The town of Barrhead has a population of 4320 people. Only ~~10%~~ (correction, 16%) of the town petitioned for this as-yet-unpassed bylaw. Those individuals don't even represent the town of Barrhead, much less the entire province.

I don't mean this personally - I'm surprised that someone who is as vocal about proportional representation as you are would be insensitive to the demographic facts of this matter.

If were going to have a public health system, people should be required to take care of themselves

On the face of it, this sounds sensible. But, thinking more deeply, who should decide the required amount of care a person ought to take? Ideas about what it means to 'take care of yourself' are varied. And consider that some citizens of this country are simply unable to take the same personal health decisions that others have the privilege to take without a second thought.

What you're talking about here isn't a public system. A healthcare system that only serves certain chosen people is not public in any meaningful sense.

A public healthcare system is imperfect on the whole, but on average, when funded and administered properly, is structured to apportion care based on need, instead of the profit motive. I think that's worthwhile, and the right thing for a society to do from a moral standpoint.

Poilievre is making a string of very strange political gambles. Doing the rhyming nickname thing, trying to look like a cool badass, going on a string of unusual, foolish-looking, public attacks against rivals.

If the Conservatives don't do as well as expected in the federal election, I wonder what's next for them, from a leadership, attitude, and policy standpoint.

This will be Gen Z's first real federal election to participate in. I'm very interested to see their impact. Convention is to assume that the young won't vote, but, life and livelihood for the youth in Canada has never been worse, at least in my lifetime.

It seems unlikely to me that their public statements about their situation are a full and accurate reflection of their feelings. I mean, what else are they going to say? "Fuck Boeing, fuck this failed mission, we're pilots with families and it's less than ideal that we'll be stranded up here for 8 months doing busywork while our bone density gets nuked"?

If my employer sent me to a remote island without any of my personal effects, on a vehicle that couldn't safely return me home, I'd look at any list of tasks they sent me with some measure of bitterness. Even if it was my favourite remote island. Being trapped there would change the colour of things. Working is probably the only thing they can do to keep from going insane.

Current composition of the House of Commons

• Liberal (156 seats)
• NDP (24)
• Conservative (118)
• Bloc Québécois (32)
• Green (2)
• Independent (3)
• Vacant (3)

Only 4 of those parties have official party status, and the structure of the NDP/Liberal supply and confidence agreement arguably makes them the same party.

So, boiled down, there are 3 parties that are relevant, and only 2 that are relevant to the nation as a whole.

One of the first things Trudeau did as Prime Minister was break the top-line platform promise that got him elected - he promised Canadians that the 2015 federal election would be the last one under the first past the post system. So I'd say from the standpoint of democracy, he had an absolutely horrible start.

Of course he went on to reap the benefits of the imbalanced first past the post system for two subsequent federal elections, one of which he called unnecessarily during the pandemic in order to consolidate power for his party.

I think him and his party have been vaporware since day one.

The House partisan gamesmanship needs to be ignored if we're going to be serious about national security and sovereignty. Canadians deserve to know if their member of Parliament wittingly aided a foreign interference operation. We need to know right now. The notion that an election could occur while undisclosed traitors are on the ballot? This would be catastrophic.

There are absolutely no excuses for the current government's horrific file on foreign interference:

• Not already having a foreign agent registry in place
• Not acting on the NSICOP report immediately
• Attempting to discredit the NSICOP report
• Voting against transparency and accountability on this issue at every opportunity
• Threatening a sequel to the 'Special Rapporteur' circus by suggesting that an 'internal review' will somehow be satisfactory
• Failing to say something even as simple as 'Members compromised by a foreign power should be removed from Parliament'.

There's no good reason for any of it, and their inaction is an open invitation to China, India, and others for further interference.

It's impossible to agree with Minister LeBlanc. Canadians cannot have confidence that police can investigate and lay charges when warranted. The NSICOP report details how our system is configured in such a way as to make that difficult or impossible.

This is not news to be calm about. A bipartisan intelligence committee has released a report that details exact and specific instances of MPs working wittingly to assist foreign state actors in meddling with the Canadian government. Freeland did not commit to expelling MPs who acted in this manner. This is a crisis.

This is insanity. Any MP who is proven to have aided a foreign actor in interference operations needs to be removed from Parliament immediately, and prosecuted.

This is an encouraging step, and it's nice to see the heat being turned up on the grocery monopoly.

I think we need cost controls and compulsory transparency about pricing. What stick exactly are the grocery companies wielding to prevent measures like that from being rolled out? A federal government with vision and principles would have had a plan and gotten this done yesterday. Instead, we're waiting for the assent of megacorps to a non-binding code of conduct, which everybody knows is total vaporware.

I can see why people are disaffected by all the hand waving about 'competition'. Increased competition is probably part of the solution to the problem here. But it's not a valid starting point. It's a result of wise policy and good implementation.

Median wage of $45k per year is wild. Tough to live comfortably on that in most cities in this country.

Talking points printed for comrades at the Russian troll farm