Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declared U.S. President's decision to allow Trans Canada to re-apply for a permit to build the Keystone XL pipeline was "a great moment for Alberta."

It's been one day since human sinkhole Kevin O'Leary joined the Conservative leadership race as candidate no. 14 and already the Canadian media is working to make it seem like this isn't a giant national embarrassment.

Konrad Yakabuski calls O'Leary a "change maker" and various media are reporting that his entry "energizes" a so-far tepid leadership race. Vice's Justin Ling hilariously tweeted yesterday "I, for what it's worth, think O'Leary is a generally smart guy who says smart things." God help us.

Breaking: 2016 sucked. Not in the usual way life sucks, like the way a bowl of rice pudding sucks, a milquetoast, flavourless gruel that masquerades as a dessert while quietly eroding your ability to enjoy even the simplest of life's pleasures.

No, 2016 sucked like cancer. It was a canvas of pimples and boils in the care of an overzealous teenager. We sat helpless as he attacked every pustule with increased ferocity and relentlessness, each one bigger and more putrid than the last. Then someone elected him president.

A recap: The attacks in Paris. Brussels. Lahore. Istanbul. Nice. Istanbul. The hate-crime shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Brexit. Fentanyl. Aleppo. Aleppo. Aleppo.

Predictably, Justin Trudeau's clear and precise campaign promise -- that the 2015 federal election would be the last under first past the post -- has become a giant tire fire.

The special committee of MPs tasked with studying electoral reform in Canada released its report today, on schedule. It recommended that Canada prepares to move toward a proportional representation system, ultimately decided by a referendum.

As expected, Justin Trudeau defied the popular will of Canadians, scientists, environmental groups, municipalities, the province of B.C. and the sovereignty of First Nations by approving the embattled Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline.

The pipeline will run from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C. carrying 895,000 barrels of diluted bitumen per day to oversea markets. It's owned by Kinder Morgan, a Texas-based corporation with a well-earned reputation for arrogance and cost-cutting. Since Kinder Morgan purchased Trans Mountain in 2005, there have been four major spills along that route, including Burnaby itself in 2007. The president of Kinder Morgan Canada Ian Anderson said just last month that he wasn't "smart enough" to know if climate change was real.

If you ever doubt the power the Big Banks have over shaping climate change policy and practice, consider this: $3.75 billion of the $3.8 billion it will cost to build the Dakota Access pipeline is on credit.

According to a report from Food and Water Watch, an American consumer rights watchdog, at least three Canadian banks -- Scotiabank, TD and RBC -- are helping to bankroll the 1,800 km pipeline that travels directly through the traditional and treatied territories of the Standing Rock Sioux.

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This past week, Toronto Police were disinvited from the city's Pride parade after a brave action from Black Lives Matter; Sheila Fraser was appointed special adviser to address widespread and systemic sexual harassment in the RCMP; and American cops were caught on video executing two Black men -- the latest in an endless index of lives lost by a ruthless organization incredulously referred to as our nations' "finest." 

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British Columbia's affordability crisis is hurtling toward catastrophe -- and our elected officials, with very few exceptions, are intoxicated by their own fantasies.

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Kevin Vickers became a Canadian hero for shooting and killing Michael Zehaf-Bibeau after his attack on Parliament Hill in 2014, which left army reservist Cpl. Nathan Cirillo dead. Vickers was rewarded with the plum ambassadorship of Ireland as a result.

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About a year ago, I wrote about the bittersweet feeling of having to flee Vancouver for the (slightly) more affordable shores of Victoria.