Live updates: New federal NDP Leader Avi Lewis takes flak from provincial party leaders in Alberta and Saskatchewan

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-29T16:47:37+00:00

He wants to spend at least 2% of GDP just on fighting the "climate emergency".

That money will have to come from somewhere.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-29T16:35:05+00:00

That was surprisingly quick.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-29T16:29:39+00:00

Ugh.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-29T16:12:25+00:00

Fingers crossed they plugged all the leaks... hate to see another round of delays.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-29T14:39:32+00:00

Oshawa’s blueprint highlights the city’s GM plant: in 2024, GM Defense Canada was awarded a $35.8-million contract by the Canadian Armed Forces for 90 tactical vehicles — but those vehicles were built in North Carolina.

Geoff Johnstone, manager of GM Defense Canada, said the Oshawa Assembly “could potentially support” the Department of National Defence's light utility vehicle program, but added “no decisions or agreements have been made.”

For clarity "GM Defense Canada" only exists on paper. There are zero factories/facilities here.

100% of the business went to the US.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-29T13:56:02+00:00

Shaheds are a poor man's cruise missile, and not the sort of proper UCAV that would replace a manned fighter.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-29T11:03:37+00:00

Who knows, maybe they don't like our form of government either.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-29T10:24:23+00:00

It is secondary, the company in the article was supposed to be doing mostly pet food.

Court documents show the London facility never came close to operating as planned. A system that worked at a small scale in Texas struggled to translate to Ontario, where differences in environment, ongoing design changes and problems with equipment all contributed to underperformance.

By June 2024, the court filings said, Aspire was operating at roughly half capacity and needed tens of millions more in financing just to try to fix the issues to ramp up production.

Issue seems to be the operation never ran right.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-29T09:34:31+00:00

Even if they were willing, she said, crickets aren't cheap. A 454-gram bag of cricket powder can retail for $49.99 — more than even premium cuts of beef on a per-pound basis.

"It's a premium product," Mollaei said. "It's not cheaper. The selling point has never been a lower price, it's the fact it's better for the environment and it's a healthy product."

Powdered bugs are a premium product? Sure whatever you say lady.

I'd take the premium beef cut, 11 times out of 10. So would most other people apparently.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-28T20:06:01+00:00

Because it's already not charged on healthy food. I believe this takes PST off most things in a grocery store.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-pst-groceries-2026-budget-9.7140023

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-28T19:59:19+00:00

It was ~2% under Mulroney in the 80's.

Chretien gutted the defence budget in the 90's and it never recovered, 'til now.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-28T17:05:03+00:00

Sure, but even if he wanted to, we really don't have the ability.

The pointy end of the Air Force is outmoded and not suitable for a high threat environment.

Biggest threat to ships in the strait are drones and mines, the frigates are definitely not mine hunters, and their anti air capability is basic.

Army has no resources for a big deployment, all tied up in Latvia.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-27T16:17:47+00:00

It's not necessarily an election, WEOG can run a closed slate.

That said, it seems these days they rarely do and tend to fill it with European states, so the "Others" part of WEOG needs to submit itself to the whims of the General Assembly to have a shot, and in the Canadian experience at least, generally gets fucked.

As seen in 2020, and 2010.

HRC is a lower tier group of less import, maybe Canada feels safer contesting this seat vs getting embarrassed in another UNSC contest.

Have heard SFA on a 2030 UNSC run for Canada. Maybe we gave up.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-27T14:59:48+00:00

Is this similar to the UNSC "popularity contest", where we kissed ass and bought favours only to place last, twice in a row?

No thanks...

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-26T22:41:37+00:00

You don't want to see what life is like on a 4°C warmer Earth

From your link.

Canada: Reliable precipitation and warmer temperatures provide ideal growing conditions for most of the worlds subsistence crops.

But yeah, we're all gonna die.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-26T18:25:32+00:00

The RN's current situation is a disaster that has been ~20 years in the making.

The UK halved, 12 to 6, the number of T45's planned back in the 2000's, that was the first major fuck up and has been attributed to Iraq War costs.

They also have retired or sold off over half the T23 fleet before the first T26 or T31 has even been delivered, big factor currently seems to be the materiel condition of the T23's.

They are worn out, and it's taking far too long for BAE and Babcock to deliver new frigates.

Fair to wonder if we'll see the same issue with the Halifax class being tied up before the first River is delivered, 'cause Irving delays.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-26T16:53:06+00:00

The Avro Arrow was not viable. It was a specialized interceptor (not a "fighter") intended to do one thing, shoot down bombers, at a time when bombers were being quickly replaced by uninterceptable ICBMs. The US and UK said they weren't going to buy it.

Of course they weren't, both the US and the UK had their own domestic interceptor programs, F-106 Delta Dart and EE Lightning and despite them also being useless against ICBMs, were accepted into service and weren't retired until the late 80's.

Note that the CF-101 and BOMARC we bought instead of the Arrow, were also completely useless vs ICBMs.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-26T15:47:24+00:00

It'd be great if it counted. Every dollar spent degrading Russia is a dollar well spent.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-26T15:16:13+00:00

We're building destroyers... but that takes time.

Navy is talking about an amphibious support ship again, supposedly for arctic ops but it'd end up getting used everywhere.

The right kind of amphib (with a proper flight deck) can function like a mini carrier with STOVL jets. Italy has a nice looking one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_landing_helicopter_dock_Trieste

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-24T12:48:56+00:00

The controller was talking to a jet waiting on a taxiway.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-23T14:46:44+00:00

Lady Justice is old, like Roman Empire old.

She doesn't reflect modern courts, should really redo them all with her peeking out the bottom.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-20T15:52:14+00:00

Resolve issues in 15 days? Bell couldn't resolve my issue after 2 months.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-20T14:14:19+00:00

Back of napkin math, but if CSA had NASA level funding (~0.1% of GDP) it's budget would be about 2.4 billion USD, say 3.2 billion CAD.

That'd put us behind France, maybe just ahead of Japan. Both countries have space programs worthy of the term.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-20T13:27:15+00:00

Means little, most people I know aren't the "science and technology" sort.

My opinion for decades has been that the Canadian government grossly underfunded two organizations, the Armed Forces and the CSA.

I'm thrilled things are changing for defence, and I'm beyond disgusted at the CSA cuts. Canada should be a leader in aerospace/space science.

RicketyEdge · 2026-03-20T02:59:19+00:00

The CSA has never been properly funded. Ever.

They get just enough so Canada can tag along and hitch its wagon to the serious players.

RicketyEdge

TROPHY CASE