Yes, yes, a thousand times yes to the observations about the “dignified” parts of our constitutional order and the utterly unforgivable attacks on those parts by Junior and other members of the woke brigade. I will say that Carney does seem to be a far sight better than Junior on this front - see the new $20 bill as an example - the King and Vimy Ridge, be still my heart! And there are signs of some long overdue rehabilitation of Sir John A, too. Baby steps, but steps in the right direction.
But that said, I am not nearly as optimistic as you seem to be that the woke madness is receding rapidly enough. The image provided by Jon Kay is evidence that it is still VERY much alive. I mean, it came from the current administration of the York Region District School Board; it's not a relic from a 2019 first year seminar in the Women's Studies program at York University! That it actually still exists today shows that these fanatics have far too much institutional power - also see Geoff Horsman's recent column in the Post regarding Canada’s federal research grants and Eric Kaufmann's ongoing efforts to highlight similar madness across a variety of academic institutions. It will take years for these institutions to repair themselves; they did not become corrupt overnight and they can't be fixed overnight. And let's not even get into the never ending calls to suppress and even criminalize free speech by actual sitting MPs. We have a million things on our plate in this country and while the current economic problems are the highest priority, this woke shit is still very much one of those things as far as I can tell.
For decades, the Liberals and the Canadian media have held Canada in contempt. And the Conservatives have been, and remain, too cowardly to seriously challenge that axis. The current Elbows Up effusion is purely anti-Trump, and will dissipate with his inevitable departure. All that's left will be Carney's Eurocentric asset-stripping.
We'll know we have an actually nationalist Canadian government when the Snowbirds come back. With jets.
Kind of symbolic that the Snowbirds’ farewell performance was over Laurentian French Quebec’s border with Canada. I thought they were based in Cold Lake Alberta.
Love your woke analysis. Growing up as a kid in Hull Quebec before they changed to a French name my biggest school fear was to avoid being caught in a corner by certain members of the teaching staff we were warned about. But at least they were easy to outrun. If I were a kid at school nowadays I would have to avoid earnest counselors pushing pills and telling me I could have my wee wee cut off if I wanted. So I consider myself lucky.
Still confused by the number messaging. To avoid being the 51st State Canada is now angling to be the twenty something member of the EU while de facto becoming the 40 something province of the PRC with whom it recently signed an operational military cooperation agreement. As usual Canadians learned about the latter from the PRC rather than from(supposedly “their” ) the Government.
I would like to see evidence that school counsellors are pushing gender transition on students in Canada. The US doesn’t count.
Canada is not trying to become a member of the EU. Carney was quite clear on that. No one is really sure what is meant by an “associate member”, but it clearly is not full membership.
I am a leery of any close cooperation with China. I am certain that we are not about to become a province of China, any more than we are going to become the 51st state of the US.
I checked the Ontario Government website. It states that OHIP will cover gender reassignment surgery. Accepted recommendations can come from
Psychologists and registered social workers. Stats vary because reporting is spotty but 1000 Canada total per year - mostly “top end” is one quoted number.
I agree with you the numbers and discussion are more significant in the US. But practitioners in Canada seem to follow US trends (Penis envy 😆😆😆 sorry I couldn’t resist). Even though the numbers may be small or even minuscule, from the perspective of a kid growing up the fear is still there. Just like the fear of “black robes” in Catholic Church run Quebec schools.
As for Canada joining the EU in some format, PM Carney’s track record in saying one thing and reinterpreting or changing positions is not encouraging.
Finally about de facto being part of China: when you sign a military cooperation agreement and allow a country to acquire ownership of your resources and look the other way when “police forces” from the country they fled intimidate new Canadians and have a voice in your elections - even if the official government group investigating this says the interference was ineffective - it goes in only one direction. The formality of joining the PRC at some distant future would be just that - a formality.
It is not just saying people should be treated equally. It is agreeing to call children by a different name and agree they are actually the opposite gender. Behind their parents’ backs. For some kids - not all, but some - that will put them on a track to seeking medical treatment.
When we insist that the definition of “male” and “female” have changed, then everyone is affected because everyone is either male or female.
How many minors should have experimental medical treatment where they are injected with opposite sex hormones and cut off their breasts/sex organs for it to count?
saying these people exist and should be treated equally is not "pushing" kids to change genders. This is one of the most overblown issues .. people are literally consuming themselves over an issue with such a tiny number of people affected (i dare anyone to look up how many gender transitions (surgery and hormones) there are in canada on under 16. Its a very small number if you include hormones; and incredibly tiny if you focus on genital surgeries. Focus on bigger things that matter to the country!
I think the evidence of a school board's anti-oppressive behaviours idñs enough to refute the claim that woke on Canada is receeding. Our government bureaucracies, our schools especially post-secondary, our courts and our professional regulatory bodies demonstrate, by everyday actions, their practise of identitarian progressive beliefs. We have no Canadian politician using the levers of governnent to undo the damage to our society these biases have caused.
I don't see how anyone can deny it's receded. Corporations and many other institutions gave up on it wholesale — it's down to the most resistant public institutions and is obviously so exactly because it's gone everywhere else. Don't confuse a redoubt for a frontline.
“Which is a problem, because a country granting Prime Minister Mark Carney Saddam Hussein levels of popularity actually does need an effective opposition capable of reminding the Mandate of Heaven that he, too, is mortal. Too bad the Conservatives aren’t interested.”
I listened to most of the podcast.
I listened to Matt and Jen belittle the Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, and his Party.
Jen went so far as to say the Conservatives are essentially irrelevant in both the national and international spheres of influence.
Matt condescendingly likened folks who think Mr. Carney could have done better- forgetting, perhaps, that Mr. Carney had campaigned on doing better- to a group of delusional Maple Leaf fans calling in on AM radio.
I serve on my local Conservative EDA Board . None of our members, and none of our volunteers meet the description of the folks outlined in this essay, or podcast.
I live in London Centre. It is an Elbows Up-Brains Turned Off riding that only goes Liberal.
London Centre would vote for a beaver-murdering, maple syrup saboteur wearing an American MAGA cap who kicks children off of their tricycles if he or she ran under the Liberal banner.
It appears that Canadians and foreigners alike have caught- been infected?- Carneymania; but two journalists who vowed not partake in “journalistic B.S.” as well?
Were there things that Mr. Carney could have conceded- things whose abolition would have actually helped Canadians- that would give Donald Trump the win he desired?
Only one Canadian political leader has recognized and spoken out about the growing problem of Canadian antisemitism and promised to review and repair our badly broken bail system.
Only one Canadian political leader was right about inflation; that it was economically endemic and not merely temporary.
Only one Canadian political leader pledged to use all the powers of the office of Prime Minister to build an Energy Corridor from West to East.
Only one Canadian political leader pledged to remove the regulatory burdens and bureaucratic insanity that have impaired economic growth for too long.
As to my previous question, I suppose we’ll never know, as these questions were never apparently meant to be discussed.
If I wanted to read or hear gratuitous, fact-free condemnation of the Conservative Party, I could read Gary Mason, Andrew Coyne, or listen to Robert Fife or Power and Politics.
I expect better of you folks: or, well, I used to.
Excellent piece. I can’t think of anything I didn’t agree with. Sometimes I feel like my country is doomed to total mediocrity. I seriously think that the ten years of the vacuous, preening Justin Trudeau were destructive in so many ways, especially to the spirit of Canada and will take a long time to recover.
PM Carney is definitely a good improvement but not walking on water; he was far too hyped up by the media during the election. He shows no respect for parliament. He was very happy to address other l parliaments, but not ours. He is secretive and more than a touch arrogant.
A key factor in the increasing polarization of American politics and the success of right wing populism has been the fact that BOTH political parties have been pushing to the extremes. When there's only 2 parties and they're both trying to out-crazy each other, neither can really win but neither can really lose either: the voters have to choose between them, and the result has been 25 years of wins with the slimmest of margins.
The same mechanism was at play federally in Canada during the Trudeau era: the Liberal push towards progressivism provided an opportunity for Conservatives to adopt some of the right wing populism that was the new hotness south of the border. The problem is that that Liberals didn't stay insane, and shifted enough back from the extreme that Poilievre couldn't clinch a win in 2025 and has only fallen further since. Kerri Lynn Findlay was too crazy for BC, even though the Eby NDP has been delivering poor governance and a schizophrenic mix of progressive extremism tempered with occasional spasms towards pragmatic realism.
KLF did it for me with the “faith and family” direction. She was elected leader by a consolidated push from the evangelical right. I’m fed up with the purity tests. As a Conservative I believe in the classical liberal principles of smaller government, individual freedom, fiscal responsibility and looking after the less fortunate in our society. These ‘purity’ tests remind me of the Tea Party faction in the Republican Party which led to its downfall. There was a time in this fair land when those like the conspiracy theorists were given tin hats and sent away, now they are demanding that we agree with them or go away.
The kooks have way too much hold over the party. Time to form a new centre right party and have its leader demand electoral reform. Actually, Poilievre could do that. I bet he would leap in front of Mark Carney.
It’s the definition of classical liberalism which has generally driven liberal democracies. Living in and supporting the liberal democracy that we are, we are all technically liberals. That doesn’t mean that we belong to the Liberal Party. Parties define where on the spectrum they draw their support.
The two problems with classical liberalism are that it's purely a manifestation of Anglo-Saxon culture and that its obsession with equality and breaking all bonds between people that aren't continuously chosen inevitably leads to where we are.
As a specific example, why on earth would anyone die to defend "Canada" when Canada is simply a place that anyone in the world can, and does, move to? If Canada is my home, why is my government letting millions move here without my consent? Liberals have been denying the existence of a Canadian nation or any Canadian identity other than mere paperwork for a long time. Carney and Poilievre may not say it, but they don't disagree. Do you?
> Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law.
How bloody difficult is it to buy 10 off-the-shelf jet trainer aircraft? We have unlimited money unconstrained by the need to raise revenue, thanks to the perma-emergency of the US having a mean president. Just cut someone a cheque.
Hell, I'm sure somewhere in the third world would be willing to send us some gently used MiG-29's if we suitably overpaid. Adopting a menacing-looking ex-Soviet fighter for our air demonstrations would show the Americans!
Pretty hard, actually. The T-7 Redhawk isn't going to be in full rate production until 2029, and they've got a multiyear backlog for the USAF. The M-346 and T-50 are in production, but again there's multiyear order backlogs. We're not going to buy Russian or Chinese trainers. Buying military aircraft isn't like going down to the car lot and picking out something in stock.
The blame here is really on previous governments, which didn't buy additional trainers for the Snowbirds when they replaced the Tutors, and also allowed the replacements to age out without a replacement in the pipeline.
Yeah, no. Military training aircraft are pretty scarce right now, unless you're looking to buy a handful of aircraft of the same vintage as the Tutors. What are you going to do - scare up a dozen T-33s from private owners, or a dozen elderly L-39s? The BAe Hawks are aging out everywhere. Air forces everywhere are trying to grow, which means training more pilots and requires holding onto and growing their existing trainer fleets.
No, sir. She did it all to herself. Her right hand woman is Heather Mahs, my MLA. She is fundamentalist Christian , much like Findlay. They are very right wing , much as Avi Lewis is very left wing ( I was once a member of the NDP) . Singh , now Lewis; the party is committing slow suicide.
Was the Tea Party instrumental in the 2010 midterm elections?
“Yes, the Tea Party movement was instrumental in the 2010 midterm elections, serving as a primary driver of the massive Republican wave that retook control of the U.S. House of Representatives.”
The article introduced the KLF problem in a paragraph, then spent a thousand words criticizing Poilievre. We still don't know what happened in BC, or what happened in Ottawa to bring the federal party into the discussion. I'm sure Teneycke was doing some back-stabbing somewhere, but if The Line knows who else is causing problems, they sure aren't sharing it in this article.
The Line did support Trudeau after the Freeland letter, though.
It appears the Danes are going to get the orange menace to sign the 1951 agreement with crayons, allowing him another "victory"? Dr. Phil will be able to start building the next NAS or whichever.
I thought any deal made with Trump was just an invitation for him to take more? That any response short of "do your worst, Orange Man, but whatever you do, don't you dare post memes!" was just rolling over to the bully?
I can't keep the rules to this 5D chess game straight anymore.
What's the functional difference between "giving Trump whatever he wants" like Libs were screeching a hypothetical Conservative government would do, and resolving to endure the maximum retribution for not making a deal if it involves any concessions? Because I'm not seeing one. Pride I guess. Pride that Greenland and Mexico apparently don't have?
There's no wrong answer for this government. Any deal will be the "best deal" but no deal will always be the Americans' fault.
The fact that there has been no attempt to resume negotiations is telling. Who wouldn't want a perpetual "wartime" 70% approval rating? The incentives are completely messed up when failure is rewarded more than success. But nobody appears to consider this when evaluating the truthfulness of our government's statements.
Also I don't care about any of this from a practical perspective. This would be a boring and relatively minor trade dispute with a bit of spicy rhetoric if our media weren't insisting we all constantly lose our shit about it.
Regarding the York Region District School Board, and other Ontario publicly-funded school boards: there is a municipal election late next month (26 October); every voter should ask their school board trustee candidates where they stand on wokeness vs. common sense, then vote accordingly.
The bit about "the left" giving up on woke is interesting because it's clearly what Mr. Carney is doing. He's not reversing course, but he's very obviously taking an off-ramp and pretending nothing has changed. And whatever his own beliefs, that's very obviously to avoid antagonizing the progressive wing.
But that's only going to get them so far. "Woke" wasn't just incorrect, it was destructive to the stated Carney agenda. I think they're eventually going to have to admit "well that was stupid, let's pretend that never happened".
> The fact that [AOC] felt moved to make it at all was telling, but it also opened so many wonderful other questions. What the hell was Woke 1? When did it become crazy? What is Woke 2? Are we to assume it isn’t crazy? And, critically, your Line editors wondered, what is one position — just one — that AOC then held that she’d now agree was crazy?
I'll give you a likely one... the woke idea that "trans-women" are women.
That's a woke idea that is very unlike previous progressive ideas in. First, it’s a spiritual belief system in opposition to scientific evidence. It’s like flat-earthism. That by itself doesn’t mean progressives won’t hang on to it, (there are other anti-science stances in any ideology), but I think the next problem is ultimately a deal-breaker.
But more importantly, trans-ideology is opposed to feminism. Things like gay rights did affect heterosexuals in so far deconstructed an existing moral framework in favour of a new one requiring public changes, but they didn’t actually remove rights that heterosexuals had. Removing legal prohibitions on gay sex didn’t criminalize heterosexual sex. By contrast, women are not allowed to have women’s only spaces if “trans-women” are to be granted access to those spaces. You can’t have a women’s only spaces while requiring that they admit men. That’s round squares territory.
It'll be a long time until “the left” gets there, but I think feminism will win out in the end because there are a lot more women than there are trans identifying people and numbers matter. But I don't think a delay will hurt the LPC. They won't get ahead of the change, but somehow I think they'll change right when they need to and not a minute sooner. And it'll drive their political opponents bonkers when they get away with it.
And I think the same will happen with the favoured place occupied by indigenous spirituality. Right now we're in this weird state where we pretend we don’t favour any religion, but we let teachers coerce children into religious practices without getting fired for it but only if it’s indigenous religion. Yep, it happens and it would end a teacher’s career if it was saying the rosary.
But it’ll take a while for that to sort itself out when the LPC won’t have the Democrats to give them “permission” to reverse course.
"we retain a slow, risk averse institutional governmental culture, fundamental problems of scale and ambition, and a massively too centralized and over-regulated business environment."
A pre-Trump description of the US. With absolute disregard for our trade war and Lake America...it perfectly recognizes Canada today. Do we need a clear headed Trump?
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes to the observations about the “dignified” parts of our constitutional order and the utterly unforgivable attacks on those parts by Junior and other members of the woke brigade. I will say that Carney does seem to be a far sight better than Junior on this front - see the new $20 bill as an example - the King and Vimy Ridge, be still my heart! And there are signs of some long overdue rehabilitation of Sir John A, too. Baby steps, but steps in the right direction.
But that said, I am not nearly as optimistic as you seem to be that the woke madness is receding rapidly enough. The image provided by Jon Kay is evidence that it is still VERY much alive. I mean, it came from the current administration of the York Region District School Board; it's not a relic from a 2019 first year seminar in the Women's Studies program at York University! That it actually still exists today shows that these fanatics have far too much institutional power - also see Geoff Horsman's recent column in the Post regarding Canada’s federal research grants and Eric Kaufmann's ongoing efforts to highlight similar madness across a variety of academic institutions. It will take years for these institutions to repair themselves; they did not become corrupt overnight and they can't be fixed overnight. And let's not even get into the never ending calls to suppress and even criminalize free speech by actual sitting MPs. We have a million things on our plate in this country and while the current economic problems are the highest priority, this woke shit is still very much one of those things as far as I can tell.
For decades, the Liberals and the Canadian media have held Canada in contempt. And the Conservatives have been, and remain, too cowardly to seriously challenge that axis. The current Elbows Up effusion is purely anti-Trump, and will dissipate with his inevitable departure. All that's left will be Carney's Eurocentric asset-stripping.
We'll know we have an actually nationalist Canadian government when the Snowbirds come back. With jets.
A timid, labile, prostrate, and deferential Conservative Party appears to appeal to a certain subset of journalists.
Kind of symbolic that the Snowbirds’ farewell performance was over Laurentian French Quebec’s border with Canada. I thought they were based in Cold Lake Alberta.
Love your woke analysis. Growing up as a kid in Hull Quebec before they changed to a French name my biggest school fear was to avoid being caught in a corner by certain members of the teaching staff we were warned about. But at least they were easy to outrun. If I were a kid at school nowadays I would have to avoid earnest counselors pushing pills and telling me I could have my wee wee cut off if I wanted. So I consider myself lucky.
Still confused by the number messaging. To avoid being the 51st State Canada is now angling to be the twenty something member of the EU while de facto becoming the 40 something province of the PRC with whom it recently signed an operational military cooperation agreement. As usual Canadians learned about the latter from the PRC rather than from(supposedly “their” ) the Government.
I would like to see evidence that school counsellors are pushing gender transition on students in Canada. The US doesn’t count.
Canada is not trying to become a member of the EU. Carney was quite clear on that. No one is really sure what is meant by an “associate member”, but it clearly is not full membership.
I am a leery of any close cooperation with China. I am certain that we are not about to become a province of China, any more than we are going to become the 51st state of the US.
I checked the Ontario Government website. It states that OHIP will cover gender reassignment surgery. Accepted recommendations can come from
Psychologists and registered social workers. Stats vary because reporting is spotty but 1000 Canada total per year - mostly “top end” is one quoted number.
I agree with you the numbers and discussion are more significant in the US. But practitioners in Canada seem to follow US trends (Penis envy 😆😆😆 sorry I couldn’t resist). Even though the numbers may be small or even minuscule, from the perspective of a kid growing up the fear is still there. Just like the fear of “black robes” in Catholic Church run Quebec schools.
As for Canada joining the EU in some format, PM Carney’s track record in saying one thing and reinterpreting or changing positions is not encouraging.
Finally about de facto being part of China: when you sign a military cooperation agreement and allow a country to acquire ownership of your resources and look the other way when “police forces” from the country they fled intimidate new Canadians and have a voice in your elections - even if the official government group investigating this says the interference was ineffective - it goes in only one direction. The formality of joining the PRC at some distant future would be just that - a formality.
Yes, they are pushing gender transition in schools. The National Post is the only media outlet that will say so.
It is not just saying people should be treated equally. It is agreeing to call children by a different name and agree they are actually the opposite gender. Behind their parents’ backs. For some kids - not all, but some - that will put them on a track to seeking medical treatment.
When we insist that the definition of “male” and “female” have changed, then everyone is affected because everyone is either male or female.
How many minors should have experimental medical treatment where they are injected with opposite sex hormones and cut off their breasts/sex organs for it to count?
saying these people exist and should be treated equally is not "pushing" kids to change genders. This is one of the most overblown issues .. people are literally consuming themselves over an issue with such a tiny number of people affected (i dare anyone to look up how many gender transitions (surgery and hormones) there are in canada on under 16. Its a very small number if you include hormones; and incredibly tiny if you focus on genital surgeries. Focus on bigger things that matter to the country!
Can you provide a link to the article?
Here is the article
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ontario-school-hid-students-transgender-transition
It is an article from several years ago. Because this has been going on for several years.
They're based in Moose Jaw.
Thanks. My bad. 😞 I confused them with the CF 18 squadron.
I think the evidence of a school board's anti-oppressive behaviours idñs enough to refute the claim that woke on Canada is receeding. Our government bureaucracies, our schools especially post-secondary, our courts and our professional regulatory bodies demonstrate, by everyday actions, their practise of identitarian progressive beliefs. We have no Canadian politician using the levers of governnent to undo the damage to our society these biases have caused.
I don't see how anyone can deny it's receded. Corporations and many other institutions gave up on it wholesale — it's down to the most resistant public institutions and is obviously so exactly because it's gone everywhere else. Don't confuse a redoubt for a frontline.
“Which is a problem, because a country granting Prime Minister Mark Carney Saddam Hussein levels of popularity actually does need an effective opposition capable of reminding the Mandate of Heaven that he, too, is mortal. Too bad the Conservatives aren’t interested.”
I listened to most of the podcast.
I listened to Matt and Jen belittle the Leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, and his Party.
Jen went so far as to say the Conservatives are essentially irrelevant in both the national and international spheres of influence.
Matt condescendingly likened folks who think Mr. Carney could have done better- forgetting, perhaps, that Mr. Carney had campaigned on doing better- to a group of delusional Maple Leaf fans calling in on AM radio.
I serve on my local Conservative EDA Board . None of our members, and none of our volunteers meet the description of the folks outlined in this essay, or podcast.
I live in London Centre. It is an Elbows Up-Brains Turned Off riding that only goes Liberal.
London Centre would vote for a beaver-murdering, maple syrup saboteur wearing an American MAGA cap who kicks children off of their tricycles if he or she ran under the Liberal banner.
It appears that Canadians and foreigners alike have caught- been infected?- Carneymania; but two journalists who vowed not partake in “journalistic B.S.” as well?
Were there things that Mr. Carney could have conceded- things whose abolition would have actually helped Canadians- that would give Donald Trump the win he desired?
Only one Canadian political leader has recognized and spoken out about the growing problem of Canadian antisemitism and promised to review and repair our badly broken bail system.
Only one Canadian political leader was right about inflation; that it was economically endemic and not merely temporary.
Only one Canadian political leader pledged to use all the powers of the office of Prime Minister to build an Energy Corridor from West to East.
Only one Canadian political leader pledged to remove the regulatory burdens and bureaucratic insanity that have impaired economic growth for too long.
As to my previous question, I suppose we’ll never know, as these questions were never apparently meant to be discussed.
If I wanted to read or hear gratuitous, fact-free condemnation of the Conservative Party, I could read Gary Mason, Andrew Coyne, or listen to Robert Fife or Power and Politics.
I expect better of you folks: or, well, I used to.
Excellent piece. I can’t think of anything I didn’t agree with. Sometimes I feel like my country is doomed to total mediocrity. I seriously think that the ten years of the vacuous, preening Justin Trudeau were destructive in so many ways, especially to the spirit of Canada and will take a long time to recover.
PM Carney is definitely a good improvement but not walking on water; he was far too hyped up by the media during the election. He shows no respect for parliament. He was very happy to address other l parliaments, but not ours. He is secretive and more than a touch arrogant.
A key factor in the increasing polarization of American politics and the success of right wing populism has been the fact that BOTH political parties have been pushing to the extremes. When there's only 2 parties and they're both trying to out-crazy each other, neither can really win but neither can really lose either: the voters have to choose between them, and the result has been 25 years of wins with the slimmest of margins.
The same mechanism was at play federally in Canada during the Trudeau era: the Liberal push towards progressivism provided an opportunity for Conservatives to adopt some of the right wing populism that was the new hotness south of the border. The problem is that that Liberals didn't stay insane, and shifted enough back from the extreme that Poilievre couldn't clinch a win in 2025 and has only fallen further since. Kerri Lynn Findlay was too crazy for BC, even though the Eby NDP has been delivering poor governance and a schizophrenic mix of progressive extremism tempered with occasional spasms towards pragmatic realism.
Mr. Carney appears to have nothing but utter contempt for Parliament.
Does he? I haven't seen or heard anything but MOU's and agreements 25 years down the road.
KLF did it for me with the “faith and family” direction. She was elected leader by a consolidated push from the evangelical right. I’m fed up with the purity tests. As a Conservative I believe in the classical liberal principles of smaller government, individual freedom, fiscal responsibility and looking after the less fortunate in our society. These ‘purity’ tests remind me of the Tea Party faction in the Republican Party which led to its downfall. There was a time in this fair land when those like the conspiracy theorists were given tin hats and sent away, now they are demanding that we agree with them or go away.
The Progressive Conservative Party also had its share of kooks.
The difference is that the kooks of the FarLeft are better at forging alliances.
The kooks have way too much hold over the party. Time to form a new centre right party and have its leader demand electoral reform. Actually, Poilievre could do that. I bet he would leap in front of Mark Carney.
As a "Conservative", you're a liberal? Interesting.
It’s the definition of classical liberalism which has generally driven liberal democracies. Living in and supporting the liberal democracy that we are, we are all technically liberals. That doesn’t mean that we belong to the Liberal Party. Parties define where on the spectrum they draw their support.
The two problems with classical liberalism are that it's purely a manifestation of Anglo-Saxon culture and that its obsession with equality and breaking all bonds between people that aren't continuously chosen inevitably leads to where we are.
As a specific example, why on earth would anyone die to defend "Canada" when Canada is simply a place that anyone in the world can, and does, move to? If Canada is my home, why is my government letting millions move here without my consent? Liberals have been denying the existence of a Canadian nation or any Canadian identity other than mere paperwork for a long time. Carney and Poilievre may not say it, but they don't disagree. Do you?
I feel like you described red Tories, of which I am one.
I have no interest in voting for a social conservative party, nor do I see myself passing a conservative purity test
I guess it's Green or spoiled ballot for me.
No, he's describing liberalism. And yes, it pretty much is the governing philosophy of many conservative parties.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
> Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, right to private property, and equality before the law.
You'll note that it sounds pretty "conservative".
A serious country simply would not let this happen.
How bloody difficult is it to buy 10 off-the-shelf jet trainer aircraft? We have unlimited money unconstrained by the need to raise revenue, thanks to the perma-emergency of the US having a mean president. Just cut someone a cheque.
Hell, I'm sure somewhere in the third world would be willing to send us some gently used MiG-29's if we suitably overpaid. Adopting a menacing-looking ex-Soviet fighter for our air demonstrations would show the Americans!
Pretty hard, actually. The T-7 Redhawk isn't going to be in full rate production until 2029, and they've got a multiyear backlog for the USAF. The M-346 and T-50 are in production, but again there's multiyear order backlogs. We're not going to buy Russian or Chinese trainers. Buying military aircraft isn't like going down to the car lot and picking out something in stock.
The blame here is really on previous governments, which didn't buy additional trainers for the Snowbirds when they replaced the Tutors, and also allowed the replacements to age out without a replacement in the pipeline.
Ukraine could probably find these tomorrow if they needed them and had the funding.
Yeah, no. Military training aircraft are pretty scarce right now, unless you're looking to buy a handful of aircraft of the same vintage as the Tutors. What are you going to do - scare up a dozen T-33s from private owners, or a dozen elderly L-39s? The BAe Hawks are aging out everywhere. Air forces everywhere are trying to grow, which means training more pilots and requires holding onto and growing their existing trainer fleets.
Good wrap as always.
Poilievre is definitely to blame for KLF's failure.
No, sir. She did it all to herself. Her right hand woman is Heather Mahs, my MLA. She is fundamentalist Christian , much like Findlay. They are very right wing , much as Avi Lewis is very left wing ( I was once a member of the NDP) . Singh , now Lewis; the party is committing slow suicide.
I suspect your comment was a joke?
Yes, it was sarcasm.
I was once a member of the Greens. I think they will beat the NDP to the bottom, despite Lewis' prodigious efforts.
Was the Tea Party instrumental in the 2010 midterm elections?
“Yes, the Tea Party movement was instrumental in the 2010 midterm elections, serving as a primary driver of the massive Republican wave that retook control of the U.S. House of Representatives.”
Why do you say that, Jerry?
The article introduced the KLF problem in a paragraph, then spent a thousand words criticizing Poilievre. We still don't know what happened in BC, or what happened in Ottawa to bring the federal party into the discussion. I'm sure Teneycke was doing some back-stabbing somewhere, but if The Line knows who else is causing problems, they sure aren't sharing it in this article.
The Line did support Trudeau after the Freeland letter, though.
It appears the Danes are going to get the orange menace to sign the 1951 agreement with crayons, allowing him another "victory"? Dr. Phil will be able to start building the next NAS or whichever.
I thought any deal made with Trump was just an invitation for him to take more? That any response short of "do your worst, Orange Man, but whatever you do, don't you dare post memes!" was just rolling over to the bully?
I can't keep the rules to this 5D chess game straight anymore.
Nailed it, friend.
This is a purely performative dance of which Canadians cannot seem to get enough.
We are an appallingly apathetic and unaccountable people.
Of course we should make a deal with Europe: we deserve each other.
I am curious as to why these things were never discussed during the last election.
I didn’t hear all the excuses and the admonitions of expected & imminent failure.
What's the functional difference between "giving Trump whatever he wants" like Libs were screeching a hypothetical Conservative government would do, and resolving to endure the maximum retribution for not making a deal if it involves any concessions? Because I'm not seeing one. Pride I guess. Pride that Greenland and Mexico apparently don't have?
There's no wrong answer for this government. Any deal will be the "best deal" but no deal will always be the Americans' fault.
The fact that there has been no attempt to resume negotiations is telling. Who wouldn't want a perpetual "wartime" 70% approval rating? The incentives are completely messed up when failure is rewarded more than success. But nobody appears to consider this when evaluating the truthfulness of our government's statements.
Also I don't care about any of this from a practical perspective. This would be a boring and relatively minor trade dispute with a bit of spicy rhetoric if our media weren't insisting we all constantly lose our shit about it.
Regarding the York Region District School Board, and other Ontario publicly-funded school boards: there is a municipal election late next month (26 October); every voter should ask their school board trustee candidates where they stand on wokeness vs. common sense, then vote accordingly.
Which I see no sign that they are doing.
The bit about "the left" giving up on woke is interesting because it's clearly what Mr. Carney is doing. He's not reversing course, but he's very obviously taking an off-ramp and pretending nothing has changed. And whatever his own beliefs, that's very obviously to avoid antagonizing the progressive wing.
But that's only going to get them so far. "Woke" wasn't just incorrect, it was destructive to the stated Carney agenda. I think they're eventually going to have to admit "well that was stupid, let's pretend that never happened".
> The fact that [AOC] felt moved to make it at all was telling, but it also opened so many wonderful other questions. What the hell was Woke 1? When did it become crazy? What is Woke 2? Are we to assume it isn’t crazy? And, critically, your Line editors wondered, what is one position — just one — that AOC then held that she’d now agree was crazy?
I'll give you a likely one... the woke idea that "trans-women" are women.
That's a woke idea that is very unlike previous progressive ideas in. First, it’s a spiritual belief system in opposition to scientific evidence. It’s like flat-earthism. That by itself doesn’t mean progressives won’t hang on to it, (there are other anti-science stances in any ideology), but I think the next problem is ultimately a deal-breaker.
But more importantly, trans-ideology is opposed to feminism. Things like gay rights did affect heterosexuals in so far deconstructed an existing moral framework in favour of a new one requiring public changes, but they didn’t actually remove rights that heterosexuals had. Removing legal prohibitions on gay sex didn’t criminalize heterosexual sex. By contrast, women are not allowed to have women’s only spaces if “trans-women” are to be granted access to those spaces. You can’t have a women’s only spaces while requiring that they admit men. That’s round squares territory.
It'll be a long time until “the left” gets there, but I think feminism will win out in the end because there are a lot more women than there are trans identifying people and numbers matter. But I don't think a delay will hurt the LPC. They won't get ahead of the change, but somehow I think they'll change right when they need to and not a minute sooner. And it'll drive their political opponents bonkers when they get away with it.
And I think the same will happen with the favoured place occupied by indigenous spirituality. Right now we're in this weird state where we pretend we don’t favour any religion, but we let teachers coerce children into religious practices without getting fired for it but only if it’s indigenous religion. Yep, it happens and it would end a teacher’s career if it was saying the rosary.
But it’ll take a while for that to sort itself out when the LPC won’t have the Democrats to give them “permission” to reverse course.
"we retain a slow, risk averse institutional governmental culture, fundamental problems of scale and ambition, and a massively too centralized and over-regulated business environment."
A pre-Trump description of the US. With absolute disregard for our trade war and Lake America...it perfectly recognizes Canada today. Do we need a clear headed Trump?