Prime minister Mark Carney opened the day at an Ottawa-area grocery store, announcing that as an affordability measure, the government is going to increase the GST rebate by 25 percent for the next five years, and rebrand it as the “Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit,” which is a mystifying name, and like they didn’t learn a gods damned thing from the “Climate Action Incentive” fiasco. (Honest to Zeus, you guys!) But yes, giving low-income people money is a good way to go about it, and the Conservatives say they’ll support it, for what it’s worth, even though they continue to insist that the real culprit are those imaginary “hidden taxes” that aren’t taxes, and which have a negligible impact on the price of food.

This rebranding shows they didn't learn a fucking thing after the "Climate Action Incentive" fiasco.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-27T04:57:18.254Z

More money and top ups to GST credit is good as myself, @gillianpetit.bsky.social and @jrobson.bsky.social wrote about before policyoptions.irpp.org/2022/09/gst-….Renaming it is unnecessary and has unnecessary risks. I don’t understand

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2026-01-26T16:49:53.171Z

Conservatives still pushing the bullshit line that it's "hidden taxes" driving up food prices and not climate change.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-26T18:01:22.926Z

Carney also promised to tackle the “root causes” of food price inflation, but he remains fairly vague about what they are. “Global supply chain shocks caused by tariffs, weather events from a changing climate, and geopolitical disruptions have caused food prices to rise faster than overall inflation.” This is fine enough in the abstract, but when you’re being assailed daily over certain prices, I would prefer some better explanation. He went on to say “Orange juice is up 12% year-over-year, ground beef is up 19%, and coffee and tea are up by 24%,” but could have added that orange juice is up because the crops were devastated by hurricanes, that ground beef is up because drought on the prairies means herds needed to be culled, and coffee and tea are up because of growing conditions in the countries where they are produced. And while it’s all well and good to signal that he plans to help support the construction of new greenhouses and to fix supply chains in this country, that doesn’t actually solve the broader climate issues that he needs to be honest about and explicit about for it to sink in.

From there, Carney jetted off to Toronto to have a pizza lunch with Doug Ford, in order to soothe Ford’s hurt feelings over the whole Chinese EV thing, and they denied that there was ever any tension. Ford later sang the praises of the federal auto strategy, which seems to indicate that maybe he should have waited for a phone call before throwing a tantrum in public, but hey, what would Ford be if he wasn’t constantly infantilising himself with these kinds of antics while insisting he’s the “fun uncle” who doesn’t have to handle adult responsibilities.

The pool readout from Carney's pizza lunch with Ford.Zeus wept.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-26T22:09:06.947Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia has once again attacked Kharkiv, leaving 80 percent of the city and surrounding area without power.

Good reads:

• Both Mark Carney and Steven MacKinnon deny that they are planning for a spring election, and say they want results for Canadians.
• Here is a look into why Carney’s Quebec City speech went over so poorly in Quebec, and why it sounds like he didn’t get enough advice before delivering it.
• Anita Anand says that a Canadian Coast Guard ship will be attending the opening of the new Canadian consulate in Greenland.
• Gary Ananadasangaree’s office says that 22,000 firearms have been declared by their owners to be intended for the buyback programme in the first week.
• Anandasangaree has finally circulated a name for the proposed foreign interference commissioner, months later than initially promised.
• Thanks to Evan Solomon, the federal government is subsidising a company that is providing wiretap technology to ICE. Yes, that ICE.
• The US ambassador is making thinly veiled threats about the future of NORAD if we don’t buy all 88 F-35 fighters, and insists the US is not a threat to Canada.
• A South Korean delegation is visiting Ottawa to help sell their submarine contract; they have also signed an agreement with Algoma Steel to support those subs.
• Former Liberal Cabinet minister Kirsty Duncan died after a long battle with cancer.
• The Tyee looks into some of the loudmouthed, conspiratorial claims by Jeffry Rath, one of the leaders of the Alberta separatists.
• Jennifer Robson does a quick evaluation of the proposed enhanced GST credit for food insecurity.
• Susan Delacourt has some questions about the meddling by Americans with the Alberta separatists.

Odds and ends:

For National Magazine, I take a preview of what’s on the Order Paper for the winter sitting of Parliament.

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