iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Canada is in a weird interregnum, where previously derided left-coded policies like nationalization & industrial policy are in the air, while deregulation, austerity, low taxes continue to dominate. The next few years will unfortunately be a lesson in why the latter policies aren’t fit for purpose.

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tl;dr: Carney’s 90s-era economic strategy is designed to spur private sector investment. But Canada‘s problem is that the US is attacking the foundations of the economy. What’s needed is actual industrial policy outlining what the economy should look like in 30 years with a state-led plan to match.

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4 The worry is, in the absence of an actual, state-led plan, Canada will spend $$$ on bandaid solutions to keep sectors temporarily afloat without actually putting them or the economy on a sound, long-term footing.

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3 Despite his frenetic activity, Carney doesn’t actually have a comprehensive, whole-of-economy industrial policy. Such a policy would make the hard calls on steel, autos, etc. 3a What he has are old, FDI, low taxes, no regulation, private-sector-driven 90s-era policies. But it’s the 2020s.

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Union says Stelco layoffs have begun, setting up possible court battle with Ottawa

A few random thoughts. 1 Canada can expect more of these events going forward, even after Trump is no longer in office. 2 The Carney government to date has been reactive to the US attacks on the Canadian economy.

thestar.com

Union official says about 90 employees are out and 80 more are expected this week, as Ottawa demands a plan within five days

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* actually 1997. How time flies...

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It remains amazing to me that nationalization -- which would've been mocked mercilessly when I started my professional career in 1999 -- is now treated as a legitimate policy option in Ottawa. It might not happen, but that it's even being taken seriously shows how much things have changed.

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Best, but not fairest? ANU artist continues to champion data sovereignty with Adam Goodes

Don't know if you saw this when it came out last year, but in Australia they're doing some interesting work and art around the question of tracking pro athletes' on-field movements, particularly Indigenous athletes. reporter.anu.edu.au/all-stories/...

reporter.anu.edu.au

In Adam Goodes' career, millions of movements were made values. Who collected all that data? Who controls it? And, most of all, who should?

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Adam Radwanski @aradwanski.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

I have many answers to this. One of them is that the version of pro-pollution lobbying that replaced outright climate denial - which is basically that we can’t stop climate change on our own, so there’s no point worrying about it domestically at all - has triumphed, for now at least.

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Stephen Leahy @stephenleahy.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

What the heck is happening in Canada? Canada’s electricity production today is “less green than it was just five years ago”. 440megatonnes.ca/insight/net-...

440megatonnes.ca

2030 target and net zero: Canada is 20 years behind

This analysis shows that the country’s current climate policy package would leave emissions stubbornly high through mid-century.

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Justin Joque @jjoque.bsky.social · 11/10/2026

This narrative specifically is so wild to me. It's supposed to be a tool for efficiency and productivity but now we're being told we need to stockpile water and build a ham radio? Doesn't sound very efficient buds. These guys just want to live in their bunkers so bad

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Dr Lindsay Tedds @lindsaytedds.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

1990s: computer geeks connect their lab’s soft drink machine to the Internet so the world can see how many Cokes are left (fun!) 2020s: tech bros need a bot to remind them to drink enough water to stay alive (um…) It’s not your imagination: these people are getting dumber.

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I depend on free expression protections. I’ve used them. That’s why UCalgary’s handling of a residential school denial table on the eve of Truth and Reconciliation Day troubles me. The principles didn’t require silence. They required work nobody did. deadfortaxreasons.wordpress.com/2026/10/10/c...

deadfortaxreasons.wordpress.com

Creating the Conditions: Free Expression, Residential School Denial and UCalgary

I am not a lawyer. I want that on the record before anything else, because what follows touches on the Charter, a court ruling and university policy. I have read all of it the way an academic reads…

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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 10/10/2026

If I built an AI lab and it went rogue and deleted all student loan information, I'm betting they'd suddenly figure out how to prosecute me.

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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

why Isn’t every government saying this to Elon musk’s X?? ““The government views non-consensual deepfake sexual practices as a serious violation of human rights, dignity, and national security in the digital space.” — indonesin govt bsky.app/profile/pari...

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tante @tante.cc · 09/10/2026

"I find it both astounding yet also entirely expected that we are now years into the AI bubble and everything coming out of it still looks like complete shit. And will continue to do so: these companies can iterate and tweak all they want, tell us thi...Unity's New AI Thing Is A Soulless Joke

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Blayne Haggart @bhaggart.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

An organization that was truly interested in advancing scientific and human knowledge would have taken care in releasing these supposed results. As someone else pointed out this week, this isn't about science. It's a power play.

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Blayne Haggart @bhaggart.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

"“We’re now expected to either (i) check all this garbage that OAI is producing or (ii) concede that all of these conjectures have been proven,” ... “I believe in politics this is known as ‘flooding the zone.’ We simply don’t have the resources to correct the record.”" This is not how science works.

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Blayne Haggart @bhaggart.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Anyway, congratulations to the tech industry for destroying every single pleasurable, creative activity and replacing it with inferior simulacra.

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Blayne Haggart @bhaggart.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Above all, I went into academia to write. I also love editing and helping others improve their work. I have no interest in producing tokenized information. Between this and the crisis in teaching, if this is where things are going, there’s no reason for me to stick around.

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Mark MacKinnon @markmackinnon.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

South African judge Navi Pillay - who headed a UN commission that last year found Israel was committing a genocide in Gaza - has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel committee hailed her as "one of the most respected international jurists of our time."

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glenda_aus🍁🦘 @glendaaus.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Maybe Ottawa needs to update their travel warnings. #Canada

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Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Powerful statement from mathematicians around the world. “We urge mathematicians to discontinue their work with OpenAI and to return to a vision of science that centers human understanding.” The backlash to AI is only just beginning. terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/10/07/a...

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"Opposing Zionism, therefore, is no different from opposing other governing ideologies like communism, capitalism, socialism or Islamism."

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Anti-Zionism and antisemitism should not be conflated

"But even though many Jews experience Zionism as a core part of their religious or ethnic identity, Zionism is fundamentally a political ideology. All political ideologies – especially ones that are linked to actual state structures, as Zionism is – should be subject to critique. ..." Gift link.

theglobeandmail.com

Zionism is fundamentally a political ideology, and thus should be subject to critique

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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Three government sponsors pulled their logos from Europe's premier disinformation conference in Vilnius this week. Ramsha Jahangir and Giovana Fleck report on what drove the withdrawals and the transatlantic politics behind them.

techpolicy.press

Disinformation Conference in Europe Caught Up in Transatlantic Politics

Europe’s top disinformation conference faces government withdrawals and pressure over its debate on foreign interference, free speech and the US.

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🎃🎃🎃Michael Scare-anicolas🎃🎃🎃 @karanicolas.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

For goodness sakes - we’re being inundated with news stories about U.S. interference in Quebec and Alberta. This is not a hypothetical. Are we really not capable of having an adult conversation about the threat profile as it actually exists?

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Tu Thanh Ha @tuthanhha.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Canadian poet Anne Carson wins Nobel Prize in Literature. "She was very taken by surprise," when informed. bsky.app/profile/nobe...

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Another question for the pile. If Canada isn’t even able to acknowledge the nature of security threat the US clearly poses, how is this willful ignorance distorting the government's overall military strategy, on which we’re now spending billions upon billions of dollars?

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Carney’s greatest asset is his credibility, and lack of a credible alternative. This incident damages his government’s credibility: its ability to be truthful to Canadians & its commitment to defending core interests against a predatory neighbour whose threats ironically make the conference’s point.

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6 A vassal state is one that can only set policies and act with the tacit or explicit approval of a dominant state. Is Mark Carney’s Canada a vassal state?

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5 Foreign interference would seem to be a matter of national security. At Davos, Carney said that only economically strong countries can afford a principled foreign policy. Does he now believe the same when it comes to issues of national security?

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4 What does the Carney government‘s inability to withstand pressure over a few panels at a conference tell us about its willingness to actually regulate US tech companies, or to pursue “digital sovereignty”? Does Mark Carney’s digital sovereignty include predatory and monopolistic US corporations?

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3 All signs point to Canada withdrawing from the conference due to US pressure. Even in normal times, the US complains about a lot of stuff. What is the Carney government’s threshold for deciding when to appease Trump? After almost two years, and contra the speeches, it seems to be very low.

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2 GAC cites ”changes to the framing of several panel discussions” for the sponsorship withdrawal. As the CBC indicates, there is no evidence of these changes and GAC didn’t give any examples. Is GAC lying to Canadians?

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Canada yanks sponsorship of disinformation conference discussing U.S. as a threat | CBC News

So many questions, all of which speak to the credibility of the Carney government & its overall strategy for managing the Canada-US relationship. 1 “In a statement to CBC News, GAC did not deny that it had concerns with describing the U.S. as a foreign interference threat.” Why not? It clearly is.

cbc.ca

The federal government has withdrawn sponsorship of a European disinformation conference that includes panels discussing the U.S. government as a foreign interference risk.

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Eliot Higgins @eliothiggins.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

Credit to the US for making the point the conference was trying to make about US foreign interference in European democracies for them, and bringing more attention to the conference and its themes than they could have possibly hoped for. www.politico.com/news/2026/10...

politico.com

EU, Canada and Lithuania pull out of disinformation conference after US pressure

The Trump administration was bothered by panels that referred to the U.S. as a disinformation threat.

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LibreOffice is open source. There are ways for the government to make this work. If they're interested. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOf...

en.wikipedia.org

LibreOffice - Wikipedia

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Actions like this once again raise the question: What is Carney's endgame? What, in his mind, do digital sovereignty and "Canada Strong" even mean?

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Fighting foreign interference should be a core Canadian national security priority. But if even being at a conference where the United States is named -- accurately -- as a foreign interference actor is a bridge too far for this government, then they've already conceded the game.

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