Initial post below. Very odd, indeed.

I have a hard time not being a bit conspiratorial about the refund checks and the postal strike being so well aligned. Totally possible it's just coincidental and bad timing, but politicians wanting to give back, and promising things, and then never delivering because of some excuse, always an excuse, or eventually delivering but far far later than promised, sometimes even after a leadership change, happens way too often. That money right now for many Canadians will make the difference between a decent xmas or no xmas really, so this postal strike has got a lot of people upset with them and even more at the Gov. It's also almost starting to become a norm during the holidays. The postal service has basically been using xmas to force everyone to give into their demands or cause further headaches if not flat out ruin the holiday cheer and gifting. Another reason why I'm a little conspiratorial. The Gov by now knows a strike is likely coming at this time.

In our case it's a refund check from a car rental place, cash deposit for temp car after our credit cards were stolen out of our car (back window smashed in). But that sounds even worse :/

Not that it's not total crap as the holiday season is when my wife makes most sales, no 'Black Friday' for her thanks to Canada Post and the Christmas presents bought from the states, duty paid already, stuck somewhere. Plus online auctions she buys from from the states won't even ship here anymore due to the strike.

The latest news is not looking good, and how long is it going to take to get the whole system going again...

I was talking about the Countrywide checks. I forget the reasoning, but there's those checks plus the temp tax breaks coming. Sucks you got your vehicle looted, but that's becoming normal in Canada. The fact the police are basically told to stand down or ignore it when it comes to that is just insanity. The law here is becoming a joke. Having a home business and relying on the postal service would certainly be a downer right now, you're right, and it's not like there's a bunch of other package services to choose from, and what we do have tends to suck. Unless you're in a big city, then it's borderline acceptable. There's been a few xmas now over the recent years I've ordered from the US or EU, etc, and during BF, but didn't get my stuff until mid Jan because of these stupid strikes. It's sad. This Country is losing it's focus and people just don't care like they used to, but it's hard to blame them as well.

Yes, but that is not what we were discussing.  We were discussing your respond which mind you, we have about  pages going back and forth.  If you were not interested why respond.  If the topic has become sensitive I understand.  I am personally interested in anyone who champion another foreign president talking down about their country and trying to nuke their economy for a gain that has nothing to do with their country.  Just seem strange to me.

As an example it would be like Putin deciding to charge huge tariff on Oil or something which would then cause gas prices to sky rocket and Dems saying to themselves, this is great.  Since Trump is in office we support what Putin is doing and also Putin is a great person as well.

From what I understand, the Canadian liberal party (led by Trudeau) was more or less looking for an excuse to tighten border security against the US anyway.
Second, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario (and brother to the Crack Mayor who died a few years ago) has threatened to cut off energy from Ontario to the US in retaliation against Trump.

In Canada, it's fair to note that the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario are more like a neoliberal party, or like a Reagan era Republican party, while the Canadian Liberals are a social Democratic Party, similar, but further to the left than the Democratic Party. They aren't the same as the Conservative Party of Canada, which (from what I understand) lean more on the reactionary side of the spectrum, and are more about rhetoric, slogans, and culture wars than enacting good policy or good governance. But someone who has lived in the country longer than me can probably elaborate more.

As a note, there is still a lot of anti-immigration stuff, even among the Eastern Canadian Progressive Conservatives voters, but I'm unsure if there is much of a racial component to it from the voters - I work for a very conservative guy and he hires and socializes a lot with people of a variety of ethnicities (particularly Sikhs, Lebanese, and Brazilians). Don't get me wrong, there are racist communities here, but most of the anti-immigration stuff has to do with the perceived housing market crisis (which, IMO is fairly mild in Canada... well, relative to other places. It's comparatively cheap to live here, but if you are young, starter homes are almost non-existent - IMO, that's the crisis. You basically need to start at 300K CAD, but, those 300 CAD houses are fairly big with big properties - depending on where you live - I don't live in Toronto or Vancouver, which are notoriously expensive.

Well! That post got off track!

Trudeau just keeps letting more and more immigrants in. The only border security he's cared about is keeping (black market) guns out of Canada. The Federal Liberals want to increase the pop dramatically and in short time. It's the Conservatives who've wanted to cut back on immigration to more reasonable levels. Only lately has Trudeau decided to start cutting back on immigration and related policies, but that's because the polls show he's going to lose the election next year unless there's a miracle, so he's trying to create that miracle.

Our Federal Conservatives are more like Reagan/2024 Trump. Our Federal Liberals used to be quite moderate like Bill Clinton, but now they're further left than the American Dems. The Federal Conservatives are more responsible overall, but are a little too responsible. The Federal Liberals, again, used to be fairly balanced, but have gotten quite irresponsible.

Ford doesn't have much say because he's the Ontario Premier, and Ontario doesn't have squat for energy, besides some wind, some of which gets exported to States like Pennsylvania, but nothing that's a major concern for the USA. The media is focusing on Doug because he's got a spine and will speak up, but also because Canada basically revolves around Toronto, whether it should or not, so they always look to Ontario for support. It's Smith in Alberta who has most of the say, because they have all the oil, and they don't get along with Trudeau at all, and want to work with Trump. The media doesn't want to focus on her and Alberta much because the media here also has a liberal bias, just not to the extent it does in the USA, and Alberta is Conservative. (Ontario is also Conservative now, but usually votes Liberal more so, but the Liberals screwed up so bad last time that they lost party status when Doug completely destroyed them). We also can't afford to get into a tariff war because it's going to hurt us a lot more than the USA, and things here right now are not going well in Canada.

The anti immigration is partly due to an influx of immigrants since 2015 under Trudeau, and the housing crisis that's gotten out of control, partially due to mass immigration. It's not abnormal if you're calling for some type of help or service, to end up talking to a new Canadian immigrant who can't speak English very well, or who's accent is so strong you can't understand what they're saying. It's not just that though, if you explain the problem and ask to speak to someone else, you either can't, or you'll waste time going through like 4 or 5 new immigrants until you finally get someone you can actually communicate with reasonably well. That's something small but a headache every time you have to deal with it, and it happens way too often nowadays, and with things not going so well overall, Canadians are getting fed up even with the small things.

A much bigger issue is the housing crisis. I had friends casually looking for homes prior to the pandemic, who weren't quite ready to buy for financial reasons, though weren't far off, and were preparing for when they were ready. They're still looking for a home, because while they could easily afford the prices pre pandemic, they still can't afford a place now because the prices just keep skyrocketing. This is in the countryside as well, which isn't anywhere near as bad as the cities. With the prices so high, there are constant bidding wars, and the wealthy buyers often end up being an entity that's going to use it or hold onto it as an investment, not as a home for themselves. Like they'll rent the place out for a ridiculously high price, which works because many can't afford a home, or they'll just hold onto it for a while, then sell for a profit as if it were a market stock. Immigration has just made this far worse. Whether the immigrants are pooling money together and jamming the homes full of people, or through Gov help and affordable housing regulations, it's made buying a home impossible for many.

With the economy being as poor as it's been, for as long as it's been, many people aren't making enough to afford homes even if they were priced somewhat reasonably, and construction companies aren't pushing to build more homes either, at least nowhere near the levels they would if the economy was much better. We also have a major need for tradesman and have for a long time now, and that problem also just keeps getting worse, because trades still aren't seen as cool fun jobs to have, and plenty of those that take the jobs don't want to deal with the inconveniences of the trades. Plus companies haven't exactly been paying all that well, and especially considering the industry need, yet won't, partly out of greed. Then you've got these companies, pushing their own existing employees to the limit because there's an endless amount of work to do and not even close to enough tradesman, so the workers eventually get sick of the pressure put on them and quit. So even if a construction company wanted to build way more homes, they're having a really hard time finding tradesman to do the work.

Canada's problems are so bad that more and more people can't even get a family doctor. All my close family members, some of my extended family, and quite a few of my friends no longer have a family doctor because the replacement rate is terrible. We've all had our doctors retire or move to the USA, some for the same reasons of the tradesman issues, and we haven't gotten a new doctor yet, and it's been years. A few friends got new family doctors somewhat recently, and all 3 were fairly new immigrants coincidentally. We don't even have enough Canadians becoming doctors to just maintain our supposedly spectacular healthcare system, and that's always been our crutch, 'free' good healthcare. Well its never been 'free' and it's not very good anymore.

When your top leadership thinks they're smart because they choose other leaders based on race and sex in the name of equality, instead of based on merit, it's no surprise we're in the mess we're in.

Listening to all the insane shit that is coming out of RFK Jr's mouth and his advisors, I hope we start checking Americans travelling abroad for their vaccination records once RFK Jr comes into power, if there is any sanity left in America his appointment would be blocked but I think we're beyond that. The shit they're saying about vaccines is fucking insane. America can fuck up its own country but don't bring your antivax morons to my country. It's not enough to have guns killing children, time to bring back deadly diseases!

Trump To Discuss Ending Childhood Vaccination Programs With RFK Jr. | Reuters

RFK Jr.’s Lawyer Has Asked the FDA to Revoke Polio Vaccine Approval - The New York Times

"In the wake of her own 2024 loss, Vice President Kamala Harris and her allies are grappling with what her political future holds and debating whether the unofficial rule still applies — specifically, whether her first shot at the White House as the Democratic nominee should also be her only one, given the extraordinary circumstances of Harris’s 107-day sprint to Election Day."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/kamala-harris-grapples-with-her-future-in-a-wounded-democratic-party/ar-AA1vWnyQ?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=329ba7d637c24e4483d6497f263d430c&ei=25

You truly seem to be confident on the Big US Pharma. Hurray for you.

Never seen the arguments Big Pharma told publicly in the European Parliament debate, about COVID vaccines?
They basically used an emergency created by a virus (NOW, after 5 years, NOW, mostly accepted by experts to be modified/created in a lab, just for "fun"... I mean, just for "make science", like Glados from Portal series would), to vax crap with no test at all, using a new (so, dangerous) technology like ARN vaccines are... to everyone. Oh, and receiving for that... "BILLIONS and BILLIONS" (literally) of dollars, from PUBLIC MONEY.

And persecuting in general media people who did not want to get that, during 2 years or more. Or even worse, prosecuting them in some countries. And all that crazyness, for an illness that... from the very beginning, always seemed to be just a new kind of Flu that practically everyone not very old, with no serious health problems, could survive pretty well with no consequences and no help of vaccines.

But your love for Big Pharma is truly an inspirational story. Like Romeo and Juliet.

(And I'm vaccinated, by the way)