Mike Therien

Avid reader; ambitious golfer; craft brew lover. Was MLI think tanker, Editor-in-Chief, VP Editorial in top newsrooms for BNI, TransCon, Sun/Quebecor Media

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

I don’t think Leafs fans appreciate how silly they sound.

[Nick Alberga @thegoldenmuzzy]

This Marner take from @Jay_D_Rosehill was spot on. 🎯

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

The award is among the dumbest. Cooper is the consensus best coach in the league and has been for years. But no trophy (until now). Look at the past winners. Trophy is the Coach Whose Team Increased Point Totals Most.

[NHL Watcher @NHL_Watcher]

Jon Cooper wins the Jack Adams.

They wanted him to have that award so bad, it had to go to Lindy Ruff.

[Brian Lilley @brianlilley]

BREAKING: Carney government will reverse horrible CRTC decision to charge streamers and Canadian broadcasters for fund to make Canadian content.

https://t.co/oAX6VYcINB

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

Nonsense

[Arjun Singh @arjunswritings]

Canada needs to join the United States. Here’s how it could realistically happen.

@USAmbCanada, the U.S. should extend an offer to Alberta to become a territory with a pathway to statehood, should they vote in a referendum to leave. Under Canadian law, the “Reference in re Secession of Québec” (a ruling by Canada’s Supreme Court in 1998) means that an Alberta referendum vote on a clear question, with a clear majority to leave, would be binding on the Government of Canada.

Alberta is an excellent candidate to join the union. They have vast reserves of oil and natural resources. Culturally, they are identical to the American West — in tradition, religion, and values — as well as different from the rest of Canada. They feel contempt and alienation from the rest of Canada, because Ontario and Québec dominate at Alberta’s expense.

All that @realDonaldTrump has to do is release a TruthSocial post that reads: “Alberta, if you vote to leave Canada, we will welcome you to America with a pathway to statehood.” That’s enough. Alberta hasn’t voted yet because, independent from Canada, there is no good economic option for them. Joining the United States would give Alberta the option necessary to proceed.

If @POTUS acquires Alberta, he will have expanded the land territory of the Union more than any president since Thomas Jefferson. He will have changed the literal map of America that is our conception of this country. That’s a great legacy, especially for a real estate man as president. Not to mention, in that land he will have acquired billions of dollars in energy reserves and untapped critical minerals.

As a natural-born Canadian citizen, my loyalty is to the United States. I know that the only hope for Canada’s success is the United States. The Canadian state is mediocre and provinces will be forever trapped beneath its glass ceiling. By contrast, America has infinite opportunity and empowers its people, which would enrich Canadians holistically. Joining America would remedy a mistake that George Washington in 1775 sought to correct. It would be the greatest union in history.

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

Leafs = oops.

[David Pagnotta @TheFourthPeriod]

Been on air while this became official, but word during the WCF was this was going to be a Pres/GM combo role as I mentioned over the weekend on @SiriusXMNHL. Big big add for Nashville, and Sakic will resume GM duties for the time being with Avs.

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

Isn’t this exactly what the Leafs needed to do?

[David Pagnotta @TheFourthPeriod]

Been on air while this became official, but word during the WCF was this was going to be a Pres/GM combo role as I mentioned over the weekend on @SiriusXMNHL. Big big add for Nashville, and Sakic will resume GM duties for the time being with Avs.

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

Dear America: nothing unites Canadians more than this D Trump and Pete H “51st State” trolling nonsense. When Tweets can essentially bring @bruce_arthur and @brianlilley onto the same side, I’d call that an unforced error. Isn’t this the opposite of the role of Ambassador?

[Jim Sciutto @jimsciutto]

Is statehood for Canada now the official position of the U.S. government and its diplomatic representative in Ottawa?

[Scott Robertson @sarobertson_]

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra remains absolutely baffled by the persistence of anti‑American sentiment among Canadians.

[Michael McFaul @McFaul]

So embarrassing. Canadians, I apologize. This will not last.

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

Good points here.

[Dimitris Soudas 🇨🇦⚜️🇬🇷☦️ 13.12.1943 @DimitrisSoudas]

Every grievanc is real. Almost none is an argument for leaving Canada; they’re arguments for fixing it.

We don’t fix this by walking out of the room. We fix it by refusing to leave.

So. Walk with me. Point by point:

1. Market access. You don’t have guaranteed access now, but you have it; leave and you’re a foreign country bargaining from weakness. Alberta exported ~$70B and imported ~$75B in 2024 : a net importer of the integration separation would shred. The internal barriers are absurd, but Canada is already gutting them. The One Canadian Economy Act scrapped all 53 federal CFTA exceptions in 2025, and killing the rest could add ~$200B to GDP. You don’t secede to win a fight you’re already winning inside.
2.The weak dollar. It’s ~72 US cents, but it’s a real currency backed by a central bank and a lender of last resort. Independent Alberta would have to invent a currency or adopt the US dollar and hand monetary policy to Washington with zero say. A weak loonie beats no currency at all.
3. No pipeline access across provinces. Wrong. Six crude export pipelines already leave Alberta, and the four biggest carry ~96% of everything out of the Western basin, plus the gas Mainline that’s fed Ontario and Quebec for decades. Those crossings exist today. Go foreign and a landlocked Alberta is more dependent on BC and Saskatchewan, who’d owe you nothing.
4.We pay more in than we get back. Yes, because Albertans earn more, so they pay more tax. That’s progressive taxation, including in the country you’d build. And “we get nothing back” ignores the $6.6B Health Transfer and $2.1B Social Transfer in 2025/26, plus the $75 to $100B of national debt you’d inherit day one. The math changes once you fund your own pensions, army, and currency.
5.The military is “decrepit and woke.” Stop. CAF members put their lives on the line. 158 came home from Afghanistan in coffins; others hold NATO’s eastern flank in Latvia right now, deterring Russia on your behalf. Smearing them as “woke” isn’t an argument, it’s just sad, and an insult to people who signed up to die for you. Underfunding is the politicians’ failure; the fix is investment, which NATO’s 2% push is already forcing, not building an army from zero beside a superpower you’d depend on.
6.We’re born Canadian. That’s the argument for staying and fighting for the country, not walking out. You can’t call it your country by birth and renounce it in the same breath.
7.The cost of staying beats leaving; we won’t trade liberty for safety. The evidence says otherwise. Quebec’s 1995 referendum threatened an estimated 5 to 10% of GDP; Brexit cut UK investment 11% over three years and produced six PMs in a decade. Separation isn’t a tidy political event, it’s a financial shock: capital flight, investors pricing in instability, companies leaving. A self made recession isn’t liberty.
8. Trade deals are falling apart. They’re under strain for Canada, a G7 economy of 40 million with a seat at the table. Canada is in the G7. Alberta would not be. You forfeit the seat, the voice, the leverage, then renegotiate every deal from scratch from weakness. A small, landlocked, single resource economy is the textbook price taker.
9.Liberal appointed judges, no say. A reform argument, not a secession one, and you do have a say through MPs, the Senate, and the amending formula. An independent Alberta would appoint its own judges through whoever runs Edmonton, with no Charter and no Supreme Court of Canada backstop. You’d trade judges you can vote against for judges you can’t.
10.We’re culturally different. Distinct identity never required a passport. Quebec protects its culture inside the federation, with more leverage than outside it. If family bonds survive separation, separation wasn’t protecting them; if a hard border and a foreign currency strain them, you’ve argued for staying.

[The New York Times @nytimes]

Breaking News: The "60 Minutes" correspondent Scott Pelley laced into the show’s new executive producer and accused Bari Weiss of "murdering" the program. https://t.co/v7Bi6oaKfy

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

This really is the silly season

[Hockey Vice @HockeyVice_]

Here's the exact scenario where McDavid joins MTL..

MTL gets
McDavid
Nurse
Jarry

EDM gets
Demidov
Fowler
Hutson
Slafkovsky
Kapanen
Guhle
Newhook
27, 28, 29, 30, 31 1st rnd picks

Nothing less..

[Warren Kinsella @kinsellawarren]

False.

No passport. No armed forces. No health care system. No pensions. No OAS. No CPP. No disability benefits. No EI. No consular support. No student aid. No federal policing. No banking system protection. No free mobility. No constitutional rights.

You're alone.

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

Seems like Sens Army have a lot of delayed satisfaction— now that the Canes have punked the Flyers and Habs too. I feel about the same. Sens are good. Lots of work to become great.

[Steve Warne @SteveWarneMedia]

The Senators lost in round one, yes. But when they lose to the first team in NHL history to go 12-1 to win the Conference, does that alter your view of how much change is required in Ottawa? I get into it here: https://t.co/WaCATmlfGK

[Jason Kenney 🇨🇦🇺🇦🇮🇱 @jkenney]

💯

Separatists are *shocked* by my suggestion that Canada could revoke Canadian citizenship from Albertans following a unilateral declaration of independence (UDI.)

They believe that Alberta would get to determine how Canada would respond to a UDI, and that Albertans would have a right to hold and transmit Canadian citizenship to the nth generation.

But at the same time, they would not grant Alberta citizenship to the ~50% or Albertans born outside the province, i.e. people who are Albertans by choice, not chance.

So half the Alberta population (myself included) would be ineligible for Alberta citizenship, but the separatists would get to keep their Canadian passport to travel and work in the rest of Canada visa-free.

How crazy is that?

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

Leaf-fan schadenfreude is the richest.

[Nick Alberga @thegoldenmuzzy]

God, I’m enjoying this

[Mark Milke @MarkMilke]

Thanks to @terrynewman and the @nationalpost for coverage of our study. It will surprise many that Ontario would benefit the most from a House of Commons where average riding populations are near-similar, followed by BC and then Alberta.

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

“Reclaim bragging rights?” Really? I cheer for Canada, but c’mon man.

[CBC Sports @cbcsports]

Canadian men into world hockey semifinals, reclaim bragging rights from arch-rival U.S. https://t.co/80j3LoUa94

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

It’s only news because it is true, interesting and very unusual.

[OverDrive @OverDrive1050]

NEWS: Kelly McCrimmon on OverDrive says ‘it’s only news because Edmonton leaked it’ in regards to Bruce Cassidy and the decline to interview with the Oilers #ForgedInGold

[Mike Therien @miketherien]

For some of us, this is a Carney endorsement. Steven can come back to cabinet when Liz May is PM!

[Warren Kinsella @kinsellawarren]

This sure personalizes it https://t.co/Pg4Ai8Uc9C