The social media accounts of two of Canada's most vocal far-right pundits have fallen unusually silent after U.S. officials accused them of being collaborators of a covert Russian propaganda campaign.
On Wednesday, the U.S. Justice Department unsealed an indictment against two Russian nationals, accusing them of setting up a conservative media outlet as a front for pro-Kremlin propaganda.
The media outlet was unnamed in the indictment, but it was clear from details within that the charges referred to Tenet Media, founded in 2023 by the Canadian influencer known as Lauren Chen and her husband, Liam Donavan.
Among the people they hired last year was Chen's longtime friend and occasional collaborator Lauren Southern, another Canadian far-right influencer with a massive social media following.
SamuelRJankis
Public vote counts should help a lot towards catching manipulation on the fediverse. Any action that can affect visibility (upvotes and comments) can be pulled by researchers through federation to study/catch inorganic behavior.
I'd love to see some type of Adblock like crowd sourced block lists. If the growth of other platforms is any indication there will probably be a day where it would be nice to block out a large amounts of accounts. I'd even pay for it.
People shit on Jagmeet as being a poor leader, but I think he's done surprisingly good job getting policies out of the Liberals with 25 seats.
On the side of winning extra seats for his party he's getting into Kevin Falcon(BC United) level of competency where he's close to folding up his party. As a NDP Voting Reform person I hope this gamble works out.
Parliament in back in session Sept 16th.
They're essentially going for broke with a finger in on the trigger for a election. This could get the Liberals to yield on some extra things which would win NDP some votes or a very early election which would be a big loss to the NDP and Liberals.
Liberals could also technically call their bluff and just keep on with what they're doing in which case could win them some NDP voters.
In case anyone is wondering this does not mean there will be a election soon just more political turbulence.
The end of the confidence-and-supply agreement doesn't necessarily mean an immediate election. The Liberals could seek the support of the Bloc Québécois or try to continue negotiating with the NDP on a case-by-case basis.
They care about the oil/gas industry enough to avoid going nuclear.
Since the moratorium announcement, 53 projects have been cancelled. This is more than five times higher than the normal project cancellation rate in the last few years. Calculated very conservatively, these projects represent an annual loss of $91 million per year in tax revenues to communities. This is revenue that would have been stable and sustainable. Wind and sun don’t run out, and when equipment wears out it can simply be replaced.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-renewables-pause-moratorium-aeso-foip-1.7196943
The internal documents now show the opposite chain of events: rather than the AESO asking the government for the pause, it was the government that asked the AESO to write a letter in support of the policy.
Funny enough a random thing Peterson kept repeating. how progressives think from 1960s that we have finite resources on the planet.
That is the general nuance that somehow entirely missed even though they spend a good half hour on the topic of how progressives are "anti-human" for somewhat factoring environmental concerns into policies.
Also one of the things the proceeded the nuclear thing was how BC is now electrical importer because of progressive policies.
A sustained period of drought in the province, particularly in the northeast, left both the Columbia Region and Peace River dams at historic lows and with a resulting reduced capacity for power generation.
“This year has been an extraordinary one and has made Hydro a net importer,” Energy Minister Josie Osborne told Global News.
On an annual basis, B.C. is typically a net exporter of electricity. B.C. often has a positive trade revenue balance, even in years when it imports more electricity than it exports, because of its ability to buy electricity from the U.S. when prices are lower and sell to the U.S. when prices are higher.
Literally the entire 33 minute portion I could make through was two people talking entirely out of their ass. Sprinkling some out of context facts for credibility.
The party leader also says it was “crazy” for the former B.C. Liberal party to have banned nuclear power, saying the province needs to have a “conversation” about reconsidering its position, tying high energy costs to lower living standards.
The "ban" on Nuclear refers to the Clean Energy Act from 2010
Section 2 - British Columbia's energy objectives
(o)to achieve British Columbia's energy objectives without the use of nuclear power.
https://lims.leg.bc.ca/pdms/file/ldp/39th2nd/votes/progress-of-bills.htm
| Bill No. | Title | Member | First Reading | Second Reading | Com- mittee | Report | amended | Third Reading | Royal Assent | S.B.C. Chap. No. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | Clean Energy Act | Hon. B. Lekstrom | Apr. 28 | Jun. 3 | Jun. 3 | Jun. 3 | Jun. 3 | Jun. 3 | Jun. 3 | 22 |
People who voted for it which coincidentally includes the guy complaining about it: https://www.leg.bc.ca/parliamentary-business/overview/39th-parliament/2nd-session/votes-and-proceedings/v100428.htm
As someone who made it about 33m through the 1:50 podcast that essentially how everything goes if you fact check it.
With the current system the only reason parties shift like that is because they have to. The Erin O'Toole 2020-22 Conservatives experimented with shifting left a bit lost the election before going PP and the far right.
Biden and Trump were fairly close in the polls for the 2024 election with Trump being the favorite. Then Kamala replaced Biden and the campaigned policy certainly moved further left. I'm also going to drop in why the current NDP is such a failure because they randomly started shifting right when they were providing with so much opportunity for success on the other side.
Given the North American systems and current political climate we're not only seeing more party consolidation but also parties shifting to further ends of the political spectrum.
Will be interesting to see if the Federal Liberal survive without shifting dramatically.
TLDR: BC NDP gets 68 rental housing built in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Canada for 10 Christy Clark(Previous BC United leader) yoga events i.e ~1.5m and people are not happy.
The NDP government provided a $31.8 million low-interest loan to Vancouver developer Jameson Development Corp. for the 68-unit rental building through the HousingHub program
His ministry said in a statement that the financing used to build the project at 1807 Larch St. will be fully paid back to the province, plus interest
The problem starts here where CBC did a segment that just interviewed a bunch of people to see what bad things they had to say about the project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfpEXRjpybk
Deranged person A)
B.C. Green party leader Sonia Furstenau said that's "infuriating."
"People who need housing are not the people who can afford $4,200 a month in rent," she told CBC News
Deranged person B)
Andy Yan, an urban planner and director of Simon Fraser University's City Program, asked what the public interest was in subsidizing developers who are still charging rents that are out of reach for 75 per cent of Vancouver renters.
"It's an issue of what you're paying for versus what you're getting," Yan said.
The BC Conservative that used to be a Vancouver councilor: I genuinely can't make sense of whatever this person was trying to say. It was pretty much a human equivalent of someone slamming their keyboard a few times.
https://news.bchousing.org/new-affordable-rental-homes-on-the-way-in-kitsilano/
80% of units, totaling 54, will target at- or below-market level rents restricted to middle- income households within the provincial middle-income limits. Floor plans and prices.
20% of units, totaling 14, will be tenanted at moderate-income rent levels and to households earning less than $80,000 per year.
I haven't been able to find the exact figures but I've largely seen numbers like 2-3% better than market rates. I'm going to just be generous and round it up 5% accounting for some level defaults, that's 1.6m to produce 54 market rate rentals plus 14 below market rentals. People spend more than that on a single duplex.
If we scale that out to the original 2B program that would be 3,780 market rentals and 980 below market for only 5% opportunity cost of 2B. As someone who's gone over how hard it would be to build truly low cost housing that about as close as it gets.
$2,000,000,000 * 5% = $100,000,000
$100,000,000 /4,760 = 21k per unit
It's about the money.