Perhaps if enough citizens spend an afternoon shivering in the stands of a wintertime football game we might achieve a small piece of sanity and learn that that , while climate is always changing, it’s not worth the price we’ve paid this century. Luckily some are doing just that.

There’s nothing like a well-run country, and Canada is nothing like a well-run country. To test the MOU on energy between Alberta and Ottawa the federal Conservatives (remember them?) put forward a motion to build the pipeline from Alberta to the B.C. coast. Even though the motion used the same language of the MOU, the Liberals and their hand maidens defeated the motion. Carney himself abstained because, hey, look at that shiny object.

Bitter Canadians could put up with Wayne Gretzky sucking up to Donald Trump, but failing geography is unforgivable. The week that started with Gretzky in a photo golfing at POTUS’s Jupiter, Florida, golf course was ending with him pummelled for his abuse of nations with different-sounding names.

A new photo has emerged of the greatest offensive star in NHL history playing golf with the president at his Jupiter, Florida, golf course— the one where Ryan Wesley Routh tried to assassinate Trump.  This led to the same predictable rending of garments and clutching of pearls that greeted Gretzky’s earlier declaration of loyalty to The Worst Human Being Ever®. Traitor is now the mildest description of 99 chez nous.

If the NHL playoffs were to begin next week (we wish) then it would be a cold breakfast for teams in Elbows Up. Just two clubs—Winnipeg and Montreal— would even qualify for the postseason. And the Jets have just found out their star goalie Connor Hellybuyck is unlikely to play much before mid-January. That will be hard to blame on Trump.

The public should know just how much of the prize money they’re donating goes to the charity. Because you won’t get it from listening to the team games on TV which marvel at the 50/50 amounts. It’s worth noting because there have been questions raised about other large sports 50/50 draws. The charity in charge of the Edmonton Oilers 50/50 raffles paid more than $81 million in lottery funds over four years to Win50, a sports betting and gaming company controlled by the Oilers Entertainment Group.

Like all people addicted, CDN Boomers don't want the truth. They want performance theatre, T-shirts and hockey games. They blame Trump for their predicament, caught between grim realities. Will they take the 12 steps? Or will their kids have to tell them the facts as they escort them to the home?” Because we’re now seeing the likely answer to that question everywhere in Canadian society.

The most amazing feature of the Mark Carney/Danielle Smith MOU is that both politicians probably want the deal to fail. Carney can tell fossil-fuel enemy Quebec that he tried to reason with Smith, and Smith can say she tried to meet the federalists halfway. Failure suits their larger purposes.

Getting a universal system that helps the needy, balances care levels while not degrading treatment is illusory. Alberta is willing to admit that fact. Like agreement on pipelines the province’s Bill 11 will face nothing but headwinds from the diehards (pun intended) who still believe Michael Moore’s fairy tales about a free system in Canada. And will do nothing to bind Canada’s warring factions.

For the forseeable future Poilievre scorn will be the order of the day. Just remember that Mark Carney is just a stop-gap, a guy to rag the puck for a few years till the Liberals have groomed Justin’s eldest for the PMO. Where he can complete the Woking of traditional Canada that Grandpapa Pierre started in 1968.

Somewhere along the way the suicidal empathy of progressives— combined with a need for low-income workers for corporations— loosened the expectations for those arriving in the West. In Canada, prime minster Justin Trudeau adopted Yan Martel’s diversity model of Canada as a travellers’ hotel. No longer would newcomers need to assimilate. Now it’s the old stock who must adapt.

Pitching cultural hate is the Left’s new party game. Writes law professor Jonathan Turley. “The key is to get voters to hate your opponent so much that they forget how much they dislike you. Only then can you hate completely without restraint or regret.” That old Democrat street fighter Nancy Pelosi understands the new rules. On the eve of her likely retirement announcement, a snarling Pelosi called President Trump "such a vile creature -- the worst thing on the face of the earth.” 

Podcasts have become so ubiquitous it’s easy to forget they are relative newcomers to the digital broadcast scene. For this reason, a recently released academic work - Podcast Studies: Practice into Theory- is an important read for podcast listeners, podcast content creators and those who promote and curate this rapidly evolving medium.

Skilled satire, adroit wit and whimsy combine with engaging

prose and intriguing characters to make Canadian author

Christy Climenhage’s debut novel, The Midnight Project, an

often-exceptional read.

Four dynamic poetic voices— each with distinct perspectives on spiritual enlightenment, trauma, pastoral beauty and the joys of the physical body— were highlighted at McClelland & Stewart’s 2025 spring poetry night held earlier this month.

Stephanie Cesca is a strong and capable storyteller. Her passion for detail and vivid imagination creates an authentic fictional world. Readers can see her characters in their mind’s eye. They can relate to their pain.

Throughout the book’s 384 pages, readers are kept guessing as to the killer’s motives. Could such rampaging violence be  a professional hit or a random act of madness? Or was the victim bludgeoned out of existence due to his shady business dealings and abusive, violent past?

Clewes is a sensory, effusive poet. Her lyrical words reflect a deep musical sense. In the third section, Calle Obispo, the poem of the same title, references Nobel Prize-winning poet and Polish-Lithuanian  author Czeslaw Milosz. The first stanza turns a plane trip into a spiritual experience.