Matthew D Sweet

Matthew SweetMatthew Sweet • 1stVerified • 1st Manager, Active Transportation at City of MississaugaManager, Active Transportation at City of Mississauga 1d • 1 day ago • Visible to anyone on or off LinkedIn "I have a right to drive." This belief pops up in response to a whole host of traffic safety and active transportation plans. People really do believe that they have an inviolable right to drive. Drive without any obstruction or inconvenience, irrespective of other types of road users or the need to renew road assets. Drive as fast as they deem safe to do so, irrespective of the posted speed limit. Face minimal consequences for dangerous driving, including when causing serious injury or death. Driving is, of course, a privilege, not a right, granted by the Province when it issues a license to the individual to operate a vehicle in Ontario. Because driving a vehicle is a serious responsibility that carries significant consequences to individuals and society if done irresponsibly. The question that is before us is whether "majority rules" dictates policy. The majority feel that driving is a right, and this overriding attitude is behind opposition to automated speed enforcement, opposition to bicycle lanes, opposition to creating serious consequences to dangerous driving. But is the majority view the right view, and should that dictate policy?

Recently, Robin Jones, President of Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO), was quoted in a Global News interview: “Speed limits are legal requirements. Enforcement of the law is not a tax.” This was in response to the supposed dilemma of “unfairness” to drivers caught by automated...

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Plug-in balcony solar panels could mean cheaper power. But Canada needs to get on board first | CBC News How would you like to lower your electricity bill and help power your home using an abundant renewable energy source — the sun? There is an affordable, do-it-yourself solution for people who own house...

www.cbc.ca/news/climate...

Plug-in balcony solar panels could mean cheaper power. But Canada needs to get on board first | CBC News

It feels like our energy regulators and standards are going to be very slow to adopt these sorts of innovations.

Proud new subscriber!!

that today's right wing explicitly takes political awareness as a named enemy just feels like bad writing, like this season of the America really doesn't trust its audience

We need more of this sort of thing.

"Change is good, say local residents as absence of anxiety grips local area."

"From January, Europe’s crash-testing organization EuroNCAP, or New Car Assessment Program, will incentivize automakers to fit physical, easy-to-use, and tactile controls to achieve the highest safety ratings."

One again, Europe prioritizes safety, while the U.S. waits for "consumer demand."

www.instagram.com/p/DIsLD_xydt...

Janes Walks in Hamilton

Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1.

The most serious Nazi shit in this extremely Nazi shit executive order may be the idea, just slipped in there, that one of the "divisive narratives that distort our shared history" is that "race is not a biological reality but a social construct." www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Zelda Williams (the daughter of the great Robin Williams) sure had a lot to say about the “Studio Ghibli style” AI images that have been trending recently.

I think those people should read these posts and really think about what they’re doing.

roadhouseendgame i was talking to my mom about cardassians and said something along the lines of 'what must it be like to be a cardassian civilian. like abstractly knowing the rest of the galaxy thinks of your species as 'the evil ones and kinda sorta knowing your government runs labor camps and torture prisons and is a military empire, and it's a huge deal for everyone else in the galaxy, but you just like run a restaurant so it's not a big part of your daily life, so you just like, go about your day and make soup and don't think about it' and then halfway through my sentence i actually heard myself and then had to go sit down for like ten minutes. like sat down in a chair and stared at the floor for ten minutes

Talking about bike lanes seems so quaint these days.

Screenshot of 2025 provincial election result in 2025, showing Lib gain from PC in Etobicoke Lakeshore.

Doug Ford’s anti-bike lane Bill 212 was always bad policy, but now also seems like bad politics. PCs handily lost Etobicoke-Lakeshore last night, home of the “controversial” Bloor West lanes. And PC vote share in bordering Etobicoke Centre was basically flat from 2022. What was the point?

So now Bloor St, Yonge St and University Ave bike lanes are represented by non-PC MPPs. Seems like a pretty strong mandate to not rip 'em out from the local residents? Even incumbent Hogarth in Etobicoke-Lakeshore, who ran on a platform including removing the Bloor W lanes, got beat by the Liberal.

I'd flip this. The right has an ideologically coherent project, which is the defense of hierarchies that have dominated American society and opposition to policies that undermine them. Liberals and the left by contrast believe vaguely in helping people they feel sorry for but don't agree how or why.

The PC platform for this election was written by a car

"I should be able to drive over the posted speed limit if in my judgement alone it is safe to do so, and also these bike lanes are what is slowing me down. My personal needs override the needs of anyone else, be it the law, other drivers (who are less important than me) and certainly cyclists"

To extend the argument, car culture is carrying the water for a lot of the desires of the dominant overall culture to stop sharing power and space (literal and figurative) with those who don't share the same values. And it's very selfish and entitled.

The underlying argument of the entire PC party and Doug as its leader is the consolidation of power back into the status quo and entrenched interests of the "majority" (drivers personified) at the expense of the safety and well-being of the "minority" (everyone else, including other drivers).

So now the PC party platform in #onpoli is questioning the legitimacy of automated speed enforcement as it has been rolled out by cities...within the frameworks created by the Province. Aside from the blatant contradiction of the incumbents criticizing municipalities for following rules it set...

More civil society stuff like this please

Oppose, Oppose, Oppose — and Do It Loudly Opponents of MAGA: Don’t despair and don’t appease

open.substack.com/pub/paulkrug...

Amazon to close Quebec facilities, insists it's not because of new union | CBC News A company spokesperson said Amazon will outsource deliveries to smaller contractors. The spokesperson insisted that the decision was tied to cost savings — not the recent unionization of about 300 emp...

Oligarchs, am I right? Also fuck Amazon.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

I haven’t posted much since my initial outburst post account creation, but I’m feeling like if I increase my rate of cussing it may encourage me to use this more. Feels like it meets the moment.
The family, Star Trek and Liverpool are the only things that don’t inspire a string of expletives.

Can someone call up the bloke who used to post NotaWolf and get that shit going again?

Unlike you, I got my news from a reliable source.

The first few days of data from New York’s congestion charge will be interesting but the real data that matters will be in a few weeks / months, not days.

My take has nothing to do with PP. It’s possible to have a take on the Libs that is not implicitly supporting the Cons.
Lib MPs are looking at losing their jobs in the next election right now, why is anyone surprised they should be demanding changes? That’s the reason this is happening.

Has everyone already forgotten the Freeland debacle?