Rontario Swanson

Everyone who cares about climate should understand this. Texas, with no pro-climate policies, has blown passed California in clean energy. In large part because Texas has less red tape and makes it easier to build.

Our political class has hated progress and development in the real world for the last 30 years. A group of largely unambiguous and mediocre people who have overseen the decline of our society through the constant management of scarcity through feel good processes. We must reject this mindset in Ontario and Canada. The primary problem with High Speed Rail is that the vision is too small, too one-off, and too near-term. Getting this done is possible at viable costs, but not under our current approach that will raise every objection to building it as a legitimate roadblocks of democracy. The people of Canada want to have infrastructure and services befitting of an advanced and developed society. “No” is a bad answer. “How” is much better.

Lee Kuan Yew: "I ignore polling as a method of government. I think that shows a certain weakness of mind. An inability to chart a course. Whichever way the wind blows, whichever way the media encourages the people to go, you follow. You're not a leader."

Montpellier Line 5 LRT in France (opened 2025) - $40M CAD/km Vienna Line 18 LRT extension in Austria (Under construction) - $41M CAD/km Krakow Fast Tram LRT in Poland (Under Construction) - $57M CAD/km. - - - Toronto’s New Waterfront East LRT? ~$750M/km. 10-20x the price!

Share a bit. I don’t want to belittle the category of software. People did amazing work in the world of payroll software (agile manifest etc). But at some point a csv is created and it has a row per payee and it happens twice a week. Shopify pays out millions of businesses and moves billions a day. And we took 20m of financing ever before we went public (and had it all still in the bank when we did). The scale of nonsense that’s happening with government bespoke software is just unexplainable without fraudulent intent. But it also tracks with everything else you hear about government efficiency (minus maybe military). It’s not that it costs 10b to make a payroll software that is the problem. It’s that it costs this much for anything that the government tries to do itself. The only conclusion is that the government needs to do a lot less.

Every workplace has a Strait of Hormuz. You and your coworkers just have to find it and shut it down.

"the AWA will be shrouded with red tape to exhaust you, to stop you. by the time the process is done you've moved positions or whatever. they'll outlast you."

How are the American people supposed to vote against regime change wars in the Middle East? The candidate who ran against them is launching them. The Congress debates whether to hold a vote after the fact.

Micron’s $100B megafab in NY is at risk of delay due to just 6 “concerned citizens” and their frivolous lawsuit. (1/10) 🧵

Ontario just delivered the largest completed nuclear refurbishment in the world, ahead of schedule and under budget. Darlington will now continue to power 3.5 million homes and support 14,200 workers, helping secure Ontario’s place as an energy superpower.

I appreciate the integrity, but every principled resignation is an adverse selection.

People in Ontario and Toronto feel overtaxed because they are overtaxed. This is not Scandinavia. We pay a lot, and we are not getting commensurate value in return. That is what the public is telling us. Our institutions are not delivering outcomes that justify the level of spending they demand. That is not a conservative argument. It is a normal one. People see roads closed for weeks or months with no visible work. They see delays treated as inevitable and waste treated as a fact of life. They also see governments lighting money on fire. Ontario Place is a case study. So are slush funds like the so called skills and development fund. In Toronto, residents are told there is nothing left to cut, even as the city pours money into discretionary projects and unaccountable intermediaries who benefit from higher prices and institutional capture. This is how trust collapses. Not because people reject government, but because government refuses to take responsibility for results. Restoring faith in public institutions requires doing fewer things and doing them well. It means building good systems and incentives, not layering on more process, micromanagement, and performative bureaucracy. Progressives in particular should not dismiss public frustration as bad ethics or false consciousness. People are not wrong to expect competence. We live in a society of capable, serious people. They want institutions that reflect that. When projects take twice as long and cost twice as much as they do elsewhere, dissatisfaction is rational. We have sacrificed outcomes on the altar of process and vibes. Trust will not be rebuilt through slogans or spending announcements. It will be rebuilt when leaders deliver what they promise, take responsibility for failure, and are willing to stand up for hard reforms instead of easy optics.

"with the return to office we get the return of office politics, which I guess is just gossip. but not in the good way like gossip girl"