kar0ling

11 seniors.  11 white haired grandparents of young people were arrested today for the crime of telling the Prime Minister truths he didn't want to hear.  We are supposed to be different than the USA.  The fact that the arresting officers were "polite" is not good enough.  The fact the 11 seniors were released within the hour is not good enough.  These people should never have been arrested.  These people have never had to make their epic trek across the country to go to Ottawa to express their feelings of utter betrayal that the calm, competent man so many believed would be the saviour of Canada has instead jammed his foot on the accelerator toward both fascism and climate catastrophe.  You have no mandate for this, sir, and these people were here to tell you that. The fact you arrested them says you know but don't care.  This is completely unacceptable.  This is not the Canada anyone voted for. Sent to PM, leader of CPC, leader of Greens, l...

It may not concern others quite as much as it does me that ad revenue dried up for newspapers because with all the traffic Facebook was soaking up from the traffic it got from sharing news articles on their platform (especially when they add in algorithmic creepiness targeting). Not everyone is journalism adjacent and likes getting paid for their work.  It may not concern others quite as much as it does me that they added insult to injury by making it so we can't post news on Facebook here in Canada. Not everyone makes a good half of their posts around news articles.  But it should bother all of us that the tech giants raking in billions of revenue are able to squirrel out of an obligation to pay reparations to Canadian media. And you can blame our dear Mr Carney who made it one of his first acts as Prime Minister to just let the tech bastards off scot-free seconds away from them finally paying up. Nothing changed but there was no money.  So, when Tax Fairness offered a l...

With the help of France and Britian, Canada took the teeniest tiniest calcium pill today for its gelatinous spine and “agreed on the need to take action to prevent further damage” because “The Government of Israel’s actions in the West Bank are undermining the possibility of a two-State solution.” (Where have they been the past 30 years?) With the support of Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK, Canada has found the courage to “confirm their intention to introduce national and/or support European restrictions on trade in goods with settlements which are illegal under international law, or that they are actively considering these and other measures, in accordance with their national procedures.” Wow. So bold. So decisive. I'm sure it'll be effective. Ready Global Affairs' statement here I saw it online and couldn't restrain myself from snarking off on Bluesky: Violent settlers have been rampaging through the ...

As its name suggestions, World Beyond War, like me, doesn’t think war effectively solves any problems and would best not exist. But one must at least engage with the premises, so here, I’ve added some of my own spice to their letter urging Canada to at least not cooperate with the military of a country we’re at war with, even if it’s “only” a trade war. Dear Mark Carney You seem to think Canadians are stupid. It's embarrassing how correct you are, but not all of us are asleep. You warned us you'd try to undermine our best interests and even use the law against us, but all most people heard was your obviously false promises on election night to "fight for us." Or did we only hear a proposition where there was none? Because it seems you are in fact fighting alongside our greatest threats. At your press conference on Saturday to announce the suspension of trade talks with the US and the imposition of countervailing tariffs, you were asked: “Why does it feel like, to...

Canadian health care is far from perfect — it has never achieved all Tommy Douglas dreamed for it: from tip to toe (teeth are still missing, as are a lot of drugs) — but unleashing unfettered two-tier is the opposite of fixing it.  So I joined with the Canadian Medical Association in pleading for the Canadian government to grow a spine and stop unhinged Smith's attempt to violate our own rules within her province.  As someone on Bluesky observed, if Stephen Harper tried to do this, we'd be at the gate with pitchforks. Where is the outrage. Daddy Warbucks Carney’s latest just-barely satisfactory performance in trade negotiations should not blind us to his failure to prevent this from happening.  The letter to the health minister, CC my MP and the shadow ministers: The Canadian Medical Association says the Canadian government must stand up for Albertans and all Canadians to ensure Alberta's new legislation doesn’t create a new normal of health care haves and have-no...

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...

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'...

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...

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 ...

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...

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...

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, ...

  “We’ve increased support for municipalities year after year because we know strong communities depend on reliable, stable and predictable funding increases,” Municipal and Northern Relations Minister Glen Simard said in an emailed statement to the Free Press Tuesday. https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/2026/06/23/winnipeg-transit-needs-funding-boost-additional-staff-to-follow-new-provincial-accessibility-regulations-city-report This in answer to City of Winnipeg chair of Public Works Janice Lukes plea for the province to cough up money for the needed upgrades. Listen carefully because these are words I won't often say: I gotta agree with Lukes on this one. If the province is handing down new standards, given their higher capacity for raising revenues, they ought to help the city fund meeting said standards. What Simard fails to acknowledge is that those "year after year" funding increases started at the bottom basement after Conservative cuts and likely h...

The government has just rammed through legislation to turn Canada into a police surveillance state where all the democratic and processed based guard-rails have been removed.  They used some legislative loophole to force a vote on amendments without debate at a committee meeting at midnight. But this is what the front page of our national broadcaster's news site looks like. Do you see any mention of Bill C-22? Do you see any word of a midnight SECU session with a forced vote? Do you see any mention of MPs in tears at how democracy is being shredded before their very eyes? Do you see anything removing about all legal protections against having your data intercepted, read and kept on file (in a word of hackers and data breaches)? Do you see anything about how experts in Australia (who have already gone partway down the path Canada has just widened, flatted, and turned into a racetrack) are warning Canadians not to do this? No. The CBC is spineless. Just a mouthpiece for whoever wield...

 The Liberals are advertising a summer survey. Let me Mr Carney know what you think! Of course, the multiple choice questions force you to give the answers Carney wants to hear, but fortunately, there's an open box for further comment at the end with a 2500 character limit.  I don't have all day to spend on this so it's a slightly in coherent rant, but I can't let this man think everything is fine while he turns this country into a totalitarian surveillance police state whose only industry is war-making.  https://action.liberal.ca/a-summer-sound-check/ Here's what I think, Mr Carney.  The things that "stand out" the most for me are the things that horrify the most. Every single thing Carney has done or championed since April 2025 is awful for ordinary Canadians (only good for Carney's investment portfolio). You can shove your AI. Yes, Canadians need protection from AI but your disgraced grifter of a "AI minister" is the last person to do that...

A letter to the FreeP. ( They didn't publish it. ) Re: Mayor turns on lights, sirens in urgent call to province for more ambulances, paramedics Winnipeg had 22 homicides in 2025. MPI reports 21 roadway fatalities in the same year. Maybe if you (mayor & council) followed the multitude of recommendations to slow down traffic and add bike lanes, the firefighters and paramedics wouldn’t have to spend so much time scraping humans off the road and as a result wouldn’t be stretched so thin for all the other demands on their time. 7,375 collision victims. 156 pedestrians hit. 130 cyclists hit. 165 serious injuries. 932 minor injuries. 5,995 minimal injuries. Slowing all the traffic down a few kms/hr, adding mere additional seconds to car commutes: how many millions more minutes might we recoup in lives not lost?

Last week, several sources linked to a letter appealing to venerable Canadian scientist and nature advocate David Suzuki to withdraw from a supposed climate prize due to its deep ties to an unbashedly colonlialist Israeli organization. The JNF's claim to fame is planting trees in Israel. Pine trees. Non-native trees. Trees that are susceptible to wildfires. Trees intentionally planted atop forcibly-emptied Palestinian villages to try to erase their memory.  The letters worked. Suzuki withdrew. I hadn't gotten around to writing before I got the news. So when a follow up letter to other participants in the prize hit my inbox, I rushed to put my own spin on the letter and sign it. Send your own here I urge you to join David Suzuki in withdrawing from the upcoming Climate Solutions Prize (CSP) festival. CSP was instigated by the racist Jewish National Fund (JNF) of Canada with support from the Israeli government. Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet announced the launch of CSP...

If-you-see-something-say-something strikes again.  Sick and tired of motornormativity, I'm setting event notifications straight. Don't just tell people where they can park when they attend your event. Have some hope for humanity and believe we can step out of our death machines and get around in a more human way. Especially for an event that is pitched as a picnic. This is what they sent: So this is what I wrote:  I know you already have a lot of details in this message. I know that realistically, most of your attendees will come in private vehicles. But can you please add notes for bus and bike travellers the next time you send a message like this? What constructs our view of “normal” is not only what we personally see and interact with but also how our world is talked about. When “where do I park?!” always gets top billing in event information whereas “which bus can I take?” and “is there a safe place to leave my bike?” are never even addressed, it reinforces the impre...

We don’t need another pipeline, but Mark Carney doesn’t seem to agree. The Liberal government has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, that announces plans for a new Alberta to BC pipeline with construction to begin as early as next fall. Leadnow hopes that if we create an immediate public outcry, we can empower Liberal MPs to stand with us in opposition to this pipeline and create an internal party fracture that Carney cannot ignore. I added a few spicy bits and sent a letter. Will you send one too? Ms Dabrusin, there is no patience left for your excuses and deflections. I am writing to demand that you stand up against the proposed Alberta to BC pipeline. At a time when we need to be transitioning to a clean economy, Mark Carney and Danielle Smith's MOU is moving us in the wrong direction. I am asking you to represent real people, stand up to Big Oil, and do everything in your power to stop this disastrous proposal. There is not i...

Just Peace Advocates has found that as of 31 March 2026 (fiscal year end 2025/2026), the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board had over $54 billion invested in 120 companies complicit in Israel’s genocide, war crimes, and apartheid. This represents 6.9% of CPPIB’s total holdings in 25/26. They're trying to fund our retirements by profiteering off mass murder. I'm not okay with that. Are you? Read Just Peace Advocates’ report Send your own letter to let them know. I am writing today after having learned about CPPIB’s 2026 Annual Report. I am disgusted by what I have learned.  After the millions you spent on a cross-country consultation tour, you are ignoring every voice that cajoled and begged and pleaded that you not invest our money in genocide. We'll be happy to have smaller returns if it means our funds aren't causing children to die at the hands of a wanton, sadistic genocidal state. An analysis of CPPIB’s holdings shows more than $54 billion invested in com...

Once again, it takes joint action from other cowardly Western states before Canada is willing to say anything the slightest bit critical of Israel, no matter how meaningless. “ International law is clear: Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal, ” they say. And yet they have absolutely nothing meaningless to offer as consequence for said illegality.  Government of Canada release So, another letter, of course! Your statement "businesses should not bid for construction tenders... should be aware of legal and reputational consequences of participating in settlement construction" is not worth the paper it is written on unless you promise *real* consequences *you* are prepared to levy, not just "should"s and "reputational consequences." It is long past time for sanctions on Israel in response to ongoing violations of international law and the continued expansion of illegal settlements, and more importantly, for *your* government to divest from th...