iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Canadian, & therefore treacherous @stoneape314.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

If you want to see Myers get re-elected, you should sign-up and volunteer! electjamaalmyers.ca/volunteer For those who'd like to help but aren't able to easily make it out to Scarborough North, their campaign can set you up with phone banking as well.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

This has essentially not come up at all despite a municipal election this month. It makes me want to bang my head against a wall.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Justin Trudeau talked a big deal about carbon taxes but it took Donald Trump to get it done - globally.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

John Michael McGrath @jm-mcgrath.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

When Shachi Kurl called Quebec's laws "discriminatory" (the most neutral possible term for them) in a federal leaders debate the federalist parties and their hangers-on in the media rushed to condemn her for crassly cynical reasons, it was gross.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

An oddly spicy mayoral race that’s all about insider baseball and not about substantive policy.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

My entry into YIMBYism was a way to maintain Canada’s pro-immigration consensus, and at that we weren’t quite so successful.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

This is right. Which is why local government needs to focus on the physical city and *actually improve it.* In Toronto, the left has failed on both of those points.

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Kevin Wilson @kwilsonhfx.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

A good chunk of the popularity of Carney is obviously a rally around the flag effect due to *events* from south of the border, but I think some of it is just from the federal government actually taking action on some long-term dysfunctions.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 @josephpolitano.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

very obvious why Canadians feel this way now but Americans still need to internalize how bad the PR damage of the last 2 years has been and how hard it is going to be to rebuild trust

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Jake Landau (He/Him) 🇨🇦🇵🇸🇺🇦 @jakelandau.ca · 05/09/2026

NEW COLUMN: Ontario Liberal establishment figures like Tom Allison sought to “save the party” from Nate Erskine-Smith. It doesn’t seem like it worked. www.jakelandau.ca/p/the-by-ele...

jakelandau.ca

The by-elections are over, and folks, I don’t think Tom Allison saved the Ontario Liberal Party!

Sorry, Tom. Better luck next failure!

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

The Lake Ontario discussion is tiring. People south of the border, get your shit together. Infantile renaming of bodies of water is the least of your problems. People north of the border, get your shit together. Quick check on where Digital Service Canada messed up:

Side by side view of google baseman as deployed by HICC and one with an added region parameter.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Google Maps doesn’t say “Arunachal Pradesh (South Tibet)”, or “West Bank (Judea and Samaria)”, it correctly realizes that the name outside the parenthesis is the globally acceptable name. Why say “Lake Ontario (Lake America)” outside the US/Canada then?

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Ontario and Toronto should be making the relevant regulatory changes to legalize these ASAP. Abundant Waymos were the best part of living in SF. They’re so much safer to walk/bike/drive around than the avg car.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

To Dems: we don’t need your friendly platitudes while you continue to back protectionist tariffs like you did under Biden. We want you to come out swinging for free trade. Pitch it as helping affordability if you need to. If you won’t, your allies will continue to expand trade with China.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Eric Lombardi (EricForOLP.ca) @ericlombardi.ca · 25/08/2026

Why is Doug Ford fighting with Toronto over bike lanes? The city has already invested heavily in cycling infrastructure, and Bike Share Toronto is at record-high ridership. His plan will cost taxpayers across the province millions and won’t do anything to improve congestion.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Reece Martin @rmtransit.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Yet another reminder to read more! open.substack.com/pub/cinqpers...

open.substack.com

Go Read Young Man.

Another reminder to read.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

People say “once you fly business class you don’t feel like going back to economy” but I found that to not be true at all. Instead, the flying-related comfort that’s impossible to ditch once you’re used to it, is refundable fares

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

The other analysis that needs to be a part of these comparisons is that Montreal buses are just a lot less frequent. If you’re going somewhere like the Mile End, Bixi is the best way to get there. If you’re going to the Junction, the TTC is far better for most people.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

This is correct - as is evidenced by the average Amazon item being lower-quality than something that was mostly intended to be sold in a physical store.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Jeffrey Tumlin 🏳️‍🌈 🌁 @jeffreytumlin.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

Your periodic reminder that my 1991 SF Mission apt was $980/mo in today's dollars - an unaffordable sum for me then. This is what decades of NIMBY SF politics stole from you and our beloved city's creative spark

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Me at a No Frills in Toronto after spending ~2 years in San Francisco

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

This is why many of us were always skeptical of demand-side housing solutions. It is ultimately just an excuse to move the goalpost and build less housing.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Jacob Loo Dawang @jacobdawang.com · 26/07/2026

@itsbilal.bsky.social: "that looks like the stop right outside Humber college bus station. Like not the bus station itself, but the one on the road."

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Grow Together Edmonton @growtogetheryeg.bsky.social · 19/06/2025

ICYMI, new op-ed from @jacobdawang.com: rolling back zoning reforms would be a mistake. "That means more people priced out of mature neighbourhoods, gatekeeping Edmonton’s best neighbourhoods so that rowhouses look like single-family homes." Read more 👇 edmontonjournal.com/opinion/colu... #yegcc

edmontonjournal.com

Opinion: Rolling back pro-density zoning restricts housing choice

When we restrict housing choice, we're not preserving neighbourhood character: we're enforcing neighbourhood exclusion.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 08/06/2025

No problem here. I was told that the right to bear arms exists specifically for standing up against tyrannical government actions like these. That will solve things very soon.

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Grow Together Edmonton @growtogetheryeg.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

DEFEND ZONING BYLAW RENEWAL Tomorrow, council's Urban Planning Committee will consider amendments to our zoning as part of its one-year review. The usual opposition is looking to roll back progress. Please take 2 min and use our tool to email council 👇 www.growtogetheryeg.com/blog/zoning-...

growtogetheryeg.com

Zoning Bylaw Renewal: One Year Review

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Phil @philmarfisi.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

If Liberals back someone who is unapologetic about opposing a ceasefire for an ongoing genocide, it's a pretty searing indictment of the moral clarity of centrists in Toronto.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

And on top of that: Land Transfer Tax revenue is way down because people aren’t buying/selling homes as often. The property tax increase was the only good option.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

I'm just planting this flag now: if the entirety of your mayoral bid in 2026 is saying property tax increases were too high under Chow, you don't understand the operating budget and you're not fit to be mayor. COVID relief funding is gone, so property taxes have to cover the loss in transit revenue.

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Damien Moule @damienmoule.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

An example of the problems: Mike Layton and Adam Vaughan wanted to stop a Walmart on Bathurst near Kensington. So they initiated a planning study that 1. Didn't prevent a chain store in that property (it's a Winners and freshco) 2. Added a bunch of unrelated growth restrictions on Bathurst

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Jacob’s analysis (which you should read!) is about Edmonton, but the same pattern repeats in a lot of places: A theoretically-more-permissive zoning that then gets hampered by a litany of restrictions, each of which then necessitate site specific exceptions to get anything built

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

emet-selch 🍁 @chaimagicks.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

The California Model of Governance: 1. Create Regulation A 2. Problem A is side effect of Regulation A 3. Insist Regulation A is unrelated to Problem A 4. Create Regulation B to solve Problem A 5. Side effect of Regulation B is Problem B 6. A referendum stops you from solving either problem

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

California’s film industry thrived off of open access to world markets. You’re just inviting retaliatory tariffs on California services here, which would absolutely wreck California (as they could also apply to tech).

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

Also this argument fails a simple smell test? American cars are too large and heavy to fit in European / Japanese streets GM doesn't make a single mass-market sedan anymore! Even the Chevy Malibu has been discontinued.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 01/04/2025

“The presence of ... economists skeptical of tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China, could all suddenly be considered adverse to U.S. foreign policy interests and subject to deportation based on the unilateral determination of the secretary of state,” www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/u...

nytimes.com

Trump’s Use of Immigration Law Appears to Conflict With Limits Imposed by Congress (Gift Article)

A crackdown targeting foreign students protesting Israel’s treatment of Palestinians conflicts with free-speech protections that lawmakers added in 1990.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

Brent Toderian @brenttoderian.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

BREAKING: “We will build at a pace not seen since the 2nd World War.” Mark Carney announces he wants to double the pace of housing construction in Canada, half a million new homes/year. He wants the Federal Govt to get back into affordable home-building. Billions in housing loans/grants announced.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

I don't blame Kamala's loss on her/Biden as much as I blame it on state and local Democrats running anti-abundance governments and letting outcomes in their cities get worse. The only exception is Colorado, and hey, that's the only state that got bluer in 2024!

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

Here's something I've been a little tight-lipped about lately: I moved from Toronto to San Francisco to accept a job around the start of the year It's a decision I finalized last fall, but the ramifications of that move became clearer well after my decision given *waves arms around*

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Mark Carney @mark-carney.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, a month of generosity, community service and peace. As Muslim Canadians gather with family and community tonight, we can all strive to uphold these important values. Eid Mubarak.

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Reposted by Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦

mark burge @markburge.ca · 02/02/2025

Hey Americans apologizing for your countries' actions. I get it, but at the same time, this isn't a "oopsie" thing. This will destroy the Canadian economy. The action is to call and write your reps and demand better from your electeds. This is economic war on your closest ally, act like it.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

“But it’s Trudeau’s fault cuz fentanyl” — Shopify exec bros

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

My brother in Islam, that’s a museum you got, not a neighbourhood

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

my yute came here to start a fight, ahlie?

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

The ugly truth is already out in the open. The question is whether we will correct course now, or continue repeating our mistakes.

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Bilal Akhtar 🇨🇦 @itsbilal.bsky.social · 20/12/2024

This right here is a searing indictment of Toronto politicians, past and present. There are remarkably few who get it - fewer than you’d think.

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