From Shipyards to Schoolyards

A stylized Canadian flag with the maple leaf filled by a collage of images: a shipyard with cranes and steel beams, a hospital with doctors and nurses, a schoolyard with children playing, and farmland with barns and silos. The design symbolizes Canada’s nation-building choices across industry, care, education, and food.

Canada’s nation-building strategy can’t stop at ships and steel. This piece explores why classrooms, hospitals, unpaid care, and family farms must be treated with the same urgency if Canada is to build resilience for the 21st century.

The Things We Can’t Fix: Repair Culture, Corporate Control, and the Fight from the West

A flat lay of assorted repair tools and broken household items on a beige fabric surface, including a cracked smartphone, pliers, a disassembled fan motor, screwdrivers, a broken garden hose nozzle, an electric drill, circuit board, and scissors—symbolizing the everyday challenges of repair in a disposable economy.

Western Canadians are pushing back on throwaway culture—and calling for a return to repairable, durable, affordable goods. The rest of us should be, too. My dad always called them whipper snippers, and that’s what they remained—even as brands got slicker and trimmers got smarter. He was a Croatian‑Italian immigrant to Ontario, a lifelong Mr. Fixit who took pride in doing …

“Nasty” Is One Word for It. Effective Is Another.

Bugs Bunny feverishly saws the United States away from Canada—under the watchful eyes of a moose, a beaver, and a very unimpressed Canada goose. #ElbowsUp in cartoon form.

When the U.S. ambassador called Canadians “nasty” for skipping the booze runs and booking local vacations, he didn’t just insult a neighbour—he revealed that something was working. This is the story of how quiet consumer resistance evolved into a full-spectrum economic strategy, reshaping cross-border trade without a single protest sign. Call it what you like. We’re calling it effective.

Dispatches from the Margins

black and white photo collage of messy writing space with scrunched up paper, a writing pad, and a cup of coffee.

Not everything fits neatly into a pillar—and that’s the whole point of Random Ramblings. This is the catch-all for behind-the-scenes updates, odd ideas, half-finished thoughts, and warm-up posts. It’s also where I might test out writing prompts, respond to reader questions, or just think out loud. Expect honesty, messiness, and maybe the occasional typo. Welcome to Ramblings, a space I …