If you can’t afford a home, little else matters. Especially in a country with a climate like Canada’s. Many factors led to Justin Trudeau’s downfall, but the spike in the cost of living really ate away his support. Particularly when it came to housing whether rentals or purchases. Young Canadians have abandoned hope of purchasing a home while many others struggled to keep up with payments.
The unspoken rules for public servants engaging in civic affairs according to the left is as follows: political engagement is wrong, unless that political engagement favours the left, in which case it’s right.
This December it was broken by two Ontario-based police unions that were exasperated to see more hollow assurances about tackling crime in the fall economic statement. The Liberals promised, for the Nth time, to tighten bail rules and “ensure repeat, violent offenders are held accountable.” Sure, sure.
In Seattle, a growing number of people are growing tired of tipping and are reportedly refusing to tip restaurant staff due to the city’s significant minimum wage hikes. With Seattle’s minimum wage now among the highest in the nation, some residents argue that tipping is no longer necessary, believing the increased base pay should cover service compensation.
︎ ̥࿐Good Morning All ☕️
❝ I JUST CAN’T BREATH ❞
Who made this?#LastSundayOfTheYear
— (@TaMaraPhoto3) December 29, 2024
h/t Mauser
TORONTO — Canada’s government is melting down at the worst possible moment.
The country is girding for the return of Donald Trump, who many here see as an existential threat to Canada’s security. He has threatened to slap 25 percent tariffs on Canadian goods, levies that could crush the economy of a country that sends nearly 80 percent of its exports to its southern neighbor.
And he has taken to mocking embattled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as the “governor” of the “great state of Canada” in middle-of-the-night social media posts that officials here have sought to cast as lighthearted ribbing but others view as not-so-neighborly and not-so-funny. On Christmas, he said he’d pitched hockey great Wayne Gretzky on becoming Canada’s next prime minister.
This is by @ScottSeiss. Follow him for more great vids. https://t.co/v0dVDGMgXB
— Justine Bateman (@JustineBateman) December 29, 2024
h/t Patti Jo
‘We didn’t turn the taps down fast enough’: Immigration minister wants to save Canada’s consensus on newcomers
OTTAWA — This year brought one of the most significant policy reversals in the Liberal government’s nine years in power: drastically cutting the number of immigrants entering Canada over the next three years.
The dramatic reduction followed months of warnings from economists, corporate banks and even the government’s own officials that Canada’s population growth was outpacing the availability of services and housing, driving up costs.
Best of 2024:
FAFO Moments pic.twitter.com/kgBYSlfSh5
— Steve Inman (@SteveInmanUIC) December 29, 2024
h/t XC
We had just walked into the fentanyl lab when the cook poured a white powder into a stockpot full of liquid. He began mixing it with an immersion blender and fumes rose from the pot, filling the small kitchen.
We wore gas masks and hazmat suits, but the cook had on only a surgical mask. He and his partner had rushed here to fulfill an order for 10 kilograms of fentanyl. While one sniff of the toxic chemicals could kill us, they explained, they had built up a tolerance to the lethal drug.
But then, the cook jerked back.
… The push to remove paper passports is happening worldwide. So far, airports in Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Italy, the United States, India, and elsewhere have been trialing various levels of passport-free travel or the technology needed to make it happen. In October, officials in Singapore announced that its residents can fly to and from the country without using their documentation, and foreign visitors can “enjoy the convenience of passport-less clearance when they depart Singapore.” More than 1.5 million people have used the systems, officials claim.
More than 200 years ago, Edmund Burke penned the definitive defence of tradition. In it, he denounced the revolution still burning in France and endorsed the monarchy at home.
In response, across the ocean, Thomas Paine delivered a famous rebuke: “He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird.”
While the ideological lines in the sand have shifted radically over the centuries, Paine’s observation serves to perfectly describe recent attempts by left-wing commentators to try and make sense of the seismic political events of 2024. Most notably, Kamala Harris’s disastrous defeat and Justin Trudeau’s slow motion car wreck of ever-collapsing support.
In mid-September, after the fire season in the American west largely went quiet but before hurricanes ravaged the south-east, seven first responders from across the US traveled to Mexico seeking a therapy they hoped would transform their lives.
They had embarked on a sort of pilgrimage, journeying thousands of miles to an airy villa outside the humid beachside city of Puerto Vallarta, where over the course of three days a team would guide them through ceremonies with psilocybin, the psychedelic 5-MeO-DMT and tobacco.
The retreat, paid for by a California-based non-profit, offered a chance at healing that had eluded the first responders through years of counseling, medication and meditation. On a sweltering Thursday afternoon, they sat in a circle under a wood pergola and shared what ailed them: pain and rage without an identifiable source, on-the-job injuries that had upended their lives, childhood abuse, beloved friends lost to suicide or violence.
Nearly a year after the federal government implemented a cap on international students coming to Canada, it’s looking to crack down on students who are falsely claiming asylum to stay in the country.
Cambridge MP Bryan May said the asylum process needs to be reserved for those who need it and those using it as a tool to skip traditional paths to immigration is unacceptable.
Back in October, I wrote about the Chinese cyberattack that penetrated our telecommunications system, arguing that the damage done was unimaginably large.
At the time the government was releasing information in dribs and drabs. The spooks let us know that the breach was serious but made all sorts of noises about how the breaches were relatively limited and only affected individuals who the American government was already tracking for some reason.
I had a beautiful Christmas, full of laughter and light. But through it all, I kept wondering about the woman on the sidewalk.
She is camped out on a busy street just a few blocks from my house in west-end Toronto. She sits on one of those folding camp chairs with her back to a small tree. Her feet rest on a second chair. Layers of blankets and sleeping bags cover her from head to foot.
She has been there – or spots nearby – for months. Day after day, night after night, in all weathers, she sits silent and unmoving in the same place. She wears a big hood and a vest that covers her neck and mouth, so only her eyes are visible – wary, watching. If it rains or snows, she raises an umbrella and holds it on her lap.
