Nitin Deckha

Educator, consultant, collaborator, volunteer, board member, parent. Generalist. GenXer. Staying curious and human. Art, culture, politics, intercultural +

[Lee Fairclough @LFairclo]

You know those “Protect Ontario” ads you see on TV?

They cost you $10 Million last year alone. Five times more than what they cost you the year before.

The Ford government spent a whopping $112 million on advertising in 2024-2025. Doug Ford is using this money to make himself look good, not to address the needs of Ontario.

If only that $112 million went into schools or hospitals instead.

[Vass Bednar @VassB]

"Canada’s challenge is not a lack of talent, entrepreneurship, capital, or even natural resources. It is the lack of a digital-first architecture for generating economic value and global power." From @dtapscott + @alextapscott, with great supporting data.

[Timothy P. O'Malley @timothypomalley]

This book is a treat—and a necessary read for wherever we are in the history of universities.

[Ursula von der Leyen @vonderleyen]

Great discussion with @MarkJCarney in Evian.

Canada is truly the most European of the non-European countries.

We are working together on digital trade, critical raw materials, and defence.

We are also stepping up our cooperation on energy.

Our next Summit, on 29–30 October in Canada, will be a major milestone in a partnership that continues to grow deeper and broader.

[Lee Fairclough @LFairclo]

I am humbled to receive the endorsement of Carol Mitchell, who was the MPP for Huron–Bruce from 2003 to 2011 and served as Ontario’s Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

Carol is a tireless champion of rural communities and Ontario’s Agriculture sector. She was born in Huron county and has served her community in many ways over the years. She has been a true inspiration to me personally. To have her endorsement is deeply meaningful, and I am grateful for the confidence she has placed in me.

[Lee Fairclough @LFairclo]

It was great to be in Cornwall!

I met with the Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry PLA and the National Women's Club to talk about the future of our province and leadership for the Ontario Liberal Party. Healthcare dominated the discussion - including mental health - as well as the rising cost of rent; education; French language rights; and the return of manufacturing.

It was great to see local rebuilding underway too. Thank you Campbell Simard and Dr. Alexandra Kindrat for the invitation and for your leadership.

//

Ce fut un plaisir d’être à Cornwall !

J’ai rencontré l’association locale de Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry et le club national des femmes pour discuter de l’avenir de notre province et de la direction du Parti libéral de l’Ontario. Les soins de santé ont dominé la discussion – notamment la santé mentale – tout comme la hausse des loyers, l’éducation, les droits linguistiques en français et le retour de l’industrie manufacturière.

C’est formidable de voir que la reconstruction locale est également en cours. Merci à Campbell Simard et à Dr. Alexandra Kindrat pour leur invitation et pour leur leadership.

[Lee Fairclough @LFairclo]

I’m proud to have the endorsement of Sheila Gervais, a committed member of the Ontario Liberal Party since 1977, and a principled leader whose dedication to Canada and Ontario shines through in everything she does.

It was wonderful to see Sheila at our Eastern Region OLP event in Greely this weekend! Thank you for your steady leadership within the community and continued contribution to our country and our province.

Join our growing movement at https://t.co/zQB3DGVHFj.

[Athenaeum Book Club @athenaeumbc]

Elite university students are now incapable of reading a book.

Instead of fixing this, universities are simply reducing reading requirements to shorter and shorter excerpts.

This is no mere literacy crisis. It is a civilizational one.

To fight back, we started an online book club to study the great texts of Western Civilization — if the schools and universities won't teach the great books, we must form reading groups to study them ourselves.

Every month, we read a new great work. We've covered texts like Augustine's Confessions, Dante's Inferno, The Count of Monte Cristo, Don Quixote.

We're now reading Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.

We must study the ideas upon which the West was built if we are to preserve it. It takes effort to read these texts, and even more to read them well. Thats what we're doing, slowly, in dialogue with each other.

If you'd like to be part of this, please join our reading group and consider a paid subscription. It makes a HUGE difference to the time and resources we can dedicate to this project. We are entirely funded by our members.

You'll get:

- Live book club discussions (biweekly)
- Access to our incredible community chat
- Essays to guide you through the Great Books
- All past recordings, essays, and podcasts
- Ability to vote on what we read next

https://t.co/efQaicNvay

Welcome!

[Lee Fairclough @LFairclo]

I joined my colleague @tedhsu in Kingston this weekend to hear what matters most to his community. From making the dream of homeownership a reality for young people to accessing essential healthcare services, life has become more challenging across Ontario. We need strong leadership that only a Liberal government can deliver to get the province back on track. #onpoli #Leeforleader

[John Ralston Saul @JohnRalstonSaul]

Yes, I was lucky enough to be in the Senate for the swearing in of Louise Arbour as Governor General.
She gave a remarkable speech, both intellectually and ethically.
https://t.co/Kb5D1FHHSt

[Lee Fairclough @LFairclo]

It’s always good to spend time where I grew up in Huron-Bruce.

What made this visit particularly special was joining other Ontario Liberal Leadership candidates and the Huron-Bruce PLA for an evening of conversation about where we want to go as a party and province. We talked about how to get education, mental health, healthcare, and transportation working for everyone again.

The impact of the Ford Conservative’s reckless changes to conservation authorities was also top of mind. People in Huron-Bruce want change in Ontario and are ready to put in the work.

A special thanks to our lively host John Chippa and Ian Burbidge, PLA President and past Huron-Bruce candidate, for organizing and hosting this event.

[Lee Fairclough @LFairclo]

Scarborough Southwest deserves a strong representative like Ahsanul Hafiz at Queen’s Park. 

Today I joined my Liberal colleagues and Ahsanul to celebrate his campaign office opening in Scarborough Southwest.

As a business owner, community leader, and advocate, he has built a wide local network and earned the confidence of families and local organizations. He understands the issues that matter most to residents.

I know he will be a tireless champion for Scarborough Southwest.  I look forward to working with Ahsanul to revitalize our party and fight for better healthcare, stronger schools, and a more affordable Ontario. #onpoli

[Geoff Mulgan @geoffmulgan]

For the handful of sane people still on this platform, a piece about the past, present and future of universities, suggesting analogies with the position of monasteries 500 years ago. The piece looks at the threats (from AI, politics, student scepticism) and potential responses, from challenge-based working to lifelong learning, place-making to metacognition. The default in much writing about universities is a mix of complaint that they aren't loved or funded enough, and nostalgia. I doubt that's an adequate response to the current predicament. https://t.co/H3gMvFMNc0

[Abhishek Nagaraj @abhishekn]

This is exactly the kind of social science that I’m hopeful will explode post LLMs. Great work!

[Lee Fairclough @LFairclo]

To build a stronger education system, we need to listen to those who know our classrooms best.

It was great be in Kingston earlier this week and join my MPP colleague @tedhsu to meet with education workers from across the sector, including EAs, ECEs, and elementary and secondary teachers.

We discussed the pressures facing Ontario classrooms, the importance of supporting education workers, and the investments needed to strengthen public education for students, families, and staff.

Thank you to everyone who shared their experiences and insights. Your advocacy is helping shape a stronger future for Ontario's schools.

[Nika Dubrovsky @nikadubrovsky]

Galbraith's The Affluent Society (1958) surprised people by explaining the idiotic world they were living in, where bloated private consumption of things they often absolutely don't need goes hand in hand with the destruction of public space, from schools to hospitals. Galbraith explained how advertising teaches people to buy endlessly, and corporations make them work so they can buy again — consumption as the engine of the social system.
But someone should soon write a book about how The Affluent Society ended — and a new era began. An era where most people no longer have to work, because there's no work, and the elite doesn't need buyers. The main theme is no longer production and consumption but access to resources: those who have capital, infrastructure, data, and protection — and those who never will.
Roughly like in the colonies: the overseas masters make sure local groups fight each other enough not to interfere with the guards around the cobalt mine, where a few lucky ones dig up resources with their bare hands for a dollar a day.
Oh wait — no digging needed. Robots will dig.
The population is seen by the power only as a politically dangerous element of the system.
That world might look like one of those strange civilizations the Star Trek crew encountered on its voyages: a small techno-elite amid wonders and abundance, the majority somewhere below — in degrading spaces, in despair and horror.
Who'd want to live in a world like that? Well, maybe the Star Trek crew will fly over and sort it all out for us?

[Gaurav Dalmia @gdalmiathinks]

Good long-read piece on quantum computing.

[UK in India🇬🇧🇮🇳 @UKinIndia]

Congratulations to Dame Meera Syal on being awarded a damehood by His Majesty The King for services to literature, drama, and charity.

A fitting tribute to her exceptional contribution to the arts.

📸: @RoyalFamily

[Nitin Deckha @ndeckha]

From storytelling to storythinking:

Angus Fletcher, author of Storythinking, argues that thinking through story is an evolutionary adaptation that leads to "political revolutions, artistic movements, and technological contraptions.”

Read more at: https://t.co/j5Etyy5KmK

[artforum @Artforum]

The New School has laid off 68 staffers and 19 full-time faculty—more than half of them tenured—as it confronts a $60 million budget deficit driven in part by Trump administration restrictions on international students, who made up 36% of its student body in December 2025.
https://t.co/O4v8lR0DvJ