The more I read about the budget’s “climate competitiveness,” the more I find myself questioning just what is on offer from Mark Carney. There is an attempt to build this so-called “grand bargain” that failed the last time it was tried, where approving the Trans-Mountain Expansion was supposed to help fund the green transition and provide the social licence for doing things like the tanker ban on the northwest coast of BC, and yet here we are, where the oil and gas sector and by extension, the provincial government of Alberta, have not lived up to their end of the bargain at all. The companies that insisted they were going to meet their 2025 Net-Zero targets suddenly started to complain that it was too hard, and when the greenwashing legislation kicked in, suddenly all of those Net-Zero pledges vanished, as though they were never real to begin with.
That’s why I’m particularly unimpressed that one of the promises in the budget is to water down the greenwashing legislation, which sounds an awful lot like Carney is looking for the industry to lie to him once more about all of the reductions that they’re totally going to make in the future—really! You just need to let them have a free hand with even fewer environmental regulations in the meantime. As well, the fact that Carney is pinning his hopes on so-called “decarbonized” oil production with the Pathways project is even looking like he’s going to lose a tonne of money trying to get it to scale up, because hey, he’s offering a bunch of tax credits for them to operate, which is a de facto subsidy for oil operations. But it’s extremely expensive, and all of those oil companies want even more taxpayer money to make it work, while they pocket their profits, naturally. Nevertheless, it looks an awful lot like Carney is going to capitulate to that sector and remove the emissions cap on a bunch of half-hearted greenwashed promises and pretend that he still cares about the environment.
Speaking of the tanker ban, BC premier David Eby and the coastal First Nations are organising a pushback against any move by the federal government to lift it in order to push a pipeline through the region, while Danielle Smith puts ever more pressure on the federal government to approve that project (even though there’s no proponent, or route, or even just a line on a map). Will it be enough to dissuade Carney? At the pace he’s going, I’m not taking any bets.
Ukraine Dispatch
The fighting continues in the streets of Pokrovsk, which is the kind of fighting that can’t be done with the same kind of drone warfare that the rest of the front line has become accustomed to.
Good reads:
- Mark Carney has begun the job of selling the budget to the public, which mostly consists of “Just trust me!”
- The budget had no new funding for national sports organisations, who say they are slowly just bleeding to death. It also promises more telecom competition.
- The budget also promises legislation to speed up the high-speed rail project (but demanding “Buy Canadian” will be tough if no domestic supplier produces the rails).
- Another budget pledge is $55 million for a new national emergency alert system.
- Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Sabia, says the budget will mean the loss of 40,000 civil service jobs, and some programmes shut down.
- Global Affairs says that the government is “exploring” a potential role for Canada in post-war Gaza, which might mean military personnel to monitor the ceasefire.
- Indigenous leaders are unhappy with the budget’s lack of investment in their issues that will cause existing gaps to widen.
- While accepting an award from the International Bar Association, former Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella spoke about the importance of the rule of law.
- It looks like more than 300 MPs have crossed the floor or changed affiliation in some manner since Confederation.
- Chris d’Entremont was warmly welcomed to the Liberal caucus meeting yesterday morning, he directly blamed Poilievre’s leadership for his defection.
- Leonid Sirota rebuts the claims by the Post’s crew of constitutional assclowns that it’s just fine to use the Notwithstanding Clause to suppress rights.
- Philippe Lagassé walks through the budget commitments around defence.
- Jen Gerson posits that Carney’s apology to Trump may demonstrate that “elbows up” is a mere kayfabe, to keep up the appearance of virtue in the face of tyranny.
- Althia Raj notes the lack of vote-buying gimmicks in the budget, and what it signals about Carney’s shunning of retail politics for a technocratic document.
- My column points out that Poilievre’s vision of “hope” for youth is just more austerity and trickle-down economics that created the current situation.
Odds and ends:
For National Magazine, I got reaction from the legal community to the proposed cuts to the justice department and agencies in the federal budget.
My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at some of the calculus about passing the budget and why the NDP may not be owed the same consideration as before.
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