Susan A 🇨🇦

Looking for nuance in all the wrong places. Disagreement isn’t hate. 🇨🇦 🇺🇦

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

@Rob_Oliphant @dmrider Almost shocking to see an MP voice an opinion on anything at all. Well done. May we have more of this please.

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

@fem_mb @DrNWLuna @SenatorCollins @Repksmith @DAGToddBlanche Hard to imagine the desperate situation of these poor women. It’s so f’n enraging.

[Scott Robertson @sarobertson_]

Wab Kinew: I reject the idea that we have to be slaves to surveillance capitalism in order to participate in the modern economy.

[Sciohn Fhanne @sciohn_fhanne]

I'll try to be very careful and sensitive with this observation of Canada, because it touches on highly charged questions of ethnicity, immigration, belonging, and public space.

But here goes.

I've walked around Mississauga's Celebration Square on multiple evenings, and one thing I've increasingly noticed is neither hostility, nor tension, nor conflict, but something more subtle and perhaps more concerning.

Public spaces seem to become associated with particular ethnocultural communities to such a degree that many others gradually stop showing up.

The result is not segregation in any formal sense. Nobody is being excluded. Nobody is being told they cannot be there. Yet the effect can be remarkably similar. A space that is nominally shared begins to feel less shared over time.

To be perfectly clear, what troubles me isn't the presence of any particular diasporic community itself per se, but rather the gradual disappearance of the sense that these spaces belong equally to all of us as Canadians.

When a public square begins to be perceived, fairly or unfairly, as belonging primarily to one group, many others instinctively withdraw. Older-stock Canadians withdraw. Other immigrant communities withdraw. East Asians withdraw. Eastern Europeans withdraw. People who have no objection to anyone there nevertheless begin spending their evenings elsewhere.

Human beings are, for better or worse, tribal creatures. We gravitate toward familiarity. We seek places where we feel represented. We retreat when that sense of belonging is lost.

I understand this instinctively as someone from an East Asian diasporic background myself.

The bottom line here is that a healthy Canadian civilization cannot simply consist of parallel communities inhabiting the same geography. It requires common spaces where people from different backgrounds routinely encounter one another and develop some sense of collective belonging within the same civic realm.

What I increasingly worry about in Canada is not "diversity" itself, but the erosion of sharedness.

A country begins to lose something important when its public spaces cease to feel genuinely collective.

And whatever future Canada ultimately chooses for itself, it should never, ever feel like a collection of separate worlds living side by side while gradually forgetting how to inhabit the same one.

[Canadian Space Agency @csa_asc]

One year ago, on June 4, 2025, former Canadian Space Agency astronaut Marc Garneau passed away at the age of 76. We will always remember his significant contribution to the history of Canadian space exploration. ✨

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

@TPAca @SIUOntario When you defend the indefensible, you tarnish the reputations of good cops. We get that you’re a union, and unions have to defend their members. But tone matters. Tone matters.

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

@LFairclo @Beth_Levy66 This is true. But it is also true that disorganized and ineffectual opposition has failed the people of this province. Hope like heck you do better in future.

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

Completely inadequate response.
Missing: “we are aware of a situation where citizens perceive excessive force was used. We will be investigating and ensuring that everyone followed the law, or faces appropriate consequences. No one is above the law, including our officers.”

[Toronto Police @TorontoPolice]

Everyone has a role to play to keep our roadways safe.

Please watch Chief @TPSMyronDemkiw’s message.

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

Stupid me, I thought there was more than one person in the government who was elected to do stuff.
Doug, thanks for setting me straight. It’s just you.

[Tina Yazdani @TinaYazdani]

"No one can question my work ethic" said Premier Doug Ford, as his government begins an extended 5-month summer break.

Ford argues his schedule is jam-packed over the coming months: "we're going full steam, rather than sitting here arguing with each other." Watch:

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

One thing I do love about USA is the ability of journalists to actually get information, and the much higher transparency of government. So that people can know what is going on in their name.

[TheTrillium.ca @Thetrilliumca]

Access denied: Billy Bishop expansion records shielded from public view https://t.co/rpEqYhgFyl

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

@TheBikingLawyer Particularly galling when we all out up with aggressive driving and generally lax enforcement of traffic laws.

[Cosmin Dzsurdzsa @cosminDZS]

Last night Canadian senators quietly snuck in an amendment into Bill C-9 to criminalize "residential school denialism."

https://t.co/9yLrxFBrln

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

@fem_mb “Nothing stupider:” please don’t challenge the universe this way. 🙏

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

@preta_6 Hang in there

[Aaron Pete @Aaronpete_]

I'm prepared to go to jail over this.

My grandmother Rita Pete went to St. Mary's Indian Residential School. She experienced terrible abuse. As a consequence, she struggled with alcohol use most of her life.

My mother was born with FASD as a consequence of her using alcohol to cope with her trauma.

I am Chief of my community Chawathil First Nation. I am working to address the longstanding impacts of these past policies through renovating homes, building new homes, creating childcare, and growing businesses through economic development.

I have interviewed people who went to Indian Residential Schools. I have interviewed people who believe Indian Residential Schools were awful, horrible schools, meant to remove the Indian from the child.

I've also interviewed people who believe they were well intended, generous investments by Canadian taxpayers meant to assimilate a society and had shortcomings.

Like with many things, the history is dark, complicated, and with any policy that existed for a long time, across a whole country - there were different experiences.

No one story tells us everything. No report shares the full experience of the individuals who went. No commentator today can disprove someone's lived experience with statistics.

The path forward is not to criminalize speech, questions, or debate.

The path forward is empathy for past attendees.
The path forward is truth based on facts.
The path forward is real conversations.
The path forward is to lean into complexity.

If the government criminalizes this, then I will be a criminal for having these conversations.

If I am a criminal by the laws definition, then I am committed to going to jail over this.

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

Appalling. I’m sorry people get their feelings hurt. But we can’t sacrifice freedom of speech and thought to any cause, no matter its merits.
On the specific topic, it’s clear the evidence is not all in.

[Holly Doan @hollyanndoan]

.@SenateCA human rights committee votes 7 to 1 to criminalize Indian Residential School “denialism.”
Public statements intended to promote hatred by downplaying impacts of Residential Schools would be outlawed under threat of 2 years in jail.
https://t.co/rrIp37JzBY
#cdnpoli @TerryGlavin @jonkay

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

@TomPark1n I’m not saying TTC service is good, when there are so many problems. I just worry it will be worse: even less responsive and accountable.

[Marit Stiles @MaritStiles]

I wrote to Prime Minister Carney today.

Doug Ford said Canada wasn't for sale. Then he rammed through the Billy Bishop expansion – pushed by an American company tied to JP Morgan.

Toronto's waterfront is being handed to Wall Street.

The expansion can't proceed without federal approval. Prime Minister, don't approve it.

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

@fem_mb @realimbored668 @UberEats Call credit card and tell them you did not get the order, and have tried to get refund. I would not call it a fraud, just a dispute.

[Susan A 🇨🇦 @Mspundit]

@JonKatz79 @ThomasHall17 Helping my 97yo mom move - change addresses on subscriptions, telco, etc. was very challenging. No way she could have navigated the online stuff on her own, despite being a computer user for decades. A million hoops 💯