Saw a black bear once when I was visiting the Rocky mountains a few summers ago. It was just hanging out eating berries at the edge of the woods beside the parking lot at one of the national parks.

Most of the people just watched or took pictures from a respectful distance. I was delighted to have the opportunity to see a bear in the wild in a (mostly) safe way. I did look around to make sure there was somebody I could outrun, though. You don’t have to outrun the bear…

Big carnivores mostly want nothing to do with people and I think we should leave them alone as much as possible. Sometimes they learn behaviour that makes them dangerous to innocent people (e.g. if somebody feeds them) and being a danger to innocent people is really the only reason I can think of that would justify killing them. There have to be better ways to deal with carnivores attacking livestock and such.

I was in traffic 30 minutes away from home when the 2003 blackout started. That was a long drive home.

Canada imposing an export tax on oil would be a scorched earth move that would also be extremely unpopular in Alberta and further inflame the separatist movement there. I don’t think Carney would play that card unless he felt like he was out of other options.