Today is the day where Mark Carney meets with the other first ministers in Saskatoon, and they’re going to hash out the list of major “nation-building” projects that they hope to start prioritising over the next year or two under the proof-of-concept that Canada can indeed build Big Things once again. In the lead-up to this, Carney held a closed-door meeting with oil and gas executives in Calgary, in order to discuss “partnerships” with them, never mind that the series of demands that they sent to him (essentially, scrap all environmental regulations) is a non-starter, but I’m sure we’ll get even more of this posturing from Danielle Smith in the coming days.
While I’m sure there will be more announcements at the end of the meeting, whether it’s more trade barriers being knocked down (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario signed another MOU yesterday), I find myself bracing for what is likely to be a boneheaded level of discourse that is going to be Conservatives and most members of the media wondering where the agreement for a pipeline is at the end of the day, completely ignoring the fact that there are currently no pipeline proposals on the table, and you can’t just pre-approve a theoretical pipeline in a vague direction. But surely, Energy East! That project died because the proponent thought the safer bet was Keystone XL. There is no west-east pipeline being proposed currently by anyone, and not one that is going to displace oil imports in Atlantic Canada (Energy East was an export pipeline). We are not going to build LNG terminals on the East Coast, because there is no business case for it. Carney saying he wants to build isn’t going to change the economics of these non-existent projects, but you just know that people are going to be pointing to a lack of agreement on “pipelines” or whatever is just going to subject us to an insufferable discourse, and I’m really, really not looking forward to it.
Ukraine Dispatch
Russia engaged in overnight shelling and air attacks on Sumy and Zaporizhzhia regions. Previously in the weekend, they had a major drone attack that included Kyiv. But Ukraine got their kicks in, in a big way—a massive drone attack that had been in the works for nearly 18 months, dubbed “spiderweb,” which saw transport trucks with hidden compartments placed across Russia near strategic airfields, and over Sunday, they all attacked, destroying upwards of 40 Russian strategic aircraft on their airfields, some of which are irreplaceable nuclear bombers. After which, Ukraine said sure, we’ll meet for “peace talks” in Istanbul again, and they’re bringing a “roadmap” to a peace settlement. After the kicking they gave Russia, I’m sure talks will be interesting.
Pretty dramatic day in Russia: Ukrainian drones have reportedly attacked four Russia air bases, destroying a significant number of strategic bombers and radar planes. (Tu-95s, Tu-22, A-50)Russian milbloggers are furious. One calls it a "black day," another says they need to nuke Kyiv.
Good reads:
- Carney has named former UN ambassador Marc-André Blanchard has his new chief of staff, starting in July, and David Lametti will be his principal secretary.
- Canada Post has rejected its union’s offer for binding arbitration, wanting instead a vote from the membership on their “final offer.”
- The NDP are starting to opine about what the leadership race should look like, but very few are declaring their intentions to jump into that race.
- Don Davis is grousing that the government isn’t being transparent enough about trade talks with the US that aren’t actually happening.
- New language laws came into effect in Quebec over the weekend, and here are five things to know about them.
- Kevin Carmichael notes that a decade of “feminist” government hasn’t done enough to eliminate the economic “child penalty,” which requires more child care spots.
- Kevin Milligan laments that a form of NIMBYism has essentially made tax reform in this country impossible.
- Susan Delacourt pays heed to the fact that while Carney talks about humility, there was a whole lot of humbling that happened in that election.
Odds and ends:
New episodes released early for C$7+ subscribers. This week I'm back with @patriciatreble.bsky.social to talk about what we saw during the royal visit. #cdnpoli #MapleCrown
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-06-01T23:29:40.604Z
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