Tag Archives: Doug Ford

A very selective celebration of Alberta’s “birthday”

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Yesterday, Alberta and Saskatchewan had their “birthdays” as provinces, when they were carved out of the Northwest Territories in 1905, and wouldn’t you just know it, the statement put out by the Alberta government first mentioned the First Nations people whose land the province is on, then removed the reference in an updated version, before needing to backtrack and insist that the first version was the correct one. It has also not gone unnoticed that Alberta has not marked the 150th anniversary of Treaty 6 with those First Nations, while Saskatchewan held ceremonies to mark the occasion. It also doesn’t go unnoticed that Danielle Smith has pushed ahead with this quasi-separation referendum in spite of the fact that owing to the treaties, the province can’t actually separate from Canada because it’s not their land. Smith has also said that if the referendum passes, she would hold a “binding referendum on separation” (which is not a Thing because it’s blatantly against the constitution) early in the spring, which should give her plenty of time to “consult” with First Nations. Erm, no. They’ve already stated that your position is contrary to the treaties they signed with the Crown.

Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre entered the chat and put out separate statements on the Alberta and Saskatchewan “birthdays,” and those statements were very, very different from one another. The Saskatchewan statement talked about the local First Nations and Métis, and the white immigrants who settled in the area, and it was noticeable that he pointed to white immigrants only. The Alberta statement, however, made no mention of First Nations or immigrants of any kind, and instead was all about farmers, ranchers, energy workers, and “freedom!” It was a very, very blatant sop to the separatist sentiments in a minority of the province (remember that Alberta separatism is a white/Christian nationalist project) because he’s too afraid to tell these people that he doesn’t want their votes in his party as a matter of principle. It’s an absolutely craven attempt to play both sides, and it’s going to bite him in the end, and only allows this situation to fester the longer they coddle these loathsome separatists for the sake a few votes.

https://bsky.app/profile/journodale.bsky.social/post/3mui3drbfis2h

As Dale points out, these notably exclude immigrants of colour.My grandparents ran a store in Lake Alma, SK, then moved to Regina, where my grandfather worked at the Model Cafe. They lived above Glasgow Confectionery, then later founded the B. Y. W. Grocery in 1962.Guess we don't count.

— Tim Ford (@timfordwrites.bsky.social) 2026-09-01T19:03:58.660Z

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More threats and childish name-calling

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In the wake of the collapse of trade talks, the Trump was administration trying desperately to put the blame on Canadian negotiators rather than the fact that Howard Lutnick came stomping in at the end and undid the work that Jamieson Greer was doing (not that there was any deal to be had, let me be clear—this was only about extracting concessions from us so that they could demand more). Trump himself decided to start throwing more threats around, starting with threats of fifty percent tariffs on autos (including parts) and steel come January, possibly in the hopes that it would send Carney and his team back to the table so that they could offer fresh capitulations to head off said tariffs. Of course, it’s also pretty ridiculous at this point—the margin on auto assembly in this country runs around six percent, so whether tariffs are at twenty-five or fifty percent it hardly seems to matter, but it really seems incumbent upon the auto industry in the US to push back against this.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-08-24T14:54:38.444Z

And measured in US terms (because they measure unemployment different than we do), I believe ours is about 5.3% on an apples-to-apples basis, if memory serves.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-08-24T18:28:16.720Z

And then, because it can always get worse, it devolved into a bunch of name-calling between Doug Ford and Trump, with Ford at one point inviting Trump to kiss his ass, while Trump saying that Ford was a “flunky” and a pale imitation of his older brother, the late Rob Ford. And it’s so stupid. What gets me, however, is the fact that once again, Ford is uncritically being praised for his standing up to Trump, even though it’s just bluster, and we’re back to people saying “I don’t normally support Ford, but…” and guys, guess what? This is what he wants. This is how he hopes to turn his tanking poll numbers around, just like he did before the last provincial election. It’s incredible how much people keep falling for this.

Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre is demanding that the government recall Parliament so that they can “get answers” about what happened, but there is nothing to be legislated here, and the government is not going to release everything in public because trade negotiations are Cabinet confidences for a reason, not the least of which is because it can expose pain points for others to exploit. This being said, yes, we do need them to give more about how the Americans scuppered their own deal, but there are ways of doing that that don’t give away everything. If the opposition wants to call Dominic LeBlanc and Janice Charette to the trade committee and ask questions, they can do that without recalling Parliament a month early, but this looks to me like a desperate bid by Poilievre to try and start harvesting clips for his social media channels.

What, exactly, needs to be legislated at this moment? If you want to haul LeBlanc and Charette before a committee, you don't need to recall Parliament to do that. Otherwise, this looks like a desperate need to start farming clips for social media.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-08-24T13:04:55.035Z

Also, I am bemused that yet again, Poilievre's solution to everything is to destroy environmental laws. Because apparently we'll save the economy through years of endless litigation?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-08-24T13:04:55.036Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-08-24T19:08:01.739Z

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A brief reprieve from threatened tariffs

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There has been a slight reprieve on the expected imposition of new tariffs, which Trump says has to do with the revival of Keystone XL (which isn’t actually called that anymore). I’m not sure that that accomplishes overall, because it will likely mostly just wind up being trans-shipment for export on the Gulf Coast, and I doubt we have production capacity to fill both that pipeline as well as a second west coast pipeline, and if that means this is an invitation to ramp up even more production in the oilsands, well, that’s yet another climate betrayal by Carney.

Trump says he's pausing the new Canada tariffs for three days because there's a tentative deal which may include reviving the Keystone XL pipeline

— Thomas Seal (@twseal.bsky.social) 2026-08-19T02:20:17.599Z

From PMO:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-08-19T03:14:59.266Z

Earlier in the day, the rumour being leaked was that the Americans were trying to put forward a deal on auto tariffs to lower them to 15 percent, but with a possible base level of 7.5 percent if the American content was increased. The problem, however, is that according to the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association’s Flavio Volpe, margins in auto assembly run around six percent, so they’d still be losing money, so it’s a non-starter. All of this to say that this is dragging out further, and I’m still not discounting yet more capitulation by Carney to get some kind of a “deal,” even though there is no actual deal to be had.

Proxy voting

Mike Moffatt published an op-ed in the Globe and Mail yesterday that expanded on his previous thoughts about proxy voting for parents with children, which is his way of getting around the notion that not giving everyone a vote undermines the one-person-one-vote ethos. I’m not a fan of this particular logic, and I think that his enthusiasm for how mothers would vote better in the interest of their children (as most mothers would be given the proxy vote using CCB rules in his vision) is wildly optimistic or utopian, I do worry that this would essentially be rewarding people with additional political power for having children, even for the sixteen or eighteen years that they have the proxy, which I find a bit distasteful.

More to the point, I worry about unintended consequences. Like how voting rates plummeted after we lowered the voting age to 18, and how people have been wringing their hands about it ever since. One of my particular concerns is that this becomes yet another de facto gerrymander to increase the weights of rural ridings over urban ones, as rural families tend to have more children than urban ones, and this just perpetuates the already egregious problem of rural ridings being artificially weighted heavier than urban ridings, which in turn favours conservative parties in those areas, and that is often a deliberate strategy (looking especially at you, Alberta). Maybe I’m just being cynical, but as much as I can respect Moffatt’s reasoning, I don’t think it survives the test of reality.

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A fantasy pipeline to Sarnia

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Doug Ford and Danielle Smith held a joint press conference yesterday to announce a proposal for a northern pipeline route from Alberta to Sarnia, entirely through Canadian territory. Currently Alberta oil transits to Sarnia through the US because it’s a much shorter and flatter route, and that network is working just fine. Yes, a northern route might be more secure from American threats, but I will reiterate—a Canadian route is much longer, and over much rougher terrain, and is unlikely to find private sector proponents because they have no desire to strand the current pipeline network’s assets.

This sounds an awful lot to me like wishful thinking. There’s no timeline, there’s no price tag, there’s no agreement with Manitoba to go through that province—it’s a line on a map that rests on the wishful thinking that the oil market is going to keep growing in perpetuity. Ford keeps talking about how great it would be if the pipeline could go all the way to the Irving refinery in New Brunswick, but that’s never going to happen because Irving has no interest in paying a premium for Alberta oil when they can get imports for cheaper. (On a similar note, hopes to ship oil or LNG out of the Port of Churchill is also fantasy, because it’s only open for three months out of the year, and if they think that they need icebreakers the rest of the year, well, that’s one hell of a government subsidy).

Meanwhile, Smith going on about how the plan is to build this out now and decarbonise later is also ridiculous. There is a supply glut in the global oil market already (and prices will fall precipitously once the Strait of Hormuz issue is resolved, which it will be). Alberta increasing production to fill all of these pipelines is not going to bring plenty of more dollars, because adding supply to a supply glut further lowers the prices they get. That’s the reason why so much investment dried up after the price crash in 2014. It’s not coming back. This is just fantasy.

Danielle And Doug Ford Are Making A Beautiful Pipeline Togetheryoutu.be/BbOvIjvbMMw

— Clare Blackwood (@clareblackwood.bsky.social) 2026-07-06T19:40:58.929Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-07-06T13:08:02.411Z

My Latest:

  • My column on the justice committee hearings being largely a clown show because we don’t have serious bunch of MPs who asked questions of the new SCC justice.
  • My weekend column points out that the extreme weather on Canada Day in Ottawa should have been a wake-up call for Carney, but he refuses to listen.

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Reversing themselves on age verification

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The government’s online harms bill dropped yesterday, and while there are some good parts to it, there are some very, very bad parts that I am absolutely outraged about. Because this government has developed a real penchant for major omnibus bills, this contains parts of the previous online harms bill, such as the duty to act responsibly for platforms around safe design for sites and apps, which is the good part. It dropped the hate crime provisions that included restoring some of the functions of the Human Rights Tribunal around hate, which were controversial to begin with, but was also about trying to respond to the increasing amounts of hate being seen online. It seeks to create a Digital Safety Commission as the regulator in charge of the online harms scheme, who will oversee enforcement and implementation. It has a partial social media ban for youth under sixteen, but is also incorporating the age verification scheme of that Senate Public Bill, S-209, which has failed time and again, and which the Trudeau government opposed for all of the right reasons, including the fact that age verification cannot work without becoming mass surveillance (and yes, this is the part that I am absolutely livid about). (More from CBC here and here).

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mnxuplffys2b

Part of what is so infuriating is that they are putting the age-gating into this legislation, but there are no details on how that is going to work, other than mention of “age estimation,” which is poor technology when it can have trouble distinguishing between a fifteen and a sixteen year-old, and doesn’t work well for anyone who is racialised or trans (and certain age estimation technologies have been easily thwarted with fake moustaches). And remember, this is technology that everyone on the internet is going to be subjected to, which is inevitably going to involve mass surveillance, and the loss of internet privacy writ-large. The Liberals have reversed themselves yet again, shamelessly. (For more, here is Michael Geist’s first impressions of the legislation).

My Latest:

My column highlights remarks that Louise Arbour made about diversity during her installation speech, given we are at a time of increasing ethnic/white nationalism.

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Roundup: Referendum on a referendum reactions

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It was a strange day in the wake of Alberta premier Danielle Smith put having a referendum about a future referendum, as everyone was offering reactions. Prime minister Mark Carney summoned a small press pool to the empty Library of Parliament in the Centre Block, undergoing renovations, to make the somewhat bizarre case that he is “renovating the country” and that Alberta is essential to that. (Huh?) Pierre Poilievre says that national unity is the prime minister’s job, before going on to repeat the invented grievances that the separatists are furiously masturbating over, while other Conservative MPs started tweeting variations of the same. A group of small-c conservatives launched a “Vote to Stay” campaign, and Jason Kenney is attaching himself to that while refusing to take any responsibility whatsoever for creating this situation when he invited the separatists into his “united” party (before they ate his face). Here is some assorted reaction quotes, while the Calgary Chamber of Commerce is denouncing the move as coming at the worst time for the economy in the province.

Takes no responsibility for creating this situation, and now wants to swoop in to play hero.Fuck that guy.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T17:20:14.040Z

Also, "Alberta Built Canada"? Because apparently we're going to engage in self-aggrandizing bullshit in the name of national unity? Speaking as an Albertan, my eyes rolled so far back in my head I saw black.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T17:20:14.041Z

Brexit lessons: – An insurgent populist right will be invigorated by a referendum, not vanquished- They don't care about Leave/separate as a real policy. They possibly don't even want it implemented. It's a vehicle for grievances, racism, and graft- Crypto and dark money will sink you

— Lauren Dobson-Hughes (@ldobsonhughes.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T14:09:20.929Z

Brexit lessons cont:- The pro movement will make dry, factual cases for support that don't resonate- The Leave/Cede side will make emotive, wildly untrue claims that are actually about tapping into grievances and identity- Dark money will sink you

— Lauren Dobson-Hughes (@ldobsonhughes.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T14:10:51.779Z

And Smith? She was busy casting blame about to everyone else for “causing” this to happen when she knows damn well this is her decision. She also told the separatists to focus on the referendum rather than trying to oust her, which just confirms once again that this is all about her own fortunes, and to hell with the rest of the province and the country as a whole. Smith also says she wants to try to amend the Constitution to “refine” Indigenous land rights, as though this isn’t their land that they agreed to share (and we’ve been screwing them over ever since).

Danielle Smith Is Holding A Referendum Whether You Whiny Losers Like It Or Notyoutu.be/N_q4WLMdUQQ

— Clare Blackwood (@clareblackwood.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T19:41:46.443Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-05-22T19:08:02.606Z

Supreme Court

Yesterday was both the final hearing for Justice Sheilah Martin before she retires, and also the final hearing in the iconic courtroom at the Supreme Court’s building before the Court decamps for their new digs this summer so that the building can undergo needed reparations. As someone who was there for the final sitting in Centre Block, being present for the last hearing at the SCC was also a little bittersweet.

You can watch the Chief Justice’s remarks, plus Justice Martin’s farewell speech, here.

Justice Martin makes remarks on her decision to retire in advance of the mandatory date, and asserts that her health is excellent. She then speaks about her time on the bench. #SCC

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T13:37:45.698Z

Justice Martin: “The joke is often that it’s like having eight spouses. And I will add: in an arranged marriage.” #SCC

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T13:41:48.569Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck a UN relief supply warehouse in Dnipro, destroying $1 million worth of aid. Ukrainian drones hit another Russian oil refinery, this time in Yaroslavl, some 700 kilometres away from the Ukrainian border.

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Roundup: Reading into the Spring Update

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There was a bit of a dust-up, if we can call it that, online over the weekend, following Althia Raj’s weekend column, in which she calls out the fact that while Carney claims he’s protecting social programmes, he is in fact cutting them along with transfers to provinces. And she’s not wrong in the fact that there is a lot of sunsetting funding with no indication that it’s being renewed again, which makes it hard for provinces or organisations to plan on what their future funding will be. Enter Tyler Meredith, who was an economic advisor to Justin Trudeau (but who is now out of government), and he took issue with Raj’s assertions in this thread:

https://twitter.com/tylermeredith/status/2050715852773695646

And I take his point that no decisions have been made on any of this funding that is due to sunset, but I also think he’s being a bit overly generous with the government on some things, such as the creation of a personal support workers’ tax credit as “proof” that the government is being too bro-focused. One tax credit does not a care economy/women’s state make, particularly one that is that low. And to that end, Raj gave her own response in this thread:

And she brings the receipts when it comes to what’s in the documents, particularly around how Carney’s rhetoric around things like pharmacare not matching the reality on the ground, where there is a half-assed programme in a few provinces, which has not been extended to all others in the past year, and which seems to be no closer to negotiating toward the creation of an actual national programme, beyond the things the NDP insisted on in the dumbest way possible. Which brings me to this point that Mike Moffatt made about the two exchanges:

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/2050943140949856708

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/2050945741221195827

The Carney government doesn’t like to give a lot of details, and relies an awful lot on saying “just trust me” to a whole lot of things, which it really shouldn’t do. And then for everyone to get upset because they we can’t read minds or scry into the future is a problem in trying to communicate to the public. We’re not getting good information out of this government, and that needs to change, and these exchanges are a perfect encapsulation of that.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone hit a bus in Kherson, killing two and injuring seven others. Ukraine struck the port of Primorsk, the largest oil export port on the Baltic Sea.

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Roundup: Undeserved back-patting for recruitment figures

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Defence minister David McGuinty held a press conference yesterday to tout that the recruiting numbers in the military are way up, and this was a sign that the government is on track with their goals to recapitalise the military. But sure, there are still several trades that they are short in, and sure, they’re still quite a bit below the targets set in 2017, but it’s a start, right?

There are a few things at play here that deserve to be teased out. One of them is that people are saying this has to do with the pay raise, but I’m sceptical because the biggest problem with recruitment has long been the military’s poor intake process, which has been overly cumbersome, has dragged out the security screening process, and as they are admitting now, they don’t have enough beds in basic training to accommodate the increase in numbers. That’s pretty much entirely on the military’s internal processes and has precious little to do with the federal government’s handling of the file in any capacity, which makes it very hard for them to pat themselves on the back for it. (One might almost call that “stolen valour”). Over the past several years, the military’s internal delays were so bad that people who wanted to serve wound up walking away because it took too long, and they found jobs elsewhere. Again, it wasn’t an issue about pay, or military housing, it was that the Forces couldn’t get their own internal bureaucracy in line, and that again is on them.

There is another conversation that nobody is having here around this, which is the correlation between the job market and military recruitment. One of the other reasons recruitment has been poor for three decades now is because the job markets changed in the country, particularly in traditionally economically-depressed regions like the east coast, which used to see high recruitment numbers. What changed? Direct flights to Fort McMurray. The promise of oil sands cash for little education, and things like two-weeks-on/two-weeks-off shifts and living in camps meant good money for people from the region, so there wasn’t any need to sign up to the military to find stable employment. And now that is starting to shift back—there are no longer jobs aplenty in Fort Mac as the oil and gas sector has radically increased automation and productivity, and there are no longer unlimited jobs for high school dropouts that get six figure salaries. That is shifting the calculation around the country, and I suspect it is going to be one of the bigger drivers of recruitment more than anything the government has done around pay or base housing.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-20T19:15:34.667Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The death toll from a shooting spree in Kyiv has reached seven; the police chief has already tendered his resignation for it.

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Roundup: Carney’s Forward Guidance

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On Sunday morning, prime minister Mark Carney released a ten-minute piece on his YouTube channel called “Forward Guidance,” because he’s still doing his central banker shtick, and it was a direct-to-camera (with three other cameras intercutting) discussion about the place we find ourselves in. Most of this was not new, repeating the same lines from past speeches including the one at Davos, while promising to never sugarcoat things—but he kind of did. I also have to question why this had to be over YouTube and not a speech in the House of Commons, which is why there is allotted time every day for ministers to make statements if they so choose. This could have been done there.

Carney pointed to a “statue” of Isaac Brock that Mike Myers gave him, but by statue he meant two-inch figurine, and that led him to launch into a whole War of 1812 narrative about the people who built this country, which, okay, sure, but you’re not doing much to show you’re not just the second coming of Stephen Harper. When he talked about the building of big things in the post-war period, this is again where things got a bit sugar-coated because there was still complexity to these old projects, and usually practices that would be unacceptable today for good reason. (I also noted that he mentioned universities being built in this period, without mention of the fact that provincial governments are in the process of dismantling our university systems). He also spoke about protecting social programmes (except for letting the funding of a bunch of groups who deliver services lapse), and he mentions pharmacare like it’s not limited to two types of drugs in a handful of provinces. And further sugar-coating was essentially by omission—the fact that so many Canadian businesses have become apathetic to growth or increasing productivity because they have taken the lesson that all they need to do is become rent-seekers.

Predictably, Pierre Poilievre decided he was going to have something to say about this, and that it was all just an illusion because nothing has actually been built yet (because you can build things overnight). He railed about Carney just enriching “well-connected elites,” but Poilievre’s whole scheme is to double down on trickle-down economics, which by definition enriches a small group of elites because the money does not, in fact, trickle down. Melissa Lantsman put out her own rebuttal that included the incredulous and false claim that the Liberals have cost the economy a trillion dollars in the past decade, which is completely fiscally illiterate, but that’s how the Conservatives roll.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-19T23:08:01.392Z

Ukraine Dispatch

There was a massive overnight attack Saturday on Chernihiv which killed a sixteen-year-old boy, and wounded others. Ukraine is continuing its own drone strikes on Russian oil facilities in Samara, occupied Crimea, and the Baltic Sea.

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Roundup: The most unexpected floor crossing

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To say that the announcement that Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu had crossed the floor to the Liberals was a surprise is an understatement. It was a genuinely gobsmacking moment because Gladu is, to be blunt, an absolute loon. She’s Maple MAGA—a Trump lover, who pushed Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine as COVID cures. She was a hard-core “convoy” supporter whose seal for their cause had Poilievre create a portfolio of “civil liberties critic” for her to continue to espouse nonsense on their behalf. She opposed the banning of so-called “conversion therapy” and was open to members of her caucus legislating to restrict abortion. She would even talk about how, in her experience as a chemical engineer, she had to deal with Chinese corruption on projects, which is why she would not trust the regime. None of this would seem to endear her to the Liberals in any sense.

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3miyl5lk4422e

https://twitter.com/pothen/status/2041907679807918431

I’m going to write more about what his means for the Liberals in a longer piece later, but it cannot be understated what this means for Poilievre, because she was very much his people. She represented the base he was trying to court, and in the end, she walked away from him, and her statements once she crossed over were about needing a leader for this critical moment, which one could very much take to mean that Poilievre is not such a leader. The Star spoke to some Conservatives who claim that as many as 40 members of caucus are worried about their seats under Poilievre’s continued leadership, while Chris d’Entremont told CTV that he gets questions from Conservatives about what life is like with the Liberals, and they don’t sound like they’re turned off. If you’re Poileivre, that has to be a loud and clear message that in spite of the vote of confidence he received in his leadership review, his caucus is worried and history shows they won’t be mollified by a grassroots approval—nor should they be. Of course, they’re all busy pledging their loyalty to the party over social media, but things cannot be that comfortable in the caucus room, and it’s a real question as to whether Poileivre has self-awareness or EQ in order to read that room.

With that, I’m going to give the last word to Andrew Coyne. And the Beaverton.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/2041969096804221126

Five reasons MPs keep leaving my party that have absolutely nothing to do with me – Editorial by Pierre Poilievre

— The Beaverton (@thebeaverton.com) 2026-04-08T19:19:23.311Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones damaged a power substation in Odesa, as well as port infrastructure and a civilian vessel in Izmail. Ukrainian drones struck a Russian oil terminal in occupied Crimea.

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