Wednesday Night #2279

Heather Cox Richardson reminds us that November 19 is the anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address 0f 1863 -272 words that redefined the nation.In these current troubled times, we need to read and re-read this eloquent text and take consolation from it. Trump cannot last forever.

That’s a relief! – no Christmas election that nobody wanted
Liberal government survives confidence vote on federal budget
The Liberal government narrowly survived a confidence vote on a motion to approve the 2025 budget, thanks to a handful of abstentions and a last-minute climate pledge from the Prime Minister that won over Green Party MP Elizabeth May.
Members of Parliament approved the budget motion in a 170-168 vote Monday evening, ending days of uncertainty as to whether the opposition parties would defeat the minority Liberal government and trigger a second federal election in a year.
The vote on Mark Carney’s first budget as Prime Minister allows the government to move ahead with what it says is a transformational plan to grow the economy, through more than $140-billion in new spending over five years focused on attracting investments in big infrastructure projects.
Mark Carney’s ‘energy superpower’ vision up against political hurdles
Canada’s prime minister is making a risky bet that fossil fuels can revive the economy
Canada’s fighter jet fleet debate
You may not have been giving much thought to Canada’s fleet of jet fighters, but with the visit of the King of Sweden [Swedish king’s visit highlights growing Canadian interest in Saab military aircraft] to Ottawa this week, it’s time to consider the costs of the F-35 v a mixed fleet.

Israel, Palestine, Gaza, West Bank
UN approves the Trump administration’s plan for the future of Gaza
The Trump administration’s blueprint to secure and govern Gaza won strong approval at the United Nations on Monday, a crucial step that provides international support for U.S. efforts to move the devastated territory toward peace following two years of war.
The vote endorses Trump’s 20-point ceasefire plan and builds on the momentum of the fragile ceasefire he helped broker with allies.
How will this be enforced? So far, little of the 20-point plan has been complied with in a timely fashion – and there is no solution to the attacks on the West Bank [Record settler attacks in West Bank opening up rifts within Israel]

Ishaan Tharoor of the Washington Post notes that As Trump hosts MBS, Palestinian plight fades from view again
Amid a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, the challenges facing Palestinians have apparently become secondary concerns for Saudi and U.S. leaders.

U.S.-Saudi Arabia
On Tuesday, President Trump welcomed Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia’s autocratic leader, to the White House on Tuesday, hailing him as a protector of human rights and a frequent phone friend.It was a chummy scene that underscored the president’s desire to maintain strong relations with Saudi Arabia during a tumultuous period in the Middle East. Mr. Trump’s defense of his guest obscured the crown prince’s role in cracking down on domestic dissent and in the killing and dismemberment of a Washington Post columnist, Jamal Khashoggi, in 2018.
MBS arrived to a grand welcome from Trump at the White House on Tuesday, greeted at the South Portico with an Army honor guard of black horses and herald trumpeters, a remarkable turnaround for the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia who had been branded a pariah in 2018 after the CIA concluded that he had approved the killing of Khashoggi. … More recently, Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has taken Saudi investments in his business projects, and Trump’s family business has announced numerous new business projects this year with Saudi partners who have ties to the royal family.
Later Tuesday, Mohammed returned for an elaborate dinner with tech CEOs and other business and administration leaders.
On Wednesday, there will be a U.S.-Saudi investment summit at the Kennedy Center, an effort to build business ties between Washington and Riyadh that goes beyond the investments announced during Trump’s May trip to the Middle East.
Rob Copeland and Vivian Nereim of the NYT caution:
Saudi Arabia’s Prince Has Big Plans, but His Giant Fund Is Low on Cash
After nearly a decade of expensive, hit-and-miss investments, Mohammed bin Salman is overseeing a behind-the-scenes restructuring of the kingdom’s all-important wealth fund.

Meanwhile, PM Carney heads to U.A.E. hoping to sign investment pact with gulf nation
Carney is slated to meet with U.A.E. President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan on Thursday in Abu Dhabi with the explicit focus on expanding the Canada-U.A.E. economic partnership in key sectors such as energy, agriculture, infrastructure and AI. Then he is off to the G20 in South Africa.

COP30 is winding down – always the most contentious part of a COP but the Brazilians have adopted a novel approach and we can only hope it will become a successful model for future gatherings.
Brazil aims to wrap some challenging negotiations by end of day
The Guardian reports Brazil’s running of Cop30 has been unorthodox from the start, with an insistence that effectively there was little to negotiate at this “conference of the parties” and that some of the biggest items – the roadmap to climate finance, the transition away from fossil fuels, and above all a response to the national climate plans that were supposed to be submitted ahead of this Cop – were not even to be on the agenda. (Less arguing, more action: will Brazil’s unorthodox approach to Cop30 work? Host uses Indigenous concepts and changes agenda to help delegates agree on ways to meet existing climate goals)
The hosts have continued with their unusual approach: the Cop president has let it be known he wants to wrap up the most difficult issues at a ministerial meeting on Wednesday, gavel through the deal, and then allow the less contentious issues to be processed on Thursday and Friday.

Ever-vigilant Cleo Paskal alerts us to the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission annual report which features a dedicated section on China in the Pacific Islands. While she states the whole report is well worth reading (as usual), for those looking at the Pacific, the islands section is essential.

Prominent legal scholar detained at Canadian border while on his way to a conference on Palestine
As Alex Neve’s 2025 Massey Lectures focus on human rights (See Long reads/audios below), an alarming incident occurred involving scholars Richard Falk and his wife Hilal Elver; the former United Nations special rapporteur who investigated Israeli abuses against Palestinians was interrogated at the Toronto airport on “national security” grounds. [Calls for answers grow over Canada’s interrogation of Israel critic]

The Economy
Peter Berezin‘s most recent take: When Capex Booms Turn Into Busts: Lessons From History
Top Takeaway: We examine past capex booms which turned into busts. Our analysis suggests that AI is following the same script as those ill-fated booms.
• We draw five lessons from the following capex booms: The railway booms of the 19th century; the electrification boom of the 1920s; the internet boom of the late 1990s; and various oil booms.
• Lesson #1: Investors failed to appreciate the S-shaped nature of technological adoption.
• Lesson #2: Revenue forecasts underestimated the degree to which prices would fall.
• Lesson #3: Debt became an increasingly important source of financing.
• Lesson #4: Asset prices peaked before investment declined.
• Lesson #5: The capex busts weighed on the economy which, in turn, further hurt asset prices.
• We expect the AI boom to end within the next 6 to 12 months. We remain on watch for a “Metaverse Moment” to inform us when to turn maximally defensive on stocks.
Desmond Lachman predicts that Trumponomics Will End in Tears
From Latin America to Turkey, the kind of economic populism US President Donald Trump is embracing has always led to disaster. (See Long reads)

Trump & Cities
“Operation Charlotte’s Web” is ongoing in North Carolina.
Our thoughts are with Jeff Jackson, North Carolina AG as Arrests now top 250 in immigration crackdown across North Carolina. The push to carry out arrests in North Carolina expanded to areas around the state capital of Raleigh on Tuesday, spreading fear in at least one immigrant-heavy suburb. Not that many of Trump’s minions are likely to understand, but we applaud Martha White: Granddaughter of ‘Charlotte’s Web’ author upset with use of its title in immigration crackdown

PBS, defunded by Trump, says ‘we’re still here’ with big new Ken Burns documentary
Since the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is winding down as a consequence of the funding cut, “people thought that meant that we were gone,” Kerger said.
However, the big and loud marketing campaign for “The American Revolution” is proving otherwise.
Ken Burns says Americans have been fighting each other since the beginning
In his new documentary series “The American Revolution,” the prolific filmmaker depicts a nation created by violence. Still, he finds cause for optimism.
There’s a neon sign in Ken Burns’s editing room that reads, “It’s complicated.” Even the prolific documentarian, who spends more time than most exploring the difficult truths of our nation’s history, needs the reminder every so often. While Burns and co-directors Sarah Botstein and David Schmidt were working on his latest PBS docuseries, “The American Revolution,” the sign encouraged them to question the narratives they had been taught since childhood about the war.
Fans of Burns’s work won’t be surprised to learn that “The American Revolution,” which premieres Sunday [16 November], spans 12 hours (divided into six feature-length episodes). This expansive running time allowed the team — which includes frequent Burns collaborator Geoffrey C. Ward, who wrote the series — to devote a significant amount of attention to individuals often overlooked by historical retellings, such as women, enslaved people and Indigenous communities. The war of independence may have been waged by White men, but its reverberations reached everyone.

27 November
10am – 12pm
Spring Open House at the McGill Community for Lifelong Learning (MCLL)
680 rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Suite 229
Chris Neal invites interested individuals to
“Embrace the joy of continuous growth and discovery at our Spring Open House at the McGill Community for Lifelong Learning (MCLL). Come learn about an enriching and inspiring peer-learning organization dedicated to fostering curiosity, expanding knowledge, and making friends.
Light refreshments will be served.
Please RSVP if you will be attending. Walk-ins are also welcome!

Quebec/Montreal – a bit of inside baseball for political nerds.
We urge anyone who wishes to follow the twists and turns of Quebec politics to subscribe to the excellent TALQ Daily Briefing newsletter.
‘We will resist’: CAQ’s Quebec constitution would concentrate power with premier, group says
An anglo rights group says Bill 1 follows the same pattern as other Legault government laws that curtail minority rights, centralize power and limit dissent.
We will leave it to our resident experts (Doug Sweet, Andrew Caddell among others) to elaborate on Tuesday’s  on-line public meeting organized by TALQ, at which lawyer Marion Sandilands warned that Quebec’s proposed constitution would give the government sweeping powers, stifle dissent and make it far harder to challenge laws in court.
We are dismayed by the news of turmoil in the Quebec Liberal Party.
First, Marwah Rizqy suspended from Quebec Liberal caucus after ‘breach of trust’
Quebec Liberal Party Leader Pablo Rodriguez has suspended MNA Marwah Rizqy from the Liberal caucus and removed her as parliamentary leader following a “breach of trust” related to her firing of chief of staff Geneviève Hinse without consulting him. Followed by allegations of a vote-for-cash scheme
The good news is
Montreal’s new mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrada unveils executive committee
We are delighted that our Councillor and friend Leslie Roberts has been named associate councillor with responsibility for universities and higher education, the downtown core and the English-speaking community, all topics that are highly relevant to our district.

Andrew Caddell takes a holiday from political commentary to celebrate Half a century of Radio Carleton
On Nov. 14 and 15, there was a gathering of 400 people at Carleton University. We celebrated 50 years since Radio Carleton went on air as CKCU-FM, on Nov. 15, 1975.
We were commemorating what was a huge achievement at the time: the work of a merry band of 20-something students who worked hard in order to get an FM radio licence for Ottawa’s first “progressive” music station. But despite our young age, we put in long hours at turntables, microphones, and editing rooms to get interesting programming on the air.

Varia
Biden to attend Cheney’s funeral
The former vice president’s funeral will be held Thursday [20 November] at the Washington National Cathedral.
These farmers have a dream for the world’s most expensive spice, and it’s rooted in Canadian soil
Saffron is known as the world’s most expensive spice per gram. And what was once a budding dream of growing the precious spice in Canada’s cold climate is blooming for more growers in Abbotsford, B.C., and beyond.
The Finest Hotel in Kabul
A People’s History of Afghanistan
The story of a hotel. The story of a nation.
When the Inter-Continental Kabul opened in 1969, Afghanistan’s first luxury hotel symbolised a dream of a modernising country connected to the world.
More than fifty years on, the Inter-Continental is still standing. It has endured Soviet occupation, multiple coups, a grievous civil war, a US invasion and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban. History lives within its scarred windows and walls.
Lyse Doucet, Canadian journalist and the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, takes us inside the Intercontinental Hotel in her new book: The Finest Hotel in Kabul, A People’s History of Afghanistan.
Michigan returns rare Edmund Fitzgerald relic — and pays US$600,000
The state of Michigan is giving up ownership of a rare relic from the famous Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck, just weeks after it strangely obtained it through a settlement in a lawsuit that was completely unrelated to the doomed freighter.
Larry Orr is getting one of the ship’s life rings back — and the state will still pay US$600,000 to settle his lawsuit over police misconduct.

Long reads/audios
What AI doesn’t know: we could be creating a global ‘knowledge collapse’
As GenAI becomes the primary way to find information, local and traditional wisdom is being lost. And we are only beginning to realise what we’re missing
For many people, GenAI is emerging as the primary way to learn about the world. … These systems may appear neutral, but they are far from it. The most popular models privilege dominant ways of knowing (typically western and institutional) while marginalising alternatives, especially those encoded in oral traditions, embodied practice and languages considered “low-resource” in the computing world, such as Hindi or Swahili.

Trumponomics Will End in Tears
Desmond Lachman
From Latin America to Turkey, the kind of economic populism US President Donald Trump is embracing has always led to disaster.

U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission annual report
Topics this year include China’s revisionist ambitions with Russia, Iran, and North Korea; China and Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands; how Beijing built its manufacturing and innovation engine; China’s ambitions to dominate space; China Shock 2.0; Beijing’s weaponization of supply chains; China’s electrification drive; and a review of Taiwan, Hong Kong, economics, trade, security, politics, and foreign affairs development in 2025.

2025 Massey CBC Lectures (audio)
CBC Radio Ideas
Alex Neve, 2025 Massey Lecturer explores what it takes to make human rights truly universal. Weaving together law, history, and stories from decades on the front lines of the struggle for human rights, Neve investigates what we can do to fulfil the promise that human rights are inherent, inalienable, and applicable to all people.
Jeremy Kinsman The State of Rules-Based Order with Sabine Nolke and Jon Allen(podcast)
As we are rattled by the news every day with something astonishing, often horrifying—scandals, political collisions and war—it becomes hard to keep our connection to the concept of international law. Why is the rules-based order under so much strain?
Joining Jeremy and Louise are former ambassadors Sabine Nolke, a Visiting Fellow at Western University and practitioner of international law, and Jon Allen, Senior Fellow at the University of Toronto’s Bill Graham Centre for Contemporary International History and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Canadian International Council.
U.S. authors Rachel Maddow, Rebecca Solnit on their hope and worry for America today (audio)
Political analyst Rachel Maddow calls Trump’s authoritarian movement an ‘incoherent storm’