News roundup, 15 Aug 2024

- Canada's two main railways, Canadian National Railway (CN) and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC) are both in talks with their unions, and a strike and/or lockout is expected if they don't have a deal by the 22nd of August. The impact on industry in Canada as well as in the US could be dramatic.

- WestJet expects flight cancellations "for the foreseeable future" after 16 of their aircraft, representing some 10% of their entire fleet, were heavily damaged in a hailstorm in Calgary earlier this month.

- A new political party called the "Canadian Future Party", billing itself as a "centrist" party for "politically homeless" voters, has just been launched. The thing is, Canada already has a centrist party - it's called the Liberal Party. The interim party president is a former Conservative Party activist, which gives a clue to how they claim to position themselves; a moderate centre-right party might seem "centrist" if you think of the Liberals as "left". In any case, though, I don't see this party going anywhere of significance.

- Ksenia Karelina, a Russian-American dual citizen who was arrested on a family visit last January, has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for treason. The "treason" in this case consisted of donating $51.80 to a charitable organization that says it is focused on humanitarian aid and disaster relief; the Russians claim, though, that the organization provides arms to the Ukrainian military.

- Winnipeg has long been known as the "Slurpee capital of the world" despite not having suitable Slurpee weather for a sizeable chunk of the year. The reason is likely the fact that we have a huge number of 7-Eleven locations; up to ten of them could be facing closure in the near future, though. The chain attributes this to increased theft cutting too much into profit margins. Some folks in this Reddit thread, though, think that this might just be cover for questionable franchising decisions, especially given that some of the closing locations are almost new.

- Moosomin is a small town on the Trans-Canada just west of the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border. The town is trying to resist the global trend of declining small-town and rural populations by paying people $30,000 to move there. I guess if you had a full-time remote job that could be attractive.

- The organizers of Texas' State Fair are prohibiting guns on the fairgrounds following a shooting at last year's event. The state's attorney general is not pleased with this, and is threatening to take them to court if they don't reverse their decision.

News roundup, 12 Feb 2024

- Winnipeg's draft budget continues to be debated. On the positive side, the additional money for the planting and maintenance of city trees was well received by community groups like Trees Winnipeg, although the executive director of that organization fears that it won't be enough to make up for years of neglect. On the other hand, arts organizations are not happy that there's no money for public art in the budget.

- Also in city news - Mayor Gillingham gave his State of the City speech; he and Premier Kinew are looking at ways to increase the availability of housing, mostly by removing potential barriers (notably, the Municipal Board's ability to block housing developments already approved by council).

- An interesting fact - Manitoba's Clean Environment Commission, while sometimes thought of as a "regulatory body", is actually only able to make recommendations to the Minister. Until the Filmon government took power in 1988, this was not the case. The Manitoba Law Reform Commission has recommended changes to this and other sections of the Environment Act; a former deputy minister, Norm Brandson, has concerns about this, being of the view that elected officials should have the final say. This view has some populist appeal, but I'm not at all sure I agree. And it's worth noting that while the article does not say when Brandson held that position, this earlier one does; sure enough, he served from 1990 to 2006, which would make him a Tory appointee (albeit not one so partisan that the incoming NDP government saw reason to immediately get rid of him).

- The European Union is toning down its climate policies in response to a paroxysm of populist rage led by farmer protests. These protests aren't spontaneous, though; they're being whipped up by the usual suspects.

- On a more positive note, China's rollout of clean energy continues apace. Actually it's a bit better than that; international observers are now predicting that their emissions will peak much sooner than predicted even a few years ago, possibly as early as next year. And while the prospect of Trump retaking the White House is very disconcerting, some think that even that won't be the end of the world (though it will definitely mean the end of more individuals, and possibly more communities or even nations, than if Trump doesn't win). What a Trump victory will do, though, is pretty much guarantee that the US will fall behind in clean energy technology and will have to buy it from China and the EU.

- Fears of political violence are growing in the US. It's not just actual politicians who are at risk either; just ask this guy or this one. Oh wait, you can't - they're both dead.

- The Liberal candidate in the federal byelection in Durham booked an event at a small brewery in Bowmanville, Ontario last week, which was attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This, of course, sent the frothing-at-the-mouth right into a tizzy; the brewery was barraged with negative online reviews, offensive emails, and threatening phone calls. Now maybe you could argue it would be wise for businesses not to book such events at all, but never forget that these are the same kind of people who did the same thing to an Alberta restaurant for not hosting a Take Back Alberta event. Then again, consistency isn't a big thing for these people; they probably think it's only for big city libtard ay-leets anyway, and having to be consistent is an affront to their freedumb.

- The extent to which Canada (and most other developed countries) has urbanized in the last half century is dramatic. For example, in 1966 Ontario had a population of 7 million, of which 2.6 million lived in rural communities. In 2021, the rural population of Ontario has actually declined slightly to 2.5 million, while the overall population of the province had more than doubled. The biggest reason - fewer and fewer immigrants want to settle in those communities, something sociologist Lindsay Finlay attributes to limited opportunities as well as xenophobia. But as one comment on this Reddit thread points out, maybe it's a bigger problem than that:

This article doesn't really address the question of why you want to prevent these places from withering away? If less people need to live there because, for example, agriculture has become more efficient, is that a bad thing? Should policies just be focused on managing the decline rather than reversing it?

Of course, to a lot of rural folk, them's fightin' words.

- A physician at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto is alarmed at a dramatic rise in the incidence of congenital syphilis. Nor is the problem limited to Canada; the Center for Disease Control in the US reports an 80% increase in syphilis cases since 2018 and a staggering 937% increase in a decade. Curiously, the word "swinger" does not appear in either article.

- A woman opened fire at the Houston megachurch run by celebrity pastor Joel Osteen. Two people, including a child, were wounded before the attacker was shot to death by off-duty cops.