It concerns me that we don’t have any formal mutual defence clauses outside of NATO. I would certainly like France, UK, Denmark, and Norway to defend Canada, but as it stands, there is no “must.”

One of the reasons I’d love to see Canada as a full EU member is that the EU has its own mutual defence clause, which would protect Canada in the event of a US invasion and collapse of NATO support.

Would’ve loved if the article specified what research centres were closed, what exactly they were doing, and how much they cost.

I was very upset when the feds closed the Weather Radar Research Group, but these “seven research facilities” don’t have any of those specifics.

For example, it makes a big difference if the government cut a vertical farm research centre that cost $500k/year, or if it was an experimental cattle farm and cost $5 million/year. The latter, I would agree with closing.

The NDP in Manitoba are a lot less socialist than the federal NDP, Kinew’s flagship policy has been removing the provincial gas tax. His other big ones have been removing the sales tax on snack foods, a homeowner’s tax credit, small healthcare funding expansions, a subtle tax hike on the wealthy, and a new housing campaign to reduce homelessness.

I’ve appreciated the small expansions to healthcare, housing, and taxes on the wealthy, but otherwise I’ve been personally disappointed. Frankly I think the NDP are doing so well in Manitoba because they are much more conservative than in other places, and it’s what a lot of Manitoban voters want. Most people I talk to are voting for the NDP specifically because of the gax tax holiday, not any progressive value.

Hanover I assume? Definitely a warning for the rest of the province, lots of teachers have been talking about that.

For mayor I’m considering between Noah Redden, Chris Clacio, Johnny Calderon, and begrudgingly Scott Gillingham.

Would love to hear who people on Lemmy like for mayor!

School trustees have a substantial amount of power through the school board. Collectively, trustees control everything from budgets to curriculum tweaks, as well as having power over the superintendent, including firing them.

Hanover school division has had trustees flexing their power recently to attack LGBT+ students, for example.

That being said, I only have 3 trustees running in my ward (3 are elected, they are all incumbents), none of them have platforms, and none of them will respond to emails. So I’m not voting for any of my trustees, not because of a lack of importance, but because I have no reasonable candidates.

And a lot of the extra money has come from freezing tax brackets (rather than rising with inflation), and clawing back the basic personal amount from high earners.

That is, effectively tax hikes on the wealthy, but subtle enough that nobody got upset.

Props to him and his team on the budget!

In addition to the wars driving up fossil fuel prices, as the article points out, the US’s tariffs are also focused most strongly on auto parts and materials. That is, effectively a car tax.

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I’m not an authority by any means, but checking the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s “94 Calls to Action” might be a good place to start.

I’m a teacher, so I have a lot I can personally do in this regard, but other professions might be different.

I suspect all it takes is a small handful of power hungry individuals.

Appreciate it!

The call to action for their product, “protect your identity now,” makes me extremely suspicious of the entire thing.

Just because they operate out of China, that doesn’t make them anti-capitalist. Frankly, despite its name, China has a capitalist economy, just with much stronger authoritarianism than most.

I can’t understand why anybody uses these products.

Okay, I can, it’s marketing and ease of access. I guess it just annoys me that people don’t care.

You can find stats showing that support for the Conservatives falls in Canada as education rises. So depending on region and definition, it’s not just you.

That being said, that doesn’t mean there are zero. Jordan Peterson as a famous example.

To be fair, one of the big trade issues the US is mad about in the auto industry is Canada allowing Chinese EVs into their market. I feel like Canada is fighting for EVs (less so now with Carney), we just have a giant thorn stabbing us in the side.

What are we supposed to do, not defend ourselves? China isn’t making annexation threats against Canada. They’re terrible on human rights records, but they’re less overtly dangerous to Canada than the U.S. is with sharing a border. I can’t see any future where China tries to annex Canada.

Thanks! That makes sense, I did some research and was guessing the same thing.