Ford has previously warned that a 25 per cent tariff on most Canadian goods at the Canada-U.S. border could result in the loss of 500,000 jobs in Ontario.

so, what happens if you shut down nickel and electricity exports? you just make it worse; you just create more job losses. you reduce revenue streams coming from taxes. you create a negative multiplier that is recessionary, especially in northern ontario. this could devastate northern cities; this is retarded.

the americans are shooting themselves in the foot and, in response, we're shooting ourselves in the groin. that'll show 'em, right?

but, if you keep the industries running and hike the price via export taxes, you save those jobs and create a revenue stream to help the workers in the industries that do get shut down by the tariffs.

ugh.

retards. everywhere. you have to be a retard to want to run for office because you have to be a retard to actually want to make decisions for others and control others and implement power over others. what do we do?

the greeks used to pick their leaders in the assembly, and force them to serve against their will, not let them volunteer to run, as they knew that allowing politicians to volunteer self-selects for retards that want power and dominance and control.

no. when i call you retarded, that doesn't mean i think you should be forcibly sterilized. it just means i think you're a fucking moron and should be called out publicly for your worthless, abject fucking stupidity, and i think that calling people out for being complete idiots is necessary and required and positive.

i ultimately don't like people telling me what words i'm allowed to use. i'll decide how i want to speak, not you, and you can go fuck yourself if you don't like it. i have no remote concerns about your feelings; i'm strictly concerned with my rights to free expression, and if you want to restrict my right to expression in any way, you are my enemy and must be smitten and destroyed.

until relatively recently, i would generally avoid calling somebody a retard because it was unnecessarily rude and tended to reduce the quality of the discourse. it was just unnecessary to resort to specious ad hominems; i could insult your position, instead of insulting you directly. it was more effective to merely imply you were a retard, and not helpful to actually point it out. it made me sound brash and uncouth. i have a better vocabulary than that. really. however, when these retards on the fake left (they're actually the far right. the left doesn't restrict speech, only the far right restricts speech) started trying to tell me i couldn't use the word, i felt it necessary to start using it just to assert the fact that i can and i won't be told otherwise.

what this is about is rebelling against an authoritarian culture trying to tell people what they can and can't say and how they can and can't think. people of all ages and all political alignments don't like that and are likely to spit in the faces of people trying to control them through policing their language, and kick them down the stairs and tell them to fuck off.

it is actually one of the basic principles of ideological liberalism to reject authoritarian control structures trying to police language or create categories of thought crimes. i consider my insistence on the right to call you a retard to be a left-wing position and those institutions trying to shut me down to be on the far right.

it does not align me with any of these groups at all, and i'd like to see more socialists be more vocal about this. the politics of restricting free expression is a losing political position, and these guys (they are 95% men) have co-opted a foundational principle of the left that the left needs to aggressively and assertively take back from them. this is our policy and you can't have it; fuck off.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/03/r-word-right-wing-rise

carney wants to cancel the carbon rebate and replace it with a tax cut for the rich, which he calls the "middle class", which would be a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich.

well, he's a banker in the neo-liberal era.

what else would you expect?

chrystia freeland's plan to "outwit trump" is to copy doge and mimic elon musk in order to dramatically reduce the size of the public service. this will save canadians money. supposedly. 

ok.

delete. delete. cancel. x. burn. burn. burn.

shipping oil to the eastern seaboard is not forward thinking. the carbon era is ending, trump will be gone in a few years, and it's generating a gigantic ecological threat for minimal economic gain over a short time frame. they should just leave the system in place and implement massive export taxes. the governor of michigan is trying to shut down the existing eastward movement of fossil fuels, and i fully support her in doing that.

this idea that transporting oil by pipe is safer than by boat or train (or plane) is missing the point. activists opposing pipelines are trying to stop the movement of oil altogether; we want to keep it in the ground.

canada still has massive undeveloped hydroelectric potential. i understand that some environmentalists oppose developing hydroelectric dams because they're conservationists (right-wing environmentalists, conservatives) that want to keep nature untouched. i support sustainable development that uses the science of ecology to develop a holistic relationship with the environment that allows for the continuation of development and industry in a way that doesn't generate a negative impact. we can reroute rivers in a way that is safe and doesn't harm the species that live in them. we should be focusing less on mining and moving dirty oil for the old economy and more on generating clean electricity for the new economy.

i don't want to own a vehicle, i want access to an efficiently run publicly owned electrified transportation system that connects the entire windsor-quebec corridor as a giant megalopolis.

an export tax on oil is also a carbon tax, remember. it's worth supporting strictly on that ground alone.

no. this is stupid.

instead, create a massive export tax, collect it on sales and redistribute the wealth from american businesses to ontarian workers.

https://www.ctvnews.ca/toronto/article/doug-ford-threatens-to-stop-nickel-shipments-to-us-on-eve-of-trade-war/

industries will also find ways to adjust to the tariffs. 

have you noticed that the price of coffee has doubled in the last few years? there are apparently climate issues with the production of coffee, but the increase in cost is due to the tariff taxes on the cost of aluminum. the tariffs increased the cost of producing the tins, and the costs got passed on.

in response, walmart has started selling it's coffee in cardboard containers instead, and they are selling their house brand at 50% the cost of the cheaper coffee (maxwell house) and a third to a quarter the price of the premium brand. they are going to completely undercut and rive maxwell house out of business unless they adjust, and i'd expect they will. these cardboard containers are made from recycled cardboard and are more sustainable as well.

coffee is an essential good for many people, including myself. coffee is food. i'd like to start growing it here indoors in a a circular, sustainable manner. removing the large amount of aluminum in the manufacturing process is actually a good thing, long term. 

i fully support the carbon rebate, will be dramatically harmed if it is taken away and am extremely disappointed that the liberals are promising to take the rebate away.

the right move for canada to make next is to slap large export taxes - 100%-200% - on items that the united states gets from us and can't find another source for, such as oil, uranium, potash, aluminum, nickel, gold, canola and electricity.

it is stupid to threaten to cut off the electricity like ford is doing.

he should jack up the price, instead.

then, you take that money generated by the export taxes and use it to help the workers harmed by the tariffs.

i'm still watching the liberal debate.

now is not the time to balance the budget, but three out of four candidates are insisting on doing it. let's remember back to 2015. the ndp were the opposition, and mulcair was running way ahead of trudeau, but then he promised to balance the budget, and trudeau promised to run deficits. trudeau ending up leapfrogging mulcair and winning a majority.

it's not the 90s anymore, but it's not as though chretien ran on balancing the budget. in fact, he faced major pushback for it. balancing the budget was what a very large number of people voted against in 1993. he ran on cutting the gst.

i'm consequently not entirely sure what these people are thinking.

canada is going to need to run large deficits to mitigate the effects of these tariffs. i don't want to hear about balancing the budget, i want to hear about the government absorbing the costs.

none of the candidates are impressing me but three of them are right of centre, and it leaves the remaining candidate - karina gould - as the only option, by default, although she seems to be rather flawed, as well. i'd rather put carney in a technical or finance role than make him prime minister; he doesn't strike me as a good candidate for that role.

the canadian liberals do this every few years, they swing to the fiscal right and run these technocratic candidates, and they can never generate popular support because it's not what people want. the banker is going to become leader, but he won't last long.

the idea that canada can mitigate it's problem with the americans by retreating back to the british empire is delusional. the british need to maintain lapdog status with the americans and will not stand up for us. further, the americans are militarizing the pacific to try to contain china, and will need to aggressively position forces in australia. 

the only way that we're going to escape washington is to conquer it, and if you follow the narrative, that's actually what the americans are worried about. they're afraid of us. that's the point.

we need to find some way to work with the americans, and politicians suggesting otherwise should be seen as insane. it's geography. it's unavoidable.

everybody needs to calm down. trump is a lame duck president, and an anomaly on canada. he's not overseeing a shift in policy, he's a loose cannon. we should avoid reacting rashly, as this won't last, and we don't want to create more damage than is necessary, when we seek to undo this with the next president. 

so, hamas should release the hostages if it wants to receive aid. why is anybody sending these thugs anything in the first place? cutting off aid until they release the people they're holding hostage is entirely reasonable.

zelensky says he's not playing cards, but he doesn't understand.

trump has stopped playing monopoly and has started playing risk. he has the cards. zelensky doesn't.

but trump will make him a deal for some better cards.

 

based on the results of the ontario election, it would appear unlikely that chrystia freeland is going to win her own riding, let alone win an election for prime minister.

that would be the correct outcome. she should not be rewarded for the stunt she pulled.