There are tiny houses, and then there are teeny teeny tiny houses. People who can pare down to this extent and keep it liveable must be extremely organized. In this van, it also helps to have strong squatting muscles:
Manchin and Schumer, together at last
A compromise has been reached – surprise, surprise (not) – but the details aren’t quite ironed out yet:
Sen. Joe Manchin announced Wednesday that he came to an agreement with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on a reconciliation bill, after more than a year of negotiations among Democrats…
But with Democrats grasping for a legislative win ahead of the midterms, Schumer, D-N.Y., kept up talks directly with Manchin through the spring and summer. In a lengthy statement, the moderate senator said Wednesday those talks resulted in a deal for a slimmed-down bill that includes tax, climate and prescription drug provisions…
Manchin said in his statement that the bill will have a minimum 15% tax on companies worth more than $1 billion and invests in several forms of energy, including fossil fuel, nuclear and renewables. This is on top of agreements Democrats previously came to on prescription drugs and extending subsidies included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
“I now propose and will vote for the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Rather than risking more inflation with trillions in new spending, this bill will cut the inflation taxes Americans are paying, lower the cost of health insurance and prescription drugs, and ensure our country invests in the energy security and climate change solutions,” Manchin said…
According to Schumer’s and Manchin’s offices, the bill will raise $739 billion in revenue through IRS tax enforcement, the corporate minimum tax, IRS tax enforcement and closing the carried interest loophole. It will spend $433 billion total, they said, on energy and climate change provisions and on the ACA extension…
“Senate Democrats can change the name of Build Back Broke as many times as they want, it won’t be any less devastating to American families and small businesses,,” Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. “Raising taxes on job creators, crushing energy producers with new regulations, and stifling innovators looking for new cures will only make this recession worse, not better.”“With inflation at a 41-year high and a looming recession, Democrats want higher taxes, more government spending, and to attack American energy,” Senate GOP Conference Chair John Barrasso, R-Wyo., added. “So much for helping American families.”
Sometimes these agreements run into a glitch along the way. This one may or may not, but my guess is that it will ultimately pass, perhaps after a short hitch or two. My other guess is that if it does, it won’t gain Democrats the approval of voters that aren’t already on their side.
The Biden administration is the bully threatening to take kids’ lunch money
Accepting federal funds is accepting federal control through federal threats to withhold those funds.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) in May announced that K-12 schools must comply with its interpretation of the ban on discrimination based on sex in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which includes sexual orientation and gender identity — and allowing boys to use girls’ restrooms and locker rooms — in order to receive federal funding for school breakfasts, lunches, and other food items.
And yet it’s the Republicans who are supposed to be the meanies.
Twenty-two states have decided to sue, led by Indiana AG Todd Rokita. The lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of Tennessee, and alleges the following:
…[T]he USDA’s Guidance is unlawful because it:
–was issued without providing the State and other stakeholders the opportunity for input as required by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA),
–was premised on a misreading and misapplication of the Supreme Court’s holding in Bostock v. Clayton County, and
–imposes new and unlawful regulatory measures on state agencies and operators receiving federal financial assistance from the USDA, which will inevitably result in regulatory chaos that threatens essential nutritional services to some of the most vulnerable citizens.
This is another example of the executive branch of the administration trying to use agencies in order to to exceed its power and control states through that power. I’m glad to see so many states challenging it.
I think I can explain this bizarre-seeming phenomenon
Kamala Harris hosted some kind of event earlier today. Several mask-wearing (why?) women participated. As is now common in gatherings of liberals, they began the meeting by introducing themselves and stating their pronouns. And, weirdly, by describing themselves–their hair color, the dresses they were wearing, whatever. This might possibly make sense if it were a meeting of blind people, otherwise not. Utterly bizarre.
This tweet has a two short clips of the meeting:
Literally all of the guests at Kamala's event are introducing themselves by saying their pronouns and what they are wearing.
Wtf lol. pic.twitter.com/8WCCPaHetu
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 26, 2022
It doesn’t appear to make sense – unless you realize that the left now defines everything connected with personal identity (with the possible exception of race, and even that depends on the circumstances) as being determined by subjective perception and wishes. In other words, your self-described identity can trump reality because truth and reality are not determined objectively.
So if you are a man such as Lia Thomas and would like to be called “she,” so be it. If you are one person and would like to be called by a plural pronoun, so be it. If you are a member of a protected group and think someone has dissed you, that person has done so. If you have voluntary sex with someone and thereafter change your mind and decide you were somehow coerced, and then accuse that person of sexually assaulting you (and the accused person identifies as a man), then that person is guilty and can even be kicked out of college on the basis of your accusation, without any objective proof and even if the objective evidence (texts, for example) would otherwise tend to exonerate him. If someone – anyone – on the left takes offense at something you say, you better apologize to that person.
So if Kamala Harris is obviously a woman and everyone who isn’t colorblind or literally blind can see that she is wearing a blue suit, one cannot assume that it is obviously true. There is no truth except the subjective wishes of Kamala Harris concerning how she would like to be perceived by others. So if she decided to say that she’s wearing a yellow suit, so be it.
And if she was sitting there naked and claimed she had on a beautiful article of clothing…oh, well, I guess that story already has been written.
More on the left’s language game
Commenter “Bauxite” observes:
The language game is the MO of the left. It works most of the time because most of our political and policy debates occur in the realm of abstract theory. The left can bluff its way through with fancy words and a few studies from academic ideologues. A lot of the left’s recent problems have come from trying to play the language game with issues that are tangible and imminent.
Agreed. And the more tangible and personal, the more difficult the language game becomes.
Difficult, but not impossible.
Bauxite continues:
So compare climate change versus COVID. On climate change, every person alive today will be dead before climate change theories are proven or disproven. Everything is in the realm of theory. No person can perceive an average annual temperature increase of a few degrees.
Here’s where I differ. It’s not that these statements are wrong; I agree that climate change (AGW) rhetoric works better because of this indeterminate nature. But it’s not necessary for people to perceive the actual average annual differences. It’s enough that weather is redefined as climate. So every heatwave is attributed to climate change, and every cold snap too – because climate change is said to encourage greater fluctuations of all kinds.
What’s more, I don’t see how climate change theories can ever be proven or disproven, if many of the recommendations of the AGW people are actually implemented. If they fail to work and the climate warms, the proponents will say they weren’t done fast enough or comprehensively enough. If the climate fails to warm, they will say “See? They worked!” and it will be difficult to impossible to prove that it wasn’t the policies; it was just that the predictions were wrong.
If their policies aren’t implemented and things still go smoothly, then they can always move their dire predictions to a time in the future. That already has happened to a certain extent, and although it may have caused some people to doubt them, the theories still have plenty of adherants, including most climate scientists. That last fact gives the theories more believability for a great many people, too.
Bauxite compares to COVID:
On COVID, though, it didn’t work. The dire predictions of 2M dead in the US by June of 2020 were actually tested on a perceivable time frame, and they were off by two orders of magnitude. When people could see with their own eyes that the COVID restrictions were not justified, they ended, eventually.
To certain extent I agree. But again, I know that for many people it didn’t work that way. For those people, the explanation for the fact that the number of deaths was not as predicted is that worldwide lockdowns occurred. So they attribute the lower numbers to the lockdowns as well as other public health measures.
More from Bauxite:
On the economy, I think that the left will run into the same problem. Economic performance is tangible and imminent. You can’t bamboozle people with a dog and pony show and a few sympathetic studies.
Agreed. That’s one of the main reasons the administration is polling poorly. The economy is something that affects people very personally and very obviously, and not only has the administration made bad decisions around it, but they project a “let them eat cake” attitude that does not sit well.
The administration persists in its tone-deaf messaging on the economy despite its lack of success because they really are out of other ideas – other than changing their policy goals, which they will not do.
Open thread 7/27/22
On puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria
The pharmaceutical treatment of children who present with gender dysphoria is getting more widespread. Children cannot validly consent, but they – and transgender activists on social media, plus therapists and doctors who believe in “affirming” the chosen new gender – can persuade parents it is in the child’s best interests. One way this is done is by stating that the child is at risk of suicide if it isn’t done, and social media sites actually instruct children and teenagers to tell parents and therapists that they are suicidal even if they’re not, in order to obtain such treatment.
Puberty is often difficult, even for those who don’t suffer from gender dysphoria. For example, I had a very early puberty – shortly after my tenth birthday (that’s probably the most intimate information you’re ever going to get out of me). Fortunately, I was also nearly fully grown, so I looked about sixteen. That didn’t make me happy, because I was really just a child, and looking like a woman took some adjusting to, as you might imagine. But at no point did it ever occur to me to stop the process – which wouldn’t have been possible anyway. Nor did it ever occur to me that I might “really” be a man.
Fortunately, social media didn’t exist. If it had, I still don’t think I would have thought myself a man, but who knows? I grew up in a world that’s very different from today’s. I’m just glad it was less confusing back then, or I believe I would have had an even harder time. My point, though, is that today’s youths are subject to a lot more confusion and a lot more pressure (including sexual pressure from puberty on), and it doesn’t surprise me that many believe that changing sexes might solve their problems.
The are a great many untold dangers to puberty blockers. For example, there is apparently a rare side effect of something called pseudotumor cerebri, and the FDA has issued a warning about that.
But there are much more common problems:
The [British] NHS has changed their guidance on puberty blockers. From previously claiming that blockers “are considered to be fully reversible” the NHS webpage now states:
“Little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria.”
Although blocking the progression of puberty can in some cases relieve the immediate distressing symptoms suffered by children with gender dysphoria, the evidence is mixed. The long term effects are unknown. There have been no long term studies on the effectiveness of puberty blockers and it is unknown whether interrupting natural puberty alters the natural trajectory and perhaps resolution of gender dysphoria in children.
Gender identity is shaped during puberty and adolescence as young people’s bodies become more sexually differentiated and mature. Given how little we understand about gender identity and how it is formed and consolidated, we should be cautious about interfering with the normal process of sexual maturation.
What we do know however is that virtually all the children who start on puberty blockers eventually go onto cross-sex hormones suggesting that changing their minds is rare once natural puberty is interrupted.
The Tavistock’s own published study on their Early Intervention trial shows that of 44 children given puberty blockers, 43 (98%) progressed to cross-sex hormones…
Cross-sex hormones have serious lifelong effects which cannot be reversed if treatment is discontinued. If a child takes puberty blockers at Tanner stage 2 of puberty followed by cross-sex hormones at age 16 they will be sterilised as gametes have not developed…
Proponents of the use of puberty blockers say that not only do these drugs relieve the distressing symptoms of ‘the wrong puberty’ in childhood but also prevent the body from undergoing irreversible changes which then have to be modified surgically during adulthood. For example, permanent growth of breasts in females which may necessitate a double mastectomy in the future. Alternatively, permanent facial hair growth in males which may necessitate its removal in the future. However, what is rarely discussed is the effect on the reproductive and sexual development of the child.
Puberty blockers followed by opposite sex hormones cannot create ‘opposite sex puberty’, only secondary sex characteristics of the opposite sex. However, normal sexual or reproductive development will not occur. Girls will not begin menstruation and so will be infertile. Boys testes will not grow and develop and will impact on fertility. The change therefore is only cosmetic. A boy’s penis will remain immature and remain the size of a child’s into adulthood. This will cause problems sexually if the penis is retained, both functionally and in terms of sexual arousal. It is also problematic if gender reassignment surgery is later chosen since there is too little material to use from the penis and testicles.
Much more at the link.
The Mayo Clinic site has similar information, although it whitewashes it a bit:
If children with male genitalia begin using GnRH analogues early in puberty, they might not develop enough penile and scrotal skin for certain gender affirming genital surgical procedures, such as penile inversion vaginoplasty. Alternative techniques, however, are available.
The site doesn’t mention what they are, but they are described here. You may note at that site that the surgery involves a very lengthy recovery period (12 to 18 months) and it also requires lifelong periodic vaginal dilation.
To take a completely healthy child – and one who often would otherwise grow up to be a fully functioning gay or lesbian person – and set that person on this road through puberty blockers is child abuse, IMHO. At what age can so-called “bottom surgery” be done? It varies somewhat, but for example Boston Children’s Hospital sets the age at 17. And a person qualifies at 17 without parental consent, as far as I can tell (the age for “top” surgery, or mastectomy, is 15).
The FBI whistleblowers and the Hunter Biden laptop coverup
I remember, when the Hunter Biden laptop first came out shortly before the 2020 election, that I had a moment of thinking it might become a big scandal – which it deserved to be. But almost immediately the news was suppressed and discredited, and the media cooperated, and I thought of course. I knew they had to protect the Bidens at all costs, and if one cost was their integrity, well then, they really had no integrity left by that time anyway.
I also recall hearing that the FBI had received the laptop from the store’s proprietor much earlier (turns out it was in December of 2019), and had supposedly been investigating it. It didn’t surprise me, either, that not only had the investigation gone absolutely nowhere, but that in this case there were no leaks to the public – and in fact the reports that did get out later about the FBI investigation said it concerned whether the laptop’s contents were Russian disinformation. The reason for all of this seemed the same: the FBI was determined to protect Joe and his family.
Therefore this news is utterly unsurprising:
Several FBI whistleblowers say that the agency’s probe into Hunter Biden was internally sabotaged during the 2020 election in order to derail the investigation, after agents wrongfully deemed verified evidence as “disinformation” to ignore.
According to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), agents investigating Hunter “opened an assessment which was used by an FBI headquarters team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease,” adding that his office received “a significant number of protected communications from highly credible whistleblowers” regarding the investigation.
It’s a bit late and a dollar short for all this whistleblowing, isn’t it? Not that it would have mattered at the time, because all of social media as well as almost all of the MSM (with the exception of a few outlets on the right such as The NY Post) had resolved to shut the scandal down, too, and they would have also shut down news of the FBI shutdown if it had come to them.
FBI supervisory intelligence agent Brian Auten opened in August 2020 the assessment that was later used by the agency, according to the disclosures. One of the whistleblowers claimed the FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Washington field office, Timothy Thibault, shut down a line of inquiry into Hunter Biden in October 2020 despite some of the details being known to be true at the time.
A whistleblower also said Thibault “ordered closed” an “avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting,” according to Grassley, even though “all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants.” The senator said Thibault “ordered the matter closed without providing a valid reason as required” and that FBI officials “subsequently attempted to improperly mark the matter in FBI systems so that it could not be opened in the future,” according to the disclosures…
The new information comes after Auten was involved in the Trump-Russia investigation, including interviewing Igor Danchenko, the alleged main source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s dossier in 2017. Congressional sources confirmed to the Washington Examiner that Auten is the “Supervisory Intel Agent” from DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s 2019 report on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuse.
By the way, if you look at the Wiki page for “Hunter Biden laptop controversy” and read the first paragraph of the introductory part – a summary that probably constitutes what many people seeking general information would look at and go no further – you could easily still get the idea that the laptop information is bogus and/or suspect. Here’s some of the copy there [the remarks in brackets are mine]:
The Hunter Biden laptop controversy involves a laptop computer that was allegedly [“allegedly”?] dropped off at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware, by an unidentified person [the owner has a receipt with the signature “Hunter Biden” that has been authenticated] in April 2019 and never collected. The New York Post published a story stating the allegation three weeks before the 2020 United States presidential election, and president Donald Trump seized [“Republicans seize!!” is always the big story] on it in an attempt to engineer [“engineer” indicates something contrived; this was certainly real] an “October surprise”. The laptop was of unclear origin [not in the least; it is “disinformation” to say so, and the disinformation was designed to protect the Bidens] and contained emails obtained by Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and other materials relating to Hunter Biden, some of which were later confirmed as authentic [many have been confirmed as authentic and not one of them has been confirmed as inauthentic]. The discovery of the laptop spurred speculation as to whether it supported what became the Biden–Ukraine conspiracy theory, which falsely [there is no indication the “conspiracy” theory is false, and quite a bit that it is true] alleged that the then vice president Joe Biden acted corruptly in Ukraine to protect his son from a corruption investigation by Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin [what’s more, that’s not the only type of corruption alleged about Joe Biden in Ukraine; there are allegations that he was on the take as well, through Hunter’s reimbursement].
Just now I did a search for stories on Grassley and the whistleblowers’ allegations about the FBI quashing the laptop story, and aside from news outlets on the right such as the NY Post, Fox, and the Washington Examiner, so far I could only find one regular liberal/left MSM outlet mentioning it. That is CBS News, and it doesn’t surprise me that the story is by Catherine Herridge, a good reporter who used to be at Fox.
The Biden administration says a recession by any other name would smell as sweet
The Biden administration continues the Obama administration’s emphasis on labeling, as though calling something by a different name would fool people into actually seeing it differently. Why do they do this? The main reason is that they believe in the power of words to shape perceptions.
And this is true to a certain extent, particularly for those on their side. For example, how many Democrats now call illegal immigrants (or, to be more retro, illegal aliens), “undocumented migrants” or something of the sort, and believe they should have full rights? Quite a few.
So when is a recession not a recession? When the administration decides it’s not:
What is a recession? While some maintain that two consecutive quarters of falling real GDP constitute a recession, that is neither the official definition nor the way economists evaluate the state of the business cycle. Instead, both official determinations of recessions and economists’ assessment of economic activity are based on a holistic look at the data—including the labor market, consumer and business spending, industrial production, and incomes. Based on these data, it is unlikely that the decline in GDP in the first quarter of this year—even if followed by another GDP decline in the second quarter—indicates a recession.
First of all, I don’t think most people care what it’s called – they know what they know, and a poor economy is one of those in-your-face realities that it’s harder for government to lie about, although they can certainly try. Call it macaroni, call it whatever you want – it still stinks.
And then there’s this:
Question: Out of the past 10 times the U.S. economy has experienced two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth, how many times was a recession officially declared?
Answer: 10. pic.twitter.com/yrR1kwlC4r
— Michael R. Strain (@MichaelRStrain) July 25, 2022
NOTE: The title of this post comes, as you probably know, from the balcony scene in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, one of my favorite plays. Juliet doesn’t know Romeo is listening, and she’s musing on the fact that she’s fallen in love with the scion of her family’s hated enemy:
Jul. ’Tis but thy name that is my enemy;
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What’s Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O! be some other name:
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.
Rom. I take thee at thy word.
Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptiz’d;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
Open thread 7/26/22
Whitmer vetoes bill to help pregnancy clinics
Governor Whitmer of Michigan vetoes adoption and pregnancy help passed by the Republican legislature of her state:
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently vetoed $20 million in anti-abortion line items in the state’s budget meant to support expecting mothers and adoption campaigns, ripping pro-life pregnancy centers often targeted since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last month as “fake health clinics.”
Whitmer, a Democrat, signed the final piece of a $76 billion state budget for the 2023 fiscal year into law Wednesday, centering on investments in the economy, workforce, public health and public safety.
But she scrapped about $20 million using her line-item veto for funding for pro-life causes set aside by Republicans, who control both chambers of Michigan’s state legislature.
Her vetoes included $10 million for a marketing program promoting adoption over abortion, $3 million for organizations that promote “childbirth and alternatives to abortion,” and $100,000 designated for the legal defense of a ban on gender reassignment surgeries or therapies while people are in state prisons.
Remember when abortion supporters said they wanted it to be “safe, legal, and rare“? Gone, gone, gone:
But over the years, abortion rights advocates have pushed back against the phrase. “Safe, legal, and rare” implies that getting an abortion is something that “you should be apologetic for,” reproductive justice activist Renee Bracey Sherman told Vox. “It places the blame on the person who’s had an abortion, as if they just did something wrong to need one, rather than addressing the systemic issue as to why someone might not be able to have access to consistent health care or contraception.”
So abortion became not just legal but something that was perfectly fine, nothing to regret. And note that the quote wants you to assume that people get pregnant without wanting to because they just don’t have access to contraception – which is widely available just about everywhere and is supported by Medicaid.
And since Dobbs, pro-abortion politicians – with Elizabeth Warren leading the pack – have been labeling pregnancy-counseling clinics as “fake” and have now declared war on them. Are we still supposed to call such people “pro-choice“?:
But abortion supporters reveal how shallow their “pro-choice” ideology is when they oppose helping pregnant mothers make, or even learn about, any choice other than abortion. The most recent example is on display in Congress, where four Democrats are targeting pregnancy resource centers, purporting to “prohibit disinformation in the advertising of abortion services.”
“With Roe gone, it’s more important than ever to crack down on so-called ‘crisis pregnancy centers’ that mislead and deceive patients seeking abortion care,” said Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, promoting her bill. “We need to crack down on the deceptive practices these centers use to prevent people from getting abortion care, and I’ve got a bill to do just that,” she added.
Under Warren’s bill, charities could be fined $100,000 or “50 percent of the revenues earned by the ultimate parent entity” of the charity for violating the act’s “prohibition on disinformation” related to abortion. But the legislation itself does not define prohibited speech. Warren’s bill directs the Federal Trade Commission to “promulgate rules to prohibit a person from advertising with the use of misleading statements related to the provision of abortion services.” Warren’s bill would thus turn the Federal Trade Commission into a national abortion disinformation board. Perhaps the task of determining what counts as a prohibited “misleading” statement would fall to the recently unemployed Nina Jankowicz for the remainder of the Biden administration…
Warren also signed on to a letter in which members of Congress tried to pressure Google into suppressing search results for such centers — which was followed by a similar letter from the office of New York attorney general Letitia James.
Warren is in a true-blue state, Massachusetts, so she thinks she can go as far as she wants with this. And maybe she can. But Whitmer is in Michigan, which has a Republican-controlled legislature. Plus, Whitmer is up for re-election in November. But she must think this move shores up her base support, plus I don’t think she’s worried about her Republican opponents, since the strongest ones were knocked out by legal challenges to their petition signatures. I wrote about that in this post (which reminds me; I still haven’t gotten around to Part II because so many other things intervened and crowded it out).
If you look at the polls of each of the remaining GOP candidates against Whitmer, you’ll see that she’s doing very well, although of course it’s early because no actual GOP nominee has yet been chosen. The person who was her strongest potential GOP opponent, James Craig, has been disqualified for the aforementioned petition signature problems, but is going to run as a write-in candidate.
I think Whitmer feels very very confident.
Canada: Trudeau’s war on farmers is moving right along
The war on farmers spreads to Canada:
In his latest bid to amass greater control of Canadian society, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to move forward with his government’s plan to reduce nitrogen emissions by limiting fertilizer use among Canadian farmers.
The revelation came following a Friday meeting between Trudeau and Canadian provincial ministers, where the prime minister unexpectedly announced his decision to cap fertilizer emissions by unilaterally targeting the country’s agricultural sector.
“Fertilizer emissions reduction was not even a topic on the agenda of the annual meeting of Federal-Provincial-Territorial ministers of agriculture,” a joint Alberta-Saskatchewan government press release reads. “Provinces pushed the federal government to discuss this important topic, but were disappointed to learn that the target is already set. The commitment to future consultations are only to determine how to meet the target that Prime Minister Trudeau and Minister Bibeau have already unilaterally imposed on this industry, not to consult on what is achievable or attainable.”
That’s because they’re not interested in what’s achievable and attainable.
Please see my previous post on how this campaign is going for The Netherlands and Sri Lanka.
Some more background on what Trudeau is doing:
The Trudeau government wants a 30% reduction in emissions, but farming experts say that reducing nitrous oxide emissions can’t be done without reducing fertilizer use, which will hurt their ability to stay in the farming business. Farmers also say this will result in less food being produced by Canada and will lead to food shortages at a time when there are already global food shortages.
In 2021, the agriculture and agri-food system employed 2.1 million people, provided 1 in 9 jobs in Canada, generated $134.9 billion (around 6.8%) of Canada’s gross domestic product, according to the Canadian government.
“The world is looking for Canada to increase production and be a solution to global food shortages. The Federal government needs to display that they understand this,” said Alberta Agriculture Minister Nate Horner. “They owe it to our producers.”
“We’re really concerned with this arbitrary goal,” said Saskatchewan Minister of Agriculture David Marit. “The Trudeau government has apparently moved on from their attack on the oil and gas industry and set their sights on Saskatchewan farmers.”
Otherwise known as kulaks.