Tag Archives: Danielle Smith

Roundup: The growing incoherence with environmental protections

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This government’s incoherence with regard to its environmental policies continues apace, as Tim Hodgson told Vassy Kapelos that exceptions to things like the tanker ban or emissions cap could be made through Bill C-5, which doesn’t make any gods damned sense. Why have a tanker ban or an emissions cap if it’s only applied on an ad hoc basis? If you want to get rid of them (and with that tanker ban, be ready for a major fight with local First Nations), actually lay out a rationale for it other than hand-wavey nonsense, But seriously, Hodgson is worse than any Trudeau-era minister when it comes to being unable to communicate his way out of a wet paper bag, and I fail to see how he could possibly have been considered a star by Carney.

Meanwhile, while Alberta continues to beat the drum for the obliteration of environmental laws, they keep using examples where there are already permits in hand, and where the market has determined that they don’t see a business case to move ahead, which has nothing to do with government. But hey, why be honest about it?

Oh, and because this government seems to be pinning a lot of hopes on reinventing the wheel, there already was a pre-existing major projects office, but Carney has determined to recreate it under a different minister, just because, and not actually learn any lessons as to why projects take time or approvals take as long as they do.

effinbirds.com/post/7772964…

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-08-21T14:04:55.394Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched another massive attack in the early morning hours of Thursday, with 574 drones and 40 missiles, and one of the targets was an American-owned household electronics company based in Lviv, because they know the Americans won’t respond. Ukraine attacked an oil refinery in Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk city. And Putin’s demands include the whole Donbas region, and a prohibition on joining NATO or having Western troops in the country, which are clearly unacceptable because Russia has no intention of ending the war.

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Roundup: Undue back-patting for Poilievre

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It really should not have been a surprise to anyone that Pierre Poilievre won the by-election in Battle River—Crowfoot by around 80 percent, which is why he chose that riding after all. But that won’t but an end to the back-patting about the “hard work” he put in, and so on. What I find particularly odd is this narrative that has emerged, from Jason Kenney and others, about how this somehow proved that Poilievre stuck it to the so-called “separatist” movement in the province, and exposed them for the empty shell that they are. Because I don’t see him having done that at all.

https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1957815691299713180

This was a federal by-election and there was no real “separatist” presence, particularly when the ballot question in the riding was whether Poilievre deserved a second chance after he was defeated in his own riding. There was no actual separatist narrative being advanced, and even if there was, Poilievre basically said that they have “legitimate grievances,” which is not exactly a rousing condemnation. More to the point, those separatists are focused on the provincial level, because they know that they can wedge Danielle Smith internally within the UCP, because these are the same face-eating leopards that Jason Kenney invited into the party while he kicked out the centrist normies (and those leopards subsequently ate his face). Smith is the one giving these losers oxygen, especially as she has tried to do everything she can to ensure that they get the referendum that they’re looking for, so that she can play it to her advantage in trying to leverage concessions from the federal government. It’s going to blow up in her face eventually, but this has nothing to do with Poilievre and everything to do with Smith, so giving Poilievre any credit here is grasping.

As for Poilievre’s return to Ottawa, could legacy media be less credulous about his supposed change in tone, or his bullshit about how he’ll work with the government on “non-partisan solutions,” which in his mind is the obliteration of environmental legislation, and the other bullshit in his so-called “Canadian Sovereignty Act.” He has explicitly stated this outright. Stop pretending he’s going to act “prime ministerial” or “statesmanlike,” because he is completely incapable, nor is he willing because that doesn’t get him clicks on social media/funds in the party’s coffers.

Ukraine Dispatch

Within hours of the “peace” talks in Washington, Russia launched their biggest overnight attack of the month, with 270 drones and ten missiles, striking energy facilities in Kremenchuk and Chernihiv. But hey, they’re going to draw up options for “security guarantees” that Russia won’t agree to, because their goal is the elimination of Ukraine. (Why are we pretending otherwise?)

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Roundup: Minister shocked at decades-old endemic problem

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Things with the Air Canada labour dispute threatened to veer into farce yesterday as things did not go as the government had hoped. Early in the morning, the Canadian Industrial Relations Board declared that the ongoing strike action by the flight attendants was now an illegal strike—but they didn’t refer it to the courts for enforcement, even though union leaders said that they were willing to go to jail for it (but there is no criminal offence here, merely administrative monetary penalties). And then, gallingly, the minister declared that she was shocked—shocked!—to learn about the allegations of unpaid labour, and ordered a probe of the situation, promising to close any loopholes in the law, but she can’t have been shocked. This has been an ongoing issue for decades. In the last parliament, both the Conservatives and the NDP put forward private members’ bills about this. The NDP in particular made a bunch of members’ statements and questions in QP about the issue, but Hajdu is only now learning about it? Come. On.

https://bsky.app/profile/lyleskinner.bsky.social/post/3lwoofl4ahs2v

Air Canada, meanwhile, is cancelling more flights, because they didn’t think that the union would not obey the back-to-work order (that has no enforcement mechanism). The union is trying to get an injunction because they argue that the order is abusing Section 107’s powers (and they are very likely right about that). And then Air Canada insisted that they won’t negotiate until the planes are flying again…but then talks resumed with a mediator by night, so we’ll see where this is at by morning.

Meanwhile, the broader problem of the moral hazard of continued government intervention, particularly the use of Section 107 (which doesn’t require a legislative process, or anything other than an email or phone call), has other unions on edge that this is going to permanently imbalance labour relations, because employers can simply declare an impasse and wait for the government to intervene. While I do think that these Quebec unions in the CP story are not differentiating between provincial and federal legislation enough (Section 107 is a federal power that applies only to federally-regulated workplaces), but we also know that many provincial governments are not exactly worrying about rights these days, which includes labour rights. Next steps remain the courts, who are likely to strike down these uses of Section 107 as being abusive.

Ukraine Dispatch

The toll from those strikes on Kharkiv and elsewhere early Monday have climbed to at least ten dead and 23 wounded. A Russian general was seriously wounded on the front lines.

At the conclusion of the meeting at the White House, Trump has agreed to European security guarantees (for now, anyway) after Ukraine offered to buy $100 billion in weapons from the US, and  now Trump wants to set up a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy (not that it will change anything as Putin doesn’t want to end the war). AP has a timeline of the changes in the front lines from February 2022 until now.

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Roundup: A “summit” that achieved nothing

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So, that Trump-Putin meeting went about as well as expected. Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for a murderer and war criminal, gave him a military flypast, and then invited him into his limo (even though Putin brought his own), which freaked out every single security expert on social media and television, because they were alone together, and nobody knows if Trump explained to him the security measures in the vehicle, or if anything else was said with no one else around to hear.

The meeting went nowhere, in spite of talk about an “understanding,” and in the press conference after, Putin went first, spoke at length, flattered Trump obsequiously, and Trump rambled at his incoherent best about how they didn’t come to an agreement, and they didn’t take any questions at the end. But they were chummy, and Trump still thinks he’s Putin’s best friend, and the war will continue, as we all knew it would.

I continue to be struck by Putin's confidence in the idea that he can play Trump. His whole remarks stuck to the idea that the only barriers to peace are Ukraine and Europe. Not even a hat tip to what Russia wants or expects from a deal. Just total bullshit and Trump flattery.

— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) 2025-08-15T23:29:30.125Z

The fact that they didn't take questions seems to be a tacit acknowledgement that they got nowhere and have nothing to say. At best, Trump is going to be irate that the bombardment of Ukraine continues after today.At worst, Trump is going to be sucked into a vortex of time-wasting summits.

— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) 2025-08-15T23:30:37.487Z

The Kremlin just dropped this clip of Putin and Trump getting chummy post-press conference.

— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) 2025-08-15T23:41:32.030Z

Just to hammer this in:I don't know of an example in US history of comparable *in-person humiliation* for a US president. And of course for the country. Trump will soon realize how visibly he was "owned." In view of the whole world.

— James Fallows (@jfallows.bsky.social) 2025-08-16T00:17:22.899Z

The meeting was a disaster for everyone except two people. Trump got his photo op and his ego boost. Putin got his photo op, whitewashing of war crimes and no sanctions. No one in Ukraine, Europe or the United States benefited in any way.

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-08-16T04:12:52.329Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ahead of the meeting, Russia attacked Dnipropetrovsk with missiles, killing at least one and wounding at least one other. Ukrainian drones hit the Syzrn oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region.

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Roundup: Past the gushing, the premiers are up to their old tricks

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If you only listened to the effusive praise from the premiers after their meeting over the past three days in Muskoka, you might miss the strong scent of absolute bullshit wafting from them. Yes, there was plenty more gushing about prime minister Mark Carney, and his meeting with them on Tuesday about the current trade negotiations with the Americans, and his engaging with China about the current trade spat with them (where apparently a number of premiers think we should capitulate to China as well), but my gods, the rest of their statements? More of the same from our premiers.

Take bail reform. Doug Ford insisted that they would be “holding him accountable” on his promise to institute more bail reforms in the fall, but problem with bail is not the Criminal Code. The problem with bail is that the provinces have been under-resourcing their justice systems for decades. There aren’t enough court houses or staff for them, the provincial remand facilities are overflowing, and they don’t hire enough provincial court judges or Crown attorneys, nor are some provinces properly training their justices of the peace, who usually make bail determinations. That is all the provinces’ faults, but they continue to falsely blame the federal government because it’s easier than the premiers doing their jobs.

Or healthcare. Ford whinged that the Trudeau government “shortchanged them” and they want more “flexibility.” The same Doug Ford that took $4 billion in pandemic supports from the federal government and just applied it to his bottom line to reduce the provincial deficit. And you can bet that the premiers are sore that Trudeau made the last round of transfers conditional on provinces submitting “action plans” so that they can be judged to see whether the funds are actually going to healthcare spending in those priority areas rather than just being spent elsewhere, as so many billions of past healthcare dollars have been. So of course, they want Carney to try and reverse that. They’re not happy that they have been subjected to strings on those transfers.

"Ford said the previous federal government shortchanged the provinces, and that Ontario needs more money to train and hire doctors and nurses."DOUG FORD PUT $4 BILLION OF PANDEMIC FUNDS ON THE PROVINCE'S BOTTOM LINE TO REDUCE THE DEFICIT.FOR FUCK SAKES!

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-07-24T03:27:14.634Z

Even more alarming is the fact that Ford, on the advice of Danielle Smith, wants to go around the federal government and issue their own work permits to asylum seekers in the province because the federal government takes too long. That’s a pretty significant overreach, which is a very bad sign. And you can bet that none of the premiers will be held to account for any of this, because that’s how we roll in this country.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-07-23T13:25:09.670Z

Ukraine Dispatch

In spite of “peace talks” in Istanbul, there were more drone strikes traded from both sides—Russians hit residential and historic sites in Odesa, while Ukraine hit an oil storage depot near the Black Sea. More Ukrainian POWs were also returned yesterday. Facing protests for the changes to the anti-corruption agencies, president Zelenskyy now says he’ll introduce new legislation to safeguard their independence (but it remains to be seen what that legislation will actually say). European security reports show China covertly shipped drone parts to Russia using mislabelled containers to avoid sanctions.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_ua/status/1947597862574952514

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Roundup: Clueless American senators pay a visit

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A group of US senators were in Ottawa for a second time in as many months, to meet with prime minister Mark Carney about the trade talks with the US, which is…a pretty useless gesture because they have pretty much no influence in the current American political environment, and they’ve been spectacularly ineffective in doing the slightest bit to rein in his abuse of powers. And speaking of useless gestures, they were all wearing Canada-U.S. friendship bracelets provided by the US Embassy, because apparently treating this like a Taylor Swift concert is how they’re “building bridges.” Honestly…

And it just doesn’t stop. One of the Democratic senators was lecturing Carney about fully repealing the Digital Services Tax, which…is doing what Trump wants, and just letting the authoritarian tech bros dictate our sovereign tax policies. Like really? That’s what you came to tell us? The sole Republican in the group, who is a sometimes Trump critic, said that his annexation rhetoric was “not constructive.” Gee, you think? That’s your contribution to this conversation? One of the other Democrats said that we’re they’re “best friends” but that the relationship was going through some “great strain.” Gosh, really? This is what you’ve come up here to say? One of them wanted to talk about stopping the flow of precursor chemicals for fentanyl. How about guns? Why don’t you do something about stopping them from coming over our border? I just can’t with any of these guys.

Meanwhile, the US ambassador says that Trump thinks we’re “nasty” for boycotting travel and American booze, as he has openly made threats of annexation and trying to destroy our economy to make it happen. Like, seriously, what did you think we were going to do?

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-07-21T22:08:21.155Z

Ukraine Dispatch

It was another heavy barrage of 426 drones and a dozen missiles fired at Ukraine overnight Sunday and into Monday, killing two and wounding at least fifteen people. Later in the day were attacks on the Sumy region, injuring another fourteen people. President Zelenskyy has named new ambassadors to several countries, including Canada (which is a shame because Yulia Kovaliv was great). Meanwhile, Russian TV showed teenagers working in their drone factories.

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Roundup: Longest Ballot nuisances reach a new record

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The Longest Ballot Committee crybabies have reached a high—or low—by organising some hundred candidates to be on the ballot for the Battle River—Crowfoot byelection, and they want to reach 200 when the nominations close on the 28th. It’s ridiculous and abusive, and they’re now full-on masturbating in the media insisting this is about the purity of democracy and that it’s not even about protest when this is about trying to force the government to hold a citizen’s assembly for electoral reform, because they don’t think politicians should write their own rules. Erm, except that’s what self-government means. Politicians write their own rules so that the King doesn’t. Revolutions were fought for this ability.

As for citizen’s assemblies, they are demonstrably bullshit—they’re tools used to launder accountability because there is no way to hold them accountable because you can’t vote them out for the decisions they make, and most of the time, they are easily manipulable to deliver the kinds of answers you want them to give, usually by gaming the “experts” who guide them. It’s another form of manufacturing consent, much like how referendums are easily manipulable by the government who organizes them, by shaping the questions and the conditions of those referendums to deliver results they want, at which point they manipulate the responses they get. In this case, they want this citizen’s assembly to deliver proportional representation for them (which system of PR? Who can say? But yes, that matters), because they’re crybabies who seem to think that if the person/party you vote for doesn’t automatically win, then your vote is “wasted.” There’s a technical term for that—it’s “sore loserism.” And Parliament really needs to get their shit together to close the loopholes in the rules so that the Longest Ballot organisers are stopped.

Meanwhile, the push to lower the voting age has been given a new push because the voting age is being lowered to sixteen in the UK, amidst complaints that Labour are trying to put their thumbs on the scale of the next election because their popularity is plummeting. I’m not a big fan of lowering the voting age to sixteen—teenagers make a lot of dumb choices, and just yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed that youth frequently don’t have the moral blameworthiness to know the severity of consequences in criminal activity, but they would for voting? I can guarantee you that it would mean that voter turnout percentages would plummet even further, just like they did when the voting age was lowered to 18, and we’d be in for a whole new round of handwringing about that. If teenagers want to be politically active, they should join political parties and learn how to organise, and participate in nominations and leadership contests (which is another reason why we need to reinvigorate grassroots party democracy). I’m just not convinced that lowering the voting age to 16 is going to solve any problems.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-07-18T22:56:07.793Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A mass Russian drone attack overnight has killed at least one person when they struck apartment buildings. Russian forces claim to have taken control of three villages along different parts of the front lines. Ukraine’s top commander says that their forces are holding firm outside of the key city of Pokrovsk.

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Roundup: A shambolic summit with First Nations

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Prime minister Mark Carney had his “summit” with First Nations leaders yesterday at the Canadian Museum of History, and it was a shambolic affair. Itineraries changed constantly, and the media were kicked out after Carney’s initial speech, before the AFN national chief could give her own speech, which she made a point of referencing. Leaders were promised time to engage with Carney and his ministers, and were instead simply told to talk amongst themselves. Carney did promise that this was “just the beginning,” and that there would be more focused regional consultations in the near future, but the whole thing didn’t really reassure a lot of those assembled chiefs (who were all Indian Act chiefs and not the hereditary chiefs who are in some cases the title holders). There was indeed a sense of frustration, and some chiefs walked out because of it.

Some of those chiefs from Alberta held a separate press conference with the assistance of Senator Prosper, and they noted that there was no proper consultation process on the meeting itself, that the attendees were hand-picked, and that this was largely political theatre to manufacture consent. Much of their comments focused on the fact that the treaties are not just box-ticking exercises, that they did not cede or surrender their lands, and that they have rights that must be respected—and more to the point, that in failing to live up to these obligations, the government is doing damage to the Honour of the Crown.

Afterward, Indigenous Services minister Mandy Gull-Masty tried to assure everyone that “national interest” included Indigenous people, and that projects can’t go ahead without Indigenous buy-in, but at the same time said that they can’t really discuss any specifics because they have to wait for the Major Projects Office to be stood-up, which they are hoping to do by Labour Day, and only then, when there are actual potential projects in the window could they properly engage with the rights-holders. But we are getting back into the “just trust us” territory, which traditionally has not gone very well for Indigenous people in this country.

Ukraine Dispatch

Here’s a look at how drone warfare is changing the front lines of the conflict. Russia and Ukraine exchanged more bodies of war dead.

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Roundup: The rules Poilievre defended are no longer good enough

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Pierre Poilievre decided he needed some more media attention yesterday, so he called a press conference in Ottawa, and declared that following the public disclosure of prime minister Mark Carney’s ethics filings, that none of this was good enough, that Carney needed to cash out all of his investments instead of putting them into a blind trust, and that nothing was good enough because he’ll be constantly managing conflicts (even though the point of the ethics screen is that he isn’t managing conflicts, his chief of staff and the Clerk of the Privy Council manage the conflict so that he’s not involved). Perish the thought that this special set of rules for Carney will only serve to keep other accomplished individuals away from political life.

Of course, the whole episode is rife with hypocrisy. These are the conflict-of-interest laws that the Harper government put into place, of which Poilievre was not only a part of, but defended them, particularly when questions arose around Nigel Wright and his assets when he was Harper’s chief of staff, and Poilievre personally swore up and down at committee that these rules were amazing and that the blind trust was blind, and so on. Of course, now that it’s convenient, his tune has changed, but that didn’t stop the CBC from pulling out the footage from the archives.

Meanwhile, Poilievre also told reporters that the country needs “more people leaving than coming,” which is not even a dog-whistle at this point but a bullhorn. If this is pandering to the far-right elements of the riding he’s trying to win, well, it is likely to backfire on his attempts to continue wooing other newcomer communities, particularly the Sikh and Punjabi communities he spent so much time wooing in the leadup to the last election. Immigration numbers have already flatlined, and it’s going to cause problems down the road, sooner than later. For Poilievre to say this as the mass deportations south of the border pick up speed shows he’s not only incapable of thinking through the implications of the things he says, but he’s fine with mouthing the words of fascists, and that’s a real problem.

(Incidentally, Poilievre once again said he opposes Alberta separation but says that they have “legitimate grievances,” and repeated his same bullshit line about the Ottawa telling Alberta to “pay up and shut up.” They pay the same income tax as the rest of us, and have the same representation in Parliament).

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones killed two people in the Kherson region. President Zelenskyy is proposing a major government reshuffle that includes a new prime minister, while the current one is to be shuffled to defence. Trump’s “ultimatum” to Putin to reach a ceasefire in 50 days is just license for him to keep firing drones and missiles at Ukraine for another 50 days, and probably longer.

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Roundup: Money for not living up to your end of the bargain

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One of the stories that has been floating around the past few days is that Toronto stands to lose up to $30 million in federal funding from the Housing Accelerator Fund because council did not approve city-wide zoning for sixplexes, which was a condition that they signed up for when they negotiated their deal for this money. And of course, this also comes with voices who claim that the federal government would be “using money as punishment” if they don’t give them all the money anyway, even though they have quite deliberately thumbed their noses at the very thing that they agreed to in order to get that money.

The established media narrative is that municipalities are *always* the victims who have no tools at their disposal.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-07-13T17:58:54.360Z

Unfortunately, we have a history of the federal government backing down when it comes to either giving money anyway when deals are broken, or by not recovering costs when they should. For example, the federal government was clawing back health transfers from New Brunswick for not funding abortion access at a clinic that was in an underserved part of the province, but when COVID hit, they released all of the clawed back money so that they didn’t look like the bad guys in ensuring that the province was living up to its obligations (or, for that matter, proving that they were sticking to their feminist principles, and using that money as leverage for the province to back down and fund the clinic). Another example is that provinces have deliberately underfunded their emergency management systems because they have been conditioned to know that the federal government will provide assistance from the Canadian Forces, and that provinces will get that assistance for free. The federal government has the authority to recover those costs from the provinces, but they never do because it would look like they’re somehow being mean to those provinces, when the provinces deliberately underfunded their own capacity.

If we want to reform things and start enforcing a system of accountability, that starts with making sure that provinces and municipalities live up to their agreements, or they don’t get transfer payments. But that requires a backbone and a willingness to actually hold them to account for those failures, and not being so timid that they refuse to actually say in clear terms that those provinces or municipalities didn’t live up to their agreements, so they would lose the funding/didn’t fund their own services because they thought they could get federal services for free, but they can’t, because there’s one taxpayer and they think they’re being clever. Nothing will change if someone doesn’t take a stand, and it’s time we start doing so.

Ukraine Dispatch

Trump says that America will resume sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine, so we’ll see how long it lasts this time.

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