Tag Archives: Arctic

Roundup: The second tranche of PONIs

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Yesterday was the day that Mark Carney announced the second tranche of PONIs to be referred to the Major Projects Office, which consisted of six existing projects and one “concept,” which I’m pretty unsure how it was supposed to work. Three of those projects are mines—Sisson Mine for tungsten in New Brunswick, Crawford Nickel project in Ontario, and the Nouveau Monde Graphite phase 2 project in Quebec. Those very much align with the desire to make Canada a more trustworthy supplier of critical minerals than China (though pat of the problem is that they have a near-monopoly on refining and processing). A hydro project for Iqaluit was on the list, as was a transmission line between northwestern BC and the Yukon, and an LNG Project on the BC coast that has some Indigenous partnerships (but  not every First Nation in the area is in favour, and there are concerns about its ownership structure). As for that “concept,” it is referred to as the Northwest Critical Conservation Corridor, also between northwest B.C. and Yukon., and it could include critical minerals and clean power transmission developments in the area. Again, I’m not sure how that works with no actual project or proponent.

In some of these cases, as in the first tranche of projects, some of them are fairly well developed and along the process, while in others, they’ve been discussed forever and have some Indigenous buy-in, but shovels have never been in the ground (like the Sisson Mine). It again raises questions about what the MPO is supposed to do here, but its head, Dawn Farrell, was talking about ensuring that these processes happen in parallel and not sequentially, and would also do things like security financing, guaranteeing pricing, and ensuring a supply of skilled labour, which seems like an awful lot of things for them to try and control for.

And then there’s Alberta and its imaginary pipeline, which Danielle Smith insists she’s still working on, so she’s supportive of these projects, because she is still “negotiating” for that pipeline to the northwest BC coast that neither the province nor the affected First Nations want, while there is a growing supply glut in the market. I’m pretty sure another pipeline won’t save her province’s finances, but she’s going to keep trying.

Ukraine Dispatch

Kyiv was under another “massive” attack early this morning, and at least eleven people have been wounded. President Zelenskyy visited troops near the front lines in Zaporizhzhia.

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QP: Stacking false premises to claim a cover-up

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The PM was jetting from Singapore to Busan, South Korea, while things rolled along back home. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he returned to the Food Banks Canada report, blaming “inflationary” deficits for food insecurity, and demanded a budget to make life affordable. Steve MacKinnon said that they would do that, and wanted the Conservatives’ support for it. Poilievre said that past budgets “ballooned” the deficit and again drmwndrd an affordability budget. MacKinnon noted that Food Banks Canada supported their measures in the budget, and hoped that the Conservatives weren’t aiming for a Christmas election. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the same question with added embellishment, and this time Patty Hajdu got up to read a quote from the CEO of Food Banks Canada in support of their programmes. Poilievre dismissed this as saying that if it were true, the demand would not travel increased, and Hajdu responded with incredulity that Poilievre dismissed the CEO of Food Banks Canada as not knowing what she is talking about. Poilievre doubled down on an anecdote from the report, and Anna Gainey quoted again from the report that praised federal supports and noted that the Conservatives voted against them. Poilievre again insisted that this couldn’t be true, and he again demanded an “affordable budget.” Hajdu retorted that either Poilievre wants a Christmas election, or he wants to inter what is in the report.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he worried about the trade war, and demanded the government restore “decent relations” with the U.S. (How?!) Dominic LeBlanc gave some bland assurances of work with his counterparts in the U.S., before reciting the line about building up the Canadian economy. Blanchet wondered what they should tell investors given the uncertainty, and LeBlanc said that the government is there to support them and to invest. Blanchet was incredulous at the notion that these businesses need to wait, and LeBlanc said that the government has cooperated with provinces and industry leaders about what more can be done to support workers and industries.

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QP: A trillion-dollar falsehood

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The PM was back from his trip to Washington, and every leader was present and ready to grill him on it, and the nothing he came back with. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he decried Mark Carney as a weak leader, and then falsely claimed that Carney promised one trillion dollars in investment if he gets the deal he wants, and that this money would flee Canada. The Liberals gave Carney an ovation as he stood to speak, childishly, and he said that this was an economic lesson for the opposition, saying that the two economies are closely linked, and that this is what is at stake for the U.S. if they don’t get a deal. Poilievre railed that Carney was giving the Americans a $54 billion gift, and complained about softwood lumber tariffs. Carney said that we currently have the best deal of any country and that they are still working on other gains. Poilievre switched to English to complain about the investment question and demanded action on the auto tariffs, and Carney reiterated that we already have the best deal, and that they are working on other sectors including getting a new auto agreement. Poilievre accused the government of selling out the auto sector as job losses mount, and said the government betrayed them. Carney patted himself on the back and said that they have taken measures to assist the sector. Poilievre said that Carney has had his elbows “surgically removed” and listed the lost investment and jobs, and Carney said there were three things that were true—the relationship with the Americans is not the same as it was, that we have the best deal of anyone, and that he would get an even better deal. Poilievre kept hammering away at lost jobs and investments, repeated the falsehood about the trillion dollars. Carney looked exasperated as he said that there is something called the private sector, and the rest of his response was drowned out.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he mocked Carney for only getting nice words and being contented with not calling on his face. Carney said he was happy that the President had a meeting of the minds for a deal about the steel, aluminium and energy sectors. Blanchet again demanded more action, and Carney repeated that we have the best deal available but that they are working to get more. Blanchet said that the best deal is not working for the forestry or aluminium sectors, and before he raised the fable of the fox and the crow, and the problem with flattery. Carney insisted that their team is hard at work negotiating on behalf of the aluminium sector.

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Roundup: The supposed fiscal precipice

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My sinking feeling about the interim Parliamentary Budget Officer continues to plummet, not only in response to last week’s committee appearance where he not only used a bunch of over-the-top adjectives to describe his read of the fiscal situation, but also telegraphed that he has taken all of the wrong lessons from his predecessor and that he intends to make himself a media darling, in defiance of what his role is actually supposed to be according to his legislated mandate:

“If the government wants to go 12 months without producing a budget, as a citizen I would feel a little bit uncomfortable. But as somebody who works in the Parliamentary Budget Office, I’d say, ‘That’s great for us. Because we will occupy all the space that they decide to give up.’”

He was back on TV this weekend, and saying a bunch of alarmist things about how we’re on a “precipice” and so on, which…is not what his office was saying just a few months ago. If anything, this is the kind of alarmism that we’re used to hearing from the “it’s 1995 and will always be 1995” crowd, where any budget deficits are treated as some kind of national catastrophe, and that we’re sitting on a “debt bomb,” but we’re not. People are actively forgetting the measures taken to save the economy during the height of COVID, pretending that it didn’t happen, and now they’re downplaying just what exactly the effect that Trump’s tariffs are having on the economy—or the fact that we have managed to avoid a recession so far (not that it has stopped Poilievre from insisting that our economy is “collapsing.”)

Meanwhile, we’re once again getting the litany of demands from business groups about the budget, and they’re entirely of the “cut taxes and deregulate” variety, because nobody has learned a single lesson about how trickle-down doesn’t work, and that the scars from the last round of government austerity have not healed. And from the looks of it, this PBO is not only trying to become a media darling, but he’s basically rooting his analysis/opinion in these very same frameworks, which I suspect is going to really start to skew just what his analysis is and what it’s saying, which is going to do a real disservice to the job that he’s supposed to be doing.

Ukraine Dispatch

There was another major attack on Kyiv early morning Sunday, with 595 drones and 48 missiles, which killed four people, including a child.

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QP: Concern trolling about Mexico’s growth rates

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The prime minister was off to Mexico City, and most of the other leaders weren’t present either. Pierre Poilievre was, however, and he led off in English, and compared Mexico’s economic growth compared to Canada’s (as though there were different baselines or circumstances). Mélanie Joly praised Carney’s trip before reminding him that there is a global trade war that is affecting us. Poilievre insisted that we both trade with the U.S., and that they must be doing something right. Joly accused Poilievre of always talking down Canadian workers, and praised yesterday’s interest rate cuts. Poilievre switched to French to say that they support workers, then accused the Liberals of “collapsing” the economy, before repeating his first question about their growth rates. Joly said that Poilievre doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and praised the interest rate cuts as good news, and said that we need to work with trade partners to grow the economy. Poilievre returned to English to accuse Carney of only heading to Mexico for a photo op, and then repeated the line that the economy is “collapsing,” and Joly said that Poilievre believes in isolationism while the government is engaging abroad. Poilievre said that we already have trade agreements and that this trip was just for fake engagement, and said Carney could ask those other counties why they’re doing so much better than we are. Maninder Sidhu patted himself on the back for the trading relationships Canada has. Poilievre said he was taking credit for things he never did while the economy collapses, to which Sidhu said he wouldn’t go to personal attacks, before reading off some trade statistics with Mexico.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she accused the government of attacking the ability of Quebec to pass their own laws with their factum to the Supreme Court of Canada in an upcoming hearing. Steven Guilbeault says that the government has a duty to protect the Charter. Normandin repeated the accusation, which was wholly specious in its arguments, and again Guilbeault said that they are not preventing any province from invoked the Clause, and he could organise a presentation through the department of Justice. Rhéal Fortin returned to his same questions as earlier in the week, attacking a judicial appointment on false grounds. Patricia Lattanzio read a statement about the independence of the judiciary.

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Roundup: Alberta’s book bans take shape

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Because Danielle Smith’s Alberta continues to descend into this somewhat farcical MAGA karaoke, the alleged list of books that the Edmonton Public School Board is proposing to ban from its libraries per the government’s new policy got leaked yesterday, and you can bet that so many of the usual suspects were on it, including The Handmaid’s Tale, books by Margaret Lawrence, George Orwell, and plenty of queer titles as well, including Flamer, Fun Home, Gender Queer and Two Boys Kissing, because of course they are. (Funnily enough, Ayn Rand’s two most famous works are also on this list). These were all targeted supposedly for “explicit sexual content,” which is ridiculous in pretty much every single case (including those couple of panels from Gender Queer that has every single social conservative apoplectic).

Well, the list of books being banned from EPSB is appalling. And it's very likely that an author on this list will get their other works pulled too, especially in the absence of teacher librarians.There are books on this list that changed my life. This is what the UCP is taking away from kids.

— Bridget Stirling (@bridgetstirling.bsky.social) 2025-08-28T17:23:59.383Z

More of the list. It's truly shocking to realize just what this will mean.

— Bridget Stirling (@bridgetstirling.bsky.social) 2025-08-28T17:23:59.384Z

But based on the cheers I've heard Danielle Smith's school library content crackdown get at AlbertaNext Panels and UCP function, her political base absolutely adores this.

— Jason Markusoff (@markusoff.bsky.social) 2025-08-28T21:42:02.703Z

Of course, once the list was leaked, the minister had to start engaging in damage control, and wants “clarification” on the list, but come on. You set up a moral panic, predicated mostly on queer books, and once you started pulling that thread, whoops, the results were quickly exposed for what they really are, because Smith and company didn’t want to be upfront about the homophobia/transphobia that they were clearly pandering to. So now they’re going to take control over the book ban lists directly, which they insisted they didn’t want to do, and you can bet that the books that stay banned will pretty much entirely be queer or trans materials. Just you wait.

Meanwhile, falling oil prices have turned Alberta’s planned surplus into a big deficit, because they refuse to get off the royalty roller-coaster. Every time they insist that they’re going to, they just double down on resource revenues because they absolutely do not want to implement a sales tax, and the province’s books are constantly in an absolute mess as a result. Of course, Albertans also expect high levels of public services for their low taxes, which is a choice that provincial governments have been making for close to five decades now, and lo, here we are again. Maybe they’ll learn this time? (Haha, no, they won’t).

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-08-28T21:27:01.802Z

Programming Note: I am taking the full long weekend off, so I’ll return Wednesday morning.

Ukraine Dispatch

The Russians sent 598 drones and 31 missiles into Ukraine early morning on Thursday, most of them aimed at Kyiv, which resulted in at least 21 dead and 48 wounded, with British and European Union diplomatic buildings targeted alongside more residential buildings. (Photos here, some recounting of the scenes here).

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Roundup: Kenney’s omitted immigration changes

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The Conservatives are full-on throwing everything they can at the wall to see what sticks, and yesterday it was the moral panic over immigration figures. Pierre Poilievre put out a press release decrying that permits issued had blown past the proposed caps, and that the system is “facing collapse,” which I’m pretty sure is bullshit, before promising to propose “fixes” in the fall, which you can already be assured will mostly be comprised of dog-whistles. (And remember, the problem is less with immigration numbers than it is with premiers who are not doing their jobs with regards to building housing of properly funding healthcare).

Enter Jason Kenney, who went on an extended rant about how he “fixed” the system when he was minister, and how Trudeau and company broke it, but this is also revisionist history. He talks about the sweeping reforms he brought in in 2010, and how everyone praised it, but he omitted that he blunted most of those reforms before they could be implemented. You see, in 2010, it was a hung parliament and the Conservatives couldn’t push through draconian immigration legislation, so they needed to work with the opposition (most notably Olivia Chow as the NDP’s immigration critic), and they passed a bill that had plenty of safeguards in place. In 2011, there was an election where they got a majority, and before the 2010 bill could be fully implemented (because the coming-into-force provisions were going to take as long as a year), Kenney rammed through a new bill that curtailed most of those safeguards, and used tales of international migration cartels, and human smuggling rings that would bring people into the country to collect social assistance, which those cartels would then collect, and so on. Yes, there were problems with high rates of claims from certain countries, but like most things, Kenney was less than honest and building his scaremongering case, while also doing the thing where he played economic migrants against asylum seekers, and made “good immigrants versus bad asylum claimants” arguments to justify his legislation.

https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1960088637925961993

The other thing that Kenney is blatantly ignoring is that the world is not the same world as it was in 2010, and the migration situation is vastly different than it was back then. So yes, the current government is facing different challenges, but I wouldn’t expect Kenney to be honest about well, pretty much anything, because that’s who Jason Kenney is.

effinbirds.com/post/7790141…

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-08-24T20:02:02.229Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine has been stepping up drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and fuel terminals, squeezing their war economy.

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Roundup: Minister shocked at decades-old endemic problem

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Things with the Air Canada labour dispute threatened to veer into farce yesterday as things did not go as the government had hoped. Early in the morning, the Canadian Industrial Relations Board declared that the ongoing strike action by the flight attendants was now an illegal strike—but they didn’t refer it to the courts for enforcement, even though union leaders said that they were willing to go to jail for it (but there is no criminal offence here, merely administrative monetary penalties). And then, gallingly, the minister declared that she was shocked—shocked!—to learn about the allegations of unpaid labour, and ordered a probe of the situation, promising to close any loopholes in the law, but she can’t have been shocked. This has been an ongoing issue for decades. In the last parliament, both the Conservatives and the NDP put forward private members’ bills about this. The NDP in particular made a bunch of members’ statements and questions in QP about the issue, but Hajdu is only now learning about it? Come. On.

https://bsky.app/profile/lyleskinner.bsky.social/post/3lwoofl4ahs2v

Air Canada, meanwhile, is cancelling more flights, because they didn’t think that the union would not obey the back-to-work order (that has no enforcement mechanism). The union is trying to get an injunction because they argue that the order is abusing Section 107’s powers (and they are very likely right about that). And then Air Canada insisted that they won’t negotiate until the planes are flying again…but then talks resumed with a mediator by night, so we’ll see where this is at by morning.

Meanwhile, the broader problem of the moral hazard of continued government intervention, particularly the use of Section 107 (which doesn’t require a legislative process, or anything other than an email or phone call), has other unions on edge that this is going to permanently imbalance labour relations, because employers can simply declare an impasse and wait for the government to intervene. While I do think that these Quebec unions in the CP story are not differentiating between provincial and federal legislation enough (Section 107 is a federal power that applies only to federally-regulated workplaces), but we also know that many provincial governments are not exactly worrying about rights these days, which includes labour rights. Next steps remain the courts, who are likely to strike down these uses of Section 107 as being abusive.

Ukraine Dispatch

The toll from those strikes on Kharkiv and elsewhere early Monday have climbed to at least ten dead and 23 wounded. A Russian general was seriously wounded on the front lines.

At the conclusion of the meeting at the White House, Trump has agreed to European security guarantees (for now, anyway) after Ukraine offered to buy $100 billion in weapons from the US, and  now Trump wants to set up a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy (not that it will change anything as Putin doesn’t want to end the war). AP has a timeline of the changes in the front lines from February 2022 until now.

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Roundup: Reassuring Inuit leadership

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Mark Carney was in Inuvik to have his meeting with Inuit leaders regarding Bill C-5 and the major projects they are hoping to build, and seems to have convinced them that nothing is going to impact on their particular treaty rights, even though it’s still a lot of “just trust me,” because I cannot stress enough that he gave himself the power to override pretty much any legislation with that massive Henry VIII clause in C-5, meaning that he intends to use it. Said Inuit leaders didn’t seem quite as exercised about the colonial structures being built into the Major Projects Office and its proposed Indigenous advisory council (which reports to PMO and not to the Indigenous nations they are supposed to be representing), but again, we’ll see once things are a little more fleshed out.

During the meeting, Carney and Anita Anand announced that Iqaluit resident Virginia Mearns, who is Inuk, will be Canada’s new Arctic ambassador, a role that Mary Simon once held. As part of this office and Arctic strategy, there are plans to open new consulates in Alaska and Greenland.

Meanwhile, the demands for PONIs continue to dwell largely in fantasyland, with projects that have no proponents being demanded approval of, nor projects that have a particular economic case to be made for them. It’s just “more pipelines.” Like, come on, guys.

Programming Note: I’m off for the next week-and-a-bit. See you on the far side of the long weekend.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-07-24T21:27:03.912Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Two people were killed in a Russian attack on Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine, while at least 33 were injured in a glide bomb attack on Kharkiv. President Zelenskyy has introduced a bill to restore the independence of the anti-corruption agencies, and says he welcomes input from friendly governments.

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Roundup: Platforms, budgets, and estimates

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The news that there won’t be a spring budget meant a day of wailing and gnashing of teeth, much of it misunderstanding about what the budget actually is and does. Pierre Poilievre summoned the media outside of West Block to decry that Mark Carney “has no plan” because there isn’t a budget, and his MPs have been tweeting up a storm to insist that “Carney lied” by not having a budget, but this, as usual, is little more than low-rent disinformation that treats voters like idiots because they don’t know the parliamentary budgetary cycle.

Budgets by their very nature are political documents. They provide guideposts for spending plans, but we just had an election and the Liberals have a reasonably comprehensive platform document, so that can provide the broad strokes for spending plans in the same way that a budget document does. The thing we are missing is an updated chart of what the current debt/deficit projections look like, and what the growth projections are, but again, the growth projections are merely an amalgamation of private sector forecasts and are no longer based on Department of Finance projections, and we’re in a moment of profound economic uncertainty because of Trump’s trade war, so they could very well go up in smoke next week, and wouldn’t be of much use to anyone. There is also the practical reality that the election was three weeks ago, and the Department of Finance wouldn’t have time to prepare a budget document, even based on the projections from the platform document, nor have it ready before the Commons rises for the summer. And if anyone thinks they want to sit in Ottawa’s hot and muggy summer climate, well, no they actually do not. That’s just political posturing (or sheer ignorance of what summer is like here).

I did also want to point you to this thread which corrects something from this The Canadian Press explainer about the budget document, budget implementation acts, and the Estimates. The estimates are the actual spending documents about how much the government plans to spend. A budget implementation act is legislation that enacts things like tax changes from the budget document, which are proper omnibus bills, but in recent years have become abusive omnibus bills as governments will stuff extraneous things into the budget document in order to include them in the omnibus BIA for the sake of expediency. It abuses process and shouldn’t be allowed (including with the fig leaf of “it was in the budget document!”) but this is also was six years of unrelenting procedural warfare has wrought—if you can’t pass bills because the opposition parties want to play games, then you shove everything into an abusive BIA, and the cycle perpetuates, which isn’t good for anyone (which is also a reminder that actions have consequences). Suffice to say, there will be an Estimates Bill passed in the four weeks that Parliament is back, so it’s not like there isn’t anything from government on spending plans.

Programming Note: I am taking the full long weekend off, because I’m utterly exhausted. See you on Wednesday.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims that they have taken two more settlements in Eastern Ukraine, which Ukraine disputes. President Zelenskyy is in Türkiye for the “peace talks” that aren’t actually going to happen because he called Putin’s bluff.

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