There are lots of factories that are just private label, making products for other brands.

I know from ketchup discussions, the old Heinz facility in Leamington ON is now Highbury Canco. They don’t disclose who their customers are,but in pictures I can make out what looks like Classico pasta sauce.

Back in the day, Cotts was the #1 pop in Canada, because they made the pop for Presidents Choice. There’s another big pop facility in Alberta as I recall, that is just not memorable at all that probably does Western Family.

One problem with the house brands is that they intentionally obfuscate the specific origins. In fact, No Name and President’s Choice used to have in house factories for some of their products but it wasn’t obvious which.

There are labeling laws though, so if a house brand says made in Canada, you know that at least.

House brands of Canadian retailers are often a good way to buy a variety of made in Canada products.

Yes! GCAP. Still need a stopgap. Maybe stick with F-35, but reduce our commitment. Personally I like Gripen, but I’d differ to experts.

There is also FCAS, but it seems less urgent, not scheduled to begin delivering until 2040, although maybe France and Germany will get the lead out due to recent changes.

I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the final platform had room for national partner tweaks. Probably could call ours the Arrow 2: Strange Brew or something.

Heinz used to make ketchup in Leamington ON, with locally grown tomatoes. They closed it down in 2014, choosing to bring ketchup in from other facilities in the US.

Heinz had also started making mustard, the main product of French’s. French’s decided to take advantage of the opportunity to strike back and took over the old Heinz facility in Leamington and began making ketchup out of the same tomatoes that Heinz had been using in Canada.

Since then, French’s has been bought out by McCormick, and moved production to London, ON. The Leamington Facility is now Highbury Canco, and it does private label manufacturing. Heinz has restarted ketchup production in Montreal, using tomato paste from the Highbury Canco plant, their own old facility.

Meanwhile Primo Foods makes a ketchup, made in Canada. Primo is owned by Sun-Brite, a Canadian company, so that’s the trifecta. There’s also that old plant in Leamington, Highbury-Canco that does private label/co-pack. Canada has lots of food manufacturing, at places like Delmar Foods, Luda, Hall’s Kitchen, Giraffe Foods. This means when you buy a house brand from a Canadian retailer like Western Family or Compliments, there is a decent chance it’s made in Canada by one of these private label manufacturers.

I’ve been advocating joining GCAP, an effort by Japan, UK and Italy to make a 6th gen fighter. It isn’t scheduled to deliver the final design until 2035 though, so we would still need a stopgap.

Still, it would send a pretty strong signal and also allow as a path to reinvigorate our domestic aerospace defence industry.

Good point on the consistency. Timmie’s coffee is very consistent. Regardless of your personal opinions on Timmie’s coffee in general, you can be certain that the coffee you get tomorrow in Kapuskasing will be the same as the coffee you got yesterday in Kitimat.

<sniff> yeah and that…

The irony will take the sting out if a Liberal-NDP split lets the Conservatives skate up the middle.

I don’t know about amazing… but perfectly adequate.

Their doughnuts are fine, and are always fresh with the Always Fresh™ system, but not as good as in the old days, or old Robin’s Doughnuts. But they’re fine, and pretty cheap. You can probably get much better doughnuts at a local bakery, but it will almost certainly be somewhat more expensive. They ditched the Long John though! An insult to BC. Typical Ontario based chain.

Some coffee snobs will dump on their coffee, but it’s okay. You’ll rarely hear any sincere complaints from habitual coffee drinkers. There is some stiff competition on the fast food coffee front though, McDonald’s scooped their old coffee supplier, and lots of people do seem to prefer McDonald’s coffee now. I still give the nod to Timmie’s though.

Overall, I figure Timmie’s is a solid B+ among fast food chains. There are a few gems on their menu though, their steeped tea is solid. I guess technically you could get better tea at David’s Tea, but there is only one of those left, and besides for a basic “builder’s tea” it’s just a good value.

Dan Mangan - Call Me Up High (English)

• Released in 2024
• Official YouTube video

I got to hear the song live before it’s official release at Red Bird Brewing in Kelowna, a cool little venue.

Dan Mangan has been a BC fixture for years, but I think he’s been Canadian successful back east as well. At least he’s played Massey Hall and gets coverage on CBC and plays at the Polaris awards. Still, the “international hits” rules sounds a bit squishy, and Dan is only Canadian famous.

Bonus Dan Mangan, Robots live, at Granville Island.

I keep advocating for GCAP (Global Combat Air Program), a partnership between Japan, UK and Italy to develop a 6th generation fighter. We can’t pull off an Avro Arrow 2: 2Fast2Arrow any more, our domestic aviation industry has atrophied too much. Even if it hadn’t, it’s just getting too complex.

Joining our more reliable allies, even as a junior partner we can reinvigorate our domestic aerospace industry and get a 6th gen fighter out the back end.

There is a problem, GCAP isn’t scheduled to deliver until 2035, so we still need a stopgap. F35 is the most capable, but also most expensive. It’s also in progress. I like Gripen personally, but it would mean starting again from scratch pretty much. Granted with a more basic craft, so maybe even faster to upgrade as a stopgap? Past my pay grade, but GCAP seems an obvious way to signal a long term commitment, with very attractive benefits along the path ^(the real 6th generation fighter was the domestic aerospace industry we reinvigorated along the way). Plus it draws us together with more reliable allies.

There is an alternative to GCAP, FCAS (Future Combat Air System), a partnership between France, Germany, and Spain. It seems less urgent, with a scheduled delivery of 2040. Plus it’s all EU+NATO, so something about eggs and baskets… although I trust the EU and other NATO countries more than the US right now.

It is. I would say (in my entirely non-expert opinion) that any naval spending now is worth more than any navy spending later, simply because it gets the ball rolling sooner.

I think we need to have a more robust military, a more resilient supply chain, and more reliable equipment. These frigates have been being planned for a while, dragging it out longer just differs cost, and military capability is built capacity; your military does missions with the equipment is has, not the equipment it will have.

The best time to build these frigates was probably years ago, then we would be in a much better position. The next best time is now.

Are these frigates perfect? Probably not, especially with the newfound unreliability of our historic friend, ally and brother nation the US. Thing is, I don’t think there is a perfect solution to this. Plus never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Also, we live in a more dangerous world, and Canadian prosperity will suffer. Being a robust partner to our reliable allies and being self reliant on defence will reduce that loss of prosperity. Defence spending should be seen as an investment, or more akin to an insurance policy.

#ElbowsUp

I agree.

GCAP includes Japan (CPTPP partner), and they seem very motivated to not dawdle with getting a modern fighter. GCAP also includes the UK (CANZUK + NATO) and Italy (CETA/EU+NATO).

FCAS is France, Germany and Spain, off the top of my head, and has much less urgency. Of course that could be changing. They’re all EU and NATO, so more eggs in a single basket, but more reliable than US.

One other edge to GCAP is that Sweden had considered joining GCAP, but backed out. They might get back in maybe? Saab is pretty damn competent as well. It would be an even better team. Plus if we went with Gripen and already had some cooperation with Saab, could be even easier to work together.

Perun had a good video a little while back… here it is https://youtu.be/TTjdEtHYDJ4

Gripen might be a stopgap, but it is an older platform. At least with updates it’s at least considered a “4.5” generation fighter. F35 is pretty much the best option atm.

Planning ahead though, Canada needs to get involved with either GCAP (Global Combat Air Platform or FCAS (Future Combat Air System).

We can’t realistically pull off another Avro Arrow with modern 5th/6th generation features by ourselves. We can partner with more reliable allies though, and help bolster our own defence aerospace industry at the same time. In either GCAP or FCAS, we would be the junior partner though.

The copypasta I’ve been tweaking since this topic keeps coming up. Yeah I know, it mentions Lemmy, and we’re already here, but it’s the prepared Copypasta and talking about it now instead of scrolling through and editing is easier.

Consider making an account on a Canadian Mastodon instance. Mastodon is a decentralized open-source social media platform similar to X/Twitter. There are several Canadian based general interest “instances” where you can make an account: Mstdn.ca, TheCanadian.Social, CoSocial.ca or SocialBC.ca.

There is no one company fine-tuning an algorithm to entertain you, sell you crypto, and radicalise you, so you’ll need to do some work on setting up your feed. Check out Fedi.Directory, Interesting Accounts to Follow on Mastodon and the Fediverse and Fedi.Tips- An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse.

For some Canadian themed news sources, I recommend the following Mastodon follows:

• CBC News
• Global News
• The Tyee
• PressProgress
• Meanwhile In Canada
• Winnipeg Free Press
• The Narwhal
• Cory Doctorow
• Michael Geist
• Senator Paula Simmons
• Canadian History Ehx
• Saskatoon Star Phoenix

Following #Hashtags is also a good way to stay in the loop on a topic. For now, I’d suggest #Canada and #CdnPoli .

There are also Canadian instances and other Federated services, but Mastodon is probably a good gateway. If you would like to explore the Canadian Fediverse further, join the discussion over at Lemmy.ca or Sh.itJust.Works (kind of like Reddit) or check out the scenery at Pixelfed.ca (kind of like Instagram).

Even if it isn’t your primary social media, at least you’ll have a backstop of news and a way to connect without the algorithms manipulating what to show you. Hope to see you out there.

We banned RT from cable. A bit different mind.

I agree though, just tighten up privacy and reduce the ability to manipulate.

A car that was bought and paid for years ago is not supporting someone who had only really gone off the rails in recent years. Drive it or not, Tesla has already been paid. I guess you could argue parts or charging might continue to support Tesla, but that’s marginal. Most people charge at home, and parts often come from wrecked cars as well.

I’d add Saskadon.ca to Canadian instances as well, but it appears to be invitation only. I was excited by the Beaverton, but there are no posts. I followed personally though. I’ll add the Star Phoenix account though.

Thanks for the tips!

Fendrihan.ca has sampler sets of different razor blades. Personally I kind of settled on Astra blades, but most honestly most of the blades in the sampler I started with are all fine, far better than the latest five or six bladed cartridge monstrosity. Feather is the Japanese brand that I see most often, and they are excellent.

Fendrihan.ca also has a Canadian collection. The Henson AL13 is made in Canada, but at $90 is twice as expensive as the Parker 96R I’ve been using for years, which was apparently made in India.

You can get a razor handle and 100 blades for less than $50, and enjoy a far superior shaving experience.

Join GCAP (Global Combat Air Program) or FCAS (Future Coma=bat Air System). They are both multi-country projects to develop next gen fighter jets. Off the top of my head, GCAP is UK, Japan and Italy where FCAS is Germany, France, and… I’d have to look it up, and I’m feeling a bit lazy.

Assuming there is no schedule slippage, they won’t deliver aircraft until 2035 and 2040 respectively though, so we would still need a stop gap. I’m partial to Gripen, and Sweden has flirted with joing GCAP as well, so that might be a good way to reivigorate Canadian aerospace, in cooperation with the other GCAP countries and Sweden.