Ah, but since other market participants will make money if there ISN’T a fire, those people will be equally incentivized to prevent fires—they’ll be out raking and wetting things down and so forth. Betting on whether there’ll be a fire can have no net effect on fire making.

Listen I will just say to any American politicians who are just watchimg their colleagues issue veiled threats at Canada for having wildfires in one of the largest boreal forests in the world you better not issue any "please buy or wine and visit our casino" notices

Metrolinx won’t say how much it paid the premier’s friend for implausibly-valued air rights he didn’t even own. “Every dollar paid out to the premier’s bestie is money of the people of Ontario, and we deserve answers” said @maritstilesndp.bsky.social www.torontotoday.ca/local/transp... #onpoli

Good news: Housing prices could soon be on the way up again! www.rbc.com/en/economics...

I find myself skeptical. The sun is RED.

A whole C.D. Howe analysis complaining that planning policy in Ontario hasn’t delivered the single-family homes people want without *ever once* contemplating the reasons for that policy. https://cdhowe.org/publication/gta-homebuyers-want-ground-related-housing-but-planning-policies-miss-the-mark/

Buddy has had days to think of what to say. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

The proposal is for a fairly small data centre, as these things go. 35 megawatts, and about the physical size of a Walmart, with 229K square feet across two storeys.

Aside from warning about the racket, they might’ve announced the plan *so people could go watch.*

We said we were going to annex you, you got offended. Who’s to say who started this, really.

Where is downtown? It's an endless debate. Let's finally settle it! Choose a city, add your definition of downtown, and compare it to the general public. Then share your map on social media!

A U.S. senator who doesn’t want his state to suffer consequences because of the president his country elected has not bothered to learn which level of government in Canada he needs to be appealing to for relief.

Americans' desire for the rest of the world to fix the mess they made (and are continuing to make) is unabated.

Ah, yes, the part of the year when companies put out news releases with contact info at the bottom and the people you're supposed to contact for more information are out of the office.

Oh, man. Because of Ottawa's extreme weather yesterday, Cornerstone Housing for Women suffered a flood. It's taking major resources, human and financial, to deal with the damage and keep women housed. They're asking folks to donate, if they can:

Happy Pvt. Marshall Sherman Day to all who celebrate

This story by the excellent @kristynease.bsky.social somehow just gets more horrifying as it goes. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/i-will-kill-everyone-around-you-threat-to-ex-by-father-in-double-murder-suicide-emerges-9.7256577

Edmonton's Zero Point Cryogenics makes freezers that can chill quantum devices to a few fractions of a degree above absolute zero. They sell as many as they can produce, at about a million bucks each, and they just signed a deal for a way bigger factory. thelogic.co/news/zero-po...

Received an access-to-information package this week from DND: A briefing note on the Pentagon's climate adaptation plan and risk analysis. The plan was released in October 2021; the Canadian briefing document was prepared in November. I filed for it in January 2022.

Good morning, UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The new federal nuclear energy strategy is Candu-Candu-Candu. That's fine, says key competitor Westinghouse. The provinces make these decisions, and they're going to pick us. Underneath this is a question as deep as any about economic growth and national sovereignty. thelogic.co/news/cameco-...

"Ben owns a farm. He employs 100 workers. His total payroll is $10 million/year. One day, he buys a mule, which provides the worker who uses it with a modest 10% productivity gain. Ben fires 99 of his workers and purchases 99 mules, expecting a 1,000% productivity gain..."

Today, Maritime Launch Services has a $200-million federal contract. Two years ago, it was nearly broke. In a new lawsuit, a Toronto PR firm and an ex-Russia Today host allege MLS promised to pay them in stock options to help rescue it, and then reneged. thelogic.co/news/rocket-...

Said aloud, it would sound exactly the same.

James Neufeld sat on the feds' AI task force. His Edmonton company, Samdesk, has sold its crisis-alert software to global corporations and Canada's allies. He's very frustrated with how little the "Buy Canadian" philosophy seems to mean to his own government. thelogic.co/news/samdesk...

Nice to see the Toronto Tunnel Guy spreading his wings a bit. https://www.rmoutlook.com/banff/portion-of-popular-beach-collapses-in-banff-national-park-reveals-old-hidden-building-12425371

Notes from the rabbit hole. I got up early so I'm spelunking the Nova Scotia archives shop. How about this 1890 "birdseye" map of Halifax industries and institutions? share.google/2ocmxT1d4sMS...

The Liberals are quick-marching the "lawful access" bill for digital wiretaps, C-22, through the legislative process. See the motion under "Government Business" near the bottom here: www.ourcommons.ca/documentview...

Today in WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THIS SHIT?

Devastating account of degeneracy in the Ottawa police, which seems to be getting worse. Including that the police lied about the status of an investigative office (they'd killed it and pretended otherwise!) and the police board let them. By @kristynease.bsky.social . www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Ottawa’s thing is: “We want what Montreal is doing, as long as it doesn’t cost anything or interfere with traffic.”

This is crazy framing (from the original university release about the research). Like driving intoxicated is a thing that just happens to them.

The line on (relatively) inexpensive, low-waste fusion energy is that it's 30 years away and always will be. Expat Canadian Spencer Pitcher has spent decades in elite fusion research centres trying to pull that timeline forward. Now he's coming home. thelogic.co/news/spencer...

Never gets old. J-school essay topic: Is there any performance test for essentially life-tenure columnists? A limit on how many big calls you can get totally wrong, before they say: Hey, buddy, how about taking a step back for a while. Maybe a few reported pieces? Where you go out and ask around?

From the start of a Federal Court of Appeal decision published today. Is it possible that the telecom and broadcasting regulatory system in Canada has too many avenues of appeal? decisions.fca-caf.ca/fca-caf/deci...

The Cansec military trade show in Ottawa is a giant, intense, overwhelming, sometimes weird thing. Here's my best attempt at describing what it was like to be inside (and in the parking lot with a Gripen jet) in Cansec's banner year. thelogic.co/news/defence...

In the early 2020s, Canadian startups didn’t get much hotter than ApplyBoard, whose business matching foreign applicants to university and college programs was worth $4 billion and had the immigration minister comparing its founding brothers to the Wright brothers. Things have changed.

I've been quietly waiting to see how the last of Jim Watson's big legacy projects would pan out.

Streaming giants ordered to pay 15% of Canadian revenue to fund Cancon, a huge jump from the current five per cent, putting the CRTC on a collision course with U.S. streamers—and the White House. thelogic.co/news/streami...

This is good. "The overall theme to my advice is simple: Value your platform and your role in a healthy democracy."

Shopify's shareholders will vote on whether Shopify should adopt a policy on responsible use of AI at the company's AGM next month. The company is asking shareholders to vote no. thelogic.co/news/shopify...

Sarah Paquet, head of Fintrac, steps down. She led Canada’s anti-money-laundering watchdog through a period of turmoil and high-profile scandals. thelogic.co/news/fintrac...

ATIP-based scoop: NATO wants Canada to host a satellite ground station for alliance communications, which NATO would pay for. The only one on this side of the Atlantic: thelogic.co/news/nato-sa...

It appears that malfunctioning AI-driven drones from Ukraine that accidentally hit Latvia have led to the fall of the Latvian government. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Hey! Canadian journalism jobs! The Narwhal is hiring a reporter in B.C. and one (almost) anywhere in Canada. We're looking for seasoned, ambitious reporters to focus their skills on the natural world and how it connects to politics, industry - and people. thenarwhal.bamboohr.com/careers?sour...

Ontario's Auditor General finds that private career colleges are falsifying truck driver training records and skipping lessons like "left turns at major intersections, reverse parking and emergency stopping" www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... #onpoli

Anthropic's announcement that its Mythos model was really, really good at hacking set off alarms in tech companies and governments. Here's how the news crashed through the Canadian cybersecurity community, starting with a bug report read in a home office in Kitchener. thelogic.co/news/the-big...

Oh my. This is spectacular. sinceyouarrived.world/taken