Student-at-law, UCP VP Candidate, husband, father, Albertan, Catholic, fighter, and fool. Politics, history, law, philosophy, economics. https://nitter.gq/t.co/pjTNkdS1Fl
Calgary, Alberta
Joined March 2010
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We cannot go on like this. End of story.
Adults need to breach Ottawa and start pulling bureaucrats out of that city by the ears.
Canada added no private sector jobs from 2019 to 2024 — U.S. did the exact opposite nationalpost.com/news/canada…
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One clear reason why government does not belong in the bedroom is because hearing a politician opine on what sexual positions are prohibited is an embarrassment. nitter.gq/Jess4Lowestoft/status/…
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Governments never learn. If the private sector won't invest in something, that's because it's a bad investment.
Canada announces landmark investment in Cohere to scale secure, sovereign AI. Learn more: pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releas…
TJ Schmidt retweeted
Late-stage democracy is more descriptive than “end-stage capitalism.” What you’re seeing is a predictable failure mode of a system in which people can vote themselves more money. That’s not a failure of capitalism, that’s unrestrained democracy robbing capitalism.
I'm in my 40s. I'm a lawyer. My wife is a lawyer. We both work full time.
We cannot afford the house my parents purchased on a single electrician's income in their 30s.
We cannot afford the house my immigrant grandparents purchased on a single MTA bus driver's salary in their 30s. They had SIX CHILDREN.
For 30 years, politicians in Washington & their oligarch allies convinced regular people that this was just about avocado toast and fancy coffee.
In reality, this is end-stage capitalism. Everyone is stuck in place. It's impossible to buy a home. It's too costly to move. We work too much to have passion projects. We don't have enough savings to start our own businesses. We can't afford to go without healthcare to do it.
Thanks for writing this article @troy_closson. Would be very happy to discuss further.
nytimes.com/2026/10/25/nyreg…
TJ Schmidt retweeted
When I listen to tech people talk about economics and politics, I'm increasingly reminded of public health experts on Covid.
The experts on Covid knew a lot about biology. They could tell us how the disease could spread, explain the concept of R₀, and tell us that vaccines would be good for us. They were "right" about a lot when they stuck to what they knew.
But when epidemiologists started talking about politics and what to do about covid, they were completely out of their depth. They didn't have the tools to do cost-benefit analysis regarding policies like mask mandates, school closures, and lockdowns. They had half-baked theories about human psychology and could justify lying because they didn't understand that this might cause a political backlash.
Tech people know a lot about AI. But then I hear them talk about all jobs going extinct and hyper charged growth. They have crackpot ideas about political economy, and predict that the welfare state will disappear as the value of labor declines. And yet you don't find AI leading to supercharged growth, and the unemployment rate hasn't changed. Their predictions that the welfare state might wither away and a few rich people might capture all the gains show no signs of being true. They're just speculation, and the kinds of ideas that people who study economics and political science generally find a lot less plausible.
Another parallel is that the tech industry is experiencing a political backlash, just as the public health establishment did. I don't want to stretch this analogy too far, but I think that the common theme is that both communities were way too overconfident about their understanding of politics and social dynamics.
This is the most important issue in Canada right now. The rate of investment fleeing our country because of a burdensome matrix of requirements is shocking.
Businesses don't start or stay here because the $ doesn't make sense or they can't find it at all. No start-ups means no mature businesses. That means no jobs, no increasing wages and no tax revenue.
Once again the Canadian government FAILS to understand the problem
I would know, I founded and ran a tech company for a decade and raised MILLIONS from investors
And it was HORRIBLE doing business here
Let me explain
This isn't a "money issue"
This is a regulatory, economic and taxation issue combined with a deep cultural problem
Back in 2015 I founded a tech company, using my own money from working in the Alberta oil field
We developed our MVP in Montreal and launched our proof of concept right here in the West Island
Our first ever investors were our own first clients. We raised $150,000 from them
But things got harder when it came time to raise our seed round
I met with EVERY SINGLE VC in Montreal.
All told us NO
Why?
Too risky
lol... its the very definition of Venture Capital
They wanted a pitch deck, projections on 5 years, cashflow, business plan, go-to-market strategy, communication strategy, marketing strategy, Tech reviews, C.V. of founding team, financial disclosure etc
We spent more time preparing documents for them than we did scaling our business
Worse of all, they all wanted something different and would give contradicting requirements
I remember this interaction at the Espace CDPQ, the headquarter for all Venture firms in Montreal
ie:
Investor: How much do you need
Me: $1 Million
Investor: So if you only raise $750k what happens?
Me: Well we'll adapt XYZ
Investor: So then never EVER tell me a fix number. Give me a range. $750K-$1.5M or else you look foolish
I went home, reworked the pitch deck
The very next day:
New investor: How much you need
Me: $750K-$1.5M
New investor: What... you don't even know your number???
Me: well... yes but what if we raise less or more
New Investor: No, you look foolish
We said screw it. Approached American Investor
Our first was a VC firm out of Houston, Texas
Took less than 1 month from initial pitch, to closing.
In USD. For more money than what Canadians wanted to offer.
Best of all, they understood the fluid nature of a startup. No onerous and rigid plan. No overburdened documentation. Every second wasted on non-operating activities was sucking productive time away from scaling.
But Elliot... what about BDC and other AMAZING institutions in Canada
We did business with the BDC. a $250,000 loan. Which I had to personally guarantee.
Which 25 year old has assets and the balls to guarantee that amount? Very few. It's prohibitive. And reduces capital available to our homegrown companies
And this was AFTER MONTHS of explaining to them what we were doing. It was clear the BDC was setup to support traditional brick-and-mortar companies only.
Think Manufacturers or Commerces. But a tech startup? They could NOT wrap their heads around it.
Canadian banks? Forget it. Outright. Too risky
Then I watch fellow startups do the same. And move to the US.
Why wouldn't they?
In Quebec, I had to pay an extra 15% on top of my payroll as taxes. QPIP, QPP, FSS, CNESST... all to satisfy the government non-stop appetite.
Consequences: Well for a startup where every dollar counts, this means lower salaries thus harder to attract top talent (vs American competitors)
or
I simply hired less staff... thus slowly growth for both my company and the country's economy.
But wait it gets worse.
Revenue Quebec and CRA both required a plethora of compliance documents filled monthly or quarterly. GST and QST tax fillings, CNESST Salary equity (yes lol) documents, Source deduction documents, RL-1 fillings, Income tax (both QC and CAN), Workplace sexual harassment policy, OQLF policy, CNESST training and certification... the list goes on
At least 1 day a month was spent by me and some of my executives preparing and fulfilling these documents. This means we were't scaling our business and instead working for FREE for the government.
Then there is the tax burden.
Why would top talent want to come here and get taxed at up to 52% marginal rate?
While a Miami startup offers higher salary and the State taxes you 0%
Finally investor behaviour
In Canada... safe. steady return. Great for a Series C. Great for an established companies. No desire for risk. No understanding of the ecosystem.
HORRIBLE FOR VENTURE
Meanwhile the U.S. , they understand the ecosystem. 90% of their investment will go down to 0. But the few that survive will go on to earn them BILLIONS and change the world.
So this new announcement of $1.75Billion won't change the underlying issue that makes us uncompetitive.
At best, it will go to startups who will flee to the US the very second the money hits
At worse, it will just be another slush fund given to friends of the government
and I fear its the latter as usual
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As a UCP board candidate for the upcoming AGM, here are my remarks about Premier Smith's comments earlier today on seperatists within the party.
It's my belief that the Premier was commenting on members turning the UCP into a separatist party -- not members holding personally separatist views.
That said party members should underst that the Premier cannot unilateral determine what views UCP members must hold.
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Yes, because there's such a tremendous shortage of lawyers in Canada.
We’re updating the Express Entry Comprehensive Ranking System to better select the skilled newcomers who are best equipped to succeed in Canada: bit.ly/4B9zDxf
The changes will award more points to candidates with eligible Canadian work experience or a qualifying job offer in a high-wage occupation, including in health care and engineering.
This will help us attract and retain skilled workers who are well positioned to complement our domestic workforce and help build a stronger Canada.
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More dangerous than AI is the fact that people clearly do not understand LLM architecture at all. No, the LLM is not being tortured -- it is a text predictor.
UPDATE: A man used the Pain steering paper to set up an AI torture chamber in which he trapped a local model.
People are mass reporting it to GitHub.
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It isn't even clear how EU associate membership could happen on the Canada end, let alone the EU end. Canada's federal government cannot usurp exclusive provincial jurisdiction under the constitution through foreign treaties.
All 10 provinces have to agree to anything coming from Brussells that touches provincial jurisdiction -- and that ain't going to happen.
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Oh noooo, no more supply management and Keystone XL is going to be built. Access to more markets and wealth generation. A total negotiating loss for Canada. Complete failure.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: "We've come to a deal with Canada... Very fair deal for both. The tariffs will be nonexistent for our farmers... It's good for everybody."
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Everyone thinks they are busy until they have kids and discover that they were not, in fact, 'busy'.
"Childfree people don't understand how much free time they have."
I'm going to hold your hand when I say this: there are other things besides children that are time-consuming. Taking care of children is not the only way a person can be busy.
And you did not have to have children.
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It's over. Prepare the records for posterity, so that somebody on the other end of the new dark ages has a road map back to liberal democracy.
NEW POLL: One in three Canadians says a strong leader who does not have to bother with Parliament and elections could be a good way to govern.
Among Canadians under 30, that rises to 47%.
The divide over democracy is increasingly generational.
abacusdata.ca/canadians-want…
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Based on the defense lawyer discourse, I can tell that one of the biggest red pills for non-lawyers would be finding out there is no moral color to a lawyer's decision to become a defense lawyer or prosecutor.
It's a lifestyle choice. Those looking for mat leave, paid vacation and a pension become prosecutors; those looking for something more entrepreneurial and flexible become defense lawyers.
Virtually no lawyer out there believes one side is moral and the other isn't. They're usually friends outside of the courtroom.
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Somehow, this guy fundamentally misses the point about climate change: at a certain point, we have to stop begging for it to stop and start mitigating the damage.
Spreading AC is the real fight against climate change.
Sort of amazing how the American response to a historic heat wave is not "holy shit climate change" but "omg the Europeans don't have AC yet"
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TJ Schmidt retweeted
My most provocative view is that in light of overwhelming and tragic evidence of Canadian health care failures, single-payer dogmatism should be subject to the same disdain and ostracism accorded to other extremist political positions.
WATCH: New data shows more than 1.5M Canadians spent more than 14 hours in emergency rooms, with approximately 180K admitted patients waiting 48 hours for a bed. ctvnews.ca/northern-ontario/…
