Tag Archives: US

Politics

The United States and Canada continue to decline in terms of Global Competitiveness

Scandinavia continues to dominate the Global Competitiveness Index, with Finland, Sweden, and Denmark placing first, second, and third out of 192 nations in 2025. The rest of Europe follows closely behind. Japan, ranked #19, is the only non-European country in the top 20. The United States has fallen from #3 in 2016, the last year of Barack Obama’s presidency, to #42 under President Donald Trump in 2025. During the same timeframe, Canada has dropped from #15 to #30.

Continue reading The United States and Canada continue to decline in terms of Global Competitiveness →
Forests, Politics

BC won’t run anti-tariff ads, Eby says after emergency summit

By Natasha Bulowski, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

BC Premier David Eby is putting his anti-tariff ads on ice after an emergency summit with federal ministers on Monday morning.

“We’ve committed to the federal government that when the time comes to be speaking directly to Americans, we’ll do it in partnership with them,” Eby told reporters at a press conference in Vancouver immediately after the emergency softwood lumber summit.

“We will not be running the ads by ourselves.” 

Continue reading BC won’t run anti-tariff ads, Eby says after emergency summit →
Finances, History

The Quadra Project: Globalization – Part 1

Peter Zeihan, in his 2022 book, The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization, offers an insightful and credible explanation for the globalization process that affects us all, and is becoming increasingly relevant because of global economic, political and environmental factors. Although his book might exaggerate the importance of America, his ideas deserve our attention because they provide a framework for illuminating other related subjects.

At the end of World War II, in 1945, the world was in a political and economic mess. Although Germany and Japan had been defeated, most of the rest of the world had been heavily damaged by the conflict. In the East, an imperial Japan was in ruin, as was China after the Japanese invasion of its northern territories. In Europe, Germany, too, was in ruin. Great Britain, Italy, France, Russia and their many adjacent countries had been heavily damaged.

Continue reading The Quadra Project: Globalization – Part 1 →
Environment

The West Coast’s tidal swamps are supercharged carbon sinks

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A collaborative cross-border study digging into forested tidal swamps in the Pacific Northwest has determined these ecosystems are carbon storage superheroes. 

Found upstream from coastal estuaries and shorelines, but still subject to the flux of ocean tides, the woody wetlands feature a tangle of shrubs, grasses and trees, like willows and Sitka spruce, that can trap about nine million tonnes of organic carbon per hectare — the equivalent to the amount of carbon burned by two million gas-powered cars every year. 

Continue reading The West Coast’s tidal swamps are supercharged carbon sinks →
Politics

Donald Trump, Canada’s Conservatives and uncertainties of the 2025 election

If there were an election today, the polls show that Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative party would probably form the next government. This isn’t what is necessarily going to happen. I like to think of polls as ‘point in time’ snapshots which may be 100% accurate right now, but the situation can be very different tomorrow. 

One of the trends I have noticed on 338Canada, which gleans data from many polls, is that support for the Liberals has been tacking upwards since Trudeau resigned (6 points), while support for the Conservatives and NDP has gone down (4 points each). If the Liberals pick a popular leader, we can expect their popularity to rise even higher in the polls – all of which is just to say that the as yet undeclared election is too far away to be certain.  

Anyway Max Thaysen, one of our thought leaders here on Cortes, has been watching what Donald Trump, a Conservative leader in the United States, is doing and getting anxious about what this latest rendition of Canada’s Conservative Party might be like if it comes to power.   

Continue reading Donald Trump, Canada’s Conservatives and uncertainties of the 2025 election →