Canadian Politics: Brownnosing

[Fragile Bird]

On 9/19/2023 at 2:18 PM, JGP said:

Can't speak to the mood in Canada per se; myself, angry. India expelled one of our diplomats in retaliation for the observation [rolls eyes]

I saw that 41 Canadian diplomats and their families have now left India, since India told Canada they would remove their diplomatic immunity if they weren’t gone by Oct. 20.

The “official” reason is that Canada has more diplomats in India than India has in Canada and they want parity, but Foreign Affairs apparently published a list showing the number was about equal.

Considering Indians make up the number one group immigrating to and visiting Canada, that will make things more difficult. I read that a third party company does a great deal of the initial application and processing work, but that’s going to get bottlenecked now that the embassy has lost so much staff.

I noticed that even the US has issued a formal statement about the reduction in the number of Canadian diplomats in India, saying resolving differences requires diplomats on the ground. The statement goes on to say the US expects India to uphold its obligations under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.

Edited October 22, 2023 by Fragile Bird
Sp

[Fragile Bird]

I actually came here to comment about the fact that the company building an 85 storey abomination called The One at the iconic corner of Yonge and Bloor has gone into receivership. Costs ballooned way out of control, and they have $1.6 B in unpaid debt which they failed to make payments on. Only 40 storeys are up so far. Their lender is a Korean bank.

That’s a real setback for well-known developer Sam Mizrahi, who has been in and out of court battling with his partner Jenny Coco. Coco’s company went into receivership two years ago.

We’ve had low interest rates for so long people forget what problems higher interest rates brings. Back in the 80s and 90s there were brutal bankruptcies in the development industry. When projects like that start going into receivership, it’s usually the sign of a coming recession. With rates up, real estate markets have softened, and I’ve heard many stories already about people being very concerned about their mortgage renewals. I gather the Ontario cottage resale market has really crashed.

[Lord of Oop North]

15 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I actually came here to comment about the fact that the company building an 85 storey abomination called The One at the iconic corner of Yonge and Bloor has gone into receivership. Costs ballooned way out of control, and they have $1.6 B in unpaid debt which they failed to make payments on. Only 40 storeys are up so far. Their lender is a Korean bank.

That’s a real setback for well-known developer Sam Mizrahi, who has been in and out of court battling with his partner Jenny Coco. Coco’s company went into receivership two years ago.

We’ve had low interest rates for so long people forget what problems higher interest rates brings. Back in the 80s and 90s there were brutal bankruptcies in the development industry. When projects like that start going into receivership, it’s usually the sign of a coming recession. With rates up, real estate markets have softened, and I’ve heard many stories already about people being very concerned about their mortgage renewals. I gather the Ontario cottage resale market has really crashed.

I do not think you can use Mizrahi as a canary in the coal mine.

They are a very inexperienced developer - before the One they had not attempted a project over 10 stories.

So for their first high rise they decided to build a super tall skyscraper at one of the busiest corners of Toronto. On top of that, they had Foster design a building that from a construction engineering perspective is unlike anything else built in Toronto. It is not an easy build at all. Then when the pandemic happened, the developer decided to fire the construction manager and self perform. The hubris of Mizrahi is staggering.

From what I understand, the project always had shaky financing. I think the vast majority of the capital is foreign, which says something about locals not believing in the project. Also according to the filing, their main commercial tenant (Apple) pulled out last year, because Mizrahi is missing all their deadlines, which must be a huge financial hit to the project. They apparently designed the entire ground floor retail area for them specifically.

They also still have 70 units unsold, all above the 50th floor, which need to sell for huge money to make up the budget shortfall (approx $1.5b). They have sold ~350 units so far for $675mm, so you can do the math on the total budget. It should come as no surprise that when interest rates are up, a project this financially mismanaged would go to receivership.

But even with all that, the creditors agreed to inject another $300mm in to continue construction. I suspect the job will get done.

Now, what we are seeing already is that interest rates are slowing down new construction starts, despite intense provincial government pressure. The Premier is surprised that companies are reluctant to move forward with projects that will lose them money.

 

Edited October 23, 2023 by Lord of Oop North

[Fragile Bird]

@Lord of Oop North thanks for the response, I was going to tag you but figured that you’d see the post and respond. 

I thought Mizrahi had way more experience than that. That he hadn’t built 85 stories, I understand, there aren’t all that many in Toronto. But 10? Really?

 

[Lord of Oop North]

28 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

@Lord of Oop North thanks for the response, I was going to tag you but figured that you’d see the post and respond. 

I thought Mizrahi had way more experience than that. That he hadn’t built 85 stories, I understand, there aren’t all that many in Toronto. But 10? Really?

 

Yes, this project is all flash and has always been. They are selling it like we have a billionaires row like in NYC, but Toronto ain't NYC.

As a construction professional, I think the actual finished product is extremely impressive. Truly monumental.

Also, the project was approved for an extension to 91 storeys just this past summer. That should tell you a lot about how incompetent this developer actually is, that they were seeking approval to spend more money to increase the height while the finances were such a shit show.

 

 

[Paxter]

We will see more of this kind of thing in the years to come, unless inflation miraculously tanks and the BoC can cut rates. 

[Lord of Oop North]

1 hour ago, Paxter said:

We will see more of this kind of thing in the years to come, unless inflation miraculously tanks and the BoC can cut rates. 

If rates stay the same, I think it is more likely we see less and less projects move forward rather than fail outright.

For condos, they are pre-selling the inventory, so if the numbers make sense when they start - it should be okay. The interest rate has climbed substantially 2020 vs now, and we haven't already seen dozens of bankruptcies.

For a project like The One, it is a bit different because there are also commercial components, which are essentially developed on speculation. We have already seen the office construction market drop off a lot in Canada for this reason.

[Fragile Bird]

Not exactly politics, but I just saw a story saying the new Covid shot from both Pfizer and Moderna are now available as is the flu shot. Since I live in Ontario the story was directed at Ontario residents, but I assume the shots will now be available cross country.

[SpaceChampion]

Who Is the Real Buffy Sainte-Marie?

Weird scandal, one of Canada's long time public Indigenous cultural icons is neither Canadian nor Indigenous.

 

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Who Is the Real Buffy Sainte-Marie?

Weird scandal, one of Canada's long time public Indigenous cultural icons is neither Canadian nor Indigenous.

 

Holy crap! A DNA sample would prove or disprove her claims but I guess that’s not going to happen any time soon.

[Zorral]

21 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

Holy crap! A DNA sample would prove or disprove her claims but I guess that’s not going to happen any time soon.

We listened to her rendiition of "The Vampire" in honor of Halloween this morning.   https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/3530822107858609384/

Bird -- in this context, this WaPo piece from 4 days ago might be of interest. In fact, I was thinking of you while reading it, wondering if you would be interested.  I have no more gift links left this month, having used the last one in the Israel-Gaza thread early this AM.  I'm quoting the last part, past the graphs and tables and so on, since there's no gift link left.

The Native American population exploded, the census shows. Here’s why.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/27/native-americans-2020-census/

Quote

 

.... A more thoughtful answer requires a deeper understanding of Cherokee history. As a dominant tribe in the American Southeast, the matrilineal Cherokee used marriage as a tool to bring outsiders into their kinship system, said Virginia Commonwealth University’s Gregory Smithers. That spun a wide web of genetic ties, and may have led Whites to view the tribe as more similar to them in culture and appearance. As one of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes, they also thrived economically. Their elites often owned enslaved Africans, which created a basis for Black Americans to have Cherokee heritage as well.

The devastating relocations known as the Trail of Tears followed by a century-plus of disruptive federal policies spread them across the region. That history also led some White Southerners to embrace the Cherokee as fellow victims of federal overreach — though Smithers is quick to point out it was often those Southerners’ ancestors who led the calls for Cherokee removal in the first place.

Together, it all means that Cherokee origins were pervasive enough, and desirable enough, to be smoothly passed down in garbled family legends. In “Becoming Indian: The Struggle Over Cherokee Identity in the Twenty-first Century,” University of Texas anthropologist Circe Sturm finds people who reported Cherokee roots but actually came from a different Southeastern tribe — one without such high brand recognition that its name has been attached to a top selling, gas-hungry Jeep SUV.

The adoption of a tenuous Indigenous heritage may be a sign that Americans are shying away from a White identity that has become an uncomfortable mark of privilege. But there’s a more charitable interpretation, too.

“Most race shifters see themselves not as White people who ‘play Indian,’” Sturm wrote in The Conversation, “but as long-unrecognized American Indians who have been forced by historical circumstances to ‘play White.’”

To be fair, simple genetic math implies that Cherokee and other genes have probably spread far and wide through the population. Your number of potential ancestors doubles every generation, causing exponential growth. In 10 generations, or about 250 years, it tops 1,000. In 20, it tops a million. It doesn’t take long for our fast-expanding family trees to interlock.

Which helps explain why American Indians often point to concepts like tribal membership and kinship bonds — not the genetic links implied by measures of race — as the best markers of Native American identity.

“It’s why so many people insist that Native American identity is a question of political citizenship,” Maxim told us, “rather than race.”

 

 

[maarsen]

On 10/30/2023 at 6:38 PM, Fragile Bird said:

Holy crap! A DNA sample would prove or disprove her claims but I guess that’s not going to happen any time soon.

In the early 60s Indigenous identity was not a stairway to success so I doubt that was her motive. I think  it had more to do with the sexual abuse she alluded to while a child and a made up identity was an attempt to deal with that.

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, maarsen said:

In the early 60s Indigenous identity was not a stairway to success so I doubt that was her motive. I think  it had more to do with the sexual abuse she alluded to while a child and a made up identity was an attempt to deal with that.

I don’t think anyone who assumes the identity of some other group does it as an aid per se, more as a disguise. I didn’t know she suggested she was sexually abused, but then again that could be just another story, it’s hard to know what’s true if such a big lie is already in place. It sounds like the “I was adopted” story started as an explanation for why she was different from her other family members, or superior perhaps? If she is in fact just a kid of Italian heritage with olive skin without a drop of native blood, being indigenous must have seemed very exotic to her. But why pick Saskatchewan as a birth place? As an American she thought it was too far away for anyone to look into?

Maarsen, you’re of an age that you might remember stories about Grey Owl, right? He was way before our time, dying in the 30s iirc, but they talked about him when I was a kid. An Englishman who loved nature so much he pretended to be half European (Spanish?) and half Apache, working on a trap line, marrying an indigenous woman (and committing bigamy) and then giving talks and writing articles and books about the importance of nature and conservation. Truly committed to nature. And pretending he was native. Again, at a time when being a native was not an advantage, but as Grey Owl was very well respected as someone who knew things and should be listened to. I’m sure he influenced many people for the good, just like Buffy. From stories I read, though, it sounds like people were very disappointed in him after his death, when his deception became known, and his voice lost authority.

@Zorral that article about the Cherokee is interesting, but I don’t think indigenous people in Canada are happy about the Buffy news, and have called for her to be stripped of awards she’s received in the past, no matter the amount of good she’s done.

[SpaceChampion]

Her sister Lainey is still living.  The odd thing is she seems to support the CBC story and YET posted a screenshot of her own DNA ancestry test that shows 30% indigenous.

The facts seem to be:
* Buffy is not adopted.
* But her blood relatives do have indigenous DNA.

other than that, I don't know.   Perhaps what Lainey supports about the CBC story is just that Buffy is not adopted, not the claims of being 100% white?

 

I seen the screencap yesterday but it seems to be deleted now:

 

 

[Fragile Bird]

10 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

Her sister Lainey is still living.  The odd thing is she seems to support the CBC story and YET posted a screenshot of her own DNA ancestry test that shows 30% indigenous.

The facts seem to be:
* Buffy is not adopted.
* But her blood relatives do have indigenous DNA.

other than that, I don't know.   Perhaps what Lainey supports about the CBC story is just that Buffy is not adopted, not the claims of being 100% white?

 

I seen the screencap yesterday but it seems to be deleted now:

 

 

Well that changes a lot if in fact she’s 30% indigenous. But then why the stories about being from Saskatchewan?  A child’s fantasy about being adopted? And will that quell the calls from Canadian groups to have awards being taken away from her? Are indigenous groups north of the border angry enough about that to continue?

eta: ok, I just read her post. So she picked Saskatchewan randomly, and then was adopted into the tribe? She’s met her mother, so she was adopted? Contrary to the birth certificate? How do you fake a birth certificate? Her statement about her brother is a lot clearer than Maarsen’s suggestion she hinted at it. I’m not going to question that statement, it’s a very painful thing to admit.

It answers some questions but not all. Have you read the DNA report? I can’t get into it. Wouldn’t it name a tribe, they have millions of DNA samples from North America, I assume it would do that.

Edited November 1, 2023 by Fragile Bird
Additional comments

[Fragile Bird]

@SpaceChampion I edited my post just as you liked it

[SpaceChampion]

22 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

@SpaceChampion I edited my post just as you liked it

I haven't read the report, it was only a screencap from Ancestry.com, and her sister Lainey seems to have deleted the facebook post from 5 years ago.

But what's not deleted is Lainey talking about her own indigenous heritage.  Peruse her fb if you like here: https://www.facebook.com/LaineySainteMarieMixter .   Going by what she said, she sees Buffy often and their relationship isn't strained.  She also mentioned their mother passing down stories of being Mi'kmaq.

I think assuming the sexual abuse happened, her mother might have made up the story Buffy was adopted to convince her it wasn't "really" incest.  Horrible way to deal with it, if that's what happened.

Edited November 1, 2023 by SpaceChampion

[Fragile Bird]

37 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

I haven't read the report, it was only a screencap from Ancestry.com, and her sister Lainey seems to have deleted the facebook post from 5 years ago.

But what's not deleted is Lainey talking about her own indigenous heritage.  Peruse her fb if you like here: https://www.facebook.com/LaineySainteMarieMixter .   Going by what she said, she sees Buffy often and their relationship isn't strained.  She also mentioned their mother passing down stories of being Mi'kmaq.

I think assuming the sexual abuse happened, her mother might have made up the story Buffy was adopted to convince her it wasn't "really" incest.  Horrible way to deal with it, if that's what happened.

Well, frankly speaking I’m happy for once that the CBC investigation got some important facts wrong. Buffy Ste. Marie has been a strong voice for indigenous people. I think an apology is called for.

[maarsen]

8 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I don’t think anyone who assumes the identity of some other group does it as an aid per se, more as a disguise. I didn’t know she suggested she was sexually abused, but then again that could be just another story, it’s hard to know what’s true if such a big lie is already in place. It sounds like the “I was adopted” story started as an explanation for why she was different from her other family members, or superior perhaps? If she is in fact just a kid of Italian heritage with olive skin without a drop of native blood, being indigenous must have seemed very exotic to her. But why pick Saskatchewan as a birth place? As an American she thought it was too far away for anyone to look into?

Maarsen, you’re of an age that you might remember stories about Grey Owl, right? He was way before our time, dying in the 30s iirc, but they talked about him when I was a kid. An Englishman who loved nature so much he pretended to be half European (Spanish?) and half Apache, working on a trap line, marrying an indigenous woman (and committing bigamy) and then giving talks and writing articles and books about the importance of nature and conservation. Truly committed to nature. And pretending he was native. Again, at a time when being a native was not an advantage, but as Grey Owl was very well respected as someone who knew things and should be listened to. I’m sure he influenced many people for the good, just like Buffy. From stories I read, though, it sounds like people were very disappointed in him after his death, when his deception became known, and his voice lost authority.

@Zorral that article about the Cherokee is interesting, but I don’t think indigenous people in Canada are happy about the Buffy news, and have called for her to be stripped of awards she’s received in the past, no matter the amount of good she’s done.

When I first heard the story Grey Owl did pop into my mind. 

When children are abused, they do tend to create an alternate personality to help them cope with the pain and abuse. Did Buffy do this? I don't really know.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

On 10/30/2023 at 2:34 PM, SpaceChampion said:

Who Is the Real Buffy Sainte-Marie?

Weird scandal, one of Canada's long time public Indigenous cultural icons is neither Canadian nor Indigenous.

The "not Canadian" part of this story seems to be lost in all this.  Isn't she a member of the Order of Canada? What about the Juno awards?

On 10/30/2023 at 4:38 PM, Fragile Bird said:

Holy crap! A DNA sample would prove or disprove her claims but I guess that’s not going to happen any time soon.

I just watched the Fifth Estate episode. This is some crazy shit.

On 11/1/2023 at 5:44 AM, maarsen said:

In the early 60s Indigenous identity was not a stairway to success so I doubt that was her motive.

Yeah, this is the crazy thing. If anything, she was a trailblazer in that regard.

Quote

I think  it had more to do with the sexual abuse she alluded to while a child and a made up identity was an attempt to deal with that.

Watch the Fifth Estate episode. There's some reason to be skeptical of the abuse allegations. I dunno.

Assuming the fraud is all terribly true, what she did was slimy as hell. However, it wouldn't be out of line to say that, before this came to light, her contribution was overwhelmingly positive; regarding first nations representation in contemporary pop culture. I think this was much more to her than just a gimmick to get famous. 

And goddamn the balls on that woman. She invented this persona and lived it for over 60 years! Never waivered, regardless of whatever ups and downs her career took. Crazy. 

ETA: I just read the article. It aligns with the Fifth Estate Episode. It covers the major points anyway. 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Deadlines? What Deadlines?