It was Mark Carney’s in his first Calgary Stampede as prime minister over the weekend, and it started off on Saturday with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters pancake breakfast, where Carney struggled with flipping pancakes, and was subjected to taunts about how he was worse than Justin Trudeau at it, which he insisted he was better at other things than Trudeau was. He also quipped that he was better with Eggo Waffles, so at least he had a sense of humour about it. He ran into Danielle Smith at said event, but didn’t run into Pierre Poilievre because Poilievre stayed in his vehicle until Carney left.

From the pool report at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters pancake breakfast at the Calgary Stampede this morning:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-07-05T19:18:51.244Z

Carney also gave some local interviews, and of course, the subject of a future pipeline came up, and Carney said he was “confident” that they would get those projects built, and that the private sector was going to do it. But there are no proponents looking to build a pipeline anytime soon, so this remains a fantasy in the eyes of a number of conservatives who insist that it’s still 2014. There was also more special pleading about the Pathways Alliance carbon sequestration project, which again misrepresents what the issue is, which is that they want the government to pay for it, because it’s not economically viable, particularly with the price of carbon as low as it is industrially (and now free for the consumer).

I also need to remind everyone that in all likelihood, the federal government’s plan to use their big Henry VIII clause to simply bypass existing legislation is just going to do the same thing that Harper’s 2012 environmental rewrite did—land projects in court, because it created more uncertainty, not less. And once again, I’m going to adopt a Mallory Archer voice to ask “Do you want litigation? Because that’s how you get litigation.”

Ukraine Dispatch

While there was more trading of drone attacks over the weekend, it looks like Ukraine struck a Russian airfield and its glide bomb stores. Russia has started a new offensive in the Kharkiv region, while they claim to have taken control of two more settlements in the Donetsk region.

Good reads:

• Expect more tariff drama this week, as Trump’s original 90-day “pause” expires, and we’ll see what bullshit comes next.
• Maninder Sidhu talks about expanding Canada’s trade opportunities, but that also includes difficult markets like China and India.
• Secretary of state Stephen Fuhr is coming to the job with ideas on how to speed up the military’s procurement system.
• Here’s a look at the dilemma facing the government around the future of the EV mandate, and whether they will capitulate and kill it, or just fudge the numbers.
• General Jennie Carignan says that work is underway to figure out how to distribute the promised pay increase, which should boost recruiting and retention.
• Here’s a longread about the arrest of the Indian agent that Americans believe was contracting killings in the US and Canada.
• A grassroots NDP group wants party donors to direct their funds to riding associations and not the central party until they can get their acts together.
• There has been more progress by the two ousted UCP MLAs in Alberta to revive the province’s Progressive Conservative party, and they now need 9000 signatures.
• Paul Wells talks to a tax law professor about the Digital Services Tax, what it does and other mechanisms we could use to do similar things.
• My weekend column takes on that joint letter the Alberta and Ontario environment ministers wrote, demanding the repeal of federal environmental laws.

Odds and ends:

New episodes released early for C$7+ subscribers. This week I'm answering your #cdnpoli questions.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-07-06T23:12:55.864Z

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.