Michael Connolly

If you watch 2 minutes of video today…

Make it this.

A masterclass on oratory and personal responsibility is on full display.

#abpoli #ableg #cdnpoli

Pierre Poilievre: “This is insane and Orwellian. Governments and kangaroo courts now chill freedom of expression instead of fighting crime, censoring people who dare to speak their minds. Just ask the B.C. school board trustee who got slapped with a $750,000 fine for saying there are two genders. Enough is enough. We must defend the truth and free speech against these mad censors. Sign here to support free speech” NATIONAL POST The Canadians being punished by the state for not believing in gender ideology

Pierre Poilievre has launched a “free speech” petition in support of Barry Neufeld, an anti-LGBTQ+ bigot and antisemitic conspiracy theorists with a history of filing anti-free speech SLAPP lawsuits against his critics

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

ANALYSIS | The big questions Danielle Smith poses to Albertans as referendums | CBC News Alberta's premier used to want rapid growth in newcomers and enjoyed surplus budgets. Now in deficit, she's pointing a finger at immigration levels.

On the big, loaded questions that referendums will pose to Albertans. By me.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith announces fall referendum on immigration, constitutional questions | CBC News Premier Danielle Smith wants to hold a referendum in October on measures to limit immigration to Alberta and changes she believes would give the province more rights under the Constitution.

So Alberta is holding an anti-immigrant referendum to help create an excuse for why Danielle Smith is running multibillion dollar deficits?

“Smith’s address comes one week before Finance Minister Nate Horner tables the 2026 provincial budget which is expected to have a multibillion-dollar deficit”

"The level of racism and hate that has been expressed has risen undoubtedly, and it is aligned with this premier's... attempt to pin all of her failings on newcomers to this province."

ABNDP's Rakhi Pancholi argues Premier Smith's referendums are designed to anger and distract.

The UCP has been in power for 51 of the last 55 years but according to Danielle Smith it's the family who arrived six months ago that is wrecking the province.

What Danielle Smith is proposing is a racist and xenophobic referendum to distract from her failures as Premier.

Our social services are failing and investment is down because of her policies, not immigration.

Man behind the Clarity Act has choice words for Alberta separatists and Danielle Smith | CBC News Former Liberal cabinet minister Stéphane Dion is lambasting the brewing separatist movement in Alberta and demanding Premier Danielle Smith clarify her position and lay out the next steps depending on...

Danielle Smith is the worst Premier in the history of Alberta, and one of the worst in the history of Canada. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Digital archive of first Irish language newspaper opens A digital archive of the world's first Irish language newspaper has been launched by the University of Galway.

The digital archive brings together every edition of An Gaodhal, which was published in the United States between 1881 and 1898.

Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation currently implemented or passing in Canada

Forgetting where I put my book on ADHD that I said I’d read 3 years ago is really peak ADHD.

I’ve been feeling very smug watching Chicago close its schools and museums for the day because it’s a low of -22°C.
These people wouldn’t last 3 hours in Ottawa.

@paulisci.bsky.social

OPINION | Canadian TV needs to get weird again | CBC Arts In the ‘80s and ‘90s, English Canadian screens were filled with bizarre, fever dream-like shows. Writer Niko Stratis argues that we need to back to that

For CBC Arts, I wrote about why I think Canada needs to revel in the beauty of its weirdest impulses www.cbc.ca/arts/canadia...

Canada should make so many good tv shows that other nations voluntarily adopt CanCon rules.

The CBC has just posted a transcript of my recent As it Happens interview about X and Grok. I’m posting a couple of screen shots here - since they are a bit too long for alt text, I’ll post the link to the full transcript below. #cdnpoli #X #Grok #yeg #CSAM

I can’t wait to explain to all my American friends what the Treasury Board of Canada is. #heatedrivalry

After reading 376 books, writing 3 essays, and enduring an hour and a half interrogation by 3 historians, I have been crowned with the Tiara of Knowledge and passed my comprehensive exams with distinction.

That’s 4 invocations of Notwithstanding Clause for Danielle Smith within a month, with this these of transgender policy bills set to stand regardless of the Charter rights they violate.
The premier mused about Alberta behaving more like Quebec in Confederation. This is one way to do it.

Our most recent @shgape.bsky.social pod dropped this week. We are revisiting a few of Michael Cullinane's 100 great episodes (w/ some help from @mikeconnolly.bsky.social ) so tough choices--which are your favorite past episodes & why? Let us know in the comments

embed.acast.com/$/6116856492...?

Yeah, we did. We ruined it for misogynists and sexual predators and office lotharios and drunks and lazy loafers who had their secretaries and assistants do their actual work.

Thanks for the really interesting thread Chris.
This seems to be the problem with the internet broadly in the last decade. We’ve gone from seeing it as a tool of democratization to a tool of authoritarians and oligarchs.

For the first time in Alberta history, Danielle Smith will use the notwithstanding clause preemptively to shield her bills targeting vulnerable trans children from legal scrutiny.

Her actions are simply cruel and wrong.

Read my full statement below:

I want to know how much the Alberta government is spending on legal costs for all of their anti-science & anti-inclusion, anti-diversity, anti-equity, and anti-accesibility efforts. What's the spend to fight trans kids in court? What did the book ban cost? How much for the vaccine rationing? 1/

It’s called “taste,” look it up.

Tweet from Danielle Smith @ABDanielleSmith I'm going to be more explicit than usual so there is no misunderstanding this policy: 1. Get graphic pornographic images out of school libraries. 2. Leave the classics on the shelves. 3. We all know the difference between the items in 1 and 2. Let's not play any more games in implementing this policy for our kids. Retweet •Demetrios Nicolaides @demetriosnAB After becoming aware of a list of over 200 books that Edmonton Public Schools intended to remove off their shelves, I will be revising the order immediately to ensure that our classic literary works remain in school libraries, while books with graphic pornographic images, such as…

Danielle Smith fails to understand that pornography is subjective, and really, so are the “classics.”
She’s rewriting the rules because her favourite book, Atlas Shrugged(hardly a classic), got banned.
It’s all subjective, except what a complete failure she is as premier. That’s an objective truth.

Ed Broadbent’s Lessons for Rebuilding Today’s NDP | Perspectives Journal The task of the NDP is to find ways to add to, rather than supplant, its traditional working-class base.

"The parallels to the present are obvious and, again, the challenge for anyone aspiring to lead today’s federal NDP is familiar: providing an alternative vision to an economic model that has had disastrous consequences for the working-class."

🔗 ➡️ perspectivesjournal.ca/ed-broadbent-rebuilding-ndp/

First day of school in Alberta. And what are we seeing? A book ban, a ban on transgender athletes in school sports, and a spectre of a province-wide teachers strike.

Active shooter: Police advise residents to shelter in place, others to stay away Police say there is an ongoing active shooter situation in northwest Calgary.

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Active shooter: Police advise residents to shelter in place, others to stay away
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