I think Kory Teneycke is the most interesting person in Canadian politics. His willingness to just tell you that it’s checkmate in X number of moves is so delightfully bold without being tacky. But all spectacle aside, he’s telling you they’re coming for the rights of teachers.

I need someone in the Hill press to ask a very reasonable, mainstream question: WHY can't Canadians have environmental regulations and First Nations consultation and the right to strike while our government explores new markets for our goods and services? WHY can't we have both?

Carney government files 3rd court challenge in First Nations child welfare complaint cbc.ca/news/indigenous/first…

The exasperation in Elizabeth May’s voice is earned. We’re watching decades of democratic culture peeled away at the federal and provincial levels in Canada. The Green Party leader is right to say we should want answers & engagement instead of C-5 & the bulldozer. Does it matter?

As Canadian politicians were pitching their major project plans to foreign investors, First Nations youth from northern Ontario were making their own pitch to Canadians to join the fight against them. aptnnews.ca/?p=294584

About that time Flo Rida poured liquor all over the crowd at Wake the Giant, the sober music event welcoming high school students from fly-in First Nations across far northern Ontario to Thunder Bay.

Fort Severn First Nation member Miranda Mamakwa’s post ended with, “If I die, please go after them.”

RT @TBTNews_TBay: First Nations leaders demand action, after Fort Severn woman dies waiting for medical transport #tbay #tbtnews #tbtnewsho…

A Northwestern Health Unit release says over 60 drug poisonings/overdoses reported in Kenora in two days. nwhu.on.ca/increase-in-drug-… Tests show nitazene, a rare synthetic opioid, “significantly more toxic than fentanyl.” health-infobase.canada.ca/su…

Leaders in northern Ontario are demanding 'immediate, public accountability' and an independent investigation into the death of Fort Severn First Nation member Miranda Mamakwa | Story by Jesse Staniforth. aptnnews.ca/?p=294289

Gull-Masty’s letter that APTN says calls for a federal Indigenous-specific ombudsman’s office came exactly 2 weeks after I wrote this article. It’s about how the provincial ombudsmans all called for such an office. They losing faith the feds to do it. ricochet.media/indigenous/mm…

The cubs are all right.

Across Ontario, a population between the population of Peterborough and Niagara Falls will be living unhoused by the next provincial election.

Ginoogaming Chief Sheri Taylor says her First Nation and OPP have terms of an agreement to increase policing drugs & violence. State of emergency declared in 2024: ricochet.media/indigenous/fa… NAN-wide state of emergency declared in 2025: ricochet.media/indigenous/we…

Doug Ford’s cabinet shuffle today shows Dunlop, Harris, and Rickford all staying at their posts in emergency, MNR, and Indigenous, respectively. These were the ministers who oversaw the response to Ontario’s worst-ever forest fire summer, measured by hectares burnt.

This is an AI-generated image of Leah Qammaniq, Nunavut’s new AI ‘correspondent.’ She is not a real person. (Graphic courtesy of We-News). This should raise serious questions about misinformation, accountability, and who is shaping narratives about Indigenous communities.

Off the rails Prime Minister Carney came to my hometown of Thunder Bay this week to announce that Ottawa will spend $4.7 billion on 313 new VIA Rail passenger cars manufactured by Alstom in Thunder Bay and Quebec. The announcement was understandably well received back home. It will support nearly 700 jobs and provide a welcome shot in the arm for a community that could use it. I am glad for the workers and their families. At some risk of offending my fellow Thunder Bayers, however, the most important question isn’t whether the trains could have been built more cheaply somewhere else, as some have raised. It’s whether Ottawa should be replacing VIA Rail’s trains at all. Canadians have largely answered no through their own transportation choices. VIA recorded 4.4 million passenger trips in 2025, down roughly 12 percent from its 2019 peak despite significant population growth. This shouldn’t be a huge surprise. VIA’s on-time performance was just 35 percent, and yet its prices aren’t especially competitive with air or car travel. It’s a self-evidently inferior experience. The consequence is that the Crown corporation’s financial results are deteriorating. Last year, VIA generated $518.5 million in revenue against $894.2 million in operating expenses. Federal funding totalled $735.5 million, following more than $900 million the previous year. Every single route fails to break even and requires an operating subsidy. In some cases, like Toronto to Ottawa, the subsidy is about $50 per passenger. In others, like Toronto to Vancouver, it’s almost $1,000 per passenger. As explained by the government, the new cars being built in Thunder Bay are intended to serve eight long-distance, regional, and remote routes that carried only 216,000 passenger trips last year. Given the operating and capital expenses, it’s not obvious that it wouldn’t be cheaper to purchase the affected travellers their plane tickets or even cars. Budgeting is policy. This week’s announcement therefore amounts to a long-run endorsement of VIA Rail and its current business model. The new fleet will become the justification for continuing the routes, and the continuing routes will become the justification for ongoing operating subsidies and capital funding. At no point is the institution itself required to demonstrate that Canadians actually want what it provides at anything approaching its real cost. VIA has come to resemble the CBC in this respect. Both institutions command a kind of emotional attachment among politicians, commentators and a segment of the public. They’re treated as expressions of Canadian identity whose continuation is inherently valuable. Yet Canadians’ own choices reveal considerably far less attachment. They may like the idea of VIA Rail or the CBC without riding its trains or consuming its programming. Public policy should take those revealed preferences seriously. Governments routinely claim to act on behalf of Canadians while discounting the clearest evidence they provide about what they actually value. Thunder Bay can celebrate the jobs without the rest of us pretending that the real question about VIA Rail has been answered. Before spending billions to give a chronically subsidized and lightly used passenger railway several more decades of life, Ottawa should ask whether Canadians have already rendered their verdict—and whether the government simply refuses to hear it. thehub.ca/2026/09/04/the-cra…

Good. To. Go. So, if anyone’s going to say or do anything about how the politicians are formally carving out the media, now is clearly the time.