One of the stories that has been floating around the past few days is that Toronto stands to lose up to $30 million in federal funding from the Housing Accelerator Fund because council did not approve city-wide zoning for sixplexes, which was a condition that they signed up for when they negotiated their deal for this money. And of course, this also comes with voices who claim that the federal government would be “using money as punishment” if they don’t give them all the money anyway, even though they have quite deliberately thumbed their noses at the very thing that they agreed to in order to get that money.

The established media narrative is that municipalities are *always* the victims who have no tools at their disposal.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-07-13T17:58:54.360Z

Unfortunately, we have a history of the federal government backing down when it comes to either giving money anyway when deals are broken, or by not recovering costs when they should. For example, the federal government was clawing back health transfers from New Brunswick for not funding abortion access at a clinic that was in an underserved part of the province, but when COVID hit, they released all of the clawed back money so that they didn’t look like the bad guys in ensuring that the province was living up to its obligations (or, for that matter, proving that they were sticking to their feminist principles, and using that money as leverage for the province to back down and fund the clinic). Another example is that provinces have deliberately underfunded their emergency management systems because they have been conditioned to know that the federal government will provide assistance from the Canadian Forces, and that provinces will get that assistance for free. The federal government has the authority to recover those costs from the provinces, but they never do because it would look like they’re somehow being mean to those provinces, when the provinces deliberately underfunded their own capacity.

If we want to reform things and start enforcing a system of accountability, that starts with making sure that provinces and municipalities live up to their agreements, or they don’t get transfer payments. But that requires a backbone and a willingness to actually hold them to account for those failures, and not being so timid that they refuse to actually say in clear terms that those provinces or municipalities didn’t live up to their agreements, so they would lose the funding/didn’t fund their own services because they thought they could get federal services for free, but they can’t, because there’s one taxpayer and they think they’re being clever. Nothing will change if someone doesn’t take a stand, and it’s time we start doing so.

Ukraine Dispatch

Trump says that America will resume sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine, so we’ll see how long it lasts this time.

Good reads:

• Anita Anand says the Indo-Pacific Strategy is taking on a more economic focus, but insists we’re not abandoning our values. (Aren’t we?)
• Half of complex dental plan requests under the federal programme are being rejected, ostensibly because of “growing pains.”
• Here’s a look at the destruction of PEPFAR, which has saved millions of lives, and how the evangelical community has shrugged after saying they cared about it.
• Pierre Poilievre now says he lost his riding because he was “too honest” about the need for job cuts in the civil service. (So that bit of introspection is going well).
• Here is a look at how Danielle Smith can be responsive to concerns…so long as you’re the right kind of person who can keep her in power.
• An emerald ash borer infestation was found in Vancouver after one of the beetles flew into an amateur entomologist who was able to alert authorities.
• Paul Wells talks to Minna Ålander from Chatham House about the recent happenings with NATO and how it impacts Canada.
• My weekend column wonders when Carney will actually start behaving like the old relationship with the US is over, instead of debasing himself for a trade deal.

Odds and ends:

New episodes released early for C$7+ subscribers. This week I'm talking to @aleach.ca about Bill C-5 and the possibility of new pipelines given the changes in the energy market #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-07-14T03:24:50.779Z

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