Tag Archives: Danielle Smith

Roundup: No federal backstop for Smith’s threats

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith’s threats around withholding funding for her province’s justice system if she doesn’t get her own way on judicial appointments is attracting broader attention, and there was a particular exchange at a Senate committee the other day that bears pointing out. When asked about this thread, federal justice minister Sean Fraser essentially said that if Smith does this, it’ll be a choice, but also that the federal government is not going to swoop in and backstop this funding lapse with federal dollars.

https://bsky.app/profile/senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social/post/3me4zvsm23k27

This is a good thing. Frankly, if the federal government did this, it would set a terrible precent because all provinces are underfunding their justice systems, and if they backstop Alberta because Danielle Smith is acting like an entitled baby throwing a tantrum, then every other province will cut their own funding and hope for a federal backstop, and once again, things will get worse in our system because provinces aren’t living up to their obligations. They’re not right now, but this would make things infinitely worse. Of course, if this does happen, the federal government will actually have to get off their asses and loudly point this out repeatedly that this is the provincial government’s fault. They should be doing it right now, with the whole nonsense going on around bail reform, but this would be infinitely worse. Court delays for simple matters? Thank Smith. Criminals going free because they can’t get trial dates? Thank Smith. Did that accused murderer get released because they couldn’t actually hold a trial with no functioning court house, no prosecutors and no court staff? Thank Smith. That’s the kind of thing that they need to be doing as is, but they lack the gonads to do so, but they would need to step it up even more if Smith did pull that trigger.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Bar Association is speaking out about Smith’s unconstitutional demands, and other law organizations are joining them, while also explaining how the judicial appointment process works, and why Smith is wrong to characterize them as “activists” who act on the federal government’s behalf. It also bears reminding that the UCP purged the provincial judicial nomination committees in favour of partisan appointees, and that two sitting judges are under investigation for donating to the party, so maybe Smith’s concerns about supposedly political choices are just her projecting and admitting she wants to fix the process for her own political ends.

Ukraine Dispatch

Two people were injured in the overnight attack on Kyiv early Thursday. Ukrainian forces made a successful strike against one of Russia’s missile launch sites. The “peace talks” have seen another agreement on exchanges of prisoners of war.

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Roundup: A sit-down meeting to foster cooperation?

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Yesterday, prime minister Mark Carney had a sit-down meeting with Pierre Poilievre about, well, we’re not entirely sure. Both of their readouts are very different spins on their conversation, but I guess it was about looking at ways to cooperate over the next few months? But let’s take this with a shaker’s full of salt.

Carney is certainly looking to get bills passed through the current minority parliament in a way that won’t be drama with every vote, particularly as he is now down two MPs (soon to be three), while Poilievre has no actual interest in going to an election anytime soon because a) he can read the polls just as much as anyone else and Carney’s favourables are particularly high right now, and b) he wants the NDP to be able to actually fight an election so that they can peel voters away from the Liberals, as the Conservatives need a relatively strong NDP to make that happen, and they are in no position right now. So he needs to save some face while playing along with Carney, so that translates to this faux conciliatory tone, while his “specific suggestions” are always to destroy all environmental laws, and to inevitably drive investment away through uncertainty and increased litigation—such a winning strategy! In any case, I suspect that they will have agreed to pass certain bills, possibly with amendments, by a certain date, before Poilievre gets to carry on with his little song and dance about imaginary taxes and “red tape,” because he has demonstrated time and again that “cooperation” means “do what I say.”

Meanwhile, Jamil Jivani headed to Washington, and apparently got a briefing from Dominic LeBlanc before he left. That said, Carney was throwing some shade around about how Jivani is not the party’s trade critic, and that he was mostly doing it for media attention. Mélanie Joly also noted that he has never said anything about the job losses at the GM plant in his riding, so she was not exactly convinced by his desire to help. In any case, Jivani had his meetings, and tweeted that he had a message from Trump, which was that he “loves” Canadians. Gee, thanks.

Ukraine Dispatch

At least seven people were killed when Russia shelled a front-line town in Donetsk. There are evacuations taking place in Zaporizhzhia region as Russians advance on more settlements. More power cuts are expected as they expect more attacks on Kyiv. Zelenskyy says that 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed so far, which is a lot less than the Russian casualties, which total over a million deaths and injuries.

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Roundup: Inventing a new grievance to get mad about

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith is at it again, by inventing a grievance regarding the appointment of judges, and is threatening the federal government to withhold funding for the justice system in the province if she doesn’t get her own way when it comes to having a say in who gets appointed, both with Superior Court and Court of Appeal appointments, but also with the upcoming appointment to the Supreme Court of Canada, as the vacancy opening up is a “western” seat on the bench. This is insane, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s possibly the dumbest thing to threaten. Her claim that she needs input because of the “distinct legal traditions” of Alberta is a load of absolute horseshit—Alberta has no distinct legal traditions. Quebec has a civil code which is separate from the common law that the rest of Canada employs, so yes, they have a distinct legal tradition. Alberta does not. It’s beyond risible that she is threatening to implode the province’s justice system over something that does not exist.

1) This is blatantly unconstitutional2) Withholding funding from which judicial appointments? Provincial? Because federally-appointed judges get paid from the federal budget. That's why new judicial spots end up in federal budget bills3) Withholding any funding will make the justice system worse

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-03T21:57:28.042Z

Provinces are already underfunding their judicial systems (provincial judges, court houses, clerks, bailiffs, Crown attorneys, remand facilities, etc). If she wants to withhold more funding, and then claim the federal Liberals caused crime, well, that'll be a real choice on her part.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-03T21:57:28.043Z

Also, this is just an other invented grievance, which conservatives in Alberta love to do, and then claim that they are being oppressed because they're not getting something that nobody gets in the first place. Call it out, as just that.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-03T22:04:53.329Z

It’s almost certain that this is supposed to be some kind of a stunt to demand judges that are tougher on crime, and that she can somehow “direct” as she has been quoted as wanting to do, which is an affront to judicial independence and the very nature of the rule of law. And frankly, we don’t have a judicial culture in this country of ultra-conservative judges who throw the book at everyone like they do in the US, because those judges tend to be elected, so they go extra hard to win votes. That’s not how this works here. And frankly, the appointment of judges is for lawyers to self-nominate to a judicial advisory committee, who then vets them and then either recommends them to the minister or not. Smith trying to insert herself into this process is simply asking to undermine the process and to personally reduce confidence in the justice system. Just absolute lunacy.

She is her inventing a grievance to be mad about. There are no distinct legal traditions in the province. They are a common law jurisdiction like eight other provinces in the country. Quebec has a civil code, which is a distinct legal tradition, and Alberta does not.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-03T22:06:57.965Z

Let’s call this out for what it is—Smith is quite literally inventing things to get mad about, and then throwing a tantrum about an imaginary problem that doesn’t exist, so that she can be performative in her “Western alienation” pantomime. None of this is real, but she has determined that constantly having everyone mad at Ottawa is her ticket to staying in power perpetually, but it’s a really stupid plan. That kind of anger is exhausting, and will lead to unintended consequences, but most of all, this is just more fodder for the separatists that she claims not to represent (even though we all know that she doth protest too much over that one). Now the question becomes whether anyone in the federal government will call this out, and point-blank say that this is just an invented grievance, or will they back down, and try and placate her in some manner? Because if it’s the latter, that’s a very big mistake.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-02-03T15:08:06.097Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The attack on Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday killed two people and injured at least nine others, while a power plant in Kyiv was badly damaged. President Zelenskyy says that Russia used the US-backed “energy ceasefire” to simply stockpile more ammunition and drones, and launch another attack.

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Roundup: The smell in the convention hall

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With the Conservative convention now over, we can prepare for a whole bunch of legacy media pundits insisting that Poilievre is “setting a new tone,” and that he’s demonstrating he needs to “change,” and a bunch of other equally risible nonsense. Poilievre is not going to change, no matter if you think one speech signalled an intention to or not. Aside from the fact that in all of his adult life, he has refused to change, the fact that he spent his speech talking about Trudeau and not Carney or Trump should be the dead giveaway. Legacy media keeps insisting that this time for sure he’ll change, but rest assured he won’t.

Yes, the quote that Conservatives began weaponizing in 2015 definitely created the Quebec separatist movement that dates back to the 1960s.

— Max Fawcett (@maxfawcett.bsky.social) 2026-02-01T17:53:57.593Z

And while we get voices like Jenny Byrne who keep insisting that everything the party says needs to come back to affordability, to the point that she thinks they should blame the inability to get a deal with Trump on that (and funnily enough, Trump gets no blame there). There was also another push for a bunch of more failed American-style laws in their policy debates, but I will note the attempt to undo the conversion therapy ban and to change the policy on abortion laws both failed to get enough support, so that’s a minor positive. The grassroots also pushed back at the central party for putting their thumb on nomination races, and insisted on changing the rules around it to be fairer, so that’s a rare positive in all of this.

The smell in the room, however, was the presence of the Alberta separatists, who made their presence known, and who were not denounced by anyone in any official capacity. Danielle Smith continues to give them succour, and when those separatists boasted that members of her own caucus have signed their petitions, she claimed that she “doesn’t police the responses of my MLAs,” well, we all know that’s not true either. Smith also continued her bullshit lines about Trudeau “relentlessly attacking” her province, when he in fact bent over backwards to help them when oil prices crashed, and was repaid by this. Federal Conservatives also mouthed these grievance talking points, and wouldn’t denounce separatism either, so that’s healthy, and a conversation the party should be having with itself right now.

Danielle smith repeats disinformation about 30 percent plus being in favour of this.

— Orlagh O’Kelly (@orlaghokelly.bsky.social) 2026-02-01T19:45:19.591Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone struck a bus carrying miners in Dnipropetrovsk, killing twelve people, which is one more way of targeting energy workers.

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Roundup: Another meeting that ends in all smiles

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The premiers’ meeting went off as expected—all smiles and talk of unity ahead of the New NAFTA review, and hey, Mark Carney even announced the launch of the Team Canada Trade Hub to provide coordination for trade diversification efforts as certain premiers go on their own trade mission abroad. There were also some timelines around certain trade barriers like credentials recognition and harmonization of health and safety requirements, even if those timelines may not be until next year. (But that’s something, right?)

In his remarks to the premiers, Carney invokes Sir John A Macdonald and the railway, before talking about "how we build," and being in "true partnership" with Indigenous people.The railway *might* not be the best example of "how we build" (600+ deaths) or partnership (dispossession of land).

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-29T15:19:08.664Z

There was some added side drama as Danielle Smith said that they may be taking Kitimat off the table as the destination for the hoped-for pipeline, but that doesn’t necessarily open up better options on the northwest coast of BC, given that it was determined that it was too dangerous to put a pipeline to Prince Rupert, even though a bunch of people seem to think that’s where it should have wound up in the first place. (Again, this is why Poilievre’s “approve a pipeline today” cries are so ridiculous, because there is no actual route even planned yet).

The other thing on everyone’s mind was the piece in the Financial Times that confirmed that the Alberta separatists were in meetings with the State Department in the US, and David Eby referred to their actions as “treason.” (Incidentally, this activity doesn’t meet the Criminal Code definition of treason). Smith, however, refused to condemn them because they’re politically useful to her, and Carney sidestepped any kind of denunciation, saying that the topic hadn’t come up in his conversations with Trump, when what he should be doing is summoning the ambassador and threatening to PNG him.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-01-29T22:27:01.937Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone strike killed three in Zaporizhzhia, while Trump says Putin agreed not to attack Kyiv for a week due to the cold (and I’ll believe that when I see it). An exchange of war dead was carried out, with 1000 Ukrainian bodies turned over for 38 Russians. The Kremlin says they invited Zelenskyy to Moscow for “peace talks.”

"Kremlin says Russia has invited Ukraine's Zelenskyy to come to Moscow for peace talks."Guys. Come on. www.reuters.com/world/europe…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-30T05:36:13.695Z

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Roundup: Letting Trump’s lackeys spin the narrative

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Because everything is so stupid all the time, there was a whole ridiculous bit of drama yesterday as US treasury secretary Scott Bessent went on TV to claim that prime minister Mark Carney aggressively walked back his Davos speech on the phone to Trump, when the rest of us didn’t know there even was a call because there was no readout. When Carney came in for his caucus meeting yesterday and was asked about it, he disputed the characterisation, said he meant what he said at Davos, and then turned it into one of those quasi-flattering but also quasi-shady remarks akin to calling Trump “transformational,” in saying that Canada was the first to recognize the changes to global trade that Trump instituted. I’m sure he thinks he was very clever about it too.

Nevertheless, the point stands that the lack of a readout from PMO about the call means that it let the Americans get out ahead in terms of spinning the call and what was said, and as this administration does with everything, is to just lie. Part of this is also transparency, so that we know when there are calls with world leaders, particularly given the situation we’re in with Trump, and the fact that they had a thirty-minute call on a range of topics that included Ukraine is actually kind of important to know, but Carney has refused to be transparent and has said he’s not going to provide readouts for these “informal” calls going forward. So you just keep letting Trump and his people lie about what’s being said? I do not understand why they refuse to understand how to deal with this kind of behaviour.

Amidst this are a bunch of conservatives, some MPs, some designated talking heads on media shows, who were so very eager to take Trump’s side and blaming Carney for harming the relationship, or in trying to insist that it’s Carney who is holding up a tariff deal instead of Trump being mercurial and untrustworthy. I get that for a lot of these people, it’s “anything to own the Libs,” and they will contort themselves to almost the point of treason in order to get that thrill they’re looking for, but for the love of Zeus, have some self-respect.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone struck a passenger train near Kharkiv, killing five, while drones attacking Odesa killed at least three. There was also a strike against a natural gas facility in western Ukraine. The US says that Ukraine needs to sign a peace deal with Russia to get security guarantees (but Russia has no interest in a peace deal).

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Roundup: The Donbas of Canada

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The mask is off. US treasury secretary Scott Bessent was on a far-right TV show to mouth the faux grievances of Alberta, and is providing succour and support for the separatist loons in the province, making it abundantly clear that the US plans to do to Alberta what Putin did with the Donbas region in Ukraine. We’ve watched the Americans also make these promises to independence-minded politicians in Greenland, some of whom naively believe that the US will simply recognise their independence from Denmark and leave them be when that isn’t their plan at all. And you can bet that they’ll start making these same promises to the Parti Québécois if they form power in the province in the next election, because they would absolutely love to break up Canada so that they can absorb the pieces.

So far, the government is downplaying this, with François-Philippe Champagne saying he’ll “remind” Bessent that they are working with Alberta to develop their resources, which is frankly not nearly enough. The US is openly meeting with separatists—those separatist organisers are openly bragging about their “high-level” meetings in Washington—and one of the top members of Trump’s Cabinet is openly supporting them. At the bare minimum, the US ambassador needs to be summoned, and if he doesn’t properly explain and apologise, then he should be expelled in order to send a message that this kind of interference is absolutely unacceptable.

And then there’s the problem of those separatists who are taking it upon themselves to “negotiate” in Washington. You might think that someone like Danielle Smith might denounce them for these actions, but she has bent over backwards to ensure that they have the easiest ride possible to their referendum, because Smith thinks that she can leverage it for her benefit. And Carney has been utterly silent, believing that his bending the knee to Smith is what is going to solve the separatism issue, even though these people have no interest in actual policy resolutions and have made hating Ottawa (and anyone named Trudeau) their whole personality. This is going to need a much stronger hand, and a forceful pushback against this American interference before it can fester even more than it already has.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-01-23T23:56:01.434Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Kyiv and Kharkiv have come under Russian attack in the early hours of the morning. The constant attacks have worsened the power grid situation, as temperatures have been falling as low as -16ºC.

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Roundup: Loosening the advertising rules they put into place

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The federal government, in their infinite communications wisdom, has decided to change the rules around government advertising so that they can do things like more easily use slogans, and to advertise programmes before they have been passed by Parliament. Worse, their excuses for doing so are utterly ridiculous, saying that the more “dangerous and divided world” needs faster communications and the old process was “too slow and duplicative.” Sorry, you think you need to be able to advertise slogans or programmes that do not officially exist yet because it’s faster? Are you kidding me?

The point of these rules is to create a separation between party and government, and the Harper government had incidents where this got them into trouble, such as when Pierre Poilievre, as minister of Employment and Skills Development, showed up at a government announcement in party-branded attire and got in trouble with Elections Canada for it. These rules exist for a reason, but Carney has decided that they’re inconvenient for him, so he needs to alter them. If the Liberals’ usual kryptonite is arrogance, Carney’s personal brand of it is acting like a magnifying glass. He should be reminded of this fact, before he drives the party off the very cliff he rescued them from.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia used hypersonic medium-range missiles to strike Lviv early Friday morning, which is being considered a “warning” to Europe. That same day, drones hit two foreign-flagged civilian vessels in ports in the Odesa region. Here are Kyiv residents dealing with damage to their homes as a result of these attacks.

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Roundup: Freeland’s botched departure announcement

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Early Monday morning, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he had appointed Chrystia Freeland as a new advisor on economic development, which was a little peculiar considering that she is still a sitting MP, and still holds the role of a parliamentary secretary in her capacity as the prime minister’s special representative on Ukrainian reconstruction. This being said, we know she’s on her way out the door because her new job with the Rhodes Trust starts in July, so she had a definite end date in being before that.

Immediately, Conservatives like Michael Chong demanded her immediate resignation because of the conflict of interest this posed, and it wasn’t for several more hours that she announced that she will be formally resigning by the end of the month, with an immediate tweet from Carney to praise her for her work and for Ukraine, but Great Cyllenian Hermes, this was so badly handled by Carney’s PMO.

While I will grant that this pretty much went down while he was in the air on the way to Paris, they should have been prepared for this to go live at the same time as Zelenskyy’s announcement, and been aware of the time zones in play, because all they manged to do was muddy the waters around the potential conflict of interest, what is going on with any kind of approvals from the Ethics Commissioner, and not spent the bulk of daylight hours looking stunned or blindsided—especially as there was talk that the offer from Zelenskyy came in late December, even if most of Official Ottawa has been shut down for the bulk of that time period. This kind of thing continues to make Carney’s PMO look like amateur hour, and that once again, a Liberal government can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag. Honestly…

In Case You Missed It:

  • My column on whether Carney is capable of adapting to a post-neoliberal world in order to be the right prime minister for the moment (as Poilievre sure can’t).
  • My year-end episode taking a cue from the Ellie Goulding meme about how anything could happen—and did in Canadian politics in 2025.
  • My weekend column on the credulousness by which the supposed “end of the consensus on immigration” gets covered, and what gets omitted in the retelling.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take on changes that Carney has made to Canada over the past year, and what we should be watching out for as a part of it.
  • My column on the faux debate raging over whether Carney wants to turn the Senate back to a two-party system when they should worry about his appointments.
  • My weekend column on how Carney’s plans to Build Canada requires better data from the provinces, which we can’t keep waiting for them to get their acts together.

Very chuffed to see several of my stories on this list, including the most-read story of the year. Thanks to all of my readers!

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-12-29T22:50:06.873Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones hit a hospital in Kyiv on Sunday night, and struck energy infrastructure in Kharkiv as well as a US-based agricultural producer in Dnipro late Monday. President Zelenskyy is shaking up his top officials, including his spy chief.

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Roundup: Naïve assumptions about the energy transition

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There were a couple of longreads over the weekend that are worth your time when it comes to understanding where we are at with the current government. The first was a deep dive into Carney’s past climate “leadership,” from his time at central banks to the UN, and a pattern emerges throughout where much of this “leadership” was fairly surface-level. Scratch the surface, and you find a lot of on naïve assumptions around a market response to the clean energy transition, coupled with some arrogant beliefs that he was right and no one could tell him otherwise (as those companies he was touting were also heavily invested in fossil fuels). In the time since, we have all watched as Carney has systematically betrayed that former climate leadership, and continues to rely on a “just trust me” approach to that clean energy transition as he breaks his word with little regard.

The second longread was in the Globe & Mail about Tim Hodgson and his adjustment going from banker CEO to Cabinet minister, with his belief that government bureaucrats are essentially lazy and stupid, and needing to learn how to be politically sensitive to the realities that he has little patience for as he looks to secure deals as quickly as possible. Along the way, he is learning that things don’t work like that, and that there are plenty of other considerations that he continues to ignore, like obligations regarding First Nations. And how he continues to alienate the actual clean energy people in his own department, along with the part of the Liberal caucus that actually care about climate change, because hey, he needs to be Mr. Business. This is what “running government like a company” is bringing, and it comes with a hell of a lot of ideological blind spots, while they insist that they’re not being ideological.

As well, in year-enders, Carney has been criticising the Trudeau approach to climate change as “too much regulation, not enough action,” which goes back to his particular assumptions about the market and why the government wasn’t able to rely on carbon pricing alone to achieve its goals, Oh, and he’s still completely sold on the belief that carbon capture is the route to go, even though it only captures a fraction of the emissions from the production process (and none of the downstream uses), so the math doesn’t even work there. He also talks about “guardrails” in dealing with China, but considering there has been no hint of that with India, I’m not holding my breath.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-20T15:08:01.975Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Following more Russian airstrikes and bombings in the Odesa region, president Zelenskyy says that Russia is trying to cut off Ukraine’s Black Sea access. Russian forces have crossed the border in Sumy region and kidnapped 50 villagers. Ukraine has signed an agreement with Portugal go co-produce sea drones. Here is a look at a Ukrainian artist who is reflecting the war through his collection and work.

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