Inflation will chart Canada’s economic fate, Ottawa’s fiscal update shows – National | Globalnews.ca:

Canada is ready to weather the harsh winter winds cooling the global
economy, despite being set for “significantly weaker growth,” according
to the government’s fall economic statement on Thursday.

The update from Chrystia Freeland,
the Liberal finance minister and deputy prime minister, keeps the
government’s fiscal “powder dry,” reserving major spending items for the
next federal budget in the spring. But it contains a few targeted
measures such as boosts for low-wage workers and student loan interest
relief to support Canadians struggling with inflation and interest
rates.

        Read more: 
            <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9250616/fall-economic-statement-student-loan-relief-whats-new/" title="Student loan interest relief and more: What’s new in the fall economic statement?" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
            Student loan interest relief and more: What’s new in the fall economic statement?               </a>

It is that very risk of stubborn and prolonged inflation —
and the monetary tightening needed to stamp it out — that informs
Ottawa’s fiscal path.

Many of the government’s projections are
based on surveys of private-sector economists conducted in September
2022. The update makes clear that since that time, economic growth
prospects have worsened across the globe.

Freeland focused on
“uncertain times” in the global economy, driven by Russia’s invasion of
Ukraine and “aftershocks” from the COVID-19 pandemic in the update. She
pointed to these external factors as driving economies around the world
into decline and said Canada will not be immune.

“Canada cannot
avoid the global slowdown to come, any more than we could have prevented
COVID from reaching our shores once it had begun to infect the world,”
the document reads.

Opinion | Why Conservatives Can’t Stop Acquiring Media Companies: Elon
Musk has officially gone from Twitter’s most notorious troll to its
commander in chief. And conservatives are gleeful that the social media
platform is now more welcoming of their talking points, with little censorship or oversight.

It’s not just Musk who is creating
safe spaces for conservatives online. There are a handful of
conservative social media outlets vying to replace Twitter as the de
facto digital public sphere including Donald Trump’s Truth Social, Jason
Miller’s GETTR, and Gab, long a haven for neo-Nazis. Last month, Ye,
better known as Kanye West, announced his agreement to buy Parler,
giving the site a much-needed pop cultural boost.

None of this should come as a surprise. Conservatives have often been early adopters or innovators of new and emerging media.

They’ve
already proven adept at innovation in digital content creation —
leveraging apps such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Spotify to
produce and amplify far-right video blogs, live streaming services like
Right Side Broadcasting Network and podcasters like Ben Shapiro. They’ve
also launched a seemingly endless array of conservative news sites,
from the Daily Caller to Breitbart to Gateway Pundit.

But
this surge of online content is merely the latest front in a 70-year
effort by conservative activists to cultivate an alternative media
system to rival mainstream media hegemony. There is no comparable left-wing counterpart.
What explains the right’s fixation on media? Why do conservatives seem
more interested and adept at media activism than their left and liberal
opponents?