The federal and provincial justice ministers wrapped up a two-day meeting in Kananaskis yesterday, where they discussed shared priorities, particularly around the supposed big problem of bail reform. But did they come up with any commitment to do the actual thing that would make a measurable difference with the bail system, which is for the provinces to actually properly fund the court systems, including hiring and adequately paying Crown prosecutors, training justices of the peace, ensuring there are enough functional court houses that are properly staffed, and that they have enough provincial court judges (who deal with the bulk of criminal cases)? Hahahaha, of course they didn’t.

Readout from the federal-provincial justice ministers' meeting.I don't see a commitment in here from the provinces to properly fund their court systems (but more money for police!), which means all of these promised Criminal Code reforms are next to useless.Slow clap, everyone.FFS

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-10-17T20:09:12.929Z

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-10-17T20:11:58.895Z

Without any of these commitments by the provinces, any tinkering that the federal government does to the Criminal Code is going to mean nothing. It’s just going to clog the justice system even more; it’s going to crowd the already overcrowded provincial jails even more. It’s going to ensure that there are sentencing discounts when people do go to trial and get sentenced. It’s going to mean more lawsuits for keeping wrongfully accused in those overcrowded provincial jails for longer while awaiting trial, only to be acquitted after their lives have been destroyed. Because the federal government refuses to apply enough public pressure to the provinces for them to do their jobs. It’s not actually that difficult, but they absolutely refuse, and so nothing is going to get better, and they will continue to take the blame every time there is another high-profile incident that happens when someone is on bail.

Meanwhile, the federal and provincial health ministers had their own meeting in Calgary, where they totally pledged “deeper collaboration,” but as with justice, there is no commitment by the provinces to do their jobs and properly fund their systems, nor any commitment to reforming things like how family doctors can bill the system, or the practical things that doctors themselves demand. No, instead we get certain ministers like Alberta’s who want more federal support and a move away from “one-size-fits-all” funding programmes, which is ridiculous because the last round of healthcare transfers required the provinces to come up with their own action plans for their own priorities, and those action plans acted as the strings for future tranches of funding by ensuring that priorities were actually met. So again, this is just setting up future failure where they will again blame the federal government. Because apparently this federal government is incapable of learning.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims it has captured three more villages—one in Dnipropetrovsk region, and two in Kharkiv region. President Zelenskyy was in Washington, where Trump waffled on promised military equipment support again, so no surprise there.

Good reads:

• Mark Carney made a re-announcement of the 1000 new CBSA officers, with some more clarity around budget allocations and increased pay.
• The Carney government has returned to the Harper practice of treating our emissions reduction targets as aspirational with no plans to meet them.
• Carney will be heading to Asia for a nine-day trip starting late next week.
• Here is a recap of budget commitments that have been made in recent weeks.
• Lina Diab says the new draconian rules around migrants in C-12 would have been useful during the pandemic, which makes no sense whatsoever.
• The government has removed a series of counter-tariffs on Chinese and American imports, and the Canadian industry is perplexed as to why.
• The federal government and two First Nations have jointly announced the establishment of three marine refuges along BC’s northern coast.
• CRA says that they are ahead of schedule for increasing their answered calls, but they still have more work to do. (No kidding!)
• India’s new High Commissioner to Canada wants a comprehensive trade agreement (but just ignore the whole foreign interference and assassination thing).
• The Supreme Court of Canada ruled 8-1 that judges can use facts from withdrawn charges as part of sentencing considerations.
• Jean Chrétien says that Trump is a threat to democracy. (You don’t say!)
• The former judge appointed to look into the AHS procurement scandal found conflicts of interest were commonly known, but he was denied access to evidence.
• Here is a look at how far-right groups are trying to engineer a takeover of school board elections in Alberta.
• It turns out that poll that showed spiking separatist sentiment in Alberta was from a firm connected to the Alberta’s “Republican Party,” with a Kenney-connected leader.
• Ruxandra Serban does an evaluation of the Trudeau-era prime minister QPs.
• Former Harper spokesman Dimitri Soudas gives a scathing indictment of Poilievre dismantling the party Harper built (albeit with some revisionist history).
• Althia Raj sees Soudas’ missive as a sign that there is blood in the water when it comes to Poilievre’s future.
• Justin Ling warns about the coming combination of lawfare with conspiracy theories, and how Americans are looking to start prosecuting imagined enemies.
• Paul Wells takes a gander through the pre-budget submissions made to the Commons’ finance committee.

Odds and ends:

For National Magazine, I delve into the hate crime legislation and the reactions to it from the legal community.

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