Obviously, Canada and U.S. are entirely different political systems with different media environments and so forth, but as someone who likes the content of podcasters like The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, Hasan Minhaj and podcasters/tech journalists like Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher and "free thinkers" like Bari Weiss and her ilk, I am wondering if Canada has any similar content that I am just unable to find with google/duck searches? As a Canadian, I think I should be consuming more content that goes over Canadian news rather than American but our media environment seems really barren if you are trying to avoid CBC produced material.

The closest I could find was Canadaland but after a few episodes, I found that host is of a particular brand of "progressive" that I don't particularly care for.

I keep seeing this phrase, mostly with relation to USA-Canadian politics right now.

I was curious enough to look this up and it seems this phrase came from a famous hockey player, Gordie Howe.

Now, I want to say that my initial thought before researching this was, "oh, elbows up must be passive resistance, it's like someone folding their arms waiting for you to calm down, it's like putting your elbows up on a table refusing to eat/being rude on purpose to prove a point"

What I found, and the crux of the question, is it seems like a license to practice violence, when you deem it necessary. It seems very, "ends justify the means" -- because it is inherently a very violent rhetoric. I feel the current use of the term is, "don't take shit from anyone if they are bullying you". But this completely disregards its origins.

My further search into the hockey part of it sounds like the player didn't just use his "elbows" in retaliation, it sounds like he was really actively violent (on the ice)...so...I guess I just don't get it, I don't get why a society would glorify such a violent backed terminology, to combat...extremely violent behavior (threats of annexation).

Genuinely interested to hear anyone's opinions on this phrase.

Bonus, I saw one explanation of the player that I thought was funny, his "rational and expert application of violence"

I watch CBC pretty regularly and all I have seen for the past month is coverage about Trump's comments about annexing us and I can't tell if I am missing something obvious or am just naive but I can't take the threat seriously and I am starting to hate that CBC is talking about it so much and that we have Canadian politicians actively addressing it rather than just dismissing it (the fact that Doug Ford went on that idiot Jesse Waters show to push back on it made me facepalm).

Cause from my point of view, let's say Trump in his immense stupidity is serious about the threat. He wants to bring back American expansionism and apparently misunderstood his history classes from back in the day and thinks "manifest destiny" is a good thing.

and given that he has installed loyalists as his heads of departments, let's even say they all either agree or are too chicken-shit to oppose it and get cancelled by Trump.

Canada would never agree to being annexed so that means Trump would have to launch a war against us to annex us. You are telling me that if push comes to shove, that the men and women in the armed forces would actually be willing to invade a sovereign nation that they might even have ties to (given Canada and American culture+society are so connected)? and you are telling me that the generals and people in power in the American military industrial complex would be willing to follow an order to invade Canada?

I mean sure, America has been known to invade countries in the Middle East for their natural resources and pretend its for national security but imo there's a big difference in being able to sell the idea to the American people and the viewers of Faux News that invading a brown country far off in the distance and saying its cause of Islamic extremism vs invading a country whose stereotype is literally that we are too apologetic and nice.

Am I missing something obvious?

And just to clarify, I am not saying that Trump isn't serious about it. he probably is and it probably has to do with our natural resources as Trudeau was caught on a hot mic saying as much in a meeting and our politicians need to address it. but for our politicians to act like there is a legit chance of an invasion seems odd to me. and the CBC talking about it so much and giving so much airtime to it is really getting on my nerves.

What I will say is the one thing that bugs me about all this honestly is just Musk and Trump calling Trudeau a "governor". not that I like Trudeau. The day he decided to break his campaign promise of election reform, he was dead to me, but I just don't like it when people dish it out when they can't take it and Musk and Trump are the most thin-skinned c**nts on the planet. If Trudeau responded to either of them on Twitter with something as condescending, they would both cry like little babies and somehow find a way to blame the woke mind virus and trans people for Trudeau being "nasty" to them.

sorry for dumb question but here it goes: I remember during the first administration, Trump launched some tariffs against us and if I recall correctly, it resulted in the signing of the USMCA which replaced NAFTA.

So, where I get lost is, are these agreements non-binding? Like a country can just choose not to follow them and face no consequences before they expire? Cause I'd assume that what the U.S. is doing breaks the conditions of the USMCA?

and if it's non-binding, then that means that even if another agreement is signed yet again, if Trump wants to throw a new tantrum halfway through his presidency and do tariff wars again, there's nothing stopping him and we'd have to come up with and sign a brand new agreement yet again?

I'm preoccupied with a couple of things.

The first being that the federal budget was just released and I'm feeling like a national school lunch program and an injection of money into housing with the expectation that cities build higher density dwellings is... Something they should have done mid mandate?

Is there even time to implement this stuff? Are we getting close to the point where we've spent too much?

Second is a quote from a compilation of personal accounts from travellers into this country's north in the 1800s. Farley Mowat assembled the stories and wrote the forward for "Tundra" in the 1960s and says the following

"Until 50 or 60 years ago, the Arctic was a living reality to North Americans of every walk of life. It had become real because men of their own kind were daring it's remote fastness in search of pure adventure", unprotected by the vast mechanical shields that we now demand whenever we step out of our air conditioned sanctuaries".

He goes on to talk about how -- most of all -- easily heated dwellings and running water had a softening effect on people, and that (basically) we fear and avoid Canada's climate far more than our forebearers did.

Wondering what people's thoughts on this are.

From what you learned from grandparents or earlier generations about spending time outside, would you agree that the comforts of home are just too damned seductive?

If it's never even a remote consideration that the NDP may break from the Liberals and side with the CPC in the House of Commons, aren't they essentially a vassal for the LPC, soaking up votes from disaffected Liberal voters and funneling them back into Liberal control? I mean from a simple game theoretic perspective, Liberals in the long run can demand everything and give nothing. I think Canadian politics has probably been damaged by overapplying the American left-right political spectrum, when it may be better thought as a three way spectrum between liberalism, conservatism, and democratic socialism (something like Red Toryism for example would be pretty inconceivable in American politics).