Doug Bates

Food Producer, Family guy, Olds College Grad

[Lawrence Whittaker @ListerLawrence]

As a new Farmer myself who bought our farm 4 years ago, I can’t tell you how accurate Clarkson’s Farm actually is!

We spent £3.5m buying our farm and subsequently in the past 4 years we’ve had to spend at least £527,000 on farm machinery and much, much more on running the farm. We’ve lost money every year since so far, and have had challenges or refusal from local authorities everytime we’ve tried to diversity, or do something to generate extra income. I cannot stress how difficult it is for farmers who have to rely on farming for their only income.

We don’t get any subsidies or BPS payments at all (because we’re new farmers) and the grant system might as well be in Greek! As a CEO and professional businessman of some note, I felt I could easily apply for the grants myself. I kid you not, you’ve never seen a more complicated form - for ANYTHING!

The farm we bought had been in the same family for 3 generations, but it was sold because it was getting tougher to support the farmers growing family and now I’ve been in it for 4 years I can see why.

It’s a crying shame that more and more food is going to be imported and more skills lost because, for some unknown reason, the government obviously don’t value farmers. Sad.

[Dan McTeague @GasPriceWizard]

And she went on to demonize Canada’s oisands.

There’s a pattern of consistency with Hanoi Jane

[Daryl Fransoo @DarylFransoo]

Congrats Minister Sawyer. I can’t think of anyone more deserving of qualified to lead Alberta’s agriculture sector!!

[John Kowalchuk🧢 @kowalchukfarms1]

This is a great write up

https://t.co/JxnTTcl7RB

[David Alter @davidalter]

Amazing scene as the mic cuts out as the Sabres crowd sings Oh Canada in the anthem singer’s place. 🇨🇦

[Shane Wenzel @ShaneWenzel]

If I don't receive any funding in my riding, I should have the option to withhold paying my taxes so I can direct them as I choose.

[wealthmoose @wealthmoose]

🚨 Read this slowly.

• Wife lives in the U.S. 🇺🇸
• Four kids live & study in the U.S. 🇺🇸
• ~91% of his portfolio in the U.S. 🇺🇸
• Home in the U.S. 🇺🇸
• Brookfield moved HQ to the U.S. 📍

Yet he tells Canadians: 🇨🇦

“We can’t depend on America.” 🇺🇸

Do you see the contradiction?

#cdnpoli #Canada #US #Reality

[Shuv Majumdar @shuvmajumdar]

The next time Prime Minister @MarkJCarney and Foreign Minister @AnitaAnandMP tell you Canada’s Liberal government stands with the people of Iran:

Remember they just backed the regime’s brutality over the rights of the Iranian people to live in freedom.

[Melanie In Saskatchewan @saskatchewan_in]

To Mark Carney & Those Applauding Him:

I am a Canadian paying for a country that doesn’t include me.

I live in the part of the country your map forgets.
About 2,600 kilometres from the nearest stop on your proposed $90 billion train.

I am an overtaxed, under-served Canadian.

I heat my home with rising costs.
I fill my vehicle at almost $2 a litre, depending on the day and my luck.
I watch a country with 163 billion barrels of oil behave like it’s on a meagre allowance.

And you want me to pay for a train I will never use.

How thoughtful.

I am a hard-working, falling-behind Canadian funding infrastructure I will never touch.

It runs roughly 800 to 900 kilometres, depending on how creatively it detours around reality, from Toronto to Quebec City.

Seven stops.
All neatly contained within Ontario and Quebec.
Top speed, 300 km/h.
National reach? Let’s just call it selective.

I am a Canadian treated like a revenue stream, invited only by invoice.
Roughly $90 billion. About $8,000 per household.
For a ticket I will never hold.

From where I sit in Saskatchewan, your high-speed rail corridor might as well be interstellar travel.
Two thousand plus kilometres away circling the station, and still billing me.

I am a Canadian bereft of a stop on this train.
Close enough to fund it. Far enough to never use it.

I am an overextended, nickel-and-dimed Canadian.

I am fixing my own road access.
Paying more for groceries.
Driving farther for basic services.
And now funding new infrastructure for people who already have airports, highways, and existing rail.

At this point, I would settle for a train that delivers affordable groceries.
No need for 300 km/h. Just cost-saving reliability.

I am a Canadian squeezed by government-made inflation, where every errand costs more than it did last week and every explanation from you sounds rehearsed.

I am a Canadian quietly recalculating the future, trying not to downgrade my retirement to a leaky camper on wheels, while the country accumulates debt it cannot repay and prints money to pretend it can.

I am a rural Canadian watching how this works.
Not on my land. Not this time.
But close enough to understand the mechanism.

Because an 800 plus kilometre corridor does not meander politely.
It cuts. Straight. Fast. With purpose.
Through farmland. Through properties. Through communities.

I am a watchful Canadian taking note of precedent.
Survey stakes. Expropriation powers. “Public interest” to be explained after.

It is not my yard today.
But it is someone’s.
And tomorrow, it will be called "necessary" for something larger.
Something urgent. Something climate-related. Something that cannot wait.

I am a wary Canadian noticing how easily "necessity" is declared to match your agenda.
And how quickly my rights become flexible once it is declared.

I am an observant Canadian with a long memory for names.
And somehow, the same SNC-Lavalin lineage Canadians were told to forget is back, rebranded as AtkinsRéalis, positioning itself for one of the largest public contracts in Canadian history.

A remarkable comeback. Truly.
No apology tour. Just a new logo and a larger taxpayer subsidized opportunity.
Seems history doesn’t repeat. It follows a predictable pattern.

I am an unimpressed Canadian watching familiar #Lavscam players return under reimagined branding.
The script is the same. Only the cover has changed.

I am an exasperated Canadian you included in your sales pitch.
I am told it will create 50,000 jobs.
I am told it will add $35 billion to GDP.

And I am sure it will.

In the corridor.
Where the stations are.
Where the density is.
Where the benefit is.

I am a shunned Canadian excluded from the outcome.
Included in all the arithmetic. Excluded from all the access.

I am a cynical Canadian being told this is nation-building. Though the nation appears to exist along a very specific set of coordinates.

I am the depleted Canadian who:

Reads grocery receipts like an audit.
Choreographs fuel stops around paydays not plans.
Measures distance in cost, not kilometres.

I am an overburdened, last-in-line Canadian.
Essential when it is time to pay. Optional when it is time to benefit.

I am an impoverished Canadian whose citizenship now resembles a pre-authorized debit agreement.
The withdrawals are national. The benefits are regional.

I am an exhausted, overlooked Canadian.

You’re not building this for me or my family.
You're just sending me the bill.

Signed,

Your most reluctantly reliable revenue stream,
Melanie in Saskatchewan

[Brian Gitt @BrianGitt]

I used to believe three things about energy.

I was wrong on all three.

• Using less energy is good
• Wind and solar are the best solution
• And that believing this made me a good person

Here’s what changed my mind:

[Marc Nixon @MarcNixon24]

SICKENING

Mark Carney GIVES $4.4 Billion to Ontario for Housing.

The REST of Canada 🇨🇦 NOTHING

WHO PAYS - YOU PAY even if you do not live in Ontario.

This is 100% VOTE Buying for the By-Election. DISGUSTING

[JennsTinyTweets2 🇨🇦 🍁 🚜 🐂🐥 @JennsTinyTweet]

You're unbelievable! Fired Rousseau for not speaking French so your party can win political points in Quebec. Your own leader didn't speak French and would not participate in French debates in Quebec. He has no French speech writers. Our very own GG doesn't speak French. Quebec forgave Mark Carney but fires Rousseau??

[Lola @thefempire50]

GIVE THEM THEIR MEDALS
🥇 🥈 🥉

[Stephen Taylor @stephen_taylor]

Anywhere else, we'd be asking "why did the plane crash?" and "how do we prevent this from happening again?"

In Canada, we're asking, "why doesn't the airline CEO speak French?"

I want to live in a serious country.

[Dwayne Leslie @webfarmer]

What a misleading headline. Average person would presume that we are getting a check like US farmers, when in reality it’s just an option to go deeper in debt. @BNNBloomberg

Canada offers financial aid to farmers after Iran war price spikes https://t.co/8uaPQXn1LJ

[Hon. Rona Ambrose Veitch @RonaAmbrose]

So true. @PierrePoilievre is intelligent, thoughtful and down to earth. That’s the Pierre we’ve all known for years: a Prime Minister in waiting whose time can’t come soon enough. When Canada will experience the bold policy changes that will turn our economy around and set us on a path to prosperity.

[Heather Exner-Pirot @ExnerPirot]

Some of you still seem to think oil is only used for gasoline for light duty vehicles, because that’s the only time you’ve physically encountered it.

Expensive and scarce oil is an omnicrisis for the global economy. It cannot be replaced by electrons from solar panels.

[Senator Leo Housakos @SenatorHousakos]

One of my favourite stories.

Looking ahead to Autism Acceptance Month in April, a reminder that every person deserves the chance to live up to their potential.

And when we accept neurodivergent individuals, the sky is the limit for what they can achieve.

[MikesMoneyTalks.ca @moneytalkstweet]

Now I get it

[Marc Nixon @MarcNixon24]

DAMAGING EVIDENCE

The explosive testimony by former CBC Reporter Travis Dhanraj confirmed David Cochrane hand picks political guests.

Meaning when they CLAIMED Pierre Poilievre refused to appear on CBC David Cochrane did not give Pierre AIR TIME.

CBC is complete TRASH. ��️