Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: A housing plan to challenge the provinces and municipalities

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In one of the last pre-budget announcements, the federal government delivered their overall housing plan for 2024, which was a mixture of previously made announcements over the past couple of weeks, with a few more added in—such as plans to lease and not sell public land—to offer a more complete picture of the things that they are doing as a federal government to “unlock” the construction of hundreds of thousands of homes. And I am going to make the point that the term “unlocked” is interesting and deliberate, while most media outlets keep using the term “build” incorrectly, because they’re not saying they’re going to build x-number of units, because they have no way to actually guarantee that because they have very few levers at their disposal to actually build. The other part of “unlock” is that it very much puts the onus on the other levels of government, who do have those levers, to do the work now that the federal government has cleared the way for them.

A lot of this has shown that they have been listening to expert like Mike Moffatt, and while you can read his full thread, I did think it was nice that they put out a chart as to whose responsible for what, because there are a lot of people who are ignorant about these kinds of jurisdictional questions (or pretend to be in any case), so it’s handy that they actually spell it out.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1778804892183748617

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1778808362668306508

And a couple more thoughts from Jennifer Robson in this thread:

Ukraine Dispatch:

Shortages of air defences is leaving Kharkiv in particular more vulnerable to Russian attack. A drone attack hit an energy facility in Dnipropetrovsk in the south. Reuters has another photo series of the front lines.

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Roundup: The NDP back away from carbon pricing

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The NDP have shown their true colours as populist used car salesmen, and are starting to back away from supporting the federal carbon levy, with Jagmeet Singh telling the “Progress Summit” that they can fight climate change by focusing on corporations and not working families. Which is stupid, because those corporations will pass along the costs in a less transparent manner, there won’t be the rebates that benefit lower-income households, and in the biggest irony, dismantling the consumer carbon levy will only benefit the top one percent of earners.

None of this is actually surprising, considering that the NDP don’t have original thoughts or policies—virtually everything they do is just reheat American Democrat policies, with no regard for whether the situation applies in Canada or not, and then runs with it, and that means adopting the rhetoric around billionaires and corporations, never mind that the handful of billionaires who live in this country couldn’t be taxed enough to pay for the NDP’s plans, or that taxing grocery oligopolies at a higher rate won’t lower prices. Every couple of weeks, Charlie Angus will stand up and demand to know why the government isn’t aping Joe Biden’s policies. It’s embarrassing, but what can you do?

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have forced another voting marathon on report-stage amendments to the government’s sustainable jobs legislation, which the government contends were AI-generated, which the Conservatives deny. Of course, the Conservatives have been spouting complete horseshit about the substance of the bill, calling it “a global, top-down, socialist agenda to central plan a forced economic — not only energy — transition away from the sectors and businesses that underpin all of Canada’s economy: energy, agriculture, construction, transportation and manufacturing.” Utterly unhinged. Nevertheless, thanks to the motion passed in February, there won’t be any more overnight votes, and they suspended the sitting shortly after midnight, and will resume voting at 9 AM, but that will mean it’s still Thursday in the House of Commons, and there won’t be Friday QP. (Such a loss).

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles and drones have completely destroyed the Trypilska coal-fired plant near Kyiv as part of what they claim to be retaliation for the Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries. A Russian missile also struck the southern city of Mykolaiv, killing four civilians. Here is a photo series about the winter war happening. Ukraine’s parliament has now passed the mobilization bill, and this is what it contains. Ukraine has also just signed a security agreement with Latvia.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1778322274304541004

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Roundup: Danielle Smith aspires to boss-level gatekeeping

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith has decided to crank up grievance politics up to eleven, and has tabled a bill that would bar the federal government from entering into funding agreements with municipalities, but would require them to only do so with the province. This is similar to Quebec, but because this is Danielle Smith, her proposal goes much further and would include things like organizations or even post-secondary institutions getting research funding, because she’s concerned that they’re funding “ideological” projects, apparently not understanding how arm’s-length granting bodies operate. (There’s a good primer here).

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1778184559718506741

Aside from this being based on some false premises, Smith is being utterly dishonest about the effect this will have. It’s not going to make things easier, or a “one-stop-shop,” as she claims—as it stands, intergovernmental negotiations is incredibly complex, and she is just giving her bureaucrats even more work. (See Jared Wesley’s thread below about just what these negotiations entail—it’s a lot).

It’s also just virtue-signalling to her reactionary base, which likes to console itself with fairy tales of mean old Ottawa punishing Alberta because the province is just too great that everyone else is jealous, so they need to fight back and this is Smith “fighting back.” How much of this will survive implementation remains to be seen, but in the meantime, this is just more attempts to govern by vibes rather than reality, and it’s absolutely going to make things worse in the province, but they’re going to pretend once again that they’re being saviours, because of course they are.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian attack on the village of Lyptsi near the border hit a grocery store, killing a 14-year-old girl. Russian air strikes also damaged a power plant near Odesa. Ukraine’s parliament is debating a bill to let prisoners join the army to become eligible for parole.

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Roundup: Not spelling out a non-binding motion

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The Conservatives spent their Supply Day yesterday calling for an “emergency” televised meeting with premiers on the carbon levy, which was full of the usual nonsense and false talking points about the effect the carbon levy is having on food affordability, or using the torqued numbers from the PBO report in a misleading way. Nevertheless, Pierre Poilievre was trying to make a point about Trudeau being somehow afraid to face the premiers, which is just more of his terminally online “Debate me!” energy going on, even though we all know this wouldn’t actually be a debate, it would be the premiers ganging up for the sake of them all gathering video clips for fundraising purposes.

This having been said, I find myself one again supremely irritated by how the CBC—and in particular a certain journalist in the CBC’s bureau—chose to write up the day’s activities, with the headline about the motion trying to “force” Trudeau to meet with the premiers. The motion is non-binding. It can’t force anything. All Supply Day motions are non-binding. But the headline seems to indicate that it could bind the government, and nowhere in the text of the piece does it point out that it’s non-binding. This is malpractice at this point, because it’s painting a completely false picture of what the debate was. The “debate”—and I use the term loosely because it was MPs reading twenty-minute speeches into the record—was posturing for the sake of gathering clips for social media. That’s all. And this particular writer has been on the Hill long enough that he should know this, but he has a habit of ignoring relevant facts about procedure or jurisdiction to try and lend weight to his pieces. It’s not cute, and it’s not doing anything for the CBC’s reputation.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine says that they downed 20 attack drones overnight, though there was still infrastructure damage in the west of the country. Ukraine is trying to repair and shield their power systems after the recent spate of attacks. A retaliatory strike inside of Russia hit an aviation factory in the Voronezh region. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited fortifications in the Kharkiv region, while the Americans are offering to send seized Iranian weapons, and to sell them $138 million USD air defence upgrades.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1777666453950337220

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Roundup: MPs deliver dumb eclipse tweets

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For Eclipse Day, we had an event where after Question Period, a lot of MPs all headed out of West Block to watch it happen.

The exception to this was the prime minister, who did so from the roof of the Building Formerly Known as the Langevin Block, and of course, made a dumb tweet about it.

Poilievre decided to be very classy with his tweet.

In fact, a number of Conservatives were playing circulating this extremely stupid meme about Poilievre eclipsing Trudeau, but didn’t actually think through what that was supposed to mean—was Poilievre supposed to bring a period of darkness? Followed by Trudeau’s brightness returning? Like seriously, did they put any amount of thought into this at all? (Of course not. They figured this would “own the Libs,” which is all they care about, even when it results in a self-own).

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1777348623874822613

But at least no one went blind (that we know of)!

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched 24 attack drones against Ukrainian targets (17 being destroyed) hitting critical infrastructure in the central city of Zvyahel, while attacks by missiles killed three in Zaporizhzhia, and guided bombs killed a woman in Bilopillia. Russia and Ukraine are trading accusations of just who launched the drone attack against the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant over the weekend.

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Roundup: Pre-budget non-advice

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Because it’s pre-budget season, we’re starting to get some of the usual rounds of absolutely useless commentary on it once again, from some of the usual suspects. This week it’s Jean Charest and Bill Morneau, who insist the focus needs to be on “long-term” things like growth, and not “short-term” issues like inflation. But they offer no actual policy prescriptions—just vibes.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1776584499075187102

My dudes. Getting inflation under control was one of the most important issues over the past year-and-a-half, because if not addressed in the short-term, it becomes a long-term problem that nobody wants. That meant slowing the economy just enough to let the steam out of it (the “excess demand”) without going into a recession, and lo, they managed to do just that. Yes, growth is sluggish right now because that was the whole gods damned point. Once inflation is tamed for real, and signs are that it’s getting there very soon, then they can focus on real growth once again, and with a focus on productivity because that’s how we’ll get more growth without fuelling inflation, but nobody wants to put too much heat back into the economy before inflation is tamed, or it’ll become persistent, and nobody wants that. You would think a former premier and finance minister might appreciate those facts.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched two dozen attack drones overnight, targeting Ukraine’s south and east, and 17 were destroyed. Two Russian strikes on Kharkiv killed eight early Saturday, while a Russian shell hit a house in the village of Guliaipole in Zaporizhzhia region on early Sunday, killing three civilians. A drone strike against the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has the international community worried about the potential for an accident once again. Ukraine’s energy systems have stabilised in spite of the many attacks on Kharkiv in recent weeks, but president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is warning that they are running low on air defence missiles, and he continues to call on the Americans to get their act together and pass the support package.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1776965218146324857

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Roundup: Admitting defeat with 24 Sussex?

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There is a rumour circulating in Ottawa, put in print, that former prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper are offering to lead a charitable exercise of collecting donations to renovate 24 Sussex in the hopes that this will finally depoliticise the whole affair, and the work can finally get done. It’s absolutely discouraging, however, because if it’s true, it’s a giant admission of defeat when it comes to the ability for political decision-making and frankly our ability to have…not even nice things, but useful, official things in this country.

This is supposed to be why we have the gods damned National Capital Commission to deal with the official residences, so that it takes it out of the hands of the government of the day, but even then, it doesn’t exactly work because if the government doesn’t give them the budget allocations to do the work, it doesn’t get done. And they got the allocations for necessary repairs at Harrington Lake, or doing routine work at other residences like Stornoway, but 24 Sussex keeps being punted, as they do yet more studies about what possible alternatives could be, each more wildly fantastic or implausible than the last (such as converting the National Research Council building on Sussex into a quasi-White House with residences and offices, which is absolutely bloody ridiculous), and with the RCMP security wish list driving up the costs every time.

It’s an official residence. It should have the capacity to host a couple of working dinners (not state dinners—that’s why we have Rideau Hall or the Sir John A Macdonald Building across from the West Block), but that’s about it. It doesn’t need to be elaborate, but I do think it should retain period features (which in my estimation should mean restoring the original façade with the turret) because this is a heritage property and we are a city of a lot of neo-gothic architecture. But we shouldn’t need a fundraising drive if everyone behaved like adults, which unfortunately seems like too much to ask these days.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia fired five missiles at Zaporizhzhia on Friday, killing four, and a drone strike early Saturday morning on Kharkiv killed six and injured at least ten. Russians claim that they have taken control of the village of Vodyane in the east, but Ukraine denies the Russian reports that they have reached the suburbs of Chasiv Yar, one of their strongholds in the east. Ukraine did stage a strike against Russia’s Morozovsk military airbase, destroying six Russian warplanes.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1776278198684201137

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Roundup: No, a foreign power can’t install a prime minister

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One of the unfortunate things about certain people I follow on the Twitter Machine constantly retweeting sludge is that sometimes I see something that is so outrageous that it sets me off. This, from former Global journalist Sam Cooper, is just such an egregious thing.

Setting aside the torqued use of Michael Chong’s testimony, this has all of the credibility of those racist emails that used to circulate, usually at the hands of someone’s relatives, where people worried that the changing Canadian demographics could mean that we might *gasp!* have a Muslim prime minister! As is unsurprising in racist emails like those, the internal logic was deeply flawed and the understanding of our system was non-existent, and was likely repurposed from American racist content worrying about a Muslim president, but that aside, this worry from Cooper is about the same quality.

To wit: If a party held a leadership contest while during a prime minister’s term, the fear expressed here is that, somehow, a foreign government would be able to swamp party memberships (either sales or sign-ups, depending on the party) and install a preferred candidate, who would then become prime minister without an election (which, I should not need to remind anyone, is perfectly legitimate in a parliamentary system). The hole in this logic is that pretty much every party has a weighted point system as part of these elections, so that highly populated regions of the country don’t swamp the more sparely-populated ones. In order for a foreign government to therefore take over a leadership contest, they would need a critical mass of voters in the majority of ridings in the country, particularly ones like small rural ridings in Quebec or Atlantic Canada. That’s simply not a possibility for any foreign government to engineer. The fact that Cooper doesn’t have a clue how these things work should be (another) warning sign about his judgment. Cripes.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian drone attacks on Kharkiv struck residential buildings and cut power supplies. A Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicle (larger than a drone) was used to strike deep inside Russian territory, striking an industrial site.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1775913487300002262

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Roundup: Erin O’Toole’s revisionist history

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It was MP Day at the Foreign Interference Inquiry, and the big star of the day was former Conservative leader and serial liar Erin O’Toole, who has come to believe that as many as nine seats may have been lost as a result of foreign interference, mostly from China. That’s…an interesting number, considering that the party’s internal polling had long since concluded that their position on vaccine mandates was what cost them the election (though O’Toole being caught out in as many lies as he had been really didn’t help him any, one of the most egregious examples being on gun control).

Not only that, but O’Toole went on to claim that the member of the party’s national council who initiated the petition calling for a leadership review, who is Taiwanese, may have had motives based in foreign interference, which is also ridiculous. It also bears remembering that around the same time, O’Toole began in imperious streak of subverting the (garbage) Reform Act rules the party signed onto in order to punish those in caucus who were standing against him, resulting in him pushing out Senator Denise Batters, and this kept escalating until caucus called for a vote, again according to the (garbage) Reform Act, and at that point, he was done for. (This is all without anything related to the calls for his ouster from the collection of grifters, conspiracy theorists, and grievance tourists who were occupying downtown Ottawa at the same time). Trying to invent foreign interference motives for his demise is not just cry baby behaviour, it’s outright historical revisionism and fabulism to soothe his wounded ego, but I guess if you have no problem lying to everyone all the time, you’re probably pretty used to lying to yourself as well. Meanwhile the pundit class praises him for showing restraint in not using Trumpian “Big Lie” language. Unbelievable.

Meanwhile, as Kenny Chiu, Jenny Kwan and Michael Chong also testified, we have learned that the RMCP investigation into allegations of attempted Chinese intimidation of Chong has hit a dead end.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles struck Dnipro on Tuesday, damaging an educational facility. There was also a drone attack against Kharkiv early Thursday that stuck apartment buildings and homes, killing at least four. In all, Russia launched 3000 aerial bombs, 600 missiles and 400 drones against Ukraine in March. Here is a look at the security arrangements that over 30 countries have now signed with Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1775410021712494814

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Roundup: Another tranche of housing money

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As part of his pre-budget announcement tour, Justin Trudeau was in Halifax yesterday to announce a new tranche of housing funding, which comes with strings attached for provinces to access it, and if provinces don’t, well, it’ll get rolled into the municipal stream to let them access it instead. Some of this is an extension of the existing Housing Accelerator Fund, but they also have some new conditions around densification to be able to qualify for that funding, which is really about overcoming the NIMBYism that prevents a lot of it currently.

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/1775245369128939654

This having been said, there will be implementation issues, and for that, Jennifer Robson has some thoughts.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say they downed two out of three Russian drones overnight on Monday, and that so far this year, Russia has fired five Zircon hypersonic missiles at Kyiv. Ukraine continues to make its own drone attacks against Russian refineries, with the latest strike against the country’s third-largest refinery. After much debate, Ukraine has lowered its draft age from 27 to 25 as they need to replenish their troops. Ukraine’s largest energy grid operator says that recent attacks have damaged the power system, but that total collapse is unlikely.

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