Forget all the "not actually first" and "misleading headline" stuff. If we can do this on donations, probably mostly from people only a paycheque away from needing a food bank themselves, imagine what we could do with an actual social system funded by properly taxing wealth, high income, and corporations. We could turn that headline into something approaching reality.

I don't think it's fair to lay current economic landscape squarely at Trudeau's feet.

I agree. There is plenty of blame to go around. Trudeau, the other leaders, the MPs, and the very parties themselves going back to at least 1990 are to blame.

There is virtually nothing that can't be traced back to changes in policy enacted by, supported by, and tacitly accepted by literally everyone involved.

Changes to EI that gutted the power of non-union employees.

Changes to business and labour policies such that "society owes me a business" and "nobody owes you a job" attitudes were fostered, then cemented.

Any subsidy or tax reduction or public funding of anything that generates private profit.

Complete dismantling of a world-leading social housing program.

Gutting civil service in favour of consultants and industry association advisors.

Allowing already weak anti-monopoly legislation to gather dust in a drawer.

The focus on the financial health of the stock market instead of the financial health and stability of the general public.

The idea that industry can self-regulate potentially damaging behaviours. It's never happened. It never will.

And my favourite, running the country like a business. Every employer runs their business as a dictator. Who the hell thinks that's the right model for running a country?

In the 1980s, I was listening to a news broadcast that contained 3 stories of note:

• national economy is doing fine
• Saskatchewan provincial economy is doing great
• Saskatoon gets its first food bank

From that, I concluded that there are two economies that are either completely separate or only very loosely connected: the lived economy of the vast majority of the workforce and the financial economy of trading in stocks, commodities, and financial instruments.

Over the next few years, it became obvious to me that reporters, journalists, politicians, pundits, think tanks, and business groups care only for the economy of the financial sector. I've seen nothing since to make me change my mind.

That's 3 times what is being put into a federal housing program and AI already has people falling all over themselves to invest.

On that note, I guess I don't understand why a Nazi grandfather has any meaning whatsoever. I think her response to someone pointing that out should be "Yup, can't pick our relatives," shrug, and move on.

Being descended from a villain or hero doesn't tell us enough about a person to have any meaning.

Maybe it's because all the younger generations really are smarter than mine (boomer). For most of my 50 years in the workforce, I was told:

• I was lucky to have a job (justification for low wages, small raises, and no raises)
• I had to go along to get along (justification for shitty working conditions, some of which contravened labour law and safety regulations)
• I had to work hard to get ahead (justification for perpetual short staffing, stupid shifts, and excessive overtime)
• I had to prove myself to get promotions (actually do the work of the next level up without the next level pay)
• Training and certifications were for my benefit or just the cost of getting in the door (justification for the gutting and even elimination of on-the-job and employer-sponsored training as well as not having higher pay to go with more training and education)

For most of my working life, I took my father's advice to demand both my legal rights and my human dignity at great cost to my employment success. The 15 years I tried it "the right way" just left me exploited and burned out.

If falling productivity is a result of people finally demanding that laws and human dignity be not just respected but honoured and advanced, then I say let it fall.

I've heard people say that maybe it's time to reset productivity expectations or even redefine what is meant by productivity.

I think they make good cases for those things, but maybe it's time for, I don't know, something so radical as to be unthinkable. Like maybe it's time for the business community to look inward for the problem.

I live in a farming community. For the most part, the retired farmers know that the expression "million dollar snow" refers to the benefits of a late March storm that dumps a foot of snow on the fields, not the cost of digging out.

The younger ones definitely don't understand that Saskatchewan crops are about snow pack, not rainfall. The right rain at the right time can do wonders, but nothing beats reliable snowpack and some combination of occasional rain and moderate temperatures.

I find it interesting that it's the retired farmers who are more aware of and more concerned about climate change than their kids and grandkids.

News casters keep saying, "look at all of this wonderful weather we're having," but this is not the winter I would've signed up for.

I finally spoke my mind the other day when someone commented on the "beautiful" weather. It did not go well.

My concern with a universal income is that it discourages healthy people from working and thus contributing to our collective wellbeing.

Every study I've heard of shows that is not what happens except in very narrow situations. For example, the study run in Dauphin, MB found that teenagers were less likely to work or to work less, but that was because they were choosing to focus on their schooling and, in some cases, actually stay in school. IIRC, there were also people who chose to stay at home with young children or care for infirm relatives rather than find other care options so they could go to low wage, "low skill" jobs. Those outcomes seem positive given the results of other studies regarding education and family care.

There is a general problem in mass psychology where people sitting around a table or in their armchairs try to imagine the impact of a policy without conducting a study or looking at historical results.

I was talking to someone about what we do out here in the boonies all winter. One of the things I talked about was snowshoeing. While I was talking, I realized that it's been at least a decade since I've been able to snowshoe anywhere other than on the lake after it freezes. It's not that there is never any snow in the hills, but it never lasts long enough to matter.

I was raised to understand that respecting a person's right to how they are called is not a symbol of respect, but a demonstration of respect.

While there are certainly some very big threats out there, it's my opinion that they are another expression of some of the same ideologies behind the fight against the right to be called how you want to be called. Further, it's my opinion that we cannot fight those threats without also fighting those ideologies, wherever we find them.

I believe that the article was making the point that it's kind of strange to call it a crisis when the system is working as it has always worked. Instead of trying yet another way to keep the system working, maybe it's time to redesign the system.