You may have noticed that Ms Soapbox has been a little quieter than usual. Like many of you, I’m trying to come to terms with the state of the world, including:
- Living next door to a raving lunatic.
- Living in a province where the premier appears to be more interested in making excuses for the MAGA king than being a full-fledged member of Team Canada,
- Watching our social services crumble under the weight of the UCP government’s ineptitude.
Anyway, there’s a lot going on in the world, our country and our province, and I’m working on a project which means I am not able to devote as much time as I’d like to this blog, so I’m taking a brief Sabbatical, but I’ll be back.
Until then, please take care of yourselves.
We’ll talk again soon.
Susan
Susan on the Soapbox 
Hoping your sabbatical is restful and restorative. Take care.7
Thanks Public Servant. Rest and restoration is exactly what we all need! Take care.
Take good care. I’ve appreciated your blogs. It is a ’shit-show’ out there but I’m hopeful the new leader of the Liberal Party can secure Canada from the MEGA North and MEGA South menace.
Interesting times!
Kathleen
>
Lausmank55, I saw your note right after they announced that Mark Carney won the Liberal leadership race on the first ballot. I think the Liberals are well positioned to take on Trump, but first they have to take down Poilievre. It should be “no context” but you never know with the conservatives.
I’m inspired by the outcome of the leadership race, the very collegial, team approach by all candidates. I’m also very impressed by the significant change in the polls. In this short space of time, the attack on Canada (& other countries) by MEGA has rallied Canadians to wake-up and realize Canada is NOT broken and that we rather like our country.
I actually think the MEGA North team is scrambling. Solgan-boy is now up against a whole new realization. Carney is an adult – accomplished economist with an impressive resume. Mean while, 20 years of House Of Commons record is PP’s resume. Very dire. However, there are some big bucks backing the PP campaign and I suspect not all Canadian. Troublesome …
Kathleen
>
Enjoy your time off! Will miss your astute comments and opinions. You are always spot on!
Val Kunn
Val, thanks so much. Once I get past this project and a few other things I’ll be back.
I’ll wait here, Ms Susan Soapbox, you are my favourite read on social media. Take good care til you are back.
Marilyn: that’s so sweet of you! Thank you!
I hope it is a pleasant sabbatical. Don’t forget to take a little “me time” as well. Check you later.
Rose: You bet. I think we should all take a little ‘me time’ so we can dive back in with renewed vigor.Thanks.
Hoping you have some time to gather thoughts and spend some time decompressing. What turbulent and for our generation unprecedented events. (I was born in post war era- the pink cloud- where everyone wanted to get back to a normal life, a life without conflict and loss, a world with alliances, ethics, order….. not realizing how fragile and tenuous this could be against greedy oligarghs that also wanted to rule the world) I have been taking longer walks, getting lost in books and doing art to counter balance the chaos.
Yvette: very well said. I especially like what you said about doing other things to counter balance the chaos. I’ve been taking French at Alliance Française and let me tell you, when you’re sitting in a classroom trying to figure out what the teacher just said, anything thoughts about the buffoon south of the 49th parallel go right out the window.
Apprendre quelque chose de nouveau comme une langue, un artisanat, de la musique est une excellente distraction !
Yvette: Je suis d’accord !
Take care, Susan. Things have indeed been beyond chaotic, but I have been missing your take in recent events in provincial politics, especially around the Alberta Health/AHS “dodgy contracts” scandal and the related saga of the defamation lawsuit against Calgary paramedic and podcaster Nate Pike. Looking forward to your thoughts when you’re once again able to share them :-).
jerrymacgp: thank you for the kind words. Like you I believe the Alberta health/AHS scandal is huge. I don’t see how Smith is going to extricate herself from the mess, but I don’t want to jump the gun, the various investigations must be allowed to run their course before we are able to lay the blame where most of us think it belongs.
Best of luck with your project. As always, take care of yourself and your loved ones. (Experts are saying these days that a good way to keep the stress levels bearable is to keep friends and family close. I like expert advice….)
Mike: thank you. I too like the expert advice. I was just reading Robert Reich’s substack in which he lists a number of ways to cope and prominent among them was keeping your friends and family close.
Susan if you feel like I do, I can easily understand why you want this break. Never in my life have I felt as angry as with this circus. I cannot even watch them talking. The arrogance, the insults, the total lack of any respect is just atrocious and very similar to Pierre Poilievre style. God forbid Canadians do not learn the lesson and elect him.
Take care of yourself Susan and good luck with your project.
Make sure that our cute white haired mascot rests as well LOL.
Carlos: the very first time Trump said he was going to use economic force (tariffs) to take over Canada I knew he wasn’t joking. He threw out all sorts of excuses, the fentanyl “crisis”, illegal immigrants, terrorists, whatever, flooding across the border. He said Canada was “ripping off” the Americans, etc, etc, etc. Dingdongs like O’Leary and Smith going down there to kiss Trump’s ring didn’t help. There’s nothing we can do about Trump. But as you suggest, we can learn from his example (don’t trust a snake oil salesman who says he’ll make you RICH!) and not elect our own mini-Trump in the next election.
PS I’ll let the cute white-haired mascot know you send your regards. 🙂
Hopefully the results Trump obtains will discourage Canadians from making the same mistakes.
I don’t think it was his ring they went down there to kiss …
Jerrymacgp: Fair point. A friend told me she heard someone whining on the CBC noon show that Carney should not have said Poilievre was on his knees at the alter of Trump. Their objection wasn’t that it had religious undertones. Seems to me the conservatives are more thin skinned than the liberals and NDP nowadays.
Jerrymacgp: Indeed…!
The amount of time I spend on social media ebbs and flows, too, and frankly most people spend too much time online anyway.
Paulliverstravels: I wholeheartedly agree with your comments. Social media is addictive and we all need to find a way to break away from it. And if Canadians aren’t taking in the lessons Trump is teaching Americans then God help us in the next election. I find it hard to believe anyone will fall for the Pierre Poilievre crap but MAGA and MapleMAGA types appears to be willing to believe anything if it’s served with a huge dollop of “poor me” ideology.
Thank you for the time and effort you have dedicated to this blog. It’s something I always look forward to reading.
Brendon: Thank you so much for your support.
Dear Ms. S: Please take care. As for Smith, she is straddling the fence to hedge her bets. At best, she will end up premier of Alberta or at worst the pro consul for Trump in Alberta. As for that clown O’Leary, apparently he has multiple passports which means he will have a soft landing whatever the outcome.
Jaundice Eye: Fair point. How far can Smith go before she destroys her credibility here in Alberta? How many more scandals will it take before people figure out who she’s here to serve? As for O’Leary, I don’t like to wish ill on anyone, but after his disgraceful performance at Mar-a-Lago one can only hope his net worth will be significantly diminished after his friend Trump is finished with trashing the stock market.
Jaundiced Eye: isn’t it amazing how the people who complain about the “globalists” have no issue when it comes to weasels like O’Leary and Jordan Petersen. As for Smith, she’s now portraying herself as a “diplomat” when in fact she’s a laggard who is not prepared to fight for anyone but herself, the rest of Canada be damned.
Ms. S: It is my firm belief that comparing O’Leary to a weasel is an egregious insult to weasels. Petersen on the other hand is amassing a huge following and I believe will soon have the critical mass of followers to do real damage. Agreed, Smith is out for Smith and Smith only.
Danielle Smith is already a governor, she is just keeping a secret
https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/03/11/news/alberta-premier-smith-prageru-fundraiser-ben-shapiro
How far we have gone in this province and nothing can be done – this is what we call a democracy. Shame on us and nothing is said or done about any of this human failure other than during elections, if we get one.
Carlos: Smith’s appearance on Ben Shapiro’s show is disgraceful. It says a lot about Albertans (none of it good) that they aren’t tearing their hair out about their premier cozying up to the guy who said Canadians would welcome an invasion. As for Shapiro, don’t these guys check the polls? A recent Leger poll said only 9% of Canada’s population would be in favour of becoming the 51st state. That percentage jumps to 15% in Alberta. Shocking but still not an overwhelming majority. But no, Shapiro and his ilk don’t check the polls, facts are of no interest to them. Not when they can make a big splash and rake in tons of money by saying outrageous things.
Very very annoying.
It is very sad but we will overcome all of this for sure.
Get rested because we are going to need you. We together are stronger. It is going to be rough.
Thanks Carlos: I think Trump has seriously underestimated the Canadian people. Who do you think is going to break first? People fighting to save their country or people fighting so billionaiers can have tax breaks. All I can say is when enough Americans wake up to the injustice being done to them, they’re going to rip the White House to pieces brick by brick.
Susan, since Trump was elected in the US, I have been trying to understand how is it possible the complete 180 degree change towards the West as well as economic policies.
I know that you many times talk about Timothy Snyder and his book ‘On Tyranny’ and I also read it. Although politically it is a very good book, I only was able to form a clearer picture of what is happening after I read Anne Apllebaum book ‘Autocracy Inc.’.
Trump involvement with the Russian Mafia goes back a few years, when this fellow Kolomoisky was acquiring real state in the US using all the tricks of shell companies, dirty money and all the strategies that are well known thanks to hacker organizations that, of course, are quickly exposed as terrorist or criminal organizations. Authorities seem to pretend they are doing something about it but never really go too far and it all ends up being forgotten. Money laundering for the Russian Mafia goes on through Western banks and the Russian PrivatBank.
Two things are very clear in this book. First Trump’s involvement with this character seems to have happened through properties under Trump’s real state brand name but as always, nothing is for sure in this dirty world of finances. Second this activity also captured the German chancellor Gerhard Schroder involving German and other European banks.
Of course, I suggest you read the book if you have not yet done so because of course I cannot explain all the details here, but I think that it is amazingly clear the possibility of a connection between Putin and his mafia world and the west including Trump.
The strategy of bringing Russia into the democratic world by means of trade, including the building of gas and oil pipelines to Europe, seems to have accomplished the opposite. The West is now moving into the Russian Mafia Autocracy and has been for a while. Trump, the biggest crook at the government level, may just be the final step of amalgamation.
So, this sudden move could very well be the corruption of the west reaching what was thought impossible. West leaders are obviously being captured by Big Money and total Oligarchy.
I suggest reading that book and discuss this issue here. I know that Susan is on sabbatical and a good rest, but I think she does not mind we continue talking occasionally. There aren’t many places where we can still have freedom to go at it.
Thank you for giving it a read.
Carlos, thank you for the recommendation. I have not yet read AApllebaum’s book but will definitely do so over my break. Your summary is very plausible and explains a lot.
Can someone explain to me how can we still have NATO when one of the members is trying to annex another?
This is a joke and what I cannot for the life of me understand is why are we still going for a meeting about trade when the Commerce Secretary of the US right before the meeting was saying on live TV that Canada only exists because we are dependent on them?
Would you think that the Canadian team would just say that there would be no negotiations until they stop denying the existence of Canada. According to Canadian Historian, this could be interpreted as a declaration of war. So what are we doing?
Negotiations are obviously important but not when the US is definitely, day by day increasing their threat on our existence as a country.
Carlos: excellent question. god only knows what the answer is.
I hope that Susan is resting well and enjoying it.
Here is an article published on the Tyee that I think is interesting to read.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/03/18/Trump-and-Pathology-Politics/
I hope you enjoy it
This one just published, serious and amazing to all of us that never saw the day that the US would start its project to become an autocracy and use us as the place to humiliate and subjugate. I think this article is of good quality and I post it here.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2025/03/20/Trump-Putin-Dark-Alliance/
Here is another great one as always by David Climenhaga.
I am really concerned about a unity crisis caused by Danielle Smith because she prefers a separation from Canada. I just do not understand why she just simply move to the US as she is so in tune with their values and especially now with her hero Trump. Just go please and let us be Canadians.
https://albertapolitics.ca/2025/03/former-ahs-ceo-briskly-denies-her-job-performance-had-anything-to-do-with-why-she-was-fired/
Carlos, you, me, and a lot of smart Canadians are rightly concerned about Smith’s “national unity crisis” comments.