Roundup: Moving the majority motion

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Government House Leader Steven announced yesterday that he will be moving a motion in the House of Commons today regarding changing the committee make-up for the remainder of this parliament in order to reflect the government’s new majority status, which feels a little bit like jumping the gun. While he does need to give notice of the motion, it won’t be debated until next week sometime at the earliest (because Thursday is a Supply Day for one of the Opposition Parties, and I doubt he would debate this motion on a Friday), but there’s no way the government can vote on it yet. Why? Because the three new MPs haven’t been sworn in yet, and it’s generally a three-to-four-week process for Elections Canada to fully certify the results and report back to the Commons so that the swearing-in can happen, and well, it’s only been a week-and-a-half.

I do find it interesting that they have decided to go the route of adding MPs to the committees to make them twelve members instead of ten, which may be a mistake on the government’s part. Yes, removing a Conservative instead of adding a Liberal to each committee might have seen them howl more, but the things is, we actually barely have enough MPs to go around when it comes to staffing committees properly (remember, this is the reason why official party status is twelve MPs—so that they can have coverage on every standing committee). During Trudeau’s majority parliament, committees were down to ten MPs, which meant that parliamentary secretaries didn’t have to be voting members, which is better for all because they couldn’t essentially be putting their thumbs on the scales on the government’s behalf, but when they were back to minority parliaments, committee memberships went back up to 12 in order to accommodate more opposition members, thus meaning parliamentary secretaries were back to voting members. It looks like Carney and MacKinnon have no problem with this, even though they should—it’s bad form for the independence of committees, but they don’t actually care about that.

It also looks like MacKinnon is doing this now and not later is a power move. I had previously suspected that this move wouldn’t be fully implemented until autumn because the last four sitting weeks before summer would have the committees slammed to get things passed before the break, but now they’re going to mess up their ability to work until the Procedure and House Affairs Committee can produce their report on the new committee memberships because the Conservatives decided to play stupid games on the Ethics committee and force a vote on making François-Philippe Champagne appear before them to answer theatrical questions about his non-existent conflict of interest with the Alto high speed rail project. By pushing this motion and vote to as soon as the government can make it, once the new MPs are sworn-in, it gives them a chance to try and head off the committee before Champagne appears for the sole purpose of having the Conservatives (and probably Bloc) call him corrupt on camera so that they can get clicks on their social media channels. Just ridiculous, and even more ridiculous that MacKinnon has to get in on the dick-swinging in the process.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-21T19:08:01.767Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims to have captured 80 settlements and 1700 square kilometres since the start of the year, while Ukraine has recaptured some of that territory back. As Ukraine is about to resume pumping oil through the Druzhba pipeline to Hungary, now that repairs are completed, it looks like Ukrainian drone attacks have reduced Russian oil export capacity by 300,000 to 400,000 barrels per day.

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QP: Demanding Carney debate him

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The PM was present today, as were all of the other leaders. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he took issue with a statement that Carney made in March about affordability being the best it’s been in ages. Carney said that what he said was about costs and wages, and that wages are now rising at double the rate of inflation. Poilievre disputed this and listed things that he claims Carney was wrong about, to which Carney noted that they measure affordability using rates and wages, and wages are increasing Faster, while things like rents are decreasing. Poilievre switched to English to lament the high food price inflation, and returned to the comment about affordability being the best its been in years. Carney stated that the record is that since he’s been prime minister, wages have risen faster than inflation, before he plugged the enhanced GST credit. Poilievre again disputed that this was wrong, and Carney again noted that asking rents have been declining, and that wages are increasing. Poilievre again took issue with affordability and demanded Carney acknowledge that, and Carney defended the measures and wage levels. Poilievre continued to insist that Carney was wrong, and Carney again touted the entranced GST credit and their cuts to fuel and income taxes.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he took a swipe at the new Canada–U.S. trade advisory committee before lamenting the issue of tariffs. Carney praised the members of the committee, naming Quebec members. Blanchet demanded temporary measures for companies affected by the latest round of tariffs, and Carney pointed out that these tariffs were global and yes, they are considering temporary measures. Blanchet again worried about the affected sectors, and Carney gave more reassurances. 

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Roundup: Undeserved back-patting for recruitment figures

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Defence minister David McGuinty held a press conference yesterday to tout that the recruiting numbers in the military are way up, and this was a sign that the government is on track with their goals to recapitalise the military. But sure, there are still several trades that they are short in, and sure, they’re still quite a bit below the targets set in 2017, but it’s a start, right?

There are a few things at play here that deserve to be teased out. One of them is that people are saying this has to do with the pay raise, but I’m sceptical because the biggest problem with recruitment has long been the military’s poor intake process, which has been overly cumbersome, has dragged out the security screening process, and as they are admitting now, they don’t have enough beds in basic training to accommodate the increase in numbers. That’s pretty much entirely on the military’s internal processes and has precious little to do with the federal government’s handling of the file in any capacity, which makes it very hard for them to pat themselves on the back for it. (One might almost call that “stolen valour”). Over the past several years, the military’s internal delays were so bad that people who wanted to serve wound up walking away because it took too long, and they found jobs elsewhere. Again, it wasn’t an issue about pay, or military housing, it was that the Forces couldn’t get their own internal bureaucracy in line, and that again is on them.

There is another conversation that nobody is having here around this, which is the correlation between the job market and military recruitment. One of the other reasons recruitment has been poor for three decades now is because the job markets changed in the country, particularly in traditionally economically-depressed regions like the east coast, which used to see high recruitment numbers. What changed? Direct flights to Fort McMurray. The promise of oil sands cash for little education, and things like two-weeks-on/two-weeks-off shifts and living in camps meant good money for people from the region, so there wasn’t any need to sign up to the military to find stable employment. And now that is starting to shift back—there are no longer jobs aplenty in Fort Mac as the oil and gas sector has radically increased automation and productivity, and there are no longer unlimited jobs for high school dropouts that get six figure salaries. That is shifting the calculation around the country, and I suspect it is going to be one of the bigger drivers of recruitment more than anything the government has done around pay or base housing.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-20T19:15:34.667Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The death toll from a shooting spree in Kyiv has reached seven; the police chief has already tendered his resignation for it.

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QP: A trio of bad faith assertions

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The PM was in town but otherwise preoccupied, while Pierre Poilievre was also absent, which led Melissa Lantsman to stand up and lament the lack of investment building in the country. Tim Hodgson stood up, suggested she stop the clickbait, and then listed major projects approved in each province. Lantsman dismissed this as nothing actually built (because it can happen overnight), before lamenting the food inflation numbers and demanded the government bring down the cost of government. François-Philippe Champagne got up to list the “good news” of IMF projections, and high Canadian Forces recruitment. Lantsman went on a tear about affordability, to which Patty Hajdu accused the Conservatives of sticking “spokes in the wheels” of Canadians. Pierre Paul-Hus took over in French to slam Carney’s video and the lack of pipelines built of new trade deals. Dominic LeBlanc thanked him for his support of C-5 and noted the projects that are getting underway. Paul-Hus lamented food prices, and Champagne reiterated his “good news” talking points en français. Paul-Hus then mischaracterised the deal with China and falsely claimed Carney had promised a trade deal by now, and LeBlanc got back up to remind them that they are working to improve the situation, which included diversifying trade with other reliable partners and building major projects.

In advance of today's #QP and the inevitable wailing and gnashing of teeth about food price inflation, here is what StatsCan said the biggest driver was last month.Spoiler: It's still climate. www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quo…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-04-20T15:07:22.716Z

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she also raised Carney’s video and the lack of a deal with the U.S. as they keep imposing new tariffs. LeBlanc repeated his line about diversifying trade partners and building national projects while understanding the importance of steel and aluminium at home. Normandin demanded ties with the U.S. be strengthened and not discarded (which nobody is actually proposing), and Champagne got back up to note that he was in Washington last week and they are still talking, while pointing to the importance of diversifying trade. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay lamented that Carney is not consulting enough on his files, to which LeBlanc disputed the premise of the question. 

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Roundup: Carney’s Forward Guidance

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On Sunday morning, prime minister Mark Carney released a ten-minute piece on his YouTube channel called “Forward Guidance,” because he’s still doing his central banker shtick, and it was a direct-to-camera (with three other cameras intercutting) discussion about the place we find ourselves in. Most of this was not new, repeating the same lines from past speeches including the one at Davos, while promising to never sugarcoat things—but he kind of did. I also have to question why this had to be over YouTube and not a speech in the House of Commons, which is why there is allotted time every day for ministers to make statements if they so choose. This could have been done there.

Carney pointed to a “statue” of Isaac Brock that Mike Myers gave him, but by statue he meant two-inch figurine, and that led him to launch into a whole War of 1812 narrative about the people who built this country, which, okay, sure, but you’re not doing much to show you’re not just the second coming of Stephen Harper. When he talked about the building of big things in the post-war period, this is again where things got a bit sugar-coated because there was still complexity to these old projects, and usually practices that would be unacceptable today for good reason. (I also noted that he mentioned universities being built in this period, without mention of the fact that provincial governments are in the process of dismantling our university systems). He also spoke about protecting social programmes (except for letting the funding of a bunch of groups who deliver services lapse), and he mentions pharmacare like it’s not limited to two types of drugs in a handful of provinces. And further sugar-coating was essentially by omission—the fact that so many Canadian businesses have become apathetic to growth or increasing productivity because they have taken the lesson that all they need to do is become rent-seekers.

Predictably, Pierre Poilievre decided he was going to have something to say about this, and that it was all just an illusion because nothing has actually been built yet (because you can build things overnight). He railed about Carney just enriching “well-connected elites,” but Poilievre’s whole scheme is to double down on trickle-down economics, which by definition enriches a small group of elites because the money does not, in fact, trickle down. Melissa Lantsman put out her own rebuttal that included the incredulous and false claim that the Liberals have cost the economy a trillion dollars in the past decade, which is completely fiscally illiterate, but that’s how the Conservatives roll.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-19T23:08:01.392Z

Ukraine Dispatch

There was a massive overnight attack Saturday on Chernihiv which killed a sixteen-year-old boy, and wounded others. Ukraine is continuing its own drone strikes on Russian oil facilities in Samara, occupied Crimea, and the Baltic Sea.

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Roundup: The 44th Charter anniversary

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Yesterday was the 44th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and it comes at a time when the Charter is increasingly under attack by provincial governments who have realised that the prohibition against using the Notwithstanding Clause has worn off, and that the public no longer cares about it—at least not enough to actually punish a government that does it, mostly because it’s right-wing governments using the Clause to punish minorities, and there isn’t enough political will to care about trans and gender diverse youth, or the rights of visible minorities in Quebec.

While everyone waits for the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in the Law 21 case out of Quebec, there is some using about ways that the federal government could try and introduce some kinds of guardrails against its use federally, but that immediately had the Bloc Québécois howling, and the brand new Quebec premier striking a combative tone, until she got reassurances from Carney and a text message apology from the federal justice minister, which strikes me as far too much appeasement. And then you have people calling for the constitutional power of disallowance if a province invokes the Clause, but that’s extremely dangerous. Disallowance is a constitutional dead letter—it existed mostly as a way of ensuring provinces would stay within their constitutional lanes, and that function has been taken up by the Supreme Court of Canada’s reference function. Disallowance would essentially be a declaration of war, which is a very bad thing for any federal government.

So, what can we do about provinces who abuse the power? The same way you effect any political change—you organize, and you protest, and you get out the vote. But that’s hard, and people don’t want to do that, even though that’s the way politics works. There is no easy way to curb the abuse of these powers other than the public letting it be known that it’s unacceptable, and that’s hard work. But it’s the only way to ensure that you not only get change, but that said change is actually durable. Make premiers afraid of you. It’s the only way we’re going to fix what’s wrong with this country.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-17T13:13:12.555Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones hit the Danube port of Izmail once again, and at least one drone strayed into Romanian territory as a result. Ukrainian drones made hits at oil facilities in the Black Sea port of Tuapse and Krasnodar.

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Roundup: Another lunchtime speech praising trickle-down economics

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Pierre Poilievre was back at the Canadian Club in Toronto for another lunchtime speech on how he is going to fix the economy to make life more affordable, and—stop me if you’ve heard this one before—it involves doubling down on trickle-down economics. In fact, while the speech made all of his greatest hits (destroy environmental legislation, cut taxes, cut bureaucracy in the most hand-wavey way possible), along with his latest genius plan of building a stockpile of oil and critical minerals that will supposedly give us “leverage” with future negotiations. Again, this is stupid because you’re not going to convince Trump, with his love of tariffs, to abandon that with a “strategic reserve.” Get real.

Actual quote from Poilievre's speech today:"If you asked a neutral and objective AI bot to go into all of the policies on the books of the government of Canada, what would you find has actually changed in the last year?"There is no such thing as a "neutral and objective" bot. Absolute clown show.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-04-16T20:24:29.511Z

And because this is Poilievre, he is continuing to double-down on his peevish insistence that he is somehow a better economist than Carney because he watched a bunch of crypto bros on YouTube. In fact, he dismissed Carney as having the “illusion of knowledge,” and claimed that all of Carney’s economic ideas have been wrong for years, which is a ridiculous thing to say. This while he keeps going on and on about “money-printing,” which nobody is engaging in, but again, this is one of the key things that crypto bros will say drives inflation (hence why Poilievre parroted their lines about Bitcoin being a way to opt out of inflation), and nobody will call this out. (Okay, David Cochrane has tried to call it out, and Poilievre and Andrew Scheer just obfuscate and prevaricate, but absolutely nobody else challenges this absolutely bullshit claim, including the government). It’s amazing how much we let him get away with saying that is completely untrue—and he knows it.

Meanwhile, Conservatives back in Ottawa were complaining to the press that François-Philippe Champagne won’t appear at the ethics committee to answer about his recusing himself on the Alto high-speed rail project because his spouse is a vice-president there, even though the Ethics Commissioner said that there is no actual conflict because Alto reports to a different line minister. This is just theatre, because the Conservatives want clips of themselves calling Champagne corrupt in committee, and surprise, surprise, the Liberals have no interest in exposing him to this. So, the Conservatives are now crying foul in advance of committees being rejigged to reflect the majority, and saying that this is proof the Liberals are going to avoid accountability. But witch-hunts and media stunts are not accountability, and this is just so stupid.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-16T19:08:03.789Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia spent all Thursday hammering Ukraine with 700 drones and dozens of missiles, which killed sixteen people and wounded more than a hundred others. One of those strikes was on the Black Sea port of Tuapse, which it an oil tanker.

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QP: Zombie statistics to justify gas tax whinging

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The PM was in town but not at QP for reasons unknown, while Pierre Poilievre was off in Toronto giving another speech to the Canadian Club. That left it up to Luc Berthold to lead off in French, dredging up the false zombie statistic about the number of Canadians who are a mere $200 away from insolvency (guys, that stat doesn’t say what you think it says, and it’s never been accurate), before whining that the government voted down their Supply Day motion on removing all gas taxes (even though the clean fuel standard is not a tax, or even a charge). Steven MacKinnon listed all of the supports for Canadians that the Conservatives voted against, before noting that wages in Canada have been rising at 4.7 percent year-over-year, while that figure is just 3.5 percent in the U.S. Berthold complained that gas is twenty percent cheaper in the U.S. than in Canada, called the government’s policies inflationary, and again made a plea for the government to cut all gas taxes. MacKinnon reminded him that in February (the last month for which there are statistics), inflation was at 1.8%, which is within the Bank of Canada’s target band. Melissa Lantsman took over in English to repeat the same first question, and Tim Hodgson got up to remind her that they already cut gas taxes by 28¢/litre with the consumer carbon levy, and have the enhanced GST credit and income tax cut. Lantsman also complained that their Supply Day motion was voted down, and again all gas taxes be cut, and Hogson noted that while this government cut gas taxes by 28¢/litre, the Americans have not cut theirs at all. Shuvaloy Majumdar took over and made the same plea to cut gas taxes, and this time Sean Fraser got up to expound on the two visions of Canada, where the Conservatives’ was to cut taxes for the wealthy while the Liberals are building a strong economy. Majumdar repeated the falsehood about $200 from insolvency, and Patty Hajdu got up to proclaim how much families are saving thanks to the current government.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she raised the issue of the added aluminium tariffs, to which Dominic LeBlanc appreciated her concern, and he assured her that they were working on the issue, and that he has raised it with this American counterparts. Normandin worried about businesses suffering from this, and LeBlanc repeated his assurances. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay took over to ask the same again (because they need more clips), and LeBlanc repeated the same assurances yet again.

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Roundup: The thing about windfall taxes

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In the discussion over “pausing” the excise tax on gasoline and diesel, and the Conservatives’ demands that all other fuel charges be scrapped (including the clean fuel standard which is not a charge or a tax), versus the NDP’s call for a price cap and windfall tax, there hasn’t been a lot of discussion about what those will mean.

Enter economist Kevin Milligan, who has a good thread explaining the problem with windfall taxes, and why those advocating for them have a lot more explaining to do when it comes to just how they see them being implemented.

Adam asks a fair question here that has been bandied about. Let me offer two arguments against a windfall tax that I would wager FIN officials would make when advising cabinet on what to do. I'll also offer my own assessment of the two arguments.1/

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T15:15:37.601Z

Why would FIN argue against an oil/gas windfall tax?FIN Arg #1: Ideally we set taxes in advance and then let firms and people make their choices based on those taxes. Changing taxes <i>ex post</i> risks upsetting investors who would view this as a mark of an unstable unserious country.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T15:17:39.157Z

My response: Yes, ideally we set taxes ex ante and let firms/people decide what to do. Changing that ex post is like reneging. All true. But I do think FIN overindexes on this argument. Every time we change taxes we literally 'renege' on the status quo./3

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T15:19:52.099Z

If you took the 'no tax changes ex post' argument completely as sacrosanct, it essentially argues for no tax changes ever. That's silly.I also note the "no ex post changes because we're not a banana republic" argument only gets hauled out when it's a tax *increase*. Why not symmetric? Hmmm…/4

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T15:21:48.449Z

Why would FIN argue against an oil/gas windfall tax?FIN Arg #2: How do you define a "windfall"? What is this year's profit? What is last year's profit? You realize these are accounting numbers, subject to lots of choice variables for shifting between tax years, right? /5

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T15:24:09.737Z

Fin Arg #2 cont'd: The concern is that you'd end up with a lot of accounting gaming and not as much revenue as you'd think. A lot of time/effort/dollars spent on creating the tax law to minimize gaming. A lot of time/effort/dollars spent by firms avoiding a windfall tax law./6

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T15:25:51.216Z

My take on accounting and windfall taxes:I recall reading historical precedents around WW2 (?) that outlined how much effort it was relative to the revenue. I recall that being persuasive. (Don't have the source at my fingertips….)But I take the windfall tax accounting issue seriously./7

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T15:28:08.463Z

So, my advice to those who advocate for a windfall tax? The thing you could do to overcome government resistance is to look seriously at the accounting issues involved.Chanting slogans is one thing. Overcoming implementation barriers is maybe less fun, but necessary to gettin stuff done./end

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T15:31:43.152Z

It only boils down to 'let the rich have their way' if you assume that windfall tax advocates aren't capable of getting their accounting shit together. Why be so defeatist?I outlined a path for advocates. If the response is 'gee that sounds hard' that's not my prob.bsky.app/profile/open…

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T15:40:14.904Z

I'm not here to blow sunshine and tell you that hard things are easy. Hard things are hard. If you're determined you can do them. But if you don't want to do the work then I'm not going to take the proposal seriously.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T15:42:31.333Z

It’s clear that Avi Lewis hasn’t actually thought any of this through. He was on Power & Politics last night and kept trying to handwave away the questions about this plan, and it just kept boiling down to “oil companies bad.” I do think it’s a problem that we’re not seizing on this opportunity to make long-term investments to get off of our dependence on fossil fuels like the French did with their transition to nuclear in the seventies and eighties (because so much European power relied on Middle Eastern fossil fuels up until the oil embargo in the seventies), but nobody seems to want to have that conversation, and Carney has been pretty adamant that he thinks there is a future in the fossil fuel sector. It’s too bad we have no grown-ups who can have a serious conversation about this.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia fired missiles into Kyiv early this morning, killing thirteen so far including twelve-year-old child and wounding several others. This was after more missile and drone attacks were made through the day, which included hitting an apartment building in Odesa. Ukraine’s army has been introducing new drone infantry capabilities, which has resulted in retaking more territory from Russian occupation.

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QP: Chirping about excise taxes

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The PM was finally present today, sure to make a victory lap before taking off again. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he listed the supposed taxes on fuel (not all of which are taxes), and he took credit for Mark Carney taking off the excise tax, and invited him to remove all others. Carney praised the government’s “comprehensive” plan for affordability which is not just the excise tax, but their other tax cuts. Poilievre decried the effect on the working class, lied about “printing money,” and returned to his demand about removing other taxes. Carney noted that he is the federal prime minister and the biggest taxes on Gasoline are provincial, before he noted that inflation is on target and salaries are rising at twice the rate of inflation. Poilievre turned to English to repeat his first question, and this time, Carney repeated his response and added that Poilievre’s plan would substantially raise the deficit. Poilievre repeated his lie about money printing, and Carney raised his record as a central bank governor and repeated his point about inflation and wages rising faster. Poilievre kept going about the lie about “money-printing,” and tried to claim economic superiority, and Carney retorted that he feels like he is in the presence of students before praising the IMF’s latest projections for the Canadian economy. Poilievre shrugged this off as “Liberal arrogance,” and repeated his demand to cut all gas taxes. Carney said that to learn a lesson, you needs to have ears to hear, and that some on the opposition benches were listening, before he praised the increase in wages. 

John-Paul Danko just got warned by the Speaker for chirping about Poilievre’s education. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-04-15T18:26:55.427Z

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he raised the recent White House changes to steel and aluminium tariffs, and wondered what the response was. Carney assured him that they are working on it, and engaging stakeholders to build a strong Quebec and Canada. Blanchet carried on worrying about these changes, and Carney insisted that negotiations are ongoing, but we are still starting off with the best agreement in the world with the U.S. Blanchet carried on with the worries about companies in this situation and Carney notes that since his election, tariffs have come down, and they are still working toward more progress, before patting himself on the back for the Terrebonne victory.

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