Canadian Stuff
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Budley Doright
Well-Known Member
Good enough to retire happily 
Ozumoz66
Well-Known Member
There are some manufactured grievances out there, coupled with disinformation and cognitive distortions, many get upset about things that aren't so.We got ours a bit late as we were late filing our taxes. We get way more back that we pay out too so I don't know what all the protesting is about.
Somebody has to lead by example to try and get the rest of the world onboard with tackling climate change before it's too late if it isn't already.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
You must have been educated in an American school where the class map of North America shows everything above the 49th parallel as solid white like there's a cutoff where nothing but snow and ice exists which is why the US never bothered invading and claiming it as their own.
All along the souther section of Canada regular strains do very well but up north where I live nearer the 56th parallel The summer days are 20 hours of light so the plants don't begin flowering until the middle of Aug and we used to sometimes have snow before the end of Aug but that has changed a lot in the 23 years I've lived up here. Autos do very well tho.
The winter nights when it's -30C are conversely 20 hours of dark.
The last two Mays have been hot like summer with rains coming in June, Mixed this year with milder temps and some rain which I'm sure the farmers are very happy to get so all the seeds they've planted will germinate. Very dry with little snow the last 3 years so we're in drought conditions. My dugout is at the lowest I've seen it since buying this place 20 years ago and that's where our tap water comes from. Still about 8ft deep and it's 80 x 50yds in size so plenty of water left.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
“nine months of winter, and three months of mosquitoes and bad sledding”You must have been educated in an American school where the class map of North America shows everything above the 49th parallel as solid white like there's a cutoff where nothing but snow and ice exists which is why the US never bothered invading and claiming it as their own.
All along the souther section of Canada regular strains do very well but up north where I live nearer the 56th parallel The summer days are 20 hours of light so the plants don't begin flowering until the middle of Aug and we used to sometimes have snow before the end of Aug but that has changed a lot in the 23 years I've lived up here. Autos do very well tho.
The winter nights when it's -30C are conversely 20 hours of dark.
The last two Mays have been hot like summer with rains coming in June, Mixed this year with milder temps and some rain which I'm sure the farmers are very happy to get so all the seeds they've planted will germinate. Very dry with little snow the last 3 years so we're in drought conditions. My dugout is at the lowest I've seen it since buying this place 20 years ago and that's where our tap water comes from. Still about 8ft deep and it's 80 x 50yds in size so plenty of water left.
View attachment 5395362
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
It's been so dry the last couple years the marshy area in my north woods is bone dry so I haven't even got my first mosquito bite this year. Knock wood. Been overrun with mice tho so I have traps all over the place. Stocked up on natural peanut butter at Costco on Wed but need another dozen traps. 20 a day if I only run my trapline once but 30+ if I do it twice. Got 43 on my top day. Another 10 traps either tripped with no mouse or bait all gone but still set. It's the babies that manage to steal the PB without tripping the trap. They get caught sometimes tho. No rats in Alberta.
OldJamesLikesToPuff
Member
If you ask me, thus spring was rather cold so I personally had to delay my grow a bit
Budley Doright
Well-Known Member
Don’t forget the dreaded black fly
. They are real bad this year and very hungry .
the same way it goes in michigan, wisconsin, alaska, maine, montana, north dakota, minnisota, washington, new york, vermont, new hampshire...
oh no im sorry we only thrive ourselves off polar bears, ice and beavers.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
We are blessed with not having those nasty f'ers here. We get these tiny biting gnats that can get thru the window screens but are a temporary phenomenon for about a week or so and not really much of a bother. We do get these huge gold coloured mosquitoes that come in like a missile and I get a huge welt that itches like crazy but the Benadryl dauber really kills the itch especially if used right after the bite so I pack one in my pocket when out and about. Can buy a bulk bottle and refill them to save money. Keep in fridge in the off season.Don’t forget the dreaded black fly
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
Where are you at? Hemp farm nearby so no outdoor pot for me anymore but I don't want to anyhow. Will be sowing some opium poppy seeds next week instead. We're way up in northern Alberta near Peace River.
cannabineer
Ursus marijanus
Nugnewbie
Well-Known Member
Anti-UCP protests planned across Alberta this weekend
Rallies are planned in eight cities and towns across Alberta on Saturday to protest the United Conservative Party.
Nugnewbie
Well-Known Member
Alberta government limits debate on contentious bills, drawing Opposition anger
Alberta’s UCP government is limiting legislature debate time to pass four controversial bills, a tactic the Opposition New Democrats say runs roughshod over the democratic process.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
What's happening here in Alberta is a preview of what will be happening in the US all over if tRump gets back in.Alberta government limits debate on contentious bills, drawing Opposition anger
Alberta’s UCP government is limiting legislature debate time to pass four controversial bills, a tactic the Opposition New Democrats say runs roughshod over the democratic process.edmonton.ctvnews.ca
I don't usually get emotional about politics but I'm developing a real Hate-On for the UCP!
CANON_Grow
Well-Known Member
While I believe the carbon tax is necessary, I understand how some can be frustrated by it because not everyone gets a net benefit from it. The increase in costs of everything the past few years is dizzying.
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
I just got a letter from the gov last week telling me I'll get $1,485 carbon tax rebate this year. That's gotta be 3X what I'm paying out every year so that's net+ for me!
I goes up relative to how much the carbon tax does so every boost in the tax is more in my pocket so bring it on!
Anybody know how much charging stations charge to top up EVs? My wife said something last week that it was expensive as hell relative to power costs at home but I think she got that info from my maga-like conspiracy theory expounding buddy. Climate change denier who just turned 65 and has a 23yo hot married lady sleeping in his bed most nights for the last 6 months and won't get it on with her because she got covid shots and has tainted blood now.
I often wonder why he's still my buddy but I purposely don't talk about any of this stuff with him. A mutual non-aggression pact is what I think it's called.
CANON_Grow
Well-Known Member
I think Toronto's mayor had the same thoughts running through her head as I did, couldn't believe he said that at the end. There is certainly a growing hate problem in the province and all across Canada, but it's not predominantly because of immigrants. Trying to give him the benefit of the doubt that he had the best intentions and was only trying to speak out against the violence, but the Premier needs to be better than that - sheesh.
REPORTS OF ANTISEMITIC AND ISLAMOPHOBIC INCIDENTS SPIKING ACROSS CANADA
Reports Of Antisemitic And Islamophobic Incidents Spiking Across Canada
Incidents targeting the Jewish and Muslim communities have increased significantly since the October 7 attack by Hamas and the declaration of war by Israel.
www.antihate.ca
CANADA’S FAR-RIGHT IS USING ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR TO SPREAD ANTISEMITISM AND ISLAMOPHOBIA
Part of a global trend, Canada’s far-right is spinning the war to its advantage.
Canada’s Far-Right Is Using Israel-Hamas War To Spread Antisemitism And Islamophobia
Part of a global trend, Canada’s far-right is spinning the war to its advantage.
www.antihate.ca
Need to end the day with some optimism:
Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.
All my very best,
Jack Layton
OldMedUser
Well-Known Member
Another example of the tyrannical government we live under here in Alberta. If you don't have ID when you go to a voting station you can have a friend or neighbour vouch for you so you can cast your vote but not if this bill goes thru. As long as you're a registered voter your name will be on the roll but they ask for primary ID before checking you off.
Does Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver have any idea how many Albertans could be denied the right to vote in the next general election because of the United Conservative Party (UCP)’s planned changes to provincial voting rules in Bill 20, the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act, 2024?
If he does – and you’d think he would – nobody’s bothered to ask him about it yet.
But according to University of Alberta political Scientist Jared Wesley, the number could be anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 eligible voters – all to solve a problem that doesn’t exist by making it impossible for neighbours and co-workers with ID to vouch for people they know at a polling station.
“Bill 20 is aimed at a bunch of boogiemen,” Dr. Wesley tweeted Friday. “From fake voters to rogue councillors to unlawful bylaws – not one shred of evidence. Just fear and feelings.”
The bill’s targets may be boogiemen, as Professor Wesley asserts, but despite McIver’s claims that it’s just been put on the legislative agenda to make it a little easier for the government to exercise powers it already has in an emergency, the goal is understandable if not particularly palatable.
It’s clearly intended to give the UCP the power to influence who gets to vote, and if municipal voters ignore their wishes anyway, to overcome the democratic will of progressive voters in Alberta’s big cities.
This is right in line with the NDP Opposition’s accusation the UCP is trying “to control everything, everywhere, all at once,” which was a good line the first few of times it was used, but is not a very effective way to attack an example of genuinely undemocratic government overreach.
On Thursday, in reaction to some of the features of the bill that aroused the ire of municipal councillors in the UCP’s rural heartland, McIver introduced some amendments that don’t really change the additional powers the bill will give the government.
Those changes would no longer allow cabinet to fire a municipal councillor in absentia during a secret cabinet meeting – it would only be able to disrupt said councillor’s ability to get anything done by ordering a vote to remove them from office. Better, I guess, but not much.
As for provisions that would allow the cabinet to veto municipal bylaws, a few vague stipulations will be added to give the impression of due process. It would still be an undemocratic decision made in secret.
As the president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta complained Friday, the amendments won’t stop the province from intruding into the legitimate authority of municipal governments.
With no clear definition of the public interest or provincial policy, Paul McLaughlin told The Canadian Press, the law could be used to let the cabinet interfere with municipal decisions for any old reason or whim.
Warning the government has “empowered a monster,” he argued the bill might give some future government – an NDP one, presumably – “the largest baseball bat you can imagine.
Seasoned observers of Alberta politics will understand that it’s the monster that has armed itself with a big bat that we actually need to worry about.
The Canadian Press also quoted Edmonton-Gold Bar NDP MLA Marlin Schmidt that as a result of the legislation, which is certain to be passed by the government majority in the House, UCP MLAs will need to brace themselves to start taking angry calls for municipal taxpayers mad about local issues like pothole complaints and cat bylaws – a possibility noted in this space back on May 7.
“This government has created 1-800-hate-my-councillor,” McLaughlin agreed. “They’re going to be inundated.”
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course.
In a Substack column published on May 7, Dr. Wesley outlined reasons the UCP’s voter ID restrictions are a bad idea. Among them: That it could block up to 50,000 Alberta citizens who are entitled to cast a ballot from voting and, at the same time, it would not prevent non-citizens from voting.
“Fact is: non-citizens qualify for most forms of photo ID, including driver’s licenses. A federally issued passport is the only form of photo ID that proves you are a citizen,” he wrote. “So voter ID won’t solve that imagined problem, either, unless you want the federal government to verify who’s eligible to vote in Alberta elections.”
What’s more, Dr. Wesley said, most voters don’t support the idea. “According to the government’s own survey, only 30 per cent of Albertans favour measures like Bill 20 that would ban vouching. Forty-six percent want to keep it. This level of support is likely rooted in the fact that over 100,000 Albertans have vouched or been vouched for in previous elections.”
Why would the UCP government want to do that? Well, Dr. Wesley answered that question in another Substack published on May 3. “Voter ID laws like those included in Alberta’s Bill 20 are designed with a primary objective in mind: limiting the types of people allowed to cast ballots so the government can win elections.”
In other words, so the UCP can pick who gets to vote.
rabble.ca
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Danielle Smith is the current leader of the UCP here. Makes me want Jason Kenney back.
Does Municipal Affairs Minister Ric McIver have any idea how many Albertans could be denied the right to vote in the next general election because of the United Conservative Party (UCP)’s planned changes to provincial voting rules in Bill 20, the Municipal Affairs Statutes Amendment Act, 2024?
If he does – and you’d think he would – nobody’s bothered to ask him about it yet.
But according to University of Alberta political Scientist Jared Wesley, the number could be anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 eligible voters – all to solve a problem that doesn’t exist by making it impossible for neighbours and co-workers with ID to vouch for people they know at a polling station.
“Bill 20 is aimed at a bunch of boogiemen,” Dr. Wesley tweeted Friday. “From fake voters to rogue councillors to unlawful bylaws – not one shred of evidence. Just fear and feelings.”
The bill’s targets may be boogiemen, as Professor Wesley asserts, but despite McIver’s claims that it’s just been put on the legislative agenda to make it a little easier for the government to exercise powers it already has in an emergency, the goal is understandable if not particularly palatable.
It’s clearly intended to give the UCP the power to influence who gets to vote, and if municipal voters ignore their wishes anyway, to overcome the democratic will of progressive voters in Alberta’s big cities.
This is right in line with the NDP Opposition’s accusation the UCP is trying “to control everything, everywhere, all at once,” which was a good line the first few of times it was used, but is not a very effective way to attack an example of genuinely undemocratic government overreach.
On Thursday, in reaction to some of the features of the bill that aroused the ire of municipal councillors in the UCP’s rural heartland, McIver introduced some amendments that don’t really change the additional powers the bill will give the government.
Those changes would no longer allow cabinet to fire a municipal councillor in absentia during a secret cabinet meeting – it would only be able to disrupt said councillor’s ability to get anything done by ordering a vote to remove them from office. Better, I guess, but not much.
As for provisions that would allow the cabinet to veto municipal bylaws, a few vague stipulations will be added to give the impression of due process. It would still be an undemocratic decision made in secret.
As the president of the Rural Municipalities of Alberta complained Friday, the amendments won’t stop the province from intruding into the legitimate authority of municipal governments.
With no clear definition of the public interest or provincial policy, Paul McLaughlin told The Canadian Press, the law could be used to let the cabinet interfere with municipal decisions for any old reason or whim.
Warning the government has “empowered a monster,” he argued the bill might give some future government – an NDP one, presumably – “the largest baseball bat you can imagine.
Seasoned observers of Alberta politics will understand that it’s the monster that has armed itself with a big bat that we actually need to worry about.
The Canadian Press also quoted Edmonton-Gold Bar NDP MLA Marlin Schmidt that as a result of the legislation, which is certain to be passed by the government majority in the House, UCP MLAs will need to brace themselves to start taking angry calls for municipal taxpayers mad about local issues like pothole complaints and cat bylaws – a possibility noted in this space back on May 7.
“This government has created 1-800-hate-my-councillor,” McLaughlin agreed. “They’re going to be inundated.”
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, of course.
In a Substack column published on May 7, Dr. Wesley outlined reasons the UCP’s voter ID restrictions are a bad idea. Among them: That it could block up to 50,000 Alberta citizens who are entitled to cast a ballot from voting and, at the same time, it would not prevent non-citizens from voting.
“Fact is: non-citizens qualify for most forms of photo ID, including driver’s licenses. A federally issued passport is the only form of photo ID that proves you are a citizen,” he wrote. “So voter ID won’t solve that imagined problem, either, unless you want the federal government to verify who’s eligible to vote in Alberta elections.”
What’s more, Dr. Wesley said, most voters don’t support the idea. “According to the government’s own survey, only 30 per cent of Albertans favour measures like Bill 20 that would ban vouching. Forty-six percent want to keep it. This level of support is likely rooted in the fact that over 100,000 Albertans have vouched or been vouched for in previous elections.”
Why would the UCP government want to do that? Well, Dr. Wesley answered that question in another Substack published on May 3. “Voter ID laws like those included in Alberta’s Bill 20 are designed with a primary objective in mind: limiting the types of people allowed to cast ballots so the government can win elections.”
In other words, so the UCP can pick who gets to vote.
Alberta's Bill 20 could block 50K people from voting
' Bill 20 is aimed at a bunch of boogiemen,’ political scientist Jared Wesley said, ‘from fake voters to rogue councillors to unlawful bylaws – not one shred of evidence.’
rabble.ca
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Danielle Smith is the current leader of the UCP here. Makes me want Jason Kenney back.