Practical Engineering
Published 21 Oct 2025All the things I love about Niagara Falls
The same thing that makes Niagara Falls impressive for tourists (the big drop) makes it valuable for power and a major challenge for shipping. And out of that comes all kinds of fascinating infrastructure.
Practical Engineering is a YouTube channel about infrastructure and the human-made world around us. It is hosted, written, and produced by Grady Hillhouse. We have new videos posted regularly, so please subscribe for updates. If you enjoyed the video, hit that “like” button, give us a comment, or watch another of our videos!
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February 26, 2026
The Hidden Engineering of Niagara Falls
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December 18, 2025
A 2025 Update from the Canadian Tank Museum
The Chieftain
Published 13 Dec 2025When up at the Canadian Tank Museum a whiles back, I caught up with Sam to find out what’s been going on up there and what’s coming soon.
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December 10, 2025
Murmurs of dissent from within Canada’s supply management cartel
At Juno News, Sylvain Charlebois shares a sign of internal dissent inside the supply management system that prioritizes protecting producers at the cost of significantly higher prices and reduced choice for Canadian consumers — not to mention getting Trump’s attention (and anger) for shutting out American competitors:
Every once in a while, someone inside a tightly protected system decides to say the quiet part out loud. That is what Joel Fox, a dairy farmer from the Trenton, Ontario area, did recently in the Ontario Farmer newspaper. In a candid open letter, Fox questioned why established dairy farmers like himself continue to receive increasingly large government payouts — even though the sector is not shrinking, but expanding. His piece, titled “We continue to privatize gains, socialize losses“, did not come from an economist or a critic of supply management. It came from someone who benefits from it. And yet his message was unmistakable: the numbers no longer add up.
Fox’s letter marks something we have not seen in years — a rare moment of internal dissent from a system that usually speaks with one voice. It is the first meaningful crack since the viral milk-dumping video by Ontario dairy farmer Jerry Huigen, who filmed himself being forced to dump thousands of litres of perfectly good milk because of quota rules. Huigen’s video exposed contradictions inside supply management, but the system quickly closed ranks. Until now. Fox has reopened a conversation that has been dormant for far too long.
In his letter, Fox admitted he would cash his latest $14,000 Dairy Direct Payment Program (DDPP) cheque, despite believing the program wastes taxpayer money. The DDPP was created to offset supposed losses from trade agreements like CETA, CPTPP, and CUSMA. These deals were expected to reduce Canada’s dairy market. But those “losses” are theoretical — based on models and assumptions about future erosion in market share. Meanwhile, domestic dairy demand has strengthened.
Which raises the obvious question: why are we compensating dairy farmers for producing less when they are, in fact, producing more?
This month, dairy farmers received another 1% quota increase, on top of several increases totalling 4% to 5% in recent years. Quota — the right to produce milk — only increases when more supply is needed. If trade deals had truly devastated the sector, quota would be falling, not rising. Instead, Canada’s population has grown by nearly six million since 2015, processors have expanded, and consumption remains stable. The market is expanding.
Understanding what quota is makes the contradiction clearer. Quota is a government-created financial asset worth $24,000 to $27,000 per kilogram of butterfat. A mid-sized dairy farm may hold $2.5 million in quota. Over the past few years, cumulative quota increases of 5% or more have automatically added $120,000 to $135,000 to the value of a typical farm’s quota — entirely free. Larger farms see even greater windfalls. Across the entire dairy system, these increases represent hundreds of millions of dollars in newly created quota value, likely exceeding $500 million in added wealth — generated not through innovation or productivity, but by regulatory decision.
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October 17, 2025
Stellantis took the bribe, left Canada anyway
The former American Motors plant in Brampton, now owned by Stellantis, was supposed to be the manufacturing site for a new Jeep vehicle. The federal government under Justin Trudeau handed about $15 billion to Stellantis to build an EV battery complex in Windsor, Ontario. It was apparently just assumed that this meant that Stellantis would keep the Brampton facility open and operating, but that assumption was faulty:
Stellantis has announced they’re leaving Brampton. That’s it. End of story.
Three thousand workers. Gone. A manufacturing base gutted. A city thrown into economic chaos. And a federal government left holding a $15 billion bag it handed over like a drunk tourist at a rigged poker table.
The Jeep Compass — the very vehicle they promised would anchor Ontario’s role in the so-called “EV transition” — will no longer be built in Canada. Production is moving to Belvidere, Illinois. The same company that cashed billions of your tax dollars under the banner of “green jobs” and “economic transformation” has slammed the door and walked out. And no, this isn’t a surprise. This was baked into the cake from day one.
Let’s rewind.
In April 2023, under Justin Trudeau’s government, Chrystia Freeland — then Finance Minister — and François-Philippe Champagne, the Industry Minister, announced what they called a “historic” agreement: a multi-billion-dollar subsidy package to Stellantis and LG Energy Solution to build an EV battery plant in Windsor, Ontario.
It was sold as a turning point. The future. A Green Revolution. Thousands of jobs. A new industrial strategy for Canada. But in reality? It was a Hail Mary pass by a government that had already crippled Canada’s energy sector and needed a shiny new narrative heading into an election cycle.
And here’s what they didn’t tell you: the deal had no enforceable commitment to keep auto production in Brampton. There were performance-based incentives — yes — but only for the battery plant. Not for the Brampton assembly line. Not for the existing workforce. And certainly not for ensuring the long-term health of Canada’s domestic auto industry.
They tied this country’s future to a globalist fantasy. A fantasy that assumed the United States would remain under the control of climate-obsessed technocrats like Joe Biden. A fantasy that required a compliant America pushing carbon neutrality, electric vehicle mandates, and billions in matching subsidies for green infrastructure.
But in November 2024, Americans said no.
Donald Trump was elected president. And just as he promised, he tore Biden’s green agenda to shreds. He pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord — again. He dismantled the EV mandates. He unleashed American oil and gas. But he didn’t stop there. Trump imposed a sweeping America First manufacturing policy, pairing 25% tariffs on imported goods with aggressive incentives to bring factories, jobs, and supply chains back onto U.S. soil.
And, as Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman points out, it’s just the beginning:
You probably heard the news by now: Stellantis is cancelling its opening of a Jeep factory planned in Brampton, taking over 3,000 jobs and USD $600 million of investment out of Canada and moving it to the U.S.
This is the latest development in the growing trend of companies scaling back their operations in our country and choosing instead to grow in the US. Whisky maker Diageo found its name in the headlines last month when they announced they’d move their Crown Royal bottling facility south. GM laid off or cut down shifts for 750 autoworkers in Oshawa and 900 in Ingersoll while sending $4 billion to the U.S. Those are the ones that drew the headlines.
Why is this happening? Well – the reason on everyone’s mind right now is tariffs. And it’s true – tariffs are having a big impact on the Canadian economy and on our trading relationships. But there are other, deeper reasons at play, too.
Companies don’t just make decisions on a whim – especially those related to long-run production and fixed investments totalling hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. Those decisions are made as part of detailed, multi-year analyses that take into account predicted economic conditions, market forces, and many other factors. A massive move of your production facility isn’t a temporary, six-month decision to be trifled over – it’s a permanent thing and that means they aren’t coming back.
The objective is to decrease uncertainty, cut costs, increase production, etc. etc. all to work in favour of any company’s ultimate goal, which is, of course, to make money.
So let me translate what all these investment and job cuts really mean: they’re not a knee-jerk reaction to the tariffs, although those play a part. They’re a statement about the long-term trajectory of the Canadian economy and the kind of climate that a decade of Liberal government has built for businesses in this country.
If these companies thought the U.S. tariffs would be transitory, a six-month blip, an economic fad – then they’d have no reason to cancel factories that will be producing goods for 20 or 30 years. That wouldn’t make financial sense.
[…]
If things get worse, the government might resort to its favourite strategy of just offering more hand-outs for businesses to try and entice them to stay here, but that only works for so long. That Stellantis plant in Brampton? The one that’s moving to the U.S.? The Ontario government promised them over $500 million just a few years ago – and the feds followed.
Turns out, you can promise to cut somebody a giant cheque and it’s still unprofitable for them to do business here.
As I mentioned, the continued trade uncertainty doesn’t help our situation, and the Prime Minister’s failure to get a deal is costing us big-time – especially as he promises to drive a trillion dollars of investment southbound at the expense of our workers here.
But as long as the Liberals keep the same old approach towards economics and business in this country, as long as the Liberals keep the taxes high, the productivity low, and the red tape piled up high — expect to see more headlines like the one about Stellantis, not fewer.
How many more job losses will it take for our leaders to realize that?
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October 9, 2025
QotD: Ontario and the Loyalists
The Province of Ontario is the most populous province in Canada, home to 38.5% of Canada’s national population as of the 2021 census. Located in Central Canada, it is the political, economic, and cultural heart of the country. Its capital, Toronto, is the nation’s largest city and financial centre, while Ottawa, the national capital, lies along Ontario’s eastern edge. Ontario is bordered by Quebec to the east and northeast, Manitoba to the west, Hudson Bay and James Bay to the north, and five U.S. states to the south — Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York — mostly along a 2,700 km (1,700 mi) boundary formed by rivers and lakes in the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence drainage system. Though Ontario is the second-largest province by total area after Quebec, the vast majority of its people and arable land are concentrated in the warmer, more developed south, where agriculture and manufacturing dominate. Northern Ontario, in contrast, is colder, heavily forested, and sparsely populated, with mining and forestry serving as the region’s primary industries. But Ontario is more than just a province; it is the crucible of English-speaking Canada.
In 1784, after the American Revolution, Loyalist settlers arrived with intention, bringing with them the legal traditions, religious institutions, and steadfast allegiance to the Crown that had shaped their former world. They sought to uphold a civilisational order rooted in monarchy, Church, and Law, and to establish a society founded on duty, hierarchy, and restraint. From these early Loyalist settlements, beginning at Kingston, a distinct political and cultural tradition emerged. It was neither British nor American. It became the foundation of a new people.
Today, the descendants of these settlers form the core of an ethnocultural identity known as Anglo-Canadian. Numbering over ten million across the country, and more than six million in Ontario, Anglo-Canadians are known for their enduring institutions: constitutional monarchy, common law, Protestant-rooted civic morality, and a national ethos shaped by loyalty and order. This cultural framework shaped Ontario’s development across every sphere of life.
Loyalists built the province’s schools, banks, and legal systems. They established its early industries, including agriculture, forestry, mining, and railroads, and later came to dominate the professional sectors of law, education, public administration, and finance. Their shining city, Toronto the Good, became the centre of Canadian banking and corporate life, while small towns across the province were anchored by courthouses, parish churches, and grain elevators.
Language and schooling played a central role in shaping the Anglo-Canadian character. Ontario’s education system, from common schools to universities, was built to transmit British values, civic order, and the English language. Protestant denominational schools and later public grammar schools taught the children of settlers to read scripture, study British history, and speak in the elite formal register of English Canada. Institutions such as Upper Canada College, Queen’s University, and the University of Toronto became pillars of elite formation, producing the clergy, lawyers, teachers, and administrators who carried the culture forward.
Culturally, Anglo-Canadians preserved a rhythm of domestic and seasonal life rooted in British tradition but adapted to the northern landscape. Autumn fairs, apple bobbing, and harvest suppers marked the calendar in rural communities. Roast beef, butter tarts, mincemeat pies, and tea with milk became the everyday fare of farmhouses and urban kitchens alike. Sunday observance, cenotaph ceremonies, school uniforms, and service clubs reflected a moral seriousness and civic sense inherited from the Loyalist project. It is this tradition that formed the structural spine of its political and cultural development.
Fortissax, “Loyal she Began, Loyal she Remains”, Fortissax is Typing, 2025-07-07.
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October 4, 2025
Rapid onset gender dysphoria (ROGD)
At Woke Watch Canada, Igor Stravinsky tells the story of “Jane and John”, a distressing tale of rapid onset gender dysphoria:
Image via the Boston Medical Center
In Ontario elementary schools, students are taught that whether you’re a boy or a girl is not determined by your physical body. Kids are encouraged to “explore their identity”. You may have a girl’s body. But how do you feel about it?
These kinds of discussions are going on because schools have accepted what rational people call “gender ideology”, but I prefer the term “gender mythology” because an ideology usually has to do with political systems. In my view the idea that a person’s sex is unrelated to their physical body, that they have a kind of soul sex, if you will, is clearly a myth.
[…]
Jane and John
This is a true story. The names have been changed to protect the privacy of this person.
Jane was a happy, clever, talented, and expressive girl who always wanted to help others. She displayed precocious empathy and enjoyed teaching younger kids various skills. Jane became socially conscious at an early age and was bothered by the fact that she enjoyed a middle-class, Western quality of life while so many others were clearly struggling. As an elementary student, she canvassed her neighbourhood collecting donations for disadvantaged kids. She came to identify with groups she saw as persecuted or oppressed.
Her school was very racially diverse, but she did not observe much racial discrimination. What she did notice was a fair bit of homophobia. She quickly took every opportunity to be an ally to the LGBT cause. In her middle school, there was an LGBT club, which she joined. Jane would often arrive home from school in an angry state because another student had said something that upset her, like, “being gay is a sin”, for example.
Jane’s parents were progressives who made it clear that she would be loved and accepted if she were a lesbian. Jane laughed at that and replied that she “dreamed about boys”.
Jane was a high achiever who was active in athletics and music. At 16, she became a vegan. She was in most ways a typical high school student, but her allyship with LGBT people gradually moved towards activism.
At university she quickly gravitated towards Indigenous and Gender Studies. Her close friends were all LGBT people. Her best friend was a transwoman (a man who identified as a woman). Jane came out as “bisexual” but her main romantic relationship was with a man.
Then, abruptly at the age of 20, she announced to her parents that she was to be called “John” and that she was going to transition to male.
By her own admission, Jane had been perfectly happy as a girl/woman for 20 years- “until I wasn’t”. This does not fit the Gender Mythology narrative. There is simply no way you can reasonably argue that she had, at this late age, suddenly realized what she truly was. She herself did not even claim that. So, what happened?
[…]
It was pretty obvious to me that Jane’s “transition”, like [trans-race activist Rachel] Dolezal, was the result of a combination of personal qualities and social influences. All the stars aligned to point her in that direction. She desperately wanted to be part of the community she had connected with and was tired of just being an ally. Claiming to be bisexual did not really cement her position as an insider. But becoming trans was her ticket.
Due to the extreme nature of taking on that identity — lifelong drug regimens and a number of surgeries, all of which presented serious health risks, going down that road reflected a true commitment and not only made her a part of the LGBT tribe but catapulted her to the top of the hierarchy.
What Jane experienced is known as Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) and was first identified by the physician/researcher Lisa Littman. Learn more about it here. If you want to get a 2SLGBTQ++ (plus whatever other letters and numbers they’re using now — I can’t keep up) activist spitting mad mention ROGD. The phenomenon proves beyond a reasonable doubt that gender dysphoria can be induced in vulnerable people by social circumstances and aligns well with the research and clinical practice of Dr. Kenneth Zucker from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto.
Zucker ran the clinic for some 20 years and was pushed out due to his refusal to accept “affirmative care” as the only acceptable treatment for gender dysphoria. Zucker found that about 80% of kids would eventually grow out of their dysphoria and thus did not believe in affirming kids’ identities but rather focused on helping them cope with their condition.
Since affirmative care (an oxymoron!) has been adopted, we thus know that 80% of the kids who have been put on the road to gender transitions (and most carry through to the end) would have seen their gender dysphoria dissipate naturally over time. But once the first step — puberty blocking drugs, is taken, kids almost always go on to cross sex hormones and many continue with various surgeries.
Gender clinics do not do follow up nor do they support de-transitioning, but it is clear that the number of young people out there who have seriously harmed themselves through “affirmation” treatments is significant, and more harm is being done day by day as long as affirmative care remains the standard treatment for gender dysphoria.
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September 12, 2025
Canada’s temporary foreign worker programs
At Acceptable Views, Alexander Brown calls for the end to the Canadian federal temporary immigration scam programs:
It’s not hyperbole to say that Canada has built an entire economy on exploiting cheap, foreign labour through TWFP, as well as the International Mobility Program (IMP). These are two slightly different programs that allow foreign nationals to work in Canada, with most going to Ontario. But contrary to its name, there is nothing “temporary” about the TFWP. Its original purpose was to remedy proven labour shortages while Canadians were hired and trained to eventually do the jobs in question. Meanwhile, the IMP allows international students to work—with or without a proven labour shortage—while they’re studying in Canada.
Between 2019 and 2023, the TFWP increased by 88 percent and the IMP increased 126 percent. They account for close to 1.58 million work permit holders, equal to roughly 7 percent of Canada’s labour force.
Taken together, the results of the TFWP and IMP are deplorable. The TFWP allows foreign nationals to be recruited abroad in vast numbers, brought to Canada, housed in degrading conditions, paid the minimum wage, forced to work long hours, pressured into not joining a union, and required to work for only one employer. Yes, the IMP is more flexible, but it’s more pernicious because it does not even pretend to address labour shortages.
Both schemes are also of course bad for Canadians themselves. The problem is especially grievous for young Canadians trying to get started in the labour market. Canada lost 40,800 jobs this past July, the unemployment rate is now 6.9 percent, and youth unemployment (those between 15 and 24 years old) is now 14.6 percent.
Both the TFWP and IMP are used as business models. Hiring foreign nationals at minimum wage keeps prices low and profits high—most notoriously in the hospitality and trucking sectors, but no industry seems untouched now.
Addicted to cheap foreign labour
The use of the TFWP in the healthcare sector, for example, has grown by an appalling 1,700 percent since 2000. That dramatic rise has no doubt been abetted by the absence of uniform standards and credential recognition among Canadian provinces. If medical personnel could move easily from one province to another, shortages could be filled by Canadians. But historically this has not been possible, and so medical institutions have had to turn to the TFWP. Ontario’s recent determination to solve this problem by speeding up recognition of 50 “in-demand” professions from other provinces is a step in the right direction, and hopefully not too little too late.
Meanwhile, the IMP is a vehicle for outright fraud, ranging from fake acceptance letters from bogus “colleges” to elaborate human-trafficking schemes. Not long ago, nearly 50,000 holders of foreign student visas were working and attempting to settle here, rather than studying at any Canadian university or college. Most were migrants from India, and some were trying to cross the border illegally into the United States. The RCMP is now working with Indian law-enforcement to investigate alleged links between dozens of “colleges” in Canada and two “entities” in India allegedly facilitating passage into the U.S. When we reflect that an astounding 4.9 million temporary visas are set to expire this year, we have reason to believe that this abuse, exploitation, and fraud are on a much larger scale that we understand.
The consequences for young Canadians
Both the TFWP and the IMP serve to keep wages artificially low and profits high, and to price Canadians out of the job market. It wouldn’t be wrong to view these programs as distortionary government subsidies or welfare for unproductive businesses. The effects disproportionately harm younger Canadians who are priced out of the labour market, given that temporary workers overwhelmingly earn less than the median wage. And yet, we’re constantly hectored about labour shortages, Canadians’ “unwillingness” to do certain jobs, and the need for foreign workers.
It shouldn’t take much intellectual effort to see that the use of foreign labour and the difficulties of employing younger Canadians are two sides of the same ugly coin. Foreign workers are more cooperative because they are bound to their employers like serfs. They face normally insurmountable barriers to joining unions and have no attachment to the community in which they’re expected to work. In comparison, the domestic population is generally better educated and rooted in the local community.
Young Canadians can afford to be discriminating and should rightly expect higher wages than foreign nationals. Employers should instead work harder to invest in and reward their domestic workforce. In any other era, this would have been obvious. But now there is little incentive for businesses to look beyond cheap, foreign labour.
To get an idea of the magnitude of our collective failure here, consider the following fact. A 2024 study by RBC Economics revealed that Canadian businesses are sitting on a stockpile of cash worth almost a third of our country’s GDP. In other words, Canadian companies have the means to invest in hiring and training Canadians, but simply refuse to do so. The results of this refusal are stagnant wages, structural unemployment, and a de-skilling of the domestic population.
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September 9, 2025
Uh-oh. It’s not a good sign to see your town’s name in Not the Bee
We’ve lived in Bowmanville for ten years and in that time the demographics have changed substantially. Some of those changes have been positive, but others have definitely been negative:
Video out of Bowmanville, Ontario, shows Southeast Asian men (do with that what you will) flipping salmon out of a small stream during the annual salmon run back to their spawning locations.
Early September is peak salmon-fishing season. Fisherman across the continent catch millions of fish as they return upriver to spawn.
But it is highly illegal to catch salmon near their actual spawning sites (especially with nets), which includes Bowmanville (upriver from Lake Ontario). It is also unsafe, as the fish die off in mass numbers after spawning, making the meat inedible.
Despite this, migrants have been seen poaching fish in the area for several years (at least).
In the comment section, some people shared stories of their own, including this anecdote from Port Hope, Ontario.
Over the summer, SE Asian men went viral in Muskoka, Ontario, for filming themselves shooting up a local bridge and river. Locals say they have reported such incidents for years, but despite the danger and the leftover environmental pollution, authorities have been slow to act.
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August 25, 2025
Defending your life against an intruder can get you charged in Canada
Terry Burton‘s satire-that-is-too-close-to-being-true:
A Recent Case in Ontario
An Ontario man recently had the unthinkable happen: he defended his home. Unfortunately for him, this occurred in Canada, where the laws surrounding self-defence have taken a dive off the deep end of “wokeness”. The police, after deep reflection (and a healthy dose of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion training), chose to charge the homeowner and not the intruder. Why?
Let’s break down the madness.
How a Home Invasion Might Go in 2025 Canada:
Homeowner (middle-class taxpayer, not currently oppressed):
“Hello, sir. You appear to have broken into my home and possess a 7-inch knife. May I inquire about your intentions?”Intruder (career criminal with a social media following):
“I’m just here to grab some electronics, steal your monies, and stab someone if they resist my incursion. It depends on my mood. Don’t profile me.”Homeowner:
“Of course. My apologies. Would you like a latte while you loot my home? Oat milk? Almond? I don’t want to assume.”Intruder:
“You’re a colonialist bigot for offering me food.”Homeowner:
“Understood. Legally, I’m only allowed to resist you in proportion to your level of violence — yet to be ascertained, as determined by a tribunal of academics who’ve never been in a fist fight. That means if you punch me, I can … maybe glare at you. Anything more, and I’m the criminal.”But what if the homeowner fights back?
In this case, the homeowner managed to grab a knife and defend himself. The intruder was injured — tragically — during this altercation. So naturally, the police arrived and did what any reasonable, DEI officer was instructed s/he must do:
They charged the homeowner.
The intruder? Off to the hospital, flowers sent courtesy of the Canadian taxpayer, and full support from victim services (taxpayer funded). (Yes, really.)
Reasons Police and Prosecutors Declined to Charge the Intruder (some say over-the-top satirical conjecture by the author):
- Mental illness – A catch-all excuse for immunity.
- Homelessness – Makes all actions justifiable, including assault.
- Drug addiction – A disease, not a crime, apparently.
- Identifies as female – We must respect self-identification, even during felonies.
- Arrested 55 times, 20 for B&Es – Systemic failure, so we shouldn’t blame him again.
- Member of a marginalized group – Intersectionality shields all.
- Single-parent upbringing – Automatically voids criminal responsibility.
- Not yet a citizen – A conviction could hinder his application; we, the state machinery that is, must protect him.
- Linked to child porn – But not convicted, so hands off.
- Terrorist affiliations – Political beliefs are personal.
- Anti-Semitic – But it’s culturally complex, they say.
- Illegally entered Canada – A paperwork issue, not a crime.
- Gun and drug trafficking – He’s an entrepreneur, really.
- Anti-Christian – Expressing a valid worldview.
- Anti–Rule of Law – Which now appears to be mainstream.
The Verdict?
The homeowner is:
- Charged with attempted murder.
- Convicted of using “excessive force”.
- Sued in civil court by the intruder.
- Ordered to surrender his house and retirement savings.
The intruder is:
- Awarded the home he broke into.
- Given legal permission to rent the house back to the homeowner’s family.
- Allowed to visit the property at will.
- Celebrated in local media for “surviving trauma”.
What Happened to Common Sense?
It died somewhere between Bill C-18, Bill C-63, and the idea that your lived experience matters more than actual law. In a country where, in some jurisdictions, whistling at night is outlawed, but breaking into homes is a misunderstood cry for help, we’ve lost the thread entirely.
When defending your family is labelled aggression, and violating someone’s home is rebranded asocial protest, Canada ceases to be a democracy and becomes a farce.
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August 7, 2025
“The Beer Store seems to be going down faster than, well, a nice, cold beer”
In The Line Scott Stinson discusses the precipitous fall in the fortunes of Ontario’s former beer retail behemoth now that beer is available in — shock! horror! — grocery stores and even (gasp!) convenience stores:
“The Beer Store” by Like_the_Grand_Canyon is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
A major Ontario retailer announced last month that it would permanently close 20 locations in August. This follows the closure of 10 of its stores just over a week before that, and precedes the planned shuttering of 10 more locations in September.
What business could possibly be swooning this much? A general retailer pummelled by Amazon? An exporter battered by Trump’s tariffs?
Nope: Beer. Seriously. The Beer Store seems to be going down faster than, well, a nice, cold beer.
Welcome to the uniquely weird world of alcohol sales in the province of Ontario, where somehow selling beer has become a struggling business.
Some background is probably required, for those who, understandably, must think by this point that I am full of shit.
For ages the vast majority of Ontario’s beer sales ran through The Beer Store, a chain of 450-ish outlets that was co-owned by Canada’s largest brewers. You could also get beer at the provincially owned LCBO, but the largest size available there was a six-pack. That was it. This system was exceedingly unfriendly to consumers, but owing to our puritan roots and the fact that the brewers had excellent lobbyists at Queen’s Park, it remained that way through decades — and governments of all three major parties.
About a decade ago, the Toronto Star got its hands on one of the agreements between The Beer Store and the province, which revealed what a sweetheart deal it was getting. Among other things, the deal greatly restricted the degree to which the LCBO could compete in beer retail, which caused much frothing over the fact that The Beer Store, long since owned by multinational conglomerates, was getting preferential treatment over the province’s own booze outlet.
The Liberal government of the day responded by loosening The Beer Store’s stranglehold on beer retail, but just a little: allowing it to be sold at a limited number of grocery stores, a hilariously small step but one that in Ontario was nevertheless a great leap forward.
Doug Ford’s Conservative government had long wanted to expand alcohol sales much further, but always stumbled over the fact that The Beer Store had a deal that prohibited such expansion until 2026. But then Ford wanted to hold an election last spring and he convinced The Beer Store to let him break that deal a year early for $225 million, which always seemed like an awfully steep price to move up that expansion by what amounted to a number of months.
It’s only in recently, though, that it has become clear how spectacularly dumb that giant payment was in the first place.
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July 28, 2025
Ontario Premier Doug Ford – threat or menace?
In many ways, Ontario’s Doug Ford is a 21st century version of former Ontario Premier Bill Davis … a virtuoso performer of the “talk Conservative, govern Liberal” style that urban Ontario voters really seem to love. It works well for the Laurentian Elite to have a Liberal government in Ottawa and a “Conservative” government in Toronto, as they can argue in public about all sorts of marginal issues, but when it comes down to legislation and regulation, they’re almost indistinguishable from one another aside from party colours.
Last week, Ford announced a plan to hand out provincial work permits to a huge number of “asylum seekers” as the feds seem to be making motions to reduce their support of such irregular immigrants:
One step forward, two steps back? As a card-carrying, self-appointed board member of Team “Please stop making everything worse on purpose,” there are some hard-earned wins and faint movements back towards normal, and then there’s the ongoing screw-jobs that threaten any/all progress.
As we have bemoaned time, and time, and time again around these parts, Ontario has a premier problem. But now, all of Canada has a Doug Ford problem.
I’ve been part of an effort to drag urgent immigration reform into the spotlight, and even into a feature position in the waning days of that ‘first ministers’ meeting in Muskoka, but a certain conservative-in-name-only threatens to make historic problems of immigration and unemployment worse, rather than better.
Conservatives in Canada are about to find themselves in a tricky position with Ford, who has the unique potential to remain one of the last vestiges of the failed Trudeau years — even more so than Carney. And the latter may need defending.
Ford and his deeply conflicted and unethical inner circle may wish to grant provincial work permits to a supply of fake students turned fake asylum claimants, but ordinary folk, concerned parents, our proud immigrant communities who made the grade and never cut corners, and our abandoned workers have other ideas.
On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, @HOCStaffer tries to provide some context:
Asylum seekers, refugees, illegals, whatever you want to call them.
They are filling up hotels, getting money, & doing basically nothing, all the while waiting upwards of 2 years for their application to be approved/denied.
I mean, it’s better than where they came from, which is why they are here.
There’s a massive financial burden to the govt & a huge pool of labour doing nothing which could be serving you your coffee instead of a Temp Foreign Worker.
So Ford’s argument — which I have had made to me in person by hotel, tourism, & restaurant lobbyists — is that why don’t we use these people to do the shit jobs?
***** Especially if we are reducing TFWs.
There is a pretty good logic to it.
“May as well have them do something while they are here waiting.” Right?
But I still disagree with the idea.
Most of these people aren’t refugees. They are economic migrants from terrible places. They came here illegally, often under false pretences, & most should be deported.
The longer they stay the more likely they are to have kids here, to potentially marry a Canadian, and to establish links to the country.
Giving them a job furthers that connection.
The last thing we need is the local Tims owner arguing to keep Abdul in the country because he is the only one who will sling shit coffee on the night shift for shit wages.
Giving illegals jobs just rewards the business owners who take advantage of TFWs with a new pool of labour to exploit.
I get that these are businesses and real people have money and time invested in them.
But if you cannot operate without indentured servants then perhaps we don’t really need your business?
A bunch of Tims will close. McD’s too. Maybe some hotels & other businesses too. It’s sad. No one wants to see that.
But we also can’t keep importing people — and thereby affecting much of the rest of society — in order to keep these businesses open.
So yeah, there’s a sound argument to what Ford is saying.
But what he should be saying is that we need a stronger border, faster processing, less appeals and quicker deportations.
That would save his govt real money.
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May 20, 2025
The Battle of Aquino
Canadian Tank Museum
Published 13 Jan 2025You may know about AQUINO Tank Weekend at our Museum, but what was the Battle of Aquino? When did it take place? What happened to the Ontario Regiment RCAC during that action?
Enjoy this short documentary with our Curator Sam Richardson as he gives you a detailed look at the situation in May 1944 during the Italian campaign of the Second World War. Learn more about the soldiers that took part, the battle that took place and why it remains important to our Regiment and our Museum.
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May 7, 2025
Ontario versus the courts
In general terms, you would expect the government — in this case the Ontario provincial government — to pass the laws and the courts — when called upon — to rule on their legality. We don’t expect courts to act as if they can overrule legislation passed by the government unless it clearly contravenes the Charter or goes beyond the powers assigned to that level of government. But Canadian courts seem to be choosing to expand their powers to curtail the actions of elected government more and more these days:
Bike lanes on Yonge Street north of Bloor Street in downtown Toronto.
Image from Google Street View
In the weeks of the election period, Canadian courts were busy preventing any legislation of controversy from taking effect — and they went relatively unnoticed. On March 28, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice blocked the Ontario government from banning supervised consumption sites near schools and daycares. It struck again on April 22, halting the Ontario government from removing Toronto’s bike lanes.
Days later, on April 24, the Quebec Superior Court cancelled the province’s planned mega-tuition hike for out-of-province students.
In the case of Toronto’s major bike lanes — on Bloor Street, Yonge Street and University Avenue — Ontario Premier Doug Ford had, in theory, all the power he needed to remove them. Municipalities are creatures of the province, and traffic regulation is also a provincial domain; thus, provincial legislatures can override just about anything that a city council does, especially if related to roads. So, in November, Ford legislated the removal of the lanes, which were previously constructed by city authorities (he was later re-elected premier, so clearly bike lane preservation wasn’t a priority for voters).
In December, cycling advocates launched a court challenge that, really, should have been laughed out of the room. They argued that the removal of bike lanes amounted to a violation of their Charter rights, specifically the Section 7 catch-all right to life, liberty and security.
It remains to be seen whether there is a Charter right that guarantees two per cent of the population the right to have specialty lanes built for their commuting pleasure — the trial process is still underway. In the meantime, Ontario’s Judge Paul Schabas, a Liberal appointee, has granted the cycling advocates an injunction to keep the lanes in place, because allowing their dismantling to go forward would impose an injunction-worthy risk of “irreparable harm” to Toronto’s cyclists.
“There is no evidence that the government has engaged in any planning as to how the bike lanes will be removed or what will replace them,” Schabas wrote in the decision. “The demolition and reconstruction will create its own impacts on traffic — both for cyclists and motor vehicles — and will likely result in considerable disturbance and congestion while that is taking place. Cyclists who continue to use these routes will be at risk of irreparable physical harm for which … the government will not provide any compensation in damages.”
And, just like that, a judge overruled a decision of the elected legislature, opting instead to take, temporarily, the zero-risk-tolerance advice of unelected government consultants. It’s at least good that Ford is appealing Schabas’ decision.
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May 1, 2025
Canada’s Conservative Party – every silver lining has a cloud
In the National Post, Colby Cosh considers the state of the party for the federal Conservatives after an election campaign that looked radically different than the one they had prepared to fight for more than a year:
Pierre Poilievre’s riding had an insane number of protest candidates registered for the election. Oddly, the same wasn’t true in any other riding in the country. This was an organized protest for electoral reform, supposedly.
The Conservative opposition is now bound to have a difficult year, with their leader inexplicably, inexcusably ejected from the Commons. Dedicated haters of Pierre Poilievre won’t find anything at all inexplicable about the Carleton disaster, but there will need to be a proper autopsy. Especially since Poilievre’s party gathered more vote share nationally than any right-wing party — or combination thereof! — has achieved since the days of Mulroney.
Even in Ontario, Poilievre’s Conservatives got over a million more votes than the hyper-critical Ford PCs did in a provincial election 60 days earlier, and they are headed toward a higher vote share within the province. So is Poilievre a generational leader potentially on the brink of a dynasty, or an unloved boob who got caught flat-footed by a change in public mood? I promise you that the quarrelling over that question is well underway.
I assume the CPC will keep its unlucky leader, which leaves only the question, “So then what?” The Liberals don’t have to call a by-election until six months after someone decides to resign to make way for Poilievre. And maybe I ought to say “if someone decides”. It’s not essential for a party leader to have a Commons seat, but it would certainly be ideal, especially with the Commons hung.
The Conservatives are bound to find themselves adopting more of a team approach to the Opposition job by default, and maybe this ought to have been considered while it was still optional. Even by Canadian standards, the CPC campaign was very leader-focused, and was obviously predicated on the idea that the people really wanted Poilievre and would like him more as they saw more of him. (And, again, this may actually have happened!) Now there’s a chance the CPC’s House leadership performs well over the next year or so — and then has to fade into the wallpaper behind the guy who already lost.
April 1, 2025
Carney chooses not to dump Paul Chiang as Liberal candidate in Markham-Unionville
Update: The National Post is reporting that Chiang has dropped out of the campaign.
Liberal leader Mark Carney may believe he’s showing something something strength and something something compassion by allowing Paul Chiang to stay on the ballot as the official Liberal candidate despite the awful optics of the situation:
In the National Post, Anthony Furey says that the decision indicates that Carney values China’s values ahead of Canadian values:
Liberal MP Paul Chiang, left, and Liberal leader Mark Carney, right.
Mark Carney’s mishandling of the Paul Chiang scandal has got to be one of the worst cases of poor judgment in recent Canadian political history. From the moment the story broke, it was a no-brainer that Chiang could not remain as a Liberal MP and as the Liberal candidate in Markham-Unionville.
The fact Carney didn’t immediately do the right thing was a problem. And that he’s now defiant in keeping Chiang on despite several days of significant pushback seriously calls his judgment into question.
On Friday, the civil rights group Toronto Association for Democracy in China broke the scandal on remarks Chiang made about Conservative candidate Joe Tay that appeared in Chinese-language newspaper Ming Pao Toronto.
“To everyone here, you can claim the $1 million bounty (on Joe Tay) if you bring him to Toronto’s Chinese consulate,” Chiang said during an ethnic media conference in January.
Jaws dropped when the news spread. Dozens of human rights groups have already condemned the remarks.
Hong Kong Watch, a human rights advocacy group, wrote in a statement: “It is clear that this is a Parliamentarian suggesting to a broad community that a political opponent be taken against their will and handed over to the custody of a foreign government that has a well-documented history of wrongfully detaining Canadian citizens and using coercion to get Canadian citizens to return to (China).”
[…]
Yet Liberal leader Mark Carney is downplaying it and standing by Chiang.
“The comments were deeply offensive,” Carney said on Monday. “This is a terrible lapse of judgment by Mr. Chiang. He has apologized for those comments.”
If they are that offensive and if Chiang’s judgment is that poor, why keep him on as a member of the team?
Carney was hammered with repeated questions to that effect from the news media but was firm that Chiang would remain as a candidate. He also seems to think that Chiang being a police officer makes the remarks less of an issue, when it clearly makes it a much bigger problem.
“Mr. Chiang is a veteran policeman with more than a quarter century of service to his community,” Carney told the press. “And he will continue his candidacy going forward, having made those apologies very clearly to the individual, to the community and moving forward to serve.”
From the outside, it looks less like Carney is trying to stand up for a member of his party and more as though he’s desperate to hang on to that seat (perhaps Liberal internal polls aren’t quite as rosy in the GTA as the public polls are showing at the moment).
Also on the social media site formerly known as “Twitter”, Dan Knight posts a long note on the situation:
This is no longer just a political scandal — this is a national disgrace. Joe Tay, the Conservative candidate targeted by Paul Chiang’s shocking comments, has now broken his silence — and it’s nothing short of damning.
In his official statement, Tay pulls no punches. He calls Chiang’s words what they are: “threatening public comments … intended to intimidate me”. Not debate. Not disagreement. Intimidation. And Tay makes it crystal clear: “no apology is sufficient”. Why? Because this isn’t some offhand gaffe — this is the exact playbook of the Chinese Communist Party, imported straight into Canadian politics.
Let that sink in. A Canadian MP, standing on Canadian soil, echoed a bounty issued by a hostile foreign regime. And the man targeted — Joe Tay — says it plainly: “Suggesting that people collect a bounty from the Chinese Communist Party to deliver a political opponent to the Chinese Consulate is disgusting and must never be condoned.”
Disgusting — and yet, here we are. Paul Chiang is still in the Liberal fold. Mark Carney, the man who wants to run the country, says nothing. Meanwhile, Tay is left fearing for his safety — already in touch with the RCMP before the public even knew what Chiang had said.
This is the state of Canadian politics under the Liberal machine: where the only people paying a price are the ones speaking out. Where the candidate who exposes foreign interference is the one who needs police protection. And the one who parrots CCP propaganda? He gets to keep his seat.
Even Michael Chong — a guy who knows firsthand what CCP intimidation looks like — is stepping in and asking the obvious question: Why is Paul Chiang still a Liberal candidate?
Chong just posted on X (formerly Twitter) that at least three Canadians have already been coerced into returning to the People’s Republic of China against their will. Against their will. Think about that. Beijing is actively running transnational repression ops on Canadian soil — and now, one of Carney’s own candidates is joking about turning a political opponent over to the CCP for a cash reward. And we’re supposed to believe the Liberals take foreign interference seriously?
Chong’s post includes actual evidence — parliamentary testimony, U.S. indictments, and RCMP-relevant keywords like “United Front”, “overseas station”, and “minutes or less”. In other words, this isn’t conspiracy talk. This is real. It’s happening. And it’s been happening under the Liberals’ watch.
And still, Paul Chiang stays in the race. No suspension. No investigation. Nothing from Carney, the security-cleared savior of the Liberal establishment.
And here’s where the hypocrisy hits terminal velocity.
Remember, Mark Carney has a security clearance. That’s been his whole pitch. That somehow he is more qualified to lead Canada because he has access to classified intelligence. Because he is in the know. He’s the grown-up in the room. The steady technocrat with one foot in the Privy Council and the other in Davos.
Well, here’s a question: What good is a security clearance if your own MPs are acting like a propaganda arm for Beijing?
Because while Mark “Bank of China” Carney sits on his classified briefings, his Liberal MP Paul Chiang is out there, on camera, floating the idea that a Conservative candidate should be delivered to a Chinese consulate to “claim the bounty” placed on his head by the Chinese Communist Party.
Let’s repeat that: A Canadian MP is echoing a CCP-issued bounty, and Carney — the man with all the intelligence, all the briefings, all the supposed national security credentials — says nothing. Not a peep. Not even a token tweet.
So what exactly is that security clearance buying us, Mark? If you’re such an expert on foreign threats, why can’t you recognize one when it’s sitting in your own caucus?
It’s a joke. The entire premise of Carney’s leadership bid is unraveling in real time. He promised Canadians he could stand up to foreign interference — meanwhile, his own candidate in Markham–Unionville is out there sounding like a CCP press secretary. And instead of showing leadership, Carney hides behind talking points, closed-door fundraisers, and his carefully curated media handlers.
Joe Tay is right. This isn’t just about intimidation — it’s about sending a “chilling signal to the entire community”. And the message from Carney is loud and clear: if you’re a threat to the Liberal regime, they’re not just coming for your policies. They’re coming for you.
Security clearance? Please. It’s not leadership if you only speak up when it’s politically convenient. And if Carney won’t condemn this, then he’s not qualified to lead a PTA meeting, let alone a country.
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