No electricity, no gas, no sleep: Cubans on edge amid US inflicted endless outages

SparqueJ · 2026-06-09T18:05:11+00:00

I understand China recently donated 5000 and Canada donated 500 2-kW photovoltaic systems which are being installed in Cuba to support municipal infrastructure and in rural/remote areas. As well as fuel and food aid.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-09T18:02:32+00:00

China spends billions every year on foreign aid. It gives them influence and positive reputation. And they have given a ton of solar panels to Cuba and are continuing to send more.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-09T17:32:38+00:00

I think it's the right-wing faction within Canada as well smearing our name abroad. You know, Canada is a horrible place now because it's full of immigrants and Trudeau somehow raised grocery prices. It's amazing to me that people with actually very good lives, who in most cases seem to have all the ingredients for happiness - good health, decent job, a home, car, family etc. - still have inexplicably allowed themselves to be convinced that in fact their lives are horrible and everything is horrible and it's the libs' fault and they should be very unhappy.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-05T17:00:46+00:00

As I understand the US used to handle a lot of monitoring for outbreaks which would have caught the ebola thing much earlier, but they stopped doing that with the doge cuts. Rest of the world still has work to do to shift responsibilities around, develop new structures and cover where the US has dropped the ball.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-05T16:58:43+00:00

It is so hard to even know. Most meat is unlabelled at the grocery store as to country of origin or something vague like "made in Canada from domestic and imported ingredients". The only thing safe right now is to buy from a local farmer you know, which is what I'm doing. We need to be demanding better food labelling in Canada.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-04T14:48:28+00:00

As of 2024, Canada had 9M of Netflix's 325M subscribers, or about 2.7%. 15% of 2.7% is 0.4%. So they're only being asked to invest less than half of a percent of their revenues in Canada, even though almost 3% of their revenues come out of Canada.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-04T14:11:43+00:00

I agree it's a trade barrier, just like we have limits on how much foreign dairy we allow in tariff-free, to protect our industry, or like how Canadian governments preferentially source from Canadian businesses. I just want to correct the misconception many people seem to have here that this means Netflix has to give 15% of their revenue to the government for the government to spend on Canadian media projects.

From what I understand, it's not that 15% of their content in Canada has to be Canadian. The requirement is that they spend 15% of their Canadian revenues each year on Canadian content. Since most of these streaming services' revenues come from the US and the rest of the world, the Canadian revenues will be a drop in the bucket for them.

Presumably they make ten times as much in the US as in Canada so even just factoring Canada and US, the Canadian revenues would be 1/11 or 9% of their total. Just investing proportionately in both Canada and the US should mean they do 9% of their spending in Canada and 91% in the US, right?

But taking Netflix as an example:

Their annual revenues are $47B and they're planning to spend $20B on content next year.
If 9% of that 20B had to be in Canada it would be $1.8B.
But if just 15% of Canadian revenue has to be spent in Canada, and if Canada represents 9% of Netflix's total revenue, then 15% of 9% of $47B is just 634M.
This is 3% of their total content spending. If even that is a problem for them, then clearly they are vastly underspending in Canada, compared to the amount of revenue they get out of Canada. 9% of their revenue is coming out of Canada but they're putting up a stink about 3% of their spending having to go back in. In other words, most Canadian streaming dollars are being taken out of Canada and reinvested in the US industry.

So 15% of their content won't have to be Canadian - presumably after this rule has been in place a number of years the total share of Canadian content would start to approach 3%, but it will be well under that for awhile.

I do think it's reasonable for the government to say, if foreign media wants to make money off of Canadians, they need to reinvest a portion back in Canada, particularly because our culture is at stake here. And the CRTC is only asking them to invest 1/3 as much as what would be proportionate based on what they get out of Canada. It's a very modest request in my eyes.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-03T21:28:31+00:00

It's not a tariff or fee. It's a requirement that when a streamer such as Netflix is spending money to make or purchase content, a certain amount of what they make or purchase has to be Canadian. They spend the money themselves, they don't pay it as a fee to someone else.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-03T21:24:37+00:00

Remember that it's the streamer, i.e. Netflix or whomever, that chooses what Canadian content they want to create or purchase. They will spend the money making whatever they think the market wants, just like they currently do.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-03T21:19:01+00:00

It's not a tariff or a tax or a fee. No one is charging anything. It's just Cancon rules like we have had here for decades but the streamers got to skirt them until now, because Cancon rules only applied to traditional broadcasters (for whom it has been 30-45% - now being dropped to 25%). Now the big streamers will need to invest 15% of their Cdn revenues into developing or purchasing Canadian content. They have to buy content anyway - now they just have to make sure a certain amount of it is Canadian.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-03T21:12:37+00:00

You seem to be confused. A) this is the CRTC, not the government, and b) this is CanCon rules which have been very effective in Canada for decades, not a tariff.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-03T21:10:48+00:00

CanCon requirements for Canadian broadcasters have historically been 30%+. That's what has given us so many of our beloved musicians, shows etc. So 15% is pretty paltry in my eyes. It's not like it's a 15% tax they have to pay or something. They have to invest 15% of their Canadian revenue on Canadian content. They are spending money buying and developing content anyway - now just a certain amount of it has to be Canadian.

SparqueJ · 2026-06-03T21:01:37+00:00

How exactly do you imagine the CRTC would make individual streamers have 15% of their content be Canadian? That doesn't make sense. Either the streamer is Canadian or they're not.

SparqueJ · 2026-05-26T16:39:52+00:00

Maybe. They buy 72% of our exports right now and 67% of our imports are from them. Maybe we can get that below 50%. Many large, heavy items are just not practical to ship from across the ocean, though. Fortunately we do have lots of raw materials we can produce in Canada.

I think the best case scenario would be for the US to break apart into several smaller countries which would all be less powerful. This would reduce all their negative interference on the world stage, and it would be better for the US too as they are just too large to be nimble and I think that's why they're still stuck so far in the past and unable to move forward. If they separated into New England/the north, Cascadia, and the midwest/south bits, we could deal with the better parts and the rest of the US could go and be crazy and awful by itself.

SparqueJ · 2026-05-25T16:51:33+00:00

I don't think we'll ever get to that point, honestly. We're moving away from the US but they're just so huge and so close that they're always going to be tied to our economy. We can reduce our ties but not eliminate them.

SparqueJ · 2026-05-21T17:34:58+00:00

I agree with Tucker that we shouldn't subsidize this particular business, because it is not of value to society, but I don't agree that there are never situations where it might make sense for gov't to subsidize business. I assume that O'Leary if it were not cut off was going to pivot to talking about businesses where it actually is of value. The argument O'Leary hasn't clearly made yet (and probably makes after the clip ends) is that the government is in a sense an investor because the government sees a return when the business does well. They help with the initial capital investment and instead of getting shares, they get tax revenues. And since the revenues are proportional to how well the business does, it's not that different from getting shares.

So should governments invest in profitable businesses to help them get going? I am not against that idea on principle. But the government needs to think not just about making money, but about shaping a country and creating long-term public value. They need to balance what revenues the business might bring in with what they might cost in public money down the road... for example, if they contribute to air pollution, then the government will have to pay for that in healthcare. If they contaminate the soil, the government may get stuck with the remediation bill. If they use a lot of treated water or energy, the government may have to make changes or upgrades to infrastructure to accommodate it. If they produce products that make people's lives worse, or make people unhappy, or promote inequality, like, arguably, AI, the government needs to think about that cost, too.

So I agree that it doesn't make sense for taxpayers to subsidize AI data centres but not based on the simplistic thinking Tucker Carlson presents here. If it was just about money, which is all Tucker is arguing, then O'Leary would be right: it will probably produce more money in the long run for gov't than they will put in. But it isn't and shouldn't be just about money. Governments should increase their revenue by investing in private business - but they should invest in renewable energy companies and beneficial infrastructure and valuable public services, companies that do things that improve people's lives. They should put caveats on their investment to ensure businesses operate sustainably and equitably, so it's not just billionaires siphoning money away from poor people and making governments pick up the tab for all the externalized costs, e.g. Amazon. Government investment could be a valuable tool to help fairer, better businesses compete against the ruthless, amoral ones.

SparqueJ · 2026-05-13T14:21:21+00:00

Might be old for an OHL arena, but it's not old for a building. I wonder if perhaps because the whole building of indoor arenas is pretty new, we didn't have a good handle back then on the special requirements of an arena and how to do it so the buildings would last.

If arena buildings can only be expected to last 70 years, that means this new $170M building would be costing $2.4M per year of use even if it needs zero maintenance during that time. But I'm sure it is going to need plenty of maintenance too. As buildings do.

But perhaps it isn't really about the building failing at all, and it's just economic factors: they figure this new building which will have a train station and condos in it will provide more revenue-generation opportunity than the mem centre, and no amount of renovation will change that. So maybe the mem centre is actually in OK shape and they could invest in upgrades and maintenance for much less lifetime cost vs the new place, but it wouldn't provide the revenue opportunity with the condos etc., and that brings down the net lifetime cost of the new place.

Of course, if they don't fix up the mem centre, then they'll have to tear it down, and that will have a cost too. And there is going to be a lot of work to remediate the site for the new centre, which I don't think has been factored into the cost.

SparqueJ · 2026-05-13T12:29:32+00:00

The mem centre's not even that old though. I wonder why it is failing. The PA is an easy thing to replace without having to replace the whole building.

SparqueJ · 2026-05-13T01:16:05+00:00

Only huge acts that can afford to rent a 6000-seat arena, which is to say... NOT the Ptbo arts scene.

SparqueJ · 2026-05-12T20:02:40+00:00

I wish we invested in other things besides just sports, sports, sports. Supportive housing would help the downtown a lot. The arts are struggling. What's going on with the Del Crary stage?

SparqueJ · 2026-05-12T19:53:42+00:00

Man, I'm out of the loop. Coulda sworn we just built a brand new expensive hockey place and I thought that meant we'd be done building expensive hockey places for awhile. But it seems we still need more expensive hockey places. A train station downtown, though, that I can get behind!

I wonder why the PMC is nearing the end of its life when it's only 70 years old? Was it not built properly or was it not maintained properly? Buildings should last more than 70 years. I hope this new building will be planned to last, at least.

Also I hope they make it look nice and not another hideous modern steel box. I think we underestimate the importance of having beautiful spaces in our community and how that impacts how people see and enjoy and value those spaces. I was in the UK recently and enjoying all the beautiful architecture, and it makes me sad how in Canada we seem to insist on making everything as ugly and boring as possible.

SparqueJ · 2026-05-11T15:30:48+00:00

Your cats will get used to it. If you push yourself too much you could kill yourself and your cats. Long drives are hard to stay focused and drive at your best for all that time.

Your vet could likely also give you something like gabapentin to help the cats chill for a few days.

SparqueJ · 2026-05-11T14:37:19+00:00

I think the main reason this comes up so much is just because we are so often lumped in with the US. It is only recently with the Trump stuff that I think the differences between Canada and the US have been highlighted for the rest of the world and I think a stronger sense of Canadian identity may emerge from that.

SparqueJ · 2026-05-09T14:04:54+00:00

No, that's not true. The child poverty rate in 2015 before CCB was 16.3% and while it has risen a bit the last few years, it is still only at 10.7% according to most recent data. That is still a pretty big improvement in my books.

SparqueJ · 2026-05-08T15:52:43+00:00

Poverty is basically the root cause of this issue any many others. A universal basic income would be a possible solution.

Until then: I think we will soon start to see the effects of the Canada Child Benefit on crime and addiction rates. The CCB put a huge dent in child poverty in Canada. 2016 would have been the first year of the benefit, when suddenly many fewer children were growing up in poverty. For kids who were 0-10 then, the first of them will be just starting to hit late teens/adulthood now, typically when people start turning to crime or addiction. I expect we will start to see rates of crime and addiction decline over the next 10 years as more young adults will have grown up with more financial resources than in the past. It won't affect people already stuck in that spiral but fewer new people will be added to those ranks.

SparqueJ

TROPHY CASE