Unrelated to the actual content of the article, but I hate how I keep mixing up her and Bonnie Critchley even after the by-election.

Strathcona is incredible. That section of Whyte Ave is so active, and it’s a very artsy part of the city because festivals like The Fringe take part there. I used to go there regularly growing up since my grandmother wasn’t far off around Bonnie Doon.

But it wouldn’t have been possible without the funding for the arts that happened under Peter Lougheed’s Progressive Conservatives. It’s also wild to me how many areas are NDP provincially, and then Conservative federally.

Imma shoot my shot and say Conservative. Point 5 does it for me.

Edit: oop, misunderstood the game, thought these were all quotes from a singular person.

I think to myself that Alberta is a highly misunderstood place, that the people here are more relatable and complex than the stereotypes that I hear come so often from people in nearly every other province.

…and then each time I think that we can beat the stereotype, some random politician whose name I’ve never heard before shows up out of the woodworks to make a comment nobody asked for on an issue that doesn’t affect us.

Shit like this pains me man

Wish I could find more vegan ice cream. Chapman’s has a sugar-free lactose-free ice cream. Issue is that because it uses maltitol as the artificial sweetener, you basically end up with the same effect as if there was lactose if you have too much of it in one go. For context, maltitol is the same sweetener used in the infamous Haribo sugar-free gummy bears.

There was a brand I came across long time back that was oat-based and Canadian. Just can’t find them anywhere anymore since the Urban Fare out this way in 'berta was converted to a Save On and no longer carries it.

Hansard transcripts are a thing, and they livestream and timestamp videos of House sessions.

CSR in Asia is probably more likely to deliver equivalent quality if the people they provided service to were more local to them. Wouldn’t be surprised if quality of service increases the more local the workers are.

Forgot Dare made Jujubes! Grew up with my family getting Jujubes regularly, and I remember being the one that would have the black ones because nobody else in the family liked black liquorice.

Will try playing it safe with Cheezies. I do like them, but with my lactose intolerance I need to be careful. I do like them a lot though, would have them every now and again before I developed the intolerance.

You do realise they present these in the House, right? This isn’t change.org. They bring the issues into parliament, and with that, politicians are able to held more directly accountable because one simply can’t just state that they weren’t aware of the issue. They are put on record as to whether or not they were present when the petition was presented by a sponsoring MP, and are put on record for their stance on it.

People that say “petitions do nothing” talk about corporate sites like change.org where it is literally inadmissible. OurCommons is literally provided by the federal government to give your voice to parliament.

Oh no, the guy who said he doesn’t mind people getting shot, gets shot.

I’m just waiting for a video playing what he’s said about gun control and political violence with the Curb Your Enthusiasm theme playing to the news coverage of the shooting after.

I don’t condone this, but I’m not saying it isn’t funny either.

The fact gets especially painful when you realise that the people telling you to “stay out of ‘their’ business” are much less informed about things than you are, and genuinely will not take anything other than your silence for an answer.

Compliments dried lentils at Safeway and Sobeys should be Canadian if you want the dried ones. Pretty sure Bulk Barn also sources their lentils domestically.

For canned, Unico comes to mind, but I’d assume Compliments would also be Canadian. I’d check other brands since while I’d imagine them to be the same case, some might also be imported from China or India.

Not to give too much leeway to these companies, but I feel like the reason for this is all a confusion of what consumers are wanting.

On the part of the consumer, they want more stuff made here in Canada, but on the part of the grocery stores, they either misread the room and think they want Canadian brands, or assume they know better and go by Canadian brands seeing how so much of what we get at the grocery store in Canada either isn’t grown at demand, or can’t be grown here at all.

This would probably be best sorted with a better product labeling system enforced by the government. I used to work on Open Food Facts a lot (stopped doing so for a variety of reasons), and learned that how we label food here is so confusing when we can make it much more simplified and easier to read.

Something like a checklist format would be nice. Something like:

Canadian brand? [checkbox]
Domestically owned? [checkbox]
Canadian Ingredients? [five bars shifting from red to green, each bar being the closest 20% increment of domestic ingredients by volume]

Just this would help a tonne. You can identify truly Canadian brands and keep your dollars in Canada, and also do so more intensely if you wish by avoiding products that fail to meet a certain threshold of domestic ingredients. It prevents companies from having to assume they know better than the consumer when it comes to assuming what they actually want, and replaces the “made with domestic and imported ingredients”, “product of Canada”, and “Made in Canada” labels with something that paints a more clear and obvious picture to the consumer.

I do think there is some level of malice, but I think this is overwhelmingly just companies throwing their shoulders up in confusion when major products we buy (coffee, chocolate, tea, sugar for most of Canada) just aren’t grown here, and don’t want the less informed types spending all day looking at labels for a chocolate bar with Canadian-grown cocoa when Canadian brands are the closest thing to what they want lol.

“Hey guys, look at this image I made showing how much I care about the environment”

It’s AI generated.

This doesn’t help your case you know.

I think the term is fine if you approach it from an “invasive species” mindset rather than an “undesirable” mindset.

I don’t know if it was intentionally done by my teachers, but that’s the impression I always got about the term since it was usually brought up in the context of introduced species of plants causing harm to native species. Stuff like dandelions and such.

…only now?

Probably going to be against the grain, but I think the idea is interesting.

Thinking of like, the late late night where you probably don’t have a host and someone wants to have one since that’s what I like most about radio.

If it’s treated as an experimental placeholder until they can support a host being in that time slot, I say go for it, line for me is drawn when they use that to replace hosts.

Not sure where abouts you live, but Big Mountain is a brand I see in the stores here in Calgary often. Think they’re based in B.C…

Their products have been hit or miss for me, the veggie burgers were alright, but the “bites” were something I didn’t enjoy at all, though that’s likely personal preference more than anything.

They make plant-based sausages, though I’ve yet to give those a try.

Chiming in to say it’s not just Trump. It’s the capitulation to Trump from the “opposition” as well, from both politicians, and, unfortunately, a significant portion of voters.

I’m seeing people defend Gavin Newsom over transphobic comments, and instead of demanding better or seeking someone more in line with their beliefs, they’ll attack people who point that out and say “oh, we need to capitulate on this issue because he’s the ‘best’ chance we have!”.

And it’s like congrats, you’re capitulating your values to be more in line with the people taking people’s rights away, saying that certain people’s rights are now on the table as some sort of playing card in politics… which is exactly what the far-right wants normalised.

Then you have people like Mamdani come about where they don’t use people’s rights as a chess piece, and the same people who espouse “unification” will be up in arms about how that doesn’t apply to those they disagree with. Democrats have been playing the capitulation game for so long rather than chart their own path, have made zero gains on that front, and decided that doubling down on that is the way to go despite Republicans making it clear as day they have no interest in changing stance.

All while they further lose support from the people that vote for them, those who are disenfranchised and watching as both parties veer more to the right at the cost of their rights and well-being, and with those who still support them being as smug and insufferable as the people they claim to be opposed to.