Zoë Knowles Simakova

I’m excited to announce that I am joining @EllisDon as their first Vice President of Government Relations! As we confront existential threats to 🇨🇦 economy & sovereignty, there is only one solution: Build a Stronger Canada.

@mattgurney This is why I stick with Civ V 🏰

It's budget day. My job is only going to get busy in the afternoon and evening. So now is a good time to inflict a non-news and non-political tweet on you. I want to talk to you all briefly about Civilization 7, which has had a troubled launch. Some of you may follow me closely enough to know I'm a hardcore Civ fan. I'm a wannabe gamer. I love gaming. I could get really into gaming. But I don't have the time. My preference is for games that are very deep and immersive and require hours of time for a single gaming experience. My life actually only enables me to basically do the opposite: a quick game on my phone that kills five or 10 minutes. Civ is my guilty pleasure. I've played every major iteration of it since the first. And I was SUPER excited for the release of Civilization 7 earlier this year. The company that owns the rights, Firaxis, did a really interesting pre-release marketing job. They built a lot of buzz. The game itself, which I obviously preordered and played on the day it released, was disappointing. It looked good, but it was very shallow. Every Civ iteration grapples with the challenge of needing to improve on/enhance the game experience compared to earlier releases, but also with the problem of complexity. If you just keep layering on new functions, you eventually make the game unplayable. So there's a natural tension there. But 7 was still weirdly sparse. There were very basic user interface issues. Fonts were very small, colour choices led to a lot of struggle making out details. It all looked beautiful at a distance until you were actually trying to absorb any information, info necessary to effectively play the game, at a glance. It was impossible. Also, and this is a separate but related problem, some very basic functions and information necessary for gameplay simply wasn't explained. You kind of had to intuit things. There were big, structural changes to the gameplay as well. How the game works is very different from earlier iterations. These changes were very controversial -- seemingly hated, to be honest. I didn't actually hate them. I didn't always love them, but I was pretty open minded to them and kind of liked some of the new mechanics. But. Ahem. The game itself regressed in some key ways, compared to its predecessor, Civ 6. A small example: religious warfare. For non-players, in Civilization, you can control units for your empire and you move them around the map. Military units can fight other military units, and can seize and defend territory. Religious units were a totally different game mechanic that players would use to export their religion, and to prevent their own cities from being converted. It added a really fun and elegant layer to the game, and one that could be meaningful enough to swing outcomes in a big way. Civ 7 just nerfed that. Religion is useless. Worse, it's annoying. The company has been very aggressive at rolling out updates to fix some of these issues. They've also been very open in communicating what they're working on to the audience. I admire that. I really do. But the numbers don't lie. Civ 7 is, today, drawing maybe 15-20% of the audience that Civ 6 did. (Using Steam Charts for those figures.) I don't know if this is a flop for Firaxis, but it has to be a disappointment verging on a disaster. They're rolling out a lot of updates and new content to try and fix these issues. And I think they're making strides. But, like, yikes. Every time they announce a new update, I'm shocked by how much of that stuff should have just been in the game in the first place. I'm not a gaming expert, like I said. I wish. I'm also not an expert in gaming as a business. I'm just a guy who loves playing Civ. I've stuck with 7 since it was released and I've given every major update a fair chance. I've had fun playing the game. But I just can't deny that 6 was much better, more playable, and more fun. And I don't know how much more time the developer has before even hardcore fans like me just give up and go back to 6 permanently. Anyway. This is what happens when all the news is due to come out later in a day. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

@EricDLombardi @build_toronto @build_canada Congratulations! The right person for the job — Excited to build a better, stronger future for Toronto 🏠🧱🏗️🏢

🌆🏗️ BIG NEWS🚀 I am thrilled to take on a new (volunteer) role as Chair of @build_toronto, the first municipal project of @build_canada We’ll be working with civic & business leaders to push for ideas that improve governance, growth, prosperity, and opportunity in Toronto.

@yuanyi_z Congratulations!!! 🥂

Who shall separate us?

Absolutely brutal numbers in @mikepmoffatt's latest. missingmiddleinitiative.ca/p/why-lower-co…

Through to our strong presence in Northern ON, @EllisDon is honoured to support @PrabSarkaria, @OntNorthland & @ONgov to build the new Timmins-Porcupine Station 🚆 This is a major milestone for restoring Northlander, connecting Ontario, and driving Northern economic development

Thank you Minister @Sflecce for a productive discussion with @EllisDon on how ON can continue to attract world-class advanced digital infrastructure, while enabling proactive, industry-led “Bring Your Own Power” (BYOP) solutions to expand our power grid⚡️ It’s time to build 🇨🇦

A sensible measure under the current system planning regime Facing rapid electricity demand growth, @ONenergy & @IESO_Tweets need to explore “Bring Your Own Power” (BYOP) solutions for data centre proponents to privately develop their generation & capacity needs

From the Hon. Marc Garneau’s Public Policy Forum’s Honours Award acceptance speech in April 2024. He was a wonderful Canadian and will be missed and remembered for his extraordinary service to our country. My condolences to his family and loved ones.

🏗️ It takes too long and costs too much to build homes. 🏡 Under @fordnation, we’re bringing the dream of homeownership within reach. 🛡️We will Protect Ontario by Building Faster and Smarter. #ProtectOntario #onpoli #buildingfaster #Ontario #buildingsmarter

Decline is a choice. And on April 28, we all have a choice to make. In 2014, the New York Times called Canada the “home of the world’s most affluent middle class.” No longer is that the case. One measure of this is per-capita GDP. “Canadians are effectively no better off today than they were in 2015, with only a cumulative 2 percent increase since 2015 compared to 17 percent in the United States.” $460 billion in investment has fled south of the border – that is $11,500 for every Canadian. This sounds abstract, but it matters. And in blunt terms, what it means is that while Americans and other countries get richer, we fall behind. We get poorer. Our living standards stagnate and decline. The Lost Liberal Decade gave Canada the worst per capita growth among its economic peers. And this won’t change unless we change. The OECD forecasts that Canada will have the worst GDP per capita growth among all OECD countries through 2060. And to quote Brad Epperly, “we haven’t just experienced economic stagnation. It’s that we’ve matched flat-lining (or even declining) living standards with skyrocketing housing prices. The interrelationship between the two makes the Canadian experience unique, and the need for policy change so imperative.” In the last decade, housing costs have doubled, rising faster in Canada than in any other G7 country. In 2015, it took roughly 39% of median pre-tax household income to afford a home, while today it takes nearly 60%. In Vancouver, you now need to earn $243,300 just to qualify for a mortgage on the average home, while in Toronto, that number is nearly $223,290. And that's on top of saving for the down payment itself. We build fewer homes today than we did in the 1970s, when our population was half the size. We have the fewest homes per capita in the G7. The result? A generation that has been locked out of home ownership. It’s hard to describe how radicalizing and alienating this is to younger Canadians. And just as housing costs have skyrocketed, and wages have stagnated, the government taxes us even higher. The average Canadian family is now paying $10,000 more in taxes than they were a decade ago, and 86% of the middle-class Canadians are paying more in taxes than they did before the Liberals took power. The basics cost more than ever, and we’re taxed even more. Canadians are spending more on taxes than on the basic necessities of life like food, shelter, and clothing combined. For the average family, it consumes almost half of their income. Our economic decline is real. But the decline in the Lost Liberal Decade is not just economic. You see it in our streets. In the last decade, violent crime has skyrocketed by 50 percent, while gun crime is up 116 percent. Gang homicides have soared by 78 percent, and extortion and auto theft are up 357 percent and 46 percent, respectively. Across Canada, tent cities have taken over once safe and family-friendly public spaces. These encampments have become centers for crime, drug abuse, and violence. After the Lost Liberal decade, there are an estimated 1,400 encampments in Ontario alone. Since 2018, homelessness has surged 20%, and chronic homelessness has jumped by 38%. In Toronto, the number of encampments grew from 82 in early 2023 to over 200 in less than a year. And more than 50,000 people have lost their lives to fentanyl since 2015—more Canadians than died in the Second World War. I could go on. But this is the record of a Lost Liberal Decade. It can’t go on like this. We need change, and this is the choice we must make. What another Liberal term would mean is managed decline and continued stagnation. Mark Carney is not offering change. He is the heir to Trudeau. He wants to continue Trudeau's record. He would not reverse our decline; he would manage it. In a sometimes misunderstood (and condensed) passage from Reflections on the Revolution in France, Burke said that society is “a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.” It’s up to all of us to build and preserve the legacy we inherit, and it’s our responsibility to continue this partnership and leave it better for those who come after us. For our children and grandchildren, long after we are all gone. This is the choice we must make. Not managed decline, but a future that unleashes Canada’s enormous potential and restores the great Canadian promise. A new Conservative government would bring the change that we desperately need. What would Conservatives do? Go to forachange.ca for a full look. It’s a plan to make life affordable, build homes, make streets safe again, and unleash the Canadian economy. The Conservative plan will build 2.3 million homes over the next five years. It will bring back billions in investment and revenue by unleashing our natural resources so that we can get our clean resources to the rest of the world to help fight climate change and to bring back jobs. It will get immigration back under control. It will reverse disastrous Liberal policies that have made our streets less safe and toughen laws and sentencing to keep the most dangerous criminals behind bars and not quickly out on bail. It will cut taxes so that Canadians keep more money in their pockets. I’m a first-generation Canadian. I wasn’t born here, but I was lucky enough to end up here. I love Canada. I want to see it thrive; I want to make it better; I want to build a country where my children can have a better life than I do. I want to restore Canada’s promise. Canada must be a country where ambition is rewarded and where hard work pays off. A country that builds. A country that rewards risk-takers and innovators. A country that encourages and nurtures strivers. A country where dynamism isn’t stifled and where sclerotic stagnation is not allowed to continue. Vote Conservative. Vote for a better future. Vote for change.

@TristinHopper Everything Bagel Liberalism in action

They had a simple job: Allow children to swim outside in the summer. Instead they prioritized their own narcissistic environmental experiment, resulting in disproportionately underprivileged children in bathing suits literally being turned away at the gates.

One of the best memos by @build_canada yet. Follow it up with @ChrisSpoke and @MattSpoke's talk with @Alexei_Simakov the other day on Hogtown, which was fascinating- esp. for those with abundance interests. Link in thread.

"Some people have said I should stop talking about the doubling of housing costs that have denied an entire generation the chance to own a home after the lost Liberal decade. They say we shouldn't be debating why single moms are lined up at food banks in record numbers," Poilievre said. He said he will stand up for the millennial women "whose biological clock is running out faster than they can afford to buy a home and have kids." "They suggest that we shouldn't debate why 50,000 of our citizens have lost their lives to drug overdoses under the radical Liberal drug policies," he continued. "My purpose in politics is to restore Canada's promise," he said. "So we will continue, despite calls to the contrary, to talk about those things even if I am the only leader in the country that offers any change." LFG cbc.ca/news/politics/…

Big thanks to @ChrisSpoke & @MattSpoke for having me on the Hogtown podcast Great to dive into batteries, nuclear, electrification and everything happening w/ Canada's pursuit of energy #abundance ⚡️ Links below

There's never been greater urgency to build ambitious projects: homes, hospitals, clean energy, transportation & infrastructure in every corner of our country that create jobs & make Canadians richer. We're building a freer Canada, a resilient Canada, an abundant Canada.

I’m excited to announce that I am joining @EllisDon as their first Vice President of Government Relations! As we confront existential threats to 🇨🇦 economy & sovereignty, there is only one solution: Build a Stronger Canada.

President Trump launched an unprovoked trade and tariff war with America’s closest friend and ally. Until the threat of tariffs is gone for good, we won’t back down.

canada pics that go hard

Today we mourn, but we must never, ever forget them. Please say their names; Shiri, Ariel and Kfir. 🧡 May their memory forever be a blessing. #BibasFamily