I made the biggest political donation of my life after this policy was announced - and sent a screenshot to my (barely elected) UCP MLA letting him know. There's a lot to hate the UCP for, but this one really takes the cake.

If Canada rerouted some fighter jet funding to churning out squadrons of water bombers, this country could contribute substantially to the global war against wildfires

Bill C-5, Indigenous resistance, and the authoritarian turn at the heart of the settler state

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cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/31723667

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I dunno. It's like Carney's "we're gonna build 500k houses a year without a plan trust me bro just elect me bro" strategy is not effective.

But on the plus side, it looks like existing homeowners won't have to worry about the price of houses going down. /s

The federal government is under pressure to relax the foreign homebuyer ban, as builders deal with one of the worst real estate slowdowns in decades.

...

At the time, the federal government said it would help stabilize housing and ensure Canadians had more access to purchasing homes. The policy prevents foreigners from buying existing and preconstruction homes.

But as borrowing costs increased in 2022 and 2023, the real estate market slumped, and demand dried up for preconstruction homes. Sales have dropped significantly in the regions of Toronto, Vancouver and Ottawa. And over the past few years, developers have postponed and canceled projects because they are unable to sell the minimum amount needed to obtain construction financing from lenders.

Okay, at least one of the other recommendations is good:

The alliance is also recommending that the federal government expand and speed up the approval process of its $55-billion apartment construction loan program. It provides cheap loans to developers to build rental-only housing as long as specific affordability requirements are met.

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The letter also urges Ottawa to provide the GST waiver on new rental-only buildings for projects currently under construction. The tax break, which was announced in September, 2023, does not apply to projects that started prior to that date.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-foreign-homebuying-ban-ottawa-pressure/

What province? Alberta, of course

One recent article referred to President Trump as “Big Tech’s Personal Lobbyist,” for his efforts to undermine U.S. state and international efforts to regulate or tax the enormous wealth of digital economy giants.

Polling shows Canadians are fed up with the constant harassment from Washington. They want our leaders to go back at Washington hard, even if it hurts us economically.

And rarely do you get the two polar opposites — the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the United Steelworkers — both stating that it's better to have no deal than a bad deal.

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Canada, however, has finally shown the leadership that reflects our long tradition of international justice and opposition to genocide. And for this, Trump is threatening to inflict serious damage on our economy unless we back down. What’s on the table is our right to maintain an independent foreign policy.

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Canada and the west have lined up to support the democratic resistance in Ukraine but Trump has always lined up behind Putin. When he first heard about the invasion, Trump declared Putin a "savvy genius". He blamed President Zelensky for the war. In Trump's worldview, the oligarch empires have the arbitrary right to reduce their neighbours to vassal state conditions — by economic pressure or by force.

Text of the article:

Ford floats use of notwithstanding clause in Toronto bike lanes case

‘Let’s see what happens at the Court of Appeal,’ Premier Doug Ford told reporters

Aidan Chamandy

Aug 6, 2025 1:41 PM

Premier Doug Ford is gearing up for a fight after a judge pumped the brakes on his government’s plan to remove some Toronto bike lanes. 

On Wednesday, Ford left open the possibility of invoking the notwithstanding clause to ensure his government retains the authority to remove bike lanes it disapproves of. 

“Let's see what happens at the Court of Appeal, and then we'll go from there,” he said at an unrelated announcement in Thornhill. 

Ford criticized Justice Paul Schabas’ decision as the “most ridiculous” he’s ever seen. 

“You talk about the Charter? It’s trampling on the democratic rights of Ontarians that elected a government, just a few months before … that said they’re going to move, not eliminate … bike lanes from the main arterial roads,” Ford said. 

Ford, however, struck a confident tone and said he has confidence the Court of Appeal will rule in his government’s favour. 

Using the notwithstanding clause would allow the government to push through the removals, regardless of what the three-judge panel at the Court of Appeals says. 

In his July 30 ruling, Justice Schabas wrote “the evidence is clear” that “restoring a lane of motor vehicle traffic … will create greater risk to cyclists and to other users of the road.” 

Schabas’ decision didn’t hinge on whether he thought citizens had a right to bike lanes. Instead, it revolved around whether the government’s arguments for removing the lanes — and causing harm to non-driving road users — was based in fact. 

The government’s central point was that removing the bike lanes on Yonge Street, University Avenue and Bloor Street would reduce congestion. That, according to Schabas, was predicated on “weak anecdotal evidence and expert opinion,” which was “unsupported, unpersuasive and contrary to the consensus view of experts.”

He wrote that “there is no evidence that the government based its decision on data, manuals or expert ‘highway engineering’, or that its decision would ‘contribute to highway safety.’”

“Rather, the evidence is to the contrary,” he wrote.

Ford is no stranger to using — or threatening to use — the notwithstanding clause, a constitutional provision that was previously taboo in Ontario politics. 

He was the first premier in the province’s history to invoke the clause, which has been in place since 1982. 

In 2018, he threatened to invoke the clause to reduce the number of Toronto city council members from 47 to 25. Doing so was ultimately unnecessary because the Court of Appeal upheld Queen’s Park’s authority to make the council change.

In 2021, the Superior Court struck down Ford’s attempt to [extend third-party election spending limits](https://www.barrietoday.com/local-news/supreme-court-strikes-down-ford-governments-third-party-political-ads-law-10339531: outbound&utm_medium=referral) to 12 months, up from six months. Ford recalled the legislature and passed the bill with the notwithstanding clause — marking the first time in provincial history the clause was actually used. 

Then, in 2022, Ford [used the clause](https://www.ola.org/en/legislative-business/bills/parliament-43/session-1/bill-28: outbound&utm_medium=referral) to ban education workers from striking after contract negotiations broke down. That sparked intense public backlash and Ford repealed the bill days later.

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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article said Ford in 2022 used the notwithstanding clause to ban teachers from striking. It was in fact used to stop education workers, like librarians, custodians and early childhood educators, from striking.

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