"By one key measurement, Canada is already “the 51st State” that Donald Trump cruelly and senselessly characterizes as being its future. The World Bank puts the U.S. 2025 GDP per person at $90,250. Canada’s 2025 GDP per person is $55,698. Mississippi, the poorest state in America, sits at $55,877. So Canada’s national average is below the level of all 50 U.S. states. The Economist bluntly quotes Jean Charest, who was premier of Quebec from 2003 to 2012, as believing that “Canadians may one day thank America’s president for shocking them out of a slumber.” The first sign that may be happening came from British Columbia on Saturday. As Charest himself puts it, “Trump is now telling us we have no choice but to change.”" @johnfund

Full interview where CBC introduced Camosun instructor Daniel Reeve as a neutral political science expert to analyze BC’s new Conservative premier Lorne Doerkson. What they left out: Reeve is a former NDP candidate who worked as a ministerial aide under an NDP government Here’s the “non-partisan” analysis: He opens by calling Doerkson’s tone “humble” and “sincere,” then immediately undercuts the majority: more than half of voters didn’t support him, so the numbers “don’t quite back that up.” Classic framing of a Conservative win as less legitimate than the seat count On the campaign, he contrasts Eby’s Trump-focused pitch with the Conservatives actually talking about the deficit, emergency care, and the economy—implying the NDP missed the mark while the right read the room Then the money quote on Doerkson’s plan: they’ll walk through the budget, declare “it’s worse than we thought,” and impose “a whole bunch of cuts so that we don’t raise taxes and so that we don’t cut health care.” This, he says, is the message meant to “hold that center right to kind of far right coalition together and also kind of pin the problems of his government on the past.” He later describes Carney as closer to the NDP on fiscal questions, notes the provincial NDP had shifted toward the center, and flags energy/forestry expansion as creating problems with DRIPA and Indigenous consent. On the snap election, he relays an “NDP kind of leaning supporter” who refused to “walk across hot coals” to vote NDP, frames Eby’s call as “here’s the fire. Follow me,” and points to 200,000 previous NDP voters who stayed home All of it delivered as dispassionate academic insight from a former NDP candidate and government aide. Disclosure by CBC was apparently optional. This is not journalism @CBCOmbud

Carney’s “prudent banker” brand is dead. The PBO just showed the books are being cooked Debt-service costs are now the fastest-growing federal expense: $25B five years ago → $59B this year (already larger than the Canada Health Transfer) → $83B in five years. Pure interest, paid before anything else PBO Annette Ryan: the government’s fiscal “anchors” are “more like traffic lights.” Capital spending gets a green light; operating spending is a yellow at best. “Limited fiscal discipline. It’s not stopping spending.” Real cash borrowing over five years: $733B. New debt from deficits: only $333B. The ~$400B gap is being parked with Crown corporations, loans and special funds—“a step removed from parliamentary oversight.” New risks, she said, and less transparency The former Bank of Canada/Bank of England governor who once policed balance sheets is now redefining accounting so the headline targets stay pretty while the actual liability grows off-books. Taxpayers get stuck with the interest bill @PBO_DPB

Lorne Doerkson on Wab Kinew’s comments that the BC results “should concern every elected politician” and that being elected is “a responsibility not to be played with”: “Well, I don’t disagree. We should all be concerned. British Columbians voted for change last night and for whatever reason they liked the platform that we put forward. … I’ve always been somebody that the moment I’ve been elected I’ve got to work and for me that isn’t going to change. I intend to get to work right away. I intend to work for British Columbia hard because four years comes quick.” @WabKinew @LDoerkson