Machiavelli warned in The Prince about mercenaries:

"Mercenaries and auxiliaries are useless and dangerous; and if one holds his state based on these arms, he will stand neither firm nor safe...

The fact is, they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you.

❗They are ready enough to be your soldiers whilst you do not make war, but if war comes they take themselves off or run from the foe;"

The "stipend" in this case is a pathway to PR status. That is what will drive the decision to join the CAF — not allegiance, nor the desire to serve this country.

I know quite a few people who are desperately looking for legal ways to stay in Canada, so this might be attractive. However, what happens when their status is secured and/or there is an actual conflict the CAF is involved in? Will those who joined for economic/immigration reasons stay when the possibility of serious bodily harm or death becomes likely?

The 2025 report of the Auditor General of Canada, titled "Recruiting for Canada's Military," had a nice graphic (see report link and image below) illustrating the fact that our recruiting problem is not caused by lack of interest from Canadians. Our problem is bureaucracy.

⏳ Personal example: it took me two years to join the CAF.

In that amount of time:
- My application was lost.
- My recruiter changed.
- Some documents I sent were lost, and I was blamed for not submitting them, so I had to forward emails to prove otherwise, including confirmations that they were received.
- My fitness test and medical expired, so I had to redo them.
- I moved to a different city.

🤔 Why would people not walk away and do something else with their life?

If we already have tens of thousands of motivated citizens stuck in administrative limbo, shouldn’t we fix that system before creating new immigration pipelines?

2025 AG Report: https://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_202510_07_e_44723.html

He calls for dramatic tax reform — potentially modeled after Ireland — to restore capital investment, job creation, and long-term competitiveness.

Great article. It raises something Canadians should not ignore.

One point I might add — our governments at all levels need to improve the machinery of government and the public service.

My Experience at Doug Ford

I spent 4 years in the Doug Ford government in Ontario (2019-2023) and saw firsthand how overly bureaucratic our governments are.

The first few years, our mandate was to cut red tape, find value for money, optimize operations, make consumer-facing government services "Simpler, Faster, Better", focusing on deregulating the private sector.

Fast forward to 2021 and the people who came from the private sector on a clear mandate to fix the government saw that there is a dwindling interest in actually doing things that matter. They began fleeing back to the private sector where innovation and efficiency actually matter.

This truly reminded me of the famous question:

"Who is John Galt?"

Soon enough, you had people with no real-world experience running the show — career political staffers and bureaucrats, the people who never generated a single dollar in the private sector.

There are great examples worldwide of governments that run a tight ship that gets out of the way of economic growth, but Canada is not one of them.

Canada needs a small, digital-first, integrated, and agile public service and machinery of government, coupled with simple and fast consumer-facing services to stay competitive by making it easy for businesses and individuals to choose Canada.

Today marks the 4-year anniversary of Zelensky’s address to Ukrainians in which he dismissed Western intelligence that had been warning for months about an impending full-scale Russian invasion.

He urged people to calm down, said nothing would happen, and encouraged preparations for Victory Day — as well as May BBQs, when Ukrainians traditionally celebrate the coming of summer with a week of statutory holidays.

A while before that, in Zelensky’s "Servant of the People" TV series — where he played a simple school teacher from a small village who grew tired of corruption, ran for president, and got elected to fix the country — there was a scene that now feels unsettlingly literal.

This excerpt from "Servant of the People" shows President Holoborodko (literally translated as “Baldbeard”), played by Zelensky, coming home to find his father making a fire.

The original is in Russian. At the time, Zelensky publicly argued that language was irrelevant to state-building — a belief that shaped both his cultural messaging and early political posture.

Zelensky's character: "Hi Dad. You literally read my mind. I've been dreaming of having a BBQ the entire week."

Father: "Don't get your hopes up. This is a ritual fire."

Zelensky's character: "What do you mean?"

Father: "We're going to burn you, dummy. For turning us into primitive people. Now we cook over a fire, wash in the river, and live like we're in a cave. No water, no gas, no electricity."

As regular Ukrainians are braving -20°C winter temperatures with barely any heating, electricity, and often no running water, a Ukrainian regional government administration has just “donated” over $1M USD in taxpayers’ money to a charity fund run by Zelensky’s friend and fellow actor, Serhiy Prytula.

Charities typically fill gaps temporarily. There should not be a regular reliance on them. This prompted me to write this post — there are simply too many unanswered questions around this move.

Why couldn’t the government use the money directly to buy what was needed?

How was this decision made?

How did they choose which charity would receive the funds?

⚠️ See the first comment for Serhiy Prytula’s shocking, passive-aggressive reaction to someone asking whether he keeps 20% of the money…

The question about the charity keeping 20% is reasonable - most charities do keep some of the funds to cover admin and fundraising fees. What is shocking is the passive-aggressive reaction of a prominent public figure linked to the current Ukrainian government.

Here's what he said:

"Does the government provide you with social assistance because of your diagnosis? I can clearly see you need it!"

We just went from "Carney says China is a foreign interference, geopolitical threat for Canada" to "Canada PM hails strategic partnership with China" in less than a year.

In 2024, the Department of National Defence released "Our North, Strong and Free: A Renewed Vision for Canada’s Defence" - the guiding defence policy document for the foreseeable future. In it, you can find the following with regard to China, to name a few:

"...an increasingly assertive China challenges the international order..."

"...China’s attempts to reshape the international order to achieve its political goals."

"...growing number of Chinese dual-purpose research vessels and surveillance platforms collecting data about the Canadian North..."

In April, 2025, PM Carney said that "China is a foreign interference, geopolitical threat for Canada."

In November, 2025, CSIS Director, Dan Rogers, said that "Chinese spies have tried to recruit Canadians who have access to government plans, information and military expertise through social media and online job platforms."

How will this impact our relationship with the United States? Will this further widen the already growing rift between Alberta and Ottawa? What about National Security?

So many questions raised by this... 'pivot'.

Thoughts?

The Right Honourable Marc Carney, Prime Minister of Canada, recently said:

“What the government is doing with the gun registry is putting in place a much more efficient way for Canadians to voluntarily return prohibited firearms for fair compensation.”

He is referring to firearms the Government of Canada prohibited through Orders in Council over the past several years. Canadians affected are now presented with three options: destroy their property, hand it over, or face jail time.

Voluntary

Merriam-Webster — “done or given because one wants to and not because one is forced.”

Jail

According to the Government of Canada’s Charterpedia on Section 7 of the Charter, liberty includes protection against physical restraint. Imprisonment or the threat of imprisonment engages the liberty interest. (Government of Canada. Section 7 – Life, liberty, and security of the person)

Gaslighting

Merriam-Webster — “psychological manipulation that causes a person to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories.”

In the 1930s, Soviet authorities under Joseph Stalin described collectivization in Ukraine as voluntary. In practice, people — including members of my family — were given three options: surrender their farms and livestock, be exiled to Siberia, or face execution. That deception produced the Holodomor, the man-made famine of 1932–33 that killed up to 10 million Ukrainians.

Afterwards, Moscow brought in migrants to replace the Ukrainians who had perished. These newcomers had no ties to the land or loyalty to the local culture. That demographic engineering sowed turmoil and helped set the stage for the war that began in 2014 with the loss of Crimea and parts of the Donbas, and ultimately the full-scale invasion in 2022.

During COVID-19, vaccination was described as a matter of personal choice. For many Canadians, however, refusal resulted in loss of employment or restrictions on access to parts of public life.

In Ukraine, the war made survival the priority. Mandates and restrictions became irrelevant, and many people simply worked around them.

When critics dismiss Alberta as “too small” to thrive independently, they miss the point. Alberta is larger in landmass, comparable in population, and far richer in natural resources than many nations that are outperforming Canada. The real question isn’t whether Alberta could stand on its own, but why Canada, with so much wealth and talent, is falling behind.

Canada is at a crossroads. We’re slipping economically compared to our neighbour, and we’ve failed to read the spirit of the times — the zeitgeist, so to speak. Across the world, globalism, mass immigration, forced multiculturalism, and gender dogma are being rejected. Meanwhile, here at home, unemployment is rising, quality of life is falling, and too many families are struggling just to get by.

✊ Make Canada Progressive Again.

Today that means focusing on the basics of survival: family, economy, culture, and our people. Gender dogma, globalist illusions, and performative multiculturalism are distractions, not solutions.

As we see in Ukraine, when survival is on the line, there is no room for ideological games. If Canada doesn’t toughen up and refocus on survival, stability, and prosperity, it risks losing the very cohesion that keeps it together.

Alberta is a reminder: our provinces have the resources and resilience to succeed, but they shouldn’t have to go it alone.

The whole country needs to rise to the challenge. Now.

He cites her record at Trans Mountain and TransAlta, issues around transparency, project costs, and her connections to Brookfield as reasons for doubt about the appointment and the broader direction of federal governance.

What worries me more is not a background check issue, but the approach Ottawa is taking... Adding bureaucracy is never the answer.

I looked into pledged industrial investment during the first 6 months of Trump’s and Carney’s terms. Full disclosure: I used AI to pull the data, then cross-checked the sources to confirm accuracy. These figures are from official corporate announcements — not government talking points.

🇺🇸

United States (Trump):
• Corporate/project pledges total ≈ US$2.8 trillion.
• Major projects: Apple $600B, NVIDIA $500B, Project Stargate $500B, Micron $200B, IBM $150B, TSMC $100B, J&J $55B, Eli Lilly $27B, Hyundai $21B+, Amazon $34B, and many more.

🇨🇦

Canada (Carney):
• Corporate/project pledges total ≈ C$45B (~US$33B).
• Major projects: LNG Canada Phase 2 (~C$33B), Blackstone floating LNG (~C$10B), Port of Montréal Contrecœur (~C$1.6B), Foran Mining (~C$350M), GE-Hitachi SMR centre (~C$70M).

Per capita comparison:

• U.S. pledged ≈ US$8,100 per resident (US$2.8T / 342M people).
• Canada pledged ≈ US$790 per resident (US$33B / 42M people).

Instead of focusing on enabling business and projects at scale, Canada is adding new bureaucracy (Build Canada Homes agency, Major Projects Office).

I've seen it firsthand how a government handles money and it's not pretty. Budget 'administration' often swells toward 60% of the total budget. Imagine if only 40% of Canada’s $41B defence budget actually reached defence — that’s the scale of the problem. We cannot afford to add agencies, red tape, and more bureaucrats!

I consult businesses, improve processes, and optimize operations to increase productivity for a living. When I look at a process, or one of its steps, one of my first questions is always:

“Do we need this?”

Ottawa today seems more interested in adding people, bloating processes, and creating agencies than identifying and solving the root cause of the problem.

If you’re not bringing back 10% of what you’ve deleted — you're clearly not deleting enough. — Elon Musk

Revisionism is everywhere. People argue, tensions rise, nothing changes.

🇫🇷

Take the French politician demanding the Statue of Liberty back. You don’t take back gifts. Move forward. The obsession with the past is why we are where we are today.

🇨🇦

The same thinking applies to Canada. Canada acts betrayed when the U.S. applies pressure—trade war, tariffs, shifting alliances. The U.S. isn’t obligated to put Canada first. Control what you can. Build resilience. Diversify. Make the most of what you have without reckless rhetoric. A strong Canada benefits us, the U.S. and our shared continent.

🇺🇦

Look at Ukraine. Since 1991, corruption, poor governance, misplaced trust, and bad decisions have led to where it is now. The Budapest Memorandum was a failure. Does it matter now? No. Ukrainian officials read it and signed it, with the Ukrainian text saying “guarantees” instead of “assurances”—two very different words.

The only commitment was a promise to consult. Go read it. Did 'consultations' help? No. Is the U.S. bound to do more? No. Ukraine traded power (nukes) for words (memorandum). The past is done. Could Ukraine have deterred Russia? Yes. Devise a new strategy and focus on own military. Modernize. Eliminate corruption. Uphold rule of law. Did it do enough? No.

⚔️ Russia attacked Ukraine at least 12 times in the last 400 years. This is not new. Ukraine could have done more between 1991-2014 and 2014-2022. By the way, elections were held in 2019, during wartime. Zelensky won in 2019 and had 3 years to prepare for 2022. Did Ukraine do enough? No. Can it change the past? No. But better decisions can still be made today.

🇺🇸

The U.S. has no obligation to help others. If Ukraine can take on Russia alone, it should. If Canada can replace U.S. trade, it should. Was over-reliance on someone else a bad decision in both cases? Maybe. Do you expect strangers to help you if you make bad decisions? Probably not. Same here.

Ukraine should focus on what it controls instead of telling others what will happen to them if they don’t help. Likewise, Canada should focus on what's under our control — military, economy, global trade, instead of trading verbal punches.

History offers lessons, not solutions. What matters is what you do now. Play the cards you have, because wishing they were different won’t change a thing.