❄️ 🏍️ 🚁

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— Rodger Sherman (@rodger.bsky.social) May 18, 2026 at 8:18 PM

Now, on to the Hurricanes. 

From MP Peter Schiefke:

@globalnews.ca

Liberal MP turns to poetry to poke at Pierre Poilievre in House of Commons

♬ original sound – Globalnews.ca

He keeps showing up with awful people:

This is all #propaganda and #foreign #interference in our politics by #American #MAGA. And what #Canadians are #supporting these #farright #Trump #MAGATS #Poilievre #Smith

open.substack.com/pub/charliea…

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— Nandana (@nandanainthegarden.bsky.social) May 7, 2026 at 9:22 PM

So many people and institutions are out to make Pierre Poilievre fail, I expect there’s a searchlight shining over Ottawa tonight, with a truck instead of a bat symbol in it, calling for support.

Pierre, please, we all know you won’t change, you can’t change. #CdnPoli 🇨🇦

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— Doug Johnson 🇨🇦 (@smikooman.bsky.social) May 7, 2026 at 6:47 PM

The disgusting thing about Poilievre isn’t his stupidity, it’s his belief that everyone else is stupid.

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— Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦 (@emmettmacfarlane.com) May 3, 2026 at 11:28 AM

Poilievre: “Some people accuse me of being a fighter…”

And the crowd goes mild.

His numbers are dropping, even inside his own party, yet his strategy is still:
blame Trudeau, rage endlessly, and vote against grocery transparency while pretending to fight grocery prices.

Photo credit: CBC

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— Save the CBC 🇨🇦✌️ (@savethecbc.bsky.social) May 7, 2026 at 5:49 PM

Trump militant Mike Pompeo is getting the red carpet treatment from Canada’s right wing. Along with Pete Hoekstra. They will be joined by Poilievre and Danielle Smith at a conference in Ottawa.
We need to pay attention to the MAGA attempt to undermine our country.
youtu.be/7Ghl-XJBvvk?…

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— Charlie Angus (@charlieangus104.bsky.social) May 7, 2026 at 6:28 AM

We see photo after photo too:

Pierre Poilievre, working hard to expand the Conservative Party base at the Canada Strong and Free Network conference in Ottawa. Conference vision: “It is time to step into the arena with courage, big ideas for the future and an unshakeable commitment to our principles.” #CdnPoli 🇨🇦

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— Doug Johnson 🇨🇦 (@smikooman.bsky.social) May 7, 2026 at 6:33 PM

Here’s some more news that we didn’t need:

The Trump administration has seized $120M USD owned by the Canadian pension fund earmarked for a wind development — and demanding the pension-backed company invest in fossil fuels instead.

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— Canada’s National Observer (@nationalobserver.com) May 7, 2026 at 11:56 AM

Can’t wait to see how Poilievre tries to make this not really matter. 🤪

— BernardoVerda 🤔 (@bernardoverda.bsky.social) May 7, 2026 at 4:54 PM

Responding to Wexit 

View on Threads

In a substack post in early April, Arlene Dickenson describes what Alberta means to her. I think it gives us all something to use when we are replying to Wexit talk:

… Alberta isn’t like the other provinces and I mean that as the highest compliment. I’ve had homes in four of our nation’s provinces and offices in six of them, so I think I can compare. All of our provinces and territories are beautiful and unique. But there’s a directness here, a refusal to apologize for ambition or effort and a faith in individual initiative that runs so deep it feels geological.

We sit on the energy that’s kept this country warm and moving for a century. Our agriculture feeds people around the globe who’ll never know who we are. Our entrepreneurs have built industries from open fields and stubborn optimism. Our small towns have produced doctors, engineers, teachers, and people who went out and served and contributed to the world beyond our borders. This isn’t a place that needs to be explained or justified. It’s a place that simply produces.

That heritage has given us something rare which is a legitimate claim to be taken seriously by the rest of Canada. But that claim is only as strong as the integrity with which we make it. And right now, I worry that we’re borrowing the wrong language from the wrong neighbours to make it. We’ve moved from feeling like victims of Ottawa to feeling a moral superiority over the rest of the country, as if we alone pay for everything Canada enjoys. Neither are right or who we are.

Something’s been seeping across the border that isn’t oil, grain or trade. It’s a particular kind of politics that’s loud, binary, contemptuous of nuance and it’s been settling into our public conversation like smoke into curtains. You can smell it, and it’s not pleasant.

The language of American grievance hasn’t ever belonged to us….
When I hear Albertans use the phrases, the tones, the entire emotional register of the partisan politics imported from the south, I feel something I can only describe as grief. Because it doesn’t fit and it’s not us. And more importantly, it doesn’t help us at all. The American experiment is struggling under the weight of that kind of politics right now. Why on earth would we import it?…

Tonight’s At Issue panel touched on the separatism issue as well. Andrew Coyne was particularly vivid.
 

Former Alberta premier Jason Kenney is not happy with the separatists.

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— FuzzyWuzzy in Toronto🇨🇦 (@fuzzywuzzyto.bsky.social) May 5, 2026 at 4:45 PM

Following up on Scrimshaw’s point yesterday, it may be true that the Alberta separatists have shot themselves in the foot, not just by stealing the voter data, but also taking such a cavalier attitude toward the private data of the Albertans they are trying to recruit to their cause.

View on Threads

View on Threads

In his Globe and Mail column, Andrew Coyne connects the dots: (gift link)

…The scandal – which long predates the present farce – is that we ever allowed the idea to take root that the fate of the entire country could be decided by the vote of half the population in one province – that a bunch of people could help themselves to the territory of Canada, merely by holding a vote on it. Or, even worse, could threaten to do so, not because that is what they sincerely desired, but as a means of blackmailing their fellow Canadians.

… because of this abject policy of national self-negation, this willingness to legitimize the illegitimate, to tolerate what is intolerable under the constitutions of virtually every other democratic country on Earth, we now face the prospect of secession referendums in not one but two provinces, Alberta and Quebec (for the third time!), more or less simultaneously.

…. to engage in all this self-destructive nonsense at the precise moment when the President of the United States is threatening to annex the country, backed by overtures to the separatists in at least one province as part of an explicit divide-and-conquer strategy – I don’t think scandal is even the word.

…China has told its companies to ignore US sanctions. The legal instrument it used to do so allows Chinese firms to sue anyone who complies with American law. Trump arrives in Beijing in seven days needing a successful summit. China is negotiating from a position of strength on Iran, on trade, and now on the sanctions architecture that underpins US foreign policy globally. The war that began February 28 has not only disrupted global energy markets — it has given America’s principal strategic rival the opportunity, the justification, and the legal framework to openly defy American economic power. That is the story underneath the story.

Trump is supposed to go to China in just seven days. Personally, I think he’s going to find an excuse to cancel his trip. Also because he doesn’t have the stamina anymore to make that long a trip.

To begin, here are some pretty unfortunate events.

First, Alberta separatists have just shown us all that their basic nature is deceit and underhandedness.

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View on Threads

The response from the Alberta Separatists was…well, unfortunate.
In an article in the National Observer, Jeremy Appel writes

…On Thursday, [Centurion Project founder David Parker] again insisted he had done nothing wrong.
“Look everyone! I found names and addresses in a nefarious document called a phone book! Call the cops,” he posted on Twitter.

Phone books, which were last distributed in Edmonton in 2010, didn’t contain voter information for “the entire population of Alberta,” [Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt] noted. People could also exempt themselves from being listed in them.

Bratt said Parker’s flippant attitude toward the election authorities is emblematic of the right-wing populist mentality that “you can’t believe anybody.”

“The only people you can trust are the ones who go to separatist rallies,” he explained.

In a Thursday afternoon statement to the CBC, the Centurion Project said that it has “shut down the app until we can ensure that the dataset is compliant with Alberta and federal privacy laws,” and intends to co-operate with Elections Alberta…

In The Line, Jen Gerson writes “I Tried To Warn Them”

I Fucking Love Australia writes:

….Picture the scene. Putin rings up. They have a chat. Trump emerges from the call, walks straight to a press scrum, and proceeds to describe Iran’s military destruction at length while insisting he’s talking about Ukraine. Jared is there. Jared just nods. Nobody in that room has the cognitive function or moral spine to lean over and say “Donald mate, that’s the wrong war.”

Ukraine is the one who has cards
Russia’s about out and Trump can’t save them
much as he will try
Trump no longer has the cards to threaten Ukraine
Republicans stopped weapons, Europe stepped up, and Ukraine built their own

Putin and Netanyahu will both be replaced soon
Trump should follow

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— JustmeAnybody (@justmeanybody.bsky.social) April 30, 2026 at 10:12 PM

Trump has lost his mind. For reals!

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Now for the fortunate events.

From Red 5 🇺🇸🇬🇧🇨🇦🇩🇪🇪🇺🇬🇱 @courageconquers.bsky.social

And a close-up from Rob, I guess. @somewhatrob.bsky.social

King Charles visited the memorial on Thursday while he was there for the Royal Visit (as his mother also did, in 1957): 

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Also, here’s a bit of a heart-warmer. 

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View on Threads

On Threads, Sandral Graham writes

Winnie-the-Pooh was inspired by a real-life black bear named Winnie, purchased in 1914 by Canadian veterinarian Lt. Harry Colebourn in White River, Ontario, while en route to WWI training. Named after his hometown of Winnipeg, the bear became the mascot for the Fort Garry Horse regiment before being donated to the London Zoo, where she inspired A.A. Milne’s stories.

Another fortunate event is that Canada is hosting the new multinational Defence, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB):

Hey, Carney is wearing his Edmonton Oilers tie! Sad that the Oilers lost tonight and they’re out of the playoffs for this year. But we still have hope for Montreal!

On a side note, this isn’t new but isn’t this great?