The rise of independents looks significant too. Maybe it’s down to some riding with CPC candidates getting snubbed and then pulling the local support they had.

Its interesting (and not particularly surprising) that as Poilievre is cornered into distancing himself from Dumpster, some of CPC’s most recent decline matches a small PPC uptick. I’d wager that’ll continue. LPC on the other hand is riding so high they pretty much had to come down some, and where they (marginally) go next is anyone’s guess, likely mostly up to whatever minor events arise during the campaign rather than anything already set in motion.

That’s pretty much the exact same propaganda that’s been getting fomented for the past two years already. There’s a certain percentage of Canada that’s deep in this pipeline which starts with “shared” commiseration. And there’s a much larger percentage that was casually and uncritically going with the flow until all the events of this year prompted them to wake the fuck up.

Before, you could look at the comment section of any news video on YouTube and see thousands of comments from amateur pundits regurgitating in poetic detail how the world was ending – and pity the poor soul who dare push back even a little. Yanking the focal point of their blame-seeking made them falter. Then, mid-stumble, the sudden prospect of real hardship powerfully re-contextualized their exaggerated woes.

Now, the same news channels still have endless right-wing talking points in the comments. But the messaging is shorter with less substance, and it’s getting challenged more with weaker response to the challenges. On top of that, the percentage of participating accounts that are a few months old or less is substantially higher. I believe what’s happening is long-running destabilization ops are, if anything, redoubling their efforts. It isn’t enough to replace the decimated magnification by useful idiots.

I’ve paid considerably less attention to comment sections of mainstream news sites, but at first blush the pattern there seems less pronounced but similar, if there’s enough volume to even sample.

I don’t have the capacity to do large-scale traffic analysis across many platforms and communities, so this is pretty much all loose anecdotal evidence. Since social friction still naturally pushes the majority of people to wherever their views are shared, not even flipping a quarter of the nation’s views is enough to visibly collapse or transform the nature of individual internet silos. They are, after all, still shaped by the loudest and generally stupidest voices that often aren’t even human let alone authentic.

TLDR: What RandAlThor said so much more succinctly. 😏

Canada has the longer runway because:

• better social safety nets and not federally leveraged to the hilt
• Canadian allies willing to lend both short-term financial aid and long-term mutually beneficial economic partnerships, vs U.S. former allies that will absolutely respond to them as we are doing (I think this is the realization that has Dumpster running scared; he’s finally figured out the biggest economy in the world is still no match for the entire Commonwealth + EU)
• national unity vs escalating unrest – practically every U.S. move is strengthening our unity and dividing the states further
• the volume of private industry being harmed stateside is way more powerful than the U.S. civil infrastructure, whereas I’m not sure which side is bigger here but the difference in relative sizes isn’t even comparable – plus plenty of our private business has chosen solidarity anyway
• more stateside jobs vulnerable to supply disruption than Canadian jobs in the supply chain (possibly even per capita, but definitely in absolute numbers)
• public perception: to some extent, we can outlast the U.S. as long as we think we can (this is the factor that’s hard to maintain and a big reason why some things would only be said in private)

What Canadians would be afraid to hear probably sits somewhere in the ballpark of promising he’s ready to gamble countless Canadian jobs and security on the position already taken. Some form of politely but firmly and explicitly challenging Dumpster to his face – calling his bluff. Other possibilities include sharing threats/promises on how the government has prepared* to respond further in some scenario. Basically some strong counterthreat that probably isn’t a bluff.

*privately, to avoid panic, internationally-seen escalation/harming Canada’s image, or fueling propaganda for anti-Canadian sentiment

I don’t disagree, but also suspect our leadership has for many decades been strong-armed behind closed doors far more than the public ever got to see. We only ever see the carrot.

I don’t even think there’s much chance Dumpster has gotten better at reverse psychology and is trying to reframe Carney’s alignment. He’s just not remotely capable as an actor. Plus anyone devious enough to make that play can probably tell that the most masterful execution of that is still an incredibly long shot.

I’m already seeing signs of Dumpster being the one to bend the knee. While responding to questions about this, he dialed the rhetoric way back, instead pivoting away from his promise of more tariffs to “nice talk” and then other nations entirely. When was the last time he said 51st state, or Canada isn’t viable? Now it’s Vance on the sidelines claiming we can’t win, which is relatively weak talk for him too – and sounding increasingly less believable.

None of this means Dumpster won’t flip back any moment, but it does imply we gained the upper hand and even more clearly than before. Every time that happens, it gets easier for us to hold our ground. Carney was probably already confident enough to stand firm for a lot longer and against still more intense brinksmanship anyway. But this will settle the nerves of Canadians who’ve neither the experience nor the mettle to patiently trust and back our PM as the economic effects become more and more real.

Conversely, every time Dumpster goes back on the offensive, we get more familiar with the cycle and confident that our response will at least buy more time and soften the impact, if not just make him look more the fool when he has to back off again. If Dumpster thought he had the upper hand right now, he’d be gloating rather than deflecting. He caved, again, and with less room to save face than before. At this point I’m more worried this crisis will “go to waste” and we’ll lose the drive to follow through with our internal reformation.

There’s certainly room for me to be misreading the situation, but I think Carney’s in control now. The longer it takes for us to hear the next “51st state” comment, the more sure I’ll be. My best guess after that would be Carney’s some kind of dark horse and Dumpster actually wants him to win the election. But that’s master-level 4D chess, and I’ve yet to see a single prediction on that basis fulfilled. He played his part so well that if there is a master plan, Dumpster isn’t in on it.

No, I think Carney confidently and firmly said something the average Canadian couldn’t even hear without breaking a sweat, and even Dumpster could tell a) he wasn’t going to get an inch, and b) circumstances have made still clearer that we have the longer runway. Now he needs to delay (again), and I think he’ll shake it up by making those 25% tariffs start much lower with automatic ramping over time. That way he can make it look a little less like he caved because they technically still started them on April 2nd.

It kind of sounds like what we really need (or what would make a much bigger difference) is more regulatory power centralized into federal jurisdiction, with various provincial regulatory bodies consolidating into federal ones. That would be an even more painful transition with lots of redundancies (as in job loss and sunsetting support systems), but actually fix the problems that have been returning to light the past month or so.

The new problems would be a loss of diversity (particularly in terms of governance strategies) and flexibility (to try things on smaller scale and in simpler/more homogenous environments) – for starters. I can’t begin to imagine what else might arise due to power being consolidated and centralized like that. But it would certainly diminish our capacity for local self-governance, and my anarchist principles respond to that with many tiny alarm bells.

I think it comes down to choosing between efficiency/agility and resilience/redundancy. We’ve always been a diversity-loving nation that respected the latter’s value. I really hope the approach we’re currently taking proves “good enough.” Our best bet probably comes from greater collaboration and cooperation not just between our provincial governments, but also directly and independently between our various regulatory bodies/professional associations.

https://archive.is/NpaKg

Ok. What I mean though is that the “soft mandatory” isn’t. The first attempt to submit produced an “are you sure?” type of error indicating I could still submit, but trying again produced a different error. (And I did try to submit a couple more times just to be sure, before listening through the French songs.)

https://archive.is/QIdL3

I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad rule in general – it would avoid raising divisive issues and triggering conflicts during what is supposed to be a family-friendly and enjoyable event for all. But enforcing it in this case was hella stupid and contrary to the spirit of the rule’s own (presumed) intent.

😂 Upvoting is not enough.

I’m not sure if it was intended, but going to the form for English lets me vote my English favorites then flips to French. Trying to submit nothing it says click again to confirm then changes it’s mind and requires a vote. I’m thankful there were only 5 songs and one I liked. 😅

This tells me we’re leaving money on the table. I get that even without the Smith disaster in play, taking an action that would disproportionately depress one province’s economy is a tall order.

But it still seriously sucks that it’s Oil & Gas companies reaping the windfall from this fiasco.

Operation Mapleclip

Wow, what a crazy random coincidence. I believe that’s what the suits on Wall Street call “return on investment.”

Really? It seems rather hard to me to “rock” a campaign that has already crumbled, using information we mostly already knew with the rest being stuff we’d pretty much already guessed.

This…this is what sane-washing looks like, right? “Oh, she’s just throwing spaghetti at the wall.” A) Why does all the spaghetti involve modelling Canadian weakness and pandering to private/foreign interests? B) That’s not spaghetti.

Suspect attacked a complete stranger based on nothing but appearance, and in a manner that indicates the hijab was primary if not sole source of offense. How on earth do you not prosecute this as a hate crime? How is that even in question?