KevinPike

Here are three scenarios — including a Christmas election — that could happen with Monday’s budget vote Which party — or MPs — could blink? Are Canadians headed to a Christmas election?

Canada now war-games its own budget votes.
A system that once managed risk now reacts to it.

When fiscal governance becomes scenario planning, state capacity is already compromised.
nationalpost.com/news/canada/...

Top soldier has second thoughts about recruiting public servants for reserves Gen. Jennie Carignan had faced public backlash and questions about her plan to recruit public servants for Canada's reserve forces.

Canada’s mobilisation debate shows a deeper rot.

A force built for battle now considers retreat in the face of bureaucratic scepticism.

A system that can't pull the trigger will not hit the target.
ottawacitizen.com/public-servi...

Trump says he plans to sue the BBC for up to US$5-billion Legal experts say lawsuit would be unlikely to succeed in court

The $5-billion lawsuit against the BBC reflects a deeper collapse of mutual legitimacy between institutions and their publics.

With the social contract now breached, trust has collapsed.
And lawcraft has become stagecraft.
www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

A hijacker running the route amounts to more than a headline.

Systems hold because ordinary people keep the script moving when the institution behind it slips.

You see something about civic order when an unauthorised user delivers a product that the system struggles to ship.

Micro luxuries thrive when macro confidence thins.

The lipstick effect is less about beauty and more about the search for agency when larger economic structures feel unsteady.

The Scam Vigilantes The government is failing to stop scams. So a handful of citizens have taken matters into their own hands, reports Maya Sulkin.

The front line of crime has shifted to the electronic sphere.

When private citizens defend the public better than institutions, the map of state power has already changed.
www.thefp.com/p/the-scam-v...

America at 250: Our Technological Revolution Katherine Boyle on FAFO as a founding principle, Marc Levinson on the steel box that built capitalism, Noah Smith on the new Luddites—and Palmer Luckey on why we should become “the world’s gun store.”

Technological revolutions function as renewal rituals.

Serious nations understand that innovation operates as a form of sovereignty expressed through capability.

The next century will favour those who build with purpose and orient themselves toward the century ahead.
www.thefp.com/p/america-at...

André Pratte: Separatist fantasies about Quebec's global influence get a free pass Paul St-Pierre Plamondon believes an independent Quebec would automatically be as influential as Canada

Ambition without capacity is theatre.

Quebec’s separatist project keeps treating global influence as a matter of sentiment rather than scale.
nationalpost.com/opinion/andr...

Second World War veterans are a shrinking presence on Remembrance Day A generation that was once a ubiquitous feature in communities small and large is now waning

“To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.”

It is fitting -- and necessary -- to relieve the old guard of their post.

We must ask whether we still deserve to carry what they built.
If not, then let us make it so.
www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic...

Top N.S. judges defend right to ban staff from wearing poppies in courtrooms Nova Scotia's top judges say their peers were in the right to ban court staff from wearing poppies in the courtroom.

When neutrality is confused with uniformity, justice loses texture.

A Charter that protects conscience shouldn’t yield to administrative optics. The robe defends impartiality; it doesn’t erase identity.
nationalpost.com/news/nova-sc...

Letters: 'Crossing the floor' weakens Canada's democracy Readers comment on MP manoeuvring, Bill Gates' climate U-turn, remembering Canada's fallen, sentences for child porn, and more

In systems built on faith, each crossing cracks the foundation.

The pillars give way long before the pretence.
nationalpost.com/opinion/lett...

In a civilisation saturated by crisis, distraction becomes therapy.

Fixation on distant wonders offers relief from the entropy within reach.

Still, someone needs to keep watch on the blue one we’re standing on.

The Astonishing Bull Market Will End One Day. Are You Ready?

Every empire has its own bull market.

Confidence compounds until reality calls margin.

The correction always comes; the test is what still holds value when it does.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/b...

Lose weight or risk losing your job, overweight oil rig workers told North Sea oil and gas rig staff need to be under 124.7kg so they can be safely winched on to helicopter in emergency

Systems that celebrate growth are often slow to acknowledge deadweight.

Whether in budgets, rigs, or boardrooms, mass must eventually be justified.

And gravity always gets the final word.
www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Live Updates: Hundreds of U.S. Flights Are Canceled as Shutdown Hits Air Travel

A nation that can’t keep its airspace moving has already grounded something deeper.

When continuity depends on payroll, sovereignty becomes a subscription.
www.nytimes.com/live/2025/11...

The economy rests on suspension -- a fragile equilibrium mistaken for strength.

Consumption props up confidence; confidence props up currency.

The tower still stands, though no one remembers which block keeps it upright.

Liberals appear poised for possible omnibus bills as federal budget lays out 75 legislative changes Former parliamentary budget officer compares long-criticized practice to Washington’s One Big Beautiful Bill

Democracies collapse quietly, one procedural shortcut at a time.

Omnibus governance is the administrative form of entropy:
convenience mistaken for order.
www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/art...

Civilisations remain theological at the core; they simply re-encode belief through new symbols of authority.

Every ideology borrows faith’s scaffolding -- priests, blasphemy laws, rituals of purity -- while declaring its own neutrality.

Conservative MP joins Canada’s Liberal government, moving Carney closer to majority government The stunning twist brings the prime minister one step closer to a secure hold on the office until 2029.

Every system breeds the behaviour it rewards.

When conviction stops paying dividends, politics reverts to brokerage, and loyalty becomes a tradable asset.
www.politico.com/news/2025/11...

Carney earmarks billions in new spending to counter U.S. protectionism Federal budget projects $78.3-billion deficit and sets out tax incentives, public service cuts

When domestic discipline collapses, protectionism becomes the new patriotism.

Every empire learns too late that you can’t subsidise sovereignty.
www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/art...

Opinion | This Is the Way You Beat Trump — and Trumpism

“Trumpism” emerged when institutions stopped representing people and started chasing attention.

For those keen on reversing Trumpism:
Reverse the sequence.
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/02/o...

Man of the moment: François-Philippe Champagne prepares for make-or-break budget At a time of deep economic uncertainty, the Finance Minister faces the biggest test of his political career

Hero-narratives always emerge when fiscal discipline falters.

Canada’s future won’t hinge on a minister-as-messiah, @remitheriault.bsky.social, but on a balance sheet resilient enough to outlast its ambitions.

www.theglobeandmail.com/business/art...

When systems can’t regulate profit, they ritualise villains.

The Shkreli story endures because it conceals the market that made him inevitable, draping systemic pathology in the costume of a single villain.

Big Tech’s A.I. Spending Is Accelerating (Again)

The AI buildout centres on infrastructure -- an arms race of compute and capital.

When investment outpaces purpose, debt follows faith.
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/31/t...

Opinion: World Series tickets are a luxury item, and we shouldn’t put government caps on luxuries Ultimately, the market will decide what highly coveted items are worth, and the market will find a way to deliver

Price caps signal governance failure -- a substitution of moral theatre for structural remedy.
www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/arti...

'We’re just the victims,' Richmond property owners unleash fury over Cowichan ruling City blamed for not telling property owners about the court case, that recognized Aboriginal title over private property

Property law erodes quietly when political systems outsource justice to symbolism.

Reconciliation without constitutional coherence produces legal schizophrenia -- the state promising two forms of sovereignty on the same land.
nationalpost.com/opinion/were...

Civilisation runs on devices so combustible we can’t lose one without rerouting from Rome.

The ancients feared divine fire; we fear lithium-ion. Progress, allegedly.

The instinct to sanctify crafted metal -- whether calves or chips -- hasn’t vanished; it’s the same idolatry recompiled in code.

Moses and Calvin would have recognised it as the oldest form of human overconfidence: revelling at the words instead of the wordsmith.

The question has shifted from whether AI is a bubble to what form it takes.

Tech and marketing are consolidating again, exuberance now embedded in the architecture itself.

Capital pools where compute centralises, and investors will flee where integrity is flubbed.

Milei emerges triumphant in high-stakes Argentine midterm elections closely watched by Washington Governing La Libertad Avanza party won 40.84% ​​of votes in national elections to renew almost half of the lower house of Congress

Milei’s victory stabilises Argentina only on paper.
When reform depends on U.S. liquidity, sovereignty becomes a leased commodity.

Monetary discipline divorced from fiscal independence converts restraint into outsourced austerity.
www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...