Given how U.S. is unraveling in so many ways – a dysfunctional and evil force reviled both domestically and internationally – hard to believe Alberta government still embracing a MAGA inspired agenda.

Santé Québec 'minimizing' deaths of heart patients on wait lists, surgeon says The organization managing Quebec health care says "the medical reality is complex" when it comes to patients dying before surgery.

Heart surgeons are furious with how Santé Québec appears to be playing down the crisis in premature deaths among patients on lengthy wait lists for cardiac surgery. Santé Québec is also being accused of gaslighting the public on wait times. My latest.👇
montrealgazette.com/news/health/...

Among the Separatists | The Tyee I wanted to learn the true target of their angry dreams. What I heard made me tremble for the Alberta I love.

This descriptive, thoroughly reported and very troubling essay about the separatist movement in Alberta by @marcellodicintio.bsky.social is critical reading for Albertans. Great journalism in the public interest.

Among the Separatists via @thetyee.ca thetyee.ca/Analysis/202...

Alberta’s Separatists Are Chasing a Total Cowboy Fantasy | The Walrus The province they describe—rural, homogeneous, under siege—bears little resemblance to reality

My latest: Alberta’s Separatists Are Chasing a Total Cowboy Fantasy thewalrus.ca/albertas-sep... via @thewalrus.ca

Let's be honest, much of the separatist agenda is built around anti-immigrant lies & regressive "cowboy" myths.

To call this language a dog whistle is an insult to dog whistles.

Opinion: By calling Trumpist ideas ‘Western values,’ we’re handing dictators a gift Liberty, dignity and morality are universal values – and the Trump administration’s efforts to frame them as the exclusive domain of the West are poisonous

Rubio, Vance and Trump claim to be defenders of “western civilization” against enemies from within. We need to oppose not just their very anti-Western values but the entire concept of “Western values,” which is a gift to dictators.

Let me explain

www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

This is an excellent essay.

Anti-feminist ideology ‘increasingly relevant’ to national security: CSIS - National | Globalnews.ca Officials with Canada's security and intelligence agency told MPs the ideology 'can function as an enabling factor along pathways to violent extremism' but is not itself a threat.

“These narratives can provide grievance frameworks that legitimize hostility toward women and gender equality, and elements of them are consistent with those observed in ideologically motivated violent extremism.”

The "staffer" who hid misogynistic tags in Poilievre's posts has left the chat.

Danielle Smith is no separatist; she's much, much worse In a televised address last night Danielle Smith launched a xenophobic assault on immigration and proposed a set of referendum questions for next Fall advocating a constitutional agenda that would red...

NEW POST: Danielle Smith is no separatist; she's much, much worse
emmettmacfarlane.substack.com/p/danielle-s...

Toronto shopping street

Half of business owners on this Toronto street estimated that more than 25% of their customers arrived by car.

In fact, it was 4%.

And the % of customers who who walked or cycled? 72%.

Retailers routinely overestimate the # of “car customers.” Via @carltonreid.com www.forbes.com/sites/carlto...

This is a wild sequence, and deeply informative.

Also, given the subject matter that Dave’s pressing ChatGPT on, it’s performance art.

Drimonis: 120 years later, Greek community continues to flourish montrealgazette.com/opinion/colu...

Albera as the 51st State: Jeff Rath’s MAGA Fever Dream Words matter. Rath's conspiracy rhetoric is downright frightening

Alberta as the 51st State: Jeff Rath’s MAGA Fever Dream

The quotes in this essay are Rath's own words, transcribed from CTV News interviews.

Words matter and Rath's conspiracy rhetoric is downright frightening.
#ableg #abpoli #cdnpoli
markhamhislop.substack.com/p/albera-as-...

A juvenile great horned owl roosts in the saddle of cottonwood tree in Longmont, Colorado. In this vertical color photograph one sees the main trunk of the cottonwood tree with its huge dark brown and gray bark with grooves and tons of texture. In the lower left part of the frame an owls head is sticking up looking at the camera. The owls large yellow eyes jump out against its own camouflage and the color of the tree bark. Its right side of its head and upper body are in the shade. Photo by Kort Duce

A young great horned owl roosts in the saddle of cottonwood tree in Longmont, Colorado.

#BirdOfTheDay #BrownIsBeautiful #EastCoastKin #bird #birds #owl #owls #birdphotography #photography #photograph #photographs #photo #photos #nature

Burst pipes cause widespread flooding in research labs at Douglas Institute "The situation here is appalling, both for the patients but also for the research centre," said researcher Sylvain Williams. "It's really unfortunate because the Douglas is a leader in Canada and the ...

1) The Douglas Mental Health University Institute, which was founded in 1881, hasn't undergone much renovation since Queen Victoria was alive. On Monday, the ceilings literally caved in. See my story below about Quebec's crumbling medical infrastructure.👇
montrealgazette.com/news/local-n...

Anti-science BS a feature of fascism.

Let’s keep fighting for the light. 💪

As we return to a pre-WW2 order, the middle powers face a challenge With economic stagnation and extremes of inequality comes corrosion of trust in democratic institutions. So Trump may be a symptom, not a cause, of what Carney called a "rupture" with the post-WW2 ord...

As the world inches back to a pre-WW2 order, the 'middle powers' face a grave new challenge

#cdnpoli #canada #boycottusa
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Why teens with ADHD are so vulnerable to the perils of social media For many young people with the condition, screen interactions are especially hard to resist — and intensify the mental-health challenges they face.

Why teens with ADHD are so vulnerable to the perils of social media www.nature.com/articles/d41...

"...focusing on the types of digital-media use patterns and content that may be most harmful — and intervening there — is likely where the future lies."

My journey from foreign correspondent to Uber driver in Trump's America I once documented human displacement and desperation; now I am living it

My old boss at Reuters. Hard story to read.
This is a precarious business in very precarious times.

This piece by Matt Bruenig is essential reading for AI skeptics on the left. You may or may not agree with the arguments, but very much worth taking seriously.

mattbruenig.com/2026/01/19/s...

The Case for Sticking Around - Alberta Views I’m calling on us to do something un-Canadian: and stand up for the country we love—and reject the idea of a sovereign Alberta

After all the heartbreak and horror of the world this week - a reminder of why Canada, and the idea of Canada, really matters. We aren’t trying to be great again - just trying to make a better country, every day. Sending this out with love and hope. #Canada #cdnpoli #ElbowsUp #Alberta #refugees

#SLCN (speech, Language and Communication Needs) are the most common SEND, but many continue to think of them as not that serious.
However in 2023-24 just 27.6% of those with SLCN achieved grades 4 and above in maths and English.
This needs to change!

Les enfants qui ont été exposés à la covid lors de la gestation peuvent avoir des retards sur le développement du cerveau, la cognition et la santé émotionnelle.

52 % des enfants ont maintenant des retards à deux ans comparativement à 14 % avant la pandémie.

'A lifeline to the land and to the people': How radio plays a critical role in the culture of northern Sask. | CBC News They may be small, but the collection of radio stations that service Saskatchewan’s remote northern communities are hubs that connect people with news and programming that builds knowledge and culture...

'A lifeline to the land and to the people': Radio's role in the culture of northern #Saskatchewan

Radio stations provide critical link in remote communities

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Some men may downplay climate change risks to avoid appearing feminine A new study finds that men who are anxious about their masculinity are less likely to care about climate change. They may view environmental concern as a feminine trait that threatens their image.

Well it came in right before the deadline but this is the dumbest fucking thing I've read all year, and I don't doubt it for a second.

Les PDG les mieux payés du Québec gagneront 236 fois plus que le salaire moyen en 2026 Au deuxième jour de la nouvelle année, ils ont déjà empoché l’équivalent de ce qu’un travailleur québécois moyen touche en 12 mois.

Les patrons des plus grandes entreprises du Québec devraient gagner 236 fois plus que le salaire annuel moyen en 2026. Au deuxième jour de la nouvelle année, ils avaient déjà empoché l’équivalent de ce qu’un travailleur québécois moyen touche en 12 mois.

Deepfakes flooding your feed: Why AI videos are dangerous — and how to spot them | DW News YouTube video by DW News

https://youtu.be/WSStTnoSb_c?si=FpnxVDhOwT7qJYaR

‘You can mix your methods, but you can’t mix your paradigms’: a guide to ontology and epistemology for the confused researcher Research is an attempt to find out something useful about the world. Whether we like it or not, how we choose our methods, conduct data analysis, and draw conclusions flow from our underpinning assump...

Happy new year! If your eyes glaze over when people start talking philosophy in research, then read this! Proud to have been a co-author on this paper explaining why the assumptions we make about the world matter for our research bjgp.org/content/76/7...

Let's Be Friends: Peer Perceptions of Disordered Speech in Preschool and Early School-Aged Children Purpose: Children attend to speech variation to inform a variety of linguistic and social judgments about a talker. Communication impairments, su...

The social impacts of speech sound disorder (SSD) are underexplored, especially in young children. Two tasks eliciting preschoolers' social judgments of SSD speech revealed a preference for typical speech as early as age 4. https://on.asha.org/4spAO7I

@mhhenry.bsky.social
‬

Opinion: A divisive wave of disinformation In late October, I was in a hotel in Alberta, doom-scrolling social media when a video posted by former Alberta deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk appeared on my Facebook feed. He and I have never met, bu...

“The reality is that there are those outside our borders who appear determined to harm Canada by spreading disinformation about our country and sowing division among our citizens…”

#ableg #cdnpoli

www.brandonsun.com/opinion/2025...

On the left: Image of a silhouetted human head in profile with the top cut off; colourful letters are coming out of the top. On the right: text that reads “If chatbots can replace writers, it’s because we made writing replaceable. A good deal of what gets published already reads like a photocopy of a photocopy.”

If writing is about pattern-matching, what separates the language produced by humans from that of machines? Author and editor André Forget argues the difference comes down not to brilliance but biology. thewalrus.ca/if-chatbots-can-...