Author: Blazingcatfur

What will the federal government’s Major Projects Office do — and will it succeed?

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced this week a second round of projects he’s recommending get fast-tracked by his government’s Major Projects Office (MPO) as part of his promise to reduce Canada’s economic reliance on the United States.

Thursday’s announcement saw multibillion-dollar energy and natural resources proposals brought to the top of the pile, but there are still questions about what a referral to the MPO actually means.

Part of the confusion lies in the government’s choice of language. So far, Carney has referred projects to the MPO that he’s deemed of “national importance” or “national significance.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Couric and Burns Lament Left’s Declining Influence In History Education

Ken Burns Revisionist-Historian

Bad camera angles were not the only thing wrong with former CBS and NBC anchor Katie Couric’s Friday interview with PBS documentarian Ken Burns on her Substack page. After spending much time on Burns’s upcoming series on the American Revolution, the pair moved on to discuss the state of history education in the country more broadly, which Couric described as “going backwards” and Burns labeled as being in “an autocrat’s interest.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inWTF?

Trump lowers tariffs on beef, coffee, other foods as inflation concerns mount

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order to exempt a wide range of food imports, including beef, tomatoes, coffee and bananas, from sweeping tariffs imposed earlier this year on nearly every country, the White House said.

The order is part of a major push by Trump and his top officials to address Americans’ growing concerns about persistently high grocery prices.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Canada - USA Tariff Wars"

Why Do Cats Love Boxes?

If you’ve ever purchased an expensive, bespoke toy for your feline friend, then watched them ignore said purchase in favor of the cardboard container it arrived in, you will know this universal truth: cats love boxes.

Why have cats evolved this fascination with enclosed spaces, one that seems as distinct as their fear of cucumbers or their fondness for biscuit-making? We turned to a pawful of cat experts to find out more.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCats. What Else?

Ottawa’s operating spending — not capital — driving deeper deficits: PBO

OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer projects Ottawa will blow past the new fiscal anchors set out in last week’s 2025 federal budget.

Interim budget officer Jason Jacques says in a new analysis of the budget that Ottawa is set to run an average deficit of $64.3 billion over the next five years — double the level set out in the federal government’s last fiscal update in late 2024.

Despite Prime Minister Mark Carney’s talk of shifting government spending to capital investment rather than operating costs, Jacques says the deeper deficits are being driven by new day-to-day program spending.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Canada’s Ukraine Aid Undeterred by Latest Corruption Scandal

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand says Canada remains committed to supporting Ukraine, and that it has offered accountability support in light of an unfolding $100 million corruption scandal involving the Ukraine’s nuclear agency.

Canada is a “long-time supporter of Ukraine’s reform efforts” and continued reform is “essential for transparency, accountability and good governance,” Anand said, according to The Globe and Mail. She noted that Canada has offered to help Ukraine tighten oversight and accountability in government to prevent such corruption.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Ukraine - Russia", Canada

Conservatives won’t say if MPs will be forced to vote against budget

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and his office will not say if his caucus will be whipped by party leadership and urged to vote against Prime Minister Mark Carney’s budget next week — a vote that could trigger another election if the minority government falls.

Asked by reporters in Calgary on Friday if he was confident that all his members of Parliament would vote against the budget in the House of Commons on Monday, Poilievre wouldn’t directly answer.

LPC internal polling must be saying Poilievre is vulnerable if an election is forced. 

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Canadian Politics"

Trump Escalates Pressure on Venezuela, but Endgame Is Unclear

The Trump administration is rapidly escalating its pressure campaign against Venezuela, with America’s largest aircraft carrier, the Ford, about to take up a position within striking distance of the country, even as President Trump’s aides provide conflicting accounts of what, exactly, they are seeking to achieve.

Mr. Trump held back-to-back days of meetings at the White House over the past two days, reviewing military options, including the use of Special Operations forces and direct action inside Venezuela.

It is still not clear whether Mr. Trump has made a decision about what kind of action to authorize, if any. On Friday, he told reporters on Air Force One that “I sort of made up my mind.” “I can’t tell you what it is,” he said, “but we made a lot of progress with Venezuela in terms of stopping drugs from pouring in.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inUSA, Venezuela

LILLEY: Here’s all the reasons Olivia Chow should not run for Toronto mayor again

Mayor Olivia Chow has mused that she may not run again in next year’s election. If so, that would be good news for the city because her policies are not what Toronto needs right now.

Chow was appearing on the Can’t Be Censored Podcast with Travis Dhanraj and Karman Wong when she mused about her political future.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Toronto - Canada's version of a Democrat run city"

How American and Chinese Drone Arsenals Stack Up

The U.S. is falling behind China in one of the defining technologies of the modern battlefield.

Drones have proven indispensable in conflicts like Ukraine, where troops rely on them to destroy tanks, lay mines, evacuate wounded fighters, and deliver food and medication. Advances in artificial intelligence increasingly allow unmanned systems to operate with minimal human direction, such as tracking and attacking targets on their own.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China - Communist Slave State", USA

‘It’s a bloodbath out there:’ Tech workers forced to take ‘survival jobs’ as AI cuts swath through workforce

The technology sector was supposed to supply Vancouver’s jobs of the future. But fresh graduates and laid-off workers say job searches now take months, even years, forcing some to walk dogs or stock shelves to pay the bills

Throngs of 20-somethings dressed in blazer-jean combos and armed with paper résumes were asking senior tech leaders about how to break into the industry during a brunch networking meeting in October at the KPMG LLC office in downtown Vancouver.

It was yet another technology-focused event — from networking brunches to mentorship walks to artificial intelligence (AI) workshops — in the city that has attracted sold-out crowds of fresh graduates and young tech workers pursuing their first jobs in the age of AI.

CORPORATE CANADA’S RESPONSE: Recruit more foreign workers, especially the one’s Trump is denying visas to!

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney says he sees an opening for Canada to attract global tech talent now that the United States is introducing a $100,000 fee for temporary visas for workers with specialized skills.

… According to Pew Research, about 60 per cent of H-1B visas issued since 2012 were held by people in computer-related fields.

That article quoting Carney is from a month ago. No matter what the question the answer is always “More foreign workers”.

An unanswered question is how many foreign students are among the unemployed “tech workers” discussed in the FP piece.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Mass Immigration - Follow the money", Canada, Canada's Corporate Welfare Class, Canada's Corrupt Liberal Government

Trump says he will take legal action against BBC over Panorama edit

US President Donald Trump has said he will take legal action against the BBC over how his speech was edited by Panorama, after the corporation apologised but refused to compensate him.

Speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Friday evening, Trump said: “We’ll sue them for anywhere between $1bn [£759m] and $5bn, probably sometime next week.”

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inBBC, The Media Lies, Trump Derangement Syndrome

Poll shows more young women want to leave U.S. — their top destination is Canada

WASHINGTON — A record number of younger American women now say they want to leave the United States — and their most common destination of choice is Canada.

Those findings come from a new Gallup poll that says 40 per cent of American women aged 15 to 44 report they would permanently leave the United States given the opportunity.

That’s substantially more than the 19 per cent of younger men who told the pollster they want to leave the United States for good. Gallup said the 21-point gap between the genders is the largest it has ever recorded.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA