Tuesday, February 6, 2024

News roundup, 6 Feb 2024

- Conservative Party supporters in Canada are increasingly of the view that Canada gives "too much support" to Ukraine. When polling Canadians overall, 25% of those polled agreed with the statement, compared to 13% a couple of years ago - and among Conservative supporters this has jumped from 19% to 43% over the same time period. It seems like the Cons are betting on the Canadian public hating Justin Trudeau so much that they'll blindly vote for whoever has the best chance of beating him; sadly, it's a pretty good bet. Not that there isn't reason to dislike Trudeau, quite the contrary (just look at his latest gaffe for instance), but the public's willingness to jump from the frying pan into the fire is unfortunate.

- Former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi is said to be considering a run for the Alberta NDP leadership. This could make for a very interesting provincial election in 2027. Nenshi isn't that left by non-Alberta standards, but he'd certainly be an improvement on their current premier.

- Calgary's current mayor, Jyoti Gondek, could theoretically face a recall election - that is, if the petitioner is able to collect signatures from 40% of the city's nearly 1.3 million residents by the 4th of April. Reasons cited include a bylaw prohibiting stores from giving out free single use bags, as well as tax increases and a deal entered into by the city and the owners of the Flames, among others, to build an event centre. Don't know enough about the event centre issue to comment but the other two reasons reek of rightwing populism, and I suspect the petitioner will be able to get some support from the same kind of people who show up at city hearings talking about "neighbourhood integrity" out of fear that someone might build a duplex down the street from them. Meanwhile in the neighbouring city of Chestermere, the mayor and half the council have been ousted by the provincial government; I know essentially nothing about the place, but the folks on Reddit seem to think this move by the province is a case of a stopped clock being right twice a day.

- On Thursday the US Supreme Court will be hearing Donald Trump's appeal of Colorado's move to exclude him from the ballot. This will be the first time in history that the court hears a case related to the "disqualification clause" in the Fourteenth Amendment; it seems that it would take some pretty intense mental gymnastics for self-professed "originalists" like the conservatives on the court to keep Trump on the ballot, but they may well find a way.

- The International Code Council is a nonprofit dedicated to developing model building codes. Lately they seem to have been bending to every demand of the natural gas lobby, even hastily changing their own rules to give the lobbyists more favourable treatment.

- The European Union had a plan to cut pesticide use in half by the end of the decade, as well as setting carbon reduction targets for the agriculture sector, but is backing away in the face of an outburst of populist rage.

- Apparently those convoy protesters who went down to Texas to "defend" the border against the supposed "invasion" were disappointed to see that things weren't as they'd been led to believe. The convoy's leaders managed to crowdfund a lot of money though, so there's that.

- Pakistan International Airlines just had a flight attendant walk away in Toronto and not show up for their return flight. This would not be very newsworthy in itself, but the same thing has happened several times in the last few years, which is starting to look like a pattern.

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