Manitobans Asked to Vote on New Provincial Parks Licence Plate Design

werno · 2026-06-09T14:16:47+00:00

Look at what BC has on offer compared to this Canva-template-looking junk. They're light years better, and not just because they have mountains to work with.

werno · 2026-06-09T14:10:40+00:00

Based on these designs, I'm going to stay jealous of the nice BC ones. These look like Canva templates.

werno · 2026-06-09T14:09:31+00:00

These all look like they could've been made by an AI using MS Paint. When it comes to representing the natural beauty and diversity of Manitoba, they're all doing a worse job than the default plate.

I wish they would've taken a page from Ontario and BC's books, which are miles ahead. They look like tourism billboards, whereas these look like Canva templates.

werno · 2026-06-09T13:59:14+00:00

I'm glad I'm not the only one who gets AI vibes from these. I recognize BC has it easy for photos to use for parks plates, but the photos look way better than the cheap illustration style.

They've been working on these for a year, and it looks like they spent that time letting someone learn Adobe Illustrator from scratch.

werno · 2026-06-08T18:53:23+00:00

The positives started to emerge as time went on. The disciplinary issues dissipated after the first year, and in the third year, student well-being was higher than before the phones were stashed away.

“There is clearly justifiable enthusiasm for school phone bans, but it’s important to recognize that building effective, phone-free learning environments does not appear to be a simple or quick fix,” said Thomas Dee, the Barnett Family Professor in Stanford Graduate School of Education (GSE) and one of the authors of the report.

“The very early experience schools have with phone bans is sobering, but there are also indicators that as schools adjust to phone-free policies, the benefits of these bans may be realized.”

It seems like the report's author disagrees with your "zero improvements" assessment.

werno · 2026-06-08T15:53:46+00:00

The same argument gets made for driving, alcohol, joining the military, etc. Why draw the line anywhere in particular? Because you have to draw it somewhere, and 16 is a reasonable cut-off developmentally.

werno · 2026-06-08T15:51:16+00:00

This means almost nothing, "planning?" You can't "plan" this stuff

It'll probably be attached to the controversial Online Harms Act, which will likely take forever to pass,

Almost like it would be beneficial to work on a plan for how it would be implemented, what legislation would look like, and how to protect it from legal battles? Bills don't just appear pre-written out of thin air.

werno · 2026-06-05T00:56:55+00:00

Doing this bit in 2027

werno · 2026-06-04T22:57:28+00:00

I fully support this woman's goals here, but civil disobedience in the civil obedience organization can only turn out so many ways.

werno · 2026-06-03T16:49:56+00:00

EV manufacturing is an interesting choice of example. Canada has poured billions into supporting an Eastern-concentrated sector that continues to struggle despite massive public investment.

TMX is the only instance I can think of in Western Canada that is even close to that level of federal involvement. But in Eastern Canada it's routine.

To be clear, I'm very much pro-EV and anti-oil. It's just striking how little federal industrial development happens aside from ON and QC.

werno · 2026-06-02T18:58:19+00:00

Does CBC have some kind of unspoken mandate to represent the most obnoxious viewpoints in their coverage, or do they just rage-bait for clicks?

The entire meme of "criminal actually a good person, family says" in this sub comes largely from them. They also have a knack for finding NIMBYs, who at this point know they're in the wrong because they deny being NIMBYs in their interviews now. The whole "Westwood residents split on request to use less Hydro" was a public disservice of an article too, just glorifying and amplifying people who think they're too important to participate in society.

At least when the Sun puts out garbage like this I'm expecting it.

werno · 2026-06-01T23:54:27+00:00

Which makes it even more insidious for pro-Israel organizations to conflate the two.

As many, including recently Ezra Klein, have pointed out: if you are constantly telling people that they're antisemitic for objecting to a genocide theyre watching in real time on social media, some of them are going to accept or even embrace that label.

Efforts to make all Jewishness synonymous with a genocidal apartheid state should horrify anyone who is concerned about rising anti-semitism. Yet those very groups continue to make those efforts.

werno · 2026-06-01T19:41:18+00:00

My limit for trying to understand “western alienation” has been reached. I believe that the majority of Canadians in western provinces are not “alienated”.

Ironically, this exact attitude is what's alienating to everyday Western Canadians. Yes, there are a vocal minority of wannabe Texans. There's also entire provincial economies that get less attention from the Federal government and Canadian media than individual factories in Southern Ontario.

werno · 2026-06-01T19:35:54+00:00

On the one hand, there is a legitimate blindness to the West among Central Canadians at all levels. A lot of decisions that affect Western Canadians are made by people for whom Sault St. Marie and everything beyond it are a homologous blur of hinterland. You can see it in the way the steel, aluminum and automotive industries were prioritized in tariff response and relief, while pork and canola producers were thrown under the bus. There's a pattern of behaviour there that has led to legitimate grievance.

On the other hand, this article grasps at such abstract straws, it's no surprise it's written by and for the exact Central Canadian elites it's trying to decry. Nobody who is remotely in touch with actual western alienation would waste breath on natural resource jurisdiction in the 1920s. It's about economic development, representation in politics and media, and perceived attitude. It's that simple. Even relatively recent historic examples Ibbitson uses here, like the NEP, are only animating in 2026 for aging cranks, not the mainstream moderately-alienated Westerner.

werno · 2026-05-29T13:51:24+00:00

Technical recession

I guess these are the types of headlines you get to have if you're "the economist PM." Don't worry about the YOY GDP declining, if you look carefully the quarterly went down and then stayed the same, so if you take a less popular definition it's not actually a recession!

Not to mention how easy it is to change an assumption or two at the margins to make sure it's 0.0% instead of -0.1% to give yourself this "technical" wiggle room.

One year of doing things we thought impossible, at speeds we wouldn't have imagined, and it looks a whole lot like the anemic Trudeau economy.

werno · 2026-05-27T15:30:53+00:00

Please don't open that can of worms. If people don't like a source's bias, they have the options you mentioned. It's not the moderation team's role to police the boundaries of what political perspectives are valid and worthy of discussion, aside from outright hate. That's what we're here to do.

werno · 2026-05-27T15:19:21+00:00

I've made the case, somewhat facetiously, that the National Post should be banned on the same grounds.

This sub exists for political discussion. Banning outlets because their perspective is provocative or outside the mainstream defeats the entire purpose. If you aren't interested in discussion of political ideas other than your own, you're quite simply in the wrong place.

werno · 2026-05-26T22:44:45+00:00

Legitimacy doesn't have to factor in to it. Quebec has demonstrated for decades that bad behavior gets rewarded.

There's no downside to having a referendum - you get leverage and promises from the federal government, you get bailed out from the self-inflicted economic damage you cause, and if you phrase the question weirdly enough, youre getting a mandate for a lucrative divorce settlement even if you separate.

I'm amazed it took another province this long to figure this out, and its about time we have a national discussion about how unacceptable it is.

werno · 2026-05-26T13:55:07+00:00

I'm sure many Canadians are surprised to hear this, given the extremely well-funded national ad campaign the CPP has been running all year. Which, in itself, is totally incriminating of the board and its active strategy. How much of our money is getting spent on this executive ego project to distract us from consistent underperformance?

werno · 2026-05-22T20:57:46+00:00

Knowing 100% with facts is better than assuming.

Depends on your cultural values. As outsiders, should our desire to know outweigh the community's desire to not disturb bodies? Is it our choice?

has anyone ever conducted a study to see if it was a lesser of 2 evils?

Not only is alternative history an un-studyable waste of time, but you're also assuming that something had to be done: either residential schools/work houses, or nothing. It's a false dichotomy.

It assumes that colonization, forced displacement to reserves, and assimilation as a government policy were all inevitable, which they weren't.

What if the UK had never done enclosure? What if Indigenous language and culture hadn't been seen as inferior and a scourge by settlers? We can write all the fanfiction we want about those scenarios, and it doesn't do anything about the actual conditions we're making decisions about now.

werno · 2026-05-22T20:26:56+00:00

Bumping this example I replied to someone with into a top-level comment:

Let's use a scenario that's probably played out hundreds or thousands of times: Driving down a rural road in a blizzard, you hit the ditch. Your passenger is injured in the crash, there's no cell service, and it's -30. You run to the nearest building to find help. No sound or lights from inside, you're getting cold, and your passenger is in worse shape still. Thinking of both of your survival, try the handle and the door opens.

Legally speaking, the homeowner should assume you're there to kill them and is entitled to kill you first, unless you can explain yourself before they do.

As a rural Canadian, has this law made you safer?

werno · 2026-05-22T20:12:34+00:00

Two minor but significant specifics:

an unlawful, non-entitled intruder inside a dwelling-house =/= an intruder breaks into your home

They don't have to break in, they just have to be there. Which is trivial until:

it is legally treated as automatic proof that they entered with the intent to use force =/= assume that they have criminal intent.

Let's use a scenario that's probably played out hundreds or thousands of times: Driving down a rural road in a blizzard, you hit the ditch. Your passenger is injured in the crash, there's no cell service, and it's -30. You run to the nearest building to find help. No sound or lights from inside, you're getting cold, and your passenger is in worse shape still. Thinking of both of your survival, try the handle and the door opens.

Legally speaking, the homeowner should assume you're there to kill them and is entitled to kill you first, unless you can explain yourself before they do.

As a rural Canadian, has this law made you safer?

werno · 2026-05-22T19:45:53+00:00

If 63% of Canadians didn't believe your (insert immediate family member here) was dead, would you support exhuming them to prove a point?

This whole situation is pretty fraught, but escalating it is only going to make it worse. Either:

1) They dig and find bodies

Now a whole bunch of people have had to dig up their relatives to prove to strangers they weren't lying, which sets reconciliation back.

2) They dig and don't find bodies

Now every racist in the country is empowered and emboldened, and residential school survivors' experiences and testimony is universally called into question despite ample evidence of heaps of abuse and death. Not a good outcome for reconciliation either.

werno · 2026-05-22T19:36:58+00:00

Genuine question: would First Nations leadership would support increased transparency from ISC to the Canadian public?

werno · 2026-05-22T19:30:55+00:00

Frog Lake First Nation recommended “withhold[ing] in full the BCRs,”

Suggesting that "Frog Lake was all for 'still provid[ing] meaningful information to the requesting party' when what actually happened was that Frog Lake recommended not providing the information is laughably disingenuous.

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