Separatists to the east of me, Jokers to the west, Here I am, Stuck in the middle with you...

By Theo Moudakis

I feel like all of Canada is stuck with me in the middle now, with Quebec separatists slipping into power down east and those treasonous Alberta jokers out west.

A major investigation in Saturday's Globe and Mail revealed those Alberta jokers and the extent of US interference in the Alberta "referendum on a referendum":

...A Globe and Mail investigation has found that Republican political operatives were on the ground in Alberta this year to assist the separatist campaign in its bid to leave Canada, while harbouring their own aspirations for the province to secede.
The Globe also found that when Alberta separatist leaders went to Washington to meet with the U.S. State Department, they offered up key assets from the province’s resource portfolio, including access to fresh water and royalties on crude oil, in exchange for help transitioning to independence....

Plus we also heard recently about attempts to cut a separate deal with Quebec.

So now Trump not only trying to fix his own elections but now trying to fix election in Canada also by trying to deal with a Quebec Govt to get an Aluminum deal but hidden from the Carney and trying to divide us to then hop in

— Barry (@barry13.bsky.social) September 25, 2026 at 4:04 PM

Reaction was fast and furious.

Mayor of Calgary: "It's really rich to see from some of these leaders in the separatist movement, they talk about freedom, sovereignty. And when they go down south of the border, offering our water, our land, our oil, this is not about taking back Alberta, this is about selling out Alberta."

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— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson.bsky.social) October 5, 2026 at 5:26 PM

Sunday Funday: Sports, Interesting posts, Funny Posts, Getting Old(er), Carney Hat Trick, TrumpWatch, Animal Crackers

Yes, its been one of those weeks, and the rest of October will likely be worse. 

So lets all enjoy a few funny posts and some random stuff:

Speaking of Sports
This is nuts!

Finally found a sport I can get excited about. First to park on the trailer wins.

- TerminusEst

Read on Substack

Beautiful NHL Opening Night video!


I'm following Pope Leo's White Sox now.

The white Sox honestly might be on a mission from god, absurd bullpen usage but it keeps working

— Secretary of Defense Rock (@sodrock.bsky.social) October 3, 2026 at 3:16 PM

Wrapping up the week by waiting for the next one

This week seemed like one of those "Waiting for Godot" weeks -- everyone is waiting for the Quebec election on Monday, the Nobel Peace Prize announcement next Friday, the Alberta "referendum on a referendum" on October 19, the BC election on October 23, and finally the US Mid-Terms on November 3. Lots of speculation all over about what will happen, who's on first, and so forth. 

In the meantime, we just have to wait:

Holy shit, I can’t even imagine the fury if PM Carney wins TIME’s Person of the Year & a Nobel Peace Prize. The Wrath of Con will be felt around the world. #FuckTheFelon

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— YukonCorneliusJack (@yukoncorneliusjack.bsky.social) October 2, 2026 at 12:22 PM

Some Friday Funnies, plus Trade War Dispatches, Canadian News, and Signs of the Apocalypse

Friday Funnies

I was today years old when I saw this great cartoon from August 26. 

And it reportedly ended cartoonist Sue Dewar's career at the Toronto Sun, as described by Hamilton Spectator cartoonist Graeme MacKay, because the PostMedia papers told her they had to pixilate that beaver finger and she refused to work for cowards. 

I've read lots of speculation about PM Carney getting the Nobel Peace Prize and/or the Time magazine Person Of The Year - with the discussion first on how much he deserves both, and second on how delightful it would be to make Trump absolutely furious.

 Carney's reluctant remarks to the New York Times about the "extreme tail risk" of a US invasion caused headlines across the country

Truth and Reconciliation - it's a journey, not a destination

Kent Monkman The Scream 

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is Canada's most important National Day. 

I don't know if younger people can realize how much our relationships between settlers and Indigenous people have improved over the last four decades. I think it really began with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982, continuing to Truth and Reconciliation Commission  in 2008 to 2015, including along the way significant economic development, decisive court cases, increased academic study, art and music,action in political leadership, deeper understanding of land acknowledgements and treaty rights, all framed with apology for past racism, increasing mutual respect and willingness to work together on issues. 

Yes, there have been grim setbacks and awful incidents in these years, but overall I believe the arc of Canada's moral universe is bending toward justice. And unlike what is happening now in the United States now, I don't believe we will ever break bad.

This National Day - our sixth one this year- reminds us we need to listen, learn and grow in understanding of what happened in our past and how it shapes our future. Understanding truth and working for reconciliation is our Canadian journey.

Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies

Theo Moudakis

Dale Smith has a great Routine Proceedings column Tuesday, about political lying for fun and profit:

...the continued insistence by legacy media to both-sides everything led to this situation. Conservatives in the US and Canada have long-since figured out that they can lie with impunity because the most that will happen is that it will be both-sidesed, and thus not actually challenged.
In amidst these recollections, I wanted to note that this problem is not confined to the US, but it’s present here on a smaller scale, particularly with Pierre Poilievre and his constant stream of out-of-context, cherry-picked statistics, or his outright bald-faced assertions that are not only incorrect, but hysterical lies that virtual nobody (David Cochrane excepted) has any appetite to challenge. This is especially true for any economic data, which Poilievre spouts unchallenged even though it’s almost all wrong. But because it goes unchallenged, you have a lot of people who think that he knows what he’s talking about so they believe that he’s some kinds of economic genius. He’s not—he learned what he knows from crypto bros on YouTube, and if you actually have an inkling of what the actual data is, then you would see that he is hilariously wrong, but nobody will call him on it, least of all the government.

Smith references an excellent piece about Trump's lies, by CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale, and notes the commonalities between Trump and Poilievre now, including how their supporters praise their authenticity and like how they "speak their minds".
Its easy to speak your mind, of course, when you don't care about the truth - you can draw sharpies on maps all over the place. Liars can say whatever makes them look good and someone else look bad.

Catching up with the news: Trump rants about Canada, Residential school denialism rears its ugly head, and the Jays' season is over

Trump rants about Canada
On Monday, Trump said Canada will have to apologize. Yeah, right...

TЯ☭mp: “They [Canada] are gonna come in and they’re gonna say, ‘Sir, we are sorry.” Canadians: 🖕🏽😏😂😂😂🖕🏽

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— 🍁🇨🇦Team Canada Forever🇨🇦🍁 (@teamcanadaforever.bsky.social) September 28, 2026 at 6:09 PM

Keith Edwards on Trump naps, lies, and Canada. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ1q...

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— Phil Hawkin (@philhawkin.bsky.social) September 28, 2026 at 10:36 PM

Sunday Funday: Interesting Posts, Funny Posts, Getting Old(er), TrumpWatch, and Animal Crackers

For some reason, I keep seeing alligator memes these days. Maybe we're all a little more nervous than we want to admit

Interesting Posts

What a road trip!

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— WholesomeMemes (@wholesomememe.bsky.social) September 24, 2026 at 9:31 PM

Wrapping up the week: Comments about Canada v America

Stepping back from the day-to-day ups and downs of our Trade War, I have found some comments about the longer term situation -  what Canadians are thinking, how Americans are reacting, what's wrong with the Conservative response, and why Carney is becoming more combative toward Trump now.

News Flash: Canada is moving on and we ain't coming back!

On Power and Politics, Bob Rae says "...We know now what we're up against... we need to pick our fights, pick our friends. We're the resistance now, we can't give up - the stakes are too high. I'm ready to spend the rest of my life fighting this, this is the battle of our lifetime."


At the end of August, philosopher Tim Snyder wrote a substack about the stupidity of Trump's trade war against Canada and this is international development consultant John Berry's comment in response:

I have great respect for Timothy Snyder and have read his books with great interest. He is welcome in Canada and I am glad he has chosen my alma mater, the University of Toronto as his new academic home. I hope he stays here and embraces Canada as a permanent home for his family rather than a temporary refuge. It is difficult for those born and raised in the US, regardless of their politics, to see the world through the eyes of other peoples. Snyder does this better than most. But even those in the US who claim to be Canada’s strongest friends and find Trump’s antics appalling cannot seem to face the deeper cancer in their body politic. It is far easier to focus on Trump and his cohort of gangsters as a one-time anomaly rather than as an inevitable eruption of the will to power that has been inherent in the US for 250 years! For Canadians, the US faith in “manifest destiny” has been a Damocles Sword hanging over us for centuries, since before the war of 1812. Every generation it seems to re-emerge, as some opportunistic politician revives the vision of an enlarged United States stretching from Mexico to the arctic. In this sense, the latest Trump derangement is nothing new. Any examination of successive maps of the USA from 1776 to the present makes this drive for expansion clear. What is different in the current situation Is the lack of any political stability that would constrain an out of control presidency. Indeed there is a substantial establishment which, after planning for at least fifty years, has taken total power and has made its plans very clear: in both the most recent National Security Strategy as well as Project 25. Canada, and Greenland are specific targets that the US deems necessary to control for its own security. And that control is not envisaged as a partnership, but something between outright annexation (“51st state” or a satellite state relationship. For Canadians, this is intolerable! Canada has emerged as a global leader of the middle powers, but not through choice. The decision to defend our sovereignty was inevitable. People in the US will find it difficult to understand why the majority of Canadians would willingly undergo extreme suffering rather than join the US. This upsets their deeply held belief that they are the envy of the world. If they begin to understand this they will indeed have a clearer perception of their own country and perhaps gain some humility! And strangely, the resistance by Canada to both the Trump regime and the more fundamental US will to power may be our most important gift to the United States, in its 250th anniversary. Canada’s action provides a reality check: support beyond words, with dollars and real sacrifice, in the struggle to restore democracy to our damaged neighbour!

- JOHN BERRY

Read on Substack

Immigration in Dangerous Times - "We had whistles, they had guns"

There was an interesting discussion in the the Comments to yesterday's post about immigration and its importance to Canada. So I thought I would look around for some recent discussions about immigration and its impact in Canada.

First, I hate to admit it, but I think our immigrant policies and practices are inextricably bound up now with what is now happening in Trump's America.
Canada cannot welcoming and kind to desperate people when our Safe Third Countries agreement forces us to send them back into the maelstrom that is now the United States.
And we cannot be reasonable and measured in reducing our immigration targets when landscapers and home care workers and waitresses are being labelled as vicious criminals in the United States and thrown into for-profit concentration camps, then flown to who-knows-where.
Its a crime against humanity.
Today the Toronto Star published an article by senior immigration reporter Nicholas Keung about a new Amnesty International report "We had whistles, they had guns". Its about what has been happening with the ICE Gestapo in the United States and whether Canada should continue the so-called Safe Third Party agreement.
Answers: yes, it's terrible, and no, we shouldn't.

Cartoons & Comments, plus more Signs of the Apocalypse & Trade War Dispatches

Some good cartoons and comments:

About Bill C-39

About Trump at the UN

Say a prayer to the Baseball Gods! Plus comparing Carney and Trump at the UN, and comments on the BC snap election

This post is mainly about Canada politics. 

But first, I have to ask the Baseball Gods to bless the Blue Jays on Wednesday and let them win their double-header against Baltimore. The first game starts at 1:30 pm and the second at 6:30 pm. They are almost eliminated now, unless we get an improbable combination of Blue Jays wins plus lots of other teams losing. But if the Jays lose on Wednesday, its over.

I'll never forget seeing a woman at Fenway holding up her little "Believe" sign in the bottom of the ninth with two out, when Boston was on the cusp of being swept by the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. One of the greatest comebacks in sport history, and the Sox went on to win eight straight games and the World Series. 

So yes, I still BELIEVE! 

Carney at the United Nations
Carney didn't speak to the General Assembly because he couldn't fly into New York in time. But he did hold a press conference on Wednesday -- and I guess he really is a cat whisperer!

Catching up with Canada's News, plus Signs of the Apocalypse and Trade War Dispatches

First, on a side note, I'm going to try not to use Instagram and Threads embeds anymore because they aren't working on Blogger for some readers - thanks for your patience everyone. I will use Bluesky and Substack plus Threads screenshots  - and my own inimitable ramblings! At some point, I might switch to Word Press or post on Substack myself, provided my blogging style can be used there.

Moving on to Canada's News:

Cartoon by David Parkins / The Globe and Mail

Parliament returns
This is the kind of fire I want to see every day from the Liberals:

Steven MacKinnon “I hope this session of Parliament, Mr. Speaker, we won’t see this pattern re-emerge - call it the ‘blame Canada pattern,’ the ‘hissy-fit brigade.’ We are in a trade war. We did not provoke this trade war.”

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— Liberals🇨🇦🇺🇦 (@saynotobs.bsky.social) September 21, 2026 at 8:18 PM

The Building Canada Strong act, Bill C-39 was introduced on Monday

Feds move to fast-track approvals across entire regions, not just single projects #cdnpoli #ipolitics

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— iPolitics (@ipolitics.bsky.social) September 21, 2026 at 5:25 PM

Sunday Funday: Trade War Dispatches, Interesting Posts, Funny Posts, Carney Hat-Trick, TrumpWatch, Animal Crackers

Dispatches from the Canada-US Trade War
I believe Shannon Proudfoot must have been living in my kitchen for the past month:

[gift link] ...There was another one-liner making the rounds about the Canadian reaction to Donald Trump’s imperial hostility. That one I knew to be true in my bone marrow: “Canadians have two modes – ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘You’re about to be sorry.’”
...I assume many Canadians experienced something like the weird cocktail of emotions that buzzed through me that weekend. There was dread, to be sure, because whatever came next would not be good. But there was also a strange relief that bordered on elation: Someone was about to punch me in the face, and I was grinning at them with savage glee in my eyes.
Brightest, on top of it all, was the same feeling that had made me tear up every time I’d heard O Canada over the past 18 months: a patriotic pride so quietly fierce that it sneaked up on me with an almost physical presence.
...“There’s a sense that if you’ve already been given a couple of black eyes and been bopped on the nose, then it’s like, ‘Fine, hit me again. Do your worst.’”
Within a few days, fresh polls showed that between 70 and 85 per cent of Canadians supported the government walking away from the trade talks.
On the Trans-Canada Highway just west of Sudbury, someone had taken red spray paint to an unused billboard, which in early August shouted “FUCK CARNEY” at westbound drivers. By the day after the Prime Minister’s press conference, someone had gone back to the billboard with more red paint. Now it said “THANK FUCK 4 CARNEY.”...
...Over a few days at the end of summer, Ipsos ran a qualitative research panel... the overall sentiment could be summed up with a weapons-grade hoser phrase: Just keep givin’ ‘er.
“Exactly what our leaders are doing. Standing up to a bully and making it hurt,” wrote a 62-year-old man from British Columbia. “I’m willing to suffer a bit to make things better long term.”
“They need to stick to their commitment of dollar for dollar retaliation,” a 65-year-old man from Ontario said. “Seems to be the only way to deal with the orange bully is to stand up to him, instead of making concessions in hopes of getting anything in return.”
A 57-year-old woman in Ontario responded, “As long as we don’t give up, I’m in.”
Canadians know full well that we are so much smaller – and that in their eyes, that’s a hilarious weakness. And we have no idea what’s going to happen next, much less how this ends.
We can be certain that we will all be sorry about all of this to some degree, because in the circular firing squad stupidity of a trade war, everyone loses.
But Canadians have decided – at least for now – that he’s going to be sorry too, because that is who we are, even if they don’t get it. In the words of our Tragically Hip, it’d be better for us if you don’t understand.

View on Threads

Finishing the week: Comments about the Gathering Storm, plus more Trade War Dispatches

About the Gathering Storm

Everyone is still talking about Carney's trip to the European Parliament, but we're also starting to move on toward what will likely be a more fractious fall parliamentary sitting. 

The Globe and Mail reports:

Prime Minister Mark Carney promised sweeping new economic legislation and a punishing pace this fall as his caucus met in Ottawa ahead of Parliament’s return on Monday....
Mr. Carney said the legislation – which he called the Building Canada Strong Act – is the next phase of his government’s promise to speed up infrastructure and other projects.
...Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon told reporters the bill will include changes to the Canada Labour Code, measures to improve supply chains, and the next steps in the government’s promise to reduce regulatory reviews for all projects to one year...
A promise of faster assessments was one of several Mr. Carney made earlier this week to hundreds of executives at the global investment summit in Toronto. He also announced a major new tax deduction to spur investment and a plan to open up four major airports to private investment...

I suspect some of this will be controversial, and might even be changed before it gets passed. But I would also expect that Carney wants it done and proclaimed before Christmas. 

Before I share other comments, I wanted to expand on a comment of my own, that I made on my post last night.

First, I suspect that I will end up agreeing with some of the criticism we will be hearing in the next month about Carney's proposed legislation - in particular, I don't like the idea that a single minister would have the authority to end a strike, and I don't understand how unions could still retain the right to strike if they are required to submit to binding arbitration before a strike vote could even be taken. 

In particular, I know there are long-standing grievances, like the flight attendants' pay issues, that will only be recognized as problematic and resolved when unions retain the right to strike. 

But second, I am old now - I've seen a lot over the years and I think I have a wider perspective on Canadian issues.

When I was growing up, women couldn't have their own bank accounts. Nobody ever paid any attention to the environmental costs of building anything, much less ever consulted with Indigenous communities about anything. Unions were mainly for the working classes, and "professionals" thought themselves too white-collar for collective bargaining.
In fits and starts, sometimes one step back then two steps forward, Canada has advanced well beyond such outdated beliefs and practices. We're not going back, now or never. 

But these are dangerous times. 

There has never been such a time in my life, when Canadian sovereignty has been so perilous, so endangered by a madman with an army who has neither principles nor prudence.

Yes, all of Canada's issues about labour rights and economic development and consultation do need discussion and yes, they will get dealt with, like we've done for the last 60+ years. 

But maybe not right now.
Not when Canada is facing such a risky time.
Canada is now in The Gathering Storm. We need a leader like Carney with a single-minded focus on our sovereignty.
I believe that everything in Canadian society must now mobilize to this focus too - union legislation, environment, business, development, all of it.
Someday we might be able to argue "Whither Canada?" again - improving labour fairness, economic consultation, greater environmental protection, and so forth.
But we need to get through the next two+ years intact.