That's a fair assessment. Now that you mention it, we don't actually have many frozen donuts at my location. I wonder what they do to freeze the tim horton donuts, or what could be done to make them just as good despite being frozen. Maybe thawing a "blank" and cremeing and icing it freshly? Almost makes me want to experiment at home for freezing methods.
Assuming these sites are canadian operated and funded, I fail to see how this be used against us. I fully agree that the Trump admin is posturing itself as a threat to Canadians right now, but this could be a powerful way to remind the world that Canada and US are North Americans in it together. While shit is getting rough, we are ultimately in NATO together.
We can defend our sovereignty and cooperate with Americans simultaneously. Realistically speaking, this will go nowhere most likely.
Yep! I haven't looked deep into it because that is a "Once already in Canada" problem in my mind. Just a simple hunting rifle that I know the in and out of and can familiarly and effectively shoot is enough for me.
I'm not all gung-ho about guns or anything either, in terms of policy many would call me anti-gun even. I wouldn't disagree. I am a staunch pacifist and refuse to glorify violence or the tools for it. I just want to know I can have the ability and skills to defend Canada if such a time comes. The world is changing and self defense is timeless.
Even considering maybe joining the reserves too. I am a college educated adult, so I would likely become an officer and they get paid niiiiice.
Also interested. I am Canadian living in America and am looking to back asap. Was looking for go bags in case if things get way too hectic in the US for Canadians and I just need to get in my car and dash to the border.
I figured basic medical, food & water, basic survival stuff would be needed. I would add a gun to the mix, but thats money I would rather save to help move to Canada. Plan on buying a gun once in Canada.
I was thinking that lemmy.ca needs a ehbuddyhoser on here. It is insane how that sub is the most patriotic canadian subreddit on reddit aside from buycanadian lmao
Inequality and Housing Crisis in the Windsor-Essex region.
This is pulled from the r/windsorontario subreddit, by user u/coyotefew6535 . I do not claim credit for this post. Am reposting here for visibility and discussion, and appreciation of a high quality post.
NEW REPORT HIGHLIGHTS GROWING INCOME INEQUALITY AND HOUSING CRISIS IN WINDSOR-ESSEX COUNTY
Windsor-Essex, ON – With a provincial election under way, a newly released report, Income Inequality and the Housing Crisis in Windsor-Essex County, reveals alarming trends in income disparity and housing affordability in the region. The report, a collaboration between five community organizations, underscores the urgent need for policy interventions to address rising economic inequality and its impact on housing accessibility.
Developed as a collaborative project between Assisted Living Southwestern Ontario (ALSO), Family Services Windsor-Essex (FSWE), Habitat for Humanity Windsor-Essex, South Essex Community Council (SECC), and the Welcome Centre Shelter for Women and Families, with research undertaken by Community Policy Solutions the report provides an in-depth analysis of income distribution and housing affordability challenges in Windsor-Essex.
Key Findings:
Windsor-Essex Among Canada’s Most Unequal Regions: The region ranks fifth in Canada for income inequality, trailing only Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, and Hamilton. Soaring Housing Costs: Since 2006, housing prices have surged by 150%, while median incomes have declined by 10% when adjusted for inflation. Disproportionate Impact on Vulnerable Groups: Persons with disabilities, single mothers, newcomers, and low-income households face significant barriers to securing stable housing. Investor-Owned Properties Increasing: 64% of condos and 12% of single-family homes in Windsor-Essex are owned by investors, driving up rental costs and exacerbating affordability and inequality issues. Housing Affordability in Decline: Between 2015 and 2020, 149 neighbourhoods (Census Dissemination Areas) in Windsor-Essex became unaffordable to middle-income earners to purchase a new home.
https://preview.redd.it/96kor1bs84ke1.png?width=842&format=png&auto=webp&s=9bcf181850ad4d7b3aa83b0b7b48a9e02c6d619a
https://preview.redd.it/qazya2bs84ke1.png?width=852&format=png&auto=webp&s=17d5088f22df2723dc5c2d401cd4e28034abf182
A Call for Action
The report emphasizes the need for a multi-faceted approach to address these challenges, including:
Zoning and Planning Reforms to allow for more diverse and affordable housing options to be built at lower costs. Innovative housing solutions like Community Land Trusts to keep land and housing permanently affordable. Improved Social Assistance Rates to ensure the most vulnerable are able to afford housing in our community. Adopt broader community wealth building strategies across our region by buying local, ensuring fair wages are being paid, access to public transportation services in all municipalities, and considering tangible community benefits when municipal or regional projects are advance.
“The findings are clear: Windsor-Essex can no longer rely on historically low housing costs to balance out lower income of residents. Growing inequality is pointing to the fact that many people in Windsor-Essex are now being left behind. Without immediate action, the affordability crisis will continue to push more residents into precarious housing situations,” said Frazier Fathers, report author and Lead Consultant at Community Policy Solutions.
The full report is available for download as are over a dozen maps that maps affordability and inequality at different income thresholds for the Windsor-Essex region.
Partner Perspectives: As part of the project each partner’s perspective on the topic of inequality and housing was explored deeper. Each of their perspectives provide a unique insight into this pressing issue and an important conversation about affordability and inequality. Each link below goes to a one pager focusing on this organization's perspective.
Assisted Living Southwestern Ontario
“For the people we support, we see the impacts of income inequality and housing affordability daily. Some of our clients are fortunate while others barely can keep a roof over their heads on ODSP forcing them into impossible choices. At the same time, it costs 300% more to retrofit a housing unit to make it accessible rather than build it from scratch. This forces higher prices on our clients than the average community member.”
Leigh Vachon, Executive Director, Assisted Living Southwestern Ontario.
Family Services Windsor Essex
“The housing crisis and growing income inequality in our region are complex and our community needs action. We need to have the space to innovate and try out new ideas and solutions. We need to explore ideas like Land Trusts and new strategic partnerships between organizations and government to leverage the limited resources we have available to move the needle on this crisis. We need more affordable housing.”
Ciara Holmes, Acting Executive Director, Family Services Windsor Essex
Habitat for Humanity Windsor-Essex
““This report makes it clear—income inequality is a growing issue in Windsor-Essex, and without action, more families will be shut out of homeownership and long-term financial stability. Homeownership is one of the most effective ways to break the cycle of poverty and build generational wealth, but rising costs and systemic barriers are making it increasingly out of reach. At Habitat for Humanity, we see firsthand how a stable, affordable home transforms lives. That’s why it’s critical for nonprofits to work together on research like this—to highlight the challenges, advocate for change, and push for policies that make homeownership and affordable housing a reality for more families in our region.”
South Essex Community Council
**“**As a multi-service agency operating in Essex County, we see the impacts of income inequality and housing affordability every day. These issues affect the physical and mental health of many of the people we serve. It affects their ability to search for employment. It affects a person’s ability to access healthy food. The impacts of income inequality and housing affordability are deep. In smaller communities, it is not just about housing, but the supports around housing. Are people making a living wage, can they afford groceries? Do they have reliable and affordable transportation access to find work or attend school? Without these and other supports, those that “have” will continue to prosper, while those that “have not” will continue to struggle.”
Carloyn Warkentin, Executive Director, South Essex Community Council
Welcome Centre Shelter for Women and Families
“As a shelter provider we see the direct impact of growing inequality and unaffordability in our community. Timelines for housing our clients have grown and data shows that women and families face a disproportionate impact of these crises. The need for transitional housing options continues to grow and without a spectrum of supports, keeping people with greatest needs will remain a challenge in our region.”
Lady Laforet, Executive Director, Welcome Centre Shelter for Women and Families
If you want to know more about this report or the data. Reach out to [email protected]
Welcome to the City of Windsor in Ontario community!
Hi all! Saw that the city I was born and raised around was not represented on the Canadian fediverse, so I thought I'd step up!
While this community is named after Windsor, all content and discussion pertaining to Essex County is welcomed here. I myself am actually from Amherstburg.
Ditto. If it is secure, independent, and operated and maintained by Canadians, it is simply in the best interest of both countries. Frankly, it might be something we want to explore on our own even without the US leading it. We are an awfully large country though, and it might not be practical. But maybe we can atleast protect major population centers? Who knows. I'm out of my depth here.
It is in both of our countries best interests, really. If we refused it would be a petty move and a point of contention between the countries that is not needed.
Besides, this is the third time such a "iron dome" strategy has been attempted by the US and each one ends up a massive money sink and waste of time. I doubt third time will be the charm here. Very high chance this leads to nothing, and if it doesn't, whelp North America is more protected from missile strikes.
I just wonder if Mexico is invited to the iron dome...
Its something to sleep on, thats for sure. Maybe I could shoot the idea of posting the lemmy-alternative community on their sidebar, and let naturally curious users find it on their own.
But would it be weird to, for example, host such a primarily US and international community on the lemmy.ca website? I would want to host it on the .ca one because I unabashedly simp for my country, but I think it would confuse a lot of people why their community is hosted by Canadians if it is not explicitly a canadian community. Is there maybe a history-based lemmy server that would make more sense to host under? Is that something I could host even? That could be pretty sick and impactful for the history professional community I feel. But the best server hosting experience I got is running a minecraft server, ngl. Super advanced stuff, I know.
Seems difficult to choose a server to join to engage on Mastodon. I want to support and choose a Canadian server, but it seems like sparse pickings, most of them have less than 100 people on them. But is that even a bad thing? I vaguely understand the emphasis that what server my account is created on doesn't particularly matter. But lets say that small volunteer hosted server goes kaputt, what happens to my account or my posts? And I see that these servers can "defederalize" from other servers. Does that mean that these guys I don't know can influence what I see and am exposed to on the fediverse? Feels like a really easy way to create a echo chamber for myself, if used maliciously. It feels like I should find a trustworthy server to create an account on.
Its also a little confusing seeing servers for specifically Ottawa, and other canadian cities, while some are just Canadian in general, and some are not even geographic but topic-based servers. How does the server I make my account on influence what my user experience will look like?
I will toy with the idea of posting some content on the history communities. For my professional field the most popular subreddit is r/museumpros. It is a small but fiercely engaged subreddit, and I think there would be like minded people that could be willing to make the switch over. I'd be sorta worried that I'd be drawing the ire of the mods there though, essentially disrupting their community and pilfering their members. Plus, the subreddit has been a massive boon to the museum community and fracturing it by having half go on lemmy and half stay on reddit would weaken the field massively at a critical juncture, with the massive gov threats the field is facing with the grant cutting and what not in the US. While I'd love to see like minded history-focused faces on lemmy, I think having a similar community gathering here will have to happen organically. I will explore maybe cross posting both content here and on bluesky, and on bluesky plugging whatever history community I post in.
I think id be much better suited as a normal member anyways. I touch way too much grass to be a community moderator. I already surprised myself by volunteering to create the Canadian Windsor city community on lemmy.ca I plan on handing over the reigns to just about anyone if it actually takes off.
Maybe once I get a job first. I need to sell the idea of myself to my small field first before I start trying to convince them why a federated social media alternative would benefit them. Honestly, aside from sticking it to facebook, I don't think there would be tangible benefits. In all honesty, it would potentially fracture the field and weaken us even more by decreasing our professional network strength. I think if they migrate over here, it will have to be organically rather than coerced by me. Lots of people in my field migrating from twitter to bluesky though, so we take wins when we get them.
Can anyone explain to me what the primary difference is between Mastadon and Bluesky? I never used Mastadon but it is meant to be a twitter alternative correct? It seems like bluesky is gaining much more traction than mastadon ever did, based solely on how I literally hear nothing about it ever. If I am wrong on mastadon not being widely adopted, do tell, I am genuinely asking.
Unfortunately I actually just joined facebook recently. My professional field is a rather small one, and there are strong and established profesional groups on there that greatly benefit me that only exist on facebook. The older people in my field are unlikely to switch to anything newer. Set in their ways and what not. I am desperately looking for a job at the moment so I'd something I sorta have to grin and bear. I have an ad block and I don't even post or engage with any of the crap on there though.
Is there any real benefit to deleting the account? I don't see what harm a dead account could do. I have a instagram account that has my real name on it, and I'd hate to have someone potentially impersonate me. I instead posted a link to my personal website and also linked my Bluesky account in the bio, stating that I will no longer be using instagram or regularly checking it.
Tbf, my first foray into reddit-like federated alternatives was Kbin, and that did actually die.
Originally lemmy just did not interest me because it felt like the only early adopters of it were the CS and techbro crowd. But now two years later I'm seeing what seem like regular people that I'm more able to relate and discuss with, with more variety in content and communities available. Plus, I'm browsing lemmy using the old reddit format which I am still stubbornly using to this day on actual reddit. So now I am using lemmy in a format that is identical to how my reddit usually looks. I could have lemmy on one monitor, reddit on the other, and not tell the difference. Maybe petty, but its a big deal for me.
There is still a pretty big lapse on communities relevant to me tbh, but there is still enough to warrant me to visit lemmy more often. For example, I am a historian/museum professional, and the history communities heres are practically dead to non-existent. Many of the communities I am interested in are simply forking posts from reddit or simply posting news article links. But, I suppose that is the part where I stop being a lurker and be the change I want to see in the world. It is a bit more enticing and exciting to make posts knowing that a much smaller but more engaged community will see it. On reddit, it feels like pointlessly screaming at the void.
Regardless, after two years it is kinda clear that lemmy is here to stay. It seems to have survived the great filter that most other federated alternatives did not during the initial reddit api buzz.
Anyways, thats just my perspective as a completely random not technologically advanced person views and viewed lemmy.
It is a matter of engagement. People like engaging with dumb meme more than data privacy stuff. Especially when people don't understand the ramifications of poor data privacy or understand fundamentally what the even means. Heck, even I don't understand what companies harvesting my data will mean for my personal life. I am guilty of ignoring data privacy posts in favour of dumb memes too.
It sucks, but thats why the term edu-tainment was coined. To educate people, you must also entertain them.
Must really suck for the irl people whose birthday is on that day.
I had someone post in the r/saskatchewan subreddit about lemmy.ca, and I had forgotten all about lemmy or that I even had an account on here already until they mentioned it.
Other social media sucks for sure, but OP has a point here. Lemmy is still at the stage where people only enter if they are told/reminded it exists. I genuinely thought lemmy died already. People finding lemmy naturally is very unlikely at this stage. It's word of mouth, so the people here gotta start wording and mouthing about it.
I have to agree unfortunately. I've spent a lot of time in the states and have eaten my fair share of McDonalds while living here. I visited my home town in Canada a bit ago, and the Mcdonalds tastes so weird. It wasn't bad perse, but it wasn't exactly good either.
Frankly, probably for the best. Have Canadians save money cooking for themselves or going to places more deserving. Always explore your local non-chain options.
Like I said, if the bread/pastry tastes like shit it will taste just as shit fresh as it would frozen. Good bread/pastries frozen and dethawed properly lose an insignificant amount of quality.
Do an experiment. Take your fresh bread from a bakery, freeze it, thaw it out, and see how much the quality actually diminishes. I wager that it doesn't by much in most use cases. For example, making toast? You could not tell me you can tell a difference between a slice that was frozen versus one that was never frozen.
And, ofc, some pastries are not as forgiving when being frozen as others. But regular sliced bread, absolutely.