Roundup: Overplaying the ethics committee report

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The Commons committee on access to information, privacy and ethics released their latest report yesterday, reviewing the Conflict of Interest Act, and it was, well, a doozy. This is one of those kinds of reports that was always going to be a problem because it’s so highly partisan, and the fact that the committee reflects a minority parliament made this even more so. Reading through it, it was quickly obvious that this was mostly an exercise in the Conservatives (and Bloc) looking to score points based on Mark Carney’s past, and trying to suggest a whole bunch of new rules that would essentially target him personally, which goes against pretty much every principle of good governance. Remember that bad facts make bad case law, and well, this is terrible all around.

It was also quite striking just who the majority on the committee was listening to, which was mostly “Democracy Watch’s” Duff Conacher, whose only credibility is that he branded himself a one-man watchdog who answers media requests, so he gets phoned all the time and provides quotes on too many stories. He’s also lost pretty much every court battle he’s ever waged, and thinks that he should be the only arbiter of parliamentary ethics in this country. They also listed to disgraced “journalist” Sam Cooper (who is so credulous he once believed that a clip from a Hong Kong film was secretly obtained proof of a Canadian official being compromised by Chinese agents), who pretty much was only there to back up Conacher. Experts who warned the majority that they were creating more problems than they were trying to solve were largely ignored, because they didn’t fit the narrative. Unsurprisingly, the Liberals had a nine-page dissent at the end of the report that called these kinds of things out, for all the good it will do.

Why? Because looking at the reporting of the report’s contents and recommendations, it was framed in such a way that the committee agreed to these points when in fact it was only the Conservative and Bloc members of the committee and not the Liberals, which then distorts the report because it makes it sound like it was more unanimous than it was. Mention of the Liberal dissent was waaaaaaay down in the copy, and doesn’t really spell out that this was the Conservatives and Bloc trying to use the committee to attack Carney and the Liberals, which is pretty relevant information when you’ve got a report of this nature. And while I don’t want to give the reporter on this piece a hard time, you can’t really consider what the main body of the report says as what the committee believed—only what the opposition members believed.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-23T19:08:02.093Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The Russian strike on Dnipro early Thursday killed three people and injured another ten. Ukraine is boasting that their new interceptor drones can be controlled over thousands of kilometres.

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QP: Just another Liberal

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Another day where the PM was in town but not at QP, while Pierre Poilievre had held a press conference in the Foyer earlier, and he was present. He led off in French, accusing Carney of being another Liberal with rising costs, crime, and “corruption,” before demanding that all taxes be cut on gasoline. François-Philippe Champagne responded by noting the cut in the gas excise tax. Poilievre whined that the question was for the prime minister, whom he declared was “hiding under the table” and received a caution by the Speaker for it, before he said that the reason the PM doesn’t respond because it would expose the illusion he has made thing worse. Champagne pointed out that they are helping Canadians, and that their economic update is coming next week. Poilievre turned to English, and called Carney “just another Liberal” before demanding all gas taxes be repealed. Champagne noted that Poilievre has been nowhere to be seen when they provided relief for Canadians before raising the economic update. Poilievre took a broad swipe at Carney, repeating the “hiding under the table” line, before pointing out that he “snarled” at a female journalist earlier in the day, and then denounced him in general. Hajdu said that if being just another Liberal means helping people, then sure, he’s just another Liberal. Poilievre listed Carney’s supposed sins as being “just another Liberal.” Hajdu tried another tactic and listed Poilievre’s supposed sins as being “just another Conservative.” Poilievre accused her of having imaginary conversations, before he went on a tear about the deficit and “printing money.” Champagne responded with his “take no lessons” line and listed supports they have provided while ensuring “sound fiscal management.”

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she lamented that the tariff crisis had not yet been resolved, and wondered about whether the government would adopt their proposal on wage subsidies for affected industries. Champagne said that they have a strategic fund to help companies with supports, and that foreign exports are up. Normandin then demanded an enhancement to OAS for all seniors, as well as more supports for forestry. Joël Lightbound said that she was right to note the headwinds the country is facing, which is why the government is busy diversifying markets. Jean-Denis Garon took over to lament the planned reduction in health transfers, and said they could pay for it by taxing oil companies and web giants. Marjorie Michel patted herself on the back for how well she works with her Quebec counterpart. 

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Roundup: It’s not an end to partisan games

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The narratives around the motion to rebalance committees have become pretty much unhinged. Most legacy media outlets described the move as “seizing control,” when that’s not what is happening, or how this works, but it sounds dramatic so that’s what they’re running with. Meanwhile, the Government House Leader has claimed that this will help end “silly partisan games,” which also isn’t true at all. If anything, the fact that there is a majority means that the opposition will double down on these partisan games because they are less likely to accidentally do something that could trigger an election (which is the real reason that the Conservatives have been so much more cooperative and willing to let bills pass on division rather than with standing votes). This does give the government more tools to shut down antics, but it won’t end the antics. Far from it. And it’s just precious that Andrew Scheer of all people is taking offence to the National Post using this as a headline. Both-sidesing for me but not for thee!

Amateur media critic Andrew Scheer is badmouthing the National Post! *gasp!* The Conservatives are just so hard done by!

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-04-23T04:07:31.566Z

As part of this, the government has rejected the proposal by Scheer and the Conservatives to maintain an opposition majority on the three opposition-chaired “oversight” committees, and claims that this is about the Liberals trying to shut down investigations into their corruption, which is both hyperbolic and ignorant of history. Some of us have been on the Hill for a while now, and we remember that when the Harper government went from a minority to a majority parliament that they also took over committees and stripped them of any vestige of independence that they still had, and turned them all into branch plants of ministers’ offices. I wonder who the Speaker was at that time? Oh, wait—it was Scheer. Meanwhile, under the past couple of parliaments, the Conservatives have led a charge to not only turn these “oversight” committees into partisan clown shows so that they can harvest clips from them, but they have absolutely perverted some of the most serious and grown-up committees such as Public Accounts in order to have them do things like conduct witch hunts into the Trudeau Foundation (which has absolutely nothing to do with Public Accounts’ mandate), destroying the best committee that there was. (And before you ask, you can thank former NDP MP Blake Desjarlais for going along with it).

Meanwhile, on the subject of accountability, reporters asked prime minister Mark Carney why he’s not going to Question Period more, and he gave some nonsense about the government operating as a “team” so they can answer, before taking a swipe at the quality of the questions being asked. And I mean, fair play that the questions have been uniquely terrible, however a) as prime minister, it’s his job to go to QP whether he likes it or not; and b) just because the questions are terrible, it doesn’t mean the answers have to be. Instead of just repeating a couple of self-congratulatory talking points, Carney could instead be using facts to dismantle the very premise of Poilievre’s questions, particularly around his claims about economic growth, “money-printing,” food price inflation, and so on, but he doesn’t, and that’s a choice, and it’s a choice that makes everyone worse-off in the end.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-22T13:08:07.565Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones attacked infrastructure in Odesa early Wednesday, and have hit an apartment block in Dnipro this early this morning. The Druzhba pipeline has restarted, and thanks to Hungary’s new government, the €90 billion EU loan to Ukraine has been unblocked.

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QP: Taking swipes about affordability comments

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The PM was in town but elsewhere, and had previously responded to reporters’ questions that morning about his lack of QP attendance as letting his team handle it because they work as a team, which doesn’t excuse his obligations as prime minister when it comes to the exercise of accountability. Pierre Poilievre was also absent, leaving it up to Andrew Scheer to lead off, and he returned to yesterday’s peevish demand that the prime minister recant his previous statement that affordability is the best it’s been in a decade. Patty Hajdu took the opportunity to praise the Canada Summer Jobs Programme, which has opened for the season. Scheer took a swipe about the prime minister not buying his own groceries, and this time, Adam van Koeverden took the opportunity to take a swipe of his own at the Conservatives’ anti-intellectual approach, and Scheer’s falsified credentials in that he never did get his insurance licence. Tim Uppal took over, and read his own script about the prime minister’s assurance about affordability, and Steve MacKinnon took this one, pointing to the conflicts that have created supply disruptions globally, which was why the government lowered the fuel excise tax. Uppal demanded that the government deliver results, to which Wayne Long pointed to how much people will save thanks to the government’s tax cuts so far. Pierre Paul-Hus was up next to read the same script en français, and Joël Lightbound took this one, praising the government’s enhanced GST credit as well as the cut on the fuel excise tax. Paul-Hus tried one more time, and this time Lightbound pointed to how many people in Paul-Hus’ riding benefitted from programmes like dental care. 

Christine Normandin led off for the Bloc, and after noting that it is Earth Day, she pointed out that the government is testing the waters on new pipelines while southern Quebec is facing floods brought on by climate change. Nathalie Provost touted the government’s plan for nature and protecting thirty percent of land and waters. Normandin was not mollified and wanted pro-environment Liberals to speak. Provost insisted that the world is in a precarious place which is why they are working on different levels with their nature strategy. Patrick Bonin took over to encourage people to fight back against pipelines and subsidies for oil companies. Provost repeated her line about working on several levels, and working with Indigenous People while they build and build well. 

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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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