Tag Archives: Border

Roundup: Paying $85,000 for the privilege of being humiliated

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As if that “big” meeting the premiers had with those mid-level White House officials who ended up trolling and humiliating them couldn’t get any worse, well, it did. It turns out, they paid a lobbyist connected with Don Jr. $85,000 to arrange said meeting, where they didn’t get properly briefed, and froze out the Canadian ambassador (who had a meeting in the White House with actual senior officials earlier that day) in the process.

Because I can’t do it justice, here’s more (full thread starts here):

/ “According to this high-level source, the premiers ‘underestimate how problematic this administration is and think that it is us, the Liberal fed govt, that’s incapable … because we are progressives.’ The source says the premiers now realize that the Trump admin is ‘a threat beyond partisanship.’”

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:22:16.642Z

/ “Another source regrets the premiers did not invite any Canadian representatives to the table, such as the Canadian ambassador to the US, for example. Kirsten Hillman is considered the person who can open any door in Washington, and she should be aware of all discussions, the source believes.”

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:23:02.640Z

/ “Some statements made by the Quebec premier have also raised eyebrows in Ottawa. A federal source believes François Legault revealed too much of his strategy.” Story cites some examples of him putting issues on, or taking them off, the negotiating table.

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:25:56.279Z

/ Ottawa, by the way, feels the same about certain other provinces publicly declaring what Canada should or shouldn’t use as negotiating leverage.

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:26:35.912Z

/ “‘It becomes dangerous to think out loud,’ said a federal source, who believes that such statements could weaken Canada’s negotiating position by revealing too much too soon. ‘We must not negotiate against ourselves,’ the source added.”

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:27:17.535Z

I’m not sure that I can stress this enough—premiers have absolutely no business trying to conduct foreign negotiations. The federal government not only has been handling the situation, but they have told the premiers not to constantly react to everything coming from the Trump administration because it’s chaotic and incoherent, and then they went and tried to get their own meetings? Them meeting with senators and governors sure, I can understand, because they are more on their level as counterparts, but it’s also pretty useless in the current environment because Trump has absolutely everyone cowed.

I’m also going to point a finger at the media for emboldening these premiers because they keep saying things like “there’s a vacuum of leadership” at the federal level and so on, which is not the case. Trudeau is still on the job, even if he’s on his way out. Ministers are still doing their jobs. We have an ambassador in Washington doing her job. They have explicitly told the media that they are not going to react to everything for very good reason. There is no actual need for the premiers to step in and start freelancing. Doug Ford’s “Captain Canada” shtick was him positioning himself before an election, and thanks to uncritical media coverage, waaaaaaaay too many people fell for it. But the media needs people to light their hair on fire at every utterance, and the premiers have been only too happy to step in and fill that role, or to give the bootlicker position (because both sides!), and the federal government just winds up sidelining itself in the process. We’re handing Trump so many little wins because nobody can keep their powder dry.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone attack damaged port infrastructure in Odesa for a second day in a row. Another Russian drone pierced the outer shell of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, and while radiation levels are normal, there is a danger if power goes offline at the site for too long. Russians also claim to have taken control of two more settlements in Donetsk region.

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Roundup: Leadership hopefuls straying into provincial territory

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It’s practically an iron law of Canadian politics that the longer a federal leadership contest runs, the more likely they are to start dipping into areas of provincial jurisdiction. With the NDP, well, that’s a given because they refuse to understand the very notion that federalism exists and you can’t just wave away jurisdictional boundaries with “political willpower” (aka Green Lantern Theory), but the Liberals are all pretty much at it right now with their various campaigns.

Chrystia Freeland proposed a plan to give incentives for Canadian-trained doctors and nurses to come home, with a big bonus and a promise to get credential recognition “within 30 days.” I’m not quite sure how this is supposed to work because the federal government doesn’t pay doctors and nurses (except in cases where they are working with Indigenous Services for First Nations and Inuit facilities), and credentials recognition is run by provincial professional colleges, where the federal government has no particular sway, so I’m not sure how she plans to make that happen. As well, most provinces have not done the necessary things to attract and retain doctors and nurses, such as properly increasing their compensation, or reforming how they bill the system, so it’s hard to see how the incentives are in place for them to be tempted by her one-time bonus.

Mark Carney wants to incentivise prefabricated and modular homes…but won’t give any details on how, that would happen. And yes, housing is primarily a provincial responsibility, so again, I’m not sure just what mechanism he wants to use for said promotion.

Karina Gould proposed both reforms to EI, which her government has been sitting on for years (and yes, I know people who were working on said project years ago), and also promised to a “path” toward basic income, which is hugely problematic at the federal level because most social services are delivered by the provinces, and it’s incredibly complex to try and figure out the various supports at different levels. The BC government had an expert panel report on how to make it happen, and their ultimate recommendation was not to proceed with a basic income, but to enhance existing supports because often they are better targeted for people with complex needs. Gould seems to have ignored this research, and even more disappointing was that the CP story about Gould’s proposal talked about the NDP private members’ bill and the Senate public bill which called for a “framework” for basic income, but those bills couldn’t actually make it happen. They were empty because those kinds of bills can’t spend money, and would simply have been moral suasion. Unfortunately, progressives have consistently ignored the research on basic incomes, because it’s a solution in search of problems that they are desperate to try, and if Gould wants “evidence-based” policy, this is not it.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians launched 140 drones against Ukraine overnight Wednesday, and strikes damaged port facilities in Izmail, while two of the drones landed in neighbouring Moldova. Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s Andreapol oil pumping station, starting a fire. President Zelenskyy appeared to have visited near the front lines at Pokrovsk, praising the good work of the soldiers there. Zelenskyy also said that he would not accept any bilateral “peace deal” that the US reaches with Russia in which Ukraine is not a participant.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1890070620504985845

A reminder: Vladimir Putin could end the war in Ukraine right now, just by ordering his soldiers to go home. No need for treaties or negotiations.

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-02-13T12:17:35.210Z

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Roundup: Policies or platitudes?

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Chrystia Freeland is continuing to release policy ideas, and yesterday there was another list of them—a Middle Class™ tax cut (aimed at the upper end of that middle class, I would say), which seems to be about keeping pace with Mark Carney’s pledge; she is talking about cutting GST on new homes for first-time homebuyers, which echoes Pierre Poilievre’s pledge (and this particular policy has had the stamp of approval by people like Mike Moffatt); not only capping certain grocery prices, but going after the consolidation and monopolisation in the food chains before they reach the grocery oligopoly (the NDP howled that she was trying to steal their grocery cap idea, which they in turn took from France); capping credit card interest rates at 15 percent; and thousands of more early learning and child care spaces (which, I remind you, requires the cooperation of the provinces). It’s a lot, and some of them I find a bit dubious (such as the grocery price cap), but she did get the nod from experts in the field like Vass Bednar, so maybe I need to keep a more open mind about it. Nevertheless, she is coming out with a lot of proposals, and speaking to a lot of Canadian media, including in Quebec, unlike certain other leadership candidates.

Meanwhile, I continue to be completely underwhelmed by Carney, while everyone fawns over him. I am somewhat incredulous at this interview that he did with a columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press, who titled it “Mark Carney pitching answers, not slogans,” but he didn’t actually provide answers! Carney has pitched his Middle Class™ tax cut (which will inevitably disproportionately benefit the very wealthy), and then gave the platitudinous “It’s time to build … homes, building clean energy infrastructure, using all of our energy resources to maximum effect, helping to build the industries of the future now.” That actually says nothing. We know we need to build more homes and infrastructure, the question is how you’re going to do it in a way that is faster and more effectively than we’ve done to date, and that’s the real kicker that he doesn’t answer.

I also find his admission that he didn’t want to jump into politics until the top job was open to be completely off-putting. There are skills in politics that you don’t learn just jumping in at the very top, and it smacks of a particular kind of arrogance that Carney doesn’t see that. Nevertheless, the polls are suddenly swinging in his favour, so he’s clearly convinced a whole lot of people based on his resumé (a resumé that should preclude him from ever going into politics at that), and that single interview he did with John Stewart, but it feels like a whole lot of unearned credit at this point in the race.

Ukraine Dispatch

An early morning Russian missile attack on Kyiv killed at least one person and injured at least three others, while sparking several fires. Overnight Russian attacks on the Poltava region damaged natural gas production facilities in the region.

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Roundup: The threat of annexation is serious

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Well, things got real again today, as Justin Trudeau told the audience at his Canada-US Economic Summit that Trump isn’t joking around with his talk of annexation, and that part of the reason why is access to our critical minerals. Trudeau apparently also talked about the need to mend fences with Mexico as well, which was apparently an oblique shot at Doug Ford, who has been trying to throw them under the bus rather than working with them to counter Trump. (Ford, meanwhile, disparaged the whole summit while on the campaign trail, because apparently, it’s stealing his thunder). There was also talk at the summit about pipelines, nuclear energy (and conservative shills who claim Trudeau is anti-nuclear are straight-up lying), and removing some of the federal-situated trade barriers around financial services regulations and procurement.

As the day went on, more details came out about those two calls that Trudeau had with Trump on Monday about the tariffs and the “reprieve” that was granted. Comments included that Trump was musing about breaking a 1908 boundary treaty, was dismissive of our contributions to NORAD, and listed off a litany of complaints. (Because “it’s all about fentanyl,” right?) It was also on this call that Trudeau apparently deduced that Trump hadn’t been briefed on the $1.3 billion border plan, but maybe that’s what you get when Trump refuses your calls for weeks while he plays gangster. (And he was also refusing the Mexican president’s calls as well, so this was not a Trudeau-specific snub).

So this is where things are at—the stakes are higher than we may want to admit (and certainly the head of the Canadian American Business Council doesn’t want to admit it and still believes this is just an offensive joke), but maybe this existential threat will help shake off the normalcy bias that has perpetuated a certain status quo. Nevertheless, the political landscape is shifting drastically right now, and it’s going to make for a very different election campaign than what everyone was counting on.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian guided bomb attack on Sumy region in the northeast killed three. Russians claim to have taken the settlement of Toretsk, but the Ukrainian brigade in the outskirts says they haven’t moved. International nuclear monitors are concerned that the number of attacks on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant have increased.

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Roundup: Baylis brings back boneheaded ideas

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Yesterday, no-hope Liberal leadership candidate Frank Baylis offered his ideas about how to make politics better, and…*sighs, pinches bridge of nose* It’s so bad, you guys. Back when he was an MP, Baylis had proposed a motion to change the Standing Orders to do a bunch of dumb things that he felt would improve things for MPs, but then didn’t show up for the debate on his own motion, so it died on the Order Paper, fortunately. But I see that he’s back at it again.

I cannot stress enough how stupid of an idea term limits are in a system like ours, because you actually need to have institutional memory in politics, and you can’t build that up in ten-year increments. You just can’t. That’s one of the reasons why the Senate tends to be more valuable in that capacity (which has been curtailed thanks to Trudeau kicking Liberal senators from his own caucus and only appointing independents), but you need experienced MPs in your caucus. Term limits make that impossible, especially for ten years. Canada already has a problem with a higher-than-normal rate of turnover for MPs as compared to other similar democracies, and making the churn worse doesn’t help. Baylis kept justifying this by saying “I’m a professional engineer” when questioned about this on Power & Politics, which doesn’t actually give him any special insight.

His idea of letting the Speaker choose who gets to speak and not party leaders is partially sound, but only in particular circumstances. I get that he wants to eliminate speaking lists, which I do agree with, particularly for Question Period, but it’s not as much of a problem as the rules around speaking times, and how we structure debates. Of course, he then screws up that decent idea with the boneheaded notion of petitions to trigger debates. Parliament is not supposed to be about empty take-note debates. Debates should have a purpose—speaking to motions or legislation that actually do something, rather than speaking for speaking’s sake. That’s all that this idea does.

Finally, Baylis wants a second chamber like they have in Westminster and Canberra, but again, this is ill-thought-out. We already don’t have enough MPs to fully staff all committees (particularly without having parliamentary secretaries as voting members), and to keep debate going in the Chamber, and now you want to add a second chamber? He says this would “speed up decision-making and end legislative gridlock,” but it absolutely wouldn’t because that’s not what those chambers do in the UK or Australia. They are largely used for non-votable debates, and giving speeches or statements. That kind of thing may be of more use in the UK where there are 650 MPs who can’t make members’ statements with much frequency, but it doesn’t affect the pace of legislation at all. It’s so stupid that he didn’t even bother to read up on his own gods damned proposals, but hey, he’s a “businessman” and an “engineer,” so why bother to actually learn how politics works? Honestly.

Meanwhile, speaking of his other no-hope candidate…

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians claim to have repelled an offensive in the Kursk region. Ukraine received some more F-16 fighters from the Netherlands, and Mirage jets from France. Eight Ukrainian children who had been seized from their families were returned home.

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Roundup: Cautious optimism on trade barriers

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Anita Anand told reporters yesterday that she is making progress with provinces when it comes to eliminating interprovincial trade barriers, which sounds great. In fact, she claims that some of those barriers could be “wiped away” in the next thirty days. It would be great news if that’s true, but I have my doubts because these barriers are incredibly difficult to harmonise around the country, and they’re mostly differing regulations, which are perfectly valid exercise of provincial powers. They’re extremely difficult to harmonize because sometimes they differ for a reason. Kevin Milligan explains in this thread if you click through. (He also throws cold water on the notion that we could or should join the EU).

Glad we got through the tariff emergency (at least the first wave of it….). Also glad that people are bringing creativity, energy, and determination to figuring out a medium and long-run response.But I want to throw cold water on three ideas I've seen floated. I'll explain…

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-02-04T20:24:14.385Z

I have to say that I am very curious regarding the method by which Anand is securing these changes, because I have heard no chatter about provinces being willing to surrender some of their provincial sovereignty in order to eliminate some of these barriers. I have also heard nothing about any kind of common regulatory body that could make determinations and that the provinces would adhere to, because they’ve all eschewed a common securities regulator, which should be low-hanging fruit for regulatory harmonisation, and yet… That would seem to imply that they have been establishing some sort of framework around mutual recognition of standards or credentials, but as of yet we have no real details.

As one example from that story: size and weight regulations for transport trucks.There is a very good reason that BC has detailed rules about snow chains for trucks and other provs may not. We have snowy mountains; some provs do not….www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/…

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T20:36:21.924Z

…so this doesn't mean we can't have a Canada-wide standard for truck size/weight. It means you really have to work hard to ensure the standard makes sense for each prov.If you get this wrong, people die. Regs that are too loose result in trucking accidents. So it takes work to get it right.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-02-05T20:40:05.709Z

The other note of caution I would make is that even if these barriers were reduced or eliminated, it would take time to reorient supply chains east-to-west rather than north-to-south, so there would be no immediate cushioning effect from any Trump tariffs. People will need to have realistic expectations about what this will achieve, particularly in the short-to-medium term.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine is blaming an explosion at a draft office in Khmelnytskyi region that killed one person and wounded several others as a series of Russian spies orchestrating attacks. 150 Ukrainian POWs were returned in a prisoner swap with Russia. Here are some of the details about how Ukrainians captured two North Korean soldiers fighting in Kursk region. Ukrainians are also noting a marked improvement in the accuracy of North Korean missiles fired at Ukraine.

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Roundup: Sad skits to demand Parliament’s summoning

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With the “reprieve” now granted, the Conservatives are back to demanding that Parliament be summoned, for…reasons. They have not actually spelled out what they need to legislate, because there are no actual proposals on the table, and you don’t need legislation for retaliatory tariffs (which are currently on hold). There may be a need to give new powers to CBSA around export controls, but we’re not there yet. Nevertheless, pretty much every Conservative MP put out some kind of tweet demanding Parliament be summoned, because it’s all about social media. MP Michael Barrett went up to the West Block to shoot a shitpost video where he tried to open the main doors to the House of Commons, but they were locked, so that he could perform for the camera, but the pièce de résistance here is that those doors are normally open when the House isn’t sitting, and closed when they are, which means that he had to get security to close the doors for him so that he could perform his little skit for the cameras. Just ridiculous.

The thing that nobody is really denying is that their only plan is to have Parliament summoned so that they can immediately call for a non-confidence vote, and the poll numbers are moving away from their previous landslide position because Trudeau is on his way out, and most of his likely successors are also moving away from the carbon levy (which is stupid and self-defeating, but I’m not a strategic genius). Poilievre is hoping to still capitalise on the anger against Trudeau while he can, because the longer it goes, the less the election is going to be about Trudeau or the carbon levy, and it will be more about who can deal with Trump, and Poilievre is far less favourable in many eyes on that front, hence his desperation to go now.

That leaves it up to Jagmeet Singh to determine if any proposals to counter Trump threats would pass, or if the country goes straight to an election and be even less ability to respond to any of Trump’s threats, and he continues to play performatively tough, insisting he’ll pass any measures introduced before the beginning of March, but he’s still voting non-confidence at the end, which…makes no sense, other than he’s still playacting like a tough guy. I would ask why everything needs to be so stupid, but we’re in a cursèd timeline.

The past two weeks, absolutely. #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-04T15:15:33.437Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile strike killed five and wounded over 55 in the town of Izium in the Kharkiv region. As well, drone strikes hit a railway depot in Dnipropetrovsk region. Ukrainian drones sparked another fire at an oil refinery, this time in The Krasnodar region. Frozen US aid means that funds to support people evacuated from front-line settlements may be in serious jeopardy.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1886757333042098399

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Roundup: A thirty-day reprieve—maybe

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In the wake of the weekend of anger and betrayal, one of Trump’s economic advisors went on television to insist that we mistakenly believed this to be a trade war when it’s a drug war. You know, except for all of the talk from Trump about trade deficits, and using economic warfare to force annexation, and the fact that he pardoned the guy who founded a big drug trafficking site on the dark web. Trump himself was talking about “51st state” as this very line was being delivered, along with the new whinge that American banks can’t operate in Canada (which they can in various capacities and some of them already are, but they need to adhere to Canadian banking regulations). Yeah, totally about the drug war. And yes, a number of Vichy Canadians also swallowed this bullshit line of reasoning.

Ah, I see, we've reached the stage of gaslighting with a smile. Cool. Coolcoolcool.

— Shannon Proudfoot (@sproudfoot.bsky.social) 2025-02-03T17:32:32.248Z

Also applies to Vichy Canadians.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-03T18:27:30.038Z

While Scott Moe called for de-escalation, we got word that Mexico had reached a reprieve in exchange for ten thousand troops along their border (when they already have fifteen thousand), so while we waited for Trump to have his call with Justin Trudeau, what did Pierre Poilievre demand, as he stated that while the tariffs were unjustified, that Trump was nevertheless right about the border? Troops along our border, along with adoption of his handwavey slogan-plan (of which I will have more in a full column later). Because militarizing our border for the first time since before Confederation is really the solution here. (Scott Moe also suggested putting CBSA under the military, because the man is a gods damned idiot). Never mind that Poilievre has consistently lied about the border, claiming that Trudeau “weakened” it, and that it took Trump to get us to take it seriously, all of which is false. He nevertheless is giving Trump all the more ammunition he needs, and giving succour to the Vichy Canadians who desperately want to believe Trump.

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lhccxlwz3c2j

Moreover, what role would the military play? Would we be searching people before they exit Canada at a border crossing? Or would we just be trying to stop people from crossing away from border crossings? Would the military be given powers to arrest, etc., similar to peace officers?

— Timothy Huyer (@tim4hire.bsky.social) 2025-02-03T20:17:48.186Z

https://bsky.app/profile/plagasse.bsky.social/post/3lhc5z2pvlk27

Finally, Trudeau had his call with Trump, and we also got our thirty-day reprieve on the promise of what we were already doing, plus another couple hundred thousand dollars for dealing with organised crime (which yes, is needed), and appointing a “fentanyl czar,” which can get into the sea. We don’t have “czars” in our system of government. Yes, this is empty theatre, and whatever minister or deputy minister is given this title won’t make that much difference, but nevertheless, the precedent becomes set, and future governments are going to start appointing more “czars” to ape Americanisms, which is the very last thing we need.

This isn’t even security theatre, it’s a security puppet show.

— Tabatha Southey (@tabathasouthey.bsky.social) 2025-02-03T22:47:31.062Z

While plenty of Americans mocked that Trump just got played by Canada and Mexico, I’m not really convinced. None of this was done in good faith, and Trump has given so many different reasons for why we deserved to be punished that no one reason can ever be sufficient. The tariff threat hasn’t gone away, and the “reprieve” will be threatened continually every time he thinks of some new shakedown, and it won’t stop. This was only the opening salvo, and while it exposed the positions of some of the players, we’re a long way even seeing the finish line. Buckle up.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian troops in Pokrovsk are losing ground as Russians have begun switching up tactics as they try to take the strategic city, while Ukraine’s logistics are in peril. Ukrainian drone strikes have triggered more fires at oil refineries in Russia. Trump says he wants Ukraine to supply the US with rare earth elements as “equalization” for future aid, because everything is a shakedown. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission reports an alarming rise in Russians executing captured Ukrainian soldiers.

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Roundup: Carney’s boneheaded “green incentives”

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Liberal leadership hopeful Mark Carney revealed his plan to replace the consumer carbon levy yesterday, and it’s a handwavey bunch of “green incentives” for things like improving your home insulation, furnace, appliances, or buying an electric vehicle. This would be offset by maintaining or increasing the industrial carbon pricing system, along with carbon border adjustments. Carney claimed that the current system isn’t working, which is false, because emissions have been driven down, and then shrugs and says it’s “too divisive,” which is the Liberals’ own gods damned faults for being such incompetent communicators about how the levy works, the rebates (remember when they thought that calling them “climate action incentives” was a genius idea?), and how reducing one’s own carbon footprint maximises those rebates. The government was absolutely incapable of communicating any of it, and Pierre Poilievre swooped in and filled the space with lies and disinformation.

This is so unbelievably stupid. "Green incentives?" I live in an apartment. I can't change the insulation or heating system. Instead, with the rebate from the carbon levy, I get cash, which is a pretty nice incentive given that I don't have a car or do much that I need to pay the carbon levy for.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-31T15:13:28.930Z

This is just about as moronic as Erin O'Toole's "airmiles for carbon" plan, where you would get more rewards the more you pollute, and those of us who are already living low-carbon lifestyles get nothing. The carbon levy was fine if the Liberals could actually properly defend it.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-31T15:13:28.931Z

I find Carney’s plan absolutely infuriating for a number of reasons. One of them is that this imparts a false narrative that carbon emissions reductions can happen for free for consumers. Even if there is no consumer-facing price, industrial emitters will pass along costs, and people won’t get a rebate for those higher costs, which hurts lower-income households harder. Everyone fawning over Carney’s economic credentials should be smacking themselves upside the head because of this fiction he is trying to perpetrate and just how economically illiterate it actually is.

Meanwhile, how much of an “incentive” can it really be for one-time purchases? You can only really re-insulate your house once, or buy a new furnace once every twenty years. There is no price disincentive to increased carbon use, and there is no ongoing reward for a low-carbon lifestyle, which the rebates provide. Again, very few people actually understand this because the government steadfastly refused to actually communicate how the levy and rebates actually work, how to maximise them, and how it rewards ongoing low-carbon behaviour. They hoped that legacy media and would communicate that (they absolutely will not), and it was basically up to five economists on Twitter, which is useless to ninety-five percent of the population. So now the people who have done the work to reduce their carbon footprint will now be punished, and people will take advantage of those one-time purchases for what? The pat on the back that they can give themselves? Everyone involved here needs to take a long, hard look at some of their life choices, but then again, if they had any modicum of self-reflection, they likely wouldn’t be in politics. What an absolute disaster.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones injured four in Odessa, damaging a hospital and grain warehouse, while a missile attack seriously damaged a historic centre in the same city. Russian forces are also tightening their approach to Pokrovsk, which is a key logistics hub in the region. Ukrainian forces destroyed a Russian command post in the Kursk region, and are also reporting that they haven’t seen any North Korean troops in the area for three weeks. Ukrainian drones also damaged an oil refinery in Russia’s Volgograd region.

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Roundup: Gould’s stumble of a first proposal

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Liberal leadership candidate Karina Gould made a policy announcement in Ottawa yesterday, and it was…not great. Gould says she’s serious about tackling cost-of-living challenges, so she wants to give a one-year GST cut, and to pay for it by increasing the corporate tax rate for businesses making over $500 million in profit in one year. That sound you’re hearing is every economist in this country crying out in anguish.

Here's a conventional (and IMHO correct) public finance view of this proposal:- The GST is a very efficient way to raise revenues and I simply would not cut it.- Brackets on CIT are bad because, more easily than people, corps can split into multiple entities.www.cbc.ca/news/politic…

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-01-31T03:54:01.703Z

Look sales tax holidays are just so very silly. A so much better use of $11b is….breathes…targeted transfers.

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-01-31T03:34:11.186Z

A real Canada Disability Benefit would start at around $12B. We have a leadership candidate that would forgo that for everyone to get a couple dozen dollars in one year fromGST relief.

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-01-31T03:37:16.297Z

It’s just so needlessly dumb, and you would have thought that Gould might have paid attention to what an absolute fiasco the HST “holiday” has been, and how her fellow Cabinet ministers debased themselves to sell it to the public. It’s also giving shades of Stephen Harper circa 2006, and how that government increased income taxes to pay for the first GST cut, and then spent through the surplus they inherited to give a second cut, which permanently hampered the fiscal capacity of the federal government (which was Harper’s plan). And reducing it for one year? So that you face the blowback of the tax going back up? Seriously? I get that Gould is trying to break through the noise around Mark Carney, but come on. There are plenty of economists whom she could consult with, who would gladly give her the time of day and to explain these things to her, but she decided to go with the same kinds of populist stunts that the Conservatives and NDP run on, while ignoring the notion that the Liberals have been the party doing the sensible policies in spite of them being less popular (such as the carbon levy) because it’s the right thing to do. It’s a disappointing first move by Gould out of the gate.

In a related note, Jaime Battiste has dropped out of the race, and will be backing Carney instead. Battiste was a marginal candidate to begin with, so this move isn’t really a surprise, as much as he wanted to be a First Nations candidate in the race, there just wasn’t a viable path forward for it.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone hit an apartment building in Sumy overnight Wednesday, killing at least six people. Aid groups in Ukraine are scrambling to compensate after the Americans suddenly cut funding to their programming.

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