Tag Archives: Canadian Forces

Roundup: Ontario MPPs get a raise

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I don’t often write about Ontario politics, but I did want to make a couple of remarks on the fact that Doug Ford pushed through both pay raises for MPPs, as well as a restoration of their pensions, and this actually a Good Thing. MPPs have had their salaries frozen since 2009, when Dalton McGuinty froze them in response to the global financial crisis (which is always one of those dumb populist moves that astroturf groups like the so-called “Canadian Taxpayers Federation” demand, and it always ends up bad). Ford’s legislation will peg MPP salaries at 75 percent of those of MPs, who already have their own salaries adjusted automatically per a particular formula, and it pegs itself to something like judges’ salaries, all in an attempt to depoliticise the issue (and has largely been successful).

The thing about salaries for elected officials is that you want them to be high enough to discourage them from either freelancing on the job, or being susceptible to financial inducements (aka bribery) by keeping them at a reasonably comfortable level (without being obviously lavish or ostentatious). And frankly, the fact that anyone who is in a profession, like a doctor or lawyer, needing to take a pay cut to get into elected politics is usually a bad sign, because it discourages them from running or contributing in a meaningful way. And as for pensions, which Mike Harris killed in more populist excesses, it again helps to keep MPPs from pursuing other remuneration given the low salaries they’re already accepting, when they’re not earning pensionable income from their previous employers. Over time, there have been complaints that certain MPPs wouldn’t retire because they couldn’t afford to, and there was recently one story about a former Toronto MPP who wound up sleeping in a shelter after a financial collapse from a divorce. This was pretty sad indictment of how petty Ontario’s legislature had become on these questions.

This having been said, I’m still dubious about Ford’s motives, given that he has stuffed his Cabinet with MPPs in order to give them raises while going on about how hard they work. This feels a little bit like spoils of war as the province’s books get in worse and worse shape, but again, this is still the right thing to do. I know the books are a mess, and hospitals are crumbling, and they’re dismantling post-secondary education, but not giving these raises doesn’t fix any of that. Let’s hope that we’re not going to witness a bunch more hand-wringing about how nest-feathering, otherwise I can see the dumb populism making things even worse, as they force MPPs to start competing over who does sackcloth and ashes best.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-05-29T21:27:21.302Z

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that Russia is engaging in yet another deception by not handing over its peace settlement proposal ahead of their planned talks.

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Roundup: Platforms, budgets, and estimates

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

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

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Roundup: Wheedling for official party status

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The official party status debate seems to be moving ahead without any consideration of logic, or why the rule exists, or the importance of rules actually being followed. And so, Don Davies says he’s reaching out to Carney to try and get official party status, but insists that he’s not going to try and threaten quid pro quo about it. I’m going to point back to my column from earlier in the week that there is no reason they should qualify for it—or to trust the “no quid pro quo” line either, but I’m really, really not swayed by all the capital-p Pundits who think that the Liberals should give them that status just because, or because they feel bad (or perhaps grateful?) that all those NDP voters switched to Liberals to stop Poilievre and Trump (even though that’s not what the data shows in most ridings), and it lets the NDP off the hook for running a poor campaign with a leader who was past his best-before date, and for their inability to present a vision for voters to believe in. If they want to have their official party status, they need to earn it back in the next election. (A few more details on the state of the party here).

One of the other things the big-P Pundits keep bringing up is the issue of the number of staff that would be lost, and the fact that there wouldn’t be salaries for a party whip or House Leader, but again, they’re seven MPs. You don’t need a staff to wrangle those MPs, to get them onto committees and ensure that if they’re absent that they’re covered off, and so on. It’s not a consideration. Does it suck? Yes. But let’s be realistic about just what those seven MPs are going to be contributing and how much staff they need to do it. They are not actually owed anything here, and perhaps we need to be a little hard-nosed about it. You can bet that if the situation was reversed, the NDP would be ruthless about it (and they were in 2011 when they formed the official opposition and broke established courtesies and rules around seniority for offices in Centre Block and so on in their fit of triumphalism). And the Bloc remember that the NDP refused to extend official party status to them after 2015 when they had ten seats.

There were also news stories about the supposed “feelers” that Liberals have allegedly put out for any NDP floor-crossers, but in the conversations I’ve had with staffers, it has been a lot of “Erm, we don’t want them. Especially that crew.” So, while maybe someone made a few phone calls, or “feelers,” I would seriously doubt that there is an honest effort being made here, but this is merely what I’ve heard, so take that with a grain of salt.

My life reporting on #cdnpoli, basically.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-05-09T13:31:29.079Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians hit 8 settlements in Zaporizhzhia region 220 times during their so-called “ceasefire.” Some 40 world leaders, including Canada, are supporting the creation of a special international tribunal to prosecute Russia for their war of aggression. President Zelenskyy is hosting leaders from the “coalition of the will” today.

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Roundup: Danielle Smith’s weapon of mass distraction

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith continues to be in increasing hot water—and oh, look, her justice minister is related by marriage to someone at the centre of the healthcare procurement scandal—so she has decided to go full-bore into her weapon of mass distraction, which is to attack the federal government and to try and call out Mark Carney for…reasons. She’s asking Carney for a “reset” of relations with Alberta (translation: Give me everything I want), because of course she is. One of the things she announced was a new court challenge of the clean electricity regulations, because of course she is. Nothing like making the lawyers a bunch more money.

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Throughout this, Smith insists she’s not stoking separatism *cough* and that these are just “hypotheticals” about the group of loons in the province itching to trigger a plebiscite by starting to gather signatures (before the bill has even passed), but the fact that she is lowering the threshold for just this eventually is a sign that she knows she’s doing it deliberately. And hey, she even says that there’s no appetite in the province for their own separate pension plan after all (because she got spanked by the reality that she couldn’t raid the majority of the CPP on the way out), so that must mean she’s serious about not stoking separatism, right? Does she think we’re all stupid and can’t see through her transparent bullshit?

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Of course, because Scott Moe can’t help himself, he said that he’s a “true Canadian” but wouldn’t stop a public vote on separation if they triggered a plebiscite under provincial legislation. So…as premier he’s willing to also drive out investment and opportunity from companies that have no interest in dealing with this kind of nonsense? Wow, that’s some smart politicking!

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone attack late Thursday set houses ablaze in Zaporizhzhia and injured 14, but didn’t cause any deaths.

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Roundup: Duelling tax cut offers

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Day two of the campaign, and the first full day of campaigning. Mark Carney began in Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, where he played up the Canadiana and the fact that Gander hosted passengers from aircraft stranded on 9/11 (which became the basis for the musical “Come from Away.” This was part of his appeal to Canadian values in the face of Trump and the trade war, before he jetted off to Halifax. (Day one recap here, and more about the fishers protesting his speech.). Carney also released a second, more earnest ad with Mike Myers, who officially endorsed him in it. Carney also added that he hasn’t spoken to Trump yet, but he suspects Trump is waiting until after the election to call.

Pierre Poilievre was still in the Greater Toronto Area, where he had pledged his own, larger income tax cut, and gave a faux assurance that it would be paid for with “cuts to bureaucracy, consultants, and foreign aid.” (Yeah, that’s not going to get you the money for this kind of a tax cut, it will absolutely disproportionately benefit the wealthy, and you can bet that social programmes will be on the chopping block). He also regaled the crowd with a stupid meme tale about telling a child that income tax is a “punishment for doing well,” rather than the entry fee for civilization. Because Poilievre is fundamentally an anti-government conservative (in spite of having spent his entire life in public office). (Day one recap here).

The NDP started off in Montreal, where he promised to set aside even more public land for rent-controlled homes, but didn’t exactly spell out how this would be different than what the federal government is already doing about leasing public lands (nor did he address the fact that a lot of that “government-owned land” are actually contaminated sites). He also took some jabs at a punching bag in an outdoor gym—because he’s spent the last few weeks trying to burnish a tough-guy image—before the bus went down the 401 to Toronto. (Day one recap here). He’ll spend much of the day there today, before heading to Hamilton later afternoon.

Given the two promises around tax cuts, here are some analyses of what it might mean, once we get more details. Economists, however, are pretty sceptical thus far that the maths are going to work out for these cuts.

The lowest federal income-tax bracket is currently 15%.The Liberals have promised to cut it to 14%.The Conservatives have promised to cut it to 12.75%.Here's a chart depicting how much less tax that would mean for you, depending on your income.(Earn more than $177,882? Read the fine print!)

— Robson Fletcher (@robsonfletcher.com) 2025-03-24T19:35:49.136Z

I agree with Emmett. One party is promsing a 1 point cut to the lowest income tax rate; the other 2.25 points. Neither has proposed a credible way to pay for it.We need to see credible plans for big economic challenges and big defence/security threats.Hope that will be coming soon.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-03-24T19:16:57.508Z

The Leadership Debates Commission announced the dates for the two official “consortium” debates as April 16th and 17thin Montreal, French first, then English, each with a single moderator after the complete gong show of the previous two election cycles. There will not be a TVA “face-à-face” debate this time, as they planned to charge the leaders $75,000 each to “offset costs,” and the Liberals balked, so it won’t go ahead. The other campaigns are trying to say Carney was too afraid of a second French debate, but charging the parties to hold it was a very, very bad precedent, and it’s probably for the best that it wasn’t’ allowed to take hold.

Leaders' debates are planned for April 16th and 17th, with one moderator apiece, and it's not going to be Shachi Kurl (who handed the Bloc the win they were looking for). #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-24T15:08:02.031Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-03-24T13:08:03.483Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian missiles hit a densely-populated part of Sumy, wounding 88 people, while there were further air attacks on Kyiv, wounding one and damaging houses. A Russian cyberattack also hit Ukraine’s state railway service, adding to the chaos of the situation.

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Roundup: Election 2025, Day One

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Around noon on Sunday, prime minister Mark Carney visited Rideau Hall and advised the Governor General to dissolve Parliament for an election. She agreed, signed the proclamation, and the 45th general election was underway. The election will be held on April 28th, making it a short five-week campaign.

Message from the Office of the Speaker of the House of Commons:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T18:16:45.323Z

Remember: Writs are drawn-up. 343 of them, in fact—one for every riding, because a general election is 343 separate but simultaneous elections, not a single event. Nothing gets "dropped," and certainly not a singular writ.No, it's not a "turn of phrase," and no, it's not allowed. #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T17:38:11.308Z

Mark Carney spoke afterward, and immediately promised a “Middle Class™ tax cut,” because clearly what’s needed in a time of economic uncertainty, and when we need to ramp up our defence spending and response to the economic predations of Trump, is a tax cut that will disproportionately benefit top income earners. Carney then headed to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, for his first campaign stop.

Sigh. Is it possible for everyone to remember that Cutting the lowest tax rate means 1. all tax credits are now worth less 2. And high earners benefit much more from the rate cut than anyone else. Don’t make me break out SPSD/M

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T18:37:33.520Z

Pierre Poilievre got his message out early, and he took a couple of mild jabs at Trump, before doubling down on his usual nonsense about “open border” creating crime (which is completely false), and insisted that his campaign offers hope and change, and insisted that they will “restore” the promise of the country. He then headed off to Toronto for a “Canada First™” rally.

Jagmeet Singh accused the Liberals of letting the country “rot from the inside,” and that he’s about people and not billionaires. (All tens of them in Canada?) From his initial Ottawa launch, he then headed to Montreal for his first stop.

And the Green co-leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault called for unity during the election in order to stand up to Trump and the global oligarchs that are seeking to destroy democracy.

In the background of all of this was an interview that Danielle Smith gave to Breitbart News in the US, where she claims that she told members of the Trump administration to hold off on tariffs in order to help get Poilievre elected, because he would be more in sync with them. This is pretty shocking, if she is indeed telling the truth and not just giving some kind of boast to make herself look good for the Breitbart crowd. Poilievre insists that Trump wants Carney to win because he’ll be a pushover, and I mean, come on. Carney gave his usual points about needing respect from Trump before they’ll talk. Nevertheless, the fact that we have premiers freelancing foreign policy like this is a Very Bad Thing and they need to be reined in.

In sync with authoritarianism?Yes. Yes he would be.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T01:52:45.612Z

 

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 147 drones at several cities across Ukraine overnight Sunday, and killed at least seven. On Saturday, Russian shelling killed three in Pokrovsk. The blaze at Russia’s Krasnodar oil depot has been burning for over five days now.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1903740311689363767

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Roundup: Carney and the premiers

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Mark Carney held a First Ministers’ meeting yesterday at the Canadian War Museum, which we’re given to understand was a bit of deliberate symbolism for the current moment, and most of the premiers arrived in person, save Danielle Smith, Scott Moe, and Andrew Furey (who is on a trade mission to Japan, and not in a fit of pique). The meeting ran long, and came out with a number of promises that the cynic in me feels are incredibly optimistic in terms of timelines and ambition. Not that we shouldn’t be ambitious, but oftentimes things are slow for a reason.

In particular, Carney is looking for complete internal free trade by July 1st (barring a few Quebec-specific carve-outs, which one assumes are mostly related to linguistic requirements). He’s also promising to temporary lift the waiting period for EI, to allow businesses to defer corporate income tax and GST/HST filings, creating a new Large Enterprise Economic and National Security Facility for financing, doubling the Indigenous Loan Guarantee programme, increasing funding for regional development agencies, and removing mobility restrictions for federally-regulated workers. The promise around “one window” approvals for major project assessments confuses me somewhat because we already have joint review panels—the whole point being that the federal and provincial assessment processes work together, hence “joint,” so there isn’t duplication. This has been the practice for environmental assessments for decades now, so I’m not quite sure what he’s talking about. Carney was also talking about expediting projects like high-speed rail, but looking at their timeline, I have questions about how much they can realistically speed things without creating new problems. But hey, there’s great enthusiasm in the moment for doing Big Things, so we’ll see if they can actually get off the ground.

In response to questions, Carney clapped back at Trump’s suggestion that he’s the one who changed Canada’s political landscape (not untrue, but not for the reasons he is suggesting),  and gave a line about how Canadians will choose their own leaders. He clarified that yes, he intends to keep the emissions cap (and made the point that it’s an emissions cap and not a production cap), but wants to spur investments in emissions reductions (but really, the carbon price and cap should actually do that on their own). He also did not rule out future investments in pipelines but says he wants to clear the way for private sector investment.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia continues to hammer civilian targets in Odesa and Zaporizhzhia, but then gets all precious about a major pumping station that blew up as Ukrainians have been withdrawing from Kursk region, even though Ukraine says that Russia blew it up themselves as a provocation.

https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1902662502334259284

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Roundup: Unrealistic Ring of Fire promises

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Pierre Poilievre was in Sudbury to pronounce that if he forms government, he’ll set a deadline of six months to approve any federal permits for mining in the “Ring of Fire” region in Northern Ontario, and put $1 billion toward connecting roads in the region to the highway network (to be paid for by cuts elsewhere). Absent from his pronouncement? Any representatives of the First Nations in the region, for whom consultation and cooperation is necessary (and yes, most of the First Nations in the region were not thrilled when they heard this). Poilievre says that there aren’t shovels in the ground because the Liberals have a “keep it in the ground” mentality, which is hard to square with the fact that they have been moving ahead on plenty of other critical mineral projects that are better connected to existing infrastructure, the pipeline they bought to get oil to tidewater, and the fact that oil and gas production are at record highs. So much keeping it in the ground! He also didn’t learn a single gods damned lesson from the Harper years, where trying to slash the review process for big projects only meant that they wound up in litigation.

Meanwhile, a group of energy sector CEOs are demanding that, because of the trade war, the federal government use “emergency powers” to approve more resource (mostly oil and gas) projects, which seems hard to square with the fact that a) there isn’t much in the way of emergency powers that could be deployed, let alone that could affect provincially-regulated projects; b) that they are vague on the market for these products if they’re not going the US, particularly as there is little in the way of cross-country pipeline infrastructure or the fact that the East Coast isn’t going to want to pay a premium for western Canadian oil; or c) the changing energy market means that they seem to be advocating to build a bunch of assets that would be stranded before too long. As this is going on, Danielle Smith is trying to pass yet more unconstitutional/useless legislation to prevent the federal government from acquiring oil companies’ data for their planned emissions cap, because yes, everything is that stupid.

On a related note, you have farmers and Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe urging capitulation to China in order for them to lift their canola tariffs, which were placed in retaliation for the EV tariffs (which in turn were done at the Americans’ behest under Biden in order to protect the EV industry they were trying to build from Chinese dumping). Well, China just executed four Canadian dual-nationals on drug-related charges, in spite of pleas by the Canadian government for clemency. It’s a message that they’re not looking to seek our favour in spite of the fact that Trump has turned against us (and his other allies). Caving to China on this canola issue is not going to work out well in the long term, because they know this is a pressure point that they can exploit. They have exploited it in the past, and it’s why they’re doing so again, and if we cave again, they’ll just move the goal posts and make more demands of Canada that will be harder and harder to resist.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims that Ukraine is trying to sabotage the moratorium on striking each other’s’ energy facilities after a drone strike on an oil depot. Ukraine also attacked an airfield near a Russian strategic bomber base in southern Russia. Russia and Ukraine each swapped 175 prisoners, one of the largest exchanges to date.

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Roundup: Delusions about Canadian defence industry capabilities

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On Sunday, following NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s trip to Nunavut, he released an Arctic sovereignty and defence policyin a bit of pre-election posturing. The actual Arctic sovereignty stuff was reasonably fine, which mostly involves better investments in Northern and Inuit communities, but the defence part? Hoo boy. To start off, it was poorly worded in talking about “repatriating” the F-35 contract to “build the jets” in Canada, but it wasn’t immediately clear if he thought they could build the F-35s in Canada (nope), or if it meant restarting the entire process for selecting a new fighter, which again, isn’t really possible at this stage as the CF-18s are at the absolute end of their lifespan, and we can’t just turn procurements off on a dime.

As Philippe Lagassé explains, yes, we need to pivot away from American platforms, but that needs to be done in a managed and methodical way that is going to take years, and the NDP need to realise this (and so, frankly, to the Liberals given the kinds of crazy things all of the leadership contenders were saying during their debates). But seriously, guys, you can’t just claim we’ll meet all of our military obligations with Canadian industries alone. That’s not even wishful thinking—it’s full-on delusion. You may think that Bombardier’s vapourware promises sound great, because Canadian jobs, but when they can’t deliver? Those are some pretty hefty consequences to face.

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Carbon levy gaslighting

In amidst a bunch of “trutherism” about the document that Mark Carney signed on Friday to zero out the consumer carbon levy (for which they published an extra edition of the Canada Gazette to enact), the Conservative continue to insist that Carney is just going to raise it back up after an election, which seems to be admitting that he’s going to win, which is kind of funny.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are doing themselves no favours by spending the weekend praising Carney for “getting it done” in ending their own signature environmental policy. And Liberal MPs were all over social media patting themselves on the back for “listening to Canadians,” and making up outright Orwellian excuses for defeating their own gods damned policy. And then their supporters were in my replies offering up straight-up revisionist history about the carbon price and trying to blame it on Stephen Harper, I shit you not. I really, really not appreciate being gaslit about your stupid political moves, especially when they refuse to own why it became so divisive, particularly when they refused to properly explain or defend their own policies.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones hit a high-rise building in Chernihiv. Contrary to the Russian propaganda that Trump has been reading, Ukrainian troops in Kursk region are not encircled, even though the Russians are pushing forward to move Ukrainian troops from the region.

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Roundup: Tantrums, and Ford capitulates

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The day started off with a tantrum—Donald Trump screaming that Ontario wasn’t allowed to put the “surcharge” on their electricity exports, and said he was going to make Canada pay dearly, and then threatened to ramp up the incoming steel and aluminium tariffs to 50 percent. That caused another huge panic, and by the end of the day, Doug Ford had secured a meeting with Howard Lutnick (apparently with Dominic LeBlanc), and suspended the “surcharge,” while Trump decided that the global steel and aluminium tariffs were still coming, but only at 25 percent, and those are now in effect. And that in turn will trigger more retaliatory tariffs from the Canadian federal government. Trump also went on an extended rant about annexation, but flattered Ford in the process, which made me want to throw up a little.

Guys, I’m just so tired.

I scarcely know where to begin. The regulations for that “surcharge” were released, and it reads very much like a cute attempt to pretend that they’re not tariffs for the sake of international trade, so that he can pretend this is provincial jurisdiction and not federal. After two days of bluster and going on every cable news show in the US insisting he wasn’t going to back down on this “surcharge” until the tariffs were gone, and that he was going to go even further, it took one phone call with Lutnik and Ford capitulated right as the global steel and aluminium tariffs were coming into place, so how exactly did he help Ontario or anyone? I’m at a loss. He’s also pretending that he has a role in international negotiations, neglecting in his tweet to mention that Dominic LeBlanc will be at the table with Lutnik, but on top of that, you think you’re actually going to be negotiating a renewed NAFTA? Really? Given that Trump has proven that any agreement he signs isn’t worth the paper it’s written on because he only operates in bad faith? And you still want to go ahead with this farce?

Trump needs to stop these tariffs for the sole reason that people are starting to believe that Doug Ford is a good leader, and I cannot have that

— Clare Blackwood (@clareblackwood.bsky.social) 2025-03-11T15:18:15.159Z

Meanwhile, Poilievre demanded 50 percent retaliatory tariffs if the steel and aluminium tariffs went to 50 percent, Jagmeet Singh continues to demand that Parliament be summoned to pass a package of aid for workers before the election, and Elizabeth May wants a “wartime Cabinet,” and I just can’t because it misunderstands what actually happened during the First World War. Also, Alberta’s energy minister Brian Jean thinks he’s an international negotiator too. And hey, here’s a plausible explanation for Trump’s constant tariff chaos—because affected CEOs have to pay millions to see him at Mar-a-Lago to plead their case, and he’s making a lot of money that way.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed a ballistic missile and 70 out of 126 drones in Monday night’s attack, while Russia claims they are making progress in reclaiming Kursk region. Ukrainian drones struck two more Russian oil facilities, with explosions recorded. The US says they are resuming military aid and intelligence sharing after Ukraine said they were willing to sign onto a ceasefire proposal, but Russia has not agreed yet (and won’t agree because they don’t want a ceasefire). AP has a selection of photos from the war.

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