Norm Farrell IN-SIGHTS.CA
@normfarrell.bsky.social
I began writing IN-SIGHTS.CA in April 2009, covering Canadian public affairs with a focus on British Columbia. I am particularly interested in climate, energy, and matters of integrity in governments and industries.
Private companies know there’s no business case for more pipelines when renewables have never been cheaper, cleaner, and faster to deploy. So the government is investing OUR money instead. Most Canadians agree: NO taxpayer-funded pipelines >> act.gp/3RlAuJq
Even the oil companies don't want to pay for new pipelines!
Our government shouldn’t gamble our money and our future on pipelines.
act.gp
B.C. mill closures hinder reforestation efforts, with long-term consequences
B.C. mill closures hinder reforestation efforts, with long-term consequences
B.C.’s mills have been a key driver in forest health and reforestation efforts across the province, and as they close, external funding will be required to ensure decades of forestry work don’t go to waste and become wildfire fuel, according to experts.
bit.ly
Extreme climate change destruction has become a spectator event. Beachgoers enjoying a cocktail 🍹 while the planet burns ❤️🔥. Can the level of concern drop any lower 🤦🏻♂️? #climatecrisis #climatechange
“If we continue on the current path … we are basically playing Russian roulette with humanity.” — Yoshua Bengio, professor of computer science, University of Montreal in-sights.ca/2026/07/28/w...
What do you feel about AI?
Advanced artificial intelligence is being rapidly deployed, making knowledgeable people nervous about how it may change almost everything in our world. These are things that should concern us about…
in-sights.ca
Is it a leftist policy to want universal healthcare, justice, equality, and fair treatment for everyone? In that case, all the people I consider friends are leftists. Some of them are even far left because they believe very strongly in those ideals.
MIT Technology Review’s annual list of ten breakthrough technologies includes innovations that appear entirely beneficial, but others carry the potential for serious harm. in-sights.ca/2026/07/26/p...
Promising, troubling, and terrifying
MIT Technology Review’s annual list of ten breakthrough technologies includes innovations that appear entirely beneficial, but others carry the potential for serious harm.
in-sights.ca
Because Carney’s Liberal government is working to promote fossil-fuel production. Canadians should not expect it to encourage sales of affordable electric vehicles—or the transition away from gasoline. That is unfortunate. in-sights.ca/2026/07/26/e...
Electric Vehicles – Trends and Insights
Because Carney’s Liberal government is working to promote fossil-fuel production. Canadians should not expect it to encourage sales of affordable electric vehicles—or the transition away from gasol…
in-sights.ca
“When a prison camp opens in your town… When a DREAMer is disappeared from your classroom… When the president* destroys what’s left of the Constitution… They will all say they didn’t know this was coming. And I want the American people to know that they did.” @aoc.bsky.social
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com · 2y agoAOC 🔥🔥🔥
The vast majority of our outlets are owned by right-wing billionaires and last night our most prominent political reporters spent an hour chuckling along with a clearly senile Republican president as he insulted them incoherently. Here's why our media has a liberal bias problem.
Environmental researcher and political scientist Duncan McLaren wrote a blog post titled, “Must we wait for the end of the world to rediscover care and repair?” in-sights.ca/2026/07/25/w...
Will humans stay in control?
Technical capability is advancing faster than public understanding, democratic oversight, or agreement about who should bear the risks. The danger is not science itself. It is the willingness to de…
in-sights.ca
For some people, climate change is a hot topic and a painful reality. www.bbc.com/news/article...
More than 300,000 evacuated as wildfires rage in France and Spain
Spain's PM warns of "complex hours" ahead as authorities in France say they are far from bringing blazes burning near Bordeaux under control.
bbc.com
Technical capability is advancing quickly. The danger is not science itself. It is the willingness to deploy immensely powerful technologies before we understand their consequences—or have established who will remain in control. in-sights.ca/2026/07/25/w...
Will humans stay in control?
Technical capability is advancing faster than public understanding, democratic oversight, or agreement about who should bear the risks. The danger is not science itself. It is the willingness to de…
in-sights.ca
A typical casual worker at American McDonald’s may average 20 hours a week at $14 an hour. The person would have to labour for more than fourteen centuries to equal what the McDonald’s CEO received in a single year. in-sights.ca/2026/07/22/c...
Curtailing CEO pay
A typical casual worker at American McDonald’s may average 20 hours a week at $14 an hour. The person would have to labour for more than fourteen centuries to equal what the McDonald’s CEO re…
in-sights.ca
Electricity from each megawatt of capacity at BC Hydro dams has fallen by roughly one-third. Hydropower has been abundant enough to meet British Columbia’s needs, but drought and low reservoir levels have exposed the danger of relying too heavily on a single source. in-sights.ca/2026/07/22/a...
Alternative energy solutions
Hydropower is dispatchable. It is generally reliable, can increase or decrease generation quickly, and can be shut down and restarted with relative ease. Provided the facilities are properly mainta…
in-sights.ca
PM Carney has caused his government to serve oil barons rather than people who elected it. Danielle Smith made that choice long ago. Now David Eby has decided that political and financial rewards matter more than a livable planet and the welfare of future generations. in-sights.ca/2026/07/20/c...
Crude sacrifices
Prime Minister Mark Carney has caused his government to serve oil barons rather than the people who elected it. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith made that choice long ago. Now British Columbia Premie…
in-sights.ca
“Just because it looks muddy … doesn’t mean that it isn’t a paradise for endangered and migratory species.”
The Narwhal@thenarwhal.ca · 3w agoAs governments look to expand Roberts Bank, scientists warn one of Canada’s most important ecosystems for salmon, southern resident killer whales and migratory birds could pay the price. @sobittersosweet.bsky.social’s latest: thenarwhal.ca/alberta-pipe... #bcpoli
Of gravy trains and gravy planes: nationalpost.com/news/canada/...
Carney's $160K plane food for a single trip includes chicken chasseur and 'death by chocolate': CTF
Mark Carney and his "entourage" dined on a menu that cost $2,850 per person during a week-long trip in November 2025, the CTF reports.
nationalpost.com
I recently stumbled across an American website: A Moveable Feed from buttondown.com. It promises to deliver “Blunt, funny takes on today’s biggest stories from a recovering DC insider.” This week, the website published Smoke, Fire, And What We Pretend Not To See. in-sights.ca/2026/07/18/w...
What we pretend not to see
I recently stumbled across an American website: A Moveable Feed from buttondown.com. It promises to deliver “Blunt, funny takes on today’s biggest stories from a recovering DC insider.”…
in-sights.ca
In the eyes of Canada’s security establishment, listening to dissenting voices and engaging opponents were not signs of democratic strength. They were grounds for surveillance. in-sights.ca/2026/07/17/r...
RCMP’s decades-old Tommy Douglas files remain secret
The RCMP was particularly suspicious of people associated with peace movements—and of political leaders willing to speak openly with people across the political spectrum. In the eyes of Canada’s se…
in-sights.ca
Credit unions have been merging into regional institutions for years. It rarely makes the news; no single merger is much of a story. But something changes, slowly and less visibly: the distance between the institution and the community it serves widens. in-sights.ca/2026/07/15/m...
Megasize credit unions have policies, not memories
From 1956 through 1958, I attended Stillwater Elementary, a small schoolhouse twenty-two kilometres south of Powell River. Its three rooms accommodated six grades, and children were summoned to cla…
in-sights.ca
Older folks will remember when Freedom Riders and civil rights activists were murdered, clubbed, beaten, attacked by police dogs, blasted with high-pressure fire hoses, jailed, humiliated, and subjected to almost every indignity that segregationists could devise. in-sights.ca/2026/07/15/r...
Remembering the Freedom Riders
I do not know Mel Lehan personally, but I have been aware of his altruistic activism for many years. His Facebook posts are usually both entertaining and informative. Recently, he reposted an item …
in-sights.ca
Graham's obituary is a surprise - came before long awaited one for Mitch McConnell and Donlad Trump. It's a great opportunity to attribute properly the viral quote misattributed often to Mark Twain. It's a rephrasing of a line written by Clarence Darrow.
A personal story involving a friendship of more than 55 years. They’re closing a chapter and I am saddened. in-sights.ca/2026/07/12/v...
Vacation home in south of France
Many years ago, our valued friends Jacquie and Lorne began searching for a vacation home. They explored possibilities in several parts of North America and Europe before deciding that the south of …
in-sights.ca
Buying up amazingly expensive unsellable Vancouver/Victoria condos is much better than building lots of new affordable housing for our just-plain-folks-type voters? in-sights.ca/2026/07/07/b...
Buying unsellable luxury condos better than building affordable housing for just-plain-folks
A comment on my last article is too good to not feature as a separate post. It was submitted by Loopholes Uber Alles, which I suspect just might be a nom de plume. The main part is from The Beavert…
in-sights.ca
You're absolutely right Norm. Carney and Eby seem to have no problem throwing future generations under the bus. Carney recently justified gutting Canada's climate targets because he was concerned about the current generation absorbing a disproportionate amount of the cost 😳.
Norm Farrell IN-SIGHTS.CA@normfarrell.bsky.social · last mo.Carney and Eby disregard the scientific warning that continued fossil-fuel expansion will intensify climate disruption. They are pursuing immediate economic advantage, knowing environmental costs will fall on future governments—and future generations. in-sights.ca/2026/07/01/d...
Housing policy is less a public-interest strategy than a wealth-preservation system for people already positioned to profit from scarcity. Governments claim to be addressing the housing crisis while protecting the arrangements that helped create it. in-sights.ca/2026/07/06/g...
Government housing policy wrong again
Erick Villagomez teaches architecture and urban design at UBC’s School of Community and Regional Planning. His work examines how cities are shaped by often-invisible systems that influence po…
in-sights.ca
Carney and Eby disregard the scientific warning that continued fossil-fuel expansion will intensify climate disruption. They are pursuing immediate economic advantage, knowing environmental costs will fall on future governments—and future generations. in-sights.ca/2026/07/01/d...
Damn the climate science, full speed ahead! – UPDATED
During the 1864 American Civil War Battle of Mobile Bay, Rear Admiral Farragut ordered his fleet forward after the vessel Tecumseh struck a torpedo—and sank. The admiral said something like, “…
in-sights.ca
Nothing in my 50-year history with computers has developed quite as rapidly—or unsettled me as deeply—as artificial intelligence. in-sights.ca/2026/06/29/w...
Will Electronic Monsters Rule Mankind?
During the past half-century, I have watched computing power increase beyond anything most of us could have imagined. My old Digital Equipment DS310 attracted attention from other business people, …
in-sights.ca
