Three more premiers have now joined Danielle Smith in her demand for more say in judicial appointments, both at the provincial superior court level as well as when it comes to Supreme Court of Canada nominees, and it would be the usual suspects—Scott Moe, Doug Ford, and François Legault. Quite immediately, federal justice minister Sean Fraser essentially told them to go pound sand, which is the correct answer, but that doesn’t mean they won’t cause a fuss about this, and try and invent a new grievance out of this.
The most vicious populists among our batch of deplorable provincial premiers. They seek to politicize, in the ugliest of ways, the judicial appointments process. This must be rejected outright.
— Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦 (@emmettmacfarlane.com) 2026-03-24T17:31:55.038Z
Clearly these premiers, each of whom are constitutional vandals who have invoked the Notwithstanding Clause, are looking to politicise the appointments to their own ends, often with nonsense around judges being too “soft on crime.” Never mind that the vast majority of criminal cases are heard by provincially-appointed judges, whose appointments they already control (and Doug Ford has taken steps to make the process more partisan in Ontario), they are looking to exert more influence over appointments because they believe they can find candidates who will be more favourable to their positions, particularly when their constitutionality is challenged. Danielle Smith likes to refer to federally-appointed judges as “agents of Ottawa,” even though they are from the province they are appointed in, on the advice of local judicial advisory committees, which provincial governments already play a role in, both in terms of advising and vetting potential nominees to ensure that they don’t see problems with them.
I would add that the other thing about these judges being federally-appointed is that they are paid for by the federal government, and considering how much provinces already underfund their justice systems, I would not want to see them in control of even more appointments, whom they will underfund and undermine at every turn.
Ukraine Dispatch
Russia launched nearly 1000 drones at Ukraine, 550 of which were during the daytime and hit as far as Lviv. Here is a look at Ukraine’s strikes on Russian energy facilities.
Good reads:
- At the national prayer breakfast, Mark Carney called for more humility in politics.
- The government rejected a Senate amendment to their bill to clamp down on asylum seeker that sought to limit information sharing to provinces.
- Elections Canada will be using write-in ballots in the Terrebonne by-election because the Longest Ballot losers are back at it.
- The Future of Sport Commission released its final report, and it has over 100 recommendations, including the creation of a new Crown corporation.
- Documents showed how the now-disbanded RCMP Security Service spied on Indigenous rights movements (just like feminists, while they persecuted gays).
- Here is a look into the issue of Iranian proxies versus the notion that there are “sleeper cells” in Canada (which there aren’t).
- A committee clerk called security on a reporter for recording a public committee meeting—and later had to apologise. (Just bizarre!)
- The Official Languages committee has summoned Air Canada’s CEO over his unilingual condolence video, when one of the pilots was a francophone Quebecker.
- The Procedure and House Affairs committee released a report with recommendations to help thwart the Longest Ballot losers in the future.
- The Public Safety committee summoned Gary Anandasangaree, apparently to explain how due process works for people facing deportation.
- The upcoming Liberal convention will debate resolutions on disallowance, age verification, and electoral reform. (Sigh)
- Doug Ford attacked his province’s privacy commissioner over concerns about his proposed changes to Access to Information laws, because of course he did.
- Danielle Smith says she won’t meet the early deadlines in the MOU about carbon pricing and the Pathways project—and maybe not a private proponent.
- Paul Wells updates his end-of-media series with a new chapter on how suddenly everyone wants to talk. A lot. All the time. And why that has its challenges.
- My column ponders the likelihood that Carney is going to smother the Canadian Ombuds for Responsible Enterprise in its sleep rather than be embarrassed by it.
Odds and ends:
A line from Poilievre's latest open letter: Even the CBC’s J. P. Tasker called it “one of the more damning reports” to be released in an interview last night.www.conservative.ca/fire-the-fai…
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-24T20:16:21.862Z
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