Tag Archives: Coast Guard

Roundup: Ahistorical expectations about project timelines

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A couple of quick notes for the weekend. First is that for all of the projects referred to the Major Projects Office, none have actually officially been designated a PONI (Project of National Importance), so my calling the referred projects as such is admittedly premature. But that also means that none of them have the special rules that trigger the Henry VIII Clause from the legislation, which again, leads to the same question that Althia Raj asked in her most recent column about why the rush to ram that bill through Parliament with almost no debate and little stakeholder input if they haven’t bothered to use it, nearly six months later.

The other note is that the talk about timelines remain ahistorical and nothing but wishful thinking. “We used to build big things. We built a railway in four years.” Erm, not really. This is likely a reason why most of the projects that have been referred to the MPO so far have been in the works for years is for the very reason that they’re much further along. This is likely going to be one of the death knells of Danielle Smith’s pipeline plan, which is that it’s starting from zero, and there is no way, even with the magic wand of the Henry VIII clause, that they can make it go from concept to shovels in two years.

They didn't go from "Shall we build a railway?" to a railway in four years.The CPR was a Confederation promise before 1867. Construction began in 1881.Or, actually, in 1875, when they started a section in Manitoba and northern Ontario. Which hooked up to other rails built on their own earlier.

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-09-14T23:17:30.293Z

There were planning, scandal, false starts, re-awarding of the contract. And not a lot of attention to, you know, Indigenous people's rights.Or working conditions, which were eventually the subject of Heritage Minute you might recall. www.youtube.com/watch?v=EE3I…

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-09-14T23:20:55.646Z

What's the right length of time to plan and build a new high-speed rail line in 2025? I don't know.But they didn't do the entire CPR from concept to completion in four years, and I don't think we want a dead temporary foreign worker for every mile of track.

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-09-14T23:23:15.475Z

And then there’s Poilievre’s completely nonsense demanding that government “get out of the way,” or Ontario’s Stephen Lecce talking about the problems with federal regulations killing projects when that also relies on a very selective reading of history and what happened. Northern Gateway started planning before Harper took over, and over his nine years in power, Mr. “Get government out of the way” couldn’t get it past the finish line either (in part because they couldn’t even be arsed to live up to their own consultation process with First Nations). Nothing Poilievre is saying is true, so We The Media need to stop treating it like it’s credible.

Ukraine Dispatch

The attack on Kyiv early Friday killed six and injured dozens, along with more strikes on energy facilities. Ukraine hit the oil port at Novorossiyk the same day, suspending oil exports. Ukraine is now mass-producing interceptor drones to bolster their air defences.

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Roundup: A pause after malicious compliance

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Not unexpectedly, the Alberta government is pausing its book ban in large part because of the malicious compliance by the Edmonton Public School Board and others, where they weaponized the bans to show how ridiculous they are, particularly in targeting things like Ayn Rand, which Danielle Smith thinks should be “compulsory reading,” because of course she does. And yes, Margaret Atwood got involved, because one of the books that got picked for the ban was The Handmaid’s Tale, and Smith and company were roundly ridiculed by everyone. As they should be.

But as the government decides that they’re going to either come up with a more targeted criteria, or just take these school boards by the hand and essentially do it for them, nobody is actually talking about how this all started with a moral panic about queer or trans books, and that this is what the outcome is going to be once Smith and her ministers come up with the “targeted” list. And frankly, it’s disappointing to see that Naheed Nenshi is not calling this out either, instead giving credence to the moral panic by saying that this was about the UCP igniting a culture war that backfired on them, and “Instead of just saying, ‘Hey, we found a couple of troubling comic books with some troubling images, let’s take those off of shelves,’ they wrote a ministerial order.” Those “troubling images” are overreactions or taken out of context, but more to the point, they’re queer and trans materials. That cannot be toned down or ignored in the broader scheme because this is where fascism always starts. And no, this isn’t just Smith being a MAGA adherent because a lot of these particular tactics have a more tangible origin point in Orbán’s Hungary, where Americans like Ron DeSantis then adapted them for his own use, and far-right groups took their cues from the US shared their lists with members of the UCP to show their “concerns.” Nothing was an accident. Let’s not pussyfoot around this.

I don't think this has necessarily been intentional by anyone in media, but I am fascinated by the way the narrative around the Alberta book bans has shifted away from the censorship of LGBTQ2S+ stories into being much more "Look, they're even banning Game of Thrones!!"

— Mel Woods (@melwoods.me) 2025-09-02T17:18:21.140Z

In other Alberta news, their bans on students changing names or pronouns in schools, and ban on trans women in sport have also taken effect, so Egale Canada is part of a lawsuit that has been launched to challenge these laws, which will inevitably result in Smith invoking the Notwithstanding Clause, because of course she will, but she’s going to insist that she’s the reasonable one in the room while she’s doing it.

1/ Egale Canada and Skipping Stone have filed a constitutional challenge against the Government of Alberta’s Education Amendment Act, 2024 (formerly Bill 27), which places unconstitutional restrictions on the use of names and pronouns in schools across Alberta.

— Egale Canada (@egalecanada.bsky.social) 2025-09-02T21:21:32.679Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-09-02T21:22:03.302Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia has launched air attacks on Kyiv overnight. There were fresh attacks on Ukrainian power facilities over the weekend, and Ukraine has vowed retaliation. Ukraine is also seeing a new troop buildup along certain parts of the front lines. As the school year starts in Ukraine, many more schools have been moved underground as a result of the war. The former Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada was gunned down on Saturday in a political assassination.

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Senate QP: Questions about NATO math

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I haven’t been able to attend Senate Question Period in years as the move to a separate building, and a shift of their usual timing to coincide with Commons QP have kept me away, as has the fact that they pretty much always rise at the same time as the Commons, which never used to be the practice, and for which I write a peevish column at the start of every summer. This year, however, they are sitting later to pass Bill C-5, so I am actually able to take it in. It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.

Taking in #SenQP for the first time in *years*.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-06-25T18:04:29.258Z

After statements and routine proceedings, things got underway in earnest as  Senator Housakos led off, and he raised the PBO saying that he has received little information on the NATO two percent announcement, and that they have now agreed to the five percent goal at this week’s summit, And wondered how they could take this credibly. Senator Gold lamented that there was underfunding over decades, and that this was because of a changing world, but also noted that only 3.5 percent of that was over a decade, while the other 1.5 percent was for other things. Housakos again questioned the credibility of the numbers, and Gold returned to the boilerplate assurances they are doing what they can, but also noted that DND hasn’t been able to spend their current allocations.

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Roundup: Countdown to a trade deal?

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Even before the G7 summit officially got underway, prime minister Mark Carney had his bilateral meeting with Trump, and it was this somewhat awkward situation where Trump defended having a “tariff concept” and said that Carney had a “more complicated” plan (how could “free trade” be more complicated?”) but there was word that talks were “accelerating,” and later in the day, we got a readout from that conversation that said that they were aiming to get a trade deal within 30 days, so no pressure there (not that you could really accept such a deal for the paper it’s written on because this is Trump and he doesn’t honour his agreements). Trump also claimed to have signed a trade deal with the UK (which he called the EU at the time), and held up a blank page with his signature on it. So that…happened.

Holy crap. The US-UK trade deal is a blank sheet of paper and only Trump signed it. (Genuine screen grab).

— Justin Wolfers (@justinwolfers.bsky.social) 2025-06-17T00:13:56.113Z

The rest of the summit took place, and then suddenly Trump decided he needed to leave early, right after the Heads of Government dinner, citing important business in Washington, with allusions to the Israel-Iran conflict, but he did wind up signing a joint communiqué that calls for de-escalation in said conflict, so we’ll see how that holds up. Trump leaving early does mean that he won’t be around the arrival of either Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, who had hoped to have bilateral meetings with Trump on the sidelines of the summit, so that does blow a hole in what they expected to come for, particularly for Sheinbaum who rarely travels.

Meanwhile, here are some of the highlights of the day. Tsuut’ina Nation council member Steven Crowchild spoke about his meeting with Trump during his arrival in Calgary. EU officials confirmed that Carney is likely to sign a defence procurement agreement with them during his visit to Brussels in two weeks.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-16T22:08:16.537Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone and missile attack struck Kyiv in the early morning hours, wounding at least twenty. Ukraine received another 1,245 bodies, ending this repatriation agreement, bringing the total to over 6000 war dead.

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QP: A victory lap for immigration concern trolling

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The PM was absent today, his deputy off in Washington, and all of the other leaders absent as well—even Pierre Poilievre, who was in Toronto for the day. That left Andrew Scheer to lead off, and he rhymed off slogans, claimed the Liberal caucus is “revolting,” and gave a declinist vision before debanding an election. Sean Fraser said that while Canadians have had a tough time because of global inflation, they are right to ask who is fighting for them, which isn’t the Conservatives, who want to cut supports they need. Scheer rhymed off more slogans, concern trolled some more about Liberal backbenchers rebelling, and again demanded an election. Marci Ien wondered if her own ministry would even exist in a Conservative government because they plan to cut supports for women, and said the Conservatives don’t stand for women or gender-diverse people. Scheer listed things they would cut, such as the CBC, and again claimed that Liberal backbenchers were confiding in Conservatives because they can’t get a hearing from Trudeau and claimed Marc Miller called these rebels “garbage” (which is not what he said), and he yet again called for an election. Patty Hajdu got up this time to decry just what the Conservatives would cut if they ever returned to power, including to First Nations for clean water. Luc Berthold took over in French to claim that Trudeau was all smiles when he left caucus yesterday because he knew he could count on the support of the Bloc, and listed a number of falsehoods before demanding an election. Diane Lebouthillier stood up to denounce cuts the Conservatives made when they were in office. Berthold continued unabated, and again demanded an election, to which Jean-Yves Duclos cited the falsehood that Poilievre only built six affordable housing units when he was “housing minister.”

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, did a little round of self-righteous told-you-so about immigration capacity, and wondered why they didn’t listen to Quebec earlier. Miller said that the targets were still close to those around 2020, and that immigration was still valuable. Therrien tried again, and this time Miller thanked him for his contributions to Canadian unity.

Heather McPherson rose for the NDP, and lambasted the government for not ensuring enough abortion access across the province (because apparently provincial governments don’t exist). Marci Ien recited the funding the federal government delivered to help increase access. Lindsay Mathyssen gave more of the same, and Mark Holland pointed to agreements they are signing with provincial governments. 

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QP: A non-partisan private screening?

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The prime minister was present today, while his deputy was not. Most of the other leaders, but not all, were present as well. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he immediately praised his “documentary” and crowed that four million people have watched it on Twitter, before wondering if the prime minister would watch it. Justin Trudeau noted that Poilievre has asked the federal government to withdraw from the housing sector, and said that they would’t repeat the same mistakes Poilievre made when he was “housing” minister and denounced Poilievre’s proposals, saying that Poilievre was focusing more on his own popularity than housing people. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his back-patting on his “documentary,” and Trudeau declared that Canadians need the government’s “bold action,” and declared that the federal government has an important leadership role to play and listed some actions. Poilievre mocked Trudeau releasing his own video in a development, then claimed to “set partisanship aside” to offer a private screening of his “documentary.” Trudeau noted the things that Poilievre was promising that wouldn’t actually get more houses built, and that they were more focused on houses than clicks. Poilievre recited a series of slogans, before Trudeau noted that Poilievre was satisfied with his ability to deliver misinformation and disinformation online, which he was very good at. Poilievre called Trudeau the “king of self-aggrandisement,” and praised his “documentary” again. Trudeau noted that he didn’t think he’d be hearing an infomercial instead of QP, and recited lines about how the government was working with cities to take concrete measures to get houses built while Poilievre is busy talking to himself online.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and worried both the dire state of the media, particularly with the recent CBC/Radio-Canada cuts. Trudeau insisted that they have been there for the media for years, and praised their Google deal. Blanchet insisted that the Google deal was not enough, and that was particularly concerned about cuts to French services at CBC while executives would still get bonuses. Trudeau read a script about cancelling the Harper cuts to CBC, and praise for the Online News Act, taking a swipe at Poilievre in the process.

Jenny Kwan rose for the NDP, and demanded immediate action on housing. Trudeau said that they were reaching out to municipalities and provinces to deliver, and that they all needed to roll up their sleeves to solve this process. Alistair MacGregor went on a rant about corporate greed driving people to food banks, to which Trudeau read a script about competition legislation to crack down on predatory pricing and ensuring more competition in the sector to lower prices.

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Roundup: Inviting premiers to shift the blame

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It’s now day one-hundred-and-forty-seven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and while Russian forces pound cities like Kramatorsk in the east, and targeted Odesa in the south, they are planning to begin annexing Ukrainian territory with installing proxy officials, false referenda, replacing the local currency and forcing people to apply for Russian citizenship. We know this because they did it in 2014 when they annexed Crimea, and they have a familiar MO.

Closer to home, there was a report out from Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer yesterday that showed how Doug Ford and his merry band of incompetent murderclowns have been under-spending in a number of significant areas like healthcare, education, social supports that include things like autism therapy. Now, put this underspending into the same context of Ford crying poor and insisting that the federal government pony up more cash for healthcare, but he’s not even spending his own current budget allocation, he hasn’t reversed his cuts to nurses’ salaries, and he didn’t do enough when it comes to testing or tracing when it comes to the pandemic. The same report shows he only spent 58 percent of the pandemic funds the federal government sent over, putting the rest directly onto his bottom line to reduce the province’s deficit. And you wonder why the federal government wants strings attached to future funding, to ensure that it actually gets spent on the things it’s supposed to be spent on, and not being used to pad bottom lines.

On a related note, reporters were asking Justin Trudeau yesterday about the strain that emergency rooms are under, and when Trudeau noted the money they’ve sent to the provinces and that those dollars need to come with results, those same reporters frame this as “punting it” back to the provinces.

No.

It’s not punting—it’s the provinces’ gods damned jobs. And while this was justified as Trudeau campaigning on hiring more doctors and nurses, no—the campaign promise was to send $3.2 billion to the provinces to hire doctors and nurses, and it’s not rocket science to understand that this is the kind of thing he’s trying to attach strings to before he sends those cheques to the provinces, so that he knows that they’re going to actually spend it to hire doctors and nurses (and one presumes actually pay them properly) and that it won’t wind up padding their bottom lines like we just watched Doug Ford do. And I’m not trying to insinuate that the reporters are playing gotcha or that they’re being partisan, because they’re not—they’re trying to do their jobs, but they’re doing it with a grave misunderstanding about how jurisdiction works, and this nonsense belief that nobody cares about it. The problem is that they have to care, because that’s how we hold people to account for the work they’re supposed to be doing, which the premiers aren’t. Because media keeps giving them this out and trying to pin things on Trudeau “because nobody cares about jurisdiction,” and the only lever he has is to try and attach strings to funding and nothing else—the federal government cannot hire doctors and nurses because they have no authority to do so—it gives the provinces an out so that they can shift blame when it’s their gods damned responsibility. We need the media to understand this and hold the right people to account for their failures, and right now, that’s the gods damned premiers.

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QP: Selectively quoting a PBO report that selectively frames an issue

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With Justin Trudeau away—first to Mississauga to announce the child care deal in Ontario along with his deputy, then off to Vancouver, none of the other leaders bothered to show up in the House of Commons for Question Period today, so happy Monday to you all. Luc Berthold led off, script in front of him, and in French, he regaled the Commons with a tale of how people approached him in the grocery store about complaints about the rising cost of living, and demanded to now how the prime minister intends to feed Canadian families. Randy Boissonnault accused him of creating economic fiction, and recited Statistics Canada data on the growth of the GDP. Berthold railed about the price of gas and what it was doing for inflation, to which Boisonnault praised the child care agreement with Ontario as an affordability measure. Berthold then switched to health care transfers to provinces and the principles the government were attaching to them, to which Jean-Yves Duclos praised their measures to save Canadians’ lives. Kyle Seeback got up and in English, railed about the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report on carbon prices, selectively quoting a report that only selectively looks at a portion of the issue, to which Terry Duguid assured him that the PBO stated that most families will get more back in rebates than they pay. Seeback insisted this was wrong, that the PBO stated otherwise, and Duguid repeated his points.

Alain Therrien rose for the Bloc, and he demanded that health transfers have no conditions and blamed the federal government for underfunding provincial health systems, and Duclos recited some good news talking points about the $2 billion for surgery backlogs. Therrien listed federal failures to insist that they had no competence for healthcare, to which Pablo Rodriguez quipped that the Bloc should invest in shirt-making companies because they keep tearing their shirts every day.

Alexandre Boulerice appeared for the NDP by video and wondered about enforcement of sanctions in Canada, to which Mélanie Joly praised the sanctions and the assets that they froze. Heather McPherson repeated the question in English, and Joly repeated her assurances.

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QP: Demanding the inflation target

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With the prime minister virtually attending Biden’s “democracy summit,” and Chrystia Freeland absent, it was promising to be a rockier day in the Commons. Erin O’Toole led off, his script on his mini-lectern, and he brayed about inflation, housing prices, and coming interest rate hikes. Ahmed Hussen reminded him that they were the federal party that restored leadership to the housing file and he praised the National Housing Strategy. O’Toole raised the prospect of predicted food price hikes, and then pretended that Trudeau and Freeland were in the Chamber and not answer, and Randy Boissonnault, in his role as associate finance minster, reminded O’Toole about the Bank of Canada’s inflation target. O’Toole pretended that the prime minster ignored his responses about the Bank’s mandate and worried it would be changed, to which Boissonnault reminded him that the Bank is independent. O’Toole switched to French to misleadingly say that the Liberals planned to abandon the inflation targeting mandate, and Hussen repeated his first response, and called out the nonsense in the Conservatives’ supply day motion. O’Toole returned to braying about inflation in French, and Boissonnault repeated in French about the Bank’s mandate, before reciting some good news talking points.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he worried that the Auditor General showed that thirty percent of COVID tests were lost or mislabelled, for which Duclos said that he thanked the AG for her work, and said they would examine the results. Therrien worried about the stat that fourteen percent of those tested were never notified, but Duclos gave a bromide about working to prevent omicron.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and after citing a report on growing inequality (I would be dubious of that given that the Canadian trajectory has not been the same as the US), and he demanded a tax on the super-wealthy, for which Boissonnault listed measures to help those in need. Singh repeated the question in French, and Boissonnault read measures in the Liberal platform about taxing banks and insurance companies.

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Roundup: Freeland has a KGB file

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I think it goes a little unappreciated at times as to just what a force of nature Chrystia Freeland can be. This weekend, we learned about her KGB file – wherein she was code-named “Frida” – from the time she was a university student on an exchange programme in Soviet Ukraine. She was ostensibly there to learn the language, but she was already fluent (she spoke it at home growing up, and still speaks it at home with her children), and instead spent much of her time organising local dissidents, and acting as a fixer for foreign journalists (which set up her later career). And along the way, she knew how to evade Soviet surveillance and send letters through the Canadian embassy in Moscow where the diplomatic pouches couldn’t be searched. The KGB was apparently not only worried about her, but impressed by her talents and felt she could have made a great spy.

Having read this, I was reminded of a debate that took place in the House of Commons in the waning days of the Harper government, when then-parliamentary secretary James Bezan was trying to minimise Freeland’s connection with Ukraine, and tried to make it sound as though Freeland was inventing it. (Remember that the Conservatives very much try to play up their connections with the Ukrainian diaspora community across the prairies, because they have votes there). Never mind that Freeland’s mother helped write Ukraine’s first post-Soviet constitution, but we have learned more about Freeland’s own activities in organising movements that helped bring down the Soviet presence in that country.

The fact that our deputy prime minister has this history is pretty interesting stuff, and all the more interesting as she is very likely to be the next prime minister of this country. Add to that, the fact that she is currently a persona non grata in Russia and the subject of sanctions by that country makes it all the more fascinating that she could soon be in charge of this country.

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