Late last week, prime minister Mark Carney was at the Global Progress Action Summit in Toronto, and gave a speech that seems to be a bit of a Rorschach test about how you feel about him and the job he’s doing. While I believe he’s correct in saying that the loss of control people feel with affordability and the rise of digital asbestos leads to a “politics of grievance,” I am less convinced the same is true for immigration, and that it has proven a reliable scapegoat by everyone, Carney included, which is absolutely dangerous—especially when he uses phrases like “taking back control.” He also says that the current moment has been “seized by politicians who seek to destroy and dismantle and progressives must answer by building,” but he has been eroding and quietly dismantling the actual progressive programmes brought in by his predecessor. The fact that he is calling himself a “progressive” is stretching the definition to its breaking point.

Amidst this, there was another statement that raises even more eyebrows, which is that “Like Mexico, Canada remains open to deeper integration, including options for fortress North America in (certain) sectors. And to be clear, those offers are on the table.” Deeper integration? Fortress North America? So, after all of the talk about how being solely dependent on the US as a single trading partner has been a strategic weakness and that we need to diversify so that we have options and can’t be held hostage, we want to integrate even more closely in strategic sectors with the same country that has been trying to hold us hostage, threatening our sovereignty, and which has taken to bullying us because they think they can get away with it without consequence? I mean, I get that we cannot fully decouple from the US because of geography (and even Taiwan trades mostly with China, because of geography), but this message seems at odds with everything happening, and it’s really hard to see how he can promise this without some pretty heavy caveats up front, and I’m not exactly seeing anything that inspires me with confidence.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-05-10T23:08:01.480Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia violated the ceasefire by making drone strikes on the front lines, and Ukraine launched a few drones in response. Putin claims the war will be winding down soon, but said they will be victorious, but are even further away from their aims, so we’ll see. Here is a look into the dispute between Ukraine and Israel over shipments of stolen grain, and why Israel is uncomfortably close to Russia.

Good reads:

• The government has not moved to ban flavoured vapes, five years after promising to do so, but it sounds like it may be a more fraught issue than on the surface.
• There is a hearing underway about the how military police were not responsive to a requested wellness check for a serving member, who ended up committing suicide.
• The director of CSIS is warning that a referendum in Alberta is likely to be vulnerable to Russian interference.
• Labour trafficking is expected to get worse as the federal government clamps down on temporary residents and work permits.
• Here is a look at some of the people being affected by the constantly shifting permanent residency requirements, which will affect us down the road.
• Mary Simon has started her first round of exit interviews, with a wide-ranging conversation about the Queen, Zelenskyy, and working to advance reconciliation.
• Simon has also defended her French, saying she can read and understand better than speaking it conversationally.
• At the public safety committee, privacy experts have been pushing back against the lawful access bill because it’s overbroad and carries major privacy risks.
• Nate Erskine-Smith lost his nomination bid in Scarborough by nineteen votes.
• Four Canadians on the cruise ship carrying hantavirus are on their way to BC, where they will be put into quarantine for a minimum of twenty-one days, possibly longer.
• Kevin Carmichael explains the bond market, and why Canada needs to get back to providing inflation-protected bonds for the sake of our institutional investors.
• Richard Warnica rounds out his series of stories on the Alberta separatists, and the kinds of things they are planning (some of which are positively Gilead).
• My weekend column calls out Jason Kenney’s insistence that federalists across the country need to deal with the separatist crisis that he stoked for political gain.

Odds and ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take points out that the voter list leak in Alberta is an opportunity for MPs to fix their parties’ privacy obligations in Bill C-25.

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