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First-time voters share why they're casting their ballots

First-time voters share why they're casting their ballots

CBC25-02-2025

It's almost Election Day in Ontario, so the CBC's Sarah Law stopped by Confederation College in Thunder Bay, Ont., to speak with first-time voters about what issues matter most to them.

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The bully is a person in our neighbourhood
The bully is a person in our neighbourhood

Winnipeg Free Press

time2 hours ago

  • Winnipeg Free Press

The bully is a person in our neighbourhood

Opinion A new kid moves into your neighbourhood. A loudmouth, pretty darned full of himself; 'I'm the best, the bigly-est, the smartest person ever,' but you're used to all sorts, even windbags, so you don't pay him much mind. And then one day as you're walking by, he punches you in the face. Later, he's all smiles, and says 'Let's let bygones be bygones, we could be the bestest of friends.' And things get better for a bit, though he's still insufferable. Demetrius Freeman / The Washington Post U.S. President Donald Trump Not long after, as you're walking by, he comes up and punches you in the face, saying that you were mean to him. A week later, he punches you in the face. And then says, 'We should really be friends.' At some point, tired of being punched in the face, you simply avoid him. Deal him out altogether from your life. Because you have no trust whatsoever that he isn't going to punch you in the face — and, to add insult to injury, also blame you for forcing him to punch you in the face. Enter America. Several media outlets — the CBC among them — are reporting that Canada and the United States are exchanging broad-strokes terms for a joint deal on economic and security issues. No framework deal at this point, just a starting point for what two competing views on what a negotiation might look like. You can understand it from a pragmatic point of view, when we do so much of our business with our largest trading partner to the south. And it is, in a qualified way, good to at least be talking. On the other hand … Sign a trade and security deal with the United States? We already have a binding trade deal with the United States, signed with great Sharpie flourish by the exact same person who has spent the last few months punching us in the face with tariffs. Here's the key point — why would we trust an American leader with a 100 per cent record of punching us in the face to, maybe, not punch us in the face any more? The truth is, we can't. Especially because U.S. President Donald Trump has a lengthy corporate history of punching people in the face as well. It's been his art of the deal — signing contracts and then refusing to honour payment terms, and demanding people settle breached contracts for pennies on the dollar or fight him in the courts for years. Weekday Mornings A quick glance at the news for the upcoming day. It's a conundrum we, and many other American trading partners, face: we can't really afford to lose America's business, and we can't really afford trying to keep it, either — because every time we jump one hurdle, we're faced with a new one and are asked to jump even higher. Contrast America's current negotiating style with the Chinese government, which has just announced a zero-tariff policy with virtually every single African country — 53 in all — with the one exception being Eswatini, the former country of Swaziland, because that country has diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Meanwhile, the U.S. is punishing African countries with high tariffs because Americans buy products cheap from them, while the populations of those countries are not in a financial position to make an equal-sized purchase of American goods. (Not only punching them in the face, but kicking them when they're down as well.) It's understandable that we're trying to make a deal in the short term, or maybe our federal government is trying to run out the clock as much as possible. But that's not the answer. Maybe we can't move out of the neighbourhood. But we can make new friends — not necessarily China, but there's a big world out there.

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