Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith put out a video on his YouTube channel where he gives an honest assessment of the budget, including places where it fails to live up to the hype. As a backbench MP, this is not only his right, but his obligation, but boy howdy, a bunch of partisans from all stripes are losing their gods damned minds over this. A backbencher who doesn’t just lobotomise himself to read the scripts handed to him by his leader’s office? The nerve!

It's possible that Erskine-Smith has normalized dissent sufficiently — at least from him — that he can do stuff like this without it becoming a huge deal.www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jtC…

— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2025-11-10T23:00:21.434Z

I was particularly struck by the partisan talking heads on Power & Politics last night who kept going on and on about how politics is a “team sport,” and that as a “member of the government,” he needs to be on-side. Erm, except he’s not a member of the government. Government=Cabinet, and while he is on the government side of the aisle, he is not a member. This is not be just being pedantic—it’s the very nature of how our parliamentary system works. Every member of Parliament, no matter which side of the aisle you’re on, are supposed to hold the government to account, and to keep them in check. Yes, that means government-side backbenchers too. That’s the whole raison d’être of Parliament, but everyone has become so used to the us-versus-them aspect that they have lost sight of that, and it really doesn’t help that Canada has largely lost the culture of backbenchers holding their own side to account because they are so desperate to get into Cabinet, or at least become a parliamentary secretary, that they are generally one ministerial screw-up away from a promotion, so they keep their mouths shut and stand up and clap and read their scripts like a good boy or girl, and that’s something that is fundamentally wrong with how the Canadian parliament operates.

Brad Lavigne and Kate Harrison telling Nate Erskine-Smith that he needs to be a trained seal is some bullshit.Backbenchers have an obligation to hold government to account as much as opposition MPs do. Learn how a Westminster system works, FFS. #PnPCBC

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-10T23:05:20.204Z

The UK, where you have a Chamber of 650 MPs, and a smaller Cabinet (though generally a larger number of junior ministers), generally means you have a lot of backbenchers who know they’ll never get into Cabinet, so they feel empowered to stand up to their own side. Some of them are former ministers who are still serving their constituents, and will let the current government know where they are going wrong. (There are some fantastic videos of Theresa May doing just this, and some videos of her absolutely savaging her successor, Boris Johnson, in PMQs). This is a culture we need to develop here. Of course, adding another hundred or so MPs to our chamber would help (and would really help us have enough bodies for committees without having parliamentary secretaries on them).

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-11-10T23:08:02.225Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Fighting continues in Pokrovosk, Dobropillia, and towns surrounding. Here is a look at life in Kherson, where Russians hunt civilians with drones on a daily basis. The anti-corruption bureau says it has found a $100 million kickback scheme in the state nuclear power company.

Good reads:

• Mark Carney was in New Brunswick to talk about the budget, housing, and to say that the next tranche of major projects will be unveiled on Thursday.
• Sources™ say that a proposed nickel mine in Northern Ontario is on that list.
• François-Philippe Champagne wants he wants Canada to be the NATO partner of choice not only for supplying critical minerals, but in refining them as well.
• Ahead of the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting this week, Anita Anand says that Marco Rubio hasn’t mentioned any talk of annexation (which is the lowest possible bar).
• Julie Dabrusin says the government is standing by its 2035 climate targets, but it looks like they’re just going to fudge around the 2030 target in the meantime.
• Mandy Gull-Masty says that some of the zeroes in the budget are because they are looking to redefine certain Indigenous programmes for the next year.
• Veterans Affairs minister Jill McKnight says she respects the independence of courts who have decided to ban poppies from courtrooms.
• The Canadian Forces is floating an idea of creating a reserve force of 300,000 made up of federal and provincial civil servants given a few weeks’ training.
• Canada Post has submitted their plans to overhaul their operations to the government in what they say will be sustainable going forward.
• A number of housing experts pan what’s in the budget when it comes to housing.
• The Canadian Climate Institute has a fact-sheet on industrial carbon pricing and why it doesn’t impact food prices (or pretty much any prices).
• Mary May Simon is recovering in hospital from a respiratory virus and won’t be at the Remembrance Day ceremony, and will be represented by the Chief Justice.
• The Liberals lost out on the Commons co-chair position of the Canada-US Interparliamentary Group, as not enough showed up to vote.
• BC Conservative riding associations are now calling on MLAs in the caucus to have enough of a spine to oust John Rustad. (Yikes!)
• Mike Moffatt breaks down the problems with the housing parts of the budget, and calls out the government for giving into the scapegoating of immigrants.
• Susan Delacourt picks up on the allegation that Poilievre is running the Conservative Party like a frat house, and how that looks to businesses investing in the country.
• Paul Wells watched Poilievre’s speech on Friday, and hangs him with his own words once again.

Odds and ends:

In light of Remembrance Day, the Citizen looks back at how the Chateau Laurier was a headquarters for the industrialists who remade the economy during WWII.

Here’s a look at how Japanese Canadians enlisted to fight in WWI, in spite of being denied the right to vote.

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