John Diefenbaker is canonized by the Canadian right as both a hero who smashed the Liberals at the ballot box and a martyr to foreign interference. Yet he was also an ineffective prime minister. Driven by deeply personal motives, he undermined Canadian nationalism and squandered a generational opportunity to reshape the country after 22 years of Liberal rule. In many ways, he exemplified the self-defeating tendencies of the postwar Progressive Conservatives. Ultimately, Diefenbaker was more a precursor to Pierre Trudeau than a conservative maverick. He had admirable qualities, but he was no titan, and he is not an icon to be emulated. My latest in @WDiminishment. withoutdiminishment.com/publ…

If the OLP starts doing purity tests, that’ll be the funniest role reversal

I am not so sure it was a ‘the 22 year old social justice intern’ at @globeandmail who came up with that horrible headline about Elon Musk becoming a trillionaire. The adults have an equal - or greater - hatred of success. And also the same ‘Musk Derangement Syndrome’.

We’re back at it on the @BenMulroneyShow with @BenMulroney! We cover @Yvan_Baker’s Somalia Heritage Month, the bridge to the U.S., Chinese EVs, and Switzerland proposing a population cap at 10 million. Tune in here ⬇️ youtu.be/NuFhvJZzOxw?si=BNW6…

RT @tokifyi: vancouver > toronto

A happy and glorious Vancouver Day to all who celebrate!

The American South is one of the freest, friendliest, most prosperous, and yes least xenophobic places on the planet.

Small victories

Run another poll, but control for miserable and non-miserable people.

From the mountain peaks above Vancouver, where the world's largest Canada flag now flies, to the stirring sounds of O Canada echoing through an absolutely packed PNE amphitheatre at the FIFA World Cup Fan Festival. What a moment. 🇨🇦 Goosebumps. #FIFAWorldCup #WeAreVancouver

Statues of Canadian heroes will be restored, and new ones will be built. We have a duty to honour our forebears and preserve the stories that built this country.

Love to see it

Big, if true.

I shall not be there this time, but join my compatriots for a great evening next month!

This pathetic attitude is among the worst things about our political culture in Canada and I cannot reject it enough. It gets cloaked in the language of progressivism but it is deeply cynical, ugly, and regressive. Story time! Growing up, I was hugely inspired by RIM (BlackBerry). It was one of the reasons why I wanted to go to Waterloo. I thought it was so cool one of the most innovative companies on earth was an hour away from home. In fact, my program, Nanotechnology Engineering, was able to exist in part due to the philanthropy of Mike Lazaridis, who funded the Institute of Quantum Computing and Nanotechnology (along with the Perimeter Institute for theoretical physics, which is a brilliant asset for the province and country). Balsillie, for his part, has spent tens of not hundreds of millions of his personal wealth on advocacy and institutions to make Canada a better place. But he too was castigated in our media. Through high school, I saw how Canadas media took an axe to RIM founders (Mike and Jim), and basically cheered on the decline of the business against competition from Apple and Google. It was a complete disgrace. Well, in 2013 I got my second co-op job there, just as they rolled out BB10 (the QNX operating system). 6 weeks into my co-op, my entire department was laid off (Modems/Semiconductors). Nearly every one of my colleagues ended up moving to the US. Some of the most capable talent on earth, poached in weeks. It was loss that was absolutely devastating to witness. I have no doubt people like Bruce cheered on the spectacle, just like he would cheer the downfall of Shopify if it were to ever happen; despite the champion it’s been for the country, the thousands of good jobs it’s created, and all the spin-off businesses that have created huge wealth for Ontario. Well let me be clear that I will have none of this nonsense.

It’s our very own pursuit of a ‘year zero’.

Outrageous

The biggest thing allowing this to happen is that most Canadians do not care about Canadian history. Some of it is understandable on a demographic level (25% foreign born) but for the others it is an apathy that is hard to reverse.

They have erased Samuel de Champlain from Orillia, packing him up and chucking him into a storage facility to collect dust forever. In 1615, Champlain spent the winter nearby with the Hurons as part of his travels, making maps and establishing commercial relations. The hatred for this history, and for the people it means something to, is very potent. Those who traffic in it hold immense power. baytoday.ca/local-news/contr…

And the respectable, genteel Progressive Conservatives rubberstamped all of it.

I genuinely do not understand the jaundiced view that certain Canadians have toward their own strategic resources. Occasionally you see this sort of thing in professional sports, in which a team's management misuses their best player, and it never ends well.