The Grand Ransom™️has now been signed: a reduced & deferred carbon tax to $140/t by 2040, and the promise of a new pipeline that "is tied to Pathways", a $30BN project that is irrelevant and enormously expensive. No other country in the world is doing this to themselves, just 🇨🇦.
The first photo of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, Duke of York, has been published after he was released from law enforcement custody in the UK following his arrest earlier today.
Photo via Reuters
We support the decision of @TorontoPolice not to participate in this program. With no viable plan presented by the federal government, it makes no sense why we would allocate our limited resources towards this misguided attempt at public safety.
In Toronto, our members are dedicated to making an actual difference on our streets by targeting illegal firearms and partnering with other law enforcement agencies to tackle the smuggling of guns and illicit drugs across our borders.
Our position has been clear from the beginning: money spent on the buyback program should be directed to police services across the country, rather than on a bureaucratic program with no tangible evidence of success.
Sentiments of Venezuelans
I’m going to say this once, and I don’t care if it makes people uncomfortable.
If you have never lived in Venezuela
If you did not grow up there
If you did not watch your country collapse in real time
If you did not stand in food lines
If you did not watch your parents lose everything they built
If you did not have to leave your home with nothing
Then shut the fuck up.
You do not have an opinion.
Your opinion does not matter.
And you don’t get to lecture anyone about what’s happening there.
I’m Venezuelan.
I lived there most of my life until my early twenties.
I watched my country go from a functioning democracy to full blown socialism right in front of my eyes.
This is not politics to me.
This is trauma.
Before socialism, Venezuela was not perfect, but it worked.
There was trade.
There was money coming in.
There was investment from the US.
There were jobs.
There was food.
There was medicine.
My family had five businesses.
We had our home
We had investments.
We had a future.
Then the government started nationalizing everything.
Private companies were taken.
Foreign investors were pushed out.
Imports were blocked.
Price controls destroyed production.
Corruption exploded.
And everything died.
Not slowly.
Violently.
People didn’t suddenly become poor because of “capitalism” or “the US” or whatever bullshit slogan people like to repeat online.
They became poor because socialism destroyed incentives, destroyed production, destroyed trust, and destroyed hope.
People today in Venezuela are not debating ideology.
They are trying to survive.
They are trying to find food.
Trying to find medication.
Trying to keep their families alive.
So when I see people in the West posting from comfortable homes, full fridges, stable currencies, and safe streets talking about “imperialism” or “US bad” or “Trump this or that”
No.
It’s not complicated.
You’re just ignorant.
China is not rebuilding Venezuela.
Russia is not rebuilding Venezuela.
Cartels are not rebuilding Venezuela.
They are stealing.
They are extracting.
They are draining what’s left.
If the US comes in and reinvests
If refineries get rebuilt
If infrastructure gets restored
If imports open back up
If food, water, and medicine become accessible again
If people can work and earn with dignity
Then yes.
Let them take all the oil they want.
Because at least something gets built instead of destroyed.
This is something to celebrate.
Not because it’s perfect.
But because for the first time in a long time, there is hope.
Hope that families can eat.
Hope that people don’t have to flee their country.
Hope that Venezuela can function again.
If you’ve never lived through a country collapsing
If you’ve never watched socialism destroy everything around you
If you’ve never had to leave your home because staying meant starvation
Then again
Shut the fuck up.
This isn’t theory.
This isn’t politics.
This is lived experience.
By Stephen Subero
@cafreeland “Unpaid basis” in other words she’s heading over to run the money laundering operation. So glad my tax dollars go to these things. What a joke
President Zelenskyy has appointed MP Chrystia Freeland as an economic adviser.
One cannot be a Canadian MP and an advisor to a foreign government. She must do one or the other.
She should resign as advisor or as MP for University-Rosedale.
#cdnpoli
Many of today's moves are ignoring the realities of a low oil price, above ground risk, and time:
🛢️any meaningful recovery in production will take YEARS, with available estimates ranging from a 0.5MM Bbl/d increase to take 2 years and $10BN, a 1.5MM Bbl/d increase to take 5-7 years and over $90BN, to a recovery back to ~4MM Bbl/d 10 years and $100BN
🛢️employee safety comes above all else - the above ground risk remains far too high for any meaningful return of activity - imagine the scale of needed improvements
🛢️at the current oil price capital spending is at maintenance levels - who is going to deploy the necessary billions into a highly risky and uncertain environment?
🛢️while significant, Venezuela's official reserves are overstated and likely rank in #8 position (not #1) when considering economically viable barrels
🛢️the US refining complex remains dependent on Canadian heavy barrels with ~3MM Bbl/d headed to PADD 2 refineries with no ability to displace
🛢️non-OPEC production is forecasted to peak THIS YEAR and OPEC spare capacity sits at ~ 1.4MM Bbl/d vs. demand of 105.2MM Bbl/d - the world is going to need every Venezuelan barrel it can get!
🛢️with all this said, once again and something we have loudly argued for - Canada needs to diversify its customer base and build another (for now) citizen-owned pipeline to the West Coast - it is the very definition of being in the national interest - when will we wake up?!?
What happened in Canada will be studied by many historians and economists as the prime example of self-destruction of an otherwise prosperous nation after blindly following left ideology.
And with all due respect to my Canadian friends, whose politics focus obsessively on the United States: your stagnating living standards have nothing to do with Donald Trump or whatever bogeyman the CBC tells you to blame.
The fault lies with your leadership, elected by you.