Mazdas are made in Japan, Mexico and the US.

Make sure the VIN on any car you buy starts with a 2 for Canada

If that model isn’t made in Canada, make sure it DOESN’T start with 1, 4, 5, or 7 for United States.

Mexico starts with 3A-3X.

Japan starts with J.

South Korea is K1-K3 and KL-KR.

Here is the whole list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_identification_number

Buying a used Google Pixel to put GrapheneOS on it isn’t as bad as buying a new Google Pixel.

While most Androids might be Samsung, they aren’t as good as they used to be. I’ve had lots of problems with Samsung products from tech to appliances in the past 5 or 10 years. At this point, I don’t buy anything Samsung. LG isn’t as bad.

There is also FastMail and Mailbox.org and others that aren’t American.

ProtonMail isn’t for everyone. Most people want a smooth experience.

Peter Zeihan has been saying for a while now that the US is going to stop protecting merchant ships that aren’t their own. Canada is going to need to protect it’s own ships to/from Europe, Central and South America and Asia.

If you don’t need to buy a new phone right now, wait until the Motorola phones that support GrapheneOS.

His religion stuff is already tagged in the SponsorBlock browser add-on. Skips right past it.

Why start this at 8:15 in?

No tolls yet. The wind farm in Penobsquis plans to expand. A potash in Millstream may finally happen. The province is looking at removing Nutrien’s rights to the potash body in Penobsquis and giving it to someone else who is willing to go get it. Still no fracking. The majority of NBer’s still don’t want fracking. No idea about moose but much of the province is now overrun with deer. I was at a wedding in St. Andrews in the spring and saw a dozen to 18 deer on the lawn next to the church, within yards of people. I don’t pay much attention to gas prices as I drive a hybrid. Not many forest fires so far this year, unlike last year which had more than ever.

Web Hosting Canada (WHC.ca) is a Canadian company in Montreal with hosting in Montreal, Toronto or Vancouver) for as little as $3.89/mo (on a three year term, renews at $6.99/mo) using their own AI website builder called Sitejet, built by WHC, and powered by hydroelectric renewable energy. ( https://whc.ca/canadian-web-hosting )

It depends on how much you trust or distrust that government or corporation. You might trust or distrust one government more than another or one corporation more than another. I can easily think of some governments and corporations I would trust more or less than other ones. Of course one shouldn’t completely trust or distrust any government or corporation. Choose which ones to trust carefully, hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst.

If you want electoral reform, one of the best things you can do is get involved. Join the federal and provincial parties you think you can make the most progress toward electoral reform by being a member. Push for ER at the meetings.

A nice side-effect of being involved in political parties is that in addition to getting to vote in the public elections, you also get to vote for your local candidate and the party leader.

You’re being disingenuous saying voters walk away every time. There are over half a dozen different ways of implementing PR. Show me an example for each type of PR where the voters walked away.

Also, out of the 74 democratic countries in the world, 2/3rds of them use some type of PR voting, so how about you show the reasons why these Canadian voters walked away from PR when 2/3rds of the world’s democracies have it and want it.

Link without tracking: https://open.substack.com/pub/billhulet/p/why-canada-needs-chinese-evs

During the 2015 election campaign, Trudeau was interviewed and said he wanted AV/RV/RB. The official party position was to replace FPTP, not AV/RV/RB, but after the election Trudeau sent a committee out to see what Canadians wanted and they said they want PR. Then Trudeau shut down the process. It seems evident the reason he shut it down is because wanted AV/RV/RB. Why? Because it would benefit the Liberal party due to it being the middle of the three largest parties and so the Liberal candidates would more often be the second choice of most NDP and CPC voters.

Before I go much further I want to point out that the only reason Trudeau got a majority in 2015 is because Canadians so strongly wanted Harper out. Normally Trudeau would never have won a majority as the next two elections showed. Also, in his first two terms, Harper only had a minority, which tempered what he could do, but when he finally got his majority, he had full freedom and Canadians didn’t like what they saw him do. This is part of the reason the CPC didn’t win in 2019 and 2021.

Canadians definitely want PR but the issue is which type of PR of the half dozen or so available? The article discusses PR-STV (Single Transferable Vote) but I wish they had also discussed PR-MMP (Mixed-Member Proportional) as that is what the NDP wants to implement. Another moderately PR system is the one Stéphane Dion created specifically for Canada: P3. You can see how it works here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyLeClCrfgQ

So far the CPC seems to want to keep FPTP. While it means they form government less frequently, they have a better chance of forming a majority government when they do. PR would mean they would form government more often, but also that they would be minority governments. PR would mean the Liberals would form fewer majorities as well.

The other issue the article didn’t mention is that switching to PR would result in shifts in party positions on the political spectrum, splits in the largest parties and possibly even mergers between sub-groups within various parties. Some other countries with PR have up to a dozen political parties. This means that trying to determine what would have happened in 2019 or 2021 under PR is not realistic. As the biggest tent party is the CPC, it would be the most likely to split. This would likely result in a less right leaning CPC party which in a minority situation would be supported by the right leaning part that split off.

In any event, PR would result in few majority governments and mostly minority governments, meaning rarely would a single party have full freedom to do whatever they want, and it would force minority governments to work together with the other parties, which is why Canadians want PR.

Carney is taking their right-leaning policies but not their hard-right-leaning policies which kept the Conservatives from winning the last election.

Society still needs oil and natural gas. We can’t end its use instantly. Unfortunately, there are some things people are not willing to give up until a greener solution becomes available for at least equal if not lower cost. If Canada doesn’t produce it, other countries will and they may do it in a more polluting manner. Removing oil and gas from the market may cause the prices to increase temporarily, pushing some people to renewable energy options, but when the price goes up, other countries will see an opportunity to start or increase their production of oil and gas, which will reduce the price again.

If environmentalists really want society to reduce the use of oil and gas, they should strive to be more effective by focusing on pushing for more research for, and the adoption of, more efficient renewable energy, which will reduce the demand for oil and gas. They should put out ads and publish articles about areas where renewable energy is not only cleaner but less expensive than oil and gas so people will consider switching. They should also focus on disproving myths about renewable energy that pervades the media, not only myths that were never true, but especially the myths that used to be true but no longer are. They should also focus on converting the use of oil to natural gas if renewable energy isn’t suitable yet or is still more expensive than natural gas. People aren’t using oil and natural gas because they want to pollute, they are using it because it’s less expensive than renewable energy or where renewable energy isn’t feasible.

As renewable energy efficiency improves, and it is improving fast and will improve much more, society will move eventually away from oil, and also natural gas, as they become infeasible and more expensive, and these pipelines will likely be repurposed for moving natural gas and eventually for moving critical resources like water instead. That said, there will always be some uses for oil and natural gas that will prevent it from not being used at all, and hopefully they will be used in ways that don’t involve burning it and producing CO².

You replied to a person who didn’t comment it.

Get a second phone to run WhatsApp. When not using WhatsApp, turn the phone off or get a Faraday bag to keep it in.

LOL! This is no different than anyone who always votes the same way because that’s how their parents always voted. Under FPTP, it’s critical to always vote for the lesser of the evils. If the Liberals are the lesser of the evils in the future, I will be voting for them. If it’s the CPC or some other party, then I’ll vote for that party. While many Canadians aren’t 100% happy with Carney right now, polls show the majority are still very glad they didn’t vote for Poilievre (or the NDP).

One thing that would help is PR voting. This would greatly reduce the number of majority governments we get, because voting for a small party wouldn’t feel like a wasted vote. Minority governments force the various parties to work together and have some power to keep each other in check. Majority governments result in one party having dictatorial power.

Another help is to have the ability to recall politicians if some percentage (perhaps around 66% to 70%) of Canadians want to remove them. That way, if they don’t govern the way they campaigned, they could be removed without having to wait the entire four years.