The new natural resource minister, Tim Hodgson, gave a speech in Calgary yesterday and everyone in the energy sector was all hot and bothered because he insisted that they were moving to a culture of delivery instead of delay. And you’ll have to forgive my cynicism, but that seems to completely ignore what the actual issues of delay have been, and if you say “Liberal regulation!” you’re going to get a smack. The premise of saying they need “one project, one review” ignores that that’s been the case for ages now—there are no duplicative reviews, because federal and provincial reviews look at different things, and on projects where they had shared jurisdiction, they set up a joint review panel so that it was *gasp!* one review. Anyone who says they were mired in duplication is frankly not being that honest.

The real issue has been proper consultation, which is what leads projects to wind up in litigation, particularly from Indigenous groups. Harper’s attempt to reform assessments to “streamline” them meant that most of those projects wound up in litigation because, well, they ignored their obligations. In some cases, like Northern Gateway, the Conservatives ignored the process that they put into place for meaningful consultation, and well, the project died on the vine as a result. And with BC and Ontario both pushing legislation to “streamline” projects which basically means bulldozing over environmental and Indigenous obligations, well, that’s all going to wind up in litigation too. This was the whole point of the Impact Assessment Act that Jason Kenney in particularly successfully villainized—it was to ensure proper consultation up-front, at the design phase of a project, so that the rest of the process would go faster because you did the hard work at the beginning. But it became the subject of lies and disinformation, and yes, the federal government’s attempt to exert jurisdiction over certain projects because the polluting effects cross borders didn’t convince the Supreme Court of Canada, but that didn’t render the entire statute or the issues of up-front consultation obsolete or moot, and nobody seems to want to explain that part.

One more thing about Hodgson’s speech was the he singled out Pathways Alliance as a project he wants to see move forward. I’m really hoping that this means he’s telling them to put up or shut up, because we know that they basically went dark because their claims about building a massive carbon capture and storage hub were overblown and they were about to face legal consequences for greenwashing thanks to new powers for the Competition Bureau. And frankly, the whole point of the emissions cap was to tell the energy sector to put up or shut up—that they have been boasting about how they’re going to reduce their emissions, so when the government basically told them to prove it, suddenly they started crying about how this as a “production cap” and it was unfair to them. Girl, please. You insisted you could do this, so prove it.

Meanwhile, we’ve had our first glimpse into Mark Carney’s PMO, and while he’s insistent on punctuality, business attire, and UK spellings (hooray!), and decision paralysis is not setting in (so far), he’s also starting to micromanage all kinds of things that he shouldn’t be, which sounds an awful lot like a Harper trait. Part of the problem so far is a lack of a proper chief of staff, and that ministers haven’t staffed up yet either, and yet he wants to operate at a breakneck pace. But there are other warning signs—because he doesn’t understand politics, he really hasn’t given thought to how to navigate a minority House of Commons, to say nothing of the Senate (ahem), and not knowing how to deal with Parliament could lead to a situation where the Conservatives can team up with the Bloc and the NDP yet again to start frustrating anything passing once again—and for all of their talk about working together and getting things done, don’t think for a second that they’re actually not more interested in scoring points and embarrassing the Liberals. Trudeau lost the ability to manage these things, in part because of disinterest, and we’ll see if Carney doesn’t make the same mistake.

Ukraine Dispatch

There was a massive missile and drone attack against Kyiv overnight, which has injured at least eight people (Photos). Ukraine and Russia exchanged 390 prisoners each on Friday, marking one of the largest swaps since the war began.

Good reads:

• Mélanie Joly says she’s been given 60 days to cut the “red tape” around strategic innovation funding, and to develop an industrial strategy for military procurement.
• Nearly a year later, the foreign agent registry still isn’t up and running.
• Job losses are coming to CRA and to the passport programme at ESDC, mostly for term positions that are not going to be renewed.
• Canada Post’s union’s labour action has begun, and for the moment, it is to halt overtime rather than another full-on strike.
• Canadian universities don’t have enough money to poach talent from the US (thanks, premiers). We also pay professors less, which could create more drama.
• Here is a look at the resurgent “relevance” of the King in the face of threats of annexation, as he helps make us Canadian.
• The recount in Terra Nova—The Peninsulas has flipped the riding to the Conservatives by 12 votes.
• The recount margin in Windsor—Tecumseh—Lake Shore confirms the Conservative win, but the margin narrowed from 77 votes to just four. (Always vote!)
• Here is a look at the seven declared candidates for Speaker, who will be voted on Monday. (I know of at least one other who is running).
• Government House Leader Stephen MacKinnon says official party status for the NDP is not “on the table,” nor should it be. (Sad trombone!)
• The Liberal caucus meets on Sunday, and will vote on adopting the measures in the (garbage) Reform Act (and could journalists actually say how useless they are?)
• Sources™ say that Marco Mendicino plans to run for mayor of Toronto, which gosh, he totally hasn’t been telegraphing for months upon months now.
• The Bloc Québécois have filed a legal challenge of the election in Terrebonne, given the number of irregularities and the one-vote margin.

Odds and ends:

For National Magazine, I delve into the Supreme Court’s decision on sentencing credit rules, and why it misses the bigger issue in the correctional system.

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