There was a bit of a dust-up, if we can call it that, online over the weekend, following Althia Raj’s weekend column, in which she calls out the fact that while Carney claims he’s protecting social programmes, he is in fact cutting them along with transfers to provinces. And she’s not wrong in the fact that there is a lot of sunsetting funding with no indication that it’s being renewed again, which makes it hard for provinces or organisations to plan on what their future funding will be. Enter Tyler Meredith, who was an economic advisor to Justin Trudeau (but who is now out of government), and he took issue with Raj’s assertions in this thread:

And I take his point that no decisions have been made on any of this funding that is due to sunset, but I also think he’s being a bit overly generous with the government on some things, such as the creation of a personal support workers’ tax credit as “proof” that the government is being too bro-focused. One tax credit does not a care economy/women’s state make, particularly one that is that low. And to that end, Raj gave her own response in this thread:

And she brings the receipts when it comes to what’s in the documents, particularly around how Carney’s rhetoric around things like pharmacare not matching the reality on the ground, where there is a half-assed programme in a few provinces, which has not been extended to all others in the past year, and which seems to be no closer to negotiating toward the creation of an actual national programme, beyond the things the NDP insisted on in the dumbest way possible. Which brings me to this point that Mike Moffatt made about the two exchanges:

The Carney government doesn’t like to give a lot of details, and relies an awful lot on saying “just trust me” to a whole lot of things, which it really shouldn’t do. And then for everyone to get upset because they we can’t read minds or scry into the future is a problem in trying to communicate to the public. We’re not getting good information out of this government, and that needs to change, and these exchanges are a perfect encapsulation of that.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone hit a bus in Kherson, killing two and injuring seven others. Ukraine struck the port of Primorsk, the largest oil export port on the Baltic Sea.

Good reads:

• At the European Political Community Summit in Armenia, Mark Carney accepted an invitation to address the European Parliament.
• Senator McPhedran thinks the growing number of vacancies in the Senate is a sign that its “independence” is in jeopardy. (Not sure it works like that).
• Pierre Poilievre demanded to know Carney’s “leverage” in trade talks, whinged about a pipeline, and supported Doug Ford’s plans for the island airport.
• Conservatives are trying to decide what their position is on a social media ban for minors, and mixed messages are coming out as a result.
• Kevin Carmichael looks into why the current oil shock will hit differently in Canada than previous ones, in part because we fail to capture the benefits of exports.
• Lindsay Tedds remarks on the government ignoring the 50th anniversary of Status of Women, and the quiet cuts and lapses in funding that are killing the sector again.
• Shannon Proudfoot describes how the honeymoon phase is wearing off for Carney, and what that winds up looking like.
• Paul Wells talks to Olena Kryzhanivska about the state of the war in Ukraine, and the development of drone technology along with it.
• Susan Delacourt sits down with Avi Lewis, and talked about journalism, and how that is informing his approach to rebuilding the NDP.

Odds and ends:

The disgusting thing about Poilievre isn't his stupidity, it's his belief that everyone else is stupid.

— Emmett Macfarlane 🇨🇦 (@emmettmacfarlane.com) 2026-05-03T17:28:25.329Z

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