Tag Archives: Canadian Forces

Roundup: Twenty years of ignoring a warning

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I find myself a little bit fascinated with the story of the main water feeder pipe break in Calgary, mostly because of what it exposes about municipal politics in this country. Council was presented with a report today that shows that they were warned about this twenty years ago, and that nobody did anything about it during all that time. Twenty. Years. The report was commissioned after the 2024 pipe break, and here it is, broken again, because they didn’t finish the job.

Here is the independent panel's timeline of how risk was identified with the Bearspaw Feeder Main 20 years before it ruptured in June 2024.

— Adam MacVicar (@adammacvicar.bsky.social) 2026-01-07T21:19:54.037Z

City councils didn’t prioritize it because they have been so preoccupied with keeping property taxes as low as possible that these kinds of major infrastructure projects continue to be underfunded and overlooked. City staff apparently have unclear reporting structures so nobody becomes responsible for this kind of an issue, and the author of the report was saying he wouldn’t lay the blame on any one individual or era of council. “This problem existed. It repeated itself. It did not surface to the right level of decision-making. And so it’s very difficult, in my opinion, to lay specific blame on any individual. We had a process weakness that was not corrected.”

The thing is, we have a lot of city councils in this country who are also focused solely on keeping their property taxes down, and placating NIMBYs, and we there is other critical infrastructure in this country that is bound for failure. Councils adopt a learned helplessness when city staff don’t do their due diligence about these kinds of failures, and vanishingly few councils are doing their jobs in ensuring these kinds of issues are actually being dealt with. This could be a warning for other cities to take a second look and ensure that they are doing the inspections and maintenance that was ignored here…or they will rely on normalcy bias and leave it for later because clearly it won’t happen to them, right? I have a feeling I know which is more likely.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia attacked two seaports in the Odesa region on Wednesday, while late-night strikes knocked out power in two southeaster regions.

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Roundup: Lessons learned for the NDP?

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NDP interim leader Don Davies have his year-ender to The Canadian Press, talking about getting out to listen to Canadians, and reflect on the party’s devastating loss, and joking that the best part about being burnt to the ground is the ability to rebuild the foundation. And he’s not entirely wrong there, so long as he’s taking the right lessons. But in the same interview, he’s waxing poetic about pharamacare without actually seeming to understand what the issues are (i.e. the provinces), and totally ignoring the work that Trudeau did into building up the programme from the ground up (such as establishing the Canadian Drug Agency) so that provinces could sign on once they were ready, as PEI did (and NDP provinces refused to, particularly BC and John Horgan most especially).

On the same day, the NDP’s Renew and Renewal Report from the last campaign was also released, and it has a few interesting things to say. Once you get past the usual back-patting about how hard everyone worked and how it didn’t feel like it was doomed, and how the leader’s campaign went well, you start getting into some of the structural problems within the party that really do need addressing. Things like the sense that there is an allergy to fundraising in the party, and that nobody wants to actually do it, which doesn’t really help anyone (but also perpetuates the weirdness that bequests from the estates of dead people are one of the party’s top fundraising sources). And there was also a lot in there about the party not properly developing riding associations, and relying too heavily on the central party at the expense of those associations. And to be frank, this should have been a lesson the party internalized after they got nearly entirely wiped out from Quebec in 2015, because they didn’t build up their riding associations during the “Orange Wave,” but assumed that somehow those MPs would have incumbency advantage forever when they didn’t really establish grassroots after all of those accidental victories.

The other thing that is worth noting is that once again, it draws American examples for inspiration, and again it’s Zohran Mamdani. I suspect the reason for this is that too many people in the NDP’s brain trust are terminally online, and as with so many things, the American discourse pervades and they simply think that it can apply to Canada if you divide it by ten, even though we are very separate countries and that we are not just a maple cupcake version of Americana. I’m also going to note that the report said pretty much nothing about the NDP constantly trying to interfere in areas of provincial jurisdiction (particularly with their “bold progressive ideas”), because again, their American analogues don’t translate to Canada in the same way, but this was apparently an area of introspection they didn’t want to engage in. Alas.

This reminds me of something I've been wondering about. Given the various examples of the NDP being the government or official opposition at the provincial level, I'm not sure why federal New Democrats so often — or so recently? — look to the U.S. for inspiration.

— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2025-12-19T21:14:07.891Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-19T14:24:03.406Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched another missile attack on Odesa, killing seven and wounding at least 15 late Friday. There was an exchange of bodies by both governments—1003 dead Ukrainian servicemen for the bodies of 26 Russians. Ukraine and Poland are working out a cooperation agreement around drones.

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Roundup: Shrugging off the trade irritant list

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Prime minister Mark Carney made remarks on the trade situation with the US yesterday, saying that the timelines being what they are, hope for any sectoral tariff deals will likely be rolled into the broader New NAFTA review taking place next year, in spite of the fact that we had apparently been close to a deal before they got blown up by the Reagan ads (though one should contend that it is more than likely that if it wasn’t the ads, something else would have been used as justification to call off the talks, because this is Trump exercising the so-called “art of the deal.”)

Carney was somewhat dismissive of the capitulation list that the US Trade Representative has laid out, and insisted that this was really nothing, that there are dozens of irritants on all sides, but made the promise again to protect Supply Management, because reasons. This being said, there has been commentary that within the existing market cap there could be better efforts for US dairy access, because of how the supply management system works in that only certain producers are allowed to hold the quotas for imports, and if they want to make it difficult, then the market cap doesn’t get reached. This has long been a complaint for Europe, because frankly, the Canadian system is designed with fuckery in mind. Fixing that might help alleviate some of the complaints, but it would take political will to actually do that (though I’m not sure just what American dairy we would be so eager to import, given that their cheese is nothing special compared to Europe or the UK).

Nevertheless, I am most especially worried about the Online Streaming Act and Online News Act complaints from the Americans, and that Carney would be tempted to dump those as capitulation for the sake of “continuing negotiations” like he did with the Digital Services Tax. The problem here is that Trump is going to bat for the tech broligarchy because they have pledged their fealty to him and offered him up large bribes, so he is bullying other countries on their behalf because they don’t want to be regulated. The fact that these specific complaints continue to be treated as trade irritants and not just tech bros being whinging babies is a problem, and will continue to be a problem so long as they remain his loyal backers.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian shelling near Odesa has killed one person, and hit power systems. This comes after an attack on power systems in five regions the night before. European countries have agreed on another €90 billion loan for Ukraine, putting off the question of frozen Russian assets once again. Here is a look at Russia’s hybrid warfare sabotage operations across Europe, designed to distract and overwhelm those country’s resources.

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Roundup: Methane regulations, and Alberta’s exceptions

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There were some movements on the environment front today, as Mark Carney admitted to a Radio-Canada year-end interview that we’re not on track for either our 2030 or 2035 emissions targets (we knew 2030), but tried to make the case that they need to find climate solutions in the current economic climate, which seems to go against what they’re actually doing, by eliminating the consumer carbon levy, weakening or outright undermining the industrial carbon price, and weakening emissions to make it easier for the oil and gas sector to produce and export more, which isn’t going to bring in billions because there is a supply glut on the market that will keep depressing prices. Meanwhile, the costs of climate change continue to increase, and will get even more expensive the longer we delay action.

With this in mind, Julie Dabrusin announced new methane regulations with the aim to reduce them by 75 percent over 2014 levels by 2035, which is great—except if you’re Alberta. You see, part of the MOU with Alberta means that the methane regulations that Carney and Dabrusin keep patting themselves on the back for don’t have to reach their targets until 2040, which means weaker regulations and longer timelines so that they can pollute more for longer because the industry whinged and cried that it wasn’t fair they had to spend more money.

Meanwhile, the federal government has signed a “one project, one review” agreement with New Brunswick, which sounds fine in theory, but the thing that I keep getting hung up on in competencies. Everyone keeps saying they don’t need two reviews because it’s “duplication,” but each level is assessing different things, because each of them has specific competencies, such as species at risk (provincial), fish habitats or migratory birds (federal), site contamination (provincial—unless it crosses a border), and so on. And there were already provisions for joint review panels, so again, I’m not sure what this is all about other than reducing the actual oversight because it would seem to be ensuring that less rigorous assessments are done than with a joint review panel, particularly if the provincial assessors are supposed to be assessing federal areas of responsibility, which they may not have the expertise in.

Ukraine Dispatch

Europe has launched an international commission for war damages in the invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin says a proposed Christmas ceasefire depends on the status of peace talks (which essentially means it’s not going to happen).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/2000830874183712972

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Roundup: Getting played by your leakers

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The Department of National Defence is investigating the leak of selective information by F-35 proponents that made that fighter look like a clear winner in the competition with the SAAB Gripen-E fighter, and the journalists who accepted the leak and wrote that story is getting a bit huffy about it. His story on the investigation quotes a Quebec journalists’ union about how important it is that journalists “do their work freely,” and that such a big purchase deserves scrutiny. This kind of self-righteousness is not unexpected.

That said, he also quoted security expert Wesley Wark who basically took him to the woodshed because the leak was quite obviously propaganda as it was selective, they didn’t provide information on the criteria that the scores were based on (just that it looked like the F-35s were the clear winner with no actual context), and this should have been completely obvious as part of the original story. It’s no secret that there is a cadre within the Canadian Forces that is heavily invested in acquiring as much American military tech as possible, in part because they operate so closely with American forces, but also because they are socialised into believing that it’s the very best and they want the very best, so they have been doing everything they can to manipulate the purchase of these fighters from the very beginning, starting with the Harper government who credulously just said “okay, we’ll sole-source it” on the military’s recommendation in the first instance, before it turned into something of a scandal because of the escalating price tag. (This is not how you do civilian control, guys). These same military folks seem to think that the Americans will never turn on us, and that Trump’s threats are not to be taken seriously.

I should be surprised—but really, I’m not—that the journalist in question allowed himself to be played like this, and clearly it did the job the leakers wanted because you had a bunch of pundits take the story to proclaim that the F-35 is the fighter for Canada, hands-down. That’s ultimately why I find the self-righteous response to a leak investigation to be…funny? Sad? Either way, I’m not a defence expert, but I do read and I do talk to people a lot, and I could see clearly that what got leaked was a frame-up job, and the journalist who wrote the original piece should have seen that as well, and done a better job of canvassing dissent to the leak rather than seeking out sources to confirm what the leakers were selling. But he didn’t, and so he got the head of a journalists’ union to get self-righteous on his behalf. It’s not great for the trust in the institution of journalism if we let ourselves get played like this.

Ukraine Dispatch

An underwater Ukrainian drone struck and disabled a Russian submarine docked at a Black Sea naval base (though Russia denies this). European leaders are meeting in The Hague to launch an International Claims Commission to compensate Ukraine for hundreds of billions of dollars in damages from Russia’s attacks and war crimes.

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Roundup: Ignoring the true meaning of the Statute of Westminster

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Yesterday was the Anniversary of the Statute of Westminster (1931), which is one of the most pivotal moments in our evolution as a sovereign country, but it rarely gets much mention. When I was in junior high, I remember them talking about how this ensured that Canada could control its own foreign policy, but they never said why. And it turns out that no official account or even the Government of Canada’s web page gave the reason either. The reason is that this was the creation of the Canadian Crown as a separate and distinct legal entity from the Crown of the UK, which mean that we could control our own foreign policy, and were seen as an equal to the UK and not a subordinate. But absolutely nobody mentions the Crown of Canada as the reason. Nobody.

The government's page undersells the importance of this date, because today is the anniversary of the creation of the Crown of Canada as a separate and distinct entity from the UK crown. That's why we gained control over our foreign affairs and "our own voice" on the world stage.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-12-11T14:17:20.569Z

The Governor General did not put out a release about the day or its importance to the Canadian Crown. Mark Carney did not put out a release about the day at all. Pierre Poilievre did, but not only did he not mention the Canadian Crown, but he talked up conservative figures from the era of history to try and distract from the fact that Mackenzie King was prime minister at the time, which was frankly sad and a little bit pathetic. Nobody else put out a release, and absolutely nobody mentioned the anniversary of the Canadian Crown.

Nothing about the Crown of Canada.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-12-11T21:53:33.606Z

The creation of the Canadian Crown is one of the most pivotal moments in our history, and it goes completely unremarked because the department of Canadian Heritage is full of republicans, and too many members of civil society are quietly embarrassed by our status as a constitutional monarchy, as though it’s still colonial or “not grown up” when it’s not that at all. The separate Canadian Crown means we are grown up, that we control our own Crown and destiny. And if you don’t want to time-share the monarch with the UK and the other Realms, well, we can change that at any point as well (with the unanimous consent of Parliament and the provinces), and I for one would not be averse to making Princess Anne the full-time Queen of Canada, as she is not only the best royal, but her grandchildren are already Canadian, so that helps with the succession issues. Suffice to say, we have to stop effacing the fact that the Canadian Crown is the central reason why we gained full independence then.

Another floor-crossing

After both Houses of Parliament rose for the winter break, and just before the Liberals had their Christmas party, Conservative MP Michael Ma crossed the floor to join the Liberal ranks. He’s from Markham—Unionville, which is John McCallum’s old riding, so it’s flipped back-and-forth between the Liberals and Conservatives, and Ma has been almost anonymous in the House of Commons, pretty much never put up in QP to read a script for the sake of clips, so he has no profile in the party. His statement talked about “unity and decisive action” for Canadians, which could translate to the fact that he (and possibly his constituents) is tired of the petty little games that Poilievre and his caucus spend all of their time doing.

It also puts the Liberals one seat away from a workable majority, and the House Leader, Steve MacKinnon, hinted that there are more conversations ongoing with Conservatives, and according to the journalists and pundits on the political talk shows, Ma’s name has never been bandied about as a possibility, so this was a complete surprise. But it will also serve to shut Don Davies up if they do get that one more MP, because Davies will have no leverage to try and blackmail Carney with. So, I guess we’ll see what happens by the time Parliament returns.

Well. That happened.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-12-11T23:22:51.428Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian commanders claim to have taken Siversk in the east, but Ukraine denies this. Here is an analysis of how the potential fall of Pokrovsk won’t collapse Ukraine’s front lines. In the back-and-forth on “peace” plans, the US wants to turn ceded lands in the Donbas into a “free economic zone,” and no, I don’t get it either.

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Roundup: Davies again demands official status

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I will have to give it to NDP interim leader Don Davies that he has some big cajónes as he is once again demanding official party status as the House of Commons finds itself in a near deadlock on most legislation. He’s now into full-on blackmail territory—if you want this Parliament to work, give us status. But there are a few problems with this:

  • The NDP have nowhere near earned the right to be trusted after they tore up their previous agreement with the Liberals in bad faith;
  • The NDP were complaining that they were tired of being seen to be propping up the Liberals, but they’re once again offering to do just that, which leads back to the trust question; and
  • The math as it relates to committees has not changed. The NDP do not have the numbers to sit on committees in a fair manner

Davies says that Parliament will work better if the NDP get seats on committees, but which committees? The whole point of the cut-off of 12 for official party status is that it’s just barely enough MPs to be able to cover-off a member on every committee (and that means they are doing double or triple duty). Is he suggesting that they just get to pick five or six committees that they should be allowed to sit on but not the others? How is that fair to those other committees, or those other issues that the NDP are effectively ignoring? Yes, Davies is desperate for more resources and staff that official status would offer, but you cannot demonstrate the fundamentals of being able to be present. Rules exist for a reason.

The current budget bill — C-15 — was tabled on Nov. 18. It's been debated on 10 different sitting days. It still hasn't received a vote at second reading and made it to committee. Would things move faster if C-15 was a dozen different bills?I'm unconvinced.

— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2025-12-10T18:02:17.857Z

MPs seemingly:a) don't want to spend much time in Ottawa and b) don't like to agree to move legislation along without undue delay.

— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2025-12-10T18:00:25.458Z

The current budget bill — C-15 — was tabled on Nov. 18. It's been debated on 10 different sitting days. It still hasn't received a vote at second reading and made it to committee. Would things move faster if C-15 was a dozen different bills?I'm unconvinced.

— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2025-12-10T18:02:17.857Z

Meanwhile, the fact that the budget implementation bill was debated over some eleven days at second reading is a problem. Yes, it’s a problem that it’s a giant omnibus bill, but the Commons has been getting worse about debate times since at least 2011, and nobody shows any willingness to start doing anything differently, and that’s a problem. One of the things I keep reminding people is that in Westminster, second reading debate is one afternoon, because that’s all it needs to be because you’re debating the general principle of the bill—that’s it. Your entire caucus does not need to weigh in with repetitive talking points and slogans. You do not need to put everyone one to get clips. House Leaders need to grow up and start cracking down on this abuse of procedure, and that starts with the Government House Leader, who needs to put his foot down. Enough is enough.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-10T14:25:06.076Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian forces have been fending off an “unusually large” mechanised assault on Pokrovsk. Russian drones hit the gas transport system in Odesa. Ukrainian sea drones have disabled another vessel in Russia’s “shadow fleet” in the Black Sea.

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Roundup: Another weaponized committee appearance

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There was drama at the immigration committee yesterday as Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner decided to go after minister Lina Diab for the sake of putting on a show for the cameras, so that she can harvest as many clips from it as she can for social media. Now, I will be the first to say that Diab is not a great minister, and she is unable to answer basic questions on her file during Question Period, and yesterday as no exception. That being said, Rempel Garner was harassing her over things that are outside of Diab’s purview as minister.

In particular, Rempel Garner was going after Diab on foreign nationals who have committed crimes, but who have received lenient sentences so as to avoid removal. Part of this is no doubt part of a campaign of scapegoating of immigrants, along with blaming them for housing shortages, the collapse of the healthcare system, and youth unemployment, which is gross and unbecoming, but we are now in a political era where parties have let the anti-immigration sentiments fester while trying to blame it on the Liberals (and for which Carney has gone along with that scapegoating and alarmingly has adopted Nigel Farage’s language to blame it on Trudeau). But Diab has nothing to do with court sentences, and saying that she was “pro-raper” for pointing out that sentencing decisions are made by courts independent of government crosses a line, and its’ incredibly disappointing in particular because Rempel Garner used to be one of the most progressive members of the Conservative caucus, but has apparently decided to turn herself into one of its most vociferous attack dogs for the sake of ingratiating herself with the leadership after she was initially kept on the outs for her support of Erin O’Toole.

It was also noted by the committee chair that previous witnesses at the committee, who were all civil servants, were subject to harassment after their previous committee appearances because they were used for social media clips, because that’s what committees have devolved to. It’s a denigration of Parliament and it’s making it so that nobody will want to appear at a committee again, which diminishes the role of Parliament, to say nothing of the fact that it is turning MPs into a bunch of performing monkeys for the party’s social media team. MPs need to stop this behaviour before we find ourselves at a point of no return.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-04T15:03:21.264Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians attacked power and heating systems for Kherson and Odesa in the south. Drone footage shows the devastated city of Myrnohrad nearly surrounded by Russian forces, even though Putin claims they already control it. Ukraine has attacked and damaged the Asov Sea port of Temryuk, as well as a large chemical plant in Stavropol. Five drones were spotted in the flight path of president Zelenskyy’s aircraft on his approach to Ireland, but his early arrival avoided them.

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Roundup: Dabrusin does damage control

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There is some damage control happening, as environment minister Julie Dabrusin is making the rounds on the weekend political talk shows to insist that the MOU with Alberta is not abandoning climate action, and that the clean electricity regulations, for example, are not being carved out, but given more flexibility for each province to come up with equivalency plans. That might be more believable if Danielle Smith wasn’t doing a victory lap claiming that it was being scrapped (after she lied about what it entailed for the past several years).

Meanwhile, I have to question the editor who let this particular CBC headline run over the weekend: “Do activists have a role in government? Steven Guilbeault’s resignation raises questions.” Seriously? Activism is the lifeblood of politics, and that includes roles within government (meaning Cabinet). We don’t live in a technocratic state where bureaucrats are governing and making policy decisions. Activism is what gets people involved, precisely because they have issues that they care about and want to make change. That’s part and parcel of the system.

What this winds up doing is trying to paint Guilbeault as some kind of zealot unable to make compromises, which is again, something that is not borne out by the facts. Guilbeault ran for the Liberals federally after the Trans Mountain decision. He was very much seen as a pragmatist within the environmental movement. The piece mentions that he was first given the heritage portfolio and wasn’t immediately slotted into environment, but that was also something Trudeau started doing more broadly, to give someone somewhere to get their training wheels on and learn how to deal with how government works before giving them the portfolio from their previous career, because it didn’t always go well from his first Cabinet when he tried to simply slot subject-matter expertise into Cabinet roles where they may wind up being captured, or simply not suited in spite of all appearances (*cough*Jody Wilson-Raybould*cough*). The whole piece is just poorly conceived and written, and someone should have exercised more editorial oversight.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched nearly 600 drones and 36 missiles at Ukraine overnight Saturday, killing six and wounding dozens, while knocking out electricity to much of Kyiv. Ukrainian naval drones struck two Russian tankers as part of their “shadow fleet” used to evade sanctions. Reuters tracked a cohort of 18-24-year-olds fighting in Ukraine; none of them are fighting any longer.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1995035870307483725

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Roundup: A 28-point capitulation plan

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Things are heating up for Ukraine now that Trump has presented his so-called 28-point “peace plan,” which is nothing of the sort, and he’s giving president Volodymyr Zelenskyy one week to agree to it, or he is threatening to withdraw American support, even though that support has been mercurial and dwindling for the past year. Nevertheless, they have some key defensive technologies that Ukraine relies upon, particularly for air defences. But in no way is this plan at all acceptable, and is little more than a demand for Ukraine to capitulate, and to pay America for the privilege because Trump is a gangster running a protection racket.

This is what a protection racket looks like, although they are rarely put in writing

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman.bsky.social) 2025-11-21T17:56:08.496Z

The “plan” (full text here) proposes that Ukraine turn over remaining areas in the regions Putin has been unable to conquer after four years, which are essentially a fortress belt. Turning those over, plus reducing the size of Ukraine’s army, is essentially an invitation for Putin to come back and invade with nothing to stop him the next time. The “deal” wants Ukraine to forgo NATO membership, which essentially gives Putin a veto over NATO. It wants Ukraine to pay the US for security guarantees, but no agreement with Trump is worth the paper it’s written on. It wants Ukraine to abandon any attempt to hold Russia accountable for its actions, including mass torture and crimes against humanity. And it wants Russia’s frozen assets returned. So Russia gives up nothing, and it positions itself to fully conquer Ukraine in a few months or a year, when Trump gets bored, and then creates an existential threat for the rest of Europe given that Putin will have gotten rid of the biggest obstacle to his expansionary plans.

Zelenskyy says he will work earnestly with the Americans on this, but that he won’t betray Ukraine’s interests, which pretty much means that he can’t accept these terms. European leaders say that they’re standing behind Ukraine, because they know the danger. But some of the reporting in Canada is abysmal, treating the plan like it’s serious when getting defence minister David McGuinty to comment on it. At least he says that any plan has to be “acceptable,” but this plan clearly is not, so I’m not sure why anyone is bothering to ask if he supports it because there is no way he could or should. This “plan” merely confirms that there is no point in relying on the US any longer, which means that Europe and Canada need to step up right now, and give Ukraine all of the support possible right now because anything less is a disaster for the future of western democracies.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-11-21T14:24:03.043Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims it has taken a string of four settlements in the Donetsk region, which Ukraine denies. They also claim that 5000 Ukrainian troops are trapped in the Kharkiv region.

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