Tag Archives: Elections Canada

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: 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: Unilateral Arctic plans and foreign aid churlishness

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Pierre Poilievre called a press conference from Iqaluit, yesterday, where he announced his Arctic policy ideas, which include finally building an air force base in the region, doubling the number of Canadian Rangers, and building two more heavy icebreakers, but for the Royal Canadian Navy and not the Coast Guard. Oh, and that he was going to pay for it all by gutting foreign aid. Set aside the fact that the plans for an Arctic base have long been in the works with slow progress, but does the Navy even want icebreaker capability? They didn’t want the slushbreakers—sorry, Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships that the Harper government decided they needed, and here is another Conservative who wants to impose capabilities that they have not asked for, because reasons. Nevertheless, this whole thing set off the premier of Nunavut, who noted there was zero consultation on these policies, and pointed to actual sovereignty-affirming things that governments should be doing for the north that aren’t this kind of performative flexing.

As for Poilievre’s disdain for foreign aid, it’s one-part monkey-see-monkey-do with MAGA and Elon Musk dismantling USAID, but it’s juvenile, provincial, and ignores that foreign aid is soft power that also does thinks like not let Russia and China swoop in and start winning hearts and minds in those countries, which is what Trump opened the door to, and which Poilievre seems keen to follow, justified by a number of lies about the recipients of that aid based on the fact that UNRWA may have had a handful of compromised employees. He doesn’t care about the realities of this aid spending and the projection of soft power, because those recipients can’t vote for him, and he’s playing into tired populist tropes about “taking care of people at home,” even though they actually don’t care about vulnerable people at home, and just want a tax cut instead of actually helping anyone. And again, Poilievre doesn’t care.

If anything, Canada should actually be living up to its previous pledges about increased funding for foreign assistance, particularly because the dismantling of USAID is going to affect programmes that Canada was partnering with them on, and they provided much of the “thought leadership” in the space. Children are going to die of malnutrition, and preventable illness, HIV infections are going to skyrocket, and again, Poilievre doesn’t care because those people can’t vote for him. What a bleak, cursèd timeline we live in right now.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Ukrainian drone attack damaged an industrial facility—possibly an oil refinery—in Russia’s Saratov region. The US’ “freeze” of aid money means that organisations helping investigate Russian war crimes can’t pay staff or continue their work—Trump and Musk just doing Putin’s bidding.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1888916130254725208

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Roundup: Piercing Lantsman’s kayfabe

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Because everything is so stupid, Conservative Twitter got itself all hot and bothered over the weekend because Nathaniel Erskine-Smith had the temerity to break the kayfabe when the Melissa Lantsman was engaging in performative outrage.

Context: This was an event Erskine-Smith held in his riding for Mark Carney, and Lantsman stood outside to say ludicrously stupid things, and Erskine-Smith, who was standing right there, made a good-natured objection, and did so in a way where Lantsman broke—her performative outrage cracked, she smiled and basically admitted it was all bullshit, and then tried to carry on to finish the performance, got her talking points backwards, but she finished the scene. Conservatives, however, were incensed that the fakery was exposed, so they edited the clip, invented the charge that Erskine-Smith was a creep because he touched her shoulder and shook her hand—the most regular things in politics—and *gasp!* suggested they get a drink like a good-natured colleague would. This would not stand.

What’s particularly hilarious about this is that this is just more Conservative cry-bullying (which I have been on the receiving end of), where they pretend to be the wronged party in order to have someone “cancelled,” while they bemoan and wail about so-called “cancel culture” (which has never actually cancelled anyone, especially in a country where the National Post gives them column inches the very next day). Meanwhile, if they think that women like Lantsman are that fragile, perhaps they should start insisting that women not be accompanied outdoors without a male relative escorting them, or that they should start wearing burkas so as not to attract unwanted attention—you know, like the Taliban would say.

It’s all so fake, and this is what they want our political discourse to be.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed 50 out of 72 Russian drones launched overnight Saturday. President Zelenskyy replaced the commander of the eastern forces for the third time in a year, as Russia continues to encroach on strategic settlements.

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Roundup: The first Trump 2.0 salvo

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And so it begins. Donald Trump went on this Truth Social to declare that he’s going to impose 25 percent tariffs against Canada until we secure the border and stop letting illegal aliens and fentanyl across, and predictably, everybody lost their gods damned minds.

https://twitter.com/maxfawcett/status/1861241979834900615

Guys, he’s signalling he wants counter offers.Throwing someone under the bus is not an offer Doug/Danielle. He can do that without you. What do you have that he needs? Or, what do you have what ppl he needs/owes need? Hint ON: it’s not auto parts.

— Jennifer Robson (@jrobson.bsky.social) 2024-11-26T02:12:33.298Z

Justin Trudeau had a call with Trump apparently shortly after, and Dominic LeBlanc and Chrystia Freeland put out a bland, vaguely-reassuring statement, while Trudeau also had to call the premiers of the two largest provinces to calm them down (as they had already been demanding an emergency First Ministers’ meeting about Trump’s return). In amidst this, Jagmeet Singh was also being performative about demanding Trudeau fight, and so on.

It took less than three hours before the first of the Elder Pundits started demanding that we capitulate on a number of files to Trump while, delusionally, insisting that he can be bargained with in good faith. Honest to Zeus, you guys.

And here's our first sighting of a capitulationist argument. John advocates that we gather and sit down and negotiate "in good faith" with the incoming administration, and then lists a bunch of things where we should just concede.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2024-11-26T04:47:28.634Z

Well, I see that Alaric has brought a lot of Visigoths with him to the gates of Rome. Maybe we should sit down and negotiate with Good King Alaric in good faith and he will agree to sack only half of Rome.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2024-11-26T04:54:19.405Z

I mean, had this strategy succeeded even once with that guy? "Say what you want about Trump, but he sure does respect and respond to people who come and negotiate in good faith." Haha, no.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2024-11-26T04:57:16.619Z

Once everyone calms down and breathes into a paper bag for a few minutes, we need to be clear-eyed about this, and one of the most important things to be clear-eyed about is that if Trump does this, that means he raises gas prices in the American Midwest overnight. Maybe we need to let him discover some consequences for his actions instead of capitulating? It might be a novel approach, and we might suffer some collateral damage, but it might be less than we think.

What action should we take to a threatened 25% tariff?Some thoughts….www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl…

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2024-11-26T02:14:27.371Z

https://bsky.app/profile/josephpolitano.bsky.social/post/3lbsuq6etic26

I mean seriously if the guy is about to jam a stick in his own damned wheel we don't need to have an emergency Team Canada summit and capitulate our way into offering sacrifices. We should just say…go ahead, and enjoy the pain you're inflicting on yourself.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2024-11-26T02:41:01.591Z

You all MOCKED George Lucas and said this was boring or dumb but who’s laughing now???

— Happy Nute Dawn (@nutedawn.bsky.social) 2024-11-26T01:00:33.647Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia once again launched a massive drone assault, targeting Kharkiv, Odesa, and Kyiv, mostly damaging residential buildings. Russian forces are also rapidly advancing toward Kurakhove.

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Roundup: Who cares about the Speaker’s peril when there are talking points to parrot?

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Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I want to point you to a piece that was on The Canadian Press wire this weekend about a potential procedural showdown between the ongoing privilege filibuster and the coming end of the supply cycle, when the Supplementary Estimates will need to be voted on. This could have been a fascinating discussion that focuses on the pressure that will be on Speaker Fergus to get it right—which, to be frank, he did not when he made the ruling that allowed the privilege filibuster to begin, and pretty much every procedural expert I’ve spoken to has said he got the ruling wrong, and even more to the point, even a former Law Clerk of the Commons has said that this shouldn’t be a privilege issue because the powers to demand papers doesn’t extend to turning them over to a third party as is the case here.

But did the CP story touch on this? Hardly at all! There was some vaguely-worded talk about how this showdown could be unprecedented, but doesn’t actually explain the procedure, or the ruling the Speaker would have to make, and instead spends most of the piece both-sidesing the Liberal and Conservative talking points about the filibuster, because that’s what CP does best in their desire to be as scrupulously neutral as possible. Because who needs actual facts or an explanation of parliamentary procedure when you can quote talking points? This is a problem that CP refuses to address for itself, as news outlets across the country become more and more reliant on wire copy as the number of parliamentary bureaux for legacy media outlets continue to shrink.

Any of it, really.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-11-17T01:44:06.383Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a massive missile and drone barrage against Ukraine overnight Saturday, which hit an apartment buildingin Sumy, killing eight. Russia launched a further 120 missiles and 90 drones overnight Sunday, targeting power systems and killing at least seven people, which will likely mean power cuts. The invasion is now 1,000 days old, and Russia is continuing to expend massively, including in lives, for small territorial gains. It also appears that President Biden has finally okayed the use of long-range weapons provided by the Americans to strike targets inside Russia. It appears that a Russian factory has been producing hundreds of decoy drones meant to overwhelm Ukraine’s defences, while certain drones will carry thermobaric warheads. (More on that investigation).

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Roundup: “Identity politics” on both sides

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As the facile analysis of the Trump victory continues across the political talk shows, there was one particular exchange on Power & Politics last night that I felt deserves a bit more attention, because I think it’s important to call bullshit on, which is the discourse around “identity politics.” There has been a lot written about, particularly over the past two days, about how the left has been too scoldy about said “identity politics” and pronouns, and it caused the public to turn against it, which is both ridiculous given the broad-based rage-and-resentment campaign underway, but it also excuses the very identity politics that the Trump campaign (and the current far-right) play into themselves, particularly with race.

Nevertheless, after this diatribe about identity politics, columnist Emilie Nicolas, who was on that panel, objected and pointed in particular to what is happening right now with young men, who are being raised on a diet of Andrew Tate podcasts and their similar ilk, along with some allusions to the gamer-to-fascism pipeline, who are being taught an absolute load of horseshit about alpha men, male dominance, and rank misogyny. And Nicolas pointed out that this is identity politics, and to insist that it’s only coming from the “left” makes this particular kind of identity politics invisible when that’s exactly what it is.

Trying to dismiss anti-racism, anti-misogyny and anti-homophobia/transphobia as “identity politics” that the general population doesn’t care about (as though the general population consists entirely of white men), while racism, misogyny, and white supremacy are given a free pass and not being called “identity politics” when in fact that is at the core of what they are, is actually kind of damning to those who think the “left” needs to cool it. I do get that the whole “scolding” aspect is something that does need to be re-thought as a tactic, but to pretend that “identity politics” is the domain of the left alone is both wrong, and intellectually dishonest in the extreme.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian guided bomb attack hit Zaporizhzhia, killing four, wounding at least 33, destroyed houses and damaged an oncology centre. Energy facilities in the northern Zhytomyr region also suffered damage in a drone attack. President Zelenskyy told a European summit that “peace through strength” is what is needed (which is in part what he is hoping to flatter Trump with), and also said that North Korean forces have suffered casualties when fighting Ukrainian forces in Kursk.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1854554730325787106

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Roundup: Add another boycott to the list

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The Conservatives have decided that they don’t accept CTV’s apology for reconstructing a Poilievre quote for a piece, and have decided to boycott them, which basically adds to the list, on the flimsiest of excuses, while Poilievre goes about trashing the company CEO and claiming that he somehow directed the journalists in the piece to mangle the quote for some unknown end (it certainly wasn’t “malicious” as they are whinging), because if there’s one thing the Conservatives love to do, it’s to drum up some elaborate but stupid conspiracy theory.

Some people have asked why exactly he’s doing this, and it’s not just rage-farming. It’s a very careful and systematic war against media outlets because one thing that authoritarians and wannabe authoritarians do is delegitimise media sources so that they can undermine the shared reality we live in. The Americans have long-since done this with Fox News being a separate and alternate reality to our own, with a whole set of separate facts and narratives that don’t correspond to objective reality. And as the joke goes, the Fox News of Canada is Fox News—people simply consume it over the border. Poilievre is taking this page out of the authoritarian playbook and is running with it to its fullest. This is deliberate, just as it’s deliberate that they want you to believe that Justin Trudeau is a censorious jackbooted dictator who has turned Canada into a communist hellhole, and they don’t want media to dispute that depiction through things like facts. Legacy media is hurting these days, but it remains important for these very reasons.

(Meanwhile, can I just point out that of course JP Tasker, who wrote the CBC piece, went to Peter Menzies for comment. Menzies recently wrote an op-ed in The Line that we need to validate the feelings of white supremacists if we want to avoid race riots like we saw happen in the UK. There were so many more qualified people to speak to the situation of journalism and politicial parties going to war with outlets, and Tasker chose him. Honest to Hermes…)

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian guided bombs hit an apartment block in Kharkiv, and Russian attacks on two other towns in the eastern part of the country, filling three more. Ukrainian forces say they dislodged Russians from a processing plant in Vovchansk after hand-to-hand combat. At the UN, president Zelenskyy called for support for their actions with their “peace plan” rather than just talks with Moscow.

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Roundup: Two percent ahead of schedule

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The big news yesterday was that according to August data, headline inflation returned to the Bank of Canada’s target of 2.0 percent, well ahead of schedule. It’ll bounce around for a while as the economy continues to rebalance, but it’s a sign that the Bank has essentially stuck the soft-landing. And before you repeat the Andrew Scheer line of “People are going to food banks, you call that a soft landing?” the answer is that the alternative was a recession, so yeah, this definitely beats that.

Things are still uneven, and yes, housing costs continue to drive much of the current inflation, and gasoline prices are a big reason why it fell as much as it did in August, so those will bounce around some more. Food is still running a little bit above headline, but nowhere near what it was before because supply chains have evened out, prices have stabilized from supply shocks (driven by climate change and the invasion of Ukraine), but seasonal price changes are also having an impact. (More from Trevor Tombe in this thread).

https://twitter.com/trevortombe/status/1836026950281744434

Meanwhile, I have seen zero discussion about how everything that Pierre Poilievre has claimed was causing inflation—deficit spending, the carbon levy, and so on—has all been proven false, to say nothing about the comparison between us and the US in terms of deficits and economic performance. Oh, but then they may have to actually point out that he’s lying, and they don’t want to do that. Not to mention, this is Canadian journalism, and we don’t like to actually talk to economists to understand what’s going on, we only need them to assist in both-sidesing bullshit talking points from the parties that paint a picture of doom (because there is “no such thing as a good-news economic story”). Is it any wonder Canadians have such a distorted view of the economy?

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians have once again targeted energy faculties in Sumy region, while shelling in Zaporizhzhia, has killed two people. Russians claim that they have captured the town of Ukrainsk in the eastern Donbas region.

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Roundup: Another Longest Ballot initiative

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The chuckleheads at the “Longest Ballot Committee” have struck again, this time with the by-election in LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, where they have ensured that there are 91 names on that ballot, which surpasses the number they have on the Toronto—St. Paul’s by-election ballot. And no, this is not Conservative skullduggery as many people like to suggest—this is the work of proportional representation fetishists who think that stunts like this will somehow convince the federal government to bow to their demands and institute PR, which isn’t going to happen. Why? Because we’ve been through this process before, and the hot garbage report that the parliamentary committee produced called on the government to invent a bespoke PR system whose main features were going to essentially be impossible to implement without massive constitutional change (because seats have provincial allocations and you can’t achieve a low Gallagher-index score with as few seats as many provinces have) or massively increasing the size of Parliament.

These stunts, however, are pretty much going to guarantee that electoral reform is coming in the form of increasing the thresholds for getting on the ballot, and restricting the kinds of nonsense that enabled these stunts, such as allowing a single person to be the official agent for the vast majority of these names. There is already an electoral reform bill in front of the Commons, which was intended to do things like allow for more early voting days and greater accessibility options, and that means it’s going to be very easy to add in an amendment that will help thwart these kinds of cockamamie tactics going forward. They haven’t helped their cause, and their self-righteous justifications for doing so have actually hurt themselves more than anything.

Ukraine Dispatch

The latest barrage of Russian missiles killed six people across two regions, which included another hotel being targeted. Ukrainian forces also noted that many of those missiles were shot down by their new F-16 fighters. While Ukrainian forces continue to advance in Kursk, Russian forces continue to press toward Pokrovsk because it is a strategic rail hub. Ukrainian drones have hit a Russian oil depot in their Rostov region, and started a fire. President Zelenskyy says that he will present a plan to Joe Biden to help pressure Russia into ending the war.

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