Word has been obtained by the Globe and Mail that the Conservative Party plans to change their nomination processes after riding associations have been making their objections known to the central party about the way those races were handled in the lead-up to the election. You may recall that there were a number of sudden disqualifications, or where would-be candidates had spent months fundraising and selling memberships only for someone else to be parachuted into the riding as candidate in their place, leading to a few of them deciding to help the Liberal in the riding instead because of such a betrayal by their party.

While it sounds good that the party is hearing these complaints and planning to make changes, we’ll see what changes they end up implementing, because this is something that all parties are failing on. Grassroots nomination races are supposed to be the place where the local party members can most influence the party by selecting who they want on the ballot, but it’s also a place where they should be able to hold the incumbent accountable for their actions (or inaction), and replace them on the ballot if they so choose. But increasingly, parties have been protecting incumbents under the dubious rhetoric that they’re too busy in Ottawa to run in an open nomination, or that it somehow prevents mischief when sometimes that means thwarting the will of a local membership base that is dissatisfied.

If the Conservatives re-commit to transparent, open nominations, that’s a good thing for democracy, which is something that the Liberals most especially right now are failing at (thanks especially to rules that Trudeau pushed through when he revamped the party’s constitution to centralise power under the dubious excuse of needing to be more “nimble.”) But I also don’t hold out too much hope that these rules will be the grassroots rules we should have, because too many party leaders have come to depend on being able to put a thumb on the scales of nomination races to get their preferred candidates into caucus, even though that has created more problems in the long run than it solved.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-18T14:08:03.467Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian forces attacked a coal mine in southeastern Ukraine on Sunday, but there were no fatalities. It turns out that during that meeting at the White House last week, Trump was back to using Russian propaganda and demanding Ukraine surrender the entire Donbas region.

Good reads:

• As the government tries to attract investment for digital asbestos data centres, there are questions about their water use, as the country faced severe drought this year.
• The new Indian High Commissioner is dismissing the credible allegations of his government’s transnational repression and is playing the victim.
• The Bishnoi Gang is trying to rebrand themselves as Robin Hood-type criminals, while insisting that extortion-related shootings are the work of “copy-cats.”
• Kevin Carmichael looks to The Gilded Age to draw economics lessons from that we should be thinking about in the current context.
• Philippe Lagassé implores us to consider the trade-offs inherent in the current bout of defence procurement, and what those are going to mean in the broader context.
• Justin Ling suggests reviving Radio Canada International to help fill the gap left by the demise of Voice of America, lest Russia and China fill it instead.
• Susan Delacourt reflects on ten years since “Sunny ways” made an appearance, and the changes in the world since, then, especially as progressivism retreats.
• Shannon Proudfoot remarks on the fissures developing amongst the premiers as “Team Canada” starts to come apart at the seams.
• My weekend column calls out Poilievre doubling down on the MAGA-Lite™ shtick to drum up support for his upcoming leadership review.

Odds and ends:

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