cooling off, but the afternoon is prime Vespa weather. The ostriches are still with us and @PierrePoilievre is still silent. The federal conversation seems to be about guns and censorship. 1/ Everyone who has done five minutes research into the question agrees that confiscating registered, legally owned, guns from people who are licenced to own them will do nothing at all to address gun crime. 2/

Getting news from the ostrich farm is frustrating. There was a fire on the bale wall. A FN tribe has stepped in to protect the ostriches on unceded land. The WCB is looking at work safety issues. A Court may have issued a "stay". 1/ I love our indy media and they are doing a great job, but this is a big story with a lot of moving parts and the gov't is being anything but transparent. The fire was real but how damaging is hard to say. 2/

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/