We have just passed Canada Day, and did Mark Carney live up to all of the promises he made that were supposed to happen by then? Erm, not really. He set some pretty lofty goals for himself, and some of those promises he started to backpedal on the closer the time got, like on internal trade barriers. First it was eliminating them all by Canada Day. And then it was federal barriers. And even then, while the legislation has passed, it’s a bit of a mess. Why? Because the approaches to lifting those barriers is a patchwork of mutual recognition agreements between some provinces and not others, and that could in turn be new barriers in and of themselves, because there aren’t any consistent approaches.
Meanwhile, his bill to cut taxes didn’t pass, but it’ll still take effect on July 1st because of the Ways and Means motion that got passed. He got the ball rolling on the ReArm Europe programme, but it is not a done deal. He also said that he wanted all departments to undertake reviews to cut “red tape” within sixty days, but when exactly that kicks in was a bit ambiguous, not that I think 60 days is an adequate enough time to do a review of all of a department’s regulations to find inefficient rules. They’ve been doing that for years, so it’s not like there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit. I guess we’ll see what they turn up before the fall.
https://twitter.com/CanadianUK/status/1940419524375072985
https://twitter.com/RoyalFamily/status/1940002704295596284
It is nice to see Prince Edward make an appearance, and say a few words, and to bring greetings from Their Majesties with a promise of a longer royal tour to come."I speak for all of my family when I say that we take immense pride in Canada and Canadians." #MapleCrown
— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-07-01T16:38:04.203Z
In case you missed it:
My weekend column points out that Danielle Smith’s attack on immigrants in her “Alberta Next” panel telegraph how desperate she is to find new scapegoats.
My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at that NATO “five percent” goal, which isn’t five percent, and the conversations we should be having instead.
My column shows how Bill C-5 is the latest in a series of ways in which our Parliament has been slowly hollowing itself out, becoming a Potemkin village.
Ukraine Dispatch
The US is delaying or halting shipments of promised weapons to Ukraine, just as Russia has been ramping up attacks, because this is who Trump is. Meanwhile, Russia appears to be ramping up its offensives in Donetsk and Sumy.