Druh Farrell

Perfect time to dig out this gem.

Monty Python Philosophy Football Germans Versus Greeks

This is long overdue. Either the Competition Bureau doesn't have the enabling legislation to protect consumers or they're not enforcing the rules. If the Liberal government truly wants to improve affordability they would break up the monopolies and demand competition, starting with telecommunications, food supply, media, and banking.

Canadians have spent years asking why grocery bills keep climbing while a handful of giant corporations dominate the food sector.

Now, as CBC reports, the Competition Bureau is launching a broad examination of Canada's food supply chain, looking at everything from production and processing to transportation, distribution, and retail pricing practices.

The bureau says it wants to understand where competition may be breaking down and what governments can do to improve affordability. The investigation builds on its 2023 study, which found that greater competition in the grocery sector could help lower prices and encourage innovation.

For many Canadians, this review can't come soon enough.

Food bank use is at record highs. More Canadians are turning to crowdfunding to cover groceries and basic necessities. Families are making difficult choices every time they walk into a supermarket.

The question is whether this investigation will lead to meaningful action or simply produce another report documenting problems Canadians already experience every week at the checkout line.

One reason CBC's coverage matters is that it connects these stories. Rising food bank use. Cost-of-living pressures. Grocery concentration. Supply chain bottlenecks. Public policy. These aren't separate issues. They're part of the same affordability crisis affecting communities across the country.

What do you think is driving high grocery prices the most?

Lack of competition? Corporate concentration? Supply chain costs? Global instability? Government policy? Something else?

And more importantly, what would meaningful action actually look like?

😎 reminder that wind turbines are not the top killer of birds.

It’s not the separatists who are the real threat to the country. It’s the federalists

ANDREW COYNE for the Globe and Mail
11 June 2026

This fall’s referendum on secession in Alberta – well, not on secession, but on whether to have a referendum on secession – promises another chance to observe a familiar phenomenon: federalists “fighting for Canada” on separatist terms.
There has been no shortage of volunteers to play Captain Canada in the campaign to come, notably Danielle Smith, the Premier, and Pierre Poilievre, the federal Conservative Leader. But the version of federalism they are selling is inimical to the interests of Canada, not to mention unrecognizable to anyone with any knowledge of either Canada or federalism.
The point seems less to save Canada from the separatists than to remake Canada on lines they prefer; the referendum is merely an advantageous pretext.

Looking beneath the myths of Alberta separatism
The argument, with minor variations, is always the same. Canada was founded as a highly decentralized federation devoted to provincial rights. But over the years the federal Liberals wrapped the country in a straitjacket of centralizing interference; separatism was the understandable – if extreme! – response. The trend was reversed for a while under Stephen Harper, and separatism went away. But then Justin Trudeau came to power, and here we are.
Do I exaggerate? Here’s Ms. Smith, in her address to the province announcing the referendum: “Canada is very different from the United States and many other Western democracies,” she told her audience. “For example, the U.S. centralizes the majority of power and decision-making in its federal government. In Canada, we chose a decentralized federation composed of very unique and diverse provinces left to govern themselves in almost all matters with the main exceptions of national defence and international affairs.”
This is a complete inversion of the facts. The Fathers of Confederation may not have agreed with Sir John A. Macdonald’s preference for a unitary state, but the federation they created vested a great deal of power in the federal government. This was understandable, meeting as they were in the waning days of the U.S. Civil War: a lesson, as more than one of the framers warned, of the perils of placing too much power in the hands of the states.
Accordingly, the British North America Act assigns a broad range of powers to the federal government, including not only defence (“international affairs” was not considered a colonial competence at the time) but “the regulation of trade and commerce,” the raising of money “by any mode or system of taxation,” the currency, banking, the post office, criminal law, naturalization and aliens, “Indians, and land reserved for Indians,” marriage and divorce, bankruptcy and insolvency, weights and measures, and copyrights and patents, among a long list.

Not only that, but the Constitution reserved to the federal government all powers not expressly assigned to provincial jurisdiction: the famous “Peace, Order, and good Government” clause. And it established (by implication) federal paramountcy in areas of overlapping jurisdiction. Plus it empowered the federal government (technically the Governor-General) to disallow any provincial bill, or to put it on hold (“reserve” it) for up to two years.
And the provinces? They were assigned a rather shorter list of powers over “matters of a merely local or private nature”: hospitals, cities, schools, public lands, “local works and undertakings” (except for those the federal government declared to be “for the general advantage of Canada”), property and civil rights, the administration of justice, and a few more (e.g. “Shop, Saloon, Tavern, Auctioneer, and other Licences”). So much for “left to govern themselves in most matters.”
Opinion: The bone-deep roots of Alberta separatism, and the lesson Ottawa must heed
The U.S., it is true, had a “very different” approach. Its Constitution reserved all powers not expressly assigned to the federal government to the states. But since then the two countries have moved in opposite directions. In Canada, a series of decisions by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (the final court of appeal here, on matters of constitutional law, until 1949) essentially rewrote the Constitution, limiting federal powers (notably POGG and trade and commerce), expanding provincial powers (notably through the property and civil rights clause) and otherwise confining each level of government within its own “watertight compartment.”
That trend was interrupted briefly during and after the Second World War, but resumed in recent decades, in the face of the post-1960 surge in Quebec nationalism. The federal government made concession after concession, not only to Quebec but to all the provinces, in fields from immigration to culture to social policy. Of particular note was the package of concessions embodied in the 1982 constitution, which not only entrenched provincial control of natural resources, but subjected all future constitutional amendments to provincial agreement, allowed provinces to opt out of amendments that reduced their powers, and obliged the federal government to provide equalization payments in perpetuity.

Meanwhile the U.S. federal government has grown steadily more powerful relative to the states, chiefly via the commerce clause (regulating trade between the states) but also through the post-Civil War reconstruction efforts, the New Deal, the Second World War, and the postwar civil rights struggles.
So yes, the U.S. is a more centralized federation now. But that being the case, on what basis does Ms. Smith claim that Canada is suffering from a deficiency of provincial power, requiring radical, even revolutionary measures to “undo the extensive damage that centralization of power in Ottawa has done to our country”? On what basis does Mr. Poilievre appeal to Albertans, in his own recent speech on the referendum, to “lock arms” with Quebec “to restore the constitutional autonomy of the provinces”?

The truth? Canada is by most measures already the most decentralized federation in the world. Subnational governments in Canada, including the provinces, territories and local governments, account for nearly three-quarters (74.5 per cent) of all government spending. No other country is close – not even Switzerland (62 per cent). The OECD average is 38 per cent; among the other federations, 48 per cent.
Provinces can raise virtually any tax they like, and borrow in unlimited amounts, in whatever currency they like: no other federation offers subnational governments such fiscal flexibility. They can take federal money intended for a national shared-cost social program and instead spend the money on their own.

They can even opt out of fundamental rights, via the notwithstanding clause: a provision found in no other country with constitutional guarantees of rights à la our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Increasingly, they have taken to asserting jurisdiction over matters that are exclusively federal, as in Quebec’s Bill 96 or Ms. Smith’s own Alberta Sovereignty (later amended to add “Within a United Canada”) Act.
And, of course, they are permitted to impose all manner of trade barriers against one another, hundreds and hundreds of them, with a degree of freedom from federal oversight unknown in any other federation. The creation of a single, unbroken, economic union was a big part of the reason for federating. Yet here we are, 159 years later, with the task still unfulfilled, despite multiple rounds of negotiations between the provinces, and multiple agreements to do better. Despite? I should say because of.
So when pundits like Howard Anglin write that the problem with Canadian federalism is that “Ottawa has arrogated to itself more and more power over provincial matters,” it’s hard to know where to begin.

Or when my colleague John Ibbitson writes wistfully of that golden era, under Mr. Harper, when “the federal government avoided intrusions into areas of provincial jurisdiction,” leading to “10 years of peace within the federation,” I wonder what country he was living in. Does he mean the Harper government that attempted to impose a single national securities regulator? That tried to harmonize provincial sales taxes with the GST? That threatened to use its powers under the trade and commerce clause to strike down interprovincial trade barriers?
Was the Canada Health Act unenforced under Mr. Harper? Were equalization payments discontinued? Did the federal government in fact refrain from doing anything under Mr. Harper that it did under his predecessors? And when was this supposed age of constitutional peace? Was it when the Harper government refused to negotiate the level of health care transfers with the provinces, instead dictating a number the provinces had no choice but to take? Was it during the massive brawl with Newfoundland premier Danny Williams over equalization?

One has to ask, therefore: When Ms. Smith and Mr. Poilievre announce they intend to campaign for Canada in the forthcoming vote, what exactly do they mean? The very act of participating in the referendum campaign, it should be said, is implicitly to endorse one of the central arguments of secessionists: that a province may claim title to a piece of the territory of Canada merely by a vote of its own people; that the laws of Canada apply on its territory only so far as it pleases it to obey them.
It is to invent an alternate history of Canada, in which the present-day territory of Alberta (or Quebec, for that matter) was previously sovereign and independent – rather than having been assigned to it by act of Parliament. Or, even supposing that alternate history were true, it is to pretend that sovereignty, once dissolved in a larger entity, can somehow be reconstituted; that what was created at Confederation was not a people, or a union, but merely a temporary and conditional arrangement – a contract, nothing more, only a contract that, unusually, can be revoked at any time.

Which is to say, it is to accept all of the premises of secessionism, minus the conclusion to which they inexorably lead: to substitute, at the very end of the process, a “no” for a “yes,” having nodded agreement to all of the complaints that supposedly justified the break. And why? Because, you see, Canada can change. When Ms. Smith says she supports “Alberta remaining in Canada,” because “I believe Canada can still work,” she means that Canada “still” has a chance to avert its own destruction, by conceding to her demands for more powers.
When Mr. Poilievre asserts, “we do not need a different country in Alberta. We need different government policies in Ottawa,” he invites the question: What if those different policies are not forthcoming? When he reels off a list of Conservative policies that “Albertans” are supposedly demanding – it is not clear whether this includes the 45 per cent or so of Albertans who tell pollsters they would vote for the federal Liberals, the NDP, or the Greens – as the remedy for separatism, he is implicitly legitimizing secession as the response in the event they are not delivered.
And, even more, as the tool to see that they are delivered. This is the game that Quebec “federalists” have played for decades: using the threat of secession – a threat they would never make themselves, you understand, but one that, well, those other hotheads are making – to further their own jurisdictional and political ends.

Don’t get me wrong. It is delightful that the Premier of Alberta has declared that she prefers, at the moment, all things considered, pending further developments, that Albertans should vote to remain in Canada. It is not so delightful that she thinks it is up to them – or rather, that she thinks it is up to Canada to beg for its right to exist, and Albertans to decide whether it has begged in the appropriate fashion.
As in Quebec, as in all the long decades of indulging the unindulgable that have brought us to this pass, it’s not the separatists that are the real threat to the country. It’s the federalists.

Danielle Smith and her band of hollow men love to punch down and grovel up. Cruelty is the point. It's the glue that binds modern conservatives, the sort of people who rejoice in the suffering of others. Alberta's experiencing one manufactured crisis after another, costing billions. Have we forgotten that the sole role of government is to take care of its people, now and into the future?

Today, I am shattered.

Earlier this week, members of Alberta's disability community became aware of an individual who expressed that the transition from AISH to ADAP had left him feeling hopeless and overwhelmed. A number of us did everything we could to connect him with help and emergency supports. When I became aware of the situation, I worked quickly alongside others to locate information that could assist emergency responders in reaching him.

Today, we learned that he has passed away.

I am heartbroken. I am angry. I am grieving. And I know I am not alone.

My heart is with his family, friends, and everyone who knew and cared about him. It is also with the countless Albertans with disabilities who are carrying fear, uncertainty, and anxiety about what the future may hold.

This loss is devastating. It is a reminder that behind every policy discussion, every government announcement, and every budget decision are real people trying to survive, maintain their independence, and live with dignity.

I cannot change what happened, but I can promise this: I will continue to speak up. I will continue to advocate. I will continue to push for policies that respect the dignity, security, and humanity of people with disabilities. I refuse to allow this moment to be forgotten, and I will carry it with me as I continue this work.

If there is one thing I hope comes from this tragedy, it is that we listen more carefully to the people living these realities. Their voices matter. Their experiences matter. Their lives matter.

To everyone in our disability community who is struggling right now: please reach out. Please talk to someone. Please let others support you. You matter, and your story matters.

Today, I am grieving alongside so many others. Tomorrow, I will continue advocating for a province where people with disabilities are treated with dignity, respect, and compassion.

You will not be forgotten. 🕊️

If you are in crisis or worried about someone else:
📞 Call or text 988
📞 Alberta Mental Health Help Line: 1-877-303-2642
📞 Call 911 if there is an immediate risk to life