Business
Canada should already be an economic superpower. Why is Canada not doing better?
From Resource Works
Tej Parikh of the Financial Times‘s says Canada has the minerals but not the plan
Tej Parikh is the economics editorial writer for The Financial Times, a British daily newspaper. He joins our Stewart Muir for a Power Struggle interview. And we include in the following report some points from a guest column by Parikh in Canada’s National Post, which carried the headline ‘How Canada can unlock its economic superpower potential.’
Parikh begins the Power Struggle interview with this: “There’s an enormous economic potential here, very much the same geographic advantages that have underpinned America’s economic emergence over the last 100 years. . . . Given everything we understand about the advantages that countries need to grow, why is Canada not doing better economically?” He added: “When you break it down and you look at why income per capita in Canada has perhaps not increased as fast as we might expect on the basis of those advantages, it really kind of breaks down to three components. One is investment, so how much capital goes into the country?
The second is labour, and not just the amount, the size of the workforce you have, but how well you utilize the workforce. And then the third component is something that economists like to call a total-factor productivity, which is essentially your innovative ability and your ability to bring together capital and people. “And when you look at Canada as opposed to other large economies . . . you begin to see that actually there are a lot of restrictions in Canada, not just because of its vast geography but because of regulation, that it actually can’t combine its capital and labour as productively as it could.
“It’s about creating those supply chains and critical minerals that the Western world is currently short of. Given it (Canada) has these vast raw material resources, there is a massive scope for it to become even more integrated into Western supply chains in particular and to become a supplier of these things.” From Parikh’s National Post column: “The country is energy independent, with the world’s largest deposits of high-grade uranium and the third-largest proven oil reserves. It is also the fifth-largest producer of natural gas.Canada boasts a huge supply of other commodities too, including the largest potash reserves (used to make fertilizer), over one-third of the world’s certified forests and a fifth of the planet’s surface freshwater. Plus, it has an abundance of cobalt, graphite, lithium and other rare earth elements, which are used in renewable technologies. “But the nation has lacked the visionary leadership and policy framework to capitalize on its advantages.”
Watch the full interview here:
Artificial Intelligence
Lawsuit Claims Google Secretly Used Gemini AI to Scan Private Gmail and Chat Data
By Ken Macon
Whether the claims are true or not, privacy in Google’s universe has long been less a right than a nostalgic illusion.
|
When Google flipped a digital switch in October 2025, few users noticed anything unusual.
Gmail loaded as usual, Chat messages zipped across screens, and Meet calls continued without interruption.
Yet, according to a new class action lawsuit, something significant had changed beneath the surface.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
Plaintiffs claim that Google silently activated its artificial intelligence system, Gemini, across its communication platforms, turning private conversations into raw material for machine analysis.
The lawsuit, filed by Thomas Thele and Melo Porter, describes a scenario that reads like a breach of trust.
It accuses Google of enabling Gemini to “access and exploit the entire recorded history of its users’ private communications, including literally every email and attachment sent and received.”
The filing argues that the company’s conduct “violates its users’ reasonable expectations of privacy.”
Until early October, Gemini’s data processing was supposedly available only to those who opted in.
Then, the plaintiffs claim, Google “turned it on for everyone by default,” allowing the system to mine the contents of emails, attachments, and conversations across Gmail, Chat, and Meet.
The complaint points to a particular line in Google’s settings, “When you turn this setting on, you agree,” as misleading, since the feature “had already been switched on.”
This, according to the filing, represents a deliberate misdirection designed to create the illusion of consent where none existed.
There is a certain irony woven through the outrage. For all the noise about privacy, most users long ago accepted the quiet trade that powers Google’s empire.
They search, share, and store their digital lives inside Google’s ecosystem, knowing the company thrives on data.
The lawsuit may sound shocking, but for many, it simply exposes what has been implicit all along: if you live in Google’s world, privacy has already been priced into the convenience.
Thele warns that Gemini’s access could expose “financial information and records, employment information and records, religious affiliations and activities, political affiliations and activities, medical care and records, the identities of his family, friends, and other contacts, social habits and activities, eating habits, shopping habits, exercise habits, [and] the extent to which he is involved in the activities of his children.”
In other words, the system’s reach, if the allegations prove true, could extend into nearly every aspect of a user’s personal life.
The plaintiffs argue that Gemini’s analytical capabilities allow Google to “cross-reference and conduct unlimited analysis toward unmerited, improper, and monetizable insights” about users’ private relationships and behaviors.
The complaint brands the company’s actions as “deceptive and unethical,” claiming Google “surreptitiously turned on this AI tracking ‘feature’ without informing or obtaining the consent of Plaintiffs and Class Members.” Such conduct, it says, is “highly offensive” and “defies social norms.”
The case invokes a formidable set of statutes, including the California Invasion of Privacy Act, the California Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, the Stored Communications Act, and California’s constitutional right to privacy.
Google is yet to comment on the filing.
|
|
|
|
Reclaim The Net is reader-supported. Consider becoming a paid subscriber.
|
|
|
|
Business
Nearly One-Quarter of Consumer-Goods Firms Preparing to Exit Canada, Industry CEO Warns Parliament
Standing Committee on Industry and Technology hears stark testimony that rising costs and stalled investment are pushing companies out of the Canadian market.
There’s a number that should stop this country cold: twenty-three percent. That is the share of companies in one of Canada’s essential manufacturing and consumer-goods sectors now preparing to withdraw products from the Canadian market or exit entirely within the next two years. And this wasn’t whispered at a business luncheon or buried in a consultancy memo. It was delivered straight to Parliament, at the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry and Technology, during its study on Canada’s underlying productivity gaps and capital outflow.
Michael Graydon, the CEO of Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada, didn’t hedge or soften the message. He told MPs, “23% of our members expect to exit products from the Canadian marketplace within the next two years, because the cost of doing business here has just become unsustainable.”
Unsustainable. That’s the word he used. And when the people who actually make things in this country start using that word, you should pay attention. These aren’t fringe players or hypothetical startups. These are firms that supply the goods Canadians buy every single day, and they’re looking at their balance sheets, their regulatory burdens, the delays in getting anything approved or built, and concluding that Canada simply doesn’t work for them anymore.
What makes this more troubling is the timing. Canada’s investment levels have been falling for years, even as the United States and other competitors race ahead. Businesses aren’t reinvesting in machinery or technology at the rate they once did. They’re not modernizing their operations here. They’re putting expansion plans on hold or shifting them to jurisdictions that move faster, cost less and offer clearer rules. That’s not ideology; it’s arithmetic. If it costs more to operate here, if it takes longer to get a permit, and if supply chains back up because ports and rail lines are jammed, investors will choose the place that doesn’t make growth a bureaucratic mountain climb.
Graydon raised another point that ought to concern anyone who cares about domestic production. Canada’s agrifood sector recorded a sixty-billion-dollar trade surplus last year, one of the brightest spots in the national economy, but according to him that potential is being “diluted by fragmented interprovincial trade and logistics bottlenecks.” The ports, the rail corridors, the entire transport network—choke points everywhere. And you can’t build a productive economy on choke points. Companies can’t scale, can’t guarantee delivery, can’t justify the costs. So they leave.
This twenty-three percent figure is the clearest evidence yet that the problem isn’t theoretical. It’s not something for think-tank panels or academic papers. It is happening at the level that matters most: the decision whether to continue doing business in Canada or move operations somewhere more predictable. And once those decisions are made, they’re very hard to reverse. Capital doesn’t boomerang back out of patriotism. It goes where it can earn a return.
For years, Canadian policymakers have talked about productivity as if it were a moral failing of workers or a mystical national characteristic. It’s neither. Productivity comes from investment—real money poured into equipment, technology, training and expansion. When investment stalls, productivity collapses. And when a quarter of firms in a major sector are already planning their exit, you are not looking at a temporary dip. You are looking at a structural rejection of the business environment itself.
The fact that executives are now openly warning Parliament that they cannot afford to stay is a moment of clarity. It is also a test. Either this country becomes a place where people can build things again—quickly, affordably, competitively—or it continues down the path that leads to empty factories, hollowed-out supply chains and consumers who wonder why the shelves look thinner every year.
Twenty-three percent is not just a statistic. It’s the sound of a warning bell ringing at full volume. The only question now is whether anyone in charge hears it.
Subscribe to The Opposition with Dan Knight .
For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
It should not take a crisis for Canada to develop the resources that make people and communities thrive.
Alberta Offers Enormous Advantages for AI Data Centres
AI Faces Energy Problem With Only One Solution, Oil and Gas
‘Holy Sh*t!’: Podcaster Aghast As Charlie Kirk’s Security Leader Reads Texts He Allegedly Sent University Police
-
Daily Caller2 days ago
‘Holy Sh*t!’: Podcaster Aghast As Charlie Kirk’s Security Leader Reads Texts He Allegedly Sent University Police
-
Crime5 hours ago‘Modern-Day Escobar’: U.S. Says Former Canadian Olympian Ran Cocaine Pipeline with Cartel Protection and a Corrupt Toronto Lawyer
-
Great Reset2 days agoCanadian government forcing doctors to promote euthanasia to patients: report
-
Alberta2 days agoSylvan Lake football coach fired for opposing transgender ideology elected to town council
-
Carbon Tax1 day agoCarney fails to undo Trudeau’s devastating energy policies
-
Addictions1 day agoActivists Claim Dealers Can Fix Canada’s Drug Problem
-
Daily Caller17 hours agoDemocrats Explicitly Tell Spy Agencies, Military To Disobey Trump
-
Health1 day agoNEW STUDY: Infant Vaccine “Intensity” Strongly Predicts Autism Rates Worldwide