First, Andrew Macleod wrote about how BC Premier David Eby is thinking of slapping tariffs on US'ian coal that is being shipped overseas from Roberts Bank after it arrives there by rail.
Second. Jenn St. Dennis wrote about how an astroturf group front by home grown tech grifters wants to set up a DOGE-type deal in Canada:
In Canada, a group of tech CEOs has come up with a political public relations effort called Build Canada...
{snip}
...So far, Build Canada’s website offers a series of short policy statements calling for 110,000 jobs to be cut from the federal public service over four years, AI to be used in government services, interprovincial trade barriers to come down and the federal government to step in to compel provinces and municipalities to allow autonomous vehicles and delivery robots. There are also calls for immigration for humanitarian reasons to be sharply curtailed in favour of higher-income and highly skilled immigrants, and to fund content creators to tell inspiring stories about Canada...
{snippety}
...But Build Canada is connected to another website called Canada Spends that looks a lot like the DOGE.gov website...
{snippety doo-dah}
...Just like the DOGE website, Canada Spends offers a series of boxes containing random information about government spending; and like DOGE.gov, clicking on the box takes you to a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that (Elon) Musk bought in 2022...
It is the kind of thing that, until recently, would have been viewed as laughable by 99% of Canadians.
Now, with the algorithmic outrage engines fully engaged in all of the social media boiler rooms in all of our worlds, that may no longer be the case.
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4 comments:
This is the kind of rolling coal I approve of! There's so much Irony with the Rustad thing it should be metallurgical grade rather than just thermal coal...
It will be interesting to see if it actually happens, as good 'ol Jimmy Pattison is the largest single shareholder in the Roberts Bank coal terminal. I think he's also BC's richest individual.
Gar--
Good points on both accounts.
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The BC Con party was mothballed in the early 50s by a populist party of the right which ruled for most of the next 40 years. I believe it’s politically healthy to have a balance between the centre-left and centre-right so when the BC Cons were resurrected I had to hope at least the potential was there to de-radicalize today’s nominal “conservative” parties—not necessarily indicated by Rustad’s one good idea or his continuing odious smear of the NDP over SOGI123, the teacher’s guide to providing a safe, respectful learning environment for alt-sexuality students—which he calls “pornography” aimed at children— but rather because I believe all nominal “conservative” parties harbour a lesser faction of traditional Tories who feel they have no other party to vote for. Rustad’s frantic bid for power last fall in the wake of the former-BC Liberal party (under its new name, BC United) collapse recruited many MAGA-type extremists who helped to nearly win the election but have since strained the dashes of slap-dash glue he parsed out to hold the new electoral entity together. It shows that his new caucus has little parliamentary experience: it’s starting to look like a herd of cats. If there’s any hope of reviving a moderate, centre-right compliment to multilateral political cooperation, it has to come from those last hold-out Tories —that is, perversely resulting from the radicalized far-right faction’s repellent views and acts which have already caused so many moderates to vote for other parties. Rustad’s one good idea notwithstanding, if he continues to discredit the radicalized, MAGA far-right, I will be forced to thank him. (A BCC win would have been a disaster for BC; luckily we instead get to watch Rustad parse out enough rope for extremists to hang themselves and the party with before the next election.)
As for the DOGE-like “Build Canada” —“an astroturf group of homegrown tech grifters”—is that the right’s bid to recruit Greens? Asking for a friend…
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