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Shannon Proudfoot

@sproudfoot.bsky.social
9.7K followers 576 following 677 posts

Feature writer covering federal politics at The Globe and Mail. I love great beer, old art, all cheese, The Golden Girls and Gritty. I have too many cats, which is the correct number.

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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 4h
Transit in Ottawa is broken. Four times in the last two weeks a bus has blown by my stop, busy but not packed, and you wait 10-15 minutes for the next and hope it’s not too overloaded to stop. No one cares. You can complain to OC Transpo but you might as well write a message in a bottle.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Re-upping this terrific profile of Quebec's brand-new premier by @mauraforrest.bsky.social.
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Carrie Tait @carrietait.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Howdy! Alberta separatists + American Republicans. Read all about it. --> www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic... By Nathan VanderKlippe, Grant Robertson, and friend.
theglobeandmail.com
The elephant in the room
Alberta separatists have gone to D.C. offering fresh water and oil in exchange for American support – and Republican operatives have provided tactical assistance inside the province
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Pierre Poilievre seems to live in the banker man’s shadow these days, so I took a lot at the last month of his interviews and speeches to see what he’s focused on right now. www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/opi...
theglobeandmail.com
Opinion: Here’s what Pierre Poilievre is focused on these days
Recent speeches, press conferences and interviews offer a sense of what the Conservative leader is focused on, even while the spotlight is elsewhere
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I know ”Hang it in the Louvre” is overused shorthand but…you could hand this in the Louvre and make some pretty solid (if unsubtle) commentary about the world today.
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Dustin A. Chacón @lingdustin.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I've heard people make claims that AI would lead to a new Renaissance, but I didn't imagine it'd happen like this:
Screenshot of a Tweet from Pope Leo XIV. It reads: 

"In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgen to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity."
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
I have a weird emotional reaction to this. It’s always been my favourite Hip song, but I also thought it was a somewhat obscure choice. And then it turns out everyone agrees.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
This is a spectacular story - intricate, grounded in history, weaving together the personal and political - on the two separatism movements Canada is currently facing, and why they've always been with us. By Eric Andrew-Gee: www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
theglobeandmail.com
A country with its elbows up faces separation threats on two fronts
In Alberta and Quebec, Canada’s national unity paradox hits home
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
It looks like the very important Cat Content didn’t load, so here’s Lille enjoying the wonders of the clarinet by trying to turn her ears inside out.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
This kid also plays the piano quite beautifully, but learning curve on the clarinet appears to begin with parakeet homicide.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
One of my kids had just started playing the clarinet. This is a cat with a permanently annoyed ear angle.
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Jeff VanderMeer @jeffvandermeer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
They quoted me in this New Yorker piece about AI today. www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...
“Let’s say there’s a world or time line I exist in where A.I. has been subject to regulation. It is ethical. It has no footprint environmentally,” the novelist Jeff VanderMeer, a prominent critic of A.I., told me over the phone. “With those guardrails in place, would I read an A.I. book? All I can say is no. And the reason is, in part, because I want to read something coming from a particular mind.” Using A.I., he said, “feels like a betrayal of the whole point of why you’re a writer.”
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mike taddow @miketaddow.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
i’m sorry, but i have to post this political ad
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Excellent, smart and intricate profile of PSPP by @mauraforrest.bsky.social in today's Globe. www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...
theglobeandmail.com
The persistence of Paul St-Pierre Plamondon brings the PQ to a critical point
The promise of a referendum put the Parti Québécois Leader on centre stage. He might just get the chance to deliver
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Tired: "L'etat, c'est moi." Wired: "I am the code." www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...
washingtonpost.com
‘I am the code’: Trump clashed with ballroom architect over safety issues
James McCrery II resigned in October after warning that the president was insisting on designs that violated fire and safety codes.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
This is a thoroughly delightful story about John and Spencer van Roessel, a father and son from Calgary who were rejected from The Amazing Race Canada and decided to plan their own adventure across Canada instead. What a lovely bond they seem to have. www.theglobeandmail.com/life/style/t...
theglobeandmail.com
After missing out on Amazing Race Canada, Alberta father and son make their own
The duo travelled nearly 16,000 kilometres in 17 days, visiting 19 cities, towns and parks on their cross-country adventure
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This is masterfully argued, attempting to extricate the personal from the societal.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
PSA: if you, like me, are a bit late to Trump's UNGA speech and want to see it, but also not burn an entire hour of your precious time on earth on it, you can watch it here sped up: www.pbs.org/newshour/wor...
pbs.org
WATCH LIVE: Trump addresses 2026 United Nations General Assembly
President Donald Trump returns to the General Assembly nearing the seven-month mark of a new war against Iran that he insists is necessary to address a nuclear threat posed by Iran.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Hey Ottawa: the most amazing festival you probably don't know about is happening this week. It's the 50th anniversary of the Ottawa International Animation Festival, and it is an absolute bacchanal of brilliant, moving, strange and profound art in motion. www.animationfestival.ca
animationfestival.ca
Ottawa International Animation Festival |
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Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dave @davebrowne.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
“We don’t think that it’s going to get fixed fast. We actually think that Trump’s the spearhead,” Mr. Colledge said. “But I think deep down we’re like, ‘Mmmm, you elected him.’”
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Luke Edwards @edwardsluke.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
That's a great way to describe how I felt, and I was never even a hockey player.
I assume many Canadians experienced something like the weird cocktail of emotions that buzzed through me that weekend. There was dread, to be sure, because whatever came next would not be good. But there was also a strange relief that bordered on elation: Someone was about to punch me in the face, and I was grinning at them with savage glee in my eyes.
Brightest, on top of it all, was the same feeling that had made me tear up every time I’d heard O Canada over the past 18 months: a patriotic pride so quietly fierce that it sneaked up on me with an almost physical presence.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
In late July, I started working on a feature trying to figure out where Canadians’ heads were at. Then came another Trumpquake, and a late-breaking story that changed everything. Gift link: www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/9bc9b25...
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Mark Agee @markagee.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
"NPR sat down with this solar calculator and asked it to explain this poem about God"
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Petition to legally require a "FUCK OFF" button on every AI tool that asks if you'd like it to summarize an email or blow your nose for you. People went nuts when U2 shoved an album onto their phones against their will, and now this crap is rammed down our throats everywhere. Rise up, people!
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
One of my most fervent beliefs is that all the other grotesquerie of Trump has obscured the fact that he is really, really not a bright dude. It's like that old Herman cartoon with the doctor who treats a headache by smacking your hand with a hammer so you're not thinking about the headache anymore.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Springfield, Ohio is once again in the news for horrific reasons that have little to do with the real lives of people there. Springfield is where I chose to spend election night in 2024, here's my feature on the city I found: www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-pol...
theglobeandmail.com
At the campaign finish line in Springfield, the city that became an accidental main character
In an instant, the Ohio city was transformed from a real place full of real people – with real problems, though not of the pet-eating kind – into cannon fodder
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
This is superb, nearly flawless - except that Northern Ontarians know about the stag & doe too.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
A friend/new enemy introduced me to NYT Connections a couple of weeks ago. If I understand it correctly, the point is for you to hate the person who created the puzzle every single day with the fire of a thousand suns?
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Tom Reagan’s Witch’s Hat @rufustsuperfly.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
This feels emblematic of so much of culture right now, with AI crap proliferating everywhere. It's just a sausage machine vacuuming up other people's creativity and vision and idiosyncrasy and then pumping it back out as slick, soulless soylent art. So grim and empty.
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Sam Adams @samadams.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
there was obviously no creative impetus to making a new Harry Potter but the extent to which they are not even trying to make this look different from the movies is kind of astonishing
youtube.com
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone | Official Teaser Trailer | HBO Max
YouTube video by Harry Potter
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
This feels extremely correct.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
I've noticed two independent coffee shops here in Ottawa that have swapped the Americano on their menu for a Canadiano. Have people seen that in other cities too?
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I want to go sit on one of these benches beside that cat right now. I can feel my breathing slow just looking at this painting.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
ICYMI.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Fun fact: in the two hours between when I interviewed MapQuest's general manager and when I filed this story, the app went from #2 to #1 on the App Store, leapfrogging over Google Maps.
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are you not infotained @alopex-ii.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Services I provide for my cats
Chicago streets and sanitation truck with the first s missing so it says treets and sanitation
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
New from me: welcome to the map resistance. www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/art...
theglobeandmail.com
Welcome to the map resistance
MapQuest’s refusal to rename Lake Ontario has made the navigation app an unlikely mascot of the resistance to Trump’s penchant for renaming geographical features
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Chris Turner @theturner.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
“There are so many odious characteristics of the second coming of Trump … that it’s easy to overlook the sticky, suffocating, ankle-deep stupidity animating so much of this.” Truth. I remind myself regularly that the President believes stealth aircraft are invisible like Wonder Woman’s plane
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
New from me: the Trump administration runs infinitely renewable stupidity. www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/opi...
theglobeandmail.com
Opinion: Stupidity is an infinitely renewable resource with this U.S. administration
From trade tensions to renaming Lake Ontario, the latest moves add to a pattern of chaos and needless distraction
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Taylor Noakes @taylornoakes.com · 28/08/2026
Swish! Kinew never misses. #cdnpoli
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Jacob T. Levy @jacobtlevy.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
@thisone0verhere.bsky.social
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
I mean this very, very seriously: It is absolutely an option for us to ignore his idiotic Lake America stunt. We can do that. We can just tune it out like you would block out a child howling at you in the cereal aisle, recognizing that to do anything else would be to give the whiner what they want.
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Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Y'all... the Band of the Coldstream Guards performed "9 to 5" in front of Buckingham Palace in honor of Dolly Parton.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Me, the second the weather turns.
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Joel @itsjoels.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
This is the letter kids got at the end of Dolly’s Imagination Library. I defy you to read this and not cry.
Sorry, I can’t type that.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The most comforting possibility is that this is more of the endless, stupid "get on board or get left behind!" insistence from the tech industry and only a tiny handful of absolute psychopaths would have any interest in this. The other possibilities are worse.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
This is a bleak, soulless horror no Black Mirror episode could come close to. The fact that you would brag about this and sign your name to it is absolutely insane.
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Shannon Proudfoot @sproudfoot.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
I have no way to prove this, but I have a deep and abiding belief that the fact that Canadian leaders speak French as well as English, and every official correspondence we produce is in both languages, functions like a posh accent to send Trump into a white-hot rage of insecurity.
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Tom Hawthorn 🇨🇦 @tomhawthorn.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
This quote will last a century.
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