Vancouver apologizes for Harry Potter event after trans outrage
This week on Off the Record, Vancouver’s Park Board apologized to trans activists but proceeded anyway with a Harry Potter-themed attraction in Stanley Park.
This week on Off the Record, Vancouver’s Park Board apologized to trans activists but proceeded anyway with a Harry Potter-themed attraction in Stanley Park.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre cheered from the nosebleeds as the Blue Jays crushed the Yankees in Game 2, drawing contrast to Prime Minister Mark Carney’s VIP habits.
Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber avoided prison after being handed conditional sentences following a three-year legal ordeal that cost taxpayers millions.
And Prime Minister Mark Carney praised Donald Trump’s “decisive leadership” for brokering a peace deal between Israel and Hamas, while his public safety minister admitted he hasn’t met with a single Christian congregation targeted by arson.
Join Isaac Lamoureux, Alex Zoltan, and Walid Tamtam for these stories and more on Off the Record!
Yesterday, i.e. Friday, October 10,,, StatCan reported that the unemployment rate in Canada for September was 7.1%, unchanged from August. (Actually, if you go to the second decimal place it was 7.03%, up from 6.95% in August. Looking at the second decimal place, the unemployment rate has increased steadily in every month from March 2025 forward, i.e. the months in which Mark Carney has been our PM. As Pierre Poilievre has noted Carney said during the election campaign that Carney had bragged about giving us the strongest economy in the G7, but he so far he has only given us the G7’s second highest unemployment rate. This was reconfirmed yesterday. France has the G7’s highest unemployment rate at 7.5% for 2025Q2.
Doug Porter of BMO Capital Markets noted that “Canadian employment rose 60,400 in September, well above expectations of a modest gain and largely reversing the ultra weakness in the prior month [when there was a 65.5 thousand drop in employment.” Doug goes on to say that “Even with the nice advance last month, the big picture is that over the past eight months—i.e., since the trade uncertainty ratcheted higher in late January—employment is up a tiny 0.1%.” Even for a glass-half-full guy there is not much comfort in that thought given that over the same period there was a 1.0% increase in the working age population. This is a combination almost guaranteed to produce a big increase in the unemployment rate, which is what we got (the January 2025 unemployment rate was only 6.6%).
Stephen Punwasi, a discerning analyst at Better Dwelling has suggested that there was overcorrection of the employment estimates for seasonality, as the raw estimates show a 46.9 thousand decline in employment from August to September 2025. This is the more likely since the biggest mover was manufacturing, victimized by the Orange Man’s tariffs, with 27,800 thousand more jobs. Doug Porter also highlighted this: “perhaps the most surprising/suspicious aspect of the report.” I am not a time series specialist, but if professional data analysts find these numbers suspicious, the time series experts at StatCan may give them a second look too. I would wager the big employment gain in September is likely to be revised down, and the September unemployment rate will show a much more substantial increase over August’s than it does now.
Do Isaac and friends find the decline of the Canadian economy a topic devoid of interest? Just asking.
Yesterday, i.e. Friday, October 10,,, StatCan reported that the unemployment rate in Canada for September was 7.1%, unchanged from August. (Actually, if you go to the second decimal place it was 7.03%, up from 6.95% in August. Looking at the second decimal place, the unemployment rate has increased steadily in every month from March 2025 forward, i.e. the months in which Mark Carney has been our PM. As Pierre Poilievre has noted Carney said during the election campaign that Carney had bragged about giving us the strongest economy in the G7, but he so far he has only given us the G7’s second highest unemployment rate. This was reconfirmed yesterday. France has the G7’s highest unemployment rate at 7.5% for 2025Q2.
Doug Porter of BMO Capital Markets noted that “Canadian employment rose 60,400 in September, well above expectations of a modest gain and largely reversing the ultra weakness in the prior month [when there was a 65.5 thousand drop in employment.” Doug goes on to say that “Even with the nice advance last month, the big picture is that over the past eight months—i.e., since the trade uncertainty ratcheted higher in late January—employment is up a tiny 0.1%.” Even for a glass-half-full guy there is not much comfort in that thought given that over the same period there was a 1.0% increase in the working age population. This is a combination almost guaranteed to produce a big increase in the unemployment rate, which is what we got (the January 2025 unemployment rate was only 6.6%).
Stephen Punwasi, a discerning analyst at Better Dwelling has suggested that there was overcorrection of the employment estimates for seasonality, as the raw estimates show a 46.9 thousand decline in employment from August to September 2025. This is the more likely since the biggest mover was manufacturing, victimized by the Orange Man’s tariffs, with 27,800 thousand more jobs. Doug Porter also highlighted this: “perhaps the most surprising/suspicious aspect of the report.” I am not a time series specialist, but if professional data analysts find these numbers suspicious, the time series experts at StatCan may give them a second look too. I would wager the big employment gain in September is likely to be revised down, and the September unemployment rate will show a much more substantial increase over August’s than it does now.
Do Isaac and friends find the decline of the Canadian economy a topic devoid of interest? Just asking.