An RCMP Report Warns That Canada Faces Major Threats in the Coming Years. No Kidding.

Hidden in the tumult of the news cycle, an internal RCMP report last week about medium-term risks facing Canada should have generated more attention. On March 10th, the CBC reported on the document after Matt Malone of Thompson Rivers University obtained it through an access to information request.

The report warns of various crises shaping life in Canada now and in the years to come, including climate change and extreme weather, political polarization, geopolitical conflict, an increasingly polluted information space, and economic decline — not the least of which is the fact that home ownership is increasingly out of reach for so many of the country’s younger population.

According to the report “The coming period of recession will also accelerate the decline in living standards that the younger generations have already witnessed compared to earlier generations.” A growing wealth gap has long been a gathering storm, and that storm is now making landfall in full-effect. It will bring nasty outcomes.

Writing in Better Dwelling, Stephen Punwasi argues “The transfer of housing from end users (or even “mom & pop” landlords) to institutional investors results in communities being reduced into yield generating assets. As a consequence, prioritization of wealth extraction occurs without regard for long-term sustainability, leaving communities vulnerable to shock.” He reminds us that such shifts have been central to political instability and even collapse in the past. And some tend to imagine we are infinitely resilient, or such things could never happen to use — even after the Covid-19 pandemic wreaked havoc — the compounding weight of crises is a potential Voltron of doom. |Read more https://www.davidmoscrop.com/p/an-rcmp-report-warns-that-canada| davidmoscrop.com/p/an-rcmp-rep…

#cdnpoli #housing #recession #regression #instability #Volatile #communities

Canada’s Right Is Moving Further Right—And Closer to the U.S.

…As Mulroney’s government worked closely with U.S. Republicans, they still remained ideologically distant on many issues. Mulroney, for instance, drew criticism from Reagan for imposing sanctions against South Africa during apartheid. But in the 1990s and early 2000s, conservatives in Canada—and particularly conservative leaders in Alberta—pushed the Progressive Conservative Party further right. In 2003 it joined with another conservative party, creating what is now the Conservative Party of Canada.

As politicians on the right in the United States and Canada worked to strengthen diplomatic relations between the two countries, far-right activists and organizations have also strengthened cross-border ties. Ben Klassen, for instance, was raised in Canada, but founded the Church of the Creator—a white supremacist church—once he moved to the U.S. Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys, moved from Canada to the U.S. in 2001, when he began to embrace far-right ideology.

Now, as the Canadian far right has gained more power domestically, these connections have deepened. In 2022, a trucker convoy took over the downtown of Canada’s capital, Ottawa, to protest the vaccine mandate for truck drivers crossing the Canada-U.S. border. The trucker convoy itself seemed to signal how the ideologies of the U.S. and Canadian right had converged.

It also strengthened financial ties between far-right conservatives in both countries. Many who donated to the trucker convoy through crowdfunding websites had U.S. addresses. When GoFundMe took down the convoy’s donation page, U.S. Republicans such as Ron DeSantis and Jeff Landry protested the move, demanding immediate refunds to U.S. donors. In a sample of a 12-hour period, where donations totaled over half a million dollars, one news agency estimated that over half of identifiable donations came from south of the border.

In this way and others, the far right in the United States is helping to empower the far right in Canada. The ideological gap between the Liberals and Conservatives in Canada is growing larger as the far right gains more influence in the Conservative Party. All the while, despite significant differences (such as their positions on abortion and gun control), the Conservative and U.S. Republican Parties grow closer together, a move that is being championed by the far right on both sides of the border. |Read more https://time.com/6696097/canadian-far-right/| time.com/6696097/canadian-far-…

#cdnpoli #abpoli #extremeRight #supremacists #fascism capitalists #conservatives #republicans

Putin warns the West a Russia-NATO conflict is just one step from World War Three

MOSCOW, March 18 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West on Monday that a direct conflict between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three but said hardly anyone wanted such a scenario.

The Ukraine war has triggered the deepest crisis in Moscow’s relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Putin has often warned of the risks of nuclear war but says he has never felt the need to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine.

French President Emmanuel Macron last month said he could not rule out the deployment of ground troops in Ukraine in the future, with many Western countries distancing themselves from that while others, especially in eastern Europe, expressed support.

Asked by Reuters about the Macron remarks and the risks and possibility of a conflict between Russia and NATO, Putin quipped: “everything is possible in the modern world.”

“It is clear to everyone, that this will be one step away from a full-scale World War Three. I think hardly anyone is interested in this,” Putin told reporters after winning the biggest ever landslide in post-Soviet Russian history.|Read more https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putin-warns-west-russia-nato-conflict-is-just-one-step-ww3-2024-03-17/| reuters.com/world/europe/putin…

#war #WorldWar #Putin #Macron #allies #Ukraine #NATO #russia #cdnpoli