Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: Five sitting weeks remain

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The final five weeks of the spring sitting of the House of Commons begins today, and it’s going to be raucous, and ugly, and exhausting. The government has  a tonne of bills they need to pass, starting with the implementation for the fall economic statement (no, seriously, it still hasn’t passed), pharmacare, the bill to ban replacement workers, the online harms bill, and maybe the foreign-agent registry, before we even get to the budget implementation bill. It’s a lot, and it will depend on the cooperation of the NDP (and possibly the Bloc) to come to agreements on time allocation for those bills, because the Conservatives will do everything they can to slow them up.

In the middle of this will be the Conservatives continued use of committees for dog-and-pony shows about ArriveCan, the Winnipeg Lab documents, or any other particular witch-hunts the Conservatives want to pursue, and on most of these committees, the NDP and Bloc are game to play along, because they are still keen to embarrass the government at every opportunity, whether the subject is within the remit of that committee or not. Because that’s what Parliament is these days—a content factory for social media.

The lever that the government has is the ability to call midnight sittings, and why that matters is because we have a shortage of interpreters, which means they can’t cover both the midnight sittings and all of the committee meetings, so the Conservatives will need to start making choices—do they want to talk bills to death in the House of Commons, or do they want to hold their committee dog-and-pony shows? This is what things are going to boil down to, so we’ll see how well Steve MacKinnon can wield this power.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces still control about 60 percent of the village of Vovchansk, near Kharkiv, with the fighting being describe as being house-to-house. Ukrainian forces downed all 29 Russian drones launched on Monday night, and all 37 drones launched on Sunday night. At least eleven civilians have been killed in the outskirts of Kharkiv as Russians continue their advance, shelling civilian targets along the way. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did an interview with Reuters, in which he called out the Americans in particular for being a year late with their assistance, especially around air defences.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1792157706737868830

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Roundup: Saskatchewan Speaker’s bombshells

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Things took a dramatic turn in the Saskatchewan legislature as the Speaker, Randy Weekes, has had enough of his own party and government. On Wednesday night, he tweeted a photo of his party membership card being cut up, with the phrase “enough is enough.” And then on the last sitting day of the session, in advance of an election this autumn (so likely his last day on the job), he stood up and read out the harassing texts messages he received, instances where government staffers accosted him outside of the Chamber, and his concerns about the Government House Leader of bringing guns into the legislature, and how he wanted to carry a hand gun.

Some of this speaks to a pattern—Weekes pointed to his predecessors who were also subject to harassing text messages or directions from the Government House Leader, and some left the job as a result. Part of this pattern is also because, frankly, the government is long in the tooth, and has become arrogant and complacent, believing themselves to be on the cusp of becoming an Alberta-esque one-party state. A lot of Scott Moe’s actions belie such a belief, particularly as they have started targeting minorities (like trans youth) for political gain with no actual policy reason for doing so. It’s just in-group identification with the increasingly far-right voices in the so-called “conservative movement” (which is frankly, no longer really conservative), especially as it bubbles up from the US, but also takes inspiration from places like Eastern Europe (and there has been a lot of cross-pollination between the American right and places like Hungary in recent years). And that the Saskatchewan Party is willing to violate parliamentary norms like this is part of that same playbook.

Naturally, Scott Moe scoffed at Weekes’ speech, calling it sour grapes because Weekes lost his nomination battle a few months ago, but it also means that Weekes had nothing to lose, which in a way makes him dangerous to someone like Moe, because he can start dropping truth-bombs with no fear of reprisal (like not having his nomination papers signed). One hopes that this will wake a few people up as to the rot within the government, but we’ll see how it plays out over the coming months in advance of the election.

Programming Note: I am going to take the full long weekend off, because we’re heading into the final stretch in the House of Commons, and I need the break. See you Tuesday.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian artillery crews near the front lines say they are facing more Russian drone attacks than ever before. Ukrainian forces say that they have halted Russia’s advance in the town of Vovchansk, but Russia says they intend to keep pushing forward to Kharkiv. NATO’s top commander says he doesn’t believe Russia has enough troops to make a strategic breakthrough. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Kharkiv, to boost morale in the region.

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Roundup: Aborted merger talks?

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I will be the first to admit that I don’t follow BC politics too closely, but I cannot help by roll my eyes at some of the narratives starting to leak out across the border around a supposed attempt to “unite the right” in that province. It sounds like it’s all talk, as the rumours that a particular mayor is being touted as a possible candidate lead a merged party, but the leader of the BC Conservative Party is throwing cold water over the whole thing, not unexpectedly.

As a quick refresher, the province used to have a single centre-right party, the BC Liberals, which was not the same as the federal Liberals, but a merger between the “free enterprise” Liberal and Conservative parties in the province to counter the NDP, and that was successful for a number of years, but they were insufficiently conservative for some, especially because they were relatively socially progressive and were environmentally conscious—they were the first jurisdiction in the country to bring in a carbon tax (and it’s an actual tax that largely offsets income taxes). And so the BC Conservatives were born, and the BC Liberals changed their name to BC United (sounding like a European football team), and they have largely tanked since.

This talk of mergers is usually what starts to happen when people start huffing poll numbers (hello the recurring “Why don’t the federal Liberals and NDP merge?” bullshit), but who don’t think about anything underlying, such as policies, beliefs, or underlying culture, because that stuff does matter. A lot. Case in point was Alberta, where Jason Kenney decided to ride in with his blue pick-up truck to “unite the right” in that province without doing any of the soul-searching about what any of it actually means, and what they would have to offer. No, it was just important to them to have a banner with “conservative” in it that could oppose the NDP, and sure, the “united” party did beat the NDP, but it has been nothing but internal chaos, who turned on Kenney at the first opportunity because he brought in the ungovernable, swivel-eyed loons into the fold to give him the numbers he felt he needed. As I’ve said before, he invited the face-eating leopards into the house and made them a nice warm bed, with the intention of turning them on his enemies, but they quickly realised that his face was right there and so they ate it instead. I can pretty much promise you that the exact same thing would happen in BC if they attempted such a merger, which would end up serving nobody.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces have taken control of two more villages in the Kharkiv region, and possibly another one in the Zaporizhzhia region in the south, as their offensive pushes forward. There have also been injuries from Russian air strikes on the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Kherson. In light of the deteriorating situation, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is postponing all foreign travel, starting with his planned trips to Spain and Portugal, because of the situation on the front lines.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1790735262978326589

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Roundup: Wildfire evacuations have begun

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It’s absolutely insane to think that it’s not even Victoria Day, and we are in the middle of evacuations in northern communities because of wildfires. Several neighbourhoods in Fort McMurray, Alberta, have been evacuated—all neighbourhoods that were decimated by the fires in 2016. Fort Nelson, BC, has been evacuated, as has Cranberry Portage, Manitoba, while the premier toured the area.

Meanwhile in BC, a former forestry minister has co-authored a report calling for better integrated government management of these fires in the province, but also points to things like the plans for Indigenous communities to do controlled burns as they used to have not reached levels that would be meaningful, nor have “broadcast burns” from forestry companies, and recommendations for how forestry can better leave sites less susceptible to fire are not being implemented. One has to wonder what the delay is considering how much worse wildfire season gets every year.

Amidst all of this, we still see certain political parties steadfastly refuse to believe this is the result of climate change, and will instead say things like “the carbon price didn’t prevent a single fire” as though that’s how the price is designed to operate, or you have them spreading the conspiracy theories that agents of the prime minister have been setting these fires, because reasons. It’s not good.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine’s forces have pulled back in two new positions near Kharkiv as the Russians advance. Russians conducted air strikes on residential areas of Kharkiv. There is speculation that the move on Kharkiv is merely a ploy to pull forces from elsewhere on the front lines, as they have more of an interest in solidifying their gains in Donetsk. AP spent some time with a drone unit in the region, working to slow the Russian advance.

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Roundup: Explain, but don’t explain

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Because everything is so stupid, we’re seeing pushback about Justin Trudeau’s explainer video about the changes to the capital gains inclusion rate, and the thrust is that “If you’re explaining, you’re losing,” so therefore Trudeau shouldn’t need three minutes to explain the policy. I mean, he could probably just say “The current tax rules allow people to engage in tax arbitrage and we think that we should close those loopholes,” but he has a “narrative” about these changes.

Nevertheless, I cannot abide this bullshit about “explaining/losing” because it means that this government never explains, and that’s one of the reasons why the Conservatives have such an easy time lying about everything this government does under the sun—if they don’t explain, they hope the media will do it for them, but legacy media almost never does, because they would rather just both-sides what each party says and leave it at that, which lets disinformation just lie there in the open unchallenged. This is terrible for democracy, but this is where we are, apparently.

Meanwhile, new Conservative MP Jamil Jivani went on a rant about people with PhDs in his railing about the carbon levy, but dude has a law degree from Yale. It’s his whole life story, about how he went from being illiterate and pulling himself up by his bootstraps to attending one of the most elite schools in the US. Oh, and while he was there, he was seeking out the expert opinion of PhDs for his research. Funny how he’s now dismissing them because Poilievre wants to playact being a common, working man. It’s amazing how people swallow this nonsense.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces continue to press their attack against the Kharkiv region, as Ukrainian police are helping to evacuate civilians from the area. Ukrainian security forces say they have thwarted attempted bombings in both Kyiv and Lviv. Because of the damage to power infrastructure, Ukraine is being forced to import record amounts of electricity.

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Roundup: Evacuation alerts starting early

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Fort McMurray spent the weekend under evacuation alert because of forest fires in the area, and we’re still not even at Victoria Day yet.

Of course, the brain-rotted conspiracy crew are all up in the replies accusing the federal government of paying people to start those fires because reasons, but climate change is serious business, and it amazes me that certain parties remain steadfastly opposed to making necessary changes, or pretending that one day magical technology will do the job without any effort.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces claim to have captured five villages on the border of the Kharkiv region as they make their way toward the city, forcing more than 1700 civilians to flee the area. (I wonder how all those Republicans who held up aid for seven months feel about this).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1789670737596272953

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Roundup: Fix nominations how?

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Over in the Globe and Mail, Andrew Coyne points to Hogue Report’s comments on party nomination races as a possible vector for foreign interference, and declares that they need to be cleaned up, but declines to say how. He disputes that parties are entirely private clubs, because “Their sole purpose is to seek and wield coercive power over the rest of us. How they go about it is therefore a matter of vital public concern, and regulation in the public interest – at the least, transparency – is entirely justified.”

But how exactly does one propose to do that? Involve Elections Canada with all internal deliberations of these parties, whether it’s a nomination contest, leadership race, or policy convention? While I get the temptation, we have to ask ourselves if any of this is practical, not only because when an election happens, there are a tonne of last-minute nomination meetings, but there are hundreds of registered political parties. Should they only concern themselves with parties that have seats in the Commons? Would they create disparate sets of rules for the big four parties than any others? Could they get away with that in the courts? I’m not sold that this is a solution because it would involve a massive expansion of their powers and bureaucracy, and because they are ultimately reporting to an Independent Officer of Parliament who has no real accountability, the potential for abuse if enormous.

This isn’t to say that things don’t need to change, because they do, but it’s not exactly something that external monitors can fix. In fact, the solution on its face is much less mysterious than it might sound, but it goes back to the original sin of Canadian politics—the decision to remove leadership selection from the caucus to the party membership. Restore this to caucus selection, and you can start separating the parliamentary and constituency party powers again, so that the parliamentary party leader can’t exert outsized influence on the nomination races, and the constituency party is motivated to keep a closer eye on the nomination races, particularly because that’s their job rather than the parliamentary leader trying to stuff the races with its parachute or hand-picked candidates. I would also note that the number of races that would be vulnerable to foreign interference is actually very small, given that you’re not going be able to find diasporic communities in most rural ridings, so again, we should beware what we’re talking about here. I think we need to better appreciate the scope of the problem, and ensure that the right incentives are there for the parties to clean up their own messes rather than involving Elections Canada.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian infantry has been trying to breach local defences in the Kharkiv region, but so far, Ukraine has been holding them off. Ukraine is due to start receiving their first F-16s by summer.

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Roundup: Backtracking on capital gains claims

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A number of prominent business lobby groups banded together to write a joint letter to the government slamming the changes to the capital gains inclusion rate, claiming it to be short-sighted, that it sows division, and that it will impact one in five Canadians over the next decade—with more apocalyptic language about how this will hamper economic growth. Because, remember, their ability to engage in tax arbitrage is claimed to be a public good, or something.

There was just one problem—their math was grossly wrong, and they needed to backtrack on their claims, and that really, it’s about 0.13 percent of Canadians who would pay higher taxes on their capital gains. Oopsie. Kind of takes the sting out of their apocalyptic doomsaying, and exposes them for trying to mislead people into thinking that they will be exposed.

Meanwhile, the NDP have been banging on about why the government didn’t introduce any kind of windfall tax or other wealth taxes in the budget, pointing to plans by Joe Biden to increase corporate taxes, apparently not understanding how the American political system works and how that’s unlikely to happen because of how their legislative process works. The bitter irony, of course, is that for a party that keeps aping the American Democrats in their talking points, they also have no understanding of American politics either.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine’s air force says they downed all ten of the drones Russia fired overnight, but didn’t say what happened to the two missiles launched. A Ukrainian drone damaged a Russian oil refinery a record 1500 km away from border. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the head of the state guards after two of its members were found to be plotting his assassination. Zelenskyy also says that with more Western weapons arriving, they’ll be able to halt the Russian advance in the east. In those eastern towns, Ukrainian rescuers are evacuating the elderly and infirm as the Russians close in;

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Roundup: Huffing those culture war fumes

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My absolute exasperation with the need to constantly import American culture war bullshit into Canadian politics continues to grow, as we see yet another example playing out in the House of Commons. This time, it’s opposition whip Kerry-Lynne Findlay using the far-right gotcha of “What is the definition of a woman,” in the hopes that the response is some kind of confused mess in order to include trans women in the definition of women.

This being said, I’m not surprised that it was Findlay, because she has a growing record of doing things like this, most especially when she was tweeting her concern about how Chrystia Freeland once interviewed George Soros when she was a journalist. Findlay was greatly alarmed by what she saw, and in case you’ve been living under a rock, the attacks on Soros are largely rooted in antisemitic tropes that date back to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Findlay has repeatedly shown that she hasn’t learned her lesson from that incident, and this latest one is more proof of that.

The panic over trans people continues to infiltrate the discourse in Canada. The Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a thinktank that initially billed itself as a centrist endeavour in the mode of the two pivotal prime ministers who helped build and shape the country as we know it, has increasingly been pulling further and further to the right, and adopting anti-trans rhetoric as part of their offerings, which is a little alarming (and people who are associated with the Institute should start distancing themselves the more this kind of bullshit takes hold). This is also in the context that CSIS is seeing threats coming from the “anti-gender” movement, and for a group like MLI to pander to those sentiments is irresponsible, and dangerous.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched one of its biggest air strikes against Ukrainian thermal power generation stations in weeks, causing blackouts throughout the country. A separate air attack hit a school stadium in Kharkiv. It was Victory Day in Russia, celebrating their victory in WWII, and it should be noted that they did not take Chasiv Yar like they were hoping to beforehand.

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Roundup: MPs lacking a moral compass make up bizarre accusations

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When it comes to the absolute moral decline of MPs in the current Parliament, we’ve found a good candidate who exemplifies this in the form of Conservative MP Brad Redekopp, who put out an absolutely batshit crazy video a few days ago that literally blames Justin Trudeau and his supposed “soft on crime” policies for the murders that happened in Saskatoon so far this year. Columnist Phil Tank points to all of the ways that this accusation is batshit insanity by looking at the circumstances of each of these murders, and you really can’t connect them to any of Trudeau’s policies, but that won’t stop Redekopp from not only making these accusations, but defending them in the face of Tank’s column.

The accusations against the so-called “attack” against him (because heaven forfend, we hold him to account for his batshit insane conduct) as being from an “extremist left-wing agenda,” and that both the columnist and Justin Trudeau want to hand out free drugs. I would laugh at how absolutely childish this thin-skinned retaliation is if this wasn’t a gods damned elected official who should not only know better, but should have the ability to take criticism, and to behave in a manner that is somewhat dignified as befits his office.

But it’s more than that—it’s the fact that he feels like he can get away with outright lying (and lying to such batshit insane lengths) because he feels no sense of shame or moral compass that says “Maybe you shouldn’t lie or make up batshit insane accusations and stick to some facts in the face of tragic circumstances.” But he doesn’t, and that is perhaps most concerning out of all of this.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian strikes have damaged several power generation plants in a fresh round of targeting them. Ukrainian artillery forces need to fire and then quickly hide their platforms from Russian drones. Ukrainian intelligence says that they thwarted (another) attempt on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s life.

https://twitter.com/rustem_umerov/status/1787917915460649244

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