From Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, both Anita Anand and prime minister Mark Carney defended their visit and all of the business deals they’re drumming up under the rubric of “engagement is not endorsement,” because remember, Carney’s brand of “pragmatism” is that he’s ready to jettison values at the drop of a hat. Any hat. If any of this feels familiar, it’s because it’s like we’re back in 1995 again, and the Canadian government and all of the mandarins in Ottawa sincerely believe that when it comes to China or any other unsavoury regime that we’re one trade deal away from them improving their human rights. We’ve been down this road—the whole we’ll take your money and hope that it vicariously improves your human rights thing didn’t work then and it won’t work now. All you’re doing is sending the explicit message that so long as you have money, human rights don’t matter.
Carney's readout of his meeting with Prince Bonesaw.No mention of rights, or not murdering journalists and dismembering them because you don't like what they said about you.
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-07-09T15:36:38.647Z
Longer release from PMO about the "bilateral relationship" with Prince Bonesaw, and the only mention of rights is in relation to the conflict in Sudan.
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-07-09T19:41:27.912Z
Sure, Anand says she raised human rights concerns in private, but what good does that do? In Saudi Arabia of all places, where you get jail time for liking a tweet that ridicules Prince Bonesaw, or where you get lashes for being openly critical. The same Saudi Arabia who murdered and dismembered a journalist who was critical of their regime. It shouldn’t be such a low bar to say that maybe that’s not a regime that we want to do business with. Carney insists that “lecturing from afar” is “ineffective,” but not rewarding them economically is not simply “lecturing.” And if we’re just going to follow the money with no regard for rights or values, then what exactly is the point of having any values? Why not simply become transactional Americans? Let’s give our heads a shake.
Sports betting
The National Post has a longread out about the rise of sports betting in Canada, but in the promotional email they sent around to subscribers, it was titled “Canada rolled the dice on online sports betting. No one saw the harms.” Nope. This is what happens when you have no institutional memory in your reporters. The story only mentions the final bill to legalise betting, which did pass, and how it had support then. There was no mention of the half-dozen or so previous iterations that all went down in defeat, and which were sometimes passed in the Commons through procedural chicanery by the NDP (who were the sponsors of these bills, because their Windsor MP wanted to help the casinos in his riding), with very little scrutiny. It was in the Senate that these bills saw actual study, and yes, there were scores of people, including sports bodies, who outlined the harms of this kind of sports betting. And by the final bill, they had basically given up because the overriding argument, including from the Trudeau government, was “If we don’t legalise it, people will just do it illegally online, so this way we get the money.” But yes, plenty of people knew there would be harm, and nobody listened to them.
Email header from the National Post to advertise their new longread. Completely false—lots of people saw the harms. In the various attempts to legalize it, you had expert after expert in the Senate testifying that this was bad news. Every sports organization said so. Everyone ignored them because $.
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-07-09T15:07:49.346Z
The NDP, who kept sponsoring private members' bills to legalise this kind of betting, played every procedural trick in the book to keep trying to pass these bills, until Trudeau came in and decided to make this government legislation.Lots of people saw the harms, but they all shrugged.
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-07-09T15:07:49.347Z
My Latest:
My Xtra column calls out Jamil Jivani’s attempt to rack up persecution points by going to war against Carney’s attending Toronto Pride and basking in the replies.
Ukraine Dispatch:
Russia hit an ammunition warehouse on the outskirts of Kyiv earlier this week. Russia’s Saratov oil refinery has stopped processing after a drone attack.
I deeply appreciate that Zelenskyy refers to these drone strikes as "long-range sanctions."
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-07-10T02:32:06.003Z
Noteworthy:
- Supriya Dwivedi warns about the likelihood of foreign interference coming from the US, as well as Russia, when it comes to amplifying Alberta separatism narratives.
- Paul Wells ponders Carney’s visit to Saudi Arabia in the hopes of getting big dollars.
A nine-day nomination race in Beaches—East York? Sounds to me like the leader's office is making it look like it's open while putting their thumbs on the scale for their preferred candidate. www.thestar.com/politics/fed…
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-07-10T01:40:38.513Z
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The coverage about Carney’s visit to Saudi Arabia was equally shameful, at least from the CBC. You’d think journalists would feel it a little more. But their fawning over Carney has made them useless. The murder barely got a mention, though they certainly made note of the perceived slighting of Trudeau.
“These days you have to do business with Saudi Arabia”. That’s the CBC giving you the lowdown.
This is the worst iteration of the Liberals in my lifetime.