Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and Brantford most vulnerable to tariffs

[danbrotherston]

These kind of discussions are utterly useless.

These ideas are 100% designed to be extremely polarizing.

If reality is polarizing that’s something you should reflect on.  Climate change isn’t an opinion.

[danbrotherston]

This is from an accredited source, not some fly-by-night armchair scientist blog:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1112950/

BMJ is indeed a respected medical news source, though not a research journal. The particular item you linked to is essentially a letter to the editor, though, from a GP (family doctor) in the UK, not a scientist.

The current scientific consensus strongly agrees that human activity is causing the climate change. The Wikipedia article has plenty of links to references:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific...ate_change

Of course everyone can choose to believe in whatever they want, but it really doesn't change the reality that we're careening towards a major global crisis as the temperatures and sea levels rise.

lol, you read it further than I did. I stopped at the publication date of April 1998.

[Momo26]

These kind of discussions are utterly useless.

These ideas are 100% designed to be extremely polarizing.

If reality is polarizing that’s something you should reflect on.  Climate change isn’t an opinion.

You know, and this may blow your mind, there are people out out there that to this day believe COVID didn't come from a lab. There are people that believe that had we *just* locked down harder, the lock downs would have ended in 2 weeks...there are people out there that think if we keep sending Ukraine money and arm their fucking teenagers with AK47s, that they'll win. Why? Because people cannot think for themselves.

I cannot believe I'm wasting energy on this.

If I could download what I have come to know/realize into other people's brain, these conversations would be so much easier.

Once you see things that you cannot unsee, you can take nothing at face value...

I envy ignorance.

[dtkvictim]

You know, and this may blow your mind, there are people out out there that to this day believe COVID didn't come from a lab. There are people that believe that had we *just* locked down harder, the lock downs would have ended in 2 weeks...there are people out there that think if we keep sending Ukraine money and arm their fucking teenagers with AK47s, that they'll win. Why? Because people cannot think for themselves.

I cannot believe I'm wasting energy on this.

If I could download what I have come to know/realize into other people's brain, these conversations would be so much easier.

Once you see things that you cannot unsee, you can take nothing at face value...

I envy ignorance.

The idea that there are some painfully strong personalities on this forum who make it difficult or unpleasant to engage is fair. I certainly don't overlap politically in many ways with the consensus of this forum. But don't expect people to engage with your differing viewpoints when you write posts like this that are such a caricature that I'm more convinced it's just bait. Even the trolls on /pol/ leave more nuance than this.

[bravado]

If reality is polarizing that’s something you should reflect on.  Climate change isn’t an opinion.

You know, and this may blow your mind, there are people out out there that to this day believe COVID didn't come from a lab. There are people that believe that had we *just* locked down harder, the lock downs would have ended in 2 weeks...there are people out there that think if we keep sending Ukraine money and arm their fucking teenagers with AK47s, that they'll win. Why? Because people cannot think for themselves.

I cannot believe I'm wasting energy on this.

If I could download what I have come to know/realize into other people's brain, these conversations would be so much easier.

Once you see things that you cannot unsee, you can take nothing at face value...

I envy ignorance.

step 1: tell people they can't think, are ignorant, and were stupidly afraid of a novel pandemic
step 2: whine about people being kinda rude to you

Not a great look tbh

[Momo26]

No whining here. I just came to defence of a poster who was attacked for his/her thoughts.

Also, not faulting people for being afraid -- being afraid was a very reasonable response to the information we were being fed at the time. But as more time passed, and as people's ability to critically think themselves continued to dwindle, it showcased a bigger, collective issue.

Any breakthrough in scientific discovery includes healthy debate...but rather than healthy debate, there was only ever ONE side/one answer to everything. And with hindsight (which was evolving throughout say from the 3rd month onwards), so so much was proven false. So either the experts were incompetent or worse, malicious as they kept parroting the same thing for a long time after so much became evident.

There is no doubting we treat the earth like shit. Parts of ocean turned into gutter, forests clear cut which should never happen, destroyed soil so the food we eat is almost void of nutrients...this can and should all be fixed.

But the fear mongering, from childhood brainwashing that we, and only we, are causing global warming (oh right it had to be adjusted to climate change to account for the instances of the opposite of warming) requires far greater discourse. Any time a mob mentality sets in, it needs to be questioned ... and calling people like that flat Earthers says far more about you than it does me.

[plam]

There has been plenty of debate on climate change. The time for debate is over. Just look at all of the climate-related disasters that continue to happen at an increasing rate. Trying to debate it now is acting in bad faith and trying to stall so that the oil companies can continue to make more money.

[ac3r]

Thanks for posting Rainrider22. This is so true and one particular reply to your post just further amplifies this completely. I took a mental break from this site for almost a year after having also been here from the beginning. I have talked with people who used to be on this site and they indicated that they all left because of things that you listed. They also left primarily due to one particular individual and their supposed expert knowledge on just about every topic discussed on here.

A reason why I continue to post is because, well, I have time to kill...but also because I think it's worth sharing opinions that differ from the generic middle class white liberal opinion which is often most prominent in urbanist/transportation/architecture communities. I know a lot of people here disagree with me a lot of the time, but whatever. There have been times where I've been accused of being conservative (despite being anarchist, hah), misogynistic, homophobic, racist, a denier of science etc and have had posts censored at times and got I think two temporary bans, though thankfully the moderation here is generally hands off and I'd say that has even improved over the last year.

It's a shame many original users have since left for whatever reason it may be. There has been a lot of silly drama and disagreements over the years with people outright leaving as a result, which is of course their choice, though I think it is better for everyone when people choose to stick around and talk even if they disagree with one another. But I think it should be in a "healthy" way, if that makes sense. There are two specific individuals that have long been known to be shit stirrers in a lot of Waterloo Region related online communities that have both basically been driven out of most of them because people just get so sick of hearing them always play the role of Google Expert PhD and therefore got shot down even when they had a point to make, but blah...99% of the time I just ignore what they have to say. It's really all you can do. I have no interest in trying to prove these people wrong because they have already decided they're right all the time.

Overall it's a decent forum, though, if a bit small these days. Promoting community growth can be tricky, sadly, because in 2025 most people only want to hear things they agree with. Having spaces where you can hear from all people is becoming increasingly rare.

Back on topic though...yeah Canada should be a hell of a lot richer than it is. I'd love if we had a government that is willing to expand our wealth and power before the global power balance flips and have to start letting the Chinese develop our mines and infrastructure. The US is a good trading partner but we have ports and stuff...let's start using them more again.

[tomh009]

The US is a good trading partner but we have ports and stuff...let's start using them more again.

The US has been a good trading partner, but they now have no interest in partnering with anyone, only bullying them. It's very much a wake-up call and time for us to be less dependent on them.

[Kodra24]

Yes, too bad the Liberal government shot down all the pipeline development with major cancellations and policy change in the mid to late 2010's that could have started to reduce our dependance on the US

We will always be reliant on the US - and this is particularly true in terms of defense

Imagine China or Russia set-up shop in the Arctic on a barren Canadian island to extract whatever they wish, we wouldn't be able to do anything about it - ZERO

This is where the US, and rightfully so, is alarmed about our defense spending and NATO commitment - basically if we have to take care of you, even though you don't want to take care of yourself, what's in it for us?!

[tomh009]

Yes, too bad the Liberal government shot down all the pipeline development with major cancellations and policy change in the mid to late 2010's that could have started to reduce our dependance on the US

Harper was in about as long as Trudeau and did not get any pipelines built. He pushed for Keystone XL (more dependence on the US!) but the US government didn't approve it.

As for defence, at the moment Canada continues to be active in NATO and work with the European partners--unlike the US. This will take some time, but we'll need to have a strong relationship with both the Europeans and our allies in the Pacific (AU, NZ, JP, KR, TW).

[plam]

Yes, too bad the Liberal government shot down all the pipeline development with major cancellations and policy change in the mid to late 2010's that could have started to reduce our dependance on the US

We will always be reliant on the US - and this is particularly true in terms of defense

Imagine China or Russia set-up shop in the Arctic on a barren Canadian island to extract whatever they wish, we wouldn't be able to do anything about it - ZERO

This is where the US, and rightfully so, is alarmed about our defense spending and NATO commitment - basically if we have to take care of you, even though you don't want to take care of yourself, what's in it for us?!

That is not what Trump is trying to do. C'mon. How about that Zelensky visit, eh. Zelensky's country is literally fighting the Russians and the US is threatening to not support them. The argument that Canada isn't committed to NATO is a total red herring. The US is trying to destroy NATO.

Trump is on the record as having said, a bunch of times, that he wants to be a dictator and president for life, and he wants to be just like Putin and colonize the "near abroad".

[danbrotherston]

Yes, too bad the Liberal government shot down all the pipeline development with major cancellations and policy change in the mid to late 2010's that could have started to reduce our dependance on the US

We will always be reliant on the US - and this is particularly true in terms of defense

Imagine China or Russia set-up shop in the Arctic on a barren Canadian island to extract whatever they wish, we wouldn't be able to do anything about it - ZERO

This is where the US, and rightfully so, is alarmed about our defense spending and NATO commitment - basically if we have to take care of you, even though you don't want to take care of yourself, what's in it for us?!

That is not what Trump is trying to do. C'mon. How about that Zelensky visit, eh. Zelensky's country is literally fighting the Russians and the US is threatening to not support them. The argument that Canada isn't committed to NATO is a total red herring. The US is trying to destroy NATO.

Trump is on the record as having said, a bunch of times, that he wants to be a dictator and president for life, and he wants to be just like Putin and colonize the "near abroad".

Given that the Ukraine is currently giving Russia a run for it's money, the idea they could invade Canada and "there's nothing we could do about it" is absurd. The Russian forces are not nearly as powerful as people make them out to be.

As for China, nobody really knows, but it's like that NATO without the US would still be competitive.

[danbrotherston]

So it seems that tariffs are going to come into effect today. I'm not sure what the point of the 1 month delay was.

In other news, Signal is the #1 downloaded app in the Netherlands.

[Momo26]

If this tariff business is prolonged, a lot of people's jobs are cooked. I do fear what is to come. Feels ostensibly needless - part of the continued fear propaganda and keeping well in a state of anxiousness unfortunately. If many Canadians were far better off and not (what was the study) a loss of $200 away from paying their next bill on time, we may be able to weather more.


I read it on reddit I believe but we definitely need to focus hard on independence and building up our own industries. We absolutely should be energy independent, agricultural independent and invest and invest in tech. Export excess to emerging nations...as a by product, we should not be paying upwards of 50%+ income tax and taxed to absolute death in every other way. This is more off topic but a far more robust industrial country, with the vast abundance of all we have, means there should be money back in pockets.

All the hospitals, school systems, public roads, parks and facilities can be well funded, without the incessant need to keep hands in pockets. Canadians and Canadian companies need to switch their mentality i truly believe - we need to stop settling, we need to be less agreeable, we need to take more risks and be more innovative.

Someone else here posted about Kitchener essentially losing it's entire 'Silicon Valley of Canada' label and this is a mega shame (IMO).

I know it's perhaps unpopular because Cons proposed this (i think?), these taxes that make up the first 100k+ of new builds need to GTFO, yesterday. One example at least.