These things I do and do not know, Oh my...
Hot Takes: February 17, 2026
Every(ish) Tuesday at 6:20 AM (Eastern) I join the host of Moore in the Morning on CFRB Newstalk1010 in Toronto for “The Morning Brief” to give my “hot takes” on the stories of the day. This is today’s crop.
Today’s Hot Takes
1. Ford government would use LCBO ‘clout’ in future fights
Nothing succeeds like success. Ontario’s refusal (mirrored by many other provinces) to sell US-made liquor has had a significant impact in the ongoing economic war with the USA. It’s been noticed. It’s frequently cited by the US president. It’s been noticed by US workers impacted by the 85% drop in booze sales to Canada. It’s been noticed by the governors and other legislators who represent them. It’s entirely likely none of these people would otherwise have even noticed their country is at war with Canada. So, it’s working.
This is the power of monopoly. Any power, including this one, can be used for good or evil. So far, I’d say Ontario has used it for good. Canada is in an economic war with the USA. Using the distribution of alcohol as leverage seems a pretty benign weapon used for a noble cause. But, when the government turns that power against domestic companies, where do we draw the line?
The temptation to use power, once accrued, is always immense. This prompts the question: Should government have such power? Should anyone?
It’s not like the LCBO hasn’t regularly used its monopoly power before. That’s why it exists. Government gave itself a monopoly on liquor distribution specifically so it would have the power to coerce certain behaviours from private citizens: drink less, drink government-approved products, pay additional taxes to fund government programs, etc.
The LCBO routinely uses its monopoly power to extort higher prices from producers, restaurants, and consumers. There is no way to sell liquor into, or purchase it within, Ontario (Canada’s largest market) without bending the knee to civil servants who make purchasing decisions. There’s no way to get shelf space in an LCBO for a new product without paying obeisance to the liquor lords.
Should this be allowed in a free market society? I don’t know.
The risk of data breach using faxes appears to be linked primarily to mistakes made sending faxes to the wrong the places – the article mentions a confidential medical document faxed in error to a health spa instead of a doctor’s office. Which makes me wonder: what health spa or other private business still uses fax machines?
The only industries I know that still cling to faxes are healthcare, banking and lawyers. I presume (a) they’re archaic grey-hairs who are still getting used to the newfangled facsimile machines and/or (b) it took so long to update their governing regulations to permit the use of electrons in the first place, nobody has the energy to update them further.
If privacy and information security is our concern, and it should be, it may well be that analog faxes are more secure than email and digital transmission. Once your data is digitized, it can be stored, instantly replicated and redirected anywhere – often without you knowing it’s been copied. That’s harder to do in a purely analog system where an image of a document is scanned and sent through analog phone lines as screechy sound warbles from point to point.
Of course, fewer and fewer analog phone lines exist these days. Most businesses have replaced traditional landlines with Voice over Internet Protocol – meaning even analog fax machines connected to such lines have their analog data converted to digital data and distributed through the internet. So, even if they were inherently more secure, they are no longer.
But, is it a big problem? The article says 5,047 reported data breaches were attributable to fax machines in 2024. In a country with 40 million citizens, that means 0.0125% of Canadians had their information exposed. How many health spas used those errant lab reports for malicious purposes? I don’t know.
3. Toronto private schools are seeing an increased demand
I’m not at all surprised at this. Even though private schools are prohibitively expensive, they are still a better value for many families in many situations. My own included. I’ve put my kids, at various times, for brief periods, into various private schools for various reasons:
When I worked together with my wife in the same small home-based business, we didn’t get paid if we didn’t work. That’s pretty typical for small business owners. We couldn’t afford to take unpaid time off to care for our kids during school closures due to labour disruptions – and there were labour disruptions in the public school system seemingly every year for years when we first had kids. Even more punishing than their frequency and duration, these disruptions were unpredictable, so we needed a more reliable solution. We chose a private school where there had never been, and has still never been, labour issues that impacted service delivery.
When our kids needed specialized education that simply was not available in our local public school, we chose a private school to better meet their needs.
In every case, the private schools were more predictable, and more responsive to our family’s needs than Toronto’s public school system. We could talk to the principals and teachers in the private schools and they responded to us. Parents and families were treated as owners. This was never the case in the highly bureaucratic public school system that never heard us – and never cared.
Despite the popular fiction that elected school trustees exist to ensure parents “have a voice” in the education system, this has never been my experience. I have much more “voice” in a provincial election where I can elect and unelect an education minister. No elected school trustee – or public school board employee – has ever given a damn what my kids need. I know this.
4. Florida coffee shop says it will no longer serve Canadians
Ever since Donald Trump declared war on Canada, we’ve all taken great pains to point out our beef is with him, not the US people. But, that could never last. Voters in the USA chose him as their president because he’s the guy they want. He won convincingly. Trump is not causing the political dysfunction in the USA. He’s the result of it.
Our nations are at war. They started it. It’s an economic war, so far, thank God. But, it’s war. We can’t be surprised it’s getting personal. I know this.
I’ve read similar stories to this one a number of times over many years, so this is not even a really novel situation. Clearly, it’s a solution that works for these six people. Good for them. But, I don’t know if there’s much for us to learn from this.
Co-ownership of a home, split three or four ways, is like a marriage or a business partnership. You have to enter into it with full knowledge it could end badly. Most do. So, buyer beware. Make sure you have legal agreements in place to map out an agreed dissolution plan when things implode.
The most interesting aspect of this story to me is the re-emergence of one-time Toronto city planner and failed mayoral candidate Jennifer Keesmaat as a public figure. In recent months, she’s resurfaced as a go-to expert on all things city building. It’s almost as if she’s testing the waters to see if she’s any more salable as a mayoral option today than yesterday. It’s almost as if this is an election year in Toronto. It is. I know this.
6. Tumbler Ridge students won’t ‘return to current school site’ after
I understand why they’re doing this, but is it the wisest move?
When I was in the military, the best practice for managing soldiers with Critical Incident Stress (from horrific first-hand experiences) was considered to be getting them back into a “normal routine” as quickly as possible. We were told not to remove them too far from the front line for too long. Was that the right thing to do? I don’t know. Even if it was then, is it still now? I don’t know. If it was/still is the best practice for soldiers – is it the best practice for civilians? For children? For communities? I don’t know.
I do know it’s going to take weeks or months to demolish the school. I do know it’s going to take months or years to rebuild it. I do know for all that time, it’s going to stand as a monument to the horror of that day. The clock of history will be forever frozen on that most terrific event. It will be a daily reminder of the trauma.
Would it be better to renovate, refresh and renew the school as quickly as possible? To get students back into its hallways to celebrate life and lay down new joyful memories, like new paint, over old stains? To rebuild the joys and triumphs those halls once witnessed – and could again? I don’t know.
I hope someone does know. I hope they’re making decisions based on knowledge, not gut reaction. Else, temporary portables will become permanent – and always associated with horror.
7. Obama clarifies comments on aliens being real
The truth is out there! Clearly, the mask of conspiracy briefly slipped and conspiracy was exposed. Is this an attempt to re-cover-up the fact our political leaders are all secret alien lizard people? I don’t think so.
It seems entirely unlikely that intelligent life has emerged on only this one planet, at this one time, in a universe with billions of billions of planets, that’s existed for billions of years. How arrogant is humanity?
That said, I find it difficult to believe that any one government – let alone dozens of governments – could hide such explosive information as first contact with little green men for any length of time. Nor, can I believe that alien explorers from another world would target only one nation – the USA – to explore.
This, I believe.
Should Ontario dismantle it's liquor distribution monopoly? Do you still have a fax machine? Do you care if you can’t buy sludgy coffee from a rabid anti-Canadian coffee shop in Florida? Do you believe in aliens? Let me know by DM or in the comments.
You mentioned the 5,047 healthcare privacy breaches linked to fax machines. That made me check the federal numbers. The latest report from the Privacy Commissioner (the federal watchdog for personal data) shows Ottawa had 615 breaches last year. That affected over 300,000 people. The main culprit was mishandled information like misdirected faxes. It gets worse. The Canada Revenue Agency still processes around 11 million faxes annually. Officials use security as an excuse to keep this archaic technology alive. It just proves that institutional inertia is much stronger than common sense.