Today's News: Orange Shirt Day; embarrassments from Alberta Next, Trump and Hegseth; the return of "51st State"; and icing' out ICE

Luke Parnell, A Brief History of Northwest Coast Design, 2007 

Sept 30 is our Orange Shirt Day, officially the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. 

Here is PM Carney's speech in Ottawa: "Truth is the foundation of justice..."  

Carney told the crowd about the Parnell artwork that he had posted at the Cabinet room entrance, so it is what the members see every cabinet meeting. He promised "We will not fail you."

The federal government will "match remembrance with responsibility," Prime Minister Mark Carney promised on Tuesday, as he addressed the crowd assembled on Parliament Hill to mark the fifth annual National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. www.thecanadianpressnews.ca/national/car...

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— timethiefmedia Canadian forever🍁🦫conservative never (@timethiefmedia.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 6:23 PM

I thought this is a good example of Carney's commitment:

Many appointees come from a business background but one council member in particular — Treaty 8 First Nations Grand Chief Trevor Mercredi — was a vocal critic of Carney’s major projects legislation.

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— Canada's National Observer (@nationalobserver.com) September 25, 2025 at 10:13 AM

Here is some of APTN's coverage:

'Reconciliation isn't just about the Indigenous people and the government and the churches. It's about every Canadian. We all have to work at this if we want it to work. We have to put an effort into it,' says Two-Spirit Elder Charlotte Nolin. Watch more: www.aptnnews.ca/ourstories/r...

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— APTN News (@aptnnews.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 2:17 PM

With September 30 marking National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, APTN News looks at how many of the 94 Calls to Action have been answered since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission delivered its final report in 2015.

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— APTN News (@aptnnews.bsky.social) September 29, 2025 at 5:02 PM

This is the APTN broadcast story covering events in Ottawa and across the country -- one man they interviewed said "reconciliation" needs to be reinvented as "reconcili-action":
I saw someone commenting yesterday about how Trudeau had "broken his promise" to end water advisories on reserves. Well, yes, there are some advisories still, but 80 percent have been resolved since 2015 (148 out of 187) and project are completed in half of the remaining advisories, with work underway on the rest. During the Harper decade, none were resolved at all.

The Canada I grew up in, it was inconceivable that provinces would ever elect Indigenous premiers. What a tragedy, to think of the leadership Canada has lost because of our racist past.

Orange Shirt Day is about honouring the children who never came home, the families left behind, and the survivors who carry us forward. 🧡 Today we honour you, we are proud of you, and we are grateful.

Let’s continue building the Canada we want for our future! 🇨🇦 pic.twitter.com/dPEJbRKmtC

— Wab Kinew (@WabKinew) October 1, 2025

Orange Shirt Day walk and run in Saskatoon:

More than a third of Canadians say country belongs to Indigenous people: poll /via @globalnews https://t.co/WWDlECJS5s

— Treaty Commissioner (@TreatyOfficeSK) September 30, 2025

Good point:

Standing outside the gates of the Qu'Appelle Indian Residential School. This is a haunted, dark place. A 5-year-old taken through these gates had a lower chance of survival than a Canadian soldier fighting in WW2. The red dress and the orange shirt hang on the gates. We remember. #OrangeShirtDay

- Charlie Angus / The Resistance

Read on Substack

Moving on - Alberta Next tries to demonstrate how ready they are to run their own country by yelling at a teenager to shut up and telling his parents to spank him.
What? Yes, this happened. And I also know this is sorta trivial in the grand scheme of things, but it really illustrates how profoundly egotistical true-blue conservatives can be:

Utter contempt and disrespect from Bruce McAllister. Cutting off the kid's mic and limiting his freedom of expression is one thing, but saying he should be spanked is a fireable offense from a supposedly neutral moderator. Bruce needs to be removed immediately.

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— Courtney Theriault (@ctheriault.bsky.social) September 29, 2025 at 9:59 PM

Imagine claiming the Alberta Next Panel is about ensuring respect from Ottawa and ensuring all voices are heard, and then you yell at a young Albertan publicly that he needs to be spanked for asking a fair question and expressing an opinion. Absolute peak hypocrisy.

— Courtney Theriault (@ctheriault.bsky.social) September 29, 2025 at 10:02 PM

And hey, as if Bruce McAllister attacking a high school kid wasn't bad enough, the fact that the room cheered on the kid pressing the government teachers' negotiations tells you all you need to know about who is winning the PR fight on this matter.

— Courtney Theriault (@ctheriault.bsky.social) September 29, 2025 at 10:02 PM

Here is what he wanted to say:

Spread this around. Such a well spoken and mature young Albertan!

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— Meg Gray (@meggray.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 7:51 AM

McAllister apologized today because of course he did... 

Moving on, the United States continues its descent into fascism.

Today Trump and Defense secretary Hegseth spoke to an assembly of frozen-faced military leadership and told them the American military will do jazzercize while they help Trump occupy American cities to shoot Democrats and the progressive left.

The last person on the planet who should be holding our military to the “highest possible standards”, is the guy who shared classified war plans with a reporter in a Signal chat.

- JoJoFromJerz

Read on Substack

The president just gathered the highest ranking officers in the military to tell them that he may order them to kill American citizens -- and that they better follow his orders. All in response to a series of crises that have no basis in reality. I don't know how to yell any louder.

— Radley Balko (@radleybalko.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 9:56 AM

OK. First of all, I will reiterate like I’ve done in my past two posts: those generals didn’t give him an inch. Trump kept saying salacious shit and then pausing, as he did on the campaign trail, waiting for whoops and hollers and claps…. he got silence. He did wax eloquent about bringing back the “real gold ink” on general’s commissioning papers (the ceremonial document for display), and then said everything Biden signed was by autopen except his son’s pardon, and the signature on that was so ugly the autopen actually looked better. He once again mentioned the Nobel Peace Prize, saying he’ll never get it but the writer writing about the “brilliant mind of Trump” will get it. So they’ll give it to a writer but not me…. He again claims to have ended seven wars, eight “when” Hamas signs the agreement that was drafted without their presence or participation. Again, he keeps asking leading questions like “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?” and pausing… to silence. He then rambled about tariffs for a while, saying “My favorite word in the English language is tariff.” He also claimed an admiral came to him asking where $31B “came from” and Trump said, “Well check the tariffs” [as if there is a Tariff Bank Account somewhere] and the admiral was shocked that $31B appeared from tariffs for the use of the Navy? I’m not sure. He was not coherent here when relaying this “story”. He then claimed our ships are made of material that “melts when it sees a missile coming” (our ships are and have always been made of steel) and then mentions he thinks battleships should be “brought back”. He then said our ships are ugly… He claims the military was just full of “unqualified people” because of DEI and now the merit-based system will be better: “We’re bringing back a focus on fitness… we’re not going to be politically correct anymore.” He then said $1T is going to be spent on the military in 2026 (he paused again here for applause and got silence), and then said the Navy is going to build NINETEEN NEW SHIPS NEXT YEAR (the shipyards in my area are about to explode with jobs, then, right??). He claims we are not building ships anymore (again, I have a working shipyard in my area and the Navy has built new SMART ships over the past several years), he said the “stealth ships” are ugly and he doesn’t like the design but he does like the design of the stealth bomber. He really liked that. He talked about it for a moment like a kid breathlessly telling a parent about their favorite toy… then he randomly trashed CNN. He said the nation is “all red with strips of blue along the side, and those will be gone soon.” He said, “We need borders, an honest press, and fair elections,” before bashing the media for a hot minute. He said, “We’re under invasion from within, and it’s more dangerous because they don’t wear uniforms.” Not super clear if he was talking about the “radical left liberals” he kept mentioning or from immigrants who he claims are all murderous rapists, criminals, and then doubled down blaming “radical left lunatics” for “allowing” violent criminals from the Congo and Venezuala, which opened its prisons and dumped the prisoners into America.” He then pivoted to mentioning that Washington, DC, was the most dangerous city in America, “or even elsewhere”, comparing it once again to Afghanistan. He said “Many cities are in bad shape, those run by radical left Democrats” and then mentioned a “war from within” again… so while he didn’t exactly phrase it connecting the democrats being the cause of the “war from within”, it was heavily implied. He continued with rhetoric about Chicago before pivoting to Portland, saying it “looks like a war zone. This looks like WWII. it’s burning down. This place is a nightmare,” and then claiming “they took over big parts of Seattle” ( @Dana DuBois, you doing okay over there since the “takeover”?). He claimed people are spitting in the faces of soldiers standing at attention and he just knows those soldiers want to “knock the hell out of them” so he proposed a new tactic, “They spit, we hit,” asking, “How about that, Generals?” SILENCE ONCE AGAIN. He claims bricks are being thrown at federal cars, vehicles, this was unclear as he mentioned electric, so like… federal electric cars specifically? I couldn’t quite understand him, but he said if someone throws something at a vehicle, “You get out of that car and you can do whatever the hell you want to do.” He pivoted to Venezuela and said every single boat carries enough drugs to kill 25,000 people. He then acknowledged that someone said the people of Venezuela were afraid to go fishing, and he chuckled and said, “There’ll be no fishing, then.” Goes on to talk about fentanyl overdoses, 300K a year (this number seems to change every single time he talks about it). He then spoke on the strike on Iran, asking the audience to “raise their hands if they don’t like what Kane [Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Kane] did,” and when of course no one raised their hand, he claimed victory, smiling and saying, “See, I see no hands, so you like it!” Weird and manipulative way of trying to claim “approval” from flag officers who said and did nothing to indicate agreement. Says again, “As President, I will never hesitate to protect our people from the threat from within.” Then he launched into how we were not respected under Biden because he kept falling down stairs. I don’t fall down stairs. I walk carefully, slowly. There’s no prize for getting there first! You know, they [who?] told me Obama had no respect because he walked down stairs like [mimed bouncing down stairs with elbows up] without holding the, uh thing.” Then he kept repeating- said it four times total- “A year ago we were dead, a dead country, falling apart. Trillions are now flowing in.” Also claimed the UAE told him, verbatim, “One year ago you were a dead country and now you’re the hottest country anywhere!”, then repeated again, “We were a dead country a year ago.” Then he said the generals and admirals must have been sad to go home to their families with recruitment so low (my spouse never cared about recruitment numbers when I was active duty) but now they’re going to have to turn people away because so many people want to join (fact check: the Navy had to lower their standards to get enough people to meet recruitment goals this year). “Last year they were talking about making the military smaller… we’re gonna make it bigger!” Mentions the Board of Peace, which will rule over Gaza and he sits at the head and “everyone” wants to join. Concluding with the phrase: “We will fight, fight, fight, and we will win, win, win,” the speech landed flatly like the pep rally for a lousy community college. Officers stood for a BRIEF and muted applause. Absolutely no yells, cheers, or other signs of encouragement. As I hoped, the flag officers behaved with the decorum and nonpartisan discipline we expect from them. The two “leaders” on stage made utter and total fools of themselves, and by extension, our nation with this colossal waste of time and taxpayer money.

- Melissa Corrigan, she/her

Read on Substack

If you listened closely to Hegseth and Trump, they were basically saying the US military should be more like the Russian military--unaccountable for its actions, using lethality in favor of intelligence, and where training can be used to abuse recruits. And if they do that, I can guarantee you it will be as effective as the Russian military.

- Phillips P. OBrien

Read on Substack

This spectacle is also proof that neither of them has the first idea about how to GET the military support they want to use against the political opposition. Insults, absurd security risks, counterproductive policies, more insults, veiled threats, open ignorance of the Posse Comitatus law. Wow.

— Diana B. Henriques (@dianabhenriques.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 8:58 AM

Incredibly, Chuck Schumer and the Democratic senators didn't knuckle under on Tuesday night. So the US government closed at midnight. The Republicans are trying to blame the shutdown on the Democrats but I don't think the American people are that stupid (though I could be wrong!)

Most of the power authoritarians have is freely given. We should not comply with them in advance. Trump is far weaker than he looks. So is the GOP. We should draw them out, drain them at every opportunity, and fight for people’s wellbeing at every turn. We have been sent here to fight for people.

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— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@aoc.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 9:10 PM

Why is this so hard for the legacy media to understand?

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— Boston Tom Levenson (@tomlevenson.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 9:00 AM

America was upset when Jimmy Kimmel was fired. How will they feel when they see white people being killed by American soldiers? Dead black bodies are invisible. But seeing someone’s white grandmother shot in the gut is terrible optics. I guess we’ll find out.

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— thethinblackduke.bsky.social (@thethinblackduke.bsky.social) September 30, 2025 at 9:40 AM

On a side note, at least as far as Americans are concerned, Trump also brought up his "51st State" agenda again. We wondered where it had gone.

It’ll get lost in the sea of Hegseth’s and Trump’s lunacy today (which went more or less how I thought it would), so I’ll point It out. Trump still wants to annex Canada. The idea hasn’t left his brain.

- Black Cloud Six

Read on Substack

And Poilievre must be absolutely furious now -- he finally gets back into the Commons so he can get some Canadians plus the media to forget about Trump's threats and to start nitpicking Carney, and then here comes Trump yammering again about the 51st State and reminding us all why we voted for Carney five months ago.

Finally, here's how to ice out ICE

You know, I had been assembling tweets about all the outrageous ICE behaviour across the United States to put them into a post but I just can't do it - its all too depressing and offensive and stupid. I would rather just post the occasional "winning" tweets I find, like this one -- a delivery guy on a bike gets away clean:

I mean yes this is funny, but the fact that these unconstitutional stormtroopers are so directionless that they literally stand around waiting for random nonwhite delivery guys to bike past them is just pathetic. No mandate, no mission, no clue. Just racism.

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— G. Willow Wilson (@gwillow.me) September 28, 2025 at 9:16 PM

And city governments can weaponize meetings:

Blue cities should tear up the roads in front of ICE facilities and then start decades of community engagement and input sessions to rebuild them. Let's harness our core competencies.

— Stan Oklobdzija (@stano.bsky.social) September 27, 2025 at 5:34 PM

And ordinary people can weaponize themselves:

I can’t tell you how much good could be done right now by average citizens socially cold-shouldering anyone tangentially working for ICE.

— Jessica Ellis (@baddestmamajama.bsky.social) September 27, 2025 at 6:00 PM

Disinvite them from the tailgate. Do not go to the baby shower. Call out their bullshit on Facebook. Do not just purse your lips and nod politely. Ostracize the living shit out of them. Leave their church potluck casserole untouched. These people are extremely vulnerable to social shame.

— Jessica Ellis (@baddestmamajama.bsky.social) September 27, 2025 at 6:01 PM

You can do it entirely without confrontation, any woman who survived junior high can tell you how to do this. Make them entirely unwelcome and deeply judged without uttering a word. Freeze out ICE.

— Jessica Ellis (@baddestmamajama.bsky.social) September 27, 2025 at 6:19 PM