Dean Tester

🇨🇦 • Conservative • President @testerdigital

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

The one redeeming quality Mark Carney has is that he eventually listens to @PierrePoilievre under enough public pressure.

On the carbon tax, on pipelines, on gas taxes, Poilievre has been exactly right since he became Conservative leader.

Carney has slowly and begrudgingly adapted several of his policies, and Canada is much better off for it.

Poilievre has been tremendously effective as opposition leader. I can think of very few examples of a government that so frequently abandoned long-held beliefs and principles at the urging of the opposition -- especially one that has a majority government.

If Poilievre has been able to accomplish all this as opposition leader, imagine what he can do as Prime Minister?

[Pierre Poilievre @PierrePoilievre]

Conservatives have again won you savings at the pump.

Our pressure forced Liberals to back down and delay their Labour Day gas tax hike into the new year.

It pays to have Conservatives fighting for you. But Canadians need more than a delay and a partial break.

Take ALL taxes off gas to save up to 25¢/L and give real relief to Canadian families now: https://t.co/w3HLM90tut

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

Funny story from Saskatchewan.

The NDP used AI to write their health care plan, trusting it so much they didn't even bother to proof read the plan. They left it full of AI prompts and figures like this that made zero sense.

At the same time, the NDP are also calling for a moratorium on AI development and are fighting to block the largest private capital investment in Canadian history -- a Canadian project by Bell Canada.

They aren't even anti-AI -- just anti-development, anti-jobs, and anti-economic growth in their own province.

[Scott Moe @PremierScottMoe]

Whoops, they did it again.

The ChatNDP’s AI-written health care plan says Finland’s health data system manages 4 billion patients. (The entire population of Finland is under 6 million).

No wonder no one takes the NDP seriously.

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

AI is being used by farmers to improve crop yields, by homebuilders to reduce housing costs, and by cities to improve traffic planning. So yeah, kind of?

But also, data centres are used for things like X, and the Internet, which presumably you're using right now.

And they'll lower the property tax bill, water bill, and energy bills of people who live near by, and create good jobs for you and your neighbours.

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

Let’s see.

Starting small:

Every build out involves hiring hundreds of trades people at high wages. Plus hundreds of indirect jobs in planning, administration, finance, etc.

Large data centres typically bring their own power and water, paying for significantly more than is required and reducing costs for the nearby community.

Then there’s the taxes they pay — on a billion dollar hyper scale project, it’s hundreds of millions of dollars invested back in the local community over the course of the building’s lifetime.

Looking at a bigger picture: this is also about Canadian sovereignty. We have learned quickly that the U.S. is not always the reliable friend we once believed. Should we really leave a key piece of infrastructure to be owned and operated by American tech giants? Or should we build it here?

And then there’s the broad benefit of AI use. If you are not using AI to make your life easier right now — you are falling behind. Adoption is over 20% across Canadian businesses and rising rapidly. About 80% of Canadians have used an AI tool at this point.

What are some of the use cases that benefit all Canadians?

Medical research — including a rapid effort to cure multiple types of cancer.

Solving complex problems — like complex math hypothesis that were centuries old and confirmed by AI

Predicting extreme weather events. Traffic and energy grid optimization. Personalized education and tutoring. Scientific innovation. The list goes on and on.

Opportunity for who? Literally everyone.

AI is an accelerator of human excellence.

And Canada has everything it needs to be the world’s data superpower.

I vastly prefer that version of our future over the version where people NIMBY away our greatest opportunity.

[Harley Finkelstein @harleyf]

US voters just rejected data centres everywhere they got the chance.

That investment has to land somewhere.
Clean hydro. Open land. Cold winters.

That's Canada 🇨🇦

This is a massive opportunity for us. Generational.

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

America just voted against data centres. Canada should seize the opportunity.

It's time for Canada to become an energy and data superpower. https://t.co/hCYcahERen

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

@JeffBallingall Yes. Where are the ads? Where is the public pressure campaign?

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

This is sad to see. I lived in Centretown for many years and outside of Dundonald Park you barely saw any of this. Now it's seemingly everywhere. We have panhandlers at suburban grocery stores now.

At the federal level, the obvious culprit is immigration. People were arriving at our airport with zero plan -- being sold a false bill of goods by our government and sham immigration consultants. They were immediately directed to our shelter system after spending their life savings to make the journey to Canada.

It was so bad the City of Ottawa was talking about building temporary tent structures in suburban parking lots to house them all.

And yet the Liberals were screaming at people like me and calling us racists for suggesting that maybe we shouldn't be bringing in immigrants we were not prepared for.

There is also much to do on the opioid crisis. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts as a doctor Matt -- but I can't help but feel like our medical system is massively overprescribing strong painkillers. I lost a cousin many years ago to an accidental overdose, and another relative had an infection that nearly killed him -- for a month straight his doctor prescribed him stronger and stronger painkilers when he needed a proper diagnosis and antibiotics. In any event, it is incredibly sad to walk through any major Canadian city these days. My last trip to Halifax involved us walking past what was almost certainly a dead body on the street downtown -- an overdose receiving medical attention but it did not look promising. Their beautiful downtown park was inaccessible to the public and filled with the tents of a homeless population.

You are starting to hear stories like this even in rural Canada -- never in my life would I have expected to see dozens of homeless people on the streets in and around small towns in Prince Edward County for example.

I do not have the answers but something must be done and the lack of action from our government is deeply shameful.

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

@JasJohalBC The best choice imaginable. A serious and thoughtful Chief of Staff for a serious and thoughtful leader. Congrats @DPinBC!

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

The way Leiper and the Horzion aligned councillors treated Neil was deeply shameful.

You do not get to decide who the “progressive” candidate for mayor is in a closed door meeting of a handful on insiders. We live in a democracy. People are allowed to run for office.

Neil ran a honourable campaign. He can walk away from this election with his head held high. I don’t think you can say the same about Leiper, who ran a campaign about absolutely nothing except being exceptionally nasty to Neil.

[testerdigital @testerdigital]

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[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

@SabrinaMaddeaux @KeithRSheppard @thenationalclub @StephanCaras Amazing!! Congratulations to you both!

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

@JimRossStrategy @PlannerSean Much easier! I think because people actually pay attention to the mayoral race but rarely a council one.

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

A big congratulations to @JosephAngolano and Pallas Data — quickly becoming one of Canada's best and most reliable polling firms.

They had the closest results in BC and Toronto, and were almost perfect in Quebec.

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

@HorizonOttawa Maybe he should have run for mayor instead of Leiper. Who made that decision?

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

BREAKING: @_MarkSutcliffe re-elected in Ottawa. Congrats to Mark and his team.

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

@EricDLombardi @MikePMoffatt They've got tough competition, but it's up there. The Globe so quickly went from Canada's best national newspaper to an absolute rag.

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

@JeffBallingall @Mobilize_Media_ Congrats -- whole team did a fantastic job.

[Dean Tester @DeanTester]

@KurtBenkert This is the most frustrated I’ve ever been watching football. These refs are so cooked. And it feels like it’s been like this every week.