whoa, when an idea strikes

This may be one of the longest posts I write. I enjoyed quite a bit the working on it with Copilot doing some of the heavy lifting. Below are my words, but after having had a very lengthy chat.

There is a bill C-18 which is to implement a trade agreement with Indonesia. At the same time I paid attention to this I heard on the radio an interview with a guy in Tokyo who opened up a Quebecois food restaurant, including poutine when he was able to get cheese curds.

I combined these two ideas for me to open poutine and Montreal smoked meat restaurant in Indonesia. I asked what was the second biggest city and so I learned about Surabaya. After all of the discussion I picked Surabaya to also have a production facility in an industrial zone to prepare the beef briscuit that I get locally, that I turn into smoked meat. This facility will do more as explained further. A facility like this can produce far more than a single restaurant can do, so I decided I would expand to open similar restaurants in nearby countries, specifically:

• Surabaya, Indonesia
• Johor Bahru, Malaysia
• Cebu, Philippines
• Da Nang, Vietnam
• Phnom Penh, Cambodia
• Chiang Mai, Thailand
• Luang Prabang, Laos

And, given my production facility can do even more, that I would double up in all but one of the above countries:

• Malang, Indonesia
• Melaka, Malaysia
• Davao City, Philippines
• Hue, Vietnam
• Battambang, Cambodia
• Khon Kaen, Thailand

All of this assumes I have at least 10M$CAD to begin as I will be buying all of the restaurant properties. In Indonesia they are called ruko, in Malaysia they are called shoplots, the principal is a three story deep and narrow building that is commercial on the ground floor, and more or less anything on floors two and three. So my restaurants will have the restaurant on the ground floor, a women's dormitory on the second floor and a men's dormitory on the third floor. The tenants in these dormitories are the employees of the restaurant.

I will hire two local foreman, a front of house (FOH) woman and a back of house (BOH) man who are required to live in the dormitory to provide leadership and who get paid the best of all employees. In my dealings I decided I would pay these employees 600$CAD per month, but that 100$CAD per month is deducted for the lodging component, so they would keep 500$CAD per month. Entry level workers will start at 300$CAD per month and also pay 100$CAD for rent and so keep 200$CAD per month. If they work well, cross train, and do well, they can move up to be an assistant which pays at 400$ less 100$ for rent, so they keep 300$.

I always ask that these initial foremen have English language skills so that I can interact with them, but once they hire additional workers, the English language requirement is lessened. What I found through my research is that in all of the cities I have named, there is bound to be 2-5% of the population that is sufficiently skilled in English speaking, reading and writing to meet my needs.

In all of the countries where I picked these salary amounts, it works out very well for the employees but still allows for the company to be profitable once we are ramped up. What also works well for these employees is in the living conditions as the dormitories will have central HVAC with dehumidifcation, in unit laundry and a shared bathroom of a good quality. These are living conditions that are rare for common workers like these.

Okay, so here is the rough order of events.

I first need to get a PT PMA (foreign‑owned company) so that I can be permitted to buy commercial titles in Indonesia

I would hire a local notary who understands industrial leases to help with my production facility.

I would hire a tax consultant / accountant to structure VAT, import duties, and payroll and any other accounting needs I would need

And finally I would eventually need a halal consultant (for future certification) as Indonesia is a primarily Muslim country and without Halal certification my resto wouldn't work.

Next I would get in touch with SIER to get a SUIK. SIER is a government run industrial site where they lease to businesses industrial spaces. A SUIK is a small industrial space for the needs of a small or artisinal business. Ideally mine would be between 250-300m2. An issue with the SUIK is that the power supplied does not meet the needs of my production facility, so I would offer a 30 year + option of 30 year lease in exchange for them to upgrade the power of my SUIK to the power of their larger facilities. If they agree to this my project is a GO.

I would then hire an industrial designer that I would work with to put into this SUIK the following

• walk-in fridge and freezer
• curing station
• smoking and steaming stations 
• a flash freeze station
• vacuum seal and boxing section
• boxes and dried goods storage 
• receiving/shipping area
• wood drying and storage
• office and bathroom

Taken individually, the fridge is used for when we receive the raw meat briscuits from our supplier, held there until ready for processing. The fridge is also used for the curing process - in food grade containers the meat that has been coated with the cure, is left in the fridge for 7-10 days and is flipped almost every day during that span. The freezer is for vacuum sealed smoked meat that is destined for any of the shipped locations and for cheese curds that are delivered to this facility. And finally, the freezer is where shippable orders will be stored until the cold chain shipping company comes to get them.

The curing station is where the raw beef briscuit is taken out of the fridge, is smothered with a spice blend that is worked in, and then the briscuit is put into a food grade container and put into the fridge. Each food grade container will have a large number taped to it, simple sequential numbers. At the beginning we'll just have 1-10 but as we grow we'll get to 1-100. The worker that does this will enter into a computer an entry like:

April 1, 10h30, cured 2kg meat into container 1, put in fridge

With each subsequent step container 1 would get updated in the system, and subsquent containers would get used in order.

The smoking station is an actual smoker that has coconut hulls as a base for burning and rambutan wood chips for smoking. In the early days, the briscuit will be smoked starting early on the morning to have 8 hours of being smoked until it reaches a specific temperature. After the 8 hours it will be steamed, described in the next paragraph. The smoke itself will go up a chimney that has an Electrostatic scrubber + carbon filter to clean up the smoke as much as possible before it enters the troposphere. When production increases and we have the need for an FTE of labour in this production facility, the smoking period can be longer and slower and go overnight with the steaming to happen the next morning. Finally the food grade bin is washed and returned to the cure station stack.

The steamer steams the briscuits for 3-4 hours to 

• Break down collagen
• Soften the cure
• Create the signature texture
• Finish the cook gently
• Prevents dryness

The steamer is a closed system, so steam will adhere to the inside roof of the steam compartment and settle back down again, a little bit of steam will be lost with each door open, so occasionally water will need to be added.

Once the steaming is over, the meat will be quick cooled somehow, and then vacuum sealed and fast frozen and then boxed and put into the walk-in freezer.

We will order boxes from a local supplier that the meat is shipped in. We will work with an Indonesian large dairy company to have them create the cheese curds after I bring to them a few unopened bags of cheese curds that I bring with me from Quebec, asking them to reproduce these. Given I will produce a standing order that grows consistently over time, I believe I will be able to get this agreement done. This dairy company will deliver directly to this production facility in frozen boxes that I put into my walk in freezer.

We will order bulk bags of poutine powder from a Quebec manufacturer and these will get stored in a dry goods area, in the same space that the collapsed unused boxes are stored. When a shipment of meat and cheesecurds is sent out to a location, one or two or three bags of poutine powder can be put into the box that has the meat or cheese, so that this is a way we can supply that too.

We will order from local suppliers coconut husks and rambutan wood chips. In those early months I will always order more than what is needed and store them in a drying room that is not a kiln, but is dry due to the facility being HVACed, and has one or two fans to provide airflow. There can be pallet shelves that allow airflow between the wood that is stacked upon it. The idea is to eventually have a drying period of 6-8 months of the incoming wood so that it is dryer at the time it gets burnt, so it burns cleaner.

With respect to HVAC at the production facility, there will be effectively two zones. In the receiving and shipping zone, this will be closed off from the rest of the facility as the garage door that opens and closes for receiving goods and shipping goods will allow a large amount of humidity and hot air in, so this will be uncontrolled. In the HVAC controlled area, this will be kept at a comfortable temperature and a low humidity so as to help the stored wood to dry, to help with the processing of food and to keep the workers comfortable. Additionally, the HVAC zone will have a higher pressure so as to push invading air out rather than letting it in.

A receiving and shipping area with enough movement area to have pallets be moved around, and easy access to/from the walk-in freezer so as to move deliveres to the cold chain shipper's truck.

And finally, a simple bathroom and office, the latter to have the computer that tracks the shipping and receiving and the internal processes within the facility. The office can also simply be a place for the worker(s) to hangout when there are gaps in task time.

So while the production facility is being built and the equipment being brought in I will engage with a real estate agent to buy a ruko in desirable location, where there is already good foot traffic, and already a good amount of people within a food delivery radius.

Once I have the ruko I will hire a demolition company to gut it, and I will hire an architect firm to plan the three levels

1. The ground floor with the resto, kitchen, bathroom, back office and mechanical room
2. The second floor, the women's dormitory
3. The third floor, the men's dormitory

Local contractors won't have experience with central HVAC installations as this is not common in southeast asia, so I will hire a specific HVAC regional distributor that I would use for all of my buildings that can assign a team to do the HVAC installation. It will be a heat pump and A/C unit so that the heat pump can do most of the work and the A/C unit can kick in during the hottest periods. This system will also include a dehumidifier as this part of the world can be extremely humid. The main machines will be in a mechanical room at the rear of the building at the ground floor, with duct work rising straight up to feed floors two and three and with horizontal ducts going towards the front for all three levels. By being at the rear of the building the HVAC machines will have access to exterior air through the rear of the building.

I would also hire a global fire protection company to install a fire protection sprinkler system across all of the floors. I would use this same company for all of my buildings.

Finally I would hire a general local contracter to do the more traditional construction based on the architect drawings for the three floors described in more detail below. 

The restaurant will have a diner design with booths along the left wall, and a diner counter with stools along the length of the resto, with the kitchen behind a wall, behind the counter. A bathroom and a small office at the back. The office is for the two foreman to share and use to meet, to plan schedules, and so on.  At the counter side of the front window there will be an opening with a window that can slide up or to the left or right to allow for food delivery couriers to pick up orders without having to enter the resto. An awning above this food courier window will be added so that in cases of rain the courier can be protected. The interior resto walls will have various photos of Montreal, some in the fall of Mount Royal, some of murals in the Plateau, some of winter after snowfall in NDG, some of Old Montreal.

The two floors of dormitory will be identical, they will have:

• either two bedrooms with three beds, or three bedrooms with two beds, depending on the space available
• a bathroom with two shower stalls, two toilet stalls and two sinks
• a small kitchen with a basic two induction burner and a fridge and a coffee maker
• a lounging area with a sofa, a chair and a coffee table
• lockers near the entrance, six of them, for the tenants
• a laundry closet with a vertically stacked washer/dryer

As this construction continues, I will keep an eye on both the production facility and this first resto location to make sure the construction proceeds as expected. Early during this period I will spend a week in Johor Bahru (JB), Malaysia, to get the same types of business license and permits and to hire a real estate agent to buy a shoplot in a secondary street of a desirable area that has foot traffic. Ideally I am able to buy this shoplot before 8 months have passed since the first location started to be gutted. On that 8th month, I begin the gutting of the JB location, hire an architect to take the plans from the Surabaya location and tweak them to the JB location following local regulations. The HVAC and fire protection crews would come after the JB gutting takes place.

Back in Surabaya I would begin working on my ingredients supply chains. I would work out an agreement to receive beef briscuits in a low number at first, but eventually a standing order. I would bring Quebec cheese curds to a nearby large dairy company and ask them to make the cheese curds. For potatoes, at the begining I could just buy them retail, but eventually I partner with a local producer. In each restaurant, in the kitchen, will be a potato prep area where 10kg bags of potatoes are peeled by a worker, and using a manual fry-press, are pressed through the metal grid into a bucket, to soon after be fried in refined palm olein. For the rye bread, I would pay for test development at two bakeries for them to make rye bread like we get in Montreal, I would have them prepare it for us, but not slice it. Each of my restaurants will have a bread slicer so that the baker doesn't have to do it, and so that the bread is sliced identically at all of our locations.

There would be two or three additional Indonesian style poutines made with local ingredients that ought to be easy to source, since they are indonesian. As new locations are opened up in other countries, the restaurants in the cities in those locations can add two or three local to that country types of poutines.

About six weeks before the restaurant is ready but that the processing facility is near completion I would post an ad to hire the foremen. Below is a copy/paste from Copilot that is what the job offer would look like:

About Us

We are opening a Montreal‑inspired deli and smokehouse in Surabaya, bringing authentic poutine, smoked meat, and Canadian comfort food to Indonesia. Our restaurant is built on craftsmanship, teamwork, and a strong sense of community. We provide on‑site staff housing, cross‑training opportunities, and a supportive environment where every team member can grow.

We are seeking two dedicated leaders to join our founding team:

• FOH Foreman (Female) – to lead the front‑of‑house team and serve as the leadership presence in the women’s dormitory

• BOH Foreman (Male) – to lead the kitchen team and serve as the leadership presence in the men’s dormitory

Both roles are essential to building a stable, respectful, and well‑organized workplace.

Position Overview

The Foreman is responsible for daily operations, team coordination, training, communication, and maintaining high standards of service and professionalism. This is a hands‑on leadership role within a small, tightly knit team.

Because our staff live on‑site in gender‑separated dormitories, the Foreman must reside in the dormitory corresponding to their gender. This ensures strong leadership presence, safety, and support for the team.

Key Responsibilities

Leadership & Team Coordination

• Lead and supervise daily FOH or BOH operations
• Support and mentor staff living in the dormitory
• Maintain a positive, respectful, and collaborative team culture
• Communicate clearly with the owner and assistant foremen

Operational Excellence

• Ensure consistent food quality and service standards
• Oversee cleanliness, organization, and safety
• Manage inventory and coordinate with suppliers
• Assist with scheduling and shift planning

Training & Development

• Train new staff in their roles
• Support cross‑training across FOH, BOH, and the production facility
• Delegate tasks to assistant foremen as needed

Problem Solving

• Address operational issues quickly and calmly
• Support staff with dormitory concerns
• Maintain smooth communication between FOH and BOH

Requirements

• Strong English communication skills (spoken and written)
• Willingness to live in the on‑site staff dormitory
• Female candidates for FOH Foreman; male candidates for BOH Foreman (due to dormitory leadership responsibilities)
• Experience in hospitality, food service, or team leadership
• Ability to work collaboratively in a small, high‑trust team
• Professionalism, reliability, and a positive attitude
• Willingness to learn and embrace Montreal‑style cuisine

Compensation

Probation Period (First 3 Months)

• 400 CAD per month (paid in local currency)
• Dormitory rent: 100 CAD per month (deducted automatically)

After Successful Probation

• 600 CAD per month
• Dormitory rent remains 100 CAD per month
• Opportunities for annual performance bonuses
• Eligibility for future staff trips to Montreal (rotation‑based)

Benefits

• On‑site staff housing (shared dormitory) with free Wifi
• Cross‑training in FOH, BOH, and production facility operations
• A respectful, fair, and stable work environment
• Clear leadership responsibilities
• Long‑term career stability
• Opportunity to be part of a founding team
• Potential future travel to Montreal for cultural and culinary training

Work Environment

Our restaurant is built on:

• teamwork
• mutual respect
• clean communication
• pride in craftsmanship
• a calm, intentional working style

We value people who take initiative, support their teammates, and want to grow with the business.

How to Apply

Please send:

• Your CV
• A short introduction about yourself
• Your English proficiency level
• Your availability to relocate to the on‑site dormitory

Applications can be submitted via WhatsApp or email (details to be added).

-----

So the one thing that may be noted from above is a future trip to Montreal. This is an idea I have, that in the third year of operation of all of my restuarants, I begin a once a year trip to Montreal. For the location just opened it would be a foreman and a worker so that the other foreman can stay in the resto to keep watch and order. In the subsequent year it would be the other foreman and a different worker. The idea is to give them a sense of Montreal since the resto is based from there, to walk on Mount Royal, in Old Montreal, to try a poutine that is locally produced. I will encourage the two people from each location to get photos of them in Montreal places, so that then these photos can be printed, framed and hung in their restaurant in their city. This will give other emloyees at that location, and even clients who come in for food, something to talk about, or even, to look forward to.

I would set up the business acount out of which I will pay my employees, and into which I will receive the payments for food orders and for QRIS payments using a resto specific mobile device setup specifically only for QRIS payment verification. Obviously I fund it generously to begin with so as to be able to pay the staff until the resto location is self sustaining.

With the production facility ready about a month before we begin the restaurant, I would hire the two foreman and if the dormitories are mostly ready, allow them to move in. We would spend the next few weeks at the production facility so that they can learn and we can write the standard operating procedures (SOP) for what goes on there.

On the first and possibly second day, just do a walk through of the whole facility, turn the fridge/freezers and HVAC on and explain the procedure to the foremen.

On the third day we process our first raw beef briscuit. We'll learn to trim, weigh, calculate the cure % based on that weight, apply the cure, put it in the food bin and put it in the fridge. Log the entry.

On subsequent days we go to the production facility just to turn over the beef briscuits in their food containers. We would also together write the SOPs for Receiving the beef briscuit, the curing, the turning and sanitation.

On day 11 we prepare and start the smoker, remove the briscuit from the food grade container, set it up in the smoker and let it smoke for 8 hours. Once it is in the smoker, the smoker SOP can be written. After the 8 hours the briscuit is to be steamed for 3-4 hours, so in the last hour of smoking, set up the steamer. Once steaming is done, cool the briscuit down and then vacuum seal it, and then put it in the fridge.

On day 12 we use the steamer to heat up the smoked meat and then we try eating it. We keep some aside for a taste test comparison with next batch. We make adjustments to the cure recipe as needed. Then the two foreman follow the cure SOP with any adjustments on a new raw briscuit.

On subsequent days we flip the meat in it's food grade container, the three of us can take turns. During this time I work with the foremen to write up the job requirements for the entry level BOH and FOH positions, hiring two of each. We post them and interview them during this period such that they are to start on day 30 below.

On day 20 the foremen smoke, then steam, then cool, then vacuum seal under my supervision

Day 21 we steam up the batch #1 and the new batch #2 and taste test compare them. We then cure a large amount in preparation for restaurant opening making any final adjustments to the recipe. We adjust the SOP as needed.

Subsequent days we take turns rotating all of the meat we have prepared.

During this time we return to the restaurant to practice on potatoes. All three of us peel, we take turns using the potato to fry press device, we practice cooking the fries in the oil, getting used to how much time it takes, and how to know they are ready. We also practice making poutines, since we will have the cheese curds and the sauce, we'll get either a 1/3 cup or 1/2 cup metal measuring cup to scoop the cheese curds atop the fries, and a ladle of a specific size for the sauce.

I would travel over to JB for a day or two to see how the second location is coming along in terms of construction, leaving the production facility meat flipping to the two foreman.

Day 29 we smoke and steam and vacuum seal the large order, we cure another batch of the same large order size, and we bring the vacuum sealed order back to the restaurant.

Day 30 We open the restaurant for a soft launch, perhaps only three hours per day. We can invite neighbours of the business, the six employees can invite friends. For the new employees, we train them prior to our three open hours. We organize with the two main food delivery companies to be included on our Grand Opening date.

Day 37 Grand opening, we try being open 11am to 9pm with courier deliveries open until 11pm. We offer the Quebecois standard poutine at a discount for the first week. We can evaluate those opening hours as the weeks progress.

For that first week or two I stick around and help when help is needed, we get into a routine with respect to the production facility about how much to prepare and how often, and how often to order the beef briscuits and how often to order the cheese curds, the potatoes, the gravy and so on.

By this time the first location should be running fairly smoothly, so I start to spend more time in JB to get local producers of rye bread and to source potatoes.

I travel back and forth between Surabaya and JB and now make my first visit to Cebu, Philippines, where I get the permits to open a business, find a real estate agent to scope out a shoplot in a desirable location.

In JB as the resto gets close to being ready, I hire the male and female foreman who have the same requirements as the ones in Surabaya except they won't have any role at the production facility. Also as the JB location gets close to being ready, I hire a cold chain shipping company to do shipments from the SIER SIUK production facility to the JB restaurant location. 

Orders are placed from the JB restaurant probably by the JB BOH foreman that arrive at first to the BOH foreman at the Surabaya location. Eventually there will be enough production work at the production facility that another foreman will be hired who works full time at the production facility, and who is trained by the BOH and FOH from Surabaya. Once we have a foreman at the production facility, all orders will come to this person instead of the Surabaya BOH foreman.

When the JB location orders from the Surabaya production there will be a nominal charge, for example, 1$CAD per KG equivalent in MYR currency. This can be deposited in Indonesia's business account but in a subaccount in MYR currency; this way no currency conversion takes place. Eventually each of the different countries would do the same, and when the production facility needs to pay SIER's monthly rent, it can convert only what is needed from each of these sub accounts to get enough IDR to pay SIER.

There is an idea that if in the future we can build eight restos spread out among all of the Indonesian islands, there may be enough orders from just the IDR restaurants to cover all of the OPEX of the Surabaya production facility. If this happens, the 1$CAD per KG in local currency payments that other country restos make can be diverted to a sub account in that country's local business account. Then once a year I can pay a bonus to my staff, that in the MYR sub account where the MYR order fees were deposited, I divide that up among all of the MYR employees as a bonus. For IDR, I could forfeit my 5% royalty for a month or two so as to provide a bonus to those employees.

20 days before Grand Opening at JB, we hire two each of FOH and BOH entry level positions, for them to start on two days before Grand opening.

7 days before Grand Opening at JB, we receive our first shipment from the production facility, we have our potatoes, rye bread and poutine gravy. We do a soft opening of only three hours per day until the Grand Opening. We sign up to the food delivery systems to start on the Grand Opening date.

2 days before Grand Opening at JB, the four new staff members get trained by the two foreman. No cross training just yet.

Grand opening, we start 11h to 21h of resto and then 21h to 23h of delivery. We also have a one week opening sale that the traditional Quebecois Poutine is on discount.

I assist as needed for the next week or two, and then return to Surabaya to check things out.

The pattern is set, Cebu gets built and as Cebu gets built I go to Da Nang in Vietnam, get permission, licenses, real estate agent.

In each country I get a business bank account from which to receive the payments for food orders, to pay suppliers and to pay the staff. Once a location becomes profitable, I would take a 5% royalty per month from that location that I convert back to $CAD for me. I can issue a secondary debit card to the BOH foreman at each location that only allows for purchases, has limited or zero cash withdrawal, and no access to online banking, so no view of bank balance. This is so that the BOH foreman can buy potatoes, to-go boxes, toilet paper, cleaning supplies and so on.

At every location we gut, we get the same HVAC team and products (heat pump, A/C, dehumidifier, duct work) and the same fire protection sprinkler system. In each location we hire a local general contractor to use the same Surabaya architect plans but tweaked to the dimensions of the building and the local building regulations.

We hire a male and female foreman who can speak English and we train them well, then they hire two more FOH and BOH again female FOH and male BOH so as to settle the dorms evenly. We do a discount of the Quebecois traditional poutine the first week. We get our cold chain shipping company to add the new location.

Eventually each location will hire more entry level staff, and as the oldest entry level staff gain experience and become adept at all cross trained roles, the FOH foreman can pick an employee to become an assistant. Once promoted to assistant, their pay rate rises from 200$CAD net to 300$CAD net. All employees are eligible to eventually updgrade to assistant, however, there can only ever be one foreman for FOH and one for BOH. The foremen can delegate tasks to assistants.

Eventually a second location will open up in a new city within the same country. At that time, an offer will be made to the existing location for someone to become the foreman at that new location if they are willing to relocate to that location. The existing foreman will get first choice, and then the most senior assistant and then down by seniority. 

As discussed above, we would then expand to six more locations in Indonesia, spread out on the various islands, so as to hopefully be able to pay for the full SIER SIUK production facility OPEX in IDR so that we don't need those other country locations to send their money out of country when placing orders.

Okay, one last idea, I would get printed 300-500 t-shirts, perhaps with just MTL as a logo that would be the uniform for all of the staff across all of the locations. Perhaps similarly the restaurant sign out front would simply be MTL. Each staffer would get three t-shirts and every year we we would order one or two more for everyone.

That's all I have for this idea for now. It is quite a lot, I know.

send in your wraps

An inordinate number of numbers thought that the letters of the least common alphabet could be used as bowling pins in an alley made of compassion and iridescence.

A stupefied herring didn't know which ordinal direction would be best used as a luggage tag on a trip to the third closest Goldilocks exoplanet.

Sending a dizzy frog after the canine teeth of a Shire horse is probably not the best idea a subjugated grain of sand could bring to bear to a bear.

Count, twice.

jump twice, not the

being one, knowing two too, throwing three but not for four.

limping two steps forward while contemplating the previous three firm steps backwards.

dancing like a fish, fishing like a rock, rocking like a chair, being in a chair, slightly foul as the fowl flies turbidly.

making soup, kind of unlike what isn't, to be certain, or less certain, or lacking confidence, like a kite, but unlike a mop.

Chicken thigh debreaded, mixed with amber coloured acrylic paint used in the last two ceilings. Quiet mispelled as quite.

okay

Always the middle

Never the side.

Okay, settle in.

There will be books about the fall of the American Empire that will eventually be written, but we are living in the midst of it. The felon Cheetoh Buffoon (fCB) down south is doing things that is sinking the economy of the United States. For a little while at the start of fCB’s administration, we, in Canada, held up hope that we could negotiate to remove irrational tariffs that were laid upon us. In Jan 2026 Canadian prime minister Mark Carney made an historic speech in Davos at the World Economic Forum that indicates that there has been a rupture in the global rules based economic order. He proposed that as a middle power, Canada could partner with other middle powers to become a third global power. In fact, he said it was necessary as the alternative is all of us middle power nations in silos where we would all be poorer.

2026 begins with nations like China, Japan and south Korea gradually selling the US bonds that as a government they had bought in the past as the US bond was the most reliable financial product out there. Now that the US economy has begun to tank, the selling of those bonds will accelerate further economic declines. Of course, with Canada’s economy so intertied with the US economy, where they go, we go, so Carney has been working quickly to get trade deals with numerous other nations. Recent deals include a strategic partnership with China, a more open trade deal with Indonesia, getting on a military industrial deal with the EU and other deals that yet young, will hopefully soon get businesses in partner nations to start to work together with our Canadian businesses, to the benefit of Canada, to decrease our reliance on the US economy.

There are some who are hopeful that once the fCB is no longer POTUS, that things can possibly return to normal, however, many of us feel that the fCB is a symptom of what has happened in the US population, that an equivalent to the MAGA movement will persist long after the Buffoon is turfed or has expired.  Many of the comments that I see on YouTube videos about this show Canadian (and other non-US country people) vowing to not ever travel to the US for tourism, and to cease buying US produced goods or services. This is yet another by product of the fCB doing what he has been doing. These video commentors will often state that irrespective of what happens next in the US politically, their personal boycott of everything US will continue in perpetuity.

Perhaps the other side

In another topic, homelessness is on the rise in Canada, and perhaps in the global western world. The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) is proposing to have the government to ‘get out of the way’ to allow the market to help solve this problem. I think this is particularly idiotic as the market won’t build social or affordable housing without government support. The Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) is going to release a new Housing Initiative in the coming months with a goal of getting into the provision of social housing and affordable housing in concert with provinces and municipalities. This is good, but is slow, especially if municipal level NIMBY forces cause a ruckus.

The root cause of this homelessness crisis, as far as I am concerned, is out of control capitalism. There is too much wealth being accumulated at the very top of society, with companies well beneath that high level scooping up apartment buildings as part of real estate investment trusts (REITs) that try to extract as much value out of the properties as possible. They buy the building and raise the rents at the earliest legal opportunity by 20% to 30% which ends up pushing people out of the building with no where else that is affordable.

Additionally, our food grocery environment in Canada is an oligopoly and so the prices that the grocers are setting have also increased over the last few years. So if a person’s rent and food represent 85% of their income, and both go up by 20-30%, their rent and food could end up to be 105% of their income, or more. Being compelled to spend more than you earn never ends well.

There is a group called Patriotic Millionaires Canada that want to push forward the idea of taxing the wealthy more, for the common good of Canada. CPC supporters would be against this as any increase in taxes is anathema. I am in full support of this idea, however, as those who are at the very top ought to be compelled to pay more into the government coffers. Their involvement in capitalism has gained them a fortune at the cost of putting 100s of thousands of Canadians into the street.

The top, not the bottom

So here are my thoughts about what to do. Definitely increase the trade with other nations, develop a CANZUK free trade network since these four countries are so clearly aligned in many ways. Accelerate the development of the port of Churchill, the St. John port in NB, the container port in Contreceour QC. Improve the Trans Mountain pipeline but do not build a new pipeline to the Pacific Northwest. Expand the LNG terminal that is already being expanded on the west coast. Accelerate BitCrude to get raw bitumen out to Asia for road building and to keep our bitumen mine workers working.

Work with the CANZUK to have a tax-the-wealthy plan that we apply across all four nations. With the funds that our government raises from these wealthy capitalists, pay to improve things like healthcare, education, public transport and social housing.

With respect to social housing, have the provinces work with the municipalities to situate the locations of the social and affordable housing units and put into law that given the urgency of the issue, that local public consultation is limited and not binding. Have the federal government pay for all of the infrastructural expenses and the foundations of these new buildings. Have the province and the municipality pay for the remainder. Still collect rents from the tenants, but tied to 30% of income.

In the building of these buildings, use advanced lumber products to both embed carbon, and, to support Canadian businesses that produce the advanced lumber so as to support our lumber industry.

With respect to food prices, fortunately there is already a plan to invest in, to increase, food production in Canada, specifically with efficiencies for existing farmers, and also, expansion of greenhouses. The latter are most important given our limited growing season. We should also expand our food processing ability, so as to have our own products be produced in large volumes so as to lower their prices. And finally, change regulations, specifically one that allows a grocery store to limit how close another grocery store can be, such that new competitors can enter the market, especially small ones that carry 80% of food necessities but not dozens of versions of similar products for each type of product. These small grocery stores can be directed to be built first in the most food desert places in Canada, but eventually, to be all over.

I have more thoughts about all of this, but this is sufficient for this post.

When an electric scooter has been painted

A clandestine advertisement was even still noticed by those gifted with third-sight who were more than half persuaded to take advantage of the offer offered.

One by one they would spend their par currency in units only deftly defined to obtain the serviceable product of whose hidden ad they had seen.

This gift of third-sight, as such gifts usually go, comes with a curse, too - the idiopathic tendency to pay slightly more than normative diffuse amounts for serviceable products.

bit who, him?

In two separate videos I watched in the last two or three weeks, the most recent one today, I heard about a company out in Alberta that has developed a system of collecting raw mined bitumen, wrapping it in essentially a plastic bag, piling the bags in a shipping container, and then by rail bringing them to a port off of BC's coast, to then be shipped to points in Asia where this bitumen is ideal for both road repair, road repave and new road construction.

As I understand it, the company needs help to get those Asian customers and to expand their facility to get their production up to a meaningful way, so the new Major Projects Office ought to get involved.

The video I watched today, the analyst mentioned that the MPO and the Albertan provincial government are both only considering a diluted bitumen pipeline to the west coast and will not provide the assistance this company needs.

I find this infuriating. If I had 100M$ I would approach the company and try to help them in any way I could.

The other thing the analyst mentioned was about this diluted bitumen pipeline to the Pacific northwest that is in the dreams of the Alberta premier Smith and CPC leader Poilievre. The analyst said that both China and India are heavily electrifying and so the need for the diluted bitumen may not even exist by the time a pipeline gets built and the diluted bitumen would start to flow. So it does not make economic sense to build that out. I have known this before this analyst mentioned it, and is the biggest reason why I am against the building of such a pipeline.

However, I did learn something new from this video - that after the felon Cheetoh Buffoon took away the Venezualan leader and took over the oil tankers that had been shipping the heavy crude to China, and now the heavy crude can begin to go to the Gulf of Mexico US ports for refining. Those refineries get the bulk of their oil through pipelines from Alberta, so if the Venezuala crude displaces the Canadian crude, this could be very bad news for Alberta, and for Canada. We do have the TMX pipeline that can be expanded to add an additional 200-400k barrels per day, but this closing of the tap in Louisiana and nearby states puts added pressure on building a new pipeline to the Pacific northwest that I mentioned earlier in the post I disagree with building. Even with this new information I think that pipeline ought not to be built.

And finally, there is a national electricity plan that will come out soon; I really hope it means a beefed up intertie between Quebec and Ontario so that we can export hydro power there and they can export nuclear power here when each of us have needs.

that it isn't known, or

Last week our prime minister Mark Carney delivered an historic speech that I needed to listen to numerous times to catch everything he intended for us to understand.

My best interpretation is that Canada as a middle power, is becoming a leader of other middle power countries, to band together to face the unfair and unbalanced situations that the hegemons have over us.

We, as middle power countries, will form parternships and mutli-laterals, so as to make each of us less reliant on the relationships we have with the hegemons so that the hegemons have less power to make us subserviant.

Though the felon Cheetoh Buffoon was never named, that idiot is the impetus for the speech. Most interpretations are that this speech is specifically in answer to him, however, I interpret it to also mean China. In the previous week Carney signed an agreement with China to allow 49000 Chinese made EVs into Canada in exchange for lowering significantly the tariffs they had placed on Canadian agricultural products. 

Some are concerned that allowing China a foot in the door could eventually mean China floods our market, however, using a 49k quota, instead of a simple tariff, seems to be a better solution. This number of incoming cars is less than 3% of Canada's car purchase annual number. And honestly, their BYD sub 30k$ EVs are filling a market that has no equivalent here in Canada.

Ontario's premier Doug Ford has called these 'Spy Cars' indicating that they will pass all sorts of data to China. I think this is ridiculous; many cars have cameras now to help with backing up, with keeping the distance from the car in front while in cruise control, and so on.

Parliament resumes on Monday, tomorrow, the new session to begin. It is still a Liberal minority government with just two additional MPs needed to get a majority. Rumour has it, based on what I have seen on Power & Politics, that it is possible one, two or three more CPC members will floor cross, giving the LPC the majority. This may only happen somehow in coordination with the CPC convention and leadership review happenening later this month. If it doesn't happen I suspect we may have a federal election in 2026 which I think is a terrible idea given we are to negotiate CUSMA this summer.

bing bang bop

So at work, for perhaps 25 consecutive weeks, or more, up until the end of 2025, every Friday, from 17h to 18h I would chat through Teams with another WFH coworker who lives in BC, one of the few anglos on my team, just to be friendly. This past Friday I did not initiate, and I got nothing from this coworker. 

Things are working out that maybe I won't need to work for too much longer. I do hope so as this job I currently have is offering me too little in terms of social interaction.

Let's Dance?

Yep, it's been 10 years since David Bowie died.

As a teenager I first found him by his most popular 'Let's Dance' song, but since then came to know a bunch of other songs he's made.

He was rather influential on other artists that came after him.

I, for one, was impressed with all of the different characters he made use of throughout his musical career, but in particular, how his release of Blackstar and some of the songs on that album coincided with his death.

Maybe this ought to be made a 'David Bowie' day.

uggh... Greenland

I feel strongly about this so I had to post about it. The felon Cheetoh Buffoon down south is talking more fervently about occupying Greenland, making it a part of the US. Obviously the Greenlanders themselves are against this, but what can they do about it? Denmark has a play in this too, but also, what can they do about it?

If I had any say in the matter I would threaten the US with a united isolation. Canada, the European Union, the UK and any other like minded partners can threaten to cease all trade with the US if they go forward with such an action. This means Canada stops shipping electricity, oil, metals, car parts and lumber down to the US and that we do not buy anything from them. For the EU and others, same thing - cease all trade with the US.

Obviously this would be very hard on Canada and the EU as the consumer base in the US is a large force that helps to feed our families, but honestly, this US president needs to be put in place.

There is already a US military base on Greenland; why not simply expand that a little bit and increase the forces that are stationed there? This is obviously an acceptable solution.

that it wasn't two, or maybe

So I've discovered this game, Foundation: Galactic Frontier. I saw the ads for it on YouTube for a week or two and then decided to download it to my laptop and start playing it. It is loosely based on the Foundation series from Isaac Asimov, but also taking some elements from the AppleTV+ TV show rendition of same.

It has been fun to read about Hari Seldon, Bel Riose, The Mule and a few other characters and place names. The game is set in the Korell collection of solar systems perhaps 100 years after Terminus is first settled. There is an adversary group called the Ascendancy and we (the players) as Traders have to fight them off while we also do our job of trading.

There are in-app purchases that could help speed along different aspects of the game, but it can be played (as I have been) without spending any money at all.

I am not a video game player by any stretch of imagination, but this game has been intriguing with a complexity that has kept me engaged since I downloaded it about ten days ago. Part of the game involves joining a guild - this is actually optional within the game, but there are definite advantages to doing so.

The guild I chose to join just randomly from a list has as leader a young woman living in Perth, Australia. I know this about her because we started chatting through the game, and then moved our chat to Discord so as to have an easier time of chatting.

With the exception of the Resources mobile game that I have been on for almost three years now, this may be the longest I've played any video game in my life, having attempted others in the past and having lost interest somewhere along the way. We shall see if I eventually lose interest in this one.

Sorry, I left my apocalypse at home

That we are nearing the end of the year 2025 speaks nothing to the number of pairs of unequal socks I may have owned within the last half decade.

That we are so close to arriving at the halfway mark of my trip around the sun means very little to anyone who knows how to tie shoelaces while chewing gum and also having a conversation with someone concerning the best time of day to order a book of coupons to be used in an online shopping spree.

That I've started all three sentences in this post with the word 'that' should be an offense punishable by a prime number of floggings with a licorice stick that has been partially chewed by that barn dog named 'Barry'.

news like a duvet

There is a political story that perhaps not a lot of Canadians are paying much attention to. On Thursday, Michael Ma, an Ontario MP of the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) crossed the floor giving the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) one more seat, and bringing them very close to changing the nature of parliament - going from a minority to a majority.

There are numerous reasons for at least one more CPC MP to cross:

1. That Ma, and earlier D'entremont both crossed means ths next person is going as part of a group, and not so much as an individual, making it psychologically easier to cross
2. This CPC floor crosser will no longer have to behave in a very specific way with Poilievre as CPC leader, which could mean a breath of fresh air
3. The very next CPC that crosses brings the LPC to have a majority government which makes it so that an election now would only be in 3-4 years so the crosser gives them self (and every other MP) a full term in government. If it stays a minority, there could be an election as soon as this coming spring.
4. Both Ma and D'entremont came from ridings where the vote was split very close to 50/50, and so if the CPC crosser comes from a similarly split riding, it is easier to tolerate as about half the electorate wanted an LPC member anyhow
5. If the crosser is crossing so that more of the bills being propose pass through the House, this crosser helps to accelerate this as with a majority, there are enough votes to pass everything the government puts forward, if every LPC member votes accordingly

In Canada's history there have been floor crossings infrequently and sporadicly and never in a situation that it would be possible to move a government to or from a majority. With two members already having done this in the last six weeks, and with parliament suspended for six weeks due to the Christmas holiday closure, there is plenty of time for CPC members who were on the fence, to check in with their constituents to see how it would be received if the member crossed.

On Power & Politics that I watch regularly, the analysts have mentioned that some LPC members, including PM Carney, are speaking with those CPC members that are considering the change. So I, along with all of the political media people, are paying close attention over the next six weeks to see if there is one more crosser, and the likelihood seems pretty high. 

keeping the three but not the side of the dice with five dots

To those who, and then, yes, like it was imagined only by the third five year old alphabetically by middle name,.

Filling the dyke, flying a kite, 

Using a broken banjo as a plate to serve KD with chopped hot dogs and ketchup.

Dip pip sip lip tip yip rip wip hip oip

when the turnip and the Tetris

I have been listening to CPAC lately while I work, the Budget 2025 is being discussed, with the CPC focusing on how it does little to immediately assist people in Canada, but with the LPC touting all of the things it does do. The federal government is in a deficit spending mood and there is some funding towards housing that was part of the impetus for what I worked out with the Copilot AI. Another impetus is the idea of using Canadian steel and lumber and CLT in construction. I asked the AI about income inequality and how to address it, and we came up with the plan below.

Policy Blueprint: Reducing Income Inequality in Canada (2026–2030)

Executive Summary

Canada faces rising income inequality driven by stagnant wages, high living costs, and housing shortages. This blueprint proposes a five-year integrated strategy combining tax reform, cost-of-living reductions, and housing expansion to create a fairer, more inclusive economy.

---

1. Tax Reform: A Fairer System

Goal: Increase disposable income for low- and middle-income Canadians while maintaining revenue neutrality.

• Inverse-Proportion Basic Personal Amount (BPA)
  • Start at current BPA (~$15,000) and gradually increase for low-income earners while phasing out for high-income earners over 5 years.
  • Formula:
    $$BPA = \max(0, Base \times (1 - \frac{\text{Taxable Income}}{\text{Phase-Out Threshold}}))$$
    Example: Base = $20,000; Phase-Out = $150,000.
• Small Boosts to CCB and GIS
  • Target families and seniors for immediate relief.
• New Worker Benefit
  • Refundable credit for low-income adults without children or retirement benefits.

Impact:

• Progressive tax system without sudden shocks.
• Immediate support for vulnerable groups.

---

2. Lowering Cost of Living

Goal: Reduce essential expenses for households through increased market competition.

• Groceries
  • Lower barriers for foreign entrants and independent grocers.
  • Enforce anti-collusion laws.
• Telecom & Internet
  • Mandate wholesale access for smaller providers.
  • Encourage MVNOs and regional ISPs.
• Banking
  • Promote low-cost and zero-fee digital banking options.

Impact:

• Lower grocery and telecom bills.
• Increased consumer choice.

---

3. Housing: Building Stability

Goal: Eliminate chronic homelessness and expand affordable housing.

• Pipeline Construction Model
  • Specialized teams rotate through many sites across major cities.
  • Modular and mass timber builds for speed (up to 12 stories downtown, 4–6 stories in suburbs).
• Three-Tier Housing Strategy
  • Transition Housing: Rooming-house style with embedded social workers.
  • Social Housing: Rent geared to income (≤30%).
  • Affordable Housing: ~70% of market rent.
• Funding Model
  • Federal: CAPEX for construction.
  • Provincial: Social services and staffing.
  • Municipal: Building management; pooled rents cover maintenance.

Impact Timeline:

• Year 1: First transition units + hotel conversions online.
• Year 3: Majority of transition housing complete; social housing scaling.
• Year 5: Chronic homelessness eliminated; ongoing affordable housing builds.

---

Governance & Accountability

• Build Canada Homes Agency: Centralized expertise for modular builds.
• Annual Review: Adjust BPA formula and housing targets based on progress.
• Public Dashboard: Transparency on milestones and spending.

---

Expected Outcomes by 2030

• Income inequality significantly reduced.
• Cost of living stabilized.
• Housing security for vulnerable Canadians.
• Stronger, more inclusive communities.

---

I did the anlysis for the housing part in Montreal, with about 3000 people who are homeless, it would take about 25 buildings worth of transition housing with the soonest available within a year and with all homeless put into transition housing, and off the street by the end of five years. Any homeless who are able to work once they have an address, they can move up to social housing within the same building, freeing up another transition space. Social workers can be embedded in the building to help all of the people that are in the transition and social housing units.

a bucket of symphonies

Being as old as I am, around 19500 days, I wonder sometimes how my life would be different had I

joined the CAF as part of the navy, this would have had me travel more, take my basic training away from home, perhaps be retired already from the forces, be out at sea at various times for perhaps long durations, but with the crew. I don't know if this existed back then, but what exists now is a one year program that begins with basic training in either the east or west coast of Canada, and then over the next year I get placed into a large variety of different positions to learn which ones are available or are in need, then I suppose I would pick one or two and then get the training for whichever one I would then be assigned to do. There would be X number of years subsequent to receiving training that I would have to commit to remaining in the forces, but I would have committed to stick it out until I retire, perhaps moving up some ranks.

even in the career path I followed (doing mostly software support for various enterprise level software packages) I could have join the reserves at a young age which would have put me into a group of people annually with whom I train, but this never occurred to me until much later in my life

trained to be an STM bus driver - earn a pretty good salary, but have shift work that would make having a family more challenging, maybe also retire by now, or within the next few years. I would be unionized and after a certain number of years I would reach the max salary which as I understand it is double what I am earning now (though my job now is an easy 9 to 5 weekdays). I could have applied for this job soon after high school, though, my french language skills would have to have been perhaps better than I had at the time.

trained to be a nurse - with this being a very female dominated domain, I would have more quickly overcome my discomfort in interacting with the girls in the training program with me. I would work in hospital settings until perhaps my mid-40s and then get a job at Hema-Quebec where I simply take blood donations from people, an easy and stable job, though also an occasional Saturday and evening I would have to work. This might have been the easiest thing to have done, since the CEGEP I went to in Sciences, had and continues to have a nursing preparation program.

trained to be a teacher - my middle child C-Ling is doing this now, to become a primary school teacher. This has also become a very female dominated role where having a man do it would be welcome. I would aim to be an early year secondary school teacher and see if I could teach at the school I went to. I know that in various jobs throughout the last thirty years I was placed in a position to provide a five day training to customers to use our software, and I quite enjoyed that aspect of my job at that time. I would have enjoyed having summers off, perhaps to see about having a small cottage to spend summers in.

trained to become a psychotherapist, I knew even at that young age that I was a good listener and as this comes naturally to me it would have helped in this role. Being an English speaker in Quebec, a province with a large minority of English language speakers, I think I could have found a place to work in a location where there are many English speakers, or, I could have moved anywhere else in Canada. I believe there has always been a shortage of people in this role; I just hope that I could have succeeded in the training.

become a Jesuit Priest - the high school I went to was a Jesuit Catholic school so this possibility was front and center, but I didn't have it in me to make that committment at that young age. If I did, my housing and meals for the rest of my life would be managed by the parishioners for whatever church I am pastor. Being a part of the Jesuits, I could be placed anywhere in the world that the Jesuits decide to place me. Also, there isn't really a retirement age as many of the priests that I have encountered have practiced well into their octagenarian years. 

If you happen to read this, do you ever think about what alternative careers you might have considered at the start of one's life given the knowledge you've learned since then?

oh the ways that tumble

I have been paying closer attention to politics lately, including watching House of Commons on TV. I have learned that on some days they start at 10am with just a handful of MPs in the House, where they take turns making 10min speeches followed by questions and feedback for perhaps another 10 minutes. Other MPs trickle in over the next few hours until at around 2pm the House is full, and now it is shorter debate between mainly the prime minister and the opposition leader, though different government cabinet ministers can respond too. This portion of debate is sometimes childish, and it disapppoints me this way that these elected officials behave this way.

As an example, Pierre Poilievre as opposition leader insists over and over that the indistrial carbon tax is causing food price inflation. For the longest time, PM Mark Carney wouldn't address this directly, he would tout a different benefit that his government has provided to address affordability. I think over and over Carney needs to point to specific studies that show that the industrial carbon tax has extremely small impact on food costs, that climate change has the biggest impact.

This week they are debating the Budget 2025 that the government published last week. When a Liberal Party of Canada (LPC), the governing body, has an MP who stands to do a speech for 10 minutes, they use concrete examples of how the budget improves the lives of the people in their riding. When a Conservative Party of Canada (CPC), the opposition, has an MP who stands to do a speech for 10 minutes, they talk about the rise in people going to food banks, the affordability problem of housing, food price inflation, too many regulations and the $78B deficit for this budget.

I agree that the budget doesn't do enough around income inequality that could benefit people in the lowest income bracket to remove their need for accessing a food bank. However, I disagree with the CPC that the deficit is problematic. Much of the spending of this deficit is going towards projects that will create jobs, grow the economy and as a result, gather more income tax that can help pay down the deficit and eventually the debt. A lot of the projects have a 3-5 year timeline, or longer, and so unfortunately not a lot of what is in the budget addresses directly the issues that the CPC are raising, but there are no easy and quick solutions to address the concerns the CPC raises.

Tomorrow the Federal government and the Alberta government are having an announcement event in Calgary about an MOU that aligns the two governments about a bitumen pipeline from Alberta to the Prince Rupert area of British Columbia. CBC has reported that some regulations will ease to allow for the pipeline, but that there are some environmental conditions attached. The government of BC and First Nations on that part of the coast are vehemently against a bitumen pipeline, and as I understand it, the MOU releases the federal government from trying to get them onside for this pipeline, that the responsibility has been given to Alberta. As I see it, this improves the relationship between Albertans and the federal government, as it is in indication that the federal government has gotten out of the way. It is a win for Alberta Premier Smith as she can go to her party's convention this coming weekend to say she got a qualitative win from the federal government.

Given the conditions and the resistance, I think the probability of this bitumen pipeline getting built is actually very low, and so Premier Eby in British Columbia won't have to deal with this issue apart from opposing it; and all of the environmental people across Canada will be pleased that this pipeline doesn't get built.

I am against this pipeline being built. There is already a methane pipeline project on the Major Projects Office (MPO) that will go to the northwest coast of BC with a floating LNG terminal there. Additionally, there is a TMX pipeline to Vancouver that can be optimized to allow for a greater flow from Alberta; let's do that rather than build a new pipeline.

There are some economists who say the need for fossil fuels will continue for decades, while there are others who say that the peak of demand for fossil fuels will happen within the next five years and will make a new bitumen pipeline from Alberta to Prince Rupert a white elephant. Both power generating wind mills and solar panels have dropped in price below the price of fossil fuel electricity generation and their uptake has been exponential in the last two or three years. At that rate they will greatly reduce the need for fossil fuels.

Anyhow, I am interested to see how the MOU works out tomorrow; and if there is eventually a private proponent for a pipeline project that most of Canada doesn't want.

We remember

It isn't every November day that reminds us of the past, but this one does.

It was originally called 'Armistice Day' to commemorate the armistice agreement that ended the First World War on Monday, November 11, 1918, at 11 a.m.—on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

Then in 1931 it was renamed as 'Remembrance Day'. This is a day to honour and remember the men and women who have served, and continue to serve Canada during times of war, conflict and peace.

I don't personally know any such men or women, but today is a day to think about all of them anyhow.

On this day at 11AM I took a pause to remember the sacrifice and service that these men and women have provided.

there isn't much to say

Okay, well then.

It is raining on this day of Halloween.

Municipal elections across Quebec are happening on Sunday.

An STM strike is starting tomorrow to span all of November. I have an opinion about this; bus drivers in Montreal earn on average 114k$ (the average salary in Montreal is between 50-70k) and are asking for a big pay increase while at the same time the ARTM is under extreme stress due to not having enough income for the operations of the transit agencies. I do support the idea of labour unions to combat the excess of corporate greed; but in this particular case I am on the ARTM's side.

The Blue Jays are playing the LA Dodgers in game six tonight; if Toronto wins, they win the world series. If they don't, the deciding game 7 is tomorrow night.

On Tuesday the Mark Carney government will be releasing their budget. He is dividing the government finances into operations and capital projects with the goal of lowering the cost of government operations and increasing the investment in capital projects. As I understand it, the government expenses have been rising about 7% per year; if that can be reduced to 2 or 3% per year it would be more in line with inflation. 

Felix Auger-Alliasime is playing in a quarter final match in Paris, his match begins in about half an hour from me composing this post. It is an indoor tournament, perhaps in the future I will see if I can attend this tournament in person.

Over night this weekend we are to change our clocks to move back to standard time. I am of the opinion that we should do away with the time change. I am indifferent if we should keep standard time year round or day light savings time year round.

The Quebec government introduced a reform to how Quebec doctors are paid and the doctors are very angry about this new law. At the same time the Alberta government introduced a law that affects teachers, and in that province there is talk of a general strike.

Ontario premier Doug Ford had his government pay for a TV commercial to play in the United States with a minimally edited speech from Ronald Reagan touting the advantages of free trade; this in opposition to the Orange Cheetoh Buffoon's tariff heavy trade policy. There has been back lash, the ongoing talks between Canadian and US trade negoticators were terminated, and now it isn't clear what will happen. I have an opinion about this. I feel we should ignore the US, continue to trade under the CUSMA deal, do nothing about the sectoral tariffs affecting aluminum, steel, automotive, lumber and so on but do what can be done to support those industries from projects built in Canada.

I'll end off with Mark Carney being in south Korea presently and has met with the Chinese president. At this moment we have 100% tariffs on Chinese EVs and China has set tariffs on Canadian canola very high also. I have an opinion about this; if we can lower the tariff on incoming Chinese EVs to 50% and lower Chinese tariffs on our canola and other goods, we can increase trade. Ontario premier Ford would hate this idea, of Chinese EVs coming in to Canada; but with the US trying to break up the integrating automotive sector between Canada and the US, I get the sense the days of a Canadian automative industry are beginning to close. 

I guess that's about it for now.

Orion up in the sky

The Canadian Thanksgiving Holiday is just around the corner.

I am not certain what corner it is around; perhaps in a calendar, since the days are often marked in squares, the corner being referred to is the corner of the date that Thanksgiving is.

Or, more likely, it is just a manner of speech stemming from the idea that something that is just around the corner is literally, just around the corner so it isn't too far away, but not immediately evident.

In some city blocks, depending on the city, the next available corner can be quite a distance away, so 'around the corner' in that specific scenario is no indication whatsoever that what is going to happen is going to happen anytime soon.

Growing up my nuclear family didn't do much to celebrate Thanksgiving. In my own nuclear family we didn't do much with it either; would occasionally eat at my mother-in-law's house, but we'd have the habit of doing that on a fairly regular basis anyhow, so it wasn't anything really special.

Well, if you are reading this, I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving (yes, I know I'm early, but let me be the first).

that it wouldn't be too far to

There isn't much I can say about serendipity, or the colour of my left shoelace.

It is also impossible for me to know the correct time of day to consider what time of day ought to be the best time of day to do something that is best done at that time of day.

That the top of the bottom is not related to anything at all is up to this author.

bucket of sludgeless spa mint

If you haven't yet flossed your ankles, you can put it off to another day.

If you don't know what day of the week it is the moment you first awake in the morning, worry not, you are not alone in this blissful ignorance.

If you recognize that this post contains only sentences that start with 'If you', then it shows that you are reasonably attentive.

If you didn't recognize that this post contains only sentences that start with 'If you', you are remarkably inattentive.

If you have read to this last sentence, you will have read to this last sentence.

boo, pp

So, Pierre Poilievre has been elected in a safe Alberta riding to resume his role as Opposition Leader for the Conservative Party of Canada.

In his media appearances since the election, he again has claimed that inflation and immigration are still issues and that the Liberal government are responsible.

He also has begun his character attack on PM Mark Carney. I have no problem with the Opposition Leader being critical of the policies of the current government, but personal attacks on politicians, there ought to be a way to curtail this behaviour. 

why all of the vacancies are made of

Everyone else thought that youth, when applied to a pancake, would relate sideways to the cistern that is not equitable with a vote to the nary.

That a sentence devoid of any words that contain the letter 'Q' would be used as a first sentence of a post comes as no surprise to the author. If you found a 'Q' in the first sentence, consider yourself rewarded with that fantastic ability of letter recognition.

One would have to have been made delirious to understand the fast speaking unnaturally emotive existential professor who spoke often in epithets using anagrams. Not all of the rhymes rhyme.

The strangest of all things seems only to be compared to strange things. Comparing a strange thing to something perfectly natural or normal (like an apple, or a chair) is much like using a shoe horn to mimic a tenor horn.

All of the cryogenically frozen people who (before they were frozen) were predominately right-handed ought not to count the number of Mickey Mouse t-shirts they would have owned had they not frozen themselves at the time they did.

Microbial insects, if that is what they can be called when such a creature is that small, are occasionally felt on odd surfaces of my skin and I immediately scratch or rub it or them away.

Strength as a function of length as an aptitude of stench while being measured on a bench is observed by a wench using a wrench.

If the YMCA was to have been spelled the JQPF, it would have scored much higher in a Scrabble game.

Communal living in Generation Forward

I have had more thoughts about getting a pro-natal non profit going in a communal way instead of the individual condo -> house method I posted about a few days ago.

I would use the same applicant / candidate / selected method previously described, though I would revise it as an ad for young men and women, in couples or single. I learned that asking for specifically aged 18yo women and 24yo men could be age discriminatory. Also; I am not to specify gender roles in terms of the man having the bigger income; I will allow for the couple to work out for themselves this arrangement. Though, in the selection process I will look for situations where the guy is safely employed as most likely the woman would stay home due to pregnancy, maternity leave and child rearing.

At the first presentation, if there are any existing couples, who, after the presentation are interested in participating in the program, they will be part of a cohort that can be selected first. Couples that are selected, up to five of them, will be given the choice to follow the individual condo plan I outlined previously, or to enter the communal plan I describe below.

Any single individuals who come to that presentation who end up forming a couple with two prescheduled dates in the subsequent three weeks, we will touch base with them for three weeks. For couples still together and still interested in participating in the program, we will get all of them together to attend weekly homemaking lessons for things like cooking, what to expect at child birth, what to expect after birth in the first few months, personal finance, budgeting, RRSP, RESP, TFSA, etc. that will last another three months or so. If after that they still want to participate in the program, they will become cohort 2 using a selection process to get five couples.

From the original individual plan, once the non profit organization owns 15 condos and a few houses that we own outright and for which we receive rent payments, we use that to assist in getting a loan and to finance (with some of our own money) the construction of a purpose built communal building of about 15 storeys.

The ground floor will be a gym and pool and a locker room between them as well as the main entrance, mail boxes, access to the elevators and perhaps a management office.

Each residential floor above will be constructed in the form of a U shape with residential units all along the outside wall of the building on three sides, but having an opening in the middle with floor to ceiling windows on the fourth side. This communal area in the middle will have things like laundry machines, a large kitchen, and folding chairs and tables so that they can be moved aside outside of eating times to allow for the space to be multi purpose. Perhaps too there could be a balcony sticking out of the building on that fourth communal side.

Levels 1 and 2 will have a mix of two bedroom condos and what I'll call family units. The family units will have four or five bedrooms and be generally larger to accommodate families with 4-6 children. There will be 15 two bedroom condos so as to have a cohort of five couples move into units 1-5 as cohort 1, a year later cohort 2 moves into units 6-10, a year later cohort 3 moves into units 11-15 and during that year, the families of cohort 1 who ought to have two kids by now, move into a family unit where they will stay for the remainder of their time in the building. So the fifteen two bedroom units will have new couples cycle through about every 2-3 years.

Levels 3 to 15 are all family units, still in that U shape, though, mixed among the floors are two lounges that are to be of use for the whole building, rather than just that floor - one, a teen lounge and another, an adults lounge.

As with the individual condos, we will charge each family 30% of their income to rent their condo which will include electricity and internet. They will need to pay for insurance and food and with respect to food, all of the families on the floor are to work out how they will use the communal living area - is it every meal every day? Is it only dinners? Who takes charge? Do different families take different nights? How is the communal food paid for?

When a family reaches having four children, they will be advised that at any time between that time and having been in the communal living building for 20 years, that they will need to form an exit plan so as to make room for new cohorts. As a non-profit we will help them by paying up to 70% of a house that they move into; and they pay the remaining 30%. The candidates will be advised of this exit program at the time they are offered to join the program so that it does not come as a surprise.

As an option, the non-profit could build another building with a similar communal setup, intended for families that are no longer having young children, so it could be a mix of family units to take the families as they are from the first building, and also a mix of one or two bedroom or studio units that the kids can move into, to eventually move out and for the parents to move into, as their kids move out. Of course, it is possible that kids of the communal living from two different families end up forming a couple, these would automatically join a cohort since they already know what communal living is about. Once the very first few cohorts get to four children, we can survey them to find out if continued living communally was of interest to them; if it is, this will direct us to build the new building.

With respect to construction, I had the idea that the structure and the envelope and the first five two bedroom condos can be built at the start of the construction all together, but then a small construction team can be hired long term to build all of the remaining units one at a time for the entire building as our population grows.

For the pool I had the idea that once it is opened, I would hire a lifeguard to provide mom (or dad) and baby pool sessions. Then, once the kids are aged 3 or 4, start giving them weekly lessons. Once the oldest kids are aged 6 or 7 start having a free swim period and now hire two or three lifeguards to watch the pool. Eventually, teach all of the children not only the full swim lesson suite, but get all children (perhaps with the exception of any that are handicapped or willfully dislike the idea) to go through the certification necessary to make them lifeguards, so that not only can we start to hire them inside our pool in our building, but, they can get jobs outside of the building as lifeguards.

Once I am sufficiently advanced in this, and can show how effective my plan is to increase the birth rate, I can do two things. First I would contact the provincial government, present to them the findings from my program, and find out if they can help subsidize this program to help to expand it. Second, I would start a charitable foundation to accept donations from other individuals or corporations to as to promote this pro-natal program.

Then, I can expand this program to other cities in Canada with an ultimate goal of having 5000+ births per year. In 2022 there were 351,679 babies born in Canada, in 2023 it was 351,477, so adding 5000+ births would be a 1.4% increase in births which would indeed have a measurable impact on the national birth rate.

plaid rug under the carpet

A twig, a ranch hand and an 8x13 envelope crossed the train tracks (two pair owned by CN Rail), like a 

Unknown by anyone who doesn't read this post, 29c isn't the best time of day to lick a ceiling panel

It was such a great day to experience 15h21, that it jumped up and down like a

Incomplete the sentences, like it isn't, or it may not kept to have been undone.

+2 or +4

Further thoughts; for those who stick around at the end of the first session, and who also have formed a couple, I would give the couple 100$ to help pay for the two dates they do and suggest that one of them pays the balance for date #1 and the other pays the balance for date #2.

Once the winning couples have been chosen, I will have someone give them financial advice for things like budgeting, investments, TFSA, RRSP, RESP, Child Tax Benefit, etc.

+1 or +5

I watched a video yesterday about the population and/or birth rate decline that is showing most in Japan and South Korea, but that is happening in Western countries too, just like here in Canada.

So I had another idea if I was to win a big lottery jackpot to address this, at least here in my city.

I would post a notice somehow at CEGEPs looking for young women aged 17 or 18 who are uncertain about their future, but want to have children and would consider being a home maker. I would suggest she discuss with her family.

I would somehow try to reach men aged 24-25, who are safely employed, and who though may not feel they are ready, but do want to have a family someday. I am less certain about how to reach these.

I would pick a date and a venue and then do a presentation. The presentation would first explain Canada's dropping birth rate, and use Japan as the extreme example of what could eventually happen. Then I would explain that there are four spots available for couples to be formed to give them a big boost towards starting a big family, including assistance to buy first property and subsequent support.

At this point I would offer for anyone, now that they know what this is about, if they want to leave, they are welcome to leave. Then, I would have one or two ice breaker games to get the people to start to get to know each other, then I would have tables and chairs set up, in groups of four with two men and two women, they would take turns answering questions about each other. After 15 minutes, each person moves around to join a new four person group.

After 75 minutes of this it would be free for all with food and drinks, no alcohol so that these young adults are entering this with clear heads. I would encourage potential couples to exchange contact information and to schedule two subsequent dates. I would have a staff member take down their information as they leave. The staff member would also give them a questionnaire for them to take with them - it will have questions to let them focus their thoughts on what their new future could look like.

For those couples who complete the two dates - they send photos to me that are date stamped and at two different venues, we'll have another event at a smaller venue.

Now a more detailed presentation - if selected, my real estate agent will work with them, for them to choose a two bedroom condo; I will pay 50-80% of the price of the condo (depending on the price) and the employed man is to take a mortgage to pay the rest. I will let them know that there are four spots available for me to assist them to start their family and provide to them the notary prepared contract that they are to review. I will set a deadline for applications to be entered in, perhaps a few months later, to give these couples more time to get to know each other. Unbeknownst to them, if any woman in these couples is already pregnant at the deadline, she and her guy automatically become one of the couples that 'win' this opportunity. Some method of determination will be used to choose the other couples.

The union of the couple will be for a duration of 10 years with options to renew every 5 years after that.

As a couple they are expected to start their family with their first born within the first year of when they sign the agreement and to have at least three additional children.

The young man is expected to keep his job, to work hard, try to improve and to be there for the family.

The young woman is to take care of and raise the children, take care of feeding everyone in the family and be supportive. If she does not already know how to cook and clean and care for a home and a family, it will be up to her to take this on, but I will have someone provide assistance.

Of course, respect, honesty, loyalty and other aspects of a successful union will be important, and so I will have a marriage counselor prepare a multi week package to meet with these young couples to help them through the early months of their marriage.

The family will have their first two children in the condo they start in, once the second child is born, and when she is pregnant for the third, I will have my real estate agent work with the family to find them a bigger home where again I will assist with the funding. I will keep the condo for a subsequent cohort where their choice of where to live now becomes limited to the condos I already own, but to their advantage, I will ask them only for a nominal monthly fee.

After four years in the program I would provide the contact information of everyone in a cohort for them to meet with each other and to trade experiences. I would also have one or more of the women become 'big sisters' to new cohort women and have one or more of the men become 'big brothers' of the new cohort men.

So each year a new cohort will come in, and with each year I will offer temp employment to the young men and women who have already succeeded in the program to assist in the running the events and to give their own presentation as to how it has gone.

At the 10 year mark I will work with the notary to confer ownership of the house they bought to be fully owned by the family and with a marriage counselor find out if they are doing the five year renew. Going forward from there, the family has graduated from the program and have no more requirements to be big sister or big brother or help at presentations.

I have had the thought that I would need to consider what happens if the union dissolves within that 10 year period and I haven't been able to come up with a proper solution for this.

When I was 24 or 25yo, I would have definitely considered doing this signing up for this.