So many mental health initiatives to 'raise awareness' and 'call for action' in rugby league and elsewhere, yet people continue to be so needlessly abusive to one another online. Here's an initiative: Say something positive, helpful, supportive, or encouraging. Practical action.

Sign up! Come play masters rugby league in Guelph, Ontario on Saturday, June 27th as we welcome Haresfinch Masters RL

My dear friend Dick Parry died this morning. Since I was seventeen, I have played in bands with Dick on saxophone, including Pink Floyd. His feel and tone make his saxophone playing unmistakable, a signature of enormous beauty that is known to millions and is such a big part of songs such as Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Wish You Were Here, Us and Them and Money. He played in the last band I had that included Rick Wright for the On An Island Tour and at Live 8 with Pink Floyd. Here are some pictures of him, including one of him and me playing for the ABC Minors at the Victoria Cinema in Cambridge in 1963.

If you are looking at buying a car you have been eyeing for years and the salesman suddenly starts insulting you and questioning your driving abilities would you pause and reconsider the purchase? Asking for a friend.

Let’s clear something up about MAID in Canada. It does not apply to children. You must be 18 or older. Mature minors do not qualify. Full stop. It does not apply to people simply because they are poor or struggling. To be eligible, you must have a serious and incurable illness, disease or disability, be in an advanced state of irreversible decline, and be experiencing intolerable suffering that cannot be relieved in any way you find acceptable. Financial hardship alone is not a criterion. It is not a rubber stamp. Approval requires assessments by two independent practitioners who review your medical records and confirm you have seriously considered available treatment options. When death is not reasonably foreseeable, a minimum 90-day assessment period is required. People whose only medical condition is a mental illness are not currently eligible either, that eligibility has been postponed to March 2027 while further safeguards are studied. You can have moral or religious objections to assisted dying. That is a legitimate position held by a lot of Canadians. But spreading misinformation about what the law actually says is not an argument. It is just fearmongering. Know wtf you are talking about before you talk about it.

Today, His Majesty the King visited the Canadian Cross of Sacrifice at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, USA. This monument honours the Americans who, moved by a sense of duty to fight for freedom, joined the Canadian Armed Forces in the years before the United States officially entered the First World War. It was later rededicated to all Americans who joined Canadian forces in the Second World War and the Korean War. His Majesty’s act of remembrance is a powerful reminder of the bonds between our countries.

Watching Carney and Poilievre go at it in Parliament is starting to feel uncomfortable. Not in a dramatic way, just in the way it feels when someone is clearly out of their depth and keeps pressing anyway. Carney knows the file. When he answers, he answers the actual question. He doesn’t need to perform outrage or repeat a catchphrase three times and call it a rebuttal. He just explains things, clearly, because he understands them. Poilievre comes in loud and confident, same as always, and that works great on a campaign trail or a Facebook video. But in a room where the other guy actually knows what he’s talking about? The gap shows. Every time. The frustrating part isn’t even the politics. It’s watching someone confuse intensity for competence and expect nobody to notice the difference. People notice. This stopped being a left vs right thing a while ago. Now it just looks like one guy who did the reading and one guy who thinks he doesn’t have to.

Did you know that Canada invaded Iceland during the Second World War? While not alone—Britain and, eventually, the U.S. were also present—Canadian troops were part of the occupation force. You can read more in my Legion Magazine feature. legionmagazine.com/the-lovel… 📸 Wiki.

I am climbing the CN Tower on May 2-3 to support WWF-Canada and I’d really love your support to help me reach my fundraising goal! Every dollar raised helps create a brighter future where nature and wildlife thrive. fundraisers.wwf.ca/s/19588/2…

JD Vance is lecturing the Pope on Catholicism and Pierre Poilievre is lecturing Mark Carney on economics and RFK Jr is lecturing scientists about vaccines and Donald Trump is lecturing the world on tariffs and Pete Hegseth is quoting Pulp Fiction and thinking it’s the Bible

🌞Good morning Canada. It's a Liberal majority. But it hasn't been easy on some. The ugliness is...just ugly. The playbook is identical to January 6th denial. Lose democratically, call democracy illegitimate. Here's how Conservatives are coping with Liberals gaining a majority: 🔴 Election denialism: Poilievre calls it "backroom deals." Jinglai He calls it "unearned." Tamara Lich calls it "stolen." Melissa Lantsman says politicians "traded your vote away like a bargaining chip." Floor crossings are constitutionally legal and have happened across Westminster democracies for centuries. 🔴 Misinformation: Marc Nixon says the "$500K exit tax" is "the FIRST thing they do." It is NOT government policy. A convention guest speaker named Patrick Pichette floated it personally. Carney never proposed it. It's not before Parliament. Pichette himself lives in London. Lantsman claims Canada has "the fastest shrinking economy in the G7." Canada is not last in G7 growth projections. 🔴 Discrediting institutions: Tamara Lich calls a legal parliamentary outcome equivalent to "overthrowing the government." That's from someone who actually faced criminal charges for doing exactly that. 🔴 Doomsday predictions: Karen declares today "Canada's 3rd Black Monday." Keen Bexte calls it "Canada's first truly undemocratic government." 🔴 Racism: Tom Quiigin flags that two of three byelection candidates "weren't born in Canada." The embarrassment is @PierrePoilievre showing up in this list at all. On Rebel News, while water dribbled down his chin, he declared Carney "very badly educated on economics." Mark Carney holds a BA from Harvard and a PhD in economics from Oxford. He ran the Bank of Canada. Then the Bank of England. Poilievre has a BA in international relations from Universityof Calgary. The man questioning Carney's credentials just lost four caucus members to floor crossings, lost the 2025 election, and watched his party collapse in all three byelections, including Terrebonne, where Conservatives dropped from 18% to 3%. What tactic do you think they lean on hardest in the next 6 months? You get your coffee. I'll pour myself a glass of wine. #cdnpoli #GoodMorning #CanadianPolitics #Byelection2026 #LiberalMajority #Poilievre #CPC #Carney

Chemtrails don't exist Turbo cancer doesn't exist Covid does exist Covid vaccines worked Ivermectin doesn't work for Covid Ivermectin doesn't work for cancer Vaccines eradicated smallpox Vaccines don't cause autism Thanks and have a wonderful day

A story of Remembrance in three photos. If you know, you know.

A different kind of memorial on Juno Beach. #WeWillRememberThem #LestWeForget

10/10. No notes.

I've taught European history for 30 years. Americans have always asked me how the Holocaust was possible, how Germans could have enabled a madman reveling in mass murder to carry out his plans. Now we can see in real time how this is enabled; now we have front-row seats.

☀️ Good morning Canada. Welcome to my misinformation edition 🇨🇦 Canada politics Today’s theme: how misinformation spreads through influencer networks and social media. • A viral claim from commentator Marc Nixon cited a “poll” from Maple Polling claiming Mark Carney had 77.1% negative approval. When questioned and compared with legitimate polling data, Maple Polling deleted the tweet. The misinformation had already reached ~19K impressions. • A second viral claim alleged Carney was booed on a jumbotron clip at a sports event. The claim was circulated by accounts including Tracy Wilson and echoed by others. The accompanying TSN video clip contains no audible booing. • Claims that Canada is planning to join the European Union also circulated online. While commentator Mario Zelaya framed this as a serious Liberal proposal, there is no government policy or negotiation suggesting Canada could or would join the European Union. • Another viral post suggested Bill C‑9 (Canada) could criminalize passages from the Bible. In reality, the bill concerns judicial discipline procedures and does not regulate religious speech. • Jasmine Laine claimed Carney ignored French speakers until campaigning in Terrebonne. Yet Carney’s public engagements in Quebec pre-date that event. 📉 Pattern: Unverified claims → viral posts → impressions accumulate → corrections rarely travel as far. This is just in the last week. Pluralistic democracies depend on evidence-based debate, not viral narratives. You have coffee ☕️, I’ll pour myself a glass of wine 🍷 #GoodMorning #Canada #cdnpoli #MediaLiteracy #Misinformation

If a Prime Minister in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK behaved like Trump he would lose the confidence of the House and be out. The US needs to stop its cultish worship of its constitution & founding fathers & create a system that will never allow another wannabe dictator.

Let me explain something to the MAGA crowd, because clearly someone needs to. They seem to think NATO is cosmic room service. You pick up the phone, say “hello, we’re having a bit of a war here,” and thirty-one countries march to your rescue. A continental Uber for military adventures. That is not how it works. Article 5 is a mutual defense clause. The clue is in the word mutual. And it has been triggered exactly once in NATO’s entire history. After September 11. When America was attacked. Not Europe. America. Every NATO member showed up. They went to Afghanistan. They fought. They bled. They died. In America’s war. On America’s behalf. Now imagine they hadn’t. Over 1,100 allied soldiers died in Afghanistan. British, Canadian, German, Danish, Polish. And yes, even Ukrainian soldiers, who had no NATO obligation whatsoever. Gone. Without them, those are American names on those graves. Sons from Ohio. Fathers from Georgia. Kids from Nebraska who never came home. Then there is the money. NATO allies spent over 100 billion dollars on a war that started on American soil. Without that, Washington pays every cent. On top of the 2 to 3 trillion the war already cost. And without allied bases across Europe and Central Asia, American supply lines collapse entirely. Without British forces in Helmand and Canadians in Kandahar, the Taliban reconstitutes in three years instead of ten. The gaps get filled one way. More American deployments. More American coffins arriving at Dover. Afghanistan was bloody. But NATO took the hit. Without them, every single one of those casualties would have had an American name. Trump called allies like these losers. Suckers. If you are a certain kind of broken person, that probably makes sense to you. But for the rest of us, what those soldiers did has a different name. Honor. The bond between men who have been in the same dirt, under the same fire. Between Brits and Americans, Frenchmen and Norwegians, Canadians and Danes. Not a diplomatic relationship. A blood bond. Brotherhood forged in places most people will never see and cannot imagine. In that culture, you do not mock a fallen ally. You do not sneer at the dead. It is the lowest thing a human being can do. Trump did it to a standing ovation. If you are a MAGA supporter travelling to NATO countries, understand this. There are no friendly pats on the back waiting for you. No one will buy you a beer. The governments who share your worldview sit in Minsk, Moscow and Pyongyang. Brutal dictatorships where journalists disappear, elections are theatre and dissent is a medical condition treated in basements. Not London. Not Paris. Not Rome, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Berlin or Ottawa. You have abandoned the open societies, the free press, the rule of law, the places where people actually want to live. You traded the best of civilization for a very small, very dark room. Frankly, it serves you right.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Gandalv / @Microinteracti1

In a few days, this Brit living in Canada will be in France to honour the sacrifices made by his adopted country in two world wars. Sacred sites will include Vimy Ridge, Dieppe, and Juno Beach. I certainly expect it to be an unforgettable pilgrimage 🇨🇦🇬🇧