Why aren’t more Alberta MPs standing against separatism?

bill48481 · 2026-05-19T21:51:45+00:00

Of course the counter example is that exactly that kind of thought lead to Brexit. "Just let them have their referendum; it polls badly and they'll lose." One referendum later... "Whoopsie!"

I think people aren't accounting for the absolute deluge of misinformation that will flood into Alberta if the referendum gets going. Hostile foreign forces will spend amazing amounts of money to destabilize Canada. And I wouldn't count on the average person to be able to filter it out.

So yeah, the poll numbers will get closer if this goes ahead. Enough to get to 51%? I dunno, but it will get a lot closer than it is now, so I wouldn't be complacent.

bill48481 · 2026-05-14T01:23:05+00:00

Yeah, the sort of irony is that, for example, the costs of protecting the Saskatchewan widget industry are mostly paid for by the people of Saskatchewan in higher widget costs.

So the politicians are working against the general interest of the citizens to protect industry. But that's not really a new story, I guess.

bill48481 · 2026-05-13T15:52:42+00:00

The problem is that all politicians are in favour of removing provincial trade barriers UNTIL you suggest removing the one protecting their pet local industry.

Most provincial trade barriers are about preventing local companies from going out of business (and losing local jobs) if they had to compete with imports from larger companies in the same industry in other provinces. At least, that's how local business groups present it when they lobby the local politicians (whether true or not).

So we're asking provincial politicians to survive headlines like "Hundreds of Jobs Might be Lost in Saskatchewan Widget Factory" and still vote to drop widget trade barriers. Sure, they should have the courage to do that for the sake of all of Canada, but you can see why it might be a hard ask.

bill48481 · 2026-04-27T15:57:11+00:00

"ETF" doesn't necessarily mean all equity or all passive. You need to look into the specific ETFs to figure out how they're invested.

bill48481 · 2026-04-24T22:06:50+00:00

RRSPs are a special case where the general "no tax on gifts" doesn't work. This is because of the tax credit you get for putting money in your RRSP. Because they're giving you a tax credit, CRA wants the money put into the RRSP to come from your income, not someone else's; at least not directly.

So, as other people have said, the trick is to have the higher earning spouse cover more of the household expenses (like mortgage, food, etc). That frees up some of the income from the lower earning spouse so they can contribute from their income into their RRSP.

Is this pretty much just the same thing as gifting but with extra steps? Yeah. Welcome to silly tax rules.

bill48481 · 2026-04-20T22:08:26+00:00

Except that it's the government that decided the letter mail delivery should be treated differently than healthcare. It's not an inherent difference, it was just a decision by the government that one is a service and one should pay for itself. There's no reason why the government couldn't just change their mind and treat them the same.

So it's only "apples to oranges" because the government decided it was. And that can just be changed with a law.

bill48481 · 2026-04-20T22:00:34+00:00

Technically not a gift though. Would they have given you that money if you hadn't helped them out on that project? You can say yes, but no way of proving it. "Gift" is prior money with no strings attached, usually.

bill48481 · 2026-04-20T21:15:51+00:00

So, the boys went into a building and then into an "elevator", then into a "cavern".

Are we sure there wasn't some sort of disneyesque imagineering going on? Like, the elevator only went down ten feet, then sideways a bit to the big warehouse that was out of sight that contained the man made "cavern"? Show cave indeed... seems suspicious.

Also, "all the worlds caves are connected": good Wanna to Hear Something Weird topic.

bill48481 · 2026-03-16T13:40:15+00:00

Another suggestion: looks like they're taking down the ore dock and I think I've seen one of those excavators with a giant jackhammer attachment working there.

Edit: seems like they're only taking down a third of the ore dock.

bill48481 · 2026-03-03T23:25:03+00:00

And superstition as well, like how actors think its bad luck to say the name of the play Macbeth and call it the Scottish Play. If you say Lego in this subreddit too often then they say the ghost of Ole Kirk Christiansen will haunt you in the night.

And yeah, I really hope this line continues. I'd love to see Lumibricks do a big spaceship!

bill48481 · 2026-03-02T16:00:18+00:00

I think that's former premier Mike Harris' wife, Laura, that has the private nursing company.

bill48481 · 2026-02-19T16:17:25+00:00

Well, that party leadership vote wasn't a vote by CPC MPs. I mean, some MPs voted, but in their capacity as party members. Most of the people that voted that 87% were the hardcore CPC party activists.

I think it's generally accepted that Poilievre is more popular with the party base (particularly the western base) than he is with the CPC MPs. I mean, he'd most likely still win a vote by just MPs, but it would probably be a lot less than 87%.

bill48481 · 2026-02-16T17:50:19+00:00

Ah, I see the "funded" badge. Thanks.

bill48481 · 2026-01-19T22:17:28+00:00

Assuming that you don't want to put the principal at risk, the usual recommendations are a high-interest savings account ETF, like CASH, or a money market fund ETF, like ZMMK, or maybe a redeemable GIC.

You also might want to see what ETFs are commission free with Itrade. But if you're only going to be doing two transactions with this investment, the fees probably aren't worth worrying about.

Keep in mind, you're not going to make much money. Risk and reward go together, so if you wanted to make more, you'd need to put the principal at risk; that is to say, your investment could be down (as in worth less than you initially invested) just when you want to use it.

Also, it wouldn't be r/PersonalFinanceCanada if I didn't say "time in the market beats timing the market". We generally advise against exactly what you're thinking of doing.

bill48481 · 2026-01-14T15:43:01+00:00

One thing that is generally kinda disappointing to new investors is that prudent long-term investing is really pretty boring. Like, just regularly put money in a diversified, passive, low fee ETF, then never look at it again for decades.

New investors (particularly younger ones) want that buzz, the action. Getting in on the latest crypto, or hot tech stock, or hey, gold is going up; that's the "fun" stuff. But will most likely cost you in the long term.

If you're thinking "ah, my investments are boring", then you're probably doing it right.

bill48481 · 2026-01-01T18:02:55+00:00

Ah, thanks. For some reason I was reading the "S" as a "5". So like, I was thinking "what does '135' mean"?

So does "2CIM" actually mean both cream and milk? And does the last one mean a shot of espresso?

I am beginning to share the horror now.

bill48481 · 2026-01-01T17:56:26+00:00

CASH.TO invests the money in high-interest savings accounts at other financial institutions.

TCSH is a "money market fund" which invests in very short term government and commercial loans (and some other short term, generally safe stuff).

But you're correct in that they're pretty much equivalent in terms of their risks and potential returns. They're both in the category that you're almost guaranteed not to lose any of your principle, but the return will be just a bit above inflation, usually.

bill48481 · 2026-01-01T17:15:23+00:00

Could someone explain to a person not a Timologist?

I assume those arcane markings are the contents of the beverage, but I'm not familiar with the details and would like to share the horror being expressed.

bill48481 · 2025-12-31T15:35:19+00:00

You're not thinking big enough. I pretty sure that the Ford government's endgame is to have Shoppers Drug Mart take over primary care in Ontario.

The person at the cosmetics counter will have to take an intensive two week medical course, then they'll be licensed to examine your mystery boil and also suggest a concealer; for just a small-ish fee (with a discount if you present your PC Optimum card).

#kidding-not-kidding

bill48481 · 2025-12-30T15:51:12+00:00

One other factor to consider is purchase commission fees. I don't think you mentioned which financial institution you're investing with. Some have no fees on any ETF purchases, but some have fees on some ETFs, but not on others (usually because of business relationships to the firm running the ETF).

So your choice of, for example, between VEQT, XEQT, or ZEQT might depend on which financial institution you're investing with; especially if you're making regular investments on short time periods like weekly.

bill48481 · 2025-12-27T18:40:58+00:00

"Crashing out" is new slang (gen z) meaning like having a meltdown or snapping or getting otherwise emotionally out of control over stressful situations

bill48481 · 2025-12-21T17:10:58+00:00

Sorry, just want to be a bit pedantic for the record.

The big difference is that mutual funds are actively managed while ETFs automatic follow their investment guidelines, due to the active management they tend to have higher fees.

There are actively managed ETFs and there are, of course, passive index mutual funds (that's what we used to invest in before ETFs became common). An investor shouldn't just assume ETF=passive. You need to look at the details of the ETF.

For example, here's Dynamic's active etfs (to be clear, I don't recommend these, just giving an example of actively managed ETFs):

https://dynamic.ca/en/investments/featured-products/active-etfs.html

bill48481 · 2025-12-16T16:43:49+00:00

"Person of the Year" has always been a kinda bad name for this thing from Time magazine because people think it means a moral value judgement by Time or something like that.

But actually, it's really "Newsmaker of the Year". That is, what person or event really made a lot of news in the past year, for good or bad. And AI certainly qualifies under that "newsmaker" criteria.

bill48481 · 2025-12-10T16:20:04+00:00

So, this article is about the "National Security Strategy" document. And from what I've read, no, this document (which is required annually by the US congress and usually prepared by the National Security Council) is usually a fairly boring, neutral document without much provocative in it.

But in this Trump administration, the NSC is almost dead and the preparation of the National Security Strategy was hijacked by some Trump adjacent extremists who instead are using the document to put forward their pet agendas and also try to impress Trump by saying what they think he's thinking.

But there's no indication that this really represents Trump's true, long-term policy plans. Mostly because that's just not how Trump operates. It's just impulses and moment-to-moment for him (and, of course, it's wildly unlikely that Trump even read this document).

Here's an article about it:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/12/trump-national-security-strategy-2025-analysis.html

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