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Anand's hollow concerns

On August 20, 2026, the Canadian government made a statement along with France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom on the Israeli Government’s decision to publish construction tenders for the E1 settlement project. “The Israeli Government’s decision to publish construction tenders for the E1 settlement project is unacceptable. The international community has long opposed this settlement expansion and has voiced their grave concerns privately and publicly.” It continues saying “International law is clear that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal. This is the position of the international community reaffirmed by the United Nations Security Council.” So said Canada. But what? Rabid, violent narcissts are rampaging over the West Bank, destroying life – vegetable, mammal and human – while the State's heavily armed and fully armoured teenagers in uniform just watch.  The time when having the courage to make a contradictory statement could be laud...
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A quick letter on pipelines

I open a lot of emails, skim the alarmed subject lines and the paragraphs denouncing the action government is either taking or failing to take, then click to sign the letter they have drafted to send. Sometimes I add my own spice (as is amply demonstrated on this blog).  This time they were inviting me to submit a letter to the editor to several publications instead, so here I go! It's fairly off-the-cuff so I highly doubt it'll be published anywhere, but if Stand for Earth is right that 60% of people in Canada don't want a publicly funded pipeline (depressingly low when you think about it; but I suspect most of the other 40% just don't even understand what's at stake or care to even try to understand), then we need our media to start reflecting that in their reporting. If some letters to the editor help newspapers gauge public sentiment to guide their reporting, then I hope this adds to the weight of opinion in a good way.  Prime Minister Carney says we can'...
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Keep Canada a country of welcome

We're supposed to be grateful that we got a Liberal government instead of a Conservative one that would scapegoat immigrants. However, even under Trudeau, Liberals had subtly started to send the disgustingly popular message that Canada's social ills can be traced to our newcomer population, when in fact, in both housing and education (favourite victims of the blame immigrant narrative), the real villain is the federal government's funding cut backs.  And now Carney is blaming immigrants for health care too. Now he's claiming we can't afford to pay for health care for immigrants (as though we can afford to waste human potential by allowing folks to languish in untreated illness for lack of funds!) So here's a letter to the PM and the immigration minister to protest the cuts to immigration. This time from MCC. Mine, of course, has my own flavour added.  Click here to send your own. I am writing to you to ask that you keep Canada as a country of welcome.  Stop bl...
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Solving a bunch of problems with one test

MPI should be doing mandatory retesting of the entire population every 10 years.  This solves a bunch of problems with one fell stroke. I recently filled out a survey for MPI where I gave them my opinion on the matter: Starting as soon as possible, we could ease into this new strategy by rolling it out on a small scale through a lottery.  100x drivers' names should be drawn from a lottery to be subjected to a written test this year.  Those who fail should be forced to redo their driving test.  Those who fail have their licence suspended and are mandated X hours of driving instruction with a qualified instructor.  The next year, same thing (having removed the names who were subjected to testing): 100x drivers up for re-testing. This lottery strategy should continue as capacity is built into the driver testing system to allow for the entire population (not merely a draw) to be subjected to this mandatory resting rubric on a 10-year cycle. Or maybe once the entire ...
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Ecological disaster through data centres nobody even wants

Glitchy products that never do what they say are bad enough, and then they add genocide into the mix. But what real options are there to Microsoft? Another (adapted) form letter from Stand for earth. Write your own here You’ve trapped us all into being forced to use MS for word processing since you simply drove all the competition out of the marketplace with injust business practices. The least you can do it not lie to us about your supposed commitments to green energy sourcing.  I was disgusted to hear Microsoft struck a 20 year deal with Chevron to supply massive amounts of polluting methane gas for a data centre in Texas. Microsoft used to pretend to have climate commitments by setting goals far off in the future so you could keep kicking the can down the road and never meeting them. But now you're not even pretending to try, Now it’s pursuit of ecological disaster through unnecessary AI data centres nobody even wants to use.  I’m asking: please start listening to the commu...
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No more public money for LNG

It’s just so ludicrous that we’d be sending any public money to fossil fuel extraction. It doesn’t even make financial sense with major Asian markets ramping up solar and wind. And that's beyond the known climate change consequences of continued extraction.   So, another adapted form letter, thanks to Stand for earth.  Write your own here I am writing to urge you to reject any investment, financing, or de-risking of new LNG projects in Canada. I am sick and tired of public money flowing to subsidize fossil fuel extraction.  It does not benefit ordinary Canadians.  It is known to contribute to global warming – the effects of which we are already feeling with a huge increase in disastrous climate events which are costly and harmful. It doesn’t even make financial sense because the market is drying up. The rest of the world is smart enough to switch to renewables.  You are continuing to dehumanize Indigenous peoples by running roughshod over their territory a...
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Build Canada strong but small

Am I a lunatic? Probably. Naive? Certainly. Hopeful? One must be else one will despair.  After reading this news story below (yes, I'm behind on all the tabs I've opened), I just couldn't help but feel the need to write to the Prime Minister and Minister of Housing to plead that some of the billions they're so eager to drop on housing be spent on organizations like this which will actually improve the homelessness epidemic, instead of all just funding developers and speculators (some of whom are genuinely trying to do a good thing while making money, others of whom are just profiteering).  https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2026/04/30/business-councils-new-housing-alliance-partners-complete-first-deeply-affordable-project Previously, Raising the Roof bought and helped develop Butterfly Lodge, taking an abandoned nail salon on Mountain Avenue and turning it into three affordable housing units, including two large three-bedroom suites for Indigenous families, ...
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