iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I worry that AI has a brand problem.

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The House of Commons is debating the price of food, which is a bit weird because eliminating the carbon tax was supposed to solve that problem.

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The Republican candidate for Senate in Michigan

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I think there are probably very good questions to ask about whether Buy Canadian could just reward a bunch of American branch plants. But I guess I don't know whether we can categorically rule out branch plants?

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Yeah, I know zip about government procurement. But my baseline assumption is that turning the ship of state never happens quickly.

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(My last, smaller, question would be whether 16 months is enough time to do much on reorienting government procurement. Not that it's not worth checking in already. But I'd like to see where we're at in 32 months or 48 months.)

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My second question is whether anyone thinks we should cut off General Dynamics. It is an American-owned company. But I imagine the residents of London, Ontario might quibble if we decided General Dynamics didn't qualify under a Buy Canada policy?

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Looking at this chart, my first question is whether there are Canadian or European suppliers that can do whatever IBM and Microsoft are doing for the federal government.

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PM Mark Carney pledged to ‘Buy Canadian.’ Since then, $7.8 billion in contracts went to American corporations

I think this story is less about any failure of the Carney government's "buy Canadian" policy and more about the interesting questions raised by any attempt to reorient government procurement away from the United States.

thestar.com

A Star analysis reveals U.S. firms dominated federal contracts despite PM Mark Carney’s ‘Buy Canadian’ promise.

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I think there's value to voters in knowing how people are planning to vote. If anything, that value probably increases the closer one gets to the vote. If there's an issue, I think it's less about polls themselves and more about whether they receive a disproportionate amount of attention.

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Maybe the fact that it's the Commonwealth of Kentucky makes them feel some residual connection?

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History www.thewrit.ca/p/caq-collap...

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From the outside looking in, it feels like the inability of legislative majorities to deliver the policies they campaigned on is at or near the root of the problem with American democracy.

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Interesting as a point of reference for public opinion in Canada. Support for secession is running around 31% in Quebec. Latest poll in Alberta puts support for a referendum at 23%.

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Is this downstream from the inability of Congress to actually deliver a policy program?

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PQ under Marois in 2012: 54 seats and 32% of the vote. PQ under PPSP in 2026: 59 seats and 28% of the vote.

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Stephen Harper after the Quebec election in 2012. globalnews.ca/news/283803/...

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I think the House also needs to have an emergency debate about what qualifies as an emergency debate.

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I think the last few years have convinced me that we need to adopt the British model of the Speaker running as an independent.

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28% for the PQ would be both a big bounce back from 2022 and still below what it was when it last formed government.

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The Quebec result is at least interesting.

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Max Fawcett @maxfawcett.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Kim Campbell's four months as PM also didn't include a PQ government. (While we're here, John Turner was technically faced with a PQ government during his 79 days as PM.)

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Reposted by Aaron Wherry

Did a fun little thread in the comments here. Enjoy, if you're so inclined.

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Indeed I cannot. I think my point of three weeks ago was simply that the pipeline is generating revenue for the federal government. Whether or not the purchase of TMX was smart or wise or prudent or justifiable is a longer conversation.

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Does this fact tell us anything? I'm not sure. But is it an interesting fact? Not sure about that either. But is it a fact? Yes.

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