Netflix’s “Adolescence”

Netflix’s “Adolescence” | The Illustrated Empathy Gap

The Netflix series “Adolescence” was irresponsible in promoting a distorted perspective on knife crime in the UK. In every respect the series was grossly misleading as regards the empirical evidence on knife crime. The creators were Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham and it was directed by Philip Barantini. It centres on a 13-year-old schoolboy named Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) who is arrested after the murder of a girl in his school. Graham plays his father in the production.

The production companies behind Adolescence were Plan B Entertainment, Warp Films and Matriarch Productions. Plan B Entertainment is Brad Pitt’s production company, founded in 2001 by a team including Jennifer Aniston. Brad Pitt is reported to be in discussion with the film makers over producing a second series. I dread to think where that might take us.

The principal character, Jamie, was a white boy who was doing well at school and had not been in trouble with the police previously. He was from a stable two-parent family, living in a decent neighbourhood. The parents were portrayed as an average, decent, working-class couple with the father in regular self-employment as a plumber. There was no indication that Jamie was other than well-adjusted, with no sign of mental ill-health. He appears to have had a reasonably good relationship with his parents and sister. In short, the killing came from the least expected quarter. Indeed, this is probably the cause of the hysterical reaction to the drama. If this lad could suddenly become a killer, it could be your son next. This is why its so pernicious.

UK official stats tell us little or nothing about offenders in knife crime cases, and nothing at all about whether the offenders against female victims tend to be male or female.

Care must be taken when interpreting knife crime statistics because merely carrying a non-folding knife or a knife with a blade longer than 3 inches is a crime, and most of the knife crime statistics will not distinguish between carrying a knife and using it to stab someone. The majority of knife crimes do not involve the knife having been used.

Further care must be taken when interpreting knife crime because the statistics generally refer to “non-domestic” knife crime, i.e., excluding domestic stabbings within the home. That is rather important because female perpetrators typically account for a larger proportion of homicidal stabbings within the home than they do outside the home (though generally the minority in both cases). Moreover, female perpetrators of domestic homicide are far more likely than male perpetrators of domestic homicide to use a knife (see Brown et al (2022) and references therein).

Let me emphasize that the rest of this article, and the data quoted herein, refers to non-domestic knife crime only, but it should not be forgotten that this is only half the story.

In the first Appendix, below, I include what stats I could find, the key points being as follows. 

About 8.7% of stabbing victims are female, about 13.1% of knife crime offenders are female. Like other forms of non-domestic violence, knife crime tends to be male-on-male.

Non-whites are about 5 times more likely to be knife crime offenders than whites (though whites account for most knife crimes due to weight of numbers). Non-whites are also more likely to the victims of knife crime, by a similar factor.

Only about 4.5% of knife crime victims are under 16, so the story of “Adolescence” which associates this age range with the problem is misleading. 

In short: white male adolescent offender and young white female victim is the least common combination in knife crime. The probability of the plot of Adolescence diminishes rapidly still further when the personal and familial characteristics of Jamie are taken into account.

Of course, there are individual cases of males stabbing young girls, that of Rudakubana being the most nasty recent example.

But I’ve not seen anything to link “the manosphere” to knife crime, this being arguably one of the propaganda targets of Adolescence. Rudakubana was arguably influenced by online sites, but Islamist in nature, not the “manosphere”.

My initial suspicion, before watching the series, was that the motivation behind this rather nasty series was to propagandize the UK public into support for even more draconian censorship laws – with “the manosphere” being particularly targeted. The recent Online Safety Act was not draconian enough for many of the usual suspects. However, after watching the series I see that “the manosphere” theme was not presented very forcibly and was only one of several potential motivations for the killing. Another theme was the father’s explosive temper, which the scene with the female psychologist revealed was shared by the boy, Jamie. But that is actually even worse because it centres Jamie’s motivation on masculinity itself, the same narrative that has been poisoning our culture for decades. Either way it can only be seen de facto as the blackest propaganda, whatever the writers intended.

Lamentably, the public lapped up Adolescence and have fallen 100% for the propaganda. One despairs.

Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, in a revealing Freudian slip, referred to the series in Parliament as “a documentary”. Consistent with that false perspective he has concluded that there must be a need to tackle the “emerging and growing problem” raised by the drama. That its narrative aligns with the ideological prejudices of the Labour Party is rather convenient. Starmer has even hosted a meeting with the film makers in Downing Street. At his suggestion, the series has been made free to all secondary schools….as if it were a public service broadcast. 

No, it is a deeply divisive public disservice broadcast.

Whatever the writers intended, the controllers of the popular narrative are insisting that the drama shines a light on the corrosive impact of social media and misogynist influencers on teenage boys. Some even claim that it motivates a need for a reform of parenting or a reform of schools. All this is based on a fictional story which is wildly empirically unlikely to the point that – as far as I have yet seen – no one has identified a single case quite like it, and certainly not one motivated by “the manosphere”.

As far as I am aware, the film makers have only suggested one case might be similar to that depicted in the drama, the stabbing to death of Brianna Ghey. Why have none of the sources which refer to this case not mentioned that Ghey was killed by two people, one of whom was a girl: Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe. The judge, Mrs Justice Yip, said in her summing up that Scarlett Jenkinson had a fantasy to kill, that she had lured Brianna to the park, and that it was acknowledged that Scarlett Jenkinson had been the driving force behind the plan to kill Ghey. And yet this case is being quoted as motivating Adolescence and the resulting hysterical targeting of the “manosphere” and/or masculinity itself – motivating, that is, a fictional character in a fictional and grossly atypical scenario.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, whilst the country has been obsessing over this dramatic misdirection there was a very disturbing event at Elm Park School in east London on 22 March 2025. This was an attack on a private 16th birthday party by a gang of 50 youths, high on nitrous oxide, who were wielding knives and at least one machete. Reports do not specify the ethnicity, but here is a video. Two males, aged 16 and 19, were stabbed and rushed to hospital.12 people were arrested and the police are looking for more.

The nearest real case to that of Adolescence that I’ve found was the stabbing to death of 15 year old Holly Newton by her ex-boyfriend Logan MacPhail, then 16. Another boy intervened and pulled MacPhail away but was himself badly injured. MacPhail is reported to be of low intelligence, autistic and with a speech impediment. He had a history of self-harming with a knife, had previously taken an overdose and on another occasion had been “found on a bridge”. He was apparently from a violent home in which the social services were involved. So, not really very like Adolescence, then.

The deeply pernicious aspect of Adolescence is that it creates a worry in parents that their son, despite perhaps being apparently a paragon of good behaviour, could be turned into a murderous monster at any moment by the influence of the “manosphere”, or perhaps just due to his intrinsically toxic masculinity. That there is no evidence for any of this is not the message being promoted, and the usual culprits are enthusiastically whipping up the hysteria aided and abetted by senior politicians and (real) influencers. Could there perhaps be ideological or political motives behind this reaction, irrespective of the film makers intentions?

What this reaction to the drama implies is a willingness to further partisan (and corrosive) sociopolitical objectives by burdening every boy in our society with a guilt he does not deserve. It is obscene.

Interestingly, that “Adolescence” is anti-male propaganda is evident even to AI engines. Tom Golden has already blogged on this. We have rerun chatGPT ourselves, and also Grok-3. The results are fascinating and spot-on so I attach them in the second Appendix. 

I conclude that the public are distressingly gullible but that the AI engines are not. AI emerges with credit, in this case at least, but only rotten tomatoes for the public.

Links - 17th June 2025 (1)

How the Liberals have masked a recession : r/canadian - "Note that without immigration GDP would be negative for 5 straight quarters. The overall economy may be growing (mildly at best). But on average, we are all getting poorer.  Note that in addition to increasing taxes, the Liberals have never balanced the budget. Economists have estimated that 2.25% of the central bank rate is due to governmental fiscal policy (ie deficit budgets). This has contributed to inflation and is a hidden tax.  Read the quote below:  “Firstly, how (can) anybody can define a soft landing when on a real per capita basis, the economy here has been contracting for five straight quarters and is running negative 2.4 per cent year over year,” he said. “So, if that’s your definition of a soft landing… You redefine what a soft landing is.”"

California to ban ‘sell by’ and ‘best before’ labels - "The legislation signed by Newsom over the weekend aims at reducing both food waste and the state's climate-warming emissions. There are more than 50 different date labels on packaged food sold in stores, but the information is largely unregulated and does not relate to food safety. “Sell by” dates, for example, often act as a guide for stores to pull products from the shelf and not as an indicator of whether the product is still safe to consume. With no federal regulations dictating what information these labels should include, the stamps have led to consumer confusion — and nearly 20% of the nation's food waste, according to the Food and Drug Administration. In California, that's about 6 million tons of unexpired food that's tossed in the trash each year... The law is set to take effect in July 2026, establishing a new standard for food labeling in California. It will require the use of “Best if Used By” label to signal peak quality and “Use By” label for product safety, an approach recommended by federal agencies. The law provides exemption for eggs, beer and other malt beverages."

Farmer explains why food expiration dates aren’t always useful in viral TikTok - "A farmer has called out the food industry and expiration dates, explaining that both are a huge cause of food waste.  Hayden Fox, a 23-year-old farmer with more than 551,000 followers on TikTok, recently discussed the topic of expiration dates in a TikTok that has since gone viral.  In the video, Fox began by showing a clip from another person’s TikTok, in which the man said that if a food item has an expiration date, he would not eat the food if it is past the date printed on the product.  The TikTok then transitioned to a video of Fox, who said: “As a farmer, I don’t appreciate you throwing the food out.”  In the clip, Fox then claimed that people are being “lied to by the food companies,” which in turn is making the companies “billions of dollars each year” by adhering to the expiration dates printed on products.  Fox then went on to state that expiration dates “just indicate peak freshness” and that eating the food after is typically fine to do. “Expiration dates on your package just indicate peak freshness - meaning if you eat the food before this date, sure you’ll get the best taste...but you do know that when you go to farmer’s markets, you buy the seconds,” Fox said. “Meaning the seconds are better. And these food processors shorten the expiry date so you throw it in the garbage and buy more.”  During the TikTok, which has since been viewed more than 1.6m times, Fox also said that expiration dates are a large reason for food waste, with the farmer telling viewers: “I literally work all year long for 60 per cent of this food to be thrown in the garbage.”... On its website, the US Department of Agriculture, USDA, also states that food is typically okay to eat if the date printed on the package has passed, as long as there is no “spoilage evident”. “If the date passes during home storage, a product should still be safe and wholesome if handled properly until the time spoilage is evident,” the USDA states.  Previous studies have also found that confusing labelling leads to unnecessary food waste, with one study finding that “making date labels easier to understand would avoid 398,000 tons of wasted food every year,” while another 2009 study on food waste found that “up to 40 per cent of the US food supply goes uneaten every year”... “As a farmer, we spend countless days laboring away growing the food. Seeing it wasted not only diminishes our work, but is downright wasteful. I studied food and agricultural business at the University of Guelph and almost every problem that could be attributed to food insecurity stemmed from consumers being misinformed,” he said, adding that he also experienced the waste firsthand when his roommate used to throw out food that had passed its expiration date.  According to the USDA, determining whether food is spoiled is easy, as it will typically “develop an off odour, flavour or texture due to naturally occurring spoilage bacteria”... “Consumers are being tricked into throwing out perfectly good food and it is having negative effects on not only the farmers, but the world as a whole,” he said. “People need to know that expiration dates have become a marketing tactic.”"

Don’t Buy This: Bogus Food Expiration Dates Make You Waste Food - "“Most consumers think you shouldn’t eat food past the expiration date,” said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist with Consumers Union. “But that’s not true because the best by dates just address food taste or quality, not safety.” While you should never eat mold, illnesses caused by e.coli, Listeria, and Salmonella are typically a result of improper food handling, improper hand washing or eating undercooked meat. Most food is safe for a lot longer than you think. Shelf-stable and frozen foods can last indefinitely so tossing that frozen pizza from last year is a huge waste. Same for dry foods like pasta, crackers and nuts. When in doubt, use your sense of sight, smell and texture to determine if your food is still good, Jessica Crandall, a registered dietary nutritionist in Denver, Colorado, suggests."

Is there more or less sex on screen? - "Stephen Follows, a film-data analyst, has examined the 250 highest-grossing movies in America every year since 2000. By parsing data from film-rating bodies as well as information from movie databases—in which a title’s “sex and nudity” is ranked on a scale from “none” to “severe”—he has found that the level of sexual content in films has fallen by almost 40%. Abstinence, in other words, is in vogue. In 2000 less than 20% of the highest-grossing movies had no sexual content at all. Today almost half lack it (see chart). There may be fewer sex scenes, but those that make the cut are more graphic than ever before. In 1992 a flash of genitals in “Basic Instinct” sent audiences and critics into a tailspin; in 2023 full-frontal female nudity featured in the films “Joy Ride” and “No Hard Feelings” without prompting a furore. Both “Fair Play” and “Saltburn”, also released last year, even had characters performing oral sex on their lovers while they were menstruating. Erect penises—once strictly verboten, now filmed using a prosthesis—have popped up in films such as “May December”. “Mary & George”, a historical drama series about King James I of England, strives for naked realism: in one scene George, the king’s favourite, licks his hand to lubricate his penis. D.C. Moore, the screenwriter, says that it is a story about a monarch “whose desire pulls him apart. So you need to see his desire.” Some viewers may desire not to have seen it. Intimacy co-ordinators play an important role... Some actors, including Jennifer Aniston and Sean Bean, have said that intimacy co-ordinators are unnecessary, or that they stifle the spontaneity of sex scenes. That they have become almost ubiquitous on film sets in the wake of #MeToo, detractors argue, suggests that they are a symptom of a more censorious age... The fate of the sex scene rests with the next generation. That does not bode well: Generation Z is notoriously chaste. Not only are youngsters having less sex than their elders did, but they also want to see less of it on screen, according to a poll conducted last year by the Centre for Scholars and Storytellers at University of California, Los Angeles. Asked to rank 19 topics they enjoyed watching in TV shows and movies, adolescents put “romance and/or sex” 13th; seventh was “content that doesn’t include sex or romance”. The future, it seems, may be PG-13"

Thomas Sowell Quotes on X - ""Much of what are called 'social problems' consists of the fact that intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world. From this they conclude that it is the real world which is wrong and needs changing.""

Meme - *Partners as fitting shapes comic*
Father to son with crazy complicated shape: "Still haven't found a Goth Thick 6'0 Gf that loves you unconditionally and gives you support and backup that Also plays videogames but not too much so she also has time to be your mom, Huh?"

Meme - "24 homemade butter tarts, comes with a piano (L 57", H 42", W 23.5") and WI... $10
Selling 24 buttertarts, comes with a piano and dollar store container (will not separate). Pet friendly, people tolerant home. Pick up in Grimsby from main floor. Will not help load but will guide through doorway. Serious inquiries only PLEASE. weight is 500-800 lbs (piano)"

Women's height, reproductive success and the evolution of sexual dimorphism in modern humans - "Recent studies have shown that, in contemporary populations, tall men have greater reproductive success than shorter men. This appears to be due to their greater ability to attract mates. To our knowledge, no comparable results have yet been reported for women. This study used data from Britain's National Child Development Study to examine the life histories of a nationally representative group of women. Height was weakly but significantly related to reproductive success. The relationship was U-shaped, with deficits at the extremes of height. This pattern was largely due to poor health among extremely tall and extremely short women. However, the maximum reproductive success was found below the mean height for women. Thus, selection appears to be sexually disruptive in this population, favouring tall men and short women. Over evolutionary time, such a situation tends to maintain sexual dimorphism. Men do not use stature as a positive mate-choice criterion as women do. It is argued that there is good evolutionary reason for this, because men are orientated towards cues of fertility, and female height, being positively related to age of sexual maturity, is not such a cue."

Meme - "POOR GIRLS VIDEO
Naughty Jade's iFUCK MY FANS VOLUME 3
Below Average Guys!
Featuring MALAA *busty woman*"
I don't get it

Meme - Sage Actual @SageDynamics: "At no point in this sentence did I know what was going to happen next."
"Death defying neuroscientist turned OnlyFans model confronts life with memory loss - after brutal bike accident caused by a pigeon"

Two High School Girls Charged After Falsely Claiming Teacher Sent Inappropriate Messages - "Two high school girls in Louisiana were charged with lying to police after they attempted to frame a male teacher they claimed was sending inappropriate messages to a student... Detectives were able to prove that the male teacher had not sent any of the messages or photos the girls claimed he sent, and one of the girls eventually confessed to the crime. The sheriff’s office declared the teacher to be the “crime victim” and stated that he “has been cleared of all allegations,” something rare when it comes to false accusations."
Believe Victims, Believe All Women

Meme - "IN-cOUNTRY PET
Woman: 'Billy, stay away from that man'
Billy: 'But why's he's shaking so much? Is he having a seizure?'
Vietnam Pet baseball cap wearing man grasping money and milkshake and shaking: 'Holy fuck, I've been a naughty kitten'
*Hand grasping phone manipulating wave curve*"

Smuggled Marcus Aurelius statue to return to Türkiye after decades in US museum - "A bronze statue of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, smuggled out of Türkiye in the 1960s through illegal excavations, has been officially returned to Türkiye, a Turkish official announced.  “After nearly 65 years of scientific, legal, and diplomatic efforts, the statue of Marcus Aurelius is finally returning to the lands of Anatolia where it belongs,” Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Gokhan Yazgi said in a post on X.  Yazgi said that the unique bronze statue, which depicts Marcus Aurelius in his philosopher persona, was illegally taken abroad from the ancient city of Boubon in southwestern Türkiye during the 1960s.  Before its return, the statue will remain on display at the Cleveland Museum for three months as part of a special exhibition. It is expected to arrive in Türkiye in July.  “In July, it will come to life again in our country, within its own cultural context. Thus, Marcus Aurelius’ long journey will finally come to an end in the land to which he belongs,” Yazgi added."
Italy needs to invade Turkey now, since Marcus Aurelius belongs there

Meme - kira @kirawontmiss: "i'm actually speechless.. why is there no community note?"
Crime Reports India @AsianDigest: "Poop War in India"
"The Pidakala War (also known as the Pidakala Samaram or Peddanuggulata) is an annual cow poo fight held in the village of Kairuppala, Aspari, in the Kurnool district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. They would often try catch it in their mouth for more luck. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidakala War"

TikTok Is Harming Children at an Industrial Scale - "Americans should welcome the disappearance of TikTok because the company is causing harm to children, adolescents, and young adults at an industrial scale. Our evidence comes mostly from research done by those 14 Attorneys General. Some of their briefs have been posted online for the world to see. The briefs include hundreds of quotations from internal reports, memos, Slack conversations, and public statements in which executives and employees of TikTok acknowledge and discuss the harms that their company is causing to children. We organize the evidence into five clusters of harms:
1. Addictive, compulsive, and problematic use
2. Depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, self-harm, and suicide
3. Porn, violence, and drugs
4. Sextortion, CSAM, and sexual exploitation
5. TikTok knows about underage use and takes little action
We show that company insiders were aware of multiple widespread and serious harms, and that they were often acting under the orders of company leadership to maximize engagement regardless of the harm to children... An internal study found that the “leakage rate” (of bad stuff getting past moderators) is as follows: 35.71% of “Normalization of Pedophilia” content; 33.33% of “Minor Sexual Solicitation” content; 39.13% of “Minor Physical Abuse” content; 30.36% of “leading minors off platform”; 50% of “Glorification of Minor Sexual Assault”; and 100% of “Fetishizing Minors.”...
Many Young People Would Welcome the End of TikTok"

Trump War Room on X - "🚨 US Federal Housing Finance Agency Director @pulte has referred NY AG Letitia James to the DOJ for alleged mortgage fraud."
Chadwick Moore on X - "According to her own rules, should each mortgage payment be a separate felony count?"

Meme - Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson: "This aged horribly."
NY AG James @NewyYorkStateAG: "Donald Trump lied about his net worth on his statements of financial condition to get loans for much better terms than he should have."

Inevitable West on X - "🇮🇹 Italian PM Giorgia Meloni: “They said I would destroy Italy, but they were wrong. Employment is at a Record High, our Economy is Growing, Illegal Immigration has decreased by 60%, and we are expanding freedom in every aspect of Italians’ lives.”"

Variety on X - ""American Psycho" director Mary Harron is baffled by "Wall Street bros" still idolizing Patrick Bateman when the movie is “a gay man’s satire on masculinity.”  "That was not our intention. So, did we fail? I’m not sure why [it happened], because Christian Bale’s very clearly making fun of them… But, people read the Bible and decide that they should go and kill a lot of people. People read ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ and decide to shoot the president... there’s [Patrick] being handsome and wearing good suits and having money and power. But at the same time, he’s played as somebody dorky and ridiculous. When he’s in a nightclub and he’s trying to speak to somebody about hip hop—it’s so embarrassing when he’s trying to be cool.”"
tantum on X - "She didn’t understand American Psycho. She misunderstood American Psycho so badly that her attempted hit job became iconic. She failed at her assignment so badly that despite making a cult hit, Hollywood has never let her anywhere near a real film again"

Meme - Ellen Pasternack @pastasnack_e: "The worst thing about antisocial behaviour is how it discourages pro social behaviour in others. There comes a point, if you are one of the only ones paying to use the tube, or to have your rubbish taken away, when abiding by the rules becomes simply irrational."
Dan Evans @dai_alectic: "paying 20 quid to the council to get a mattress collected like a sucker when this is the alley right next to my house. 3 more round the corner. What’s the point"

Meme - "Age distribution of hospital visits due to punching walls *mostly teens and young adults with 1 6 year old and 1 69 year old*"

Meme - Alexander @datepsych: "Apropos of few conservatives in academia and the reasons for that: why do you believe that ratio is so much more skewed for a discipline like anthropology than it is for a more cognitively demanding discipline like mathematics or engineering?"
"D:R ratio by field at elite colleges and universities, N>5000. No registered Republicans - Anthropology, Communications"

Alexander on X - "Remember, if only 2% of Harvard academics are conservative it’s because conservatives are less intelligent. No discrimination! Explained entirely by IQ.   However, if there is an unequal representation of women, ethnic minority groups, or social classes in academia - even just a little bit - it’s due to discrimination. There are no differences in IQ between any other group except for liberals and conservatives!  Here are some facts:
1. Liberals do score higher than conservatives in cognitive measures, but only by a modest amount.
2. More cognitively demanding fields have less of a lib/con skew, not more, meaning IQ probably isn’t a very good explanation. We would expect the effect to go in the opposite direction.
3. We already know ideological discrimination occurs in academia. The bipartisan free-speech org FIRE gave Harvard the lowest ranking of all universities. When they ran a national survey of university professors and students, about half of the faculty said that they were afraid to express political opinions because they would face repercussions. About a third of liberal professors said they should actively discriminate against conservatives in admissions. Admissions criteria for most universities counts left-wing political activism among extracurriculars, but not right-wing activities - remember the teen who got admitted to Stanford for writing “BLM” 100 times on his application?
4. Liberals being a supermajority in academia is a recent phenomenon: only about 60 years ago there was close to a 50/50 split and 100 years ago universities were considered socially conservative institutions.
5. If using only grades, SAT scores, or other tests for college admissions - which correlate with measures of cognitive ability around .8 - we would have a very different landscape in academia, because we don’t see much of a difference between conservative HS grads and liberal HS grades. But we do see a big difference between ethnic groups! (Would you say, “Oh no the whites are conspiring!”)"

Meme - Noah "Abolish ICE" McScoots @PeopleGoSquish: "My date: Ahhh damn baby that was great. Now are you gonna swallow for me?
Me, fleeing with his nut so I can plant his DNA at the scene of a murder"

Meme - "When the drapes match the carpet *woman with roast beef on head*"

ADHD, an excuse to medicate the masses - "A startling report in New York Times Magazine has brought to light how the scientific consensus on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder has changed. According to one of the scientists interviewed for the piece, the concept of ADHD is facing an “empirical crisis.”...   In my view, biological and brain-based explanations are frequently used to prop up erroneous narratives. Recent examples include the use of brain scans to justify the nightmare known as gender ideology, and the claim that polyamory is a sexual orientation.  Although scientists and academic institutions today lean more toward dismissing biology in favor of social constructionism, when biological explanations are overextended, this is equally unhelpful. In the realm of mental health, it can lead individuals to embrace an overly deterministic outlook, believing their decisions are outside of their control, or that their conditions will forever define them.  Society has a history of pathologizing and medicalizing behavior to justify medicating people. Remember when shyness was upgraded to the mental illness we now know as “social anxiety disorder”?...   Some may argue that the popularity of short-form content on social media, and constant interruption from smartphones, has attenuated everybody’s attention spans. I would agree, but if everyone is experiencing the same problem, it isn’t a mental illness — because this reflects a population norm. In this case, it’s not that everyone has a pathological inability to filter out distractions, but that we could all benefit from being on our phones less often.  Instead of taking pride in possessing signs of a mental illness, should we not be encouraging each other to be healthy? This doesn’t require going backward and re-stigmatizing conversations about mental health. It is, instead, a form of strength and self-awareness."
Wilfred Reilly on X - ""ADHD" is boredom among high-IQ, aggressive people. That's literally it."

Comrade Stump on X - "Stephen Miller is a rare kind of Jew. The totally assimilated, patriotic Jew whose ruthless neuroticism is targeted towards America's enemies. They're the best weapon a RW administration can have. Roy Cohn and Henry Kissinger are other examples of this."
I thought all Jews were trying to undermine the West

Meme - Paul Sherman @PaulMShe...: "It is physically impossible to exceed the 70-pound domestic weight limit for a small flat rate box. The interior dimensions (8 x 5 xX are ~75.333 in'*3. If you filled the box with pure osmium, the densest substance known to man, it would weigh ~61.48 Ibs."

Thread by @JeanPFournier on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "Little anecdote about Canadian “internal trade barriers” from my time in Quebec’s ministry of Finance. 🧵
At one point the minister asked us to look into low hanging fruit to liberalize and improve free trade between Qc and other provinces. The cost of these apparent barriers, we were told, were so high that even some quick wins should surely give at least a bit of a boost, no? Well, turns out not really. Other than the very stupid rules on alcohol, the so-called interprovincial trade barriers are all *regulatory* in nature. In other words, they’re the result of 10 provinces introducing rules and regulations for all sorts of things and slowly diverging. And these rules don’t ever target other provinces directly. They’re just rules that kinda touch every aspect of our lives but were made without taking into account what other provinces were doing. Diverging regulatory creep.
Here’s an example: We had a situation where the rules for the stuffing of car seats - their filling - was different in Qc vs Ontario. This means Qc couldn’t use the car seats made or used by the main car producing province in Canada. You see the issue here. And the regulated difference made kind of sense - Qc allowed only synthetic stuffing to go into car seats padding, whereas Ontario accepted whatever.  At one point though Qc realized that this stricter regulation didn’t actually matter and we ended up removing it. But wouldn’t you know, some people were pissed! Some businesses had specialized to conform to Qc’s regulatory reality!  They probably ended up adapting, but it shows that even the most random regulatory change can face interest group ire. It probably cost them a pretty penny too
And when we looked at other regulatory dragons to slay, it turned out that we weren’t ready to pay the political price.  We ended up not doing anything else because we were afraid of the push back. Even though most changes just required harmonization, it would create local losers And we didn’t even start to look at the worst offenders: labour mobility and professional orders playing gatekeepers. Anyone who knows anything about Canada understands how powerful the doctor lobby can be, for example. Even thinking about touching this would amount to nuclear public affairs war. And these interest groups usually think they’re actually defending the public interest somehow. For example I once had a doctor from the Qc order of doctors tell me with a straight face we had to keep Albertan doctors out cause their training sucked. It’s complete lunacy. Now imagine this but across the entire economy. Millions of businesses and individuals claiming to be protecting Canadians. Hundreds or thousands of lobbys and interests groups protecting themselves and fighting for their survival. Whether its protected economic fiefdoms, artificially created regulatory power or economic benefits, turns out that for the economy as a whole each change to barriers can be microscopic - but it can mean hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in costs for others. To succeed it will require a Total War effort from the feds and ALL provinces. People and provinces WILL be pissed and yell.  Quite frankly, it means that provinces will have to reduce their autonomy on some things. Are we ready to have that discussion? Will provinces agree when push comes to shove and their back is against the wall with lobbyists breathing down their neck? Historically the answer has been a resounding and hard No.  Until we get people to realize that this will amount to pulling teeth from provincial mouths, and that it might unfortunately have to be forced on some provinces, we will get useless interprovincial trade treaties. And then, we will need to figure out to keep the harmonized regs harmonized in the future.  I hope we find a way, but this will likely be harder than building the first trans-canadian railway. But it will probably be even more worth it in the long run."

Links - 16th June 2025 (2 - Indigenous Peoples)

Restored John A. statue could be beginning of end for history purge - "Over the past five years, Canada has experienced a wave of name changes and statue removals unlike anything seen since the First World War, when anti-German sentiment fuelled a purge of Germanic names and symbols.  The trend began in earnest in 2020 as Canadian cities were hit by “defund the police” protests inspired by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.  It then became supercharged in the summer of 2021, following a B.C. First Nation’s announcement that 215 anomalies turned up in a radar survey of the former Kamloops Indian Residential school were the unmarked graves of children.   A running Wikipedia list catalogues 13 Canadian statues that have been destroyed by mobs or removed by civic order since 2020. Seven of those are of Macdonald, including an 1895 memorial in Montreal that was destroyed in 2020 by a defund the police protest. A Macdonald memorial in Hamilton, Ont., was destroyed under similar circumstances the next year, albeit by demonstrators fresh from a Hamilton Indigenous unity rally.  The period has also been marked by dozens of renamings of streets, schools and civic buildings.  In 2023, for instance, Ottawa’s Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway was renamed to Kichi Zībī Mīkan, an Algonquin word roughly meaning “river path.”  Toronto renamed its iconic Yonge-Dundas Square to Sankofa Square in 2024, citing namesake Henry Dundas’s association to slavery. Although Dundas was an abolitionist and a key figure in an 18th century British push to abolish the slave trade, activists criticized him for not doing it fast enough. Ryerson University renamed itself as Toronto Metropolitan University in 2022, over connections to the Indian Residential School system.  Although Egerton Ryerson was long dead before the establishment of the first Indian residential school, he had advocated a program of Indigenous children being taught “industry and sobriety” at boarding schools located far from their home communities.  Indian residential schools have also largely characterized the push to remove symbols of Macdonald. Although Macdonald was the singular figure who stitched together Canada’s current form, his record on Indigenous affairs was controversial even in his own time. The renaming trend has slowed to a trickle of late, particularly amidst the flag-waving patriotism sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war against Canada, and repeated annexation threats. An ongoing Toronto District School Board renaming push remains one of the only such programs underway at a governmental level.   But the announced unboxing of Ontario Legislative Assembly’s Macdonald statue represents one of the first times that a government will be reversing a sanction imposed against a Canadian historical symbol over the past five years."
It's ironic that the people who claim to be against "book banning" want to tear down statues

Tasha Kheiriddin: Indigenous leaders put Carney's dreams on notice - "Will Prime Minister Mark Carney’s national infrastructure dreams be kiboshed by Canada’s First Nations? That’s the question hanging over Ottawa this week — and if Carney’s not careful, the answer could well be yes. At Monday’s First Ministers’ meeting in Saskatoon, the PM rolled out his big plan: slash approval times for “national interest” infrastructure projects from five to two years. He got buy-in from the premiers, hoping to stimulate growth, counter U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and pull Canada together as one economy. Despite a shortage of specifics, there finally appears to be a willingness to get things done and reconcile the interests of East and West. Quebec Premier François Legault said he’s open to a pipeline, Ontario Premier Doug Ford was positively giddy about energy corridors, and even Alberta’s Danielle Smith was cautiously optimistic. Indigenous leaders, however, are not impressed. National Chief Cindy Woodhouse of the Assembly of First Nations warned that the plan risks trampling Indigenous rights and took umbrage at being given seven days to review draft proposals. Regional Chief Scott McLeod of the Anishinabek Nation went further , suggesting that Canada could see a new indigenous protest movement along the lines of Idle No More . That movement arose in 2012 in response to Bill C-45, legislation advanced by then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper that sought to streamline the project approvals process, and spawned protests and rail travel disruptions across the country. Now, Carney could face the same opposition, made worse by the actions of his own party and other progressive politicians over the past ten years. Their version of reconciliation did little to advance Indigenous people economically, but much to reinforce the idea that non-Indigenous people are guests in their own country. From the denigration of Canadian historical figures like John A. Macdonald, Henry Dundas and Egerton Ryerson, to the performative and divisive repetition of land acknowledgements, to the spreading of falsehoods about the existence of mass graves at residential schools, Canada was depicted as the country that could do no right by its First Nations. Little wonder, then, that many Indigenous people don’t see themselves as part of Canada and have little interest in pulling together for the “national interest.”... guilt will not help fix current problems facing First Nations. Nor will opposition to development. It will actually hurt, by weakening Canada economically and reducing its capacity to fund real change in indigenous communities, such as ending all boil water advisories and building adequate housing and schools. It may also open a door to Trump’s dream of a 51st state, by weakening the federation and opening another fault line for Washington to exploit, in addition to Western alienation. That’s not just bad news for Ottawa, but for Indigenous communities, who could arguably fare worse under a U.S. model of tribal sovereignty than under the nation-to-nation approach of the Canadian federation. At the same time, Canada can’t be “decolonized” like countries in Africa or Asia, where colonial rulers physically and legally withdrew. Here, more newcomers arrive every year, and no one is going anywhere. Most Canadians alive today had no connection to historical abuses yet are lumped together with long-dead politicians accused of genocide. We can’t afford to continue “othering” each other. At some point, the country either pulls together, or it risks coming apart."
A stagnant economy won't stop them demanding more and more free money. Left wing virtue signalling has very real costs

Fraser apologizes, says comments on Indigenous consultation eroded trust - "Justice Minister Sean Fraser apologized Wednesday for comments he made about the government's duty to consult with Indigenous leaders on major projects. Fraser said Tuesday that the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples requires consultation but does not amount to "a blanket veto power" over projects. Similar language asserting UNDRIP does not convey a veto is used in federal government documents about the declaration... The UN declaration, which Canada adopted, requires free, prior and informed consent from Indigenous Peoples on matters affecting their rights, lands, territories and resources. The federal government says that declaration does not amount to a "veto," but Indigenous leaders have long called for changes to how it approaches the duty to consult... First Nations leaders mount opposition to the push by the federal and provincial governments to fast-track what they call "nation-building" projects in response to increased uncertainty in the Canada-U.S. trading relationship. Indigenous leaders say they haven't been properly consulted on provincial plans. They've warned Ottawa that widespread protests and blockades are possible if they are not meaningfully consulted on federal legislation to speed up approvals of major infrastructure projects."
When everyone wants to eat, you can't get stuff done - "indigenous" people claim the whole country, so they get to veto everything, since left wingers hate Western civilisation more than they do the USA/i>

Jamie Sarkonak: The King's land acknowledgement undermined his own authority - "The whole point of bringing King Charles III over to deliver a throne speech was to assert Canadian sovereignty, so it’s curious that some of the first words out of his mouth denigrated Canada’s legitimacy. “I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people,” said the King in his opening remarks to Parliament on Tuesday. His words were largely written by the government, but he can tell the government that he’s not comfortable reading them. Whether he did, well, we’ll never know... Indigenous sovereigntists — who consist of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous people who don’t recognize Canada as the legal owner of Canadian lands — believe that the fundamental holders of Canadian territory are the Indigenous people. Usually, they misunderstand the numbered treaties, which were land cessation agreements, as international treaties with sovereign nations. They deny any conquest of Canada occurred. They view Canadian land as a product of theft against these sovereign nations. And their solution involves restoring Indigenous sovereignty, bit by bit, by extracting greater rents from more parts of the Canadian economy, returning more government powers and responsibilities to Indigenous groups, and shifting public opinion to be amenable to these changes. The land acknowledgement plays a big part in that last one: it’s the recitation of a creed that holds Canada to not be the ultimate authority in these lands, often made by officials in a position of power over the general public. The past several years have seen land acknowledgements go from a brief few words to open Indigenous-related government or government-adjacent announcements to reverent paragraphs recited during industry consultations with the Canada Energy Regulator, meetings of veterans’ affairs policy groups, webinars explaining benefit payments to new immigrants and even RCMP news conferences about missing children. For good measure, they’re also pasted into nuclear safety site reports , government reports about tuberculosis and various other webpages. And now, King’s speeches. And that’s just at the federal level. In Alberta, the provincial court’s 2024 Indigenous Justice Strategy promises to install land acknowledgement plaques in court foyers. Such plaques have been placed in some B.C. schools. Scroll to the bottom of any major university’s homepage and you’re likely to find one. The Ontario privacy commissioner has one. Through sheer memetic power, they’ve colonized our public institutions. They normalize the idea that Canada is illegitimate, and that its non-Indigenous citizens are occupants of lands to which they don’t belong. It becomes such a regular feature of life that when B.C. decides to restrict provincial park entry by race (for more than a quarter of the year, in the case of Joffre Lakes Provincial Park) and overhaul its mining industry rules, it’s shrugged off by enough people that the provincial government faces no consequences. The same goes for the Canadian fisheries, which are increasingly subject to race-based quotas and marred by apparent illegal fishing by individuals who claim their catch is covered by treaty rights. In Nova Scotia last year, federal officials said they didn’t know how much lobster was being harvested anymore. The province, which is becoming world-famous for its lobster wars , seems unperturbed: in the last federal election, it voted mostly Liberal, a nod in favour of the status quo. Resources in the ground are made artificially hard-to-get, too. It’s no surprise when pipeline proposals are killed by courts , even when they’re informed by extensive consultations with Indigenous people. It seems these processes need to be lengthy, cumbersome and costly if they’re ever to satisfy a court. At the same time, they make us poorer. And at this point, we’re lucky if they even make it to court. B.C. folded like a house of cards when Indigenous stakeholders challenged its mining claim system for not being consultative enough (instead of appealing the court decision in question, the NDP simply rewrote the law , adding red tape to an already lengthy process). A similar challenge is underway in Saskatchewan, at least."

This Library in New Zealand Is Replacing Dewey With a System Rooted in Māori Tradition - "How do we even begin engaging with the vast stores of knowledge and wonder in a library? For many of us, the Dewey Decimal System gives us an entry point, breaking the library catalogue into more manageable groups. However, this system was developed in the 1870s and designed for American libraries. In today’s modern, global society, it can feel a little outdated. This is why one library in Aotearoa/New Zealand is trying something a little different. The team at Te Awe Library in Wellington is trialling an alternative way to organize and classify the Māori literature on their shelves, and bringing more readers into contact with great writers and great works from this culture... They began planning groupings based on the Te Ao Māori classification system. This system reflects Māori atua (Māori gods), and the sections of knowledge, activity, and thought associated with each of these atua... Under Te Awe’s new system, books about traditional artistry, woodwork, and carving are grouped under Tangaroa, who is the atua associated with these modes of expression. Tangaroa is also the atua of natural bodies of water, and so books related to the ocean, lakes and rivers, fish, and other aquatic creatures are contained here too. Rongomatāne is associated with agriculture and cultivated foods. Therefore, any books on the subject of growing crops, tending to gardens, or the culinary arts are contained within this section. As Rongomatāne is also the atua of peace, books on this subject are also organised in this area of the library. Under the Dewey Decimal System, books on wood carving and river systems would not be placed together, nor would books on conflict resolution and gardening. The age-old associations between these topics – intrinsic to Māori Mātauranga, or knowledge – are broken down and lost. With a system more closely linked to the root of this knowledge, these deep cultural associations are preserved for new generations."
Good luck interacting with libraries and users from elsewhere in the country, much less the world

Federal government faces human rights complaint over Indigenous procurement system - "Ottawa has awarded billions in federal work to companies without always requiring bidders to prove they First Nations, Inuit or Métis. The tribal council’s complaint, obtained by Global News, alleges Indigenous Services Canada -- which oversees what businesses are eligible to be listed on the IBD -- has overseen a “systemically discriminatory” system that allows non-Indigenous companies to access those federal contracts."
If you don't let people discriminate properly by race, you're racist

John A. Macdonald saved more Indigenous lives than any other PM - "For most of Canada’s history, Macdonald was considered a nation-builder worthy of celebration and veneration. Today he is a war criminal, at least to hear some tell it... Since the British conquest of New France in 1761, there were no significant wars in what is now Canada prior to the Riel Rebellion of 1885. And this solitary armed conflict was a Métis uprising notable for its lack of large-scale native participation; the First Nation death toll from the entire conflagration was no more than a few dozen. Such a long period of peaceful relations between Indigenous and white populations in Canada was largely the result of British policy that sought to make and keep treaties with native communities. The British approach is best characterized as “negotiation first, settlement second.” As Canada’s first prime minister, Macdonald was extremely proud of this legacy of peaceful co-operation and co-habitation. He was determined to maintain such a policy while overseeing the settlement of Canada’s West...   Considering the accusations made against Macdonald today, it is noteworthy that he was criticized in his time for instructing the NWMP not to show favouritism towards white settlers. Rather, he argued, it was their proper role to protect the rights of native and settler alike. Such an enlightened view will no doubt comes as a surprise to his many present-day detractors. But again, it is true. And in doing so, Macdonald undoubtedly saved many more native lives from American-style frontier justice.  The arrival of smallpox to North America was disastrous for native populations across the continent since they had no natural resistance to this deadly disease. In the 1830s, for example, an epidemic originating in the American West migrated north and killed three quarters of all natives living in the Edmonton area.  Prior to Confederation, the governments of Upper and Lower Canada under the joint leadership of Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier had organized a vaccination campaign for provincial native populations as part of a comprehensive public health program. This was highly effective and quickly felt...  The gravest charges against Macdonald’s legacy involve his role in the famine among the indigenous population of the Prairies following the collapse of North America’s buffalo herds in the late 1870s... While half rations may sound draconian to modern ears, and is no doubt uncomfortable, it is not a death sentence. Also, keep in mind that no treaty obligated the federal government to provide rations to any natives living off-reserve. Nevertheless, when the famine arrived with unexpected swiftness in 1878, the government reacted as its treaties dictated. Macdonald told the House of Commons that the “absolute failure of the usual food supply of the Indians in the North-West” created the “necessity of a large expenditure in order to save them from absolute starvation.” Natives living on reserves were provided aid, mostly flour and bacon, as per the government’s obligations.   Even Daschuk acknowledges that “Rations kept many from starving.” The reduction for some was meant to encourage those wandering natives to return to their reserves, where the treaties they signed required them to be. Recall that it was this strict and legalistic approach to treaties that distinguished Canada’s native experience from the bloody and arbitrary American version.  In fact, the full exchange reveals a deeper concern for the wellbeing of natives and their treaty rights. In a similar exchange, this one in the 1880 House of Commons debates Macdonald frames the issue as a moral one: “Public sentiment would not allow, and no Government would be worthy of their position, if they allowed the Indians to starve as long as we have the means to feed them. The Government adopted the best means for relieving them. We were obliged to find food for them.”  Macdonald allocated considerable government resources to fulfilling its famine relief duties. In 1878 the federal budget for Indian Affairs was a rather modest $276,000. By the peak of the famine in 1884, this item had grown to $1.1 million, outweighing National Defence by a substantial margin. In fact, this was the largest famine relief program Canada had provided up to that point. That it occurred in the midst of a severe economic recession in Eastern Canada makes its scale all the more impressive.  Residential schools also figure prominently in popular claims that Macdonald was responsible for a “genocide” of Indigenous people. In fact, the first such schools appeared in Canada in 1695, long before Macdonald’s tenure. And their application to western Canada cannot properly be regarded as a government plot to permanently eliminate native culture. Under the seven numbered treaties, the federal government was obligated to build and staff such schools only when requested to do so by native leaders, or, as Treaty Six clearly states, “whenever the Indians of the reserve shall desire it.”  And they clearly did desire it: during Macdonald’s tenure as prime minister no fewer than 185 on-reserve day schools and 20 residential schools were built. This reveals a strong interest among native leaders to have their children given a western-style education, as well as a preference for local over residential schools at this time. Attendance was entirely voluntary. Although the Progressive movement across North America at this time was pushing governments everywhere to make schooling universally compulsory, Macdonald resisted this for native children. Without parental support, he believed, native education would not succeed. Accordingly, it was left up to native parents to decide whether their offspring should go to school. This policy continued long after Macdonald’s death. As late as 1920, attendance at all native schools in Canada was still entirely voluntary. Macdonald’s legacy is complicated by the passage of time and changing perspectives. But through careful study of his own words and deeds, as well as the reports and actions of his officials, contemporaries, native chiefs and political opponents, what emerges is a clear and powerful picture of his enlightened view towards Indigenous people and his strong sense of moral purpose. If Macdonald’s story has changed, it is because Canadian society no longer understands its own history."
Time to denounce the Uncle Topangas who invited Genocide

Greg Piasetzki: John A. Macdonald's return to Queen's Park an opportunity for historical literacy - "The most widespread and damaging misunderstanding is the idea that every Indigenous child was forced by law to attend a residential school, was taken far from home, kept for years and subjected to routine abuse. This narrative has become almost universally accepted in Canada. However, the reality is that, in many years, the majority of Indigenous children who attended school went to day schools and most of the students dropped out after Grade 1, whether at day or residential schools. These facts were well known at the time. They were discussed in Parliament and reported in mainstream newspapers. For example, in 1946, decades after the first residential schools were built, the Globe and Mail reported that, “Of the 128,000 Indians in this country, only 16,000 last year received formal schooling. Of this number, few stayed more than a year and only 71 … reached Grade 9.” A populist movement towards compulsory education had begun in the 1870s in Canada; by the 1940s, most Canadian children were required to attend school till at least age 15. However, the government in Macdonald’s day, and through many subsequent prime ministers, respected the wishes of Indigenous families, who were not forced to keep their children in school beyond the early grades. Clearly, neither Macdonald’s government, nor any succeeding one, was engaged in genocide, cultural or otherwise. There were also a number of initiatives of Macdonald’s governments that likely saved tens of thousands of Indigenous lives and are equally inconsistent with the notion that he had any interest in genocide. Smallpox killed thousands of Indigenous people in Canada in some pre-Confederation years and Macdonald’s governments, in the colonial era, and later when he was prime minister, ran programs to ensure that every Indigenous person in Canada, no matter how remote their location, was vaccinated against it, thus ending the threat. Similarly, when the buffalo population collapsed, Macdonald immediately initiated what was certainly the largest famine relief operation in Canadian history. Moving supplies across the county when no railway existed was an enormous undertaking, and it had the usual missteps associated with a hastily organized program of this scale. However, the program likely saved thousands of lives and avoided a human catastrophe across western Canada. A stark difference between the Canadian settlement experience and that of the Americans is the absence of war. The Americans fought a series of “Indian wars” over a period of over a century in which tens of thousands of people died. Macdonald was determined to avoid such bloodshed. His government’s policy was to ensure that treaties were signed and in place before allowing widespread settlement in western Canada. Finally, his government created the North West Mounted Police to protect the legal rights of both Indigenous people and settlers, and to deter incursions from the United States. As the famous Siksika Chief Isapo-muxika stated in 1877: “The Mounted Police have protected us as the feathers of the bird protect it from the frosts of winter.” As a result, there were no deaths in Indian wars in Canada."

Lawrence Krauss: Land acknowledgements often ignore history - "I remember the first time I heard a statement at a public event along the lines of, “This building is located on traditional unceded Aboriginal land.” It was in Australia, and it struck me as disingenuous, simplistic and patronizing. If the people making this statement really felt that badly about the land they (and possibly their forebearers) lived and worked on for generations and ostensibly stole, then they would reasonably choose to give the land back along with all they had built upon it.    However, the people who utter such statements implicitly recognize that the country they inhabit and the land they live and work on is only distantly connected to the land occupied, or colonized earlier by groups we now label as Indigenous. Moreover, the land acknowledgments also skip over the reality that in some nations, treaties cover part or all of the territory — Canada and New Zealand, as examples. In giving primacy to the more activist Indigenous groups, institutions and governments around the world readily express their willingness to not only change history, but also to ignore scientific evidence as well. I live in Prince Edward Island and regularly attend musical and theatre events here. Every show begins with someone coming out to recite their Indigenous mea culpa. But the last time I heard the phrase, it was slightly different, and it jarred me. I heard that the Mi’kmaq, the Indigenous tribe with deep roots in the province, had been here “since time immemorial.” Since that event, I have begun to hear more extreme versions of this prescribed mantra, with “time immemorial” replaced by “the beginning of time.” While “time immemorial” can legally refer to any time before 1189, the claim that Indigenous people have been on the land since the beginning of time is historical and scientific nonsense... Research from 1871 suggested that Mi’kmaq believed they had emigrated from the west, and that they warred with people already on the Island; recorded tribal traditions pointed to another group called the Kwēdĕchk as the original inhabitants.  Oral histories are notoriously unreliable, but it is telling that in traditions recorded 150 years ago, when the need to connect inhabitation of the land to time immemorial was less pressing, the Mi’kmaq themselves recognized what archeology now tells us to be true. Namely, that North American inhabitants emigrated from the west, and moreover, that Mi’kmaq territory was established with a less-than-peaceful takeover. Now, however, arts organizations that claim to represent the Mi’kmaq, like Indigenous PEI, ignore historical records and claim the Mi’kmaq have been in PEI for over 10,000 years, far longer than the archaeological record supports: the oldest human bone found on the Island is only 5,000 years old... Human habitation in North America correlates with the decrease and extinction of numerous species of animals, just as in New Zealand and Australia. Hominids have, as far as we can tell, often not lived in harmony with the land. The claim that Indigenous tribes were not themselves the successors to earlier groups who had emigrated from elsewhere does a disservice to these groups, and to history. Ultimately, all human groups in what is now North America, even the first groups that occupied various locations here were colonizers from what is now Asia.  One such disservice involves the sensitive issue of the repatriation of ancient bones. Some Indigenous groups claim ownership of ancient skeletons, which they view as sacred.  Perhaps the most famous case in this regard was the well-publicized discovery in 1996 of “Kennewick Man,” found eroding in a Washington state riverbed. Dated at least 9,000 years old, the Pacific Northwest’s Umatilla tribe claimed it as their own; one of the group’s leaders stated, “We didn’t come across no land bridge. We have always been here.” After years of legal battles, scientists were eventually able to study the bones and determine he was indeed most closely related to modern North Americans; they could not link him to any one tribe, though several seemed to be descendants of his people. Even so, over several thousand years, the genetic relationship is too distant to warrant property rights.   President Barack Obama in 2016 signed a bill to turn over the remains to the Umatilla for burial.  Similar claims were made by the Navajo Nation in Arizona, who took to the courts to repatriate 303 human remains and objects that had been found on their land and are currently housed in a government archaeological centre. This, even though historical and archeological evidence showed the Navajo did not live in the valley at the time the bones were deposited, and that early inhabitants were more likely to be closer relations of the modern Hopi or Zuni tribes, according to anthropologist Elizabeth Weiss. But even if the Hopi or Zuni were the ones claiming ownership of the artifacts instead, their genetic link to the people who created them doesn’t imply immediate kinship or warrant property rights. In the same vein, the fact that I am most closely related in the distant past to Eastern Europeans doesn’t give me or them rights over each other’s property.  When the digital catalogue of artifacts retrieved from a 12,000-year-old ravine near Charlie Lake in northeastern British Columbia was repatriated back to the local Dene people in 2024, an elder of the group celebrated by stating, “We can tell a narrative that is truly Indigenous.” There is no guarantee that this narrative will be based in science, however, as the only data one might use to tell the actual story of these ancient peoples is no longer accessible, even in digital form, to scientists. Whatever story that emerges from it need not pass the test of scientific scrutiny.   There is no doubt that Indigenous groups have an interest in learning about ancient peoples who lived in the areas they currently inhabit, even if those ancestors may be separated in time by hundreds of generations. But so does society in general; any knowledge that results from unearthing ancient human remains and artifacts is a gift for all of humanity. Denying that gift because a group with a marginally larger genetic connection to ancient artifacts, which are likely to be also genetically connected at some level to a far larger part of the human population, is inappropriate."
Trust the Science and Research is Good - unless it threatens the left wing agenda

Meme - Matt Walsh @MattWalshBlog: "You've heard of mostly peaceful riots. Now introducing non-violent human sacrifice."
CBS News: "Ancient altar found in Guatemala jungle apparently used for sacrifices, "especially of children," archaeologists say"
"Maria Beln Mendez, an archaeologist who was not involved with the project, said the discovery confirms "that there has been an interconnection between both cultures and what their relationships with their gods and celestial bodies was like." "We see how the issue of sacrifice exists in both cultures. It was a practice; it's not that they were violent. It was their way of connecting with the celestial bodies," she said."

Horse Saddle / Seattle Streetwalker / Fridge

"Horse saddle
£150· Brough
Selling this horse saddle, dont have a horse so got my dad to model it. Good condition, strong buckles. Message me for more details .. Will deliver for small cost"

, @Zvbear: "I got nothing bad to say about Seattle after I seen the video with this street walker Need to find her so I could show her a better life"

"Works perfect I can deliver
$125. Victorville, CA
ge fridge *photos of fridge, and photo of woman's private parts*"

Links - 16th June 2025 (1 - Mark Carney)

Michael Higgins: Carney's cabinet of Trudeau failures - "Prime Minister Mark Carney promised change, a new way of doing things at speeds never before seen. Yet to help him do this, he is relying on the same old, tired, incompetent ministers who got us into the mess we’re currently in. The Liberals will trumpet the large number of new faces in Carney’s 28-member cabinet — there are 15 MPs who have never served before. But the top tier of ministers — the ones sitting in the front row at the swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday — were all former Trudeau acolytes, cabinet ministers now committed to rescuing us from a crisis of their own making. In the front row was Sean Fraser, our new justice minister and attorney general, and the man who, under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, was responsible for immigration and then housing, two files he spectacularly failed at. If we want to know how bad Fraser was in those jobs, we need only look to Carney’s election platform... In December, when Liberal fortunes were in the toilet, Fraser announced that, for family reasons, he was quitting politics. Strangely, after the party witnessed a reversal in the polls, he announced he was returning. In Carney’s eyes, Fraser’s blundering on two key files qualifies him to become justice minister. The only thing worse than Fraser as a cabinet minister may be Carney’s judgment. Also in the front row was Chrystia Freeland, who served as deputy prime minister and finance minister under Trudeau and is now returning to cabinet as minister of transportation and internal trade. Freeland’s record is best summed up, again, by the Liberal platform: “Business investment in Canada has dropped from 14 per cent of GDP in 2014 to 11 per cent in 2024, undermining long-term economic growth.” Meanwhile, long-time Trudeau lieutenant Mélanie Joly, whose reign at foreign affairs was about as successful as Fraser was at housing and immigration, moves to industry. Carney has said that his government will focus on the economy and dealing with U.S. President Donald Trump. It is odd, then, that in this key portfolio, he chose someone who has already been at the cabinet table for 10 long and unsuccessful years. Dominic LeBlanc, another Trudeau loyalist (as well as his babysitter) and another long-standing member of cabinet, returns with responsibility as great as his title: president of the King’s Privy Council for Canada and minister responsible for Canada-U.S. trade, intergovernmental affairs and one Canadian economy. And the list of top cabinet posts goes on, all sounding familiar because they were all Trudeau devotees who sat around his cabinet table: François-Philippe Champagne, Anita Anand, Patty Hajdu, Steven Guilbeault, Gary Anandasangaree, David McGuinty, Steven MacKinnon, Rechie Valdez and Joanne Thompson... it’s pretty clear that one thing that wasn’t working properly was the Trudeau Liberals. As Carney has acknowledged, the previous government left the country in worse economic shape, with a bad investment environment and a housing and immigration crisis among its many problems. And yet, the people responsible for that are in his new cabinet. This isn’t pragmatic, it’s more of the same. One of the Trudeau ministers who didn’t make the new cabinet was Jonathan Wilkinson, the former minister of natural resources. In a long post on X on Tuesday, Wilkinson seemed to criticize the Trudeau government’s economic policies, while also suggesting Carney should avoid them. “Opportunity also rests on economic strength, wealth must be created, not merely redistributed,” he wrote. Yet, in choosing the old B-Team, Carney is setting himself up to make the same mistakes, as well as reneging on a promise he made only last month. “A change of course is desperately needed,” read the Liberal platform. Canadians, in their desperation, thought Carney would be that change. They were wrong."

Tasha Kheiriddin: Carney's cabinet still looks a lot like Trudeau's - "It’s a cabinet for the economy, but the question is, whose? Carney has promised nation-building priorities, including pipelines and electrification corridors. Without strong western representation in cabinet, he had better tap other regional voices and experience for these key undertakings, not just to stave off Western ire — but to ensure that they are done right."

Champagne says no 2025 budget, while government focuses on fall update (May 14) - "Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne signalled Wednesday there will be no spring budget and only a fall economic statement, despite his predecessor announcing pre-budget consultations earlier this year."
Carney is already steamrolling basic constraints on power - "Only two months into the job, Prime Minister Mark Carney is already steamrolling through the usual checks by which a Canadian government is supposed to spend and manage taxpayer money.    During the federal election, Carney greenlit a record $70 billion without Parliamentary approval. And now, even before the House of Commons has reconvened, his government has signalled its intentions not to publish a budget. With both actions, the new Liberal government has neutered one of the reasons Canada has a Parliament in the first place: To review and manage the disbursement of money... There’s long been a provision for the Governor General to release emergency funds to keep the lights on during a federal election.   It’s called a “special warrant”; an emergency dispensation of money “urgently required for the public good.”   Where Carney took the provision into uncharted territory is in the sheer scale of money, $73.4 billion, that he released via special warrants without the figures being approved by the House of Commons... It’s been more than five months since the federal government has actually approved funding the way it’s supposed to: Via an itemized “money bill” that is approved in a vote by the House of Commons... This is all the more notable given that even when the Liberals were telling Canadians their spending plans, they were conspicuously unable to stick to them.   The resignation of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was driven in large part by a disastrous Fall Economic Statement, delivered on Dec. 16, which revealed that the federal government was on track to rack up $61.9 billion in new debt, way higher than the $40.1 billion they had been shooting for. Although sometimes called “minibudgets,” Fall Economic Statements are different in that they don’t necessarily have to be passed by the House of Commons...    There have been periods in Canadian history where the country has gone more than a year without a federal budget. But there were always extenuating circumstances.   The most obvious being the failure to table a federal budget in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the midst of the Second World War, similarly, the feds went a then-record 482 days between budget presentations.   But what hasn’t really happened before is a government refusing to table a budget in the immediate aftermath of a contentious federal election resulting in a hung parliament. Upon news of Carney’s “no budget” plans, Conservative MP Mike Lake noted that the Tories had a budget ready only five weeks after their victory in the 2011 general election"
Liberal government to table federal budget this fall (May 18)
Canada needs a full federal budget now - "Since Canada was born in 1867, there has always been an annual full federal budget presented. Until 2020, the COVID-19 year, there were annual budgets presented during the First and Second World Wars, the Great Depression years of 1929 until the 1930s and even with unstable minority governments — such as the Joe Clark government of 1979...   And to be clear, an FES is not a budget — no matter how comprehensive it is — nor is a brief fiscal update that will likely be presented to Parliament before it recesses for the summer.   An FES has historically been used as a mid-year update to provide revised projections and updates on economic and fiscal performance. The annual federal budget is the foundational policy document for the government and is a confidence motion; in other words, the government can fall if the budget is not supported by Parliament. The FES is not.   Skipping a federal budget would have been a significant departure from convention while raising obvious questions about fiscal transparency, parliamentary oversight and accountability.   Transparency, oversight and accountability are not aspirational objectives. They are foundational to providing a responsible government. Trust in institutions will inevitably erode when public scrutiny is evaded...   Combine the original non-presentation of a federal budget with the proposal by Carney to “separate the operational budget from the capital budget” — an old and deceptive accounting trick to mask spending — the recent spending by special warrants and the retaliatory tariffs against the United States that were suspended during the recent election campaign while encouraging Canadians to be “elbows up” (a cringeworthy and vacuous slogan), the transparency record of this new government is not off to a good start... “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants,” Justice Louis Brandeis so appropriately stated. Instead of swaggering around with “elbows up,” it’s time for this new government to step into the sunlight and face Canadians directly — continuously. Our parliamentary democracy demands it.   Let’s hope that the May 18 announcement by Carney of a “budget in the fall” means a full budget, not a “comprehensive” FES."
Weird how the Experienced Economist did not think a budget was necessary at first

Meme - "Trudeau promises affordable housing for Canadians" - 2015
"AFFORDABLE HOUSING LOGEMENT ABORDABLE" - 2019
"MORE AFFORDABLE HOUSING" - 2021
"Liberals promise to build nearly 500,000 homes per year, create new housing entity" - 2025
Squid Game: "I have played these games before!"
Left wingers think words speak louder than actions, so they keep getting fooled

JAY GOLDBERG: Carney convinced enough people he’s different – but can it last? - "Since day one, Prime Minister Mark Carney has tried to convince Canadians that he’s not former prime minister Justin Trudeau. And until now, he has succeeded. Early on, Carney took decisive action to try to clearly distance himself from the Trudeau legacy. He signed an Order in Council to set the consumer carbon tax rate to zero. He promised to scrap the Trudeau government’s planned capital gains tax hike. And he made a middle-class income tax cut the centrepiece of his election platform, recognizing Canadians were hard done by after years of Liberal tax hikes. The childishness of the Trudeau era also seems to be in the rear-view mirror. Instead of playing political games, Carney pledged to call a byelection to allow Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre to get back into Parliament as soon as possible. Carney’s first press conference after the election was also impressive. He ruled out a formal deal with the NDP, separating himself from Trudeau in refusing to sign a deal to be pulled to the left. And he pledged to work with all parties to have a productive Parliament. But the rubber is about to hit the road... When Carney announced his first cabinet after winning the Liberal leadership, there were many familiar faces. Too many... 87% of Carney’s ministers were part of the Trudeau cabinet... For most taxpayers, seeing a Carney platform pledging to spend more than Trudeau and add nearly $250 billion of new debt over four years was not on their bingo card. During the campaign, there were media reports that because the election was called so soon after Carney won the leadership, he largely ran on a platform that was crafted for Trudeau. If that’s true, Carney’s first budget should recognize the gravity of the moment the nation is in financially and walk away from many of the outlandish spending commitments that were in his platform. With taxpayers already on the hook for $1 billion in debt interest payments every week, the country cannot afford for Carney to make Trudeau’s debt binge look an ode to fiscal restraint."

KLEIN: Don’t confuse political announcements with achievements - "This isn’t a list of missteps — it’s a pattern. Reannounce, delay, deny. Trudeau’s team is banking on your short memory, but the facts are all there."
Left wingers believe words speak louder than actions, after all

Marc Nixon on X - "WTF is happening? Trump drops a video 9 hours later—boom—Mark Carney propaganda video drops. “Elbows up” turned into arms wide open real fast. The whole fight-fight-fight act vanished the second the votes were counted. Looks like they’re best buddies now"

Carney is a fresh face but faces old Liberal problems - "You have to give Canadians credit. They exhibited this uncanny knack to resist change and voted in a fresh face but the same party that governed these past 10 years during an unprecedented period of stagnant growth in the country’s private-sector capital stock, productivity, real income per capita and a record-long string of net foreign direct investment outflows. Somehow, all this managed to give the Liberal Party a fourth consecutive term. Never in the country’s history has such a long record of economic ineptitude been so well rewarded, but that speaks to the impact United States President Donald Trump had on Canada’s election and the implosion of the socialist NDP party, whose seat number collapsed to a mere seven from 24. Mark Carney is indeed a fresh face, but as we saw with his first cabinet choices after his successful Liberal leadership nomination, the same team that presided over a decade of economic sclerosis largely remains intact — we shall see how this changes, but don’t hold your breath. The Liberal Party does not appear likely to garner a majority, with its current tally of 168 seats falling short of the 172 needed to govern unilaterally (the Conservatives have 144), which means the Carney-led Liberals will need to cobble support from either the NDP or the Bloc Québécois (which has 23 seats so far), and both fringe parties are major fiscal expansionist entities.   The Liberals had run their campaigns on larger deficits and more spending growth (prefab housing, green energy and public infrastructure), so the fact that they will likely have to team up with a partner that is even more ambitious on the fiscal front is not the greatest news for the Government of Canada bond market... For those of us who still believe in mixed free-enterprise economic policies and yearn for efforts to make Canada tax competitive, the fact that the Liberals won but did not garner a majority and now must again be supported by left-leaning budget spending enthusiasts can only be viewed as a major disappointment. That the NDP has likely lost official party status (it needs at least 12 seats in Parliament) and its leader, Jagmeet Singh, says he is resigning is at least a small dose of consolation for those who still believe in a modicum of fiscal responsibility and less government influence in the country’s economic affairs.  It seemed unfathomable four months ago to think the Liberals would win this election, but the polls in the more immediate lead-up to the election did not expect the Conservatives to come as close as they did, nor did they expect the Liberals to do anything but secure a majority government."

Bank of Canada might go lighter on rate cuts with Liberals in power - "“Deeper-than-anticipated deficits could be the cost of coalition-building, though the government may wish to hold the line as trailing parties have little interest in heading back to the polls anytime soon,” said Rebekah Young of Scotiabank Economics... Under the Liberals’ plan the deficit is projected to rise to 2 per cent of GDP or about $62 billion, higher than the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s projection of 1.5 per cent of GDP.  Avery said the forecast was reasonable if trade negotiations go well and the economy does not fall into recession this year.  “But there is more downside risk to the economic outlook than upside risk, and the reverse will therefore be true for the budget deficit,” he wrote in a note. “Odds of the deficit topping 2 per cent of GDP are likely more material than an undershoot.”"

Newman: Carney did not protect Canada from the 2008 financial crisis - "Mark Carney sat back and failed to negate the claim that he deserved credit for having saved Canadian banks from the misadventures of our American neighbours during the 2008 financial crisis. Carney can claim no such credit. In actuality, there are historical reasons for Canada’s lack of vulnerability to such financial upsets, including a divergent institutional pathway and regulatory changes recommended by Canadian Supreme Court Judge Willard Estey that safeguarded Canada’s banking system from the financial crisis.    According to a 2015 paper in the journal Economic History Review, the relative stability of Canadian banks during the 2008 economic crisis is a product of historical circumstances. According the authors, as early as the 19th century, Canadian and American banking systems took different paths. Canada set up a strong, single-regulator-concentrated banking system which they say, “absorbed the key sources of economic risk — mortgage and investment banking,” while the U.S. developed what they refer to as a “relatively weak, fragmented, and crisis-prone” banking system. In contrast to Canada, what emerged in the U.S. was a lightly to unregulated banking system and ultimately many more smaller and less stable banks. More importantly, the authors point out that the relative stability of Canada’s banking system in comparison to the U.S. during the 2008 crisis was not a “one-off event,” as Canadian banks were able to avoid other financial crises experienced in the U.S. from 1863-1914 (a period of panics and recessions) and the Great Depression of the 1930’s for the same reasons. These circumstances pre-date Liberal leadership and prime ministerial-hopeful Mark Carney by over a century."

Carney may not know why China likes him, but it's plain for all to see - "In China, uttering those words — one can only correct inappropriate policies in a timely manner if one sticks to seeking truth from facts — can land you in a lot of trouble these days. The editors of the nominally independent Caixin Media business news platform was punished for raising the admonition about seeking truth from facts in a December 2023 editorial that was mildly critical of the Communist Party’s reckless mismanagement of the Chinese economy. The editorial was made to vanish... A caveat about China’s resilience: nobody really knows what the Chinese economy can sustain. Seeking truth from facts in China can be a very dangerous line of work. After being detained last April for having said unflattering things about the regime’s handling of the economy generally and Xi Jinping’s mismanagement specifically, the respected economist Zhu Hengpeng, by last September, simply disappeared.  Zhu was the director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Public Policy Research Center, which reports directly to the Chinese Communist Party’s State Council. Three days ago, the centre was shut down and any activity carried out under its auspices were deemed illegal. The centre’s social media accounts have gone dark along with its website. “All activities carried out in the name of the former research centre are illegal and legal responsibility lies with the perpetrators,” according to a statement from the Academy’s Institute of Economics. What got Zhu into trouble were comments he made in a private chat group hosted by WeChat. The platform is closely monitored, censored and manipulated by the Chinese state police... no reasonable person could be led to believe that Carney has no idea why Beijing would want him to come out on top in this month’s federal vote.  The Liberal party’s intimacies with the Chinese Communist Party go back decades. Beijing’s business-class proxies are deeply embedded in the Liberal party establishment, as the recent Paul Chiang scandal once again made plain. The evidence is irrefutable that in the last two federal elections Beijing undertook strenuous clandestine exertions to monkeywrench the vote in several ridings to the advantage of its preferred candidates and to the disadvantage of the Conservative Party.  During his time in the leadership of Brookfield Asset Management, Carney was back and forth from China frequently and was a vocal advocate of Beijing’s plans for a “multi-polar world” and Beijing’s hopes to challenge the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency with China’s own renminbi."
Weird. We are told that Chinese all love Xi because he's made them rich

Meme - The Shift has Hit the Fan: "Liberal boomers and loyalists are starting to realize that they got played."
Warren Kinsella: "This is so messed up"
Brian Lilley @brianlilley: "Trump says he'll have a great relationship with Carney."

Ryan Gerritsen🇨🇦🇳🇱 on X - "Mark Carney’s blind trust investment company Brookfield announced yesterday it plans on investing in U.S. manufacturing operations due to Trumps tariffs. Amazing how all of this is announced just days after Carney becomes PM."
Weird how we are told that Trump's tariffs can't bring manufacturing back to the US. Brookfield must be daft

Wide Awake Media on X - "New Canadian PM Mark Carney: "We can't stabilise the climate unless we get to Net Zero." 🤡"

Carney legit fooled people. : r/CanadianConservative - "So I have been lurking the other Canadian subs after the disappointing results and...  People legit think Carney is going to build pipelines, cut taxes and create industry that isn't funneling money to Brookfield.  One commenter was actually suggesting that 3 block members cross the chamber and join the liberals so that they can form a majority and perhaps open Quebec up to building pipelines.  These people are in for a big surprise."
""at least we're not Americans and have healthcare"  Canada could achieve greatness if failure stopped being excuses with more or less this exact phrase"

Carney legit fooled people. : r/CanadianConservative - "I don’t like Ford but I doubt he caused the nationwide housing crisis"
"Or the nationwide healthcare crisis. But the moment you point out these problems are nationwide, then they move the goalposts outside of the nation, declaring there's a global crisis. But then you point out that it's not really global, and that most of countries with similar degrees on these issues are anglosphere countries, but then they'll point to $xIslandCityState... long story short, they'll end on capitalism being the problem and yet vote for a rich banker without any sense of the irony. /rant"

Anaida Poilievre on X - "My husband was calling out inflation as soon as all the money printing began back in 2020.  Meanwhile, Mr. Carney didn’t believe in inflation: “It is unlikely to materialize… in fact, we need some inflation to come up.”  Not only was he clueless it would happen—he was HOPING it would happen. Who does that help? The bankers.  Meanwhile, my husband was right here at home, warning that inflation would hit and crush everyday Canadians.  So now, who do you trust? The man with the fancy résumé, or the man who was right all along—and actually connected to the real struggles of everyday Canadians?  On April 28th vote for change."

Carney says he'll trigger a byelection if Conservatives seek one for Poilievre : r/WildRoseCountry - "If Carney had run as a con, the left wing would have labeled him a Trump style elitist, but he is their elitist now, so he is our savior.  Same with labeling PP as having no work experience, but they had no problem having drama teacher trust fund Trudea running for 10 years."
"This is the problem with the left. They only want an economist when that economist is a liberal. They voted out Harper, who was an economist for a drama teacher.  Mind you these same people talk down on conservatives and conservative voters, whilst accusing us of being partisan.  Peak hypocrisy."

CHARLEBOIS: Elbows up, food prices up — until feds quietly backed down - "The “dollar-for-dollar” tariff response that Trudeau championed was always a high-risk strategy against the world’s largest economy. These countermeasures may have fit a political narrative — propping up nationalism under slogans like “Elbows Up” — but they were economically counterproductive. Tariffs on key food ingredients and finished goods raised costs for Canadian importers, manufacturers, and ultimately consumers. The contrast with the United States is stark. Despite imposing tariffs on food products from Canada, Mexico and other countries, the U.S. saw food inflation fall to 2% in April. In Canada, food inflation continues to rise. Our unemployment rate is ticking upward. The U.S. jobless rate remains stable. The policy gap — and its consequences — are increasingly visible. Still, the Carney government’s lack of transparency is concerning. On April 10, during the election campaign, Carney briefly paused his campaign to convene a cabinet committee meeting on tariffs. At the time, the move raised eyebrows. Now, it’s clear he was preparing to walk back Ottawa’s retaliatory measures. Yet the public was not informed, at least not openly. No formal announcement was made during the campaign. Voters were left in the dark — arguably to avoid alienating the Elbows Up base. Good policy? Yes. Transparent leadership? Not quite."

Carney dropped most American tariffs day after Trump meeting - "Turns out “elbows up” means reducing tariffs on American imports to near zero. Despite all the rhetoric from Mark Carney and the Liberals, a new report shows that Canada has effectively eliminated tariffs on most goods. Oxford Economics, a global advisory firm, looked into the matter and found tariffs are nullified by exemptions and suspensions to effectively mean the tariffs are either gone or near zero in most cases.  “It’s a very strategic approach from a new prime minister to really say, ‘We’re not going to have a retaliation,'” Tony Stillo, Oxford’s director of Canada economics, said... “It’s a strategic play on the government’s part to not damage the Canadian economy.”  So far, the Carney government hasn’t commented on the report, but it does raise questions about all the tough talk during the election and since. “We must respond with both purpose and force,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said in response to American tariffs. Those comments were made on April 3 as Carney stood in Ottawa reacting to Donald Trump’s flurry of tariffs on his so-called “Liberation Day.” A week later, Carney was campaigning in Hamilton when he said Canadian counter-tariffs were meant to hurt Americans.   “We are fighting unjustified U.S. tariffs, including those on steel and autos with counter tariffs of our own and that those are designed to cause maximum pain in the United States, but have only a minimal impact here in Canada,” Carney said.   He framed these counter tariffs as the patriotic thing to do, an action that was needed to protect workers.  Or not, it seems... When Carney took that photo with President Trump, both smiling and giving a thumbs up at the White House, was this because Carney had told Trump the tariffs were coming off the next day? The effective elimination of the tariffs took place the day after Carney met Trump at the White House, so it might have been a good idea for the PM to admit that public and add it to the discussion about how he is trying to deal with the Americans. That wouldn’t fit with his tough talking, elbows up rhetoric though.  At that White House meeting, Carney couldn’t find his elbows as he sat there listening to Trump bad mouth Canada, our economy, Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland. It’s probably good that he didn’t start punching back verbally or he would have received the Zelenskyy treatment.  That said, Carney acted just the way he warned voters that Pierre Poilievre would have acted. To Liberal voters though, none of this will matter – they still cheer on their man and his every move. Personally, I cheer for Canada, and right now, Canada needs a new deal with the United States. China already has one, the UK has one.  We could be in the middle of negotiating one, we could even be close and you’d never know because what Carney says in public and what he says and does behind closed doors are two very different things... Carney has already shown us that his elbows are down. For the good of the country, he should drop the tough talk and start negotiating a new deal for Canada in Washington."

Melissa Lantsman on X - "🚨🚨🚨 So get this…Bloomberg is reporting that Carney secretly dropped the US tariffs mid election……..but he continued to tell everyone he didn’t. Mark Carney has a very bad habit of lying to Canadians. He lied about his tariff plan, and now he’s hiding his economic plan.
April 11: Carney and his cabinet secretly removed the tariffs on most American goods. Here are the lies by date:
April 17: Carney - “we're all going to stand up against Donald Trump. I'm ready. I've managed crises over the years. I've built strong economies. We'll fight back with counter tariffs. We'll protect our workers and those businesses, and we will build the strongest economy. We'll build Canada strong.”
April 20: “this is the most consequential vote of our lifetimes because President Trump has ignited a trade war that has ruptured, ruptured, ruptured….. We don't like Trump here. We don't like Trump here. Ruptured the global economy and changed forever our relationship with the United States. That old relationship is over unfortunately, It is a tragedy. It is a tragedy, but it's the new reality. And we're responding. We are responding with purpose and with force. We are fighting. We are fighting back with tariffs of our own that are causing maximum damage in the United States with minimum impact here.“
April 27: Carney - “We are fighting the Americans. We're fighting them with our own tariffs, that are having maximum impact in the United States with minimum impact here. Elbows up. Everyone else has their head down. Canada has their elbows up.”
Not a brilliant start for those elbows."