Tag Archives: Border

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

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— 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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Self-defeating speeding up of consultations

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The Assembly of First Nations is meeting in Ottawa this week, and so far there have been two major points of discussion among the assembled chiefs—the government’s plans for major project development and their attempts to speed through consultations with Indigenous people, and the First Nations clean drinking water legislation. The common denominator between the two is how the Carney government has been moving backwards on reconciliation issues, and watering down its commitments and obligations wherever possible, which is ultimately self-defeating. These are constitutional obligations that they are trying to skirt around as much as they can, and it’s not going to end well for them, and be costlier in the long run.

On the major projects, the national chief, Cindy Woodhouse Neepinak, is correct in that these plans to try and fast-track consultations were done without any consultation ahead of time, so and that can ultimately call into question the legitimacy of project approvals because they do not have Indigenous consent (and yes, free prior and informed consent is the law both in Canada and internationally). Remember when Stephen Harper tried to gut environmental legislation to speed project approvals and it mostly ended up with more litigation? Yeah, that’s pretty much what is going to happen here. As for the drinking water legislation, the fact that the government watered down the bill that had been ostensibly “co-developed” with First Nations in the last parliament (though your mileage may vary on this description somewhat) in order to match their arguments in other litigation is craven, and again, self-defeating. They will ultimately lose these battles in the courts, and it will have cost them time, money, and lives when doing the work up front could save all of these. There is so much penny-wise-pound-foolish nonsense that keeps happening over and over, and nobody seems to want to learn any lessons.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-07-14T19:08:01.471Z

My Latest:

My column points out Jason Kenney’s enthusiasm for airbrushed versions of history that don’t make straight white men the bad guys, which he considers “defamation.”

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QP: Changing up tactics in service of a stunt

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The PM was absent, in Toronto for an announcement before jetting off to Paris, while Pierre Poilievre was also absent. Melissa Lantsman led off, and she raised the death of a Toronto police officer earlier in the day, and asked for a government response. Gary Anandasangaree gave some words of condolence for his death. Lantsman asked which security agencies were engaged on this, as the officer was investigating the shooting of the US consulate in Toronto, and Anandasangaree listed some of the agencies, including the RCMP, involved and that this was a collaborative process. Jasraj Hallan took over, and he once again accused the prime minister of “stuffing his face” on in-flight catering and the costs associated with it, and Steven MacKinnon called for Hallan to up his game. Hallan accused the prime minister of not caring that Canadians are losing sleep because of food insecurity, and MacKinnon reminded him that we are in the midst of a trade war. Pierre Paul-Hus took over in French to again complain about the costs of the prime minister’s in-flight catering. MacKinnon dismissed this given how much trade and investment the prime minister brings home when he travels. Paul-Hus kept railing about the costs, and François-Philippe Champagne rose to add his voice go the condolences for the fallen officer, before repeating the assurances of the prime minister’s trade prowess.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she said that with Trump looking to give up the New NAFTA altogether, so they sacrificed Quebec culture for nothing. MacKinnon got up to take a swipe at the Bloc, ignoring the question. Normandin suggested that the strategy of weakness was not working, and this time Marc Miller rose, and touted how much the government is investing in culture, including their cultural export programme. Martin Champoux took over to ask the same again, and Miller pointed out that the filmmaker Champoux mentioned is funded by the National Film Board.

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Roundup: Stupid games with the Snowbirds

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This story about the Snowbirds has ground down my patience with this government. A couple of weeks ago, Conservative MPs and Senators were in the middle of a meltdown over the fate of the aerial demonstration squadron, and we kept being assured that this was nothing, they were going to keep flying, that the Conservatives were misinterpreting the schedule because it only went up to fall, and future dates were typically released later, and there would be more to announce on the 19th, but their future was assured. And media outlets wrote whole stories based on these Conservative meltdowns which had no basis in fact.

And then the 19th comes around, and the defence minister announces that the squadron is being grounded at the end of the summer until the early 2030s until replacements can be acquired, which they are still negotiating (though some of the stories say the replacements are already on order, but they’re still negotiating, so I’m not sure how that works). So, the minister was not exactly being honest when he said that everything was fine, because once the squadron is grounded, it will have to be completely rebuilt once the new planes do arrive, and that could be in five years or it could be in ten (given the way procurements go in this country). When asked, Prime Minister Mark Carney shrugged and said it was a problem he inherited so not his fault, but guys—this is not what you were messaging two weeks ago. You need to own that.

As for the specifics, it seems that in spite of the Trudeau government’s attempt to prolong their lifespan until 2030, the airframes were showing too much wear for them to be safely extended, so they didn’t make it that far. But certain Conservative MPs going on political shows yesterday seem to think that because this money was spent, that the existing jets should keep flying regardless. (That’s not how airframes work!) But yes, Conservatives are correct in pointing out that the replacement process should have started much earlier under the Trudeau government, but no, signing a petition on the Conservative website is not going to change anything (other than, of course, to mine your data). Frankly, everyone has behaved absolutely abominably throughout this whole affair, and it’s one more reason why we can’t have nice things in this country.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-05-19T19:08:20.600Z

In case you missed it:

  • My story for National Magazine about Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision that creates a tort of intimate partner violence moving forward.
  • My long weekend column on the fact that this government is inept at internet policy, whether it’s lawful access of the massive surveillance needed to age-gate sites.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian missiles struck Chernihiv and Sumy regions, killing four, after previously striking Odesa and Dnipro, as well as Ukraine’s Danube port in Izmail. Ukraine, meanwhile, has struck a major oil refinery in Moscow, and their medium-range strikes are taking out logistics hubs supporting the front lines.

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Roundup: More gas-fired electricity, just because

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Prime minister Mark Carney announced his national electricity plan yesterday, which he’s calling Powering Canada Strong™ (and I swear to Zeus, I am so tired of branding everything “Canada Strong™” by this point). He wants to double production by 2050, as well as connect provincial power grids with interties, build the skilled workforce necessary, and manufacture the technology to do so in Canada. And it all sounds well and good, but to get there, he plans to weaken the Trudeau-era Clean Electricity Regulations in order to allow a lot more natural gas-fired production. You know, for “flexibility.”

At this point you have to wonder how Carney can keep up the pretence that he is still going to meet our climate targets, and yet, he keeps saying that’s what’s going to happen. Sure, he’ll “adjust them,” but if you say we’re weakening them, he gets testy and huffy. But the notion that by “building up we can drive emissions down” is farcical on its face. It relies on the same logic of reducing emissions intensity while increasing the overall volume of production (and it was a tell that he used emissions intensity when talking about gas-fired electricity)—you’re still increasing overall emissions, albeit at a slightly lower rate. And to be clear, Canada was making progress in driving emission down, and we had an actual path to meeting our targets, but that has been completely blown out of the water now.

I’m also getting increasingly tired of this being billed as “pragmatic,” when it’s not in the longer term. The climate crisis is already here, and it’s reflected in the dramatic increase in wildfire season, extreme weather events, and increasing droughts that have pushed up food prices, at home and abroad. We can’t just keep ignoring this and treating climate goals or environmental protection as a luxury add-on. It’s essential to ensuring we have a stable economy of the future, and the fact that Carney and nearly everyone else is ignoring this fact is a really, really big problem, because the costs for kicking this down the road are already being felt. It’s only going to get worse from here, and they keep insisting that they want to make that future pain as bad as it can possibly get.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-05-14T19:08:01.779Z

Programming Note: I am taking the full long weekend off from the blog. See you Wednesday, and happy Victoria Day.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia’s massive drone attack continues, with the count at over 1567 drones since Wednesday, and the death toll now over 37 as an apartment building was struck. Zelenskyy’s former chief of staff has now been arrested in relation to money laundering charges. Meanwhile, the government of Latvia has lost its parliamentary majority over the handling of the incident where a Ukrainian drone accidentally flew into their territory.

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Roundup: A stolen voter list

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There is a wild story happening in Alberta right now, where a separatist group got their hands on a copy of a voters list and made it public and searchable, which is a) illegal; and b) dangerous, particularly to people who are being threatened, stalked, or in hiding from abusive ex-partners, or so on. A judge ordered it taken down, Elections Alberta and the police are involved, but this is so, so messy. It appears that the list came from the already dubious “Republican Party of Alberta,” which was stood up in the interests of getting certain separatist personalities elected into the legislature, and the thing about voter lists is that they are salted with fake names in order to be traceable.

And then comes this twist—a month ago, journalist Jen Gerson warned Elections Alberta about this after receiving a tip from a source, and Elections Alberta said it was credible, but then did nothing because the list could have come from public sources, even though it would have been easy enough to check for the salted names. But they didn’t. And then a month later, this injunction comes down with the investigation, after all of this personal information has been on the internet and accessed by who knows how many people, putting some lives in real jeopardy as a result.

The thing is, we’ve been dealing with issues related to voters lists and privacy legislation federally, when the government tacked on these provisions to Bill C-4 (ostensibly about the GST cut on new homes and ending the consumer carbon levy), and it was basically a move to bigfoot provincial privacy commissioners over how parties protect this data, and simply insist that parties have a policy—nothing about minimum safeguards or any of that. Just a policy. These provisions got zero study in the Commons, because of course they didn’t, and it took a group of senators to try and force changes, and the only amendment they could pass was a sunset clause to push parties to get actual privacy protections in place, and then MPs rejected that amendment (and senators did not insist on it). Now, the government is revisiting these provisions somewhat in Bill C-25, but this whole debacle just underscores how important it is for parties to have proper safeguards, and to have serious teeth when it comes to enforcing them, because as stated above, lives are at stake when this information gets into the wrong hands.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones attacked Odesa again early Thursday, wounding at least 18 people. Ukrainian drones struck Russian oil infrastructure in Tuapse (again), Perm, and Orenburg.

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Roundup: Two committees move behind closed doors

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There is a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth happening by the Conservatives because debate in two committees was moved behind closed doors now that the Liberals are able to exert majority control of them. The cry is that they’re shutting down “public debate,” but I’m dubious. Members of the government won’t say why this was necessary, but I’m not ready to pull the fire alarm just yet.

Why? Because the two committees in question have been in the throes of attempted witch hunt studies that the Conservatives have been trying to orchestrate (with the gleeful assistance of the Bloc, who are happy to embarrass the government any day of the week). In the ethics committee, it’s been the wrangling over trying to insinuate that François-Philippe Champagne was in a conflict of interest because the Alto high speed rail project was included in the budget when he has since put up an ethics screen because his spouse is now an executive on the project. The thing is, the Ethics Commissioner already said that there is no conflict because Alto reports to a different line minister, but Champagne put up the screen out of an abundance of caution. He did agree to appear after a filibuster, but this may be the Liberals trying to get out of it, and not unsurprisingly. The Conservatives have been trying to engineer this meeting so that they can harvest a bunch of clips of them calling Champagne corrupt and him prevaricating or looking obstinate.

The other committee is health, where the Conservatives are trying to manufacture another “boondoggle” around the PrescribeIT project, which as I understand it, was created at the behest of the provinces, who then decided not to take it up once it was developed. Oh, but there was outsourcing! And? They haven’t been able to make any particular allegation other than it cost money, and this is somehow entirely the federal government’s fault for trying to accommodate provinces who, to this day, refuse to come together on common standards for electronic health records, which has been a persistent problem for two decades now. Suffice to say, I’m not convinced that moving procedural wrangling in camera is a sign that democracy is under threat, and there was a whole lot of this very same thing when the Conservatives had a majority on committees (and they turned those committees into branch plants of ministers’ offices). They may try to cast themselves as heroes for inventing scandals, but I remain unconvinced that this is a danger to parliamentary democracy just yet.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-29T13:08:02.607Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia’s attack on Odesa early Wednesday hit residential buildings and a hospital. Ukraine says its new long-range drones hit a Russian oil pumping station 1500 km away from the border. Here is a look at the interceptor drone programme to stop Russia’s Shahed drones, and how the interception rate is now up to 90 percent.

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Roundup: Another lunchtime speech praising trickle-down economics

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Pierre Poilievre was back at the Canadian Club in Toronto for another lunchtime speech on how he is going to fix the economy to make life more affordable, and—stop me if you’ve heard this one before—it involves doubling down on trickle-down economics. In fact, while the speech made all of his greatest hits (destroy environmental legislation, cut taxes, cut bureaucracy in the most hand-wavey way possible), along with his latest genius plan of building a stockpile of oil and critical minerals that will supposedly give us “leverage” with future negotiations. Again, this is stupid because you’re not going to convince Trump, with his love of tariffs, to abandon that with a “strategic reserve.” Get real.

Actual quote from Poilievre's speech today:"If you asked a neutral and objective AI bot to go into all of the policies on the books of the government of Canada, what would you find has actually changed in the last year?"There is no such thing as a "neutral and objective" bot. Absolute clown show.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-04-16T20:24:29.511Z

And because this is Poilievre, he is continuing to double-down on his peevish insistence that he is somehow a better economist than Carney because he watched a bunch of crypto bros on YouTube. In fact, he dismissed Carney as having the “illusion of knowledge,” and claimed that all of Carney’s economic ideas have been wrong for years, which is a ridiculous thing to say. This while he keeps going on and on about “money-printing,” which nobody is engaging in, but again, this is one of the key things that crypto bros will say drives inflation (hence why Poilievre parroted their lines about Bitcoin being a way to opt out of inflation), and nobody will call this out. (Okay, David Cochrane has tried to call it out, and Poilievre and Andrew Scheer just obfuscate and prevaricate, but absolutely nobody else challenges this absolutely bullshit claim, including the government). It’s amazing how much we let him get away with saying that is completely untrue—and he knows it.

Meanwhile, Conservatives back in Ottawa were complaining to the press that François-Philippe Champagne won’t appear at the ethics committee to answer about his recusing himself on the Alto high-speed rail project because his spouse is a vice-president there, even though the Ethics Commissioner said that there is no actual conflict because Alto reports to a different line minister. This is just theatre, because the Conservatives want clips of themselves calling Champagne corrupt in committee, and surprise, surprise, the Liberals have no interest in exposing him to this. So, the Conservatives are now crying foul in advance of committees being rejigged to reflect the majority, and saying that this is proof the Liberals are going to avoid accountability. But witch-hunts and media stunts are not accountability, and this is just so stupid.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-16T19:08:03.789Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia spent all Thursday hammering Ukraine with 700 drones and dozens of missiles, which killed sixteen people and wounded more than a hundred others. One of those strikes was on the Black Sea port of Tuapse, which it an oil tanker.

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Roundup: Ending a filibuster and starting the Iran debate

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Two big things are up today in the House of Commons. First is a programming motion that would end the filibuster on Bill C-9, which is the hate crime bill that the Conservatives have been stalling on because the government agreed with the Bloc to remove the religious exemption to hate crimes. This has caused all sorts of howls, particularly from certain members of the Conservative backbench who are experienced propagandists, who claim that this is going to criminalise religious worship and that prosecutors will be combing the Bible to come after Christians, as though police have the time and resources to do that (as police are the ones responsible for laying hate crime charges—and are frequently the ones who don’t, even when merited). It’s stupid, it’s misleading, it’s dishonest, and the government has had enough, so they’re going to put their foot down and they will have the votes to pass this motion.

Yes, C-9 is a bill that is mostly just empty symbolism, and while civil liberties groups have their concerns that it could be used to criminalise legitimate protests, I would say that the bigger issue—the hate crimes that this is supposed to address—remain in the same position of waiting on police action or inaction. You can pass all the hate crime legislation you want, but if police don’t bother to investigate or lay charges (because most police do have a certain ideological bias), then it’s all for naught.

The other thing that will be coming up today will be a debate on the conflict in Iran, which will take place during the evening. The Government House Leader signalled this before needing to wait on the opposition parties to move anything in the Chamber, for all the good this is going to do. I’m sure the world is waiting with baited breath for MPs to read twenty-minute speeches into the records about how this violates international law (NDP, Bloc), that it’s great that the Supreme Leader was killed and how the Iran regime needs to be destroyed—completely ignoring that the Americans have no plan and will only make things worse (Conservatives), or just praising Mark Carney’s “leadership” and “pragmatism” (Liberals).

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck an apartment building in Kharkiv early Saturday, killing ten people. President Zelenskyy says that Ukraine is discussing joint arms production with the Netherlands for interceptor drones.

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Roundup: Stopping because we asked nicely?

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Prime minister Mark Carney departs for India today on the first leg of his major trade trip, and as pretty much as he’s out the door, senior officials giving a background briefing to reporters says that they believe that India is no longer engaging in transnational repression, otherwise they wouldn’t be on the trip. That…defies credulity. And the logic of not going on the trip if they were engaged in the repression doesn’t hold given that Carney was just in China two weeks ago, and lo, they haven’t stopped their own efforts around interference or repression.

Foreign interference from India, including transnational repression, has been going on in Canada since the 1980s. It did not stop last week. You can agree that stabilization of relations is important with India is important, while not believing this BS. www.thestar.com/politics/fed…

— Stephanie Carvin (@stephaniecarvin.bsky.social) 2026-02-25T23:42:11.723Z

“I really don’t think we’d be taking this trip if we thought these kinds of activities were continuing,” a senior government official said. lol ok so by that logic I guess that means China no longer interferes in our democracy either since the govt took a trip there

— Supriya Dwivedi (@supriya.bsky.social) 2026-02-26T00:35:08.800Z

We just had a whole-ass judicial inquiry that found that India was the number two country, following China, engaging in foreign interference and transnational repression in this country. It’s been happening since the 1980s, and we’re supposed to believe that they just folded up shop and went home because we asked nicely? Really? Just this week, more Sikh activists in Vancouver were warned by police that they and their families are being targeted. Are we supposed to believe that this is just a figment of their imaginations?

The worst part of this is that it’s just insulting to everyone’s intelligence. It’s transparently untrue, and it’s done to shut up the reporters who keep asking about the state of the relationship. There were so many better ways he could have answered this, including talking about how they have made progress with dialogue with Indian officials, or that they have police cooperation, or anything, but just saying “they stopped,” because apparently we asked nicely, is not going to cut it, and Carney is misjudging the public on this one yet again.

Ukraine Dispatch

There were overnight attacks on Kyiv and Kharkiv. Ukraine’s defence minister says they plan to have 4000 kilometres of road protected by anti-drone netting by the end of the year. It is estimated that some 1700 Africans are fighting for Russia, mostly having been tricked into doing so.

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