News roundup, 13 Feb 2026

- While the American labour movement had what was considered a breakthrough year in 2024, with over 1,600 workplaces holding unionization votes, this is far short of the movement's successes even two decades previously, much less the mid 20th century. Worse, overall union density in the private sector remains at an abysmal 5.9% of the workforce, compared to around a third in the 1950s. There are fears that this could lead to a "death spiral" where weakening unions are less able to score wins, making them less relevant to the needs of workers, and so forth. Unless a great deal changes the left in the US - and perhaps a lot of other countries - is going to face the unthinkable prospect of having to move ahead without the labour movement.

- Gallup will no longer track the approval ratings of the president, something they've tracked for nearly a century. When asked if pressure from the White House had anything to do with it, a company representative simply said "this is a strategic shift solely based on Gallup’s research goals and priorities". Of course, this is probably not false; their research goals and priorities probably include still being allowed to conduct research, albeit maybe not on the president's popularity.

- To the surprise of few, there has been a torrent of disinformation about trans people following the Tumbler Ridge massacre. Far-right pundits, and even supposed news outlets, have been claiming that there's an "epidemic" of violence by trans folks - and once those stories are out there, debunking them can be hard. In the words of Jonathan Swift, "falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it".

- A proposed bylaw in Winnipeg would prohibit protests within 100 metres of schools, hospitals, and cultural centres in the city. There would be an exemption for "legal labour activities related to a dispute or collective bargaining", however activists are naturally wary. Councillor Evan Duncan, who introduced the proposal, says it's to protect "potentially vulnerable populations" served by those locations; it's widely suspected that this comes in response to pro-Palestinian protests that were held near synagogues. On the one hand, conflating Jewish worship with the policies of Israel is problematic; on the other hand, I've seen allegations that at least one such protest was in response to a synagogue hosting someone who was promoting the sale of seized Palestinian land in the West Bank, which if true sounds like fair game for protesters (I'd like to see confirmation of that claim, though, since while it sounds believable it could also be disinformation).

- Jeffrey Epstein apparently purchased 330 gallons of sulfuric acid in 2018, about a year before his last arrest. 

News roundup, 6 May 2025

- Mark Carney will be meeting with Donald Trump today in Washington. He is, quite rightly, trying to keep expectations low. Tony Keller, writing for the Globe and Mail, thinks that in the short run Carney will gain political benefits regardless of how Trump conducts himself, but in the long run things will be more difficult.

- A state of emergency has been declared in several communities in the Interlake region of Manitoba. Houses have been burned in Peguis and Pinaymootang First Nations, and Kinonjeoshtegon First Nation is also facing imminent threats. Further north, in Opaskwayak Cree Nation, the Bracken Dam neighbourhood is under a mandatory evacuation order, and other parts of OCN and the neighbouring town of The Pas are under high alert. And in Winnipeg, a fire ban is in place, prohibiting open fires as well as coal and wood burning barbecues for a two week period beginning yesterday evening.

- The people behind the metre-long ballots that appeared in some ridings in last week's election, including the riding of Carleton where Pierre Poilievre was defeated, wants to make an even bigger splash in the upcoming byelection in Battle River – Crowfoot, where incumbent MP Damien Kurek stepped down to make way for his leader. They hope to get at least 200 people to agree to put their names on the ballot, as a protest against the persistence of first past the post voting.

- Alberta premier Danielle Smith plans to chair a panel on options for the province to "protect" itself from perceived federal incursions, and then give the public a chance to vote on the proposals in a referendum. She is quick to say that there are no plans to put secession on the ballot, unless of course the separatists get enough signatures to compel it go be there. She claims not to be in favour of secession, so it was very sporting of her to remind separatists what they need to do. She also presented the federal government with a list of demands, which appear to involve the repeal of virtually all significant federal environmental legislation as well as hate speech laws, and the right for Alberta to veto any retaliatory export tariffs that might impact its economy in some way.

- Most polls underestimated support for the Australian Labor Party in that country's election last weekend. This is interesting, because the pattern in Canada and the US of late has been to overestimate support for the centre and centre-left, and/or to underestimate support for the right. The idea that people might feel ashamed to admit, even anonymously, that they'd vote for a party which is campaigning on being nasty, is an easy one to grasp; the Brits even have a term for that sort of thing. If anything you'd expect that to be even stronger now; these days conspiracy theories tend to be a lot more concentrated on the right end of the spectrum, so you'd expect those folks to be the ones who'd be afraid to tell a pollster who they'd consider voting for (because pollsters work for the New World Order or something, I'm sure). In the recent Canadian federal election, if you compare the polls used by 338Canada with the actual results, it's a bit stranger. If you look at the graph of 338's poll aggregates over time, there seems to have been a last minute surge towards both the Liberals and the Conservatives, a trend which continues on polls since the election. In the case of the Australian election, they're thinking it might be things like the fact that younger people are much less likely to answer the phone to do a poll, but if that is correct it's interesting in itself, because in Canada, the US, and the UK the youngest generations seem to be latching onto hard-right politics at a disturbing rate. Maybe Australia is different?

- Vancouver-Kingsway MP Don Davies has been appointed interim leader of the federal NDP following the resignation of Jagmeet Singh. 

- Friedrich Merz, the leader of Germany's Christian Democratic Party, has failed to secure support from a majority of the Bundestag, the lower house of the country's parliament, after 18 MPs from the coalition he had put together voted against making him chancellor. The parliament now has 14 days to either reconsider their decision or select another chancellor.

- A Soviet-era probe, which was intended to land on Venus, didn't make it past Earth orbit due to a technical problem following its launch in 1972. It is expected to reenter the Earth's atmosphere around this weekend, and because it was intended to survive entry into Venus' thick atmosphere, it is likely to hit the ground rather than burning up before impact.

- A woman reported missing in Wisconsin in 1962 at the age of 20 has been found alive and well in a neighbouring state. She had fled a troubled and possibly abusive marriage and evidently wanted nothing to do with her former life.

News roundup, 15 Nov 2024

- Canada Post has been shut down by a strike as 55,000 CUPW workers walked off the job this morning.

- As expected, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been selected by Donald Trump for the key cabinet position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. Critics are calling Kennedy a "clear and present danger" to public health; I don't disagree, though it's a safe bet that anyone appointed by Trump is a clear and present danger to something important.

- As with several recent elections, polls in the 2024 US election underestimated Donald Trump's support by about 3%. This was the case across all the swing states. One possible explanation, of course, is that the kind of people who vote for Trump are also the kind of people who think pollsters are part of the Deep State or similar nonsense. Based on exit polls, it is also apparent that Trump did especially well among the "late deciders". Exit polling has also revealed that white voters to represent a larger share of the vote than in recent elections. This might mean that Trump was uniquely successful in bringing out low-propensity voters, or else that nonwhite voters are becoming disillusioned and not turning out for the Democrats the way they have in the past.

- The Manitoba government has announced that the crackdown on retail theft will be made permanent by providing funding for 12 new police officers. Probably a necessary move; hopefully other equally necessary but less visible measures to address the underlying social conditions will not be forgotten, though.

- The Alberta government has purged the leadership of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo). Finance minister Nate Horner attempts to justify this based on efficiency, but this is disputed by others, and the fact that the corporation had been exploring the possibility of creating a fund focused on the transition to a carbon-neutral economy probably had something to do with the matter.

- The RCMP are investigating after hateful letters were sent to staff at an elementary school in Vanderhoof, BC. Authorities are keeping tight-lipped about the content of the letters, but I'd wager that it had something to do with sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) lessons in classes.

News roundup, 24 Oct 2024

- Justin Trudeau is refusing to step down as Liberal leader, despite the demands from a growing number of MPs that he do so. Some of the rebel MPs expressed concern with how quickly he dismissed the suggestion; none of this is going to help salvage the party's chances in the next election, or even with rebuilding afterwards.

- In southwestern England, recurring flooding is being addressed by buying out farmers at around £5,000 an acre and restoring the saltmarsh habitat that existed previously. Not surprisingly, this has its detractors, but more of this sort of thing is going to be necessary, since the problem isn't going away any time soon.

- The driver who hit cyclist Rob Jenner in June, then left the scene, has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death and leaving the scene of the accident. He was going 159 km/h in a 50 zone. In tangentially related news, police have been cracking down on "stunt driving" to an extent, although it's an uphill battle with these people.

- Winnipeg police had to shoot a dog on Tuesday afternoon after it attacked four people, causing serious injuries to one of them.

- Many polls significantly underestimated Donald Trump's support in the 2020 election. The reasons for this are not entirely clear; one school of thought holds that low information voters are less likely to answer polls, and more likely to vote for the likes of Trump if they do vote. Notably, pollsters did better in the 2022 midterms (less engaged voters are more likely to sit the election out if the presidency isn't up for grabs). Others suggest that the 2020 election was heavily influenced by the pandemic and other factors. Pollsters are changing their methodologies in an attempt to correct for factors like these; the effectiveness of these measures remains to be seen.

- A Cambridge University study has found a significant positive correlation between the number of Airbnb locations in a neighbourhood and its crime rate.

- Post-secondary institutions in red states are having a harder time attracting students from out of state as non-crazy students balk at having to live in such a place.