Tag Archives: Danielle Smith

Roundup: Lessons learned for the NDP?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

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Roundup: The Speaker hypothetical

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It looks like NDP interim leader Don Davies may have been done dirty by CTV News over the weekend as their headline suggested that his “party ‘open’ to Speaker of the House role in exchange for resources.” While the text of the story presents this as a proposal that no one has actually discussed, the fact that this is the headline from an interview on CTV Question Period makes it sound like this was somehow being floated. It was not.

Instead, in the interview, he was asked about his scenario as a hypothetical for him to weigh in on, given that it could give the Liberals one more vote in order to be an effective majority, and he said he’d be open to it, as the discussion around official party status was now closed (which was not what he was telling the Star a week ago, but perhaps those illusions have since been shattered) but he’s still trying to get additional resources, never mind that it’s not like his party needs them for caucus management or committee research or anything like that.

This is an object lesson in why politicians don’t like to answer hypothetical questions—because they get blown up like this, and to be frank, it feels like that kind of question is borderline, if not outright, irresponsible. And sure, Davies could have simply said “I’m not going to answer hypotheticals like that,” and probably will going forward, but asking these kinds of hypotheticals also doesn’t get you very useful answers in journalism either, and so you’ve built an entire story around this this hypothetical scenario that is outright delusional. Nobody came out ahead here, especially the readers, so I fail to see the point.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-12T23:56:01.838Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Odesa suffered further attacks on Saturday, leading to a major blackout.

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Roundup: Ignoring the true meaning of the Statute of Westminster

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

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

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

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

Nothing about the Crown of Canada.

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

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

Another floor-crossing

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

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

Well. That happened.

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

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Roundup: Davies again demands official status

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

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Roundup: Sandboxing powers?

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Over the weekend, Althia Raj published a column that points to a power the government is trying to give itself in the budget that lets ministers exempt certain people and companies from non-criminal laws, and the fact that this felt like it was being snuck into the budget implementation bill when it wasn’t in the main budget document. Jennifer Robson, inspired by Raj’s column, delves into the Budget Implementation Act to see the sections in question for herself, and makes some pretty trenchant observations about the fact that the powers in here are giving ministers a pretty hefty amount of leeway without necessarily a lot of transparency, because they have the option of simply not publishing or reporting which laws they’re suspending for whom, and that we need to worry about the injuries to democratic norms.

So, what is up with these particular powers? Well, it turns out that this is very likely some long-promised action on creating “regulatory sandboxes,” and the means to implement them.

The 2024 budget talked about working up a plan for "regulatory sandboxes"—temporary exemptions from restrictions to allow experiments with new things, especially products, that existing regulations didn't anticipate. It's in a few places, like this:

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T13:55:47.297Z

They'd consulted publicly on it before. This is generally a pretty dull type of government consultation, but it was done. www.canada.ca/en/governmen…

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T13:58:04.805Z

Having announced plans to legislate on it in 2024, the Trudeau government did not follow through, in either of the two "budget bills" that stemmed from the budget.

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T13:59:51.381Z

But the regulatory-sandbox idea returned in the 2025 budget. Not at length, but it's in the roundup of legislative changes that implementing the 2025 budget requires. (Some people start with the deficit numbers when first picking a new budget up; I start with the legislative changes.)

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T14:03:09.547Z

My point is that you have to be careful with premises like, "I didn't know about it, so they've been hiding it and being sneaky."Tech businesses have been calling for regulatory sandboxes for *years,* there've been public consultations, and it was promised in two successive budgets.

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T14:06:02.132Z

The idea's history goes back much farther than 2024, to be clear. Here's a Logic story from 2018, the first year we existed, noting a promise on regulatory sandboxes in the 2018 fall economic statement: thelogic.co/news/special…

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T14:10:57.100Z

So, this could very well be what that is referring to. This being said, I do see the concerns of Robson when it comes to some of the transparency around these measures, because these powers give ministers all kinds of leeway not to report on their suspension of laws for this “sandboxing,” and you have to remember that Carney already gave himself broad Henry VIII powers under his Build Canada Act legislation, which is ripe for abuse, particularly in a parliament that has largely lost its ability to do necessary oversight. I think the government needs to be extremely careful here, because this could easily blow up in their faces.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-06T15:08:02.695Z

Ukraine Dispatch

At least seven people have been injured in a drone strike in Sumy region. Russia claims to have taken two more villages in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. Here is a look at Ukraine’s naval drone operations, and the growing number of women in combat roles.

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Roundup: Another weaponized committee appearance

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

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

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Roundup: Rustad’s reluctant ouster

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It’s some chaos in the BC Conservative Party after the majority of the caucus let the party’s board of directors that they have no confidence in John Rustad’s leadership (though this may not have been an actual caucus vote—it may have been something like a letter signed with enough signatures). The board said that a caucus vote confirmed Trevor Halford as interim leader, and they declared Rustad “professionally incapacitated,” given that incapacitation is one of the only ways to replace a leader per the party’s constitution. And then John Rustad said he’s not going anywhere.

This is, of course, insane. No leader can survive a vote of non-confidence from the majority of his or her caucus. The confidence convention is one of the most fundamental aspects of our parliamentary order as part of the conventions that govern our unwritten constitution. And if Rustad continues to insist that he’s the leader and refuse to leave with any shred of his dignity left intact (but good luck with that at this point, because yikes), the next step is likely for the majority of his caucus to simply remove themselves and form official opposition as a splinter party (though the legislature ended the fall sitting yesterday, so that may not actually happen). There is some precedent for this—when the then-Alliance Party got fed up with Stockwell Day’s leadership, a number of its MPs broke away and sat as a separate caucus until Day stepped down, and the when the Bloc were reduced to a rump caucus in the Commons and had a leader without a seat who also became a problem, most of them removed themselves from caucus until she stepped down.

This whole sorry exercise should be a reminder that the current system of membership election and removal of leaders is antithetical to our system, and creates problems with leaders who refuse to take a hint. That’s why a confidence vote is the ultimate tool, and if he refuses to abide by it, like a mad king, he just isolates himself ever further into irrelevance. In any case, Rustad is finished, even if he is going to throw a tantrum about it for the next day or two.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-03T14:25:05.918Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine hit the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia with remote-controlled explosives, which supplies Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia.

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Roundup: Miller back in Cabinet

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Mark Carney had a small Cabinet shuffle yesterday afternoon, counter-programming the latter part of Question Period, where he appointed Marc Miller to Cabinet to replace Steven Guilbeault after his resignation last week in protest over the MOU with Alberta. Miller becomes the new minister of Canadian Heritage, now dubbed “Canadian identity and culture and official languages,” because it sounds a little more like it’s holding the line against the onslaught of Americanisms. But there were a couple of other adjustments made to Carney’s front bench—environment minister Julie Dabrusin took over the responsibilities for Parks Canada, which were under Heritage for some strange reason (much of which involves the fact that they are responsible for things like historical designations, but which created all kinds of problems around things like marine protected areas), while Joël Lightbound was named the new Quebec lieutenant, though I’m mystified why that required a swearing-in as opposed to it simply being a ceremonial title, like deputy prime minister (which Carney does not have). It also bears noting that no one was put in as new transport minister, and that Steve MacKinnon continues to do double-duty.

Miller is an interesting choice—he was a good minister, and I’m glad he’s back in Cabinet, because he was one of the best communicators, hands down, in the Trudeau government, and that kind of frankness and candour is desperately needed in the current front bench where the rule of “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” means that most of what comes out of every minister’s mouth is back-patting, if they say anything at all. But it’s also a choice that is going to ruffle feathers in Quebec because he’s not Québécois (though he is a Montrealer and speaks French, Swedish and Mohawk). There is so much anxiety around Quebec language and culture in the province that the Canadian Heritage portfolio might as well be a Quebec-focused one, and certainly there have been jokes floating around Ottawa for years about how if you got a meeting with the minister of heritage, he or she would tell you to come back when you were French.

Nevertheless, Miller is going to be responsible for some big files coming up with new online harms legislation, as well as a potential mandate review/transformation of the CBC, which didn’t take off under the previous government following the release of a discussion paper on the subject, and then Carney having his own ideas about what to do with CBC during the leadership contest, none of which has actually happened in the six months he’s been in power. I do think Miller will be suited to the task—he’s handled big, tough files before, and going up against web giants is something I think he can be pretty good at.

Ukraine Dispatch

Four people were killed and more than 40 injured in a Russian missile attack on Dnipro. Putin has again claimed that Pokrovsk has been taken over by Russian forces, along with Vovchansk, but Ukraine has not confirmed.

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Roundup: Dabrusin does damage control

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

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

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Roundup: The details behind Guilbeault’s exit

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If there’s a story you need to read this weekend, it’s Althia Raj’s look behind the scenes on how Steven Guilbeault’s resignation went down. It’s a tale of deception, freezing Guilbeault out during the process, undermining all of the work on climate action that had been done on this point, creating special carve-outs for Alberta that will piss off every other province, and breaking the word that had been given to Elizabeth May in order to secure her support. And then, they wanted Guilbeault to say some bullshit thing like he was “putting them on notice” until April or something like that, and it was untenable for him to stay, so he resigned. It was complete amateur hour. And Carney undermining his word is a very big problem, particularly because when he was a central banker, his word needed to be believed in order for it to have power. That’s why central bankers need to be ruthlessly apolitical, so that they don’t have the appearance of making calls for partisan benefit. Carney has undermined his credibility entirely because he has shown that his word now means nothing.

This point is disturbing: Guilbeault "was also deeply troubled by the ease with which the PMO was casting aside its moral obligation to May. What was the Liberals’ word worth?"Mark Carney seems to have forgotten the first rule of central banking: Your word, your credibility, is all.

— Blayne Haggart (@bhaggart.bsky.social) 2025-11-29T02:23:29.613Z

There are some particular threads in here that should be unpacked, which is that the motivation for this whole exercise seems to have been that they felt it “necessary for Canadian unity and to combat separatism in Alberta.” This doesn’t achieve that at all. It weakens unity because it gives Alberta special treatment that includes a lower carbon price and an exemption from other emission regulations that no other province gets, which makes it look an awful lot like they got it because the whined the loudest (and they’re not wrong). And it will do nothing about separatism because it fundamentally misunderstands it. It’s not about “unfair treatment,” because that was never the case—it was about a culture of grievance.

Albertans have been force-fed grievance porn for decades, like a goose being fattened for fois gras.You'll never guess what happens next…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-28T22:43:39.019Z

To that end, Danielle Smith is at the UCP annual general meeting this weekend, and when she crowed to the crowd about all the things she secured from Carney—she got him to bend the knee, give her everything she wants, and she has to give up pretty much nothing in exchange—they booed her. Nothing any government will do will actually satisfy them, because they don’t know how to process success. They have been force-fed grievances by successive premiers as a way of distracting from their failures and the fact that they have tied themselves to the external forces of world oil prices, and it’s not giving them unlimited wealth anymore. They don’t have the same future they hoped for because world oil prices never recovered after 2014, and the industry is increasing productivity, laying off workers while increasing production. They’re angry about that, and they’ve been conditioned to blame Ottawa, ever since the 1980s when they blamed the National Energy Programme for a global collapse in oil prices, and they’ve been blaming Ottawa and anyone named Trudeau ever since. Jason Kenney in particular threw gasoline on that fire, and then pretended like he wanted to put it out by pouring a glass of water on that fire and patted himself on the back for it, and then Danielle Smith came in with a brand-new box of matches. There is no satisfying them, and Carney was a fool for thinking he could swoop in and be the hero. Now he’s alienating voters in BC and Quebec where he can’t afford to lose seats, for no gain in Alberta of Saskatchewan. He didn’t outplay Danielle Smith—he capitulated, and got nothing in return, just like every time he has capitulated to Trump.

Danielle Smith gets booed at UCP convention after mentioning working with Canada

— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson.bsky.social) 2025-11-28T22:17:35.805Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones and missiles attacked Kyiv overnight, killing at least one and injuring at least eleven. Ukrainian forces are still fighting in Kupiansk, in spite of Russian claims that they control the settlement. President Zelenskyy says that his chief of staff has resigned over the ongoing corruption investigations.

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