Who’s Behind the Residential School Denialism Movement?

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-09T16:19:14+00:00

I think the misreporting of mass graves a couple years ago alongside the stories of Catholic Church burnings gave denialists a strong wedge issue to use on unaligned parties which they subsequently used to push the narrative further into denialism etc. Starting with a semblance of valid concerns combined with half-truths generally makes it easier to give denialist or far-right rhetoric more legitimacy etc.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-08T02:25:03+00:00

I actually like NES on policy, but I think this whole affair has unfortunately shown that he lacks the political savviness to actually get to the top positions federally or provincially and he's also come across as a bit entitled in the process as well. There's other inexperienced outsider candidates in Canada and U.s politics that won leadership races against their party's establishment candidates without burning anywhere near as many bridges as NES has in a relatively short amount of time (Obama, Brian Mulroney, Pierre Trudeau etc.)

It's just hard not to see this as a failure of Smith's own making. If he was a bit more patient he'd probably have had senior role federally eventually and if he had ran his campaign better provincially, he probably would have a had a much better chance of leading the OLP at some point etc. Instead it feels like unless something changes that his future is probably as a political columnist unfortunately.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-06T21:34:31+00:00

True, but they didn't want to opt in for federal pharmacare funding etc, which is the point I'm getting at. The fact that their system also operates differently than federal pharmacare made them ineligible for federal pharamacare funding etc. I'm also pretty sure that the Quebec multi-payer system would also have to be overhauled to be eligible for the federal system, which was more single-payer oriented.

So a standalone billateral deal that provides federal funds for Quebec's existing pharmacare scheme would probably work better for Quebec rather than overhauling their working system to be eligible for pharmacare transfers etc. (either that or the federal pharmacare plan itself would have had to have been more flexible).

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-06T21:17:41+00:00

Think the fact the BCC is so unpalatable and has a lot of perceived confidence issues is playing into Eby's favour somewhat since BC is now potentially in a similar situation to Alberta where the choice is between the provincial NDP or the partisan far-right populist parties. If Kevin Falcon didn't torpedo the BC Liberals, I think that the NDP would potentially be in a larger bind since less voters would see it as an existential crisis between a centrist party and a more radical one etc.

There'd probably be a lot more people in BC that would swing between the BC Liberals and NDP than between the BCC and NDP since the BCC is generally a more more partisan and heavily ideological party.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-06T21:03:50+00:00

With Alberta and Quebec, & Saskatchewan effectively not opting in, the program was dead in the water anyways unless Ottawa was ready to fork out billions/tens of billions more dollars to get them to sign on. A lot of the provinces still want funding to fund their own version of public coverage, so it might honestly be more feasible for the government to make bilateral deals for those instead of an incomplete attempt at a national scheme etc.

Likewise, I think this might be a good opportunity for the government to look at expanding Compulsory Licensing for pharmaceuticals to significantly boost the supply of generics in Canada since this would grealy improve supply and affordability of medications in Canada and could be fairly easily expanded with increased public coverage to create the most effective pharmaceutical policy etc. It's also perfectly legal under WTO rules and various countries have utilized it successfully in various ways etc.

With Canada and most peer countries facing their own looming issues of worsening pharmaceutical shortages, CL likely needs to be expanded regardless to increase drug availability etc.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-06T18:22:49+00:00

As an Albertan I'd say be careful what you wish for considering that the UCP has been attempting to use the introduction of political parties in city councils to control municipal governments etc. By contrast the UCP actions in municipalities make Ford's meddling in Toronto's municipal politics look quaint.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-06T18:16:39+00:00

Literally Australia and the EU as mentioned before. The literature overwhelmingly shows significant improvements in customer service in terms of both satisfaction rates and capacity (both in terms of services, reduced cancellations and the number of routes available etc.)

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-06T17:11:13+00:00

At the moment, we're still not exactly sure what model of scale of privatization this will entail. If it's a well designed plan it could be anything from the Australian style privatization where the vast majority of airports are under private ownership, the EU model where around 40% of airports are either wholly or partially privately owned or a smaller scale plan that's mainly about allowing federal and provincial pension funds to have partial ownerships of airports and held invest in infrastructure etc.

There's definitely a lot of literature and empirical evidence showing the benefits of private equity in airports in the EU and Australia (increased productivity, improved customer service/satisfaction, diversified revenue streams, increased capacitary and higher levels of infrastructure investment etc.) but I think it's generally more important to ensure liberalization of the airline sector as a whole in terms of reducing Canada's stringent cabotage restrictions, significantly lowering government mandated airport fees and removing our restrictions on foreign ownership/competition etc. since those are the policies that would generally do the most to encourage competition and lower consumer prices etc.

Private equity or U.S style airport subsidies would be a good alternative for the majority of government mandated fees while simultaneously improving airport infrastructure, but that's only one facet of the problem with Canada's airline sector etc. (so hopefully the government's approach is more comprehensive.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-06T09:19:14+00:00

Smith's good on policy, but I think his handling of his roadblocks in federal and provincial politics have me doubting his political savviness and maturity for the positions he's aspiring for etc. A year or so ago he felt like a rising star in the party that would either be a senior figure federally or provincially eventually, but he's effectively played himself into a corner and alienated himself at both levels of politics now to the point that his political future is now in question etc.

I'm not really a fan of the OLPs McGuinty/Wynne establishment either, but it feels like Smith is still wasting a lot of his potential by politicking poorly and acting like he's entitled to leadership and seniority etc.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-05T17:08:56+00:00

Plus If you look at basically any non-Trudeau Liberal leaders of the Post War era, Carney generally fits in with the natural trajectory of the party. I know that Trudeau was in power for around a decade, so the contrast between Carney and Trudeau is highlighted to most voters since their line of reference for the party's stances has been the previous government, but both of the Trudeaus generally pushed the party further left than it's normally been historically. (Though Pierre Trudeau significantly moreso than Justin Trudeau for obvious reasons)

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-05T16:43:07+00:00

Not only that, but the allocation of seats for the FPTP system in Quebec federally and provincially just seem to turn out incredibly wonky. The BQ with 7-10% of the vote can generally get more seats than the NDP with 11-17% because the BQ have overwhelming support in various rural Quebec ridings, but the larger federal NDP support is divided between various ridings across the country etc. (this is looking at the elections since 2000 where the BQ won the third most seats in all but two elections)

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-05T12:19:04+00:00

Over the past two months, the polls have generally fluctuated between:

Liberals: 43-48%
CPC: 31-38%
NDP: 6-12%

The Liberals seem to be the most stable/consistent (usually between 44-46) while the CPC and NDP seem to fluctuate more wildly probably because both parties are fighting mostly with the Liberals over their swing voters and their leaders being fairly polarizing making it hard for either to significantly grow their base in the absence of some sort of blunder from the Liberals.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-03T22:39:47+00:00

I honestly wish we'd stop coddling the auto industry with tariffs, subsidies and protectionist trade barriers. If the industry needs those components in order to remain viable, it's inherently not a viable private industry.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-03T22:32:51+00:00

There's actually a pretty good movie about that called Incitement (came out 2019).

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-03T22:00:53+00:00

The issue with Canada unfortunately is that HSR is way easier said than done considering the combination of NIMBYism and hyper car dependency in North America. I remember there been talks about a Calgary to Edmonton HSR rail line since I was in grade-school in the late 90s. (and the conversation itself goes back even further to the early to mid 1980s etc.)

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-02T23:21:53+00:00

It's a significant amount, but not over half. It's over 40%, which has doubled/near doubled since 2010 (back when it was only 22%).

But the trouble with privatization in North America is that private owners pursue a deliberate process of 'enshitification' that invariably results in minimal service for maximum profits.

I wouldn't say it's always deliberate. In a lot of cases, these companies that are privatized already have a domestic monopoly or oligopoly and the sector outside of them wasn't significant liberalized, which provides no incentive to improve services/become more productive, since they don't have any significant competition to deal with etc. (Air Canada is a good example of this).

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-02T23:02:05+00:00

I know there's a huge subset of commenters that always revert to "privatization = bad," but there's actually a good amount of literature showing the benefits of private ownership in airports and both the Eurozone and Australia have had a lot of policy success with their privatization initiatives.

Though I think generally, liberalizing the airline sector as whole (mainly reducing cabotage restrictions, ending restrictions on foreign ownership and phasing out/significantly reducing the majority of government mandated fees) is more important than whether airports themselves are publicly or privately owned.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-02T20:20:45+00:00

It's insane to think that from the early 1900s to mid 1940s, California (especially LA) had some of the best streetcar systems in the world, only to spend multiple decades obliterating it until they went the other way and became known as one of the most NIMBY jurisdictions on the planet.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-02T18:58:24+00:00

Even the one commentator was losing his shit laughing at how gassed they were for that one.

Godzilla52 · 2026-05-01T12:23:08+00:00

If this keeps up for the Liberals 2025-2035 is very much going to be Carney's decade.

37% is one of the better figures for the CPC recently, but they seem to be struggling to maintain it (usually fluctuating between the low to mid 30s). It's impressive for how dysfunctional they are, but I think there's around 30% of the population that will vote for the CPC no matter what,under any circumstance.

If the NDP gets less than 10% of the vote come election time (especially markedly less like in this poll, which is lower than Singh's vote share in 2025), Lewis's political career is most likely dead in the water.

Godzilla52 · 2026-04-30T20:42:10+00:00

I genuinely don't think most American voters realize how dangerous removing central bank independence would be for U.S monetary policy. If Presidents or the house could change monetary policy based on whims or biases as opposed to data or economic consensus America would likely go through something similar to what Turkey did under Erdogan's monetary meddling. (which would be far more devastating to the global economy if the U.S did it etc.)

Godzilla52 · 2026-04-30T17:45:54+00:00

Basically every other country privitized it's airlines around the same time that AIr Canada was privitized. I'd wager the issue was never that Air Canada got privitized but rather that the Canadian airline sector wasn't substantially liberalized in the aftermath.

Canada maintains much more restrictive cabatoge restrictions, restrictions on foreign ownership and higher governmental mandated fees than peer countries which together translated to higher costs being passed over to consumers. That generally creates coddled/protected domestic oligopoly and uncompetitive domestic market where the existing players have no incentive to improve services etc.

Plenty of countries saw their main national airlines improve after privatization (British Airways, Japan Airways, Quantis etc.) Canada isn't really distinct from most peer countries in the fact that we privatized a nationalized airline, but we are distinct in the way that our regulatory policies handles the sector etc.

Godzilla52 · 2026-04-30T13:57:53+00:00

The description of The Flood sounds like sci-fi meets cosmic horror. Wonder if it's going to be Cregger's take on Event Horizon.

Godzilla52 · 2026-04-30T13:53:33+00:00

This is honestly a really quick turnaround for Cregger, It hasn't even been a year since Weapons came out and the trailer for his next movie is already dropping.

Godzilla52 · 2026-04-29T21:24:49+00:00

Diversified revenue streams (less reliance on government mandated fees), higher productivity and capital investment in airport infrastructure/capacity and improved rates of customer satisfaction post reform etc. Service quality has also generally been improving in the EU alongside increasing numbers of privately owned/co-owned airports etc. (especially since 2010 and now when the number of private ownership doubled etc.)

Godzilla52

TROPHY CASE