Tag Archives: Election 2025

Roundup: Election 2025, Day One

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Around noon on Sunday, prime minister Mark Carney visited Rideau Hall and advised the Governor General to dissolve Parliament for an election. She agreed, signed the proclamation, and the 45th general election was underway. The election will be held on April 28th, making it a short five-week campaign.

Message from the Office of the Speaker of the House of Commons:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T18:16:45.323Z

Remember: Writs are drawn-up. 343 of them, in fact—one for every riding, because a general election is 343 separate but simultaneous elections, not a single event. Nothing gets "dropped," and certainly not a singular writ.No, it's not a "turn of phrase," and no, it's not allowed. #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T17:38:11.308Z

Mark Carney spoke afterward, and immediately promised a “Middle Class™ tax cut,” because clearly what’s needed in a time of economic uncertainty, and when we need to ramp up our defence spending and response to the economic predations of Trump, is a tax cut that will disproportionately benefit top income earners. Carney then headed to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, for his first campaign stop.

Sigh. Is it possible for everyone to remember that Cutting the lowest tax rate means 1. all tax credits are now worth less 2. And high earners benefit much more from the rate cut than anyone else. Don’t make me break out SPSD/M

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T18:37:33.520Z

Pierre Poilievre got his message out early, and he took a couple of mild jabs at Trump, before doubling down on his usual nonsense about “open border” creating crime (which is completely false), and insisted that his campaign offers hope and change, and insisted that they will “restore” the promise of the country. He then headed off to Toronto for a “Canada First™” rally.

Jagmeet Singh accused the Liberals of letting the country “rot from the inside,” and that he’s about people and not billionaires. (All tens of them in Canada?) From his initial Ottawa launch, he then headed to Montreal for his first stop.

And the Green co-leaders Elizabeth May and Jonathan Pedneault called for unity during the election in order to stand up to Trump and the global oligarchs that are seeking to destroy democracy.

In the background of all of this was an interview that Danielle Smith gave to Breitbart News in the US, where she claims that she told members of the Trump administration to hold off on tariffs in order to help get Poilievre elected, because he would be more in sync with them. This is pretty shocking, if she is indeed telling the truth and not just giving some kind of boast to make herself look good for the Breitbart crowd. Poilievre insists that Trump wants Carney to win because he’ll be a pushover, and I mean, come on. Carney gave his usual points about needing respect from Trump before they’ll talk. Nevertheless, the fact that we have premiers freelancing foreign policy like this is a Very Bad Thing and they need to be reined in.

In sync with authoritarianism?Yes. Yes he would be.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-23T01:52:45.612Z

 

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 147 drones at several cities across Ukraine overnight Sunday, and killed at least seven. On Saturday, Russian shelling killed three in Pokrovsk. The blaze at Russia’s Krasnodar oil depot has been burning for over five days now.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1903740311689363767

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Roundup: Carney and the premiers

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Mark Carney held a First Ministers’ meeting yesterday at the Canadian War Museum, which we’re given to understand was a bit of deliberate symbolism for the current moment, and most of the premiers arrived in person, save Danielle Smith, Scott Moe, and Andrew Furey (who is on a trade mission to Japan, and not in a fit of pique). The meeting ran long, and came out with a number of promises that the cynic in me feels are incredibly optimistic in terms of timelines and ambition. Not that we shouldn’t be ambitious, but oftentimes things are slow for a reason.

In particular, Carney is looking for complete internal free trade by July 1st (barring a few Quebec-specific carve-outs, which one assumes are mostly related to linguistic requirements). He’s also promising to temporary lift the waiting period for EI, to allow businesses to defer corporate income tax and GST/HST filings, creating a new Large Enterprise Economic and National Security Facility for financing, doubling the Indigenous Loan Guarantee programme, increasing funding for regional development agencies, and removing mobility restrictions for federally-regulated workers. The promise around “one window” approvals for major project assessments confuses me somewhat because we already have joint review panels—the whole point being that the federal and provincial assessment processes work together, hence “joint,” so there isn’t duplication. This has been the practice for environmental assessments for decades now, so I’m not quite sure what he’s talking about. Carney was also talking about expediting projects like high-speed rail, but looking at their timeline, I have questions about how much they can realistically speed things without creating new problems. But hey, there’s great enthusiasm in the moment for doing Big Things, so we’ll see if they can actually get off the ground.

In response to questions, Carney clapped back at Trump’s suggestion that he’s the one who changed Canada’s political landscape (not untrue, but not for the reasons he is suggesting),  and gave a line about how Canadians will choose their own leaders. He clarified that yes, he intends to keep the emissions cap (and made the point that it’s an emissions cap and not a production cap), but wants to spur investments in emissions reductions (but really, the carbon price and cap should actually do that on their own). He also did not rule out future investments in pipelines but says he wants to clear the way for private sector investment.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia continues to hammer civilian targets in Odesa and Zaporizhzhia, but then gets all precious about a major pumping station that blew up as Ukrainians have been withdrawing from Kursk region, even though Ukraine says that Russia blew it up themselves as a provocation.

https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1902662502334259284

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Roundup: Pre-approved invitations to litigation

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Pierre Poilievre was in Jonquière, Quebec, yesterday, promising that if elected, he would create “pre-approved, shovel-ready zones” across the country for all kinds of major projects that would only need a checklist to be approved. Just like that! Why, nothing could possibly go wrong with such a proposal, right?

In no way has this been thought through, and as Leach points out, this is the kind of approach that lost the Harper government the Northern Gateway approval. Just like there hasn’t been any thought about his Churchill proposal. And look, he’s making stuff up wholesale about Ring of Fire mines, blaming the Trudeau government for decisions taken in the Harper era. Because of course he is.

Meanwhile, Mark Carney had a meeting with Danielle Smith today, and she comically presented him with a list of “demands” with the threat of a national unity crisis if he didn’t kowtow to her. Because that’s “cooperative federalism”! But seriously, it was a separatist manifesto, divorced from reality, because this is Smith we’re talking about, and she depends on her imaginary grievances to maintain power, more within her own party than the province as a whole.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones hit civilian targets in Odesa, as well as in Kropyvnytskyi, where ten people were injured including children. Ukraine’s drone strike on Russia’s strategic bomber airfield in Engels caused a massive explosion as ammunition was ignited. Russia says Ukraine has violated the “ceasefire” with a hit on an oil depot. Zelenskyy is calling for European help in buying more artillery shells. And US intelligence confirms that Ukrainian forces in Kursk are not encircled, proving that Trump is taking his cues from Russian propaganda.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1902834475806990623

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Roundup: No reporters on the plane

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The Conservatives have declared that there will be no media contingent on their campaign plane or busses, while still mouthing words like claiming they’ll be the “most transparent” campaign out there. (Full letter here). They won’t be, of course, because not allowing journalists on the plane/bus means that they can’t see unscripted moments (from their limited vantage point), but stage-management is much of what this is really about—giving that added bit of message control that the Conservatives are very desperate to maintain.

The claim they are advancing is that they’ll give two- or three-days’ advance notice of stops so that local media can be there, or that national media can fly (last minute, driving up costs), and that people can use “technology” to connect to the campaign, but that generally means relying on the party’s infrastructure and feeds, which allows for greater chances of manipulation (especially if they delay their feed). And before you say it, yes, media do pay for seats on that plane/busses. Thousands of dollars. For comparison’s sake, the Liberals’ proposed fees for the campaign were $1,500 per day; $6,600 per week; or $33,500 for the full campaign. Those fees cover travel, food, access to filing rooms, and Wi-Fi (but not hotels). So let me reiterate—this isn’t about costs, it’s about control. And because the Conservatives claim that they will balance local and national coverage at events, we’ve seen what this means in recent press conferences, where they refused questions from English-language national media, and only took questions from local ethnocultural outlets, and so-called “independent” faux-news outlets like Rebel “News” or Juno.

Ukraine Dispatch

Putin claimed he was willing to engage in a thirty-day ceasefire on energy infrastructure only (which doesn’t mean much given that this is the time of year Russia would be letting up on attacking those targets—they prefer to do so in the winter to freeze out the Ukrainians), and lo, continued to bomb other civilian targets. Some “ceasefire.” Ukraine then stopped an attempted Russian incursion into the Sumy region, because of course.

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