- Pierre Poilievre likes to say that "Canada is broken". Well, he's actually kind of right about that, but not for the reasons he and his followers think; it's nothing that can be laid at the feet of the present-day Liberals (or the Conservatives, or any other party). As the Globe and Mail's Andrew Coyne points out, there are serious problems with representation by population - and they're burned right into our constitution. Perhaps the worst of these is a 1915 amendment known as the "senatorial clause" (section 51A of the Constitution Act), which stipulates that no province may have fewer seats in the House of Commons than it has in the Senate - meaning that PEI, which was given four Senate seats as an enticement to join Confederation in 1873, is guaranteed four seats in the House in perpetuity, despite having a population smaller than Sudbury. Someone on the rabble.ca discussion board once referred to the province as "Canada's constitutionally protected rotten borough".
- The suspect in Tuesday's shooting incident at Edmonton's city hall has been identified as a security guard employed by the Corps of Commissionaires. He had apparently recorded a "manifesto video" (since deleted from YouTube) that one commentator described as "salad bar extremism", referencing grievances ranging from the war in Gaza to "wokeism" and taxes. He also cited both racism and immigration as other grievances, which suggests that he's not all there; this seems to be at least as much a psychiatric story as a political one. When a traumatic event strikes a provincial capital you might expect the premier to make some sort of statement, even if it's just a "thoughts and prayers" one, but she was too busy welcoming Tucker Carlson to address the matter.
- Kenneth Law, the man accused of selling toxic substances to suicidal people, has just had his charges upgraded to first degree murder. No detailed info about the reason for this upgrade, but it seems to suggest that the authorities think that he actually enjoyed causing deaths as opposed to say, just wanting to help people ease their suffering or even wanting to make money off of them. There have been people like that before, such as William Melchert-Dinkel, though notably even he was not actually convicted of murder.
- Coal is expected to account for a smaller share of global electricity production than renewables by next year; new projects are going online all the time. This does add to my conviction that the hardcore doomers are wrong; I believe civilization as a whole is going to make it in the long run. A reality check though - even in the best case, a lot of people won't make it; there's just too much warming locked in already. How we deal with that grim reality is going to be a big test of our ability to balance idealism with pragmatism in the coming decades.
- Alabama just executed a man by asphyxia with nitrogen, the first time that particular procedure has been used in the US.
- There's a risk to having parrots in a zoo - they might learn some naughty words and use them in front of zoo visitors. One facility in the UK has decided to run with it, though.
No comments:
Post a Comment