The losers at the Longest Ballot Committee are back at it, this time targeting the by-election in Terrebonne, because of course they are. Despite the fact that their supposed protest has not garnered them any actual traction to their cause, which tracks, because their means of protest is pretty divorced from the results they’re trying to achieve, which is to convince people that what we really need is proportional representation. Flooding the ballot with names nobody will vote for doesn’t scream “We need PR,” but what do I know? And then, their “longest ballot” turned into the shortest ballot in Battle River—Crowfoot, when it simply became a write-in ballot because it was easier for Elections Canada at that point (even though those ballots take more time to verify).

This being said, we could have had measures to help blunt their attempts when the House of Commons was trying to pass changes to the Canada Elections Act in the previous parliament, and the Chief Electoral Officer had suggestions for how to thwart these losers, but none of it got implemented. Why? The Conservatives, led mostly by the antics of Michael Cooper. The Conservatives decided to fuck around with that bill instead of treating it seriously for a myriad of reasons, some of which included the fact that one of the proposals was to move the “fixed” election date a week later to avoid Diwali, but it also would have put a bunch of MPs (mostly Conservatives) over the line for their pensions, and the Conservatives (and Bloc and NDP) decided that this was a ploy by the Liberals to get their MPs those pensions (again, even though it was mostly the Conservatives who would benefit).

Cooper then spent his time on dilatory motions, such as “reasoned amendments” at second reading to prolong debate, and then once at committee, it was all manner of silly buggers, like “Change the fixed election date to three weeks from now so that the election is before Jagmeet Singh’s pension comes to pass,” and on and on it went, until we had the prorogation for Trudeau’s announced resignation, and the election call once the leadership had passed, before prorogation ended. That meant the bill died, and no changes were made to blunt the losers at the Longest Ballot Committee from doing this over, and over again, no matter that the Conservatives complained when Poilievre was targeted. And so, here we are, with them going at it yet again.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia made a rare daytime drone attack on Kyiv, that included targeting the city’s independence monument. Russia claims to have taken a dozen settlements over the past two weeks, which Ukraine is disputing (as they push Russian lines back).

Good reads:

• In London, Mark Carney met with Keir Starmer to discuss current events, and later had an audience with the King of Canada.
• Canada joined the UK, France, Italy and Germany in warning Israel not to begin ground operations in Lebanon.
• David McGuinty again says that Canada’s  military might be called on to assist allies, but won’t be involved in any offensive operations against Iran.
• The federal government is putting $200 million toward a space launchpad in Nova Scotia, to develop domestic launch capabilities, particularly for satellites.
• Research has found that most of the major digital asbestos platforms trained their models using Canadian journalism, which went uncredited and unpaid.
• The CBC is obsequiously both-sidesing reaction to Lori Idlout’s floor-crossing.
• NDP leadership hopeful tried to organise a second-ballot support plan with Rob Ashton to stop Avi Lewis, but was rebuffed.
• Doug Ford defended his proposed Access to Information changes to exempt his private phone records, citing the threat of “Communist China.” No, seriously.
• Alberta might actually force oil companies to pay their municipal taxes (but not back taxes, because some of those companies no longer exist).
• Ross Linden-Fraser from the Canadian Climate Institute explains why the industrial carbon price has virtually zero impact on food prices.
• Marty Patriquin talks to a Quebec billionaire who is furious with the Legault government and the return of the separatist menace in the province.
• Colin Horgan has a few sharp words for Mark Carney ignoring the domestic forces that are unaffected by his Davos-speech “pragmatism.”

Odds and ends:

Our Sovereign and the Commonwealth remain an enduring part of our national story — pillars of continuity in a changing world.An honour to meet with His Majesty King Charles III today in London.

— Mark Carney (@mark-carney.bsky.social) 2026-03-16T19:10:05.601Z

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