Happy Canada Day. There are more Canadians than ever, and that’s something to celebrate, even though a recent policy shift has stressed the limit of our capacity to accomodate. Make sure your holiday reading list includes Stephen Maher’s excellent feature in Maclean’s on that very subject.

The presumption that the result of last week’s federal by-election in the riding of Toronto-St. Paul’s is some bellwether for the forthcoming general election is a case study in the intellectual laziness of our chattering classes. First, the Conservatives flipped the seat by only 633 votes. Second, the vote took place the day before the government’s signature budget measure, a capital gains tax increase, in a riding that includes one of the wealthiest neighbourhoods in the country. We’re supposed to believe fewer than a thousand votes is a referendum on that policy and captures the mood of the land more generally? Come off it.

Many people are saying the quiet part louder and louder after the first presidential debate last week. Over in the Atlantic, Peter Wehner says it kindly and clearly.

We focus far too much on what leaders say they will do, and less so on what they’ve already done or how they make decisions in general—which is why it was nice to read a profile in the Economist from precisely that perspective regarding the presumptive next prime minister of the UK.

The world will be less funny without Martin Mull. Revisit his WTF with Marc Maron appearance from 2018.