Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Our supposed democratic freefall

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Earlier in the week, someone forwarded me this piece about how Canada’s democracy is “quietly eroding” while we all watch the US turn into a fascist hellscape, and they had this chart from the latest V-Dem Institute report on how Canada’s democratic scores are in apparent freefall. It looks dubious, so I tried to do a bit more digging (and spent way, way more time doing it than I should have, because I still have columns to write that I get paid for). Nevertheless, I was left wanting. The Institute doesn’t consider us to be a Liberal Democracy, but rather an Electoral Democracy, but what they define as being required for the “liberal dimension”—well-functioning checks and balances on the executive power by the legislature and the judiciary, and a strong rule of law ensuring that equal civil liberties are respected—all sounds like features that are fully intact in this country.

I tried to dig into their methodology, and apparently, they give five “experts” a survey to complete, and they code the results, based on the five metrics that they define, some of which are supposedly in freefall. The “participatory component,” which saw the second-biggest drop, apparently measures the “extent to which citizens actively participate in political processes, both electoral and non-electoral.  It emphasizes engagement beyond voting, focusing on direct democracy, civil society involvement, and subnational governance.” How has this been in freefall for the past nine years? Electoral turnout figures have been reasonably steady, and how exactly is civil society involvement measured? The “deliberative component,” the largest drop, is apparently the “extent to which leaders provide public, evidence-based rationales for policies; the degree to which decisions are oriented toward societal well-being; citizens’ willingness to acknowledge and engage with opposing views; the success at integrating diverse societal groups into policy discussions; and the extent to which deliberation involves grassroots or independent organization.” Again, how has this been in decline over nine years? If anything, there is more stakeholder consultation, there was a (partial) attempt at incorporating GBA+ into decision-making, and we’re not jailing opposition voices here. How has this fallen so drastically? The report doesn’t say.

The professor who wrote the piece linking to the report cited decades-old complaints about the “centralization of power,” and the “uselessness of MPs,” and so on, but these complaints go back decades, and there has been little material change since then. He lists a bunch of Carney’s bills that are either not passed or just passed, which he is justifiably concerned about, but frankly, most of this legislation is not going to survive court challenges, so again, how is this indicative of some kind of democratic decline? The opaqueness of the V-Dem report doesn’t fill me with any confidence, and this sounds a whole lot like alarmism. Yes, there are problems. Yes, Carney is ramming through bad bills, but they can and will be challenged. This is how a liberal democracy functions. Because we are a liberal democracy, despite what V-Dem may think based on its survey scores.

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The (garbage) Reform Act won’t stop an autocrat

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Over the weekend, the Globe and Mail ran a lengthy opinion piece called “It Can Happen Here,” about how we are supposedly more vulnerable to an autocrat taking power in this country, under our rules, than the Americans were with theirs. I am dubious. While I very much respect the professor who wrote the piece, I worry that there were a few fundamental misunderstandings in some of the points he was trying to make. For example, there is a section about how we don’t have an impeachment mechanism in our constitution, and of course we don’t. Our system operates on confidence as opposed to a fixed clock, so we don’t need impeachment. If the government goes pear-shaped, Parliament can withdraw confidence and the government is out. If a caucus loses confidence in their leader, they can vote non-confidence in him or her at any point, and no, they don’t need the (garbage) Reform Act rules to do so.

Our rules can be pretty effective. For example, when Charles Tupper tried to hold onto power after losing an election, the Governor General refused to make any of the appointments that Tupper wanted him to, so he was forced to vacate the office. Oh, but what if the autocratic PM appoints a lapdog GG? People in serious positions tend to take up the seriousness of those positions even when everyone thinks they won’t. Not saying it’s an impossibility, but so far that’s been the case. And yes, some of our rules are “unwritten,” for which he suggests we need a Cabinet Manual to codify them, but I am dubious there too. Codifying those rules in such a manner invites people to look for legalistic loopholes rather than a principles-based system that makes it easier to point out when someone is trying to do through the backdoor what they cannot do through the front. I also find that the piece very much misread and oversimplified what happened with the whole SNC-Lavalin affair as one of the examples of how power can be abused, because in the end, it was Bill Morneau’s office that was lousy with SNC-Lavalin lobbyists and not PMO, and a more pliant Attorney General was not appointed and didn’t result in the deferred prosecution agreement. (In fact, when SNC-Lavalin eventually pleaded guilty, they got a lesser penalty than the DPA would have stipulated).

My biggest problem with the piece, however, is that it treats the (garbage) Reform Act as a kind of panacea that needs to be more widely adopted. It absolutely does not. What it actually does is put up a bunch of unnecessary rules and barriers to what is a simple vote of non-confidence, and more to the point, it tries to convince MPs that they have lost power over time, or that this will “empower” them when in fact it actually disempowers them because of its formalistic barriers. Yes, we do need to beware leaders who can become autocrats, but the Reform Act will not help avoid that in any way, shape or form.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-08-10T19:08:01.763Z

My Latest:

  • For National Magazine, I delve into the Alberta case that the Supreme Court of Canada has recently granted leave to appeal about lawyers’ oaths to the Crown.
  • My column points to the things that the sanitized tales of Conservative “infighting” over generational change are ignoring or glossing over.

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On the “need” to be excited about American primaries

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I got a lot of comments over Bluesky yesterday after my post about Avi Lewis, so I thought I would make a couple of things clear. First of all, when I was talking about “big money” in Canadian elections, I was referring specifically to nomination contests (because Lewis was speaking about primaries) and elections. I am fully aware that big monied interests lobby the government and try to influence policy. That’s not the same thing as using money to influence election outcomes. You may think they’re the same thing because of the American framing and context, but it’s really not.

Secondly, the fact that he “needs” to be excited about “democratic socialists” making gains in the US is exactly what I was referring to about pandering to the extremely online crowd. He doesn’t need to be excited, because it has nothing to do with Canada. Nothing. The NDP, as supposed democratic socialists or social democrats (depending on which member of the party you ask) already exists here as a separate party from the Liberals. There is absolutely nothing to be gained in Canada by latching onto these supposed gains, which may very well be for naught. (These extremely online NDP voices were also really excited about the “gains” made by Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, and neither of them achieved any power, and the latter broke his own party and set his successor up for failure). In addition, the “democratic socialists” in the States are promising things that are the norm in Canada, like single-payer healthcare, or social programs that we already have. Being excited because they are trying to do things we already have is weird.

I get that there are people who are excited about Zohran Mamdani, but again, there is no possible application that this can have for Canada, particularly at the federal level, because again, we don’t have an intra-party struggle for ideological dominance happening. The NDP and the Liberals are separate parties. In addition, all of that “excitement” about Mamdani has led NDP leaders in different provinces and federally to take the wrong lessons. Mamdani’s success was as much about a campaign about fixing everyday things for ordinary people as it was about leftwing ideological purity. As a mayor, he can fix things that affect ordinary people, and that’s much, much harder to do at the federal level. Instead, we get Marit Stiles trying to emulate his video style, and Avi Lewis talking about government-run grocery stores with absurd levels of subsidies that don’t make any logical sense. This is just trying to ride on coat-tails for the extremely online crowd, but social media is not real life. I’m not sure that anyone with any authority in the NDP federally or in Ontario understands that, which again, is why I make the observations that I do.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-08-06T19:08:02.228Z

My Latest:

My column notes that with provincial RCMP contracts up for renewal in 2032, this is the perfect opportunity to end those contracts and dismantle the broken, toxic force.

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Avi Lewis more concerned about US primaries

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I wrote a week ago about how NDP leader Avi Lewis is screaming to obscurity and irrelevance the longer he doesn’t get a seat, and lo, he proves to me that he continues to avoid learning a single gods damned lesson from his predecessor. To wit:

https://bsky.app/profile/avilewis.ca/post/3mse6qtrc3c2p

That’s right. He’s exhilarated by a US primary contest. Oh, and “big money” is not a factor in Canadian politics. We’ve had donation limits and have banned corporate money for almost a quarter century now.

Of course there are many factors shaping this shift, most unique to the US.But there is an underlying feeling that we share in Canada, and its importance cannot be overstated.

— Avi Lewis (@avilewis.ca) 2026-08-05T18:45:41.033Z

Yes, this is entirely unique to the US, because we don’t have primary contests, nomination contests are much, much smaller affairs, and WE DON’T HAVE BIG MONEY IN CANADIAN POLITICS!

People are furious with ultra rich, powerful elites.The social contract has been broken. People who work for a wage or salary (not a dividend or bonus) just can’t make the household math make sense.And we’re looking up at the unlimited wealth of the 1% and we are pissed.

— Avi Lewis (@avilewis.ca) 2026-08-05T18:45:41.034Z

Are they? Because a whole lot of Canadians decided they were just fine with Banker Daddy™, and his numbers keep rising in spite of his having proven himself to be a fraud on so very many files.

This groundswell of populist rage is legitimate, and it’s a completely predictable consequence of our economic system and how it has been managed for the last 50 years.The desire to push back against the smug arrogance and creepy impunity of elites is a defining force in politics today.

— Avi Lewis (@avilewis.ca) 2026-08-05T18:45:41.035Z

It will either be harnessed by progressive politics, to balance the scales of society and make a fairer economy for all…Or it will fuel fascism.That’s the choice. And happily, it's up to us!

— Avi Lewis (@avilewis.ca) 2026-08-05T18:45:41.036Z

Yes, it could fuel fascism, particularly because how the populist right and left define “elites” are very different, and it has nothing to do with money. And if he doesn’t realise that, well, that’s a problem.

Which is why I’m so grateful to be doing the work of rebuilding the NDP into a national fighting force for the working class, and to see so many people rushing through the wide-open doors of our movement.

— Avi Lewis (@avilewis.ca) 2026-08-05T18:45:41.037Z

You’re not going to turn the NDP into a federal fighting force without a seat. It’s just not going to happen. Eventually he’ll learn that lesson, and waste a year or two in the process before he does, and then wonder why he’s constantly trying to play catch-up. And then he’ll wonder why his message doesn’t resonate in Canada, because he continues to cater to a very small group of very online people obsessed with American politics, while offering absolutely nothing that is relevant up here. Had he paid the slightest bit of attention to the political fortunes in his own party for the better part of the past decade, he might recognise that fact, but as we can see, he has refused to learn any of those lessons, and so he’s going to keep repeating his predecessor’s mistakes, and wind up in the same place his predecessor did. Funny how that works.

My Latest:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take notes that we seem to have avoided emergency committee meeting season this summer (as the Liberals have a working majority).

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Hybrid rules are still bad (in case you were wondering)

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Because it’s the summer doldrums, The Canadian Press has decided to check in on the “hybrid” Parliament rules, which are inexplicably still in place, long after the height of the pandemic ended. Well, it should be inexplicable, but for those of us with longer memories, we know that the Liberals were trying to institute these rule changes long before COVID happened, and were never able to get them over the finish line (for good reason!) until COVID, and well, they didn’t let a good crisis go to waste. A lot of them were very committed to the idea that these rule-changes are necessary because of parental responsibilities, and so on. Of course, we now have a handful of MPs who simply don’t show up in Ottawa (one of them was NDP MP Niki Ashton, before she got voted out, but there are others), while we are devaluing the in-person aspects of the job, which cannot be ignored.

I have consistently said this, and I will keep saying it—much of the value of what happens in Parliament are the conversations that happen in corridors, in lobbies, at the sides of committee rooms, that you cannot have online. People underestimate how huge that is. Keeping MPs online also keeps them in party silos, where they don’t see other MPs as human beings, but opponents. In-person meetings and the ability to connect on a human level increases collegiality and decorum. (See: Ending evening sittings in the 1990s and the demise of collegiality). But more than that, there is now a culture of presenteeism where they feel they need to be online all the time, when they should be taking leave for family issues, or medical care, or so on. You can pair votes for absences. You can have someone cover for you at committee. This happened for 150 years, and Parliament functioned just fine. The excuses for why they feel they need this are poor, and it creates more problems than it solves. MPs need to wind down these “hybrid” rules, and end remote voting (because that’s particularly offensive to parliamentary democracy), and engage with one another in person like they’re supposed to.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-08-04T19:08:02.941Z

My Latest:

  • My weekend column wonders how it was that Mark Carney had become an even worse communicator than Justin Trudeau was.
  • My column makes note of the premiers’ attempt to get back to a 50-50 healthcare funding formula, ignoring that they got revenue tools they now refuse to use.
  • For National Magazine, I delve into the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision to strike down the law that bars the Ethics Commissioner’s reports from judicial review.
  • My long weekend column looks at the falling crime rates before Carney’s performative tough-on-crime legislation, and points to how credulous he really is.

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Pretences for new tariffs

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The tariff news keeps coming, because of course it does. Trump is launching a new round of tariffs to replace the “temporary” ones that he put in place after the US Supreme Court struck down his previous “Liberation Day” tariffs, under the pretence that these tariffs are about combatting the use of “forced labour” in the supply chains of trading partners, like Canada. (Just don’t ask Americans about their own forced labour practices in their prison-industrial complex). These tariffs seem to be exempt if they’re New NAFTA compliant, so they may not affect Canada that much, but our government is going to keep insisting that we’re doing a great job of keeping forced labour from our supply chains, but they eliminated the ombudsman who investigated these supply chains, and their new legislation on tougher compliance is not in effect. (Also, we’re going to pointedly ignore all that investment from Qatar, which also engaged in forced labour).

Meanwhile, when it comes to the threats of the Section 338 tariffs, prime minister Mark Carney met with the premiers yesterday, and said that they are considering retaliation (just not retaliating in advance), and that “all options are on the table,” never mind that two of those premiers will not put all options on the table. So, yeah, I’m not exactly sure what to make of this other than to say that the history so far is a lot of huffing and puffing, and then quickly capitulating in order to “keep negotiations going,” which nets us absolutely nothing more than more threats, more bullying, and more attempts to turn us into a vassal state.

Programming Note: I’m taking the next week-and-a-half off for my summer break. Loonie Politics columns will still appear on schedule, but blog posts and video content are taking a break for the duration.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-07-22T19:08:05.890Z

My Latest:

My column points to how Avi Lewis seems determined to repeat Jagmeet Singh’s strategy for getting a seat, and how he’ll render himself just as irrelevant that way.

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The premiers want you to forget about tax points

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From the Council of the Federation meeting in Charlottetown, PEI, the premiers have decided that they not only want federal health transfers to stay at the five percent escalator they’re at currently (they are scheduled to fall to three percent within a couple of years), but they also want the federal government to assume fifty percent of all health spending, like when the system first began in the fifties. The problem, of course, is that back in the seventies, the provinces agreed to a smaller federal share in exchange for tax points, so that they could raise their own revenues (which also means that those revenues didn’t necessarily need to be spent on healthcare). So now they want to not only keep those tax points, but more federal dollars as well. Some of you might recall that during the era of Paul Martin’s six percent health transfer escalator, most provincial health spending increased by something like 2.6 percent, meaning a lot of money got spent on other things, including tax cuts. There is no reason why that wouldn’t happen again. But what about attaching strings, like those health advocates said? Well, that turns out to be easier said than done. Trudeau tried that by requiring provinces to submit action plans that would be checked in on before future transfers went ahead, but there was no end of provincial grousing, and it takes a lot of time, attention and resources to be constantly checking up on that spending.

Meanwhile, the premiers also want prime minister Mark Carney to “do something” about the tariff threats, but they won’t say what. Certain premiers don’t want to play hardball with their exports, while others, particularly Doug Ford, want Carney to play a “leadership role” for the provinces, but again, he only has so many levers when it comes to getting the provinces on-side. Carney will be meeting with said premiers today, where they will present him with the list of things they want him to do and pay for, and if Carney is true to form, he won’t push back—but he also may not pay for what they want. Nevertheless, I don’t think he’s quite reached the point of frustration with the premiers that all of his predecessors have, but it probably won’t be too long before he does.

My Latest:

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Disparity in premiers’ reactions to new tariffs

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There was more reaction to the threatened Section 338 tariffs yesterday, particular from the premiers, who were meeting in Charlottetown, though those reactions were mixed. Doug Ford was full of bluster and saying that if we cut off oil and potash, we could “dismantle” the US, while Danielle Smith and Scott Moe, true to form, insisted that no, we mustn’t use those products for retaliation. Prime minister Mark Carney had a curb-side press conference to say that he spoke with Trump this morning and that they will “intensify negotiations,” whatever that is supposed to mean, because apparently the thinking is that we can still come to some kind of trade agreement with the US? Even though there is no agreement to be had, and never will be? I also note that if you look at how provinces are affected by these threatened tariffs that Alberta and Saskatchewan are barely threatened at all—it’s quite clear that a lot of these were chosen to exacerbate divisions.

There's a lot of variation across #cdnecon in exposure to the new 50% U.S. tariffs (on August 19). Here's a preliminary estimate of the share of exports affected (based on HS6, so a slight over-estimate). BC/ON/QC most exposed. Others far less so.

— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe.bsky.social) 2026-07-21T19:53:38.355840Z

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mr6jtyqv522e

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mr6jxnjdk22e

News In Photo:

— The Beaverton (@thebeaverton.com) 2026-07-21T18:13:17.448Z

Meanwhile, senior officials have confirmed that what Carney said about the bridge agreement was wrong, and that the revenue-sharing is tolls minus operations (like snow clearing) and not post-debt repayment, meaning that it’s likely he was being misleading in the media. But in light of the latest threats, the Canadian government has decided not to attend any kind of ribbon-cutting when it opens next week, because why should they?

My Latest:

For National Magazine, I delve into why the government’s Digital Safety Act is very likely unconstitutional, and completely unworkable.

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Section 338 tariffs?

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With the World Cup out of the way, Trump decided it was time to beat up on Canada again, so he announced the intention to hit us with new 50 percent tariffs, and no, not because of the wildfire smoke crossing the border (which prime minister Mark Carney said he talked to Trump about at the World Cup final). No, these are under Section 338 in their trade law, which has to do with “discrimination.” Because retaliation for their illegal and unjustified tariffs apparently counts as “discrimination” in their eyes, and no, there won’t be any NAFTA exemptions under these tariffs, apparently.

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mr4ivv6mlk2l

But they’re also weird. Some of them are calculated for symbolic effect (like hockey sticks, or Canadian wine), but some of them make no sense (Canadian tequila?). And maybe this is more “art for the deal” nonsense,

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3mr4hk7wqcs2w

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3mr4hk7wz422w

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3mr4hk7x23c2w

Raking the Forests

Some Canadians got in on the whole “Rake the Forests!” MAGA meme, and it’s very embarrassing. Others decided that after years of insisting that these fires were set by climate arsonists, that now wildfires are natural, so there’s no climate change involved. (Erm, guys…) I can’t even.

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2078166450540519719

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2078912872625868932

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2079276027340362039

New right wing talking points dropped! The forest fires have nothing to do with climate change. Nothing to see here.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-07-18T19:42:56.807Z

My Latest:

My weekend column looks at how Carney capitulated to industry on the Pathways project, making it essentially costly and useless, likely in a bid to simply kill it.

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Elder pundit nonsense about the Senate

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I should have left well enough alone and not clicked, but I got curious. That was a mistake. John Ibbitson published some absolute tripe in the Globe and Mail yesterday morning that was ignorant to say the very least. In making reference to Carney’s Senate appointments, Ibbitson says the real problem is the west’s “under-representation” in the Chamber, which would require constitutional change. He then goes on to half-assedly explain why PEI got four seats when they joined Confederation, but missed the entire thinking behind the regional breakdown of the Chamber (24 seats for the Maritimes, 24 seats for Quebec, 24 seats for Ontario, and 24 seats for the west; the territories each get one, and Newfoundland and Labrador, as latecomers, got six). The whole point of the regional breakdown is because it’s not a rep-by-pop chamber, and the Maritimes as a region got the same number as Ontario and Quebec in order to provide a counterbalance to the rep-by-pop House of Commons. But apparently when you’re an elder pundit, you don’t need to care about facts.

How could someone who spent as many years in the Ottawa bureau as Ibbitson did and not a) learn the logic behind Senate regional seat distribution, and b) that telling the premiers to fight amongst themselves about constitutional change will only exacerbate "regional grievances"? For. Fuck. Sakes.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-07-16T14:04:58.949Z

From there, Ibbitson basically says to let the provinces hash out a new distribution in the Senate as a way of “tamping down” regional grievances, which is absolutely ridiculous. 1) That particular grievance is imaginary, and Alberta in particular has long flirted with other forms of Senate reform to Americanise the institution, when their real beef is that other parts of the country don’t vote conservative enough for their liking, and no change to the Senate will fix that; and 2) Getting the provinces to fight over constitutional amendments is not only opening up Pandora’s Box, it’s inviting nothing more than the wholesale destruction of the country as each tries to one-up the other, take even more power from the federal government that they will then not use, and demand federal transfers instead. Federalism is not working well in this country right now, but it’s not because of the Senate’s composition, or our de-centralised federation, but rather because provinces can operate with impunity and no responsibility. The fact that Ibbitson remains blind to these very basic facts of Canadian politics makes me despair for the state or our nation’s punditry, because great Cyllenian Hermes, that’s we are not served well by aging white guys who can’t be bothered to actually learn something.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-07-16T19:08:01.544Z

Scott Gilmore

Someone asked the other day if I had any thoughts on Scott Gilmore becoming Mark Carney’s new principal secretary, and I don’t have too much to say except this one thing—back in 2017, Gilmore declared himself a “self-loathing Tory” and tried to go around hosting meetings to see about drumming up support for a new conservative party that wasn’t socially conservative, and believed in things like climate change and gay rights. Establishment Conservatives all got hot and bothered about it, and it never went anywhere (ditto Dominic Cardy’s attempt at creating a new centrist party), but the fact that this same Scott Gilmore is now at the heart of Carney’s PMO sounds to me like conclusive proof that thanks to Carney, the Liberals have become the second coming of the Progressive Conservatives.

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