FPTP ultimately is anti-hope; it’s built functionally so that, pragmatically, you’re generally not voting for the people you like the best, you’re voting against the person you like the least. And it ultimately renders MPs/MLAs useless and performative frequently.

The whole thing is pretty messy when you get into it. Thankfully here we aren’t Electoral College awful (where a single vote can potentially move ~50 seats one way or the other in a comparable situation), but that implies the bar is on the floor.

We can do better, even incrementally.

Nearly 20 years ago, I was in a computer programming class surrounded by clunky towers and desktops.

Suddenly, a loud popping, then one of the machines starts belching smoke like a budget fog machine. The kid using it is calmly moved to another station while the prof investigates.

Fifteen minutes later - pop. Smoke again.

Turns out the kid was jamming a paperclip into the power supply like he was playing Operation: Arson Edition.

That was his last day.

On the bright side, computers are a lot cheaper now - and kids are still dumb. So, maybe progress?

My half-brother is American and former Republican voter.

Your take sounds a lot like his; what eventually pivoted him away from the party was an increasing awareness that it’s always someone else’s fault and an inability to look inwards.

I hope things improve in the future - the American people deserve better, but that starts with becoming aware of what the real problems are.

Only the bots have rights

Literally every single thing Danielle Smith and the UCP espouse to care about is made worse by Alberta becoming a sovereign nation:

• Taxes
• Coastal access
• Pipelines and transfer taxes
• Tanker access and global markets
• Trade sanctions as a function of per capita CO2 emissions
• Infrastructure access
• Energy markets
• Codified projects and say in what they detail
• Comprehensive national strategy cost averaged down against 40 million instead of 4 million (aka costs 10x).

Think about what happens to Albertan property values on separation - literally no one is moving here, and many will leave. The “Alberta Edge” becomes even less tenable, and quality of life rapidly erodes.

But maybe they can empty everyone’s pensions before they fuck off into the sunset, once the last drop of blood is squeezed out.

They’re really talking about becoming the most taxed 51st state, or an erosion of living standards so sharp they’ll get whiplash. Ghoulish politics.

Trouble with measuring crossings is it picks up an aggregate of things; Canadians crossing for leisure, for business, Americans crossing for leisure and work, medical tourism (Americans coming for insulin, my uncle driving to Mexico for dental care, etc.), foreigners on a road trip, people driving between Canada and Mexico, etc. Most of these are round trips too; you’re going to be measured coming in and then out (so you’re part of both statistics).

This sets aside people who already had non-refundable bookings from a year ago; Disney essentially let us cancel our Florida trip once they confirmed our French reservation at Disney there; sure, it’s still money going to Disney, but at least a lot of that money is being divested into the French market instead.

My friends who weren’t able to cancel made a point of limiting their spending while they were there still. And then there were a couple who just didn’t care as well.

Ultimately, the metrics (and their sustained impacts) will be an aggregate of many things, and eventually Canadian fatigue as well.

Updoot for the sorted list archival.

A) American Republican owned Chatham shouldn’t own essentially all of our domestic news (I’d say this if it were the Democrats too, although I don’t see anything even remotely this magnitude from them).

B) These companies should have to super impose PostMedia on all their logos in double the size. And don’t stop there - do it to all structured ownership in every industry.

The NDP, despite being tiny in the last two governments, enacted some of the biggest (incremental) changes this country has seen in recent decades. Dental care, pharma care, small rental and housing affordability improvements, universal sick leave protections, etc.

They clearly were the policy “winners” in the last 4 years, whether you agree with the initiatives themselves or not.

They were completely ineffective in the rhetoric and self-advocacy space, where the Conservatives clearly won (whether we find this agreeable or not). This is in part due to the fact the NDP can only get soundbytes on mainstream media access when it’s subjectively on things no one else is talking about, making it look like their priority, and in part due to the fact Canada has a major American Republican media arm reaching into Canada (and the slow pivot to inexpensive influencers who hammer the same speaking points effectively as “common sense”).

Nothing short of the spectrum of corporatocracy (at best) to executive authoritarianism will do.

Good information.

Given we live in a FPTP country, this is a worthwhile thing to consider as well: https://smartvoting.ca/ridings/federal-2025

You can look up your riding to see vote projections; you ultimately vote the system you have.