https://mstdn.ca/@jeffhorton/115776211836127486

@grok is this True Blue Interlude?

This is a judgment-free zone, no poor shaming pls.

Canada's Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty lays out her government's new plan for the First Nations Child and Family Services Program.

The proposal would provide $35.5 billion in funding between now and 2033-34, with an additional commitment of $4.4 billion annually after that.

Here is the press conference (video, 45 min.)

Has it become part of your daily routine? Is it useful for one season out of the year?

I have been prepping my home for the last five hours and I'm exhausted. Couldn't really do it sooner because I was working. My family always make me feel bad when there is cat hair or dust somewhere. Is it okay to put the bar a little lower? Would it be okay to just do less? What are your own standards about cleaning?

Archived link

China’s Economic Miracle Was Built on Mass Displacement. If you think the CCP will treat foreigners better than its own people, when it extends its power over you, please think again: Dimon Liu's warning to Canadian Parliament, warns Dimon Liu Dimon Liu, a China-born, Washington, D.C.-based democracy advocate who testified in Parliament to the Canada’s House of Commons committee on International Human Rights on December 8, 2025, about the human cost of China’s economic rise.

Liu argues that the Canadian government should tighten scrutiny of high-risk trade and investment, and ensure Canada’s foreign policy does not inadvertently reward coercion.

Liu also warns that the Chinese Communist Party [CCP] could gain leverage over Canadians and treat them as it has done to its own subjugated population—an implied message to Prime Minister Mark Carney, who has pledged to engage China as a strategic partner without making that position clear to Canadians during his election campaign.

...

If you have ever wondered how China managed to grow so fast in such a short time, Charles Li, former CEO of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, has the answers for you. He listed 4 reasons: 1) cheapest land, 2) cheapest labor, 3) cheapest capital, and 4) disregard of environmental costs ... “The cheapest land” because the CCP government took the land from the farmers at little to no compensation. “The cheapest labor,” because these farmers, without land to farm, were forced to find work in urban areas at very low wages ...

One well known incident of eviction occurred in November 2017. Cai Qi, now the second most powerful man in China after Xi Jinping, was a municipal official in Beijing. He evicted tens of thousands into Beijing’s harsh winter, with only days, or just moments of notice. Cai Qi made famous a term, “low-end population” (低端人口), and exposed CCP’s contempt of rural migrants it treats as second class citizens.

“The cheapest capital” is acquired through predatory banking practices, and through the stock markets, first to rake in the savings of the Chinese people; and later international investments by listing opaque, and state owned enterprises in leading stock markets around the world.

Chinese Communist officials often laud their system as superior. The essayist Qin Hui has written that the Chinese communist government enjoys a human rights abuse advantage. This is true. By abusing its own people so brutally, the CCP regime has created an image of success, which will prove to be a mirage.

Housing:

Say you have 2 homes (both are villas) (one is a normal home and the other is a vacation home (like a beach home probably)

Status/power: (tho within your own country so for my case that would be egypt)

Major general plus a tin factory business that even exports abroad from egypt if I'm not wrong

And say your distant family owns a resort too

So is that rich/upper class within egypt?

Also being able to go to 5 star resorts in egypt

(would this be rich)?

It seems so simple. So basic of an idea that you wonder why it has not been implemented yet.

It is involuntary care.

As communities across the province grapple with street disorder and a sense of insecurity, involuntary care is seen by many as a solution. Politicians of all stripes have offered it up to concerned residents and businesses as a path forward.

The problem is it is unlikely to be what people are expecting. The expectation is that it will be a panacea; the reality will be quite different.

Grassy Mountain is a defunct coal strip mine trying, like a phoenix, to rise from the rubble on the eastern slopes of Alberta’s Rockies.

The mine is owned by Northback Holdings Corp., part of Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart’s business empire.

Rinehart knows well the time-tested technique of “Heads you win, tails we flip again” for keeping her dream of a mine alive.

As you might remember, the “old” proposal, which seems very similar to this one, failed the test of a joint federal-provincial review. The reasons for the panel’s rejection were not trivial.

According to Northback, this new flip is the answer to all the issues of selenium contamination, high water use, impacts to a threatened cutthroat trout population and reclamation of a hole where a mountain once stood. All this with glib promises of economic development. Selenium, released during mining, becomes increasingly concentrated in the tissues of organisms as it moves up the food chain and leads to fish deformities and reproductive failure in exposed fish communities.

As Yukon continues to deal with a prolonged spell of extreme cold, emergency officials are advising people to be prepared in case of a power outage.

On Tuesday, the territory's energy minister issued a statement saying the territory's power grid was under "significant strain," and suggested the potential for rolling blackouts in Whitehorse if the system were to buckle under that strain.

Minister Ted Laking said that the territory reached an all-time record peak demand of 123 megawatts on Monday. He said the territory’s grid can produce about 140 megawatts, "in ideal conditions."

The organization that represents some of America's largest spirits producers is calling for the NSLC to remove a policy that gives preferential markup to Nova Scotian spirit products.

In a recent 77-page report sent to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States outlined trade barriers they face in different countries.

The Canada section covers six pages, where the barriers include the ban on selling American alcohol in most provinces and preferential markups on local spirits in Alberta, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, P.E.I., Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

It's unclear why the council — which did not respond to an interview request — thinks the other provinces have something to do with the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation.

A woman from Maidstone, Sask., has been fined and suspended from hunting after pleading guilty to trafficking and illegally transporting bear parts.

The trafficking involved black bear paws and gall bladders, according a news release from the provincial government. Those items are commonly sold on the black market and are often used in traditional Asian medicine.

The investigation began in March 2022 after the general investigations section of the Ministry of Community Safety (previously called corrections, policing and public safety) received a tip about suspected trafficking of bear gall bladders.

Conservation officers launched their investigation in Maidstone, about 50 kilometres east of Lloydminster, before expanding into British Columbia.