‘Barely holding on’: More than 1M Ontarians visited a food bank in last year

Ontarians continue to be using food banks at a record-breaking rate, with a new report warning the number of users grew for the ninth straight year as some families are “barely holding on.”

“What we’re seeing is really a greater depth of need in with the affordability crisis,” said Carolyn Stewart, CEO of Feed Ontario which released the report. “It’s really pushing more families from really that just getting-by area to barely holding on.”


We are being asked to support our replacement. Much pushback in the comments here.

What is rarely revealed is the number of “migrants” , “foreign students”,  “TFW’s” etc… who use the foodbanks.

From Google AI …

h/t Patti Jo

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Donald Trump not to blame for B.C’s financial woes, David Eby is

VICTORIA — Finance Minister Brenda Bailey released a budget update Thursday confirming that Premier David Eby has thrown away the good financial position he inherited from his NDP predecessor, John Horgan.

The proof is evident in a side-by-side comparison between two financial updates: the last one from the Horgan government, delivered Nov. 25, 2022, and the one Bailey delivered this week.


Eby is one among many who deserve blame more than Trump does.

(Incognito)

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CBSA shatters suspected dope ring bringing cocaine, meth into Canada

The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has shattered an alleged criminal conspiracy that moved millions of dollars in cocaine and methamphetamine over the border.

According to the CBSA, Operation Meridian was a targeted 60-day operation in Southern Ontario. Officials said the goal was to disrupt the import and export of illicit narcotics through commercial channels at ports of entry across Southern Ontario.

No arrest would be complete without Singhs.

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Canada clinches deal to join Europe’s €150B defense scheme

Canada has reached a final agreement to join the EU’s €150 billion Security Action for Europe program, two EU diplomats told POLITICO, marking the first time a third country will formally participate in the bloc’s flagship joint procurement initiative.

The breakthrough follows months of technically complex negotiations and was communicated directly to ministers taking part in Monday’s Foreign Affairs Council; Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius informed delegations that negotiations with Ottawa had concluded.


Who would come to our aid if invaded even if the motive was pure self interest? The EU? The USA?

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Why Canada risks Trump’s ire if it chooses Gripen gamesmanship over F-35 stealth

Canada Recycles to save on military expenditures – The Sherman Air Superiority Ground Attack Tank Thingy

WASHINGTON, D.C. — It’s a high-flying tale of carrots, sticks and political flip-flops.

American leaders have been urging Canada to boost its military spending and NATO contributions since the alliance’s founding, back in 1949. Some, like former U.S. president Barack Obama, have been polite about it, encouraging Ottawa that “the world needs more Canada,” while others, especially U.S. President Donald Trump, have been more blunt, referring to Canadians as “freeloaders” who are “delinquent” on military contributions.

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CHARLEBOIS: The slow, stunning retreat of Canadian alcohol

Canada is sobering up, quietly but progressively. Ontario’s latest LCBO annual report offers a remarkably honest portrait of a province — and indeed a country — entering a new era of alcohol consumption. The topline conclusion is unmistakable: Canadians are drinking less. Not sporadically, not because of a temporary shock, but as part of a sustained behavioural shift driven by economics, demographics, social norms, and increasingly, the availability of legal cannabis as a substitute.


Smokey bars are a fond memory of the long ago past for me. They became a lot less inviting when smoking was banned. 

Costs are steep nowadays I understand, I recall when 40 bucks meant a pretty good evening on the town.

Of course I also remember when a six pack cost two bucks.

I sometimes find myself nostalgic for those many nights I can’t remember.

 

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Ozempic and other GLP-1s about to take a bite out of the fast-food business: experts

Amy Schumer displays figure after weight loss from Mounjaro

If you visit a fast-food chain in the next few years, expect the menu to look a little less gluttonous.

In between the usual deep-fried options, industry observers anticipate more offerings that come in smaller portions, pack nutrients like protein or fibre and check enough boxes to be considered healthy.

The changes aren’t just a reflection of our growing predilection for snacking or our ongoing quest to trim down our tabs — and waists. They’re also because more people have shrinking appetites triggered by injectable drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro.


Of course there are plenty of other reasons to avoid fast food. Diversity springs to mind.

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DOBBIE: How much is a trillion dollars?

After living high off the hog since the 70’s, Canadians as a community have become fatter, lazier, less independently minded and more and more willing to believe in fairy tales. Our people will love you as long as you tell them what they want to hear. I am not talking about the “great unwashed” as the so-called “lower classes” used to be called. I am speaking about well-educated, reasonably intelligent people who have the capacity to understand more, but who are unwilling to invest in the mental effort.

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Carney government leans on ‘rounding difference’ to claim NATO spending target

The Carney government may meet its NATO defence promise this year only by relying on a “rounding difference,” according to the Parliamentary Budget Office, raising fresh doubts about Ottawa’s claims it is hitting key military spending goals.

Appearing before the Senate national finance committee, Interim Budget Officer Jason Jacques said Canada is only “close” to the NATO benchmark of spending 2% of GDP on defence by December 31 — a target Prime Minister Mark Carney has repeatedly touted as a done deal.

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Terry Glavin: China is a predator and détente should be out of the question

It should be obvious by now that the world order that has sustained prosperity in the northern hemisphere in a mostly uninterrupted epoch of peace over the past 80 years is dramatically unravelling. It just might take a while yet before we can definitively pinpoint the moment or the event that caused everything to finally fall apart.

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SLOBODIAN: Is Canada secretly preparing for World War III? Inside the ‘three-to-five-year’ war warnings, shocking the military

Top military officers are warning serving members that Canada must prepare for a major world war within the next “three to five years.”

“Command is saying ‘get ready, brace yourselves.’ They said the next chapter is about to begin and it’s going to be like nothing we’ve seen before,” said one source who attended a recent assembly.

Kinetic warfare. Imminent mobilization.

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Carney’s pipeline marks a shift from values-based trade-offs to economically grounded ones

“This is Canada working. This is co-operative federalism.”

That is how Prime Minister Mark Carney framed the recent memorandum of understanding between Ottawa and Alberta to build a pipeline to Canada’s west coast.

Credit where credit is due: it’s a sharp line.

But it didn’t take long for rhetoric to collide with reality.

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Do Mark Carney’s pipeline politics change the calculus of future confidence votes?

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s agreement with Alberta toward a new oil pipeline to the Pacific coast has angered the few opposition MPs who saved his Liberal government from falling in a recent confidence vote, increasing the prospect of a snap election.

On Thursday, Carney and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that outlined the conditions needed for Ottawa to back a new pipeline proposal, which included strengthening the province’s industrial carbon pricing system and supporting a carbon capture and storage project advanced by the Pathways Alliance — a consortium of Canada’s six largest oilsands companies.

In exchange, the federal government will scrap the long-promised oil and gas emissions cap, and exempt Alberta from regulations pressing provinces to decarbonize their electricity grid.

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Fresh Reporting on Asylum Seekers at the U.S.-Canadian Border

This week I published an article, months in the works, that followed the dramatic efforts of a senior nurse and the mother of two who had been living as an unauthorized immigrant in the United States for 22 years, as she tried to legally join her Canadian brother here.


We’re expected to bend over and accept every “refugee” that knocks on our door or we’ll be called racists by our so called elites.

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