Jennifer Robson 🇨🇦

I'm reading the BIA Part 1. What, you're not? FML - It's Saturday night and here I am...

A hat-tip to @althiaraj.bsky.social for spotting the poison pill in the draft budget legislation in Parliament apple.news/Ai261EfiGREW...
and to a good friend for sharing her piece.

I read the bill last night and then I blogged. open.substack.com/pub/robsonj/...

I feel like the currents in the stream have picked up and are overtaking any efforts at hydrographic engineering.

This whole document is a doozy, but really worth a read to get a sense of how hard a pivot they have made, and maybe also how unlikely or durable an equally hard pivot back to ~2022 may be www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/u...

Page 12 of the new US National Security Strategy (accidentally?) refers to other nations as “counties”

Imagine if the PM had just taken time to meet with Coastal chiefs *before* signing the MOU with Smith…

I don’t know quite how you track these things, but I’m grateful that you do

Oh probably.
Not my lane.
I trust someone will jump in on that.
But nice to know cancon has such wide readership

A reminder that Franklin is a book character from Canadian author Paulette Bourgeois and Canadian illustrator Brenda Clark.
As a Canadian, Franklin would only be able to enlist if he already had a Green Card (PR).
As a Canadian, he would have the right of return to Canada if deported from the US.

The Smith-Carney bitumen pipeline accord would very probably get a better reception at an Alberta NDP convention than at a UCP convention.
That's where we're at now in Alberta politics.

This racist screed is « non-compatible with Western Civilization ».

Remember kids, if you raise taxes and reduce tax-benefitted savings incentives, investors will run away.
Oh wait!

Is the y axis a % or count?

Our @ubcvse.bsky.social application deadline is coming up soon for next year's MA and PhD entrance cohorts. Full details in the QT below!

Applications are open to join us as an Early Career Cdn. Urban Leader or an Urbanist-in-Residence. Visiting experts are practitioners in civil society, the arts, business, media, or govt. & (emerging) leaders in their urban-related sector. Apply by 26/01 https://ow.ly/wU6o50XurfA

I just can’t even…
This is within 48 hours of the US State Department reportedly amending its official policy to say that public funding for reproductive health care when it includes abortion and gender affirming care are *human rights violations* in the eyes of the US Govt.
Way to Larry Summers.

that was faster than I would have expected, but still so destructive while it ran

Is anyone still saying we need this in Canada?

Seems Canada is very likely to be caught in this…

🚨 Postdoctoral opportunities! 🚨

Hello #econsky! We are hiring 2 postdocs in the department of economics at UCalgary for those working in *electricity economics*

Term: 2 years
Pay: $80,000/yr + benefits + $10k research allowance
Start: July 2026

Details in next two posts 👇

Hoping to carve out some time soon to look at earnings calls for Canadian firms for this same sort of info

Six years ago, after watching my circle of friends surrender one too many evenings to insurance wrangling and doctor portals and DMV confusion, I emailed them a proposal: Come over next Tuesday. Grab a six pack. And bring your bills, your credit-card statements, your school forms, the streaming services you need to unsubscribe from, the airline miles you need to manage, the expenses app you need to figure out. I’d be throwing the lamest party ever. At the heart of this party was a truth that has gone under-acknowledged in recent years: We’re all sinking. We’re sinking into a quicksand of tiny, dumb administrative tasks. It is the most tedious quicksand imaginable. Tasks once accomplished with a quick phone call now require logging into a new website, which requires remembering yet another password. Disputing a charge means arguing with a chipper chatbot, or submitting to an hour of brain-melting hold music—call volume higher than expected!—only to be disconnected.

This is...sort of brilliant.

Summers conferred with Epstein frequently about how to extract sexual favors from a Harvard econ grad (AB '04, PhD '09)

The grad is from China

Epstein and Summers referred to her by the codename "Peril"

Racism and sexual exploitation in one efficient package

bit.ly/3LHpin8

A priori there is no reason that women should ever be associated with the men who talk about them.
The fact that they are is plain old patriarchy.

Summers has continued to teach at Harvard since, interrupted by brief stints in Washington, and currently holds Harvard’s highest faculty distinction as a University Professor. This semester, he is teaching two large undergraduate courses and one graduate class.

Larry Summers still teaches at Harvard. Imagine what it feels like to be a woman walking into this guy's classroom after reading those Epstein emails.

From this Crimson story: www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Op-Ed: Ottawa's costly pursuit of the poor The government cites inefficiency as a reason to end taxes on vacant homes and yachts — yet keeps pouring money into futile litigation over pandemic-era benefits

John has been tracking COVID benefits cases *STILL* working their way through the courts.
READ THIS PIECE. The machine has been working on autopilot. It's time to ask whether this represents an efficient use of public resources - salaries, court time, +++
www.canadianaffairs.news/2025/11/12/o...

Op-Ed: Ottawa's costly pursuit of the poor The government cites inefficiency as a reason to end taxes on vacant homes and yachts — yet keeps pouring money into futile litigation over pandemic-era benefits

READ THIS!
www.canadianaffairs.news/2025/11/12/o...
$200K to litigate a case against a social assistance recipient who *may* have received $10K in CERB overpayments is not an "inefficiency", but collecting unpaid taxes on luxury yachts or planes *is* a waste of bureaucratic time?
MAKE IT MAKE SENSE

This is a very niche joke. But I like it

"Premiums for consumers buying aluminium on the physical market in the U.S. have hit record highs, driven by steep import tariffs and tight supplies globally." www.reuters.com/world/china/...

A screen capture from a global Mail article on retirement planning. The pertinent sentence is the last one. "And withdrawing rrsp funds sooner will reduce the amount of the OAS clawback."

I wish financial planners would stop warning ppl about the "OAS clawback"

The OAS is the residue of a pension, launched in 1926, to relieve starvation among the very poor

Now, it (and GIS) helps those people, but also ppl with modest savings/pensions

It's 'clawed back' from the very comfortable

Breakfast tomorrow! Fried in bacon fat. Mmmm..

The unheated greenhouse did good this year. Came so close, but the snow and cold has arrived and I’m not prepared to pay the added electric bill to heat it. So, down to the basement in hopes of off-vine ripening.