For Truth and Reconciliation Day yesterday, the prime minister was in Edmonton (as he’s still on his oil and gas announcement tour), and gave the usual assurances that this is a process and a journey we are all on, but there didn’t appear to be much in the way of firm commitments on a renewed push for action, and when you consider that his government has been slowly walking back from commitments around the environment, or their shameful walking back of the rights that were expressed in the previous government’s version of the clean drinking water legislation, well, it’s a reminder that a lot of the things Carney says when it comes to his commitments to things tend to be somewhat tenuous and vulnerable to being walked back.
Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre decided that he couldn’t resist a moment to keep being his worst self, so he put out a statement that blamed residential schools on “government interference,” which is what he’s also blaming Alberta separatism on. (When all you have is a hammer…) One probably shouldn’t be too surprised at just how much he completely missed the point in all of this, or the fact that he’s making this all about his faux grievances and bugaboos rather than about the truth of what Canada as a whole perpetrated, or to making any commitment to doing better in the future. Because of course not. This is Poilievre we’re talking about.
Only Pierre Poilievre could turn Truth and Reconciliation Day into a gripe about federal government "intrusion."
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-09-30T20:38:11.023Z
My Latest:
My column wonders why Mark Carney seems so eager to go along with the Big Lie that underpins the referendum that Danielle Smith has engendered.
Ukraine Dispatch:
Russia resumed its attacks on Ukraine’s power grid yesterday, as winter approaches. There were more attacks on Kyiv and Odesa overnight. President Zelenskyy visited military command posts near the eastern frontline.
Noteworthy:
- Mark Carney is in Fort McMurray this morning to announce the fast-tracking of the planned west coast pipeline (which still has no buyers plans to fill it).
- Susan Delacourt notes that with yet another planned resignation announced, Poilievre has now lost more MPs than the NDP had elected while he’s still in charge.
- Paul Wells talks to Anne Applebaum about Trump’s empire of grift, Venezuela, foreign interference in the Alberta referendum, and Carney charming Europe.
- Wells also remarks on the recent moves by the prime ministers of both Canada and the UK when it comes to strengthening ties with the EU.
Setting aside the fact that Quebec cannot abolish the monarchy in any way inside the province, claiming that they would "repatriate" those funds for social causes is pure horseshit. Any kind of elected office to replace the LG would cost vastly more than the LG does (which didn't get fact-checked).
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-01T04:13:46.827Z
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