Canada

On this day 35 years ago, a SWAT team, a paramilitary force, attacked a peaceful barricade in the Kanehsatà:ke pine forest — a barricade meant to protect the more than 200-year-old trees from being cut for the expansion of the nine-hole Oka Golf Club and condo development. The development would have seen the removal of our sacred burial ground to expand the parking lot of the country club.

For 78 days the peoples of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawake defended “the Pines,” a white pine forest claimed by the Mohawks of Kanesatake. We were under siege, denied food, medicine and the free passage of people by order of the Sureté du Quebec, the provincial police force, endorsed by the Quebec and Canadian governments.

Our fundamental human rights were violated daily by the SQ and the Canadian military — and we were publicly labelled as criminals for opposing a golf course expansion that was approved without our consent or consultation.

Mark Carney can apparently do no wrong. Scroll through comments on news articles, and you’ll encounter an energetic online army defending the prime minister’s every action.

Cancelling a tax on the world’s most profitable tech giants? A genius chess move in his trade war against Trump.

Advocating for new pipelines while the country burns from climate change-fuelled wildfires? A tough decision to shore up Canadian sovereignty.

Boosting spending on the military to record and wasteful levels? A responsible counter to supposed perils like Russia or North Korea.

Expanding surveillance powers to crackdown on refugee rights? Well, at least he’s not Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.

The U.S. President’s tariffs and threats have left Canadians anxious and disoriented, giving Carney an opportunity to move fast and with far too little scrutiny. He’s pushing through pro-corporate policies that go beyond anything he outlined on the campaign trail. The agenda is so right-wing, in fact, The Globe and Mail last week gleefully noted that “Brian Mulroney could have endorsed it.”

It’s no wonder that Carney is trying to push through his agenda as fast as possible, while Canadians remain disoriented. The prime minister’s newly-appointed top senior civil servant, Michael Sabia, is clear about this Canadian-style shock doctrine: “windows of opportunity open and close,” he wrote in a letter to civil servants on Monday. Sabia would be one to know: once upon a time he helped none other than Brian Mulroney privatize a rash of Crown corporations. Carney has even openly signalled he’s preparing to purge any civil servants who don’t get in line (with “high-level talk of recruiting other business achievers” to replace them).

We need to drop the Carney denialism in a hurry, and get angry instead. The prime minister, a consummate technocrat who knows how to cater to elite interests, is taking Canadians for a ride, while servicing his natural constituency: bankers, tech broligarchs, oil barons, and arms manufacturers. It’s time we open our eyes, clue in to what’s happening, follow the money—and put up a fight.

Second, previous reports have identified a general laissez-faire approach within the CAF regarding far-right activities. In a 2022 independent report commissioned by the CAF, the presence of white supremacist and other far-right ideologies was identified not only as a growing problem for the Army, but also one that was not being addressed.

Similar conclusions were reached in the 1997 report on the behaviour of Canadian soldiers in Somalia, which had explicitly recommended that “the Canadian Forces establish regular liaison with anti-racist groups to obtain assistance in the conduct of appropriate cultural sensitivity training and to assist supervisors and commanders in identifying signs of racism and involvement with hate groups.” In other words, neither the concern nor the awareness is news.

It’s absurd to simply paint such organizations as inherently far right in their nature, of course. But strict authority structures and notions of defence, fellowship, honour — as well as the projection of power through physical strength and training and the accompanying symbolism of weapons, fatigues, uniforms and campaign-like deployments — are all very appealing to far-right extremists.

Just for the lol:

professionally trained lone wolves, like Correy Hurren, who attempted to “arrest” Prime minister Justin Trudeau at Rideau Hall in 2020

In short, the CAF is still wrestling with far-right demons, though in a new context of social media acceleration and global loss of confidence in democratic institutions. The situation has a high potential to undermine confidence in Canada’s Armed Forces at a time when geopolitical tensions are calling for a strengthening of its military arsenal, and first and foremost, our military human capital.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nh-green-card-holder-denied-reentry-canada-trump-rcna218345

Canada is being pressured by the failed US administration to discard its zero emissions mandate in order to avoid punishing tariffs.

Under Mark Carney's Liberal government, the CMHC has quietly redefined 'housing affordability' to no longer mean 30% of income, but "perhaps 40-45% ... [and] over 50% of income by 2035".

👉 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/danielle-smith-adolf-hitler-netflix-rachel-notley-1.6836160

Many people in rural Alberta listen to her. They genuinely like her and trust her. She knows that.

This is how you end up with a major disease epidemic.

You really ought to be ashamed of yourself.

There was so much hate on Tesla for this saying it was all fraud, while Tesla was adamant it was just backlogged paper work.

Hopefully those who prejudged and were harsh to the company online about this incident, can come to see that not everything you read online is true, and that maybe, just maybe, you should actually wait for the final results before condemning a company for something like this, and stating it as fact.

They believe they have a God given right to break the speed limit