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21·2 months agoThank you so much. This means a lot to me.
I come from a third world country with tremendous inequality. I was born in the most privileged classes.
In my country, poor people who don’t pay a lot of money die like DOGS in hospitals. Private hospitals don’t hesitate to overcharge sick people as much as they can. If you are not happy, if you protest, they just let you die. We have mostly free elections. But they are useless. Because most of the time, useless and ignorant politicians get elected. Very few people read investigative journalism. In fact, our newspapers are mostly dead. I’m one of the very few people trying to financially support quality journalism in my country.
I used to think our problems were specific. We are dumb. We are fools.
Our problems are actually surprisingly common. I lived in many nations around the world. I noticed that in some countries, some cities, politicians can achieve absolutely amazing things in public health, labor rights, housing. They can really take great decisions. And I noticed that in some rich countries, like the United States, incredibly dumb and corrupt politicians can get massive popular support. And ordinary people always pay the price:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/02/10/inhaler-cost-death-optum-rx-walgreens/
My conclusion was simple. At the end of the day, everything stems from the people. In corrupt places, like my country, people don’t pay attention to politics. They don’t educate themselves about policies. They don’t read quality newspapers. Few people get involved in the local community. As a result, they can be easily lied to by oligarchs.
In democracies that work great, like Denmark, you have ordinary people that educate themselves and actively get involved in their local community. They support strong independent newspapers. They join community organizations pushing for change. They pay close attention to their MPs and their votes.
If my comment helps people pay closer attention to politics, then I would have achieved my goal.
Understanding the politics.
After the last 2021 election, Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party didn’t have enough seats in Parliament.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Canadian_federal_election#Results
Jagmeet Singh (NDP) asked Justin Trudeau for 3 laws:
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A law creating Dental Care
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A law creating Pharma Care
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A law protecting striking workers against scabs.
In exchange for these 3 laws, the NDP signed an agreement where they promised to not bring-down the minority Liberal Government.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60837941
The 3 laws were voted by Parliament.
Liberals agree to launch dental care program in exchange for NDP support
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeu-jagmeet-singh-deal-government-1.6393021
Liberal, NDP bill to cover diabetes and birth control medication receives royal assent
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/pharmacare-bill-passes-senate-1.7349433
Liberals table bill to ban replacement workers, fulfilling a key NDP demand
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/anti-scab-labour-federally-regulated-workplaces-1.7023020
The agreement between Justin Trudeau and the NDP ended prematurely in 2024. Singh noticed that Trudeau was becoming politically toxic. But Dental Care was adopted. Pharmacare was adopted. That’s what’s important.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/jagmeet-singh-ndp-ending-agreement-1.7312910
This is why I love multiparty politics. It forces governments to be more responsive.
Countries with proportional representation often end up with better governments than country with 2-party politics. My dream is for Canada to change the first-past-the-post voting system. The First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) voting system is the reason why some countries only have 2 powerful political parties.
I have my fair share of criticism with Jagmeet Singh. But I’m very happy about what the NDP parliament members achieved. Politics can be very ungrateful and brutal.
In this election, the NDP was crushed.
To quote this recent article:
A bitterness is emerging from the results of that agreement which the NDP undertook to get solid benefits for Canadians The NDP were propping up Trudeau’s minority government as the tradeoff for getting those results for Canadians. But for the most part that commitment and effort is falling short of recognition and did not produce electoral results for the NDP in the April 28, 2025 election.
https://islandsocialtrends.ca/ndp-made-canadas-dental-plan-possible-now-carney-promotes-it/
https://islandsocialtrends.ca/ndp-made-canadas-dental-plan-possible-now-carney-promotes-it/(Alistair MacGregor is an NDP MP who just lost his seat)
Most Canadian voters may not be aware of it - sadly - but you guys made Canada a better nation.
Thank you so much.
Why are you saying all this?
Results are important. But it’s also very important people understand how we got there.
So. What now ?
Children under the age of 18 are now covered by the recently created Canadian Dental Care plan.
This month, the Dental Care Plan is expanding again.
Citizens earning less than $70,000 are eligible for coverage:
The Canadian Labor Unions have called Mark Carney to expand Pharmacare immediately:
https://canadianlabour.ca/canadas-unions-call-for-immediate-expansion-of-universal-pharmacare/
I urge people to resist any propaganda from insurance companies like Sun Life. For these corporations, this is a direct threat to their business :
https://www.sunlife.ca/sl/cdcp/en/
The Canadian Insurance Companies publically called Canadian lawmakers to NOT vote Pharmacare :
They did it anyway.
The campaign finance system isn’t as corrupt as the US (thank god), but they still have allies and friends. They can pay youtube influencers to lie. They can buy ads in newspapers. They can pay shady “think-tanks” that don’t disclose their source of funding. So be on your guard. If you can afford it, please support quality journalism. We need it more than ever.
The hard thing is going to be managing DentalCare and Pharmacare properly. It will require honest and determined leadership. It will also require funding. Hopefully, the Carney government will keep rolling them out.
Mark Carney tried to politically capitalize on them during the election. This means they will hopefully be safe.
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271·2 months agoTo do list for Mark Carney:
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Encourage all Government Agencies to switch to Linux. It’s completely ridiculous that hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money are wasted every year on Microsoft licenses. The French Gendarmerie switched to Linux and they never went back to Windows. They saved millions. Money that they can spend on actually doing their job.
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Create a Canadian fund to encourage Open Source Software. A $10 million fund over 5 years would not be much money, but it could help open source software developers. A small $100 000 grant could really help Gimp, Kdenlive and Krita fight Adobe. Too many Canadian artists and Canadian production companies are exploited by Adobe.
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Ban foreigners from owning more than 40% of any Canadian media outlet. It’s absolutely sickening that an american hedge fund (Chatham Asset Management) currently owns 20 different canadian newspapers.
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Reduce the immigration rate. Justin Trudeau did a lot of good things, but immigration was one of two biggest failures. Under his leadership, the population increased by 3% a year. The Canadian population increase twice as fast as the population of Mexico, Brazil, Spain, the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia. This is too extreme. Canada should aim for 2% population growth instead of 3%. Also, don’t concentrate people in a single place. It’s wrong to have a 4% population growth in Toronto and 0.5% elsewhere.
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Improve the voting system. This was the second failure of Justin Trudeau. The First-Past-The-Post voting system is just flawed. It is basically designed to create two very powerful political parties, at the expense of pluralism. FPTP is the reason why the US is stuck with only two parties.
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I’m not Australian and I don’t know much about Australian politics.
However, I know that Australian people drive some of the biggest cars in the world. Car companies just manufacture huge SUVs and sell them to the Australian, thinking “these dumb fucks will buy them”.
That’s not good for the climate. That’s bad for the roads. That’s not even good for Australians themselves, because it’s very unsafe for pedestrians. I heard that Albanese encouraged mandatory rules for better fuel efficiency. Which is a good idea. I just don’t understand why the other bald guy says they are bad.
In the 1990s and 2000s, the US Auto Industry successfully fought against every attempt to impose fuel efficiency rules. After US Auto manufacturers went bankrupt in 2008, President Obama bailed them out and forced them to save some fuel. Because outside North American, no one wanted to buy american cars anymore.
During his first mandate, Trump rolled back all those Obama fuel-efficiency rules:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/us/politics/trump-obama-fuel-economy-standards.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/13/climate/cafe-emissions-rollback-oil-industry.html
Lack of strong fuel efficiency rules is the main reason why American cars are so heavy and consume so much oil compared to European cars. The bald candidate is wrong to say fuel efficiency rules are bad.
151·2 months agoHow are Boeing planes?
After multiple plane crashes and 700 deaths, the CEO was rewarded with $33 million dollars:
If you crash several planes in China, you face death penalty.
Recently, a factory exploded in Tianjin. At least 20 people were hanged. The owner of the factory, the director of the factory, the managers of the factory, the city safety inspectors. That’s the Chinese quality insurance system. This is how they keep businessmen in check.
Some of his ideas, like defunding CBC, are foolish.
I don’t think Pierre Poilievre is a Nazi. Statements like that are unhelpful.
Fair enough.
I think hardware companies should make money selling devices. They should be banned from jailing their users in a locked proprietary ecosystem.
The Xbox doesn’t have the majority of the gaming market.
The smartphone market is basically a duopoly.
Imagine if Microsoft banned Windows users from downloading software outside the Microsoft store.
Imagine if Microsoft required all Software developers to give them 30% of their income or be banned from Windows
This is nothing but pure extortion.
Thank god for the EU, which forced Apple to back down:
Fortnite, one of the world’s biggest video games, is available as an iPhone app for the first time in four years. However, it will only be available to players in the European Union. This is because EU law requires Apple to allow third-party app stores on its devices - other parts of the world do not have comparable legislation. The game was removed from the App Store in 2020 following a payments row between Apple and Epic.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70j5rx72yvo
As for canadians/americans, they are in jail.
Imagine your friend in Europe sends you a phone invite to play .
-“Oh. I’m sorry but I am not allowed to do that 😢”
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Installing Linux was a good decision.
I have not gone back to Microsoft Windows.
Don’t listen to people telling you it’s hard. I don’t have any IT degree or engineering degree
Installing it was easy. Linux is elegant, secure and powerful. I love it.
China is a dictatorship country with many flaws.
But for too long, Canadians have ignored the vicious American Gorilla standing up at their door.
The Canadian Housing crisis has two sources.
1. Extreme population growth
In 2024, the Canadian population increased by 3%.
This population growth rate means the population of Canada is growing 2 to 3 times faster than the United States, Britain, France, Spain, Colombia, Turkey, Vietnam, Thailand, Saudi Arabia, Mexico or Brazil. In fact, Canada is now growing faster than many countries in Africa.
2. Terrible city zoning rules.
Several Canadian cities have rules banning multi-storey housing from being built. Multi-storey housing is significantly more affordable than individual homes. But cities ban it. They simply don’t want it. When they do accept multi-storey housing, most Canadian cities often require developers to build parking spots. “You want to build a condo tower without parking spots ? Sorry, we can not accept that”. By forcing developers to build parking spots for each condo unit, they artificially drive up the cost of each unit. They basically force condo buyers to subsidize car ownership. It’s insane.
The Federal Government needs to reduce the immigration rate. Look, Justin Trudeau did a lot of good things, but his immigration policy was one of his biggest failures. The current immigration rate is simply unsustainable. Canada needs to aim for 1.5% population growth instead of 3%.
But cities shouldn’t be left of the hook. They are responsible for half the problem.
I mean, just look at the zoning fight happening at the Ottawa City Council :
104·2 months agoTo be clear. This is a government agency endorsing the software as safe and effective. So bureaucrats and employees can’t be reprimanded if they use them.
This isn’t the French Prime Minister announcing the country will cancel Microsoft Office subscriptions and build a fund to support FOSS projects. GIMP has nowhere near the ressources they actually need.
To be clear. This is a government agency endorsing the software as safe and effective. So bureaucrats and employees can’t be reprimanded they use them.
This isn’t the French Prime Minister announcing the country will cancel Microsoft Office subscriptions and build a fund to support FOSS projects. Gimp has nowhere near the ressources they actually need.
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If you want to see what ideology can do to a nation’s elite, look at the United Kingdom today.
London isn’t a global financial center because the British have special genes for money. London is a global finance center because the United Kingdom was the most powerful global empire that the world had ever seen.
Throughout history, the powerful nations scream “FREE TRADE, OPEN YOUR MARKETS. NOW !!!” because they are confident. They know that their big corporations can be unleashed on the small countries. At the peak of its power, the UK was the most free trade country in the world. In London, the UK elite were 100% confident their corporations could dominate the world. The Chinese try to resist? They don’t want to accept our corporations ? We will make them open their market, whether they like or not.
For a long period, the US was actually a protectionist country.
Why did the entire US elite became a cheerleader of globalization after World War 2 ? Extreme confidence. They know that globalization means Coca-Cola, Starbucks Coffee, Amazon, Adobe, Boeing, Microsoft and Apple can be unleashed on the planet.
From Tokyo to Mumbai, from Montreal to Rio de Janeiro, from Mecca to Sydney. They want to see McDonalds and Starbucks everywhere. They want Amazon everywhere. They want Adobe Software and Microsoft Windows everywhere. They want to see Apple phones everywhere.
In recent years, the Chinese started to build sophisticated large corporations capable of threatening US dominance in fields like Pharma, Satellites, Chips, Robotics, Technology, Planes.
That’s when the US elite really started to worry. Under the Biden administration, the americans tried to throw money at Intel and Boeing. They created a powerful wall to protect car corporations against BYD. Trump is just a symptom of the american panic, but he is crude and ignorant.
The British are no longer an empire. They are increasingly a small little country like many others. And like all small countries, they are fucked by corporate empires like Starbucks Coffee or Amazon
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-19967397
https://www.channel4.com/news/amazons-tax-bill-and-government-grants-revealed
Make absolutely no mistake. Going to Amazon is worse for the economy than going to a British-owned book store. Going to Starbucks is worse for the economy than going to a British-citizen owned coffee. Anyone telling you otherwise is taking you for a fool. In one case the money is leaving Britain and increasing the foreign deficit. In another case, the money is taxed and stays in Britain.
The London elites, still believe they run the British empire. They openly scream “We LOVE globalization, we LOVE free trade”. These fools went as far as selling their critical water infrastructure to foreign investors and bragging about it (“Britain is open for business”).
Now, Trump openly declared a trade war on them. The British Chancellor reacts by saying calls for buying British products are bad because it’s against free trade.
That’s what happens when you completely swallow your own bullshit.
American influence is the worst thing that ever happened to Canada.
Take for instance Opioids.
Canadians are now the second highest per capita users of opioids on the planet, only behind the USA.
Opioid sales in Canada have increased by +3000% since the 1980s.
https://www.mironline.ca/the-opioid-crisis-a-canadian-perspective/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31845436/
According to a recent study, Canadian and American doctors are 7 times more likely than European doctors to prescribe Opioids after a surgery:
How did it happen? English-Canada doctors go to conferences with their american colleagues. They liked them. They socialized. They trusted them.
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“Wow, we are so similar haha”!
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“It was nice attending this conference with you. See you next year !!”
Health Canada is also responsible for this disaster.
A number of studies have pointed out Health Canada’s failures to control the promotion of opioids in Canada, allowing Purdue to spread misinformation about OxyContin in particular and opioids in general
Based on little evidence, in 1996 Health Canada approved the drug for the management of moderate pain, ignored the risk of addiction, and allowed the statement in the product monograph that the risk of misuse is low. In addition, the product monograph provided no recommended maximum dose, allowing the drug to be marketed and prescribed with no upper dose limit.
It also took Health Canada more than ten years to revise misleading claims that appeared in the OxyContin product monograph
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10310031/
Again. Health Canada largely trusts the US FDA. They attend the same conferences every single year. They socialize. If the americans say something is safe, the Health Canada officials largely trust them.
The Opioid Mess is exactly what happens when you trust the most institutionally corrupt nation in the West because they sound friendly and speak English. Thank god Quebec doctors kept reading french newspapers and listening to french regulators. They largely avoided this Opioid plague.
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A vial of insulin costs far more in the U.S. than it does in Canada.
Drug prices are set by Canada’s Patented Medicine Prices Review Board which sets price caps by comparing drug prices across a group of 11 countries. The U.S. used to be included in the formula, but was removed from the group in 2022 — because U.S. drug prices are an insane global outlier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patented_Medicine_Prices_Review_Board
A group of Pharma companies including Pfizer and Merck have asked the Trump administration to put pressure on Canada. They are accusing the country of unfair trade practices.
Petroleum producers and refiners pocketed after-tax profit of $192 billion over the last four years alone. That is four times more than in the entire 2010s.
https://centreforfuturework.ca/2025/05/30/albertans-economic-hardship-reflects-provincial-policy-choices-not-attacks-by-the-rest-of-canada/
Under the Trudeau Government, oil production reached the highest level in Canadian history
https://www.statcan.gc.ca/o1/en/plus/7940-another-record-year-canadian-crude-oil-crude-oil-year-review-2024
In fact, Justin Trudeau opened a brand new pipeline:
https://www.statcan.gc.ca/o1/en/plus/7940-another-record-year-canadian-crude-oil-crude-oil-year-review-2024
Are some Albertans not aware of this? !!!