Have you heard that statistic that almost have of Canadians are less than $200 away from insolvency? It’s a zombie statistic that keeps coming up every few months, and well, Pierre Poilievre has revived it yet again as part of his economically illiterate campaign against the government (where his solution is more neoliberal cuts to government capacity and supports in the hopes that it’ll lead to trickle-down economics for real this time). Anyway, that number is not true, nor has it ever been true. But it keeps. Coming. Back.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have also been claiming that the latest job numbers showed 73,000 lost jobs. Which isn’t actually true, because there was a net positive, and more than that, the data showed that losses in part-time work were offset by more jobs in full-time work. But they think people are as economically illiterate as they are, so they will torque numbers to say things they didn’t really say to “prove” that the Liberals are terrible for the economy, as if we aren’t in the midst of a trade war that we have been more resilient then anticipated in. But who cares about facts, data, or context?

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy is declaring a state of emergency in the energy sector over the blackouts cause by Russian attacks. Ukraine’s new defence minister says that he plans to overhaul their organizational structure, and that they face a two million “draft dodgers” and 200,000 desertions. Here is a photo gallery of Ukrainians coping with the blackouts in the middle of winter.

Good reads:

• Mark Carney has landed in Beijing, as part of his “economic reset.” Carney appears to be getting less fanfare from Chinese media than Trudeau did.
• At her Beijing media availability, Anita Anand kept hedging and backing away from previous language about China as a “disruptive force.”
• A Statistics Canada report shows that Indigenous adults are incarcerated at ten times higher rate than non-Indigenous adults; for Black people, it’s three times.
• The Logic takes a deep dive into the background of Mark Wiseman, Canada’s new ambassador to the US.
• In which Michael Kovrig spells out China’s political and economic strategy to force Canadian compliance, and offers solutions to blunt their attacks.
• Saab says that Canada would need to buy 72 Gripens and six GlobalEye surveillance aircraft to deliver the promised 12,600 jobs.
• Critics say that Carney’s government is dragging their feet on files like the foreign agent registry while they try to get their “economic reset” with China.
• Quebec premier François Legault has announced his resignation (given that his party is currently projected to win zero seats in the upcoming election).
• Ontario Liberal Party leader Bonnie Crombie has pushed up her formal resignation to immediately (so maybe the party will finally get the leadership process started).
• BC will not be renewing their drug decriminalisation experiment after three years, because when you half-ass your implementation, you don’t get results. Funny that.
• Kevin Carmichael posits that we need to start having Royal Commissions to start building consensus around doing hard things—like reforming the tax code.
• Carmichael also talks to Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem about central bank independence in light of what is happening in the US.
• Andrew Coyne reflects on the importance of central bank independence in a tale that is very close to home for him (as his father at the centre of the Coyne Affair).
• Susan Delacourt offers a reminder of the hard things that Carney needs to deal with when he gets back from his current world tour.
• Paul Wells considers the ramifications of François Legault’s resignation.

Odds and ends:

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