Andre Albinati

Animated policy surfer and Principal with @EarnscliffeCda located in Ottawa, Canada, and a member of the Fipra Network.

[Bloomberg @business]

Employment in Canada increased by a surprising 87,800 in May after a soft start to the year for the labor market, bringing the jobless rate down to 6.6% https://t.co/2BRC2VDhsm

[Corey Hogan 🇨🇦 @coreyhoganyyc]

I've followed polling on Alberta separatism both professionally and for personal interest for many years. Support for separation has never been zero.

In 2010, under Prime Minister Harper, 28% of Albertans agreed with the sentiment: “Western Canada gets so few benefits from being part of Canada that they might as well go it on their own.”

There is no question it depends greatly on question construction and political worldview. But about 1/5 Albertans have supported separation Pierre's entire life, including when he was in office.

In 1982 a separatist even won a provincial by-election. The Reform Party was birthed out of the deep feelings of western alienation that existed under the Mulroney government.

Alberta alienation is long rooted and requires thoughtfulness. It has existed under Liberals, and it has existed under Conservatives, and it is ahistorical to suggest otherwise.

Alberta has always deserved representation and respect. A country needs to work for all regions. And today, polling shows, Alberta optimism for Canada and its place in Canada is the highest it has been in years.

We have record energy production, we have an MOU to build a new pipeline, we have a PM who understands Alberta, and who Albertans see is building Canada strong.

There's always more to do, but there's good progress and Alberta has never been more central to the conversations of our country - as illustrated by both a PM and a Leader of the Opposition with strong Alberta roots.

This is a serious moment and separatism is a serious issue. I get the awkwardness - Pierre is the Leader of the Opposition.

But over the next few months, I'd encourage him to find ways to expand beyond reflexive opposition - and celebrate Canada, its potential and his hopes for it.

I know Pierre can be a powerful voice for this country, and his province and country needs his voice at its most powerful right now.

This is bigger than Liberals vs. Conservatives - this is about a country we both love. Let's point our fire in the right direction.

[Alex @alexdbanks]

For those who don’t understand the shift in sentiment happening in Canada, here is a clip from Brigadier-General Brendan Cook, RCAF Director General Air and Space Force Development, at Space Canada’s 2026 Horizons event on May 20.

Also, for those unaware, the 'ESCAPE' program he's referring to is the ESCP-P Polar $5 billion program that is about to be awarded to $MDA and $TSAT

[Gandalv @Microinteracti1]

Canada’s Aluminium Is Going to Europe. Brilliant Work, Donald.

A 50% tariff on Canadian aluminium, the one country on Earth that was happily selling the stuff at sensible prices, right next door, through an integrated supply chain that took decades to build. And now that aluminium is sailing across the Atlantic to Europe instead.

Canadian exports to the EU went from near zero to between 6% and 40% of monthly totals in the space of a year. Just vanished eastward. Extraordinary result.

US consumers are now paying $6,200 a ton for aluminium. Europeans are paying $4,300.  American manufacturers taxed nearly two thousand dollars a ton more than their competitors. For beer cans. And car parts. And buildings. Tremendous. Nobody could have seen that coming, except everyone.

Meanwhile Europe, which was already scrambling after losing its Middle Eastern supply to the Iran war, now faces a 5.6 million-ton aluminium deficit in 2026. And Canada just filled it. With metal that used to go to America.

The head of the Aluminium Association of Canada put it with admirable restraint: the EU option “remains attractive,” adding pressure on the US market. What he meant was: Washington handed Europe a competitive advantage in manufacturing while American industry pays the bill.

This is what happens when a trade guru who has spent his career slapping his name on buildings in gold letters decides he understands global commodity flows. No leverage materialises. Just an empty dock in Ohio and a very pleased purchasing manager in Rotterdam.

Well done, Donald.

Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

[Jack @jackcoder0]

Two economists just published a mathematical proof that AI will destroy the economy.

Not might. Not could. Will — if nothing changes.

The paper is called "The AI Layoff Trap." Published March 2, 2026. Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Boston University. Peer reviewed. Mathematically modeled.
The conclusion is one sentence.
"At the limit, firms automate their way to boundless productivity and zero demand."

An economy that produces everything. And sells it to nobody.
Here is how you get there.
A company fires 500 workers and replaces them with AI. A competitor fires 700 to keep up. Another fires 1,000. Every company is behaving rationally. Every company is following the incentives correctly. And every company is building a trap for itself.

Because the workers who were fired were also customers.
When they lose their jobs faster than the economy can absorb them, they stop spending. Consumer demand falls. Companies respond by cutting costs — which means automating more workers — which means less spending — which means more falling demand — which means more automation.

The loop has no natural exit.
The researchers tested every proposed solution. Universal basic income. Capital income taxes. Worker equity participation. Upskilling programs. Corporate coordination agreements.
Every single one failed in the model.
The only intervention that worked: a Pigouvian automation tax — a per-task levy charged every time a company replaces a human with AI, forcing them to price in the demand they are destroying before they pull the trigger.

No government has implemented this. No major economy is seriously discussing it.
Meanwhile the numbers are already tracking the curve. 100,000 tech workers laid off in 2025. 92,000 more in the first months of 2026. Jack Dorsey fired half of Block's workforce and said publicly: "Within the next year, the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion."
Nobody is doing anything wrong. Companies are following their incentives perfectly. That is exactly the problem.

Rational behavior. At scale. Simultaneously. With no mechanism to stop it.
Two economists built the math. The math leads to one place.

Source: Falk & Tsoukalas · Wharton School + Boston University ·

[Kate from Kharkiv @BohuslavskaKate]

BROWDER: Lavrov called Rubio and threatened U.S. interests in Ukraine. Russia supplied information to Iran to target U.S. interests in Middle East.

Truly astounding to watch how Trump administration dealing with Russia right now. That would have been red line under any other U.S. government, any political party, at any other time in history.

I’m old enough to remember that if Russia made any kind of threat against U.S. interests, the U.S. would respond with most blistering, dangerous threats against Russian interests, and nobody would do anything about it.

That's how Cold War and post-Cold War era functioned. Every American president, every Republican and every Democrat, took very strong line with Russia, and any nasty thing they did was met with most severe and aggressive reprimand.

[Foreign Policy @ForeignPolicy]

Europe has begun “quiet quitting” the trans-Atlantic alliance. https://t.co/3Z5yvIPdmp

[Ambassador Pete Hoekstra @USAmbCanada]

PM Carney said something worth repeating today: "A Canada strong will help make America great again." I think a lot of Americans can get behind that kind of positive message.

[Mark Carney @MarkJCarney]

LIVE: from The Economic Club of New York • EN DIRECT : du Club économique de New York https://t.co/9lvtzD1x4c

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

Finnish scientists trucked in real forest dirt and grass and laid it over the gravel at four daycare yards. They let the kids dig around in it for a month. The blood tests came back with changes the researchers hadn’t expected to see so fast or so clear.

The study ran at ten daycares in two Finnish cities with 75 kids aged three to five. Four of the yards got the forest treatment: about a tennis court worth of soil and grass laid over the gravel, plus planters and peat blocks the kids could dig and climb on. Three others stuck with their normal gravel yards. The last three were daycares where the kids were already visiting real forests every day.

After one month, the variety of bacteria living on the kids’ skin shot up, and the kind that helps train the skin’s immune defenses jumped the most. Their gut bacteria started to look like the gut bacteria of the forest-visiting kids. Their blood showed more of the immune cells whose job is to keep the body from freaking out at harmless stuff like pollen and peanuts, and overall inflammation dropped. The kids on the plain gravel yards showed none of this.

Childhood asthma in the US doubled between 1980 and 1995. Food allergies in kids jumped 50 percent between 1997 and 2011, then jumped another 50 percent between 2007 and 2021. And peanut allergies in one-year-olds tripled between 2001 and 2017.

The Finnish researchers think one of the reasons is simple: kids today don’t get dirty enough. 37 percent of American preschoolers now spend an hour or less outside on a normal weekday. Their immune systems are getting trained in environments stripped of the bacteria humans have always lived around.

Aki Sinkkonen, who led the study, put it in plain words: “It would be best if children could play in puddles and everyone could dig organic soil.” The Finnish government is now helping pay for daycares across the country to make the same changes.

[Sir Escanor (𝘏𝘰𝘱𝘪𝘶𝘮 𝘚𝘭𝘢𝘺𝘦𝘳) @EscanorReloaded]

CEOs are quietly realizing the AI replacement plan has a problem.
Two problems, actually.

One: the token costs for running AI agents are now exceeding what they were paying the employees they fired.

Two: when the tokens run out, the AI stops. Just stops. No continuity. No workaround. Just a spinning wheel where your workforce used to be.

You fired humans to save money and bought a subscription that bills you into a corner.

The employees you let go knew what to do when things broke.
The AI just invoices you for the outage.

And then there’s the permission problem nobody wants to talk about.

To do its job, the AI agent needs access. Full access. Your systems, your patents, your contracts, your future plans. Everything you spent years building, handed over to a process that has no loyalty, no discretion, and no skin in the game.

You didn’t hire a replacement.
You gave a stranger with no soul the keys to everything you own.

Enjoy.

[Bloomberg @business]

Canada is set to announce a deal to supply Germany with liquefied natural gas from a planned export facility on the coast of British Columbia https://t.co/4gs6barVVJ

[Visegrád 24 @visegrad24]

Russia strikes the UN World Food Programme warehouse in Dnipro

Russians launched a ballistic Iskander missile at a UN humanitarian aid warehouse in the city of Dnipro.

The warehouse contained food supplies intended for residents of frontline areas, enough to support 130,000 people.

According to preliminary estimates, the value of the destroyed humanitarian aid is $1.4 million.

[Colin D'Mello | Global News @ColinDMello]

BREAKING: Navdeep Bains is entering the Ontario Liberal Leadership campaign.

#onpoli

[Crémieux @cremieuxrecueil]

Eli Lilly has done it.

They've gone and made what seems to be a powerful, permanent gene therapy for LDL cholesterol.

That means they'll be able to effectively prevent most heart disease with a single infusion!

[Rebecca Aguilar (on Blue Sky & LinkedIn) @RebeccaAguilar]

Everyone COPY this video, share it far and wide. Paramount Skydance billionaire baby David Ellison can’t handle that Stephen Colbert is getting millions of views . @Youtube we will cancel our subscription as we did when we dumped @paramountplus.

[Mike Young @micyoung75]

The best foreign policy analysis of this week comes from a Canadian, which is fitting.

Matt Gurney's piece in The Bulwark names something that has been visible but underarticulated: every democratic ally of the United States has quietly adopted the same posture. Run out the clock. Give Trump a cheap win he can post about. Don't invest real effort in accomplishing anything substantive with this administration.

Gurney calls it ragging the puck. You skate around with it for a few seconds. You're not doing anything. But you're eating time, and you're denying the other side the initiative.

The specific that makes the argument: the U.S. cancelled 4,000 troops to Poland with so little warning it apparently caught senior American military officials off guard. Days later, Trump posted on Truth Social announcing 5,000 troops to Poland. More than the original deployment. The Pentagon knew about neither announcement in advance.

Meanwhile Canada's Permanent Joint Board on Defense - a bilateral military planning body established 86 years ago - has been paused by the administration, even as Canada has already begun spending the money it pledged to meet its defense commitments.

America First risks becoming America Alone. That is not partisan framing. It is arithmetic.

[Milk Road AI @MilkRoadAI]

Cathie Wood just flagged the sleeper trade inside the AI boom that most people are completely missing.

Everyone has been chasing GPUs. Nvidia, the data center buildout, the chip arms race. That trade has been obvious for two years.

But OpenAI's CFO Sarah Fryer said something quite different: people are going to be really shocked by how agentic AI activates CPUs.

Right now, for every CPU in an AI workload, there are 4 to 5 GPUs. That's the current ratio. Wood thinks that ratio is going to 1 to 1.

Think about what that means. AI inference at scale, agents running autonomously, pipelines executing tasks across systems. The compute mix shifts dramatically away from pure GPU dominance. CPUs become a first-class citizen in the AI stack.

Cathie called it going "back to the future." Intel has taken off. Flex (formerly Flextronics) is booming. Stocks that were giants in the dot-com bubble are resurging because the underlying demand for their products is real again.

The GPU trade made sense at the training stage. You need massive parallel compute to train frontier models.

But agentic AI runs differently. Agents are constantly orchestrating, reasoning, calling APIs, executing workflows. That workload looks a lot more like traditional computing. And traditional computing runs on CPUs.

If Cathie Wood is right about the ratio collapsing to 1:1, the CPU demand signal embedded in the AI buildout is orders of magnitude larger than the market is currently pricing.

[SPRAVDI — Stratcom Centre @StratcomCentre]

Among the recent Russian Intelligence operations broken up by French authorities were planting severed pig heads at mosques and painting swastikas in Jewish neighborhoods.

Sowing hatred and division - this is how Russia works.

https://t.co/QCtwOiOOtc

[Andre Albinati @AAlbinati]

A very few spots left I'm told for Canada Europe Connects in Ottawa on May 26th. Meet business leaders, officials, diplomats and thought leaders working on AI, health, emergency response and dual use technologies #CanadaEurope @CityAge @EarnscliffeCda