Now that the big NATO summit is over, can we please stop saying that the commitment is to five percent defence spending? Because it’s not. It’s 3.5 percent within a decade, but the whole other 1.5 percent is stuffing a whole lot of things to pad the numbers, whether it’s ports, or airports, or critical mineral mines. It’s creative accounting designed to make Trump think everyone is doing more (because he doesn’t understand NATO and tries to treat it like a protection racket), from a summit that was pretty much an exercise in placating him at all costs. (Takeaways more broadly, and for Canada specifically).

I’m much more concerned about Carney’s vague talk that this spending means trade-offs and possible cuts in other areas, but won’t give any examples of what that could look like. I’m especially concerned because of the way he’s talked about things like using AI, which is entirely in the vein of his having bought into the hype, and what that will inevitably mean are job cuts/losses, and a very, very costly mistake by government when it turns out that AI can’t do what they were sold on it doing for them, and it will compound all of those problems. I’m also not convinced about all of those future revenues that he thinks critical minerals are going to bring in, which sounds a little too much like counting chickens before they’ve hatched, and so on.

Bill C-5 in the Senate

Bill C-5 began deliberations in the Senate yesterday, and passed second reading on a pro forma voice vote, and will have study in committee of the whole today. There was a minor bit of disruption as Senator Patrick Brazeau collapsed from an unspecified “medical event” as he was asking questions to Senator Housakos following his speech as opposition leader, but we’re going to see a lot of hand-wringing about whether the Senate will actually amend the bill. There is pressure from the AFN national chief to slow the bill down, but there will be pressure from both the Government Leader and the Conservatives to pass it as quickly as possible, without amendments, and we’ll hear the usual doom arguments about how it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to recall the House of Commons if they did amend it—never mind that the world would not end if the bill didn’t pass until September.

Meanwhile, we see columnists like Tanya Talaga once again calling on the Governor General to deny royal assent to the bill, and I just can’t. This is actual journalistic malpractice. She can’t deny royal assent. It goes against every tenet of Responsible Government, and if she did, it would be a constitutional crisis of absolutely epic proportions. If it passes and you disagree with it, challenge it in the courts. That’s how the system works. But that column should not have been published, and the editors should have either told her to take out the references to the GG going outside of her authority, or the column should have been spiked. There is absolutely no excuse for this.

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy had a meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit (in a more “calibrated” wardrobe), and Trump said he would “consider” more Patriot missiles, but that means absolutely nothing.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1937826703255994570

Good reads:

• Sean Fraser says that a bill with tougher bail conditions and stricter sentencing for certain offences will be tabled in the fall.
• Next year’s census questions have been approved, and they include questions on sexual orientation, and experience with homelessness.
• The Canadian Forces have been warning the government for years now that climate change makes their operations more costly, but is the government listening?
• The Commissioner of Elections says that there is no evidence that foreign interference, disinformation or voter intimidation affected the April election.
• Three former Iranian regime members have been deemed ineligible to remain in Canada and have been given deportation orders; one has already been removed.
• Google is trying to argue that the CRTC shouldn’t enforce the parts of the Online Streaming Act that require them to share their YouTube revenue figures.
• Former would-be Conservative candidate Mike De Jong says the party’s nomination system needs examination, but doesn’t expect that’ll happen. (It won’t).
• Ontario’s ombudsman says the province needs to address the growing problems in its provincial jails. (Rest assured, Ford will do absolutely nothing about it).
• Two members of the Alberta Next panel say that the issue of denying social services to immigrants originated from the government, not the panel.
• Danielle Smith insists she’ll find a private sector proponent for a new pipeline to the west coast, but industry proponents cite a lack of market demand for one.
• Western glaciers are melting twice as fast as the previous decade. (I wonder why?)
• Stephen Saideman explains the NATO commitment, why it’s not really five percent, and why it remains a lousy metric for an alliance like NATO.
• Colby Cosh snickers at the poor showing that Alberta separatists delivered during the three by-elections this week, one riding of which was in their heartland.

Odds and ends:

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