Tag Archives: Danielle Smith

Roundup: Gould’s stumble of a first proposal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

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Roundup: Freeland’s smaller Cabinet promise

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Chrystia Freeland released another policy statement/promise yesterday which says that she will cut the size of Cabinet and the PMO in half—both to make Cabinet more efficient, and to give ministers more control over their files, rather than PMO dictating everything for them. While on the one hand, every incoming prime minister has promised to cut the size of Cabinet and then it starts to grow over time, I also suspect this is a bit of a screw you to Katie Telford, who runs Trudeau’s PMO, and who selects the chief of staff for all ministers with her own loyalists, and who has been a bottleneck for so much of this government’s business as it flows through her office. Caucus has been calling on Trudeau to get rid of Telford for a while now, correctly identifying her as the source of some of their problems (including the fact that she is in the caucus room taking notes, which was never the case under previous leaders), and Freeland appears to be heeding those concerns as endorsements pile up (mostly for Carney).

I do think it’s a fairly bold plan, and it reminds me of Trudeau’s initial attempt to have a “government by Cabinet” in the early days, but all ministers are not created equal, and gradually PMO started to exert more control for many of those ministers who were having trouble managing their files. It also looks like Freeland would be reverting to an older model of having the hard cap of twenty ministers, while additional responsibilities would be filled by ministers of state, which is also essentially how the UK operates, where there is a hard cap on Cabinet, but there are numerous junior ministers. Trudeau did away with this and made everyone a full minister as part of the gender parity promise, given that it would be likely that there would be an imbalance between how many women were in senior versus junior portfolios, and by making everyone a full minister, they also got a full minister’s salary. It seems clear in Freeland’s promise that she feels this was bloating Cabinet, particularly as Trudeau made it the practice that all appointments and Orders in Council needed to be presented to the full Cabinet, which took up a lot of time and focus. Does that mean that a lot will change if junior positions are restored? I guess it will depend on her leadership style if she’s successful, but it is an interesting signal nevertheless.

I will also note that Freeland has been consistently putting out these kinds of statements, unlike Carney. Meanwhile, Ruby Dhalla is turning out to be a clown show of braggadocious claims that the online right is amplifying.

Ukraine Dispatch

The Russians claim to have taken control of Novoielyzavetivka in the Donetsk region, near Pokrovsk. An overnight Ukrainian drone attack hit an oil pumping station and a missile storage facility, while a drone attack has hit Russia’s fourth-largest oil refinery in Kstovo. Ukraine’s corruption watchdog has opened an investigation into the defence minister over a procurement dispute.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1884525942229364847

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Roundup: Piercing Lantsman’s kayfabe

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Because everything is so stupid, Conservative Twitter got itself all hot and bothered over the weekend because Nathaniel Erskine-Smith had the temerity to break the kayfabe when the Melissa Lantsman was engaging in performative outrage.

Context: This was an event Erskine-Smith held in his riding for Mark Carney, and Lantsman stood outside to say ludicrously stupid things, and Erskine-Smith, who was standing right there, made a good-natured objection, and did so in a way where Lantsman broke—her performative outrage cracked, she smiled and basically admitted it was all bullshit, and then tried to carry on to finish the performance, got her talking points backwards, but she finished the scene. Conservatives, however, were incensed that the fakery was exposed, so they edited the clip, invented the charge that Erskine-Smith was a creep because he touched her shoulder and shook her hand—the most regular things in politics—and *gasp!* suggested they get a drink like a good-natured colleague would. This would not stand.

What’s particularly hilarious about this is that this is just more Conservative cry-bullying (which I have been on the receiving end of), where they pretend to be the wronged party in order to have someone “cancelled,” while they bemoan and wail about so-called “cancel culture” (which has never actually cancelled anyone, especially in a country where the National Post gives them column inches the very next day). Meanwhile, if they think that women like Lantsman are that fragile, perhaps they should start insisting that women not be accompanied outdoors without a male relative escorting them, or that they should start wearing burkas so as not to attract unwanted attention—you know, like the Taliban would say.

It’s all so fake, and this is what they want our political discourse to be.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed 50 out of 72 Russian drones launched overnight Saturday. President Zelenskyy replaced the commander of the eastern forces for the third time in a year, as Russia continues to encroach on strategic settlements.

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Roundup: Such concern about drugs

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Another day, and other leak that claimed that Trump wasn’t really serious about the tariffs, but that this was just him trying to get an early start on New NAFTA re-negotiations rather than waiting for 2026, and trying to bring more auto manufacturing back to the US-side of the border. But when asked about this during his media availability, Trump insisted that no, he was very serious about the “millions” of people who had come illegally through Canada (it’s certainly not in the millions), and the scourge of fentanyl. He even went on this extended tirade about how mothers never recover when they lose their sons to drugs, and so on. But then he also issued a pardon to Ross Ulbricht, a crypto drug dealer. So yeah, he’s really concerned about the scourge.

Really puts his overwrought speech about mothers who've never recovered after losing their sons to drugs into perspective.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-22T01:54:41.112Z

Meanwhile, Danielle Smith spent the day in full-on appeasement mode, insisting that we need to find a diplomatic solution rather than stand up to Trump’s bullying. Oh, and she also tried to blame this situation on Trudeau, because of course she did. What I find particularly irksome, however, are the whitebread pundits who also try to keep blaming Trudeau for Smith not falling into line, because he should somehow debase himself in order to get her on-side when it’s clear that she has no interest (and absolutely no incentive) to do so. Her political brand and that of her party right now is about hating Trudeau. Nothing he can or will do will get her on-side, particularly when her ideology is more in line with Trump’s than it is to stand up for Canada.

Back home, Pierre Poilievre is demanding Parliament be summoned because we’re in an “emergency,” erm, except there is nothing for Parliament to do. Cabinet has all of the powers they need in the current situation, and they continue to function. The only reason for the House of Commons to sit would be to have a take-note debate to read prepared speeches that would be used for clips. But more likely, Poilievre wants to try and force an election right now, because that suits his political interests rather than the country’s as a whole (because once there is dissolution, government goes into caretaker mode and really can’t respond to Trump). In fact, Trudeau has a lot more latitude right now because he’s on his way out and doesn’t need to worry about re-election. We’re not leaderless, there is no “vacuum,” and it would be great if the media stopped repeating this nonsense, just because Cabinet hasn’t been lighting their hair on fire on a daily basis.

I know most people actually think that Justin Trudeau being on his way out ties his hands, but IMO it arguably *frees him up to be more aggressive, not less*.

— Emmett Macfarlane (@emmettmacfarlane.com) 2025-01-21T14:41:45.522Z

The restraints on Canada's response are political, and Justin Trudeau no longer needs to worry about his electability. Fire on all cylinders at these assholes.

— Emmett Macfarlane (@emmettmacfarlane.com) 2025-01-21T14:42:25.284Z

Ukraine Dispatch

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Roundup: Day one depravity

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Yesterday was inauguration day in the US, and it was pretty much as horrible as you can imagine, with the pardoning of insurrectionists, and the executive order that made a full-on assault on the rights of trans people (which is always the first target of authoritarian regimes, followed by the rest of the queer communities). Oh, and Elon Musk threw a Nazi salute. So yeah, it was pretty much everything you thought it would be.

I think the pardons are the worst thing thus far because they signal that political violence on behalf of Trump is to be rewarded.But the anti-trans stuff might be worse because it is directly targeting a vulnerable minority.So many choices for the worst. It will be a daily thing.

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman.bsky.social) 2025-01-21T01:25:06.197Z

What didn’t happen on day one was the tariffs on Canada and Mexico. Instead, word came out early in the morning that Trump wouldn’t sign them on day one, and he would instead order an investigation into trade imbalances, and so on. So that was a reprieve, or a stay of execution, right? Danielle Smith certainly thought so, and started taking credit for it. Her followers and media apologists quickly amplified that self-praise. And then, after a few hours, Trump said that yes, the tariffs would be coming as of February 1st. Oops.

How did these age?

— Greg MacEachern (@gregmaceachern.bsky.social) 2025-01-21T01:25:33.384Z

That was day one, and we can only imagine what worse predations are to come. There will be a number of demands for retaliation, but the government is keeping their powder dry for the moment, as is probably best. This may yet come to nothing, because Trump believes he’s an ace negotiator and these are his usual tactics to extract some kind of “win” from us, because that’s who he is. It may yet come to naught, but it could still be a kneecapping of our economy. It’s still too early to say, but nobody should be doing victory laps right now—especially those who tried to obey in advance.

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3lg7y2jnygs2t

Yes. Yes it is.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-20T18:35:12.136Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine’s state investigation bureau has detained two generals and a colonel accused of negligence in failing to adequately defend the Kharkiv region last year.

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Roundup post: Expediting a dubious legal challenge

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On Saturday, the Federal Court ruled that they would hear an expedited case on the legal challenge of the granting of prorogation, citing the “critical” nature of the Trump tariff threats, and that this somehow requires the legislative branch of Parliament to be operating when in fact it does not.

Part of the problem is that the UK Supreme Court did overturn a prorogation when Boris Johnson requested it in the lead-up to Brexit, which led a bunch of bad actors in this country to decide they could use that precedent to challenge its use here, never mind that prorogations function slightly different in the UK (there, it tends to be an annual affair, separating shorter legislative sessions, which is not how it has operated here in many decades). There should be no reason why that precedent should apply in Canada at all, let alone in this particular circumstance, but we are dealing with people grasping at legal straws because they want to be able to run to the courts when they lose at politics, which is a Very Bad Thing for democracy and our entire constitutional order.

"Meaningfully debate."I'm as big of a Parliament nerd as they come, and frankly, there is nothing that six hours spent reading slogan-filled prepared speeches into the record will accomplish when it comes to those potential tariffs.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-19T02:01:09.284Z

More to the point, nothing was happening in Parliament before the prorogation because of the filibuster, and everyone was threatening non-confidence when it did resume in January, so an election wouldn’t provide Parliament any ability to “meaningfully debate” the Trump tariffs then either. These arguments are specious, and I trust the judge will throw them out of court once the hearings happen, but unfortunately, these are not normal times, and we could be in for a very bad result if government lawyers can’t argue their case well enough.

Ukraine Dispatch

An overnight missile and drone strike killed six, including three in Kyiv. Russia claims to have captured two more settlements between Pokrovsk and Kurakhove. Ukrainian forces claim a pair of attacks on oil depots in Russia’s Kaluga and Tula regions.

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Roundup: Poilievre’s revisionist history on energy exports

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Pierre Poilievre held a media availability in Vancouver yesterday to promise that he would undo the changes to the capital gains taxes, spinning some bullshit provided to him by Jack Mintz about how this kills tens of thousands of jobs, when in reality it only provides a loophole for self-incorporated wealthy individuals to pay less tax—a fact that the Liberals were too incompetent to properly communicate. But this wasn’t the biggest whopper of the event. When asked by the media about where he stands on potential export taxes on oil exports as retaliation from Trump, Poilievre claimed that the Liberals blocked pipelines and LNG terminals, forcing Canadians to export more to the US, which gives Trump more leverage. Absolutely nothing about his is true. None of it. And with receipts, here’s Andrew Leach.

There’s more. In fact, another whole thread here about the history of Northern Gateway that Poilievre has memory-holed in order to create a false version of history to blame Trudeau rather than note the lack of action under the Harper government. (First tweet below)

And then Danielle Smith tried to start chiming in about an Alberta-first “Team Canada” approach grounded entirely in fantasy.

And just because…

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed 34 out of 55 Russian drones overnight Thursday, but debris damaged energy infrastructure in Poltava region. There was a further drone attack on Kyiv as UK prime minister Keir Starmer was visiting. Ukrainian forces have begun using remote-controlled ground assault vehicles. Ukraine attacked a major Russian gunpowder factory in the Tambov region.

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Roundup: Smith offside the first ministers

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Yesterday was the big day where the plans to counter Trump’s predations started to take shape in public. There was a briefing on the border plans, which includes two leased Blackhawk helicopters, sixty drones, and other new technologies, and statistics to show an 89 percent reduction in migrants crossing from Canada to the US. And then came the first ministers’ meeting and an agreement to have a common front to counter Trump, that everyone signed on except for one premier—Danielle Smith, who was on Zoom from her vacation in Panama. Smith refused to sign onto any agreement that didn’t take the possibility of export taxes of cutting energy flows to the US off the table.

I get Smith’s objections that export taxes or cutting off oil and gas to the US would have an outsized impact on Alberta, and she has a domestic political constituency and a bunch of face-eating leopards in her political house who are looking for an excuse to eat her face the way they did Jason Kenney’s. I do get that. But by publicly disavowing the nuclear option, and threatening a national unity crisis over it, Smith is undermining the negotiating position of the country as a whole, and giving opportunities for Trump to exploit that weakness—and it looks especially bad after she already started to obey in advance and couldn’t wait to start licking his boots, and headed over to Mar-a-Lago at the behest of Kevin “It’s totally not annexation—really!” O’Leary. It makes it hard to see whose side she is on here.

https://twitter.com/gmacofglebe/status/1879645335494262832

Amidst this, I did find myself absolutely incredulous at the response that Doug Ford was getting because he wore a cap that said “Canada is not for sale,” and he was saying things like “Canada comes first.” And suddenly people were praising him left and right, and one columnist went so far as to say that at that moment, he wished Ford was prime minister. Doug Ford. “Fun” uncle Doug. Whose corruption is out in public. Who was pulling this folksy schtick on a day where there was a news story about how one community saw people line up down the block in the wee hours because a new doctor had come to town and would take the first 500 patients, which is a system that Doug Ford allowed to collapse because he was more interested in putting federal dollars toward his deficit than he was to doing anything about the system. And once again, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. Come on, guys.

Ukraine Dispatch

A massive Russian aerial attack which featured more than 40 missiles and over 70 drones forced preventative power cuts in Ukraine. 25 POWs from each side were exchanged in a deal brokered by the UAE.

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Roundup: No, we don’t need a “unity government”

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The closer the Trump tariffs loom, the more insane the suggestions are being proffered. Case in point was in The Line yesterday, where former NDP MP and law professor Craig Scott said that the only way to save Canada is with a “unity government.” It was like he had decided to smoke meth before sitting down to write the op-ed because it was devoid of sense, or rationality.

Yes, Trump’s threats are serious, but what exactly is a “unity government” going to do? The government currently has all of the powers it needs for retaliatory tariffs and most other countermeasures. Creating a situation of an interim party leader (as prime minister) and building a Cabinet to include members of all other parties (and as he proposes, former Conservatives like James Moore, Rona Ambrose and Lisa Raitt if the current ones don’t play ball) would only be for the sake of optics, and would cause more problems than it solves. What portfolios do you distribute to members of opposition parties, for a few months? And if you’re brining in former Conservatives because the current ones don’t play ball, well, they’re all in the phase of their post-political careers where they are making money, and bringing them into Cabinet means a lot of headaches around disclosures and ethics obligations—again for the sake of a few months of optics. On top of that, the demand to bring Parliament back right away makes no sense either, because there is nothing for them to legislate around the Trump threats. As I have stated elsewhere, its only utility would be for dubious unanimous consent motions and vapid take-note debates.

You don’t need a “unity government” for MPs to play nice in the face of a grave threat. Insisting that you do is naïve and ahistorical, but fully in keeping with Scott, who was a blowhard when he was an MP, and this hasn’t changed in his time since apparently. Anyone who takes his op-ed seriously needs to rethink some of their life choices.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims Ukraine has hit them with a massive drone and missile attack overnight that hit two factories. Russian forces are bypassing the stronghold of Pokrovsk in order to try and cut off its supply lines instead. Production at the Pokrovsk coal mine (used for the steel-making industry) has been halted as Russians close in.

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Roundup: The heresy of well-wishes

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It began with Anita Anand writing that she was not only going to stay out of the Liberal leadership race (which was a surprise given that she had previously been organizing an effort before the job was even open), but was also not going to be running again in the next election—which is a shame, because she was not only an extremely competent minister, but probably the best defence minister the country has had in a couple of decades at least. Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole did the classy and dignified thing and saluted her work.

https://twitter.com/erinotoole/status/1878482424193073181

That simply wasn’t going to be on.

https://twitter.com/jenni_byrne/status/1878513929229320380

Whether Byrne misgendered O’Toole by accident or deliberately (because Conservatives thought it was hilarious to call Trudeau “Justine” and feminise him at every single opportunity), or if she was referring to Anand, it almost doesn’t matter because this is the kind of toxic, purity-test bullshit that she thinks the party really needs—and make no mistake, she is running the party. (If people thought it was bad that Katie Telford was running the PMO, should Poilievre win it’ll be Byrne doing the same). There’s a reason why Conservative MPs aren’t allowed to travel with anyone from other parties anymore, or why Byrne is attacking O’Toole for showing a modicum of human decency is praising someone from the other side—because in her conception of the world, they are not rivals or people who disagree on matters of policy, but rather they are the enemy, and if you don’t realise that you are a heretic and the problem. This is going to make Canadian politics even more toxic the more this takes hold.

This in turn led to people praising O’Toole for being a decent Conservative, which is in and of itself revisionist history, and ignores his own behaviour during his leadership contest and right up until his ignoble ouster as leader, where he lied about everything under the sun, and acted imperiously with his own caucus, going so far as to kick Senator Batters out of caucus for daring to challenge him. That, in his retirement, he did the classy thing to wish Anand well, doesn’t change his prior behaviour, and it makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills that everyone else has memory-holed his actual record.

The #cdnpoli vibes…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-13T04:02:12.787Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian forces shelled Kherson, targeting power systems that left tens of thousands without power. Russia also claims it captured Shevchenko, near Pokrovsk. South Korean intelligence says that North Korean troops captured by Ukrainians in Kursk haven’t expressed a desire to defect. It is believed there have been there have been more than 3000 North Korean fatalities to date (which includes suicides to avoid capture).

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