Roundup: Competing nonsense lawsuits

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It’s now approximately day ninety-one of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the Ukrainian governor of Luhansk says that Russian forces are advancing from all sides. Another 200 bodies have been found in Mariupol, where Russian forces have been pounding the city to rubble.

There is also talk about Vladimir Putin having survived an assassination attempt after the invasion began, and Kremlin insiders are discussing a possible successor to Putin as discontent grows with the course of the war. So that’s going well.

Closer to home, I think the situation in New Brunswick is about to do my head in, as two competing lawsuits are colliding—the challenge to the appointment of a unilingual lieutenant governor, and a frivolous lawsuit challenging the fact that the premier violated the “fixed election date” in calling an election. The lieutenant governor suit is going down on appeal because the reasoning in the original decision is a constitutional impossibility (one part of the constitution cannot override another, which the ruling does). And the challenge to the election call is a dead letter because simple statute cannot bind the Crown prerogatives in this way, and Democracy Watch keeps losing this suit every time they attempt it, not to mention that you cannot undo an election. When a legislature is dissolved, it’s dissolved (and no, the UK ruling on prorogation is not the same thing). This is all nonsense and eating up court time unnecessarily, but this is where we’re at.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau was in Vancouver to make an announcement about a future iteration of the Invictus games, which will be a hybrid with winter events.
  • We are now up to fifteen cases of monkeypox in Quebec.
  • Anita Anand announced 20,000 rounds of artillery ammunition for Ukraine, and admits there is more the military can do to provide housing for its members.
  • National security and intelligence experts are hoping the government can rethink some of security policy, particularly around the US as it becomes more unstable.
  • According to data the government released, more civil servants received religious exemptions from COVID vaccines than they did medical ones.
  • Canadian farmers are being encouraged to plant more wheat and barley because of the invasion in Ukraine, but higher input costs and drought add challenge to it.
  • It’s the French-language debate tonight for the Conservative leadership.
  • The Conservatives are calling for an ethics probe of a contract from Mary Ng’s office to a Liberal-friendly strategist’s PR firm.
  • Quebec’s Bill 96 has now passed, and yes, it proactively invokes the Notwithstanding Clause of the Charter, so you know it’s likely unconstitutional.
  • First Nations in Quebec are vowing to fight Bill 96.
  • Senator Paula Simons is concerned about Bill S-7, in which the government would invent a “novel” legal threshold for border guards to search electronic devices.
  • Colby Cosh points to a recent court decision around parliamentary privilege and NSICOP (which I have issues with, and an full article on it coming shortly).
  • My column points to the need for faster action to adapt to climate events like the storm we suffered in Ottawa, which requires more provincial and municipal action.

Odds and ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take explains Jason Kenney’s decision to stay on as premier in a “caretaker” capacity until a new UCP leader can be chosen.

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3 thoughts on “Roundup: Competing nonsense lawsuits”

  1. Kremlin insiders are discussing a possible successor to Putin as discontent grows with the course of the war.

    I have not seen the latest figures but Putin’s approval figures have been ranging in the low 80% levels.

    I am sure the coup is going to happen any day now. Did the National Post fire their last fact-checker some time ago? /s

    So that’s going well.
    By Russian standards Putin is a moderate. If there “is” a plot to replace him, it would be by the hardliners.

    I do not know much about Russia but I am astounded by the level of ignorance of the
    Anglophone media. In the early days of the siege of Mariupol a CBC reporter in Lviv spoke about Mariupol being on the Black Sea. Could he not at least have looked at a map?

      • Okay, but I still do not see that it pardons the Post’s failure to do even a cursory fact-check of the Telegram’s copy. About 2 minutes (30 sec?) on the Levada public polling site would have shown the idiocy of the statement.

        I thought that publishing fantasy was the province of the Rebel or the Daily Mail.

        I may well be wrong but an anti-Putin coup looks less likely than an anti-Trudeau coup at the moment. Remember the Convoy!

        I am picking on the CBC at the moment, I realize, but almost every CBC Ukrainian report comes from Lviv. If you look at a map, Lviv is in the north-west of the country about 20km from the Polish border. Mariupol is about 50km from the Russian border and as far south-east as one can go without, literally, falling into the Sea of Azov. A quick check with Google Maps says it is 500 km, as the crow flies, from Lviv to Mariupol.

        Much/most of the reporting is like reporting on a Québec election from Winnipeg.

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