Tag Archives: Environment

QP: The difference between budgets and estimates

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A Tuesday in June, and the prime minister was present today, as were the other leaders. Even though Andrew Scheer was present, but stayed seated, and left it up to Dan Albas to lead off, who crowed that the House voted last night to make the government table a spring budget (the motion doesn’t actually require, it merely “urges”) and went on to mischaracterise how the Budget and Estimates work, and gave the nonsense quote about how people need a budget before they spend, before demanding that the “minority” government table a budget immediately. Mark Carney praised the London Knights hockey team, and patted himself on the back for his successful meeting with the premiers. Albas listed supposed “facts,” and demanded to know when a spring budget would be tabled. Carney listed a bunch of other non sequiturs, also punctuated by “fact.” Kelly McCauley read another demand for the spring budget, and Carney noted that Canadians deserve the transfers in the Main Estimates. McCauley said those things would be in a budget, and again demanded one. Carney said that he knows the difference between the Main Estimates and the budget, unlike the members opposite, and there was an uproar. When things calmed down, Carney repeated the line and said that they know how to grow the economy without spending money. Joël Godin took over in French to read the same demand for a budget and falsely called the Estimates a “blank cheque.” (It has line items for departmental spending, for fuck sakes). Carney said in French they took note of the vote, but they stand with the premiers of Quebec to have one Canadian economy. Godin trotted out the nonsense line about people needing a budget before spending, and Carney said that they would be a budget, but in the meantime they would boost growth with a bill to build a strong economy.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and wondered about the potential project to create a pipeline to Hudson Bay. Carney said that they had plenty of projects around infrastructure and green energy. Blanchet wondered whether they were trying to find markets in Europe or refine heavy crude in western Canada. Carney said they hadn’t come to any decisions, but the projects need to have environmental standards and have a big impact. Blanchet demanded that the prime minister respect Quebec’s environmental agency. Carney said that they discussed the possibility with the premier, and that they need to have commitments around environmental standards.

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Roundup: No list of projects, unsurprisingly

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In the wake of the First Ministers’ meeting in Saskatoon, there was no list of priority projects that they planned to fast-track, and a bunch of media and pundits seemed surprised by that even though it would likely have been an impossibility given the timeline. What we got instead was more of a process that they plan to use in order to designate these projects on an ongoing basis, which makes a lot more sense from a reality-based perspective. (Photo gallery here).

That didn’t stop the questions on pipelines, even though there are no actual projects being proposed by any proponent (and I have more on that in my column out later today). I do think it’s a problem that legacy media are focusing on pipelines as though they are the be-all-end-all of projects, particularly given the economics involved. They are not magical money trees. Building them will not “unlock” trillions of dollars in the oil sands, and frankly, at a time when the country is literally burning, you would think that we would have a bit more of a critical conversation around that, but no. Oh, and the fact that they are talking about “de-carbonized” oil and gas projects is…mostly fantasy. Pathways Alliance are grifters. It’s not going to capture and store carbon on an industrial scale, and not enough for you to ramp up production. This just seems completely ridiculous on its face, but Danielle Smith thinks she’s getting a win out of this, so I’m mostly just throwing up my hands.

As well, none of these “nation-building” projects involved things like, oh, funding university research networks so that we can not only take advantage of the intellectual resources in this country, but also take advantage of the ”brain drain” in the US as they dismantle their universities in an ideologically-driven crusade, and considering that the premiers were around the table, and this is their responsibility, it would have been great if they could have paid the slightest bit of attention to that, but nope. This country sometimes…

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— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-02T22:08:15.235Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia’s overnight attacks have killed one person in Kharkiv and injured several more in Chernihiv. As well, shelling in Kramatorsk killed at least five people. President Zelenskyy answered more questions on the Spiderweb operation, and confirmed that his was more than a year in planning. At the talks in Istanbul, there was only an agreement to swap dead and wounded prisoners, but little more.

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QP: Counter-tariff concern-trolling

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The PM was away in Saskatoon, meeting with the premiers, while things got underway back in Ottawa. Even though Andrew Scheer was present, he didn’t lead off Question Period, and instead left that up to Kyle Seeback, and he worried that the prime minister ran on a platform of “elbows-up,” and promised to get $20 billion in retaliatory tariffs, but most of the counter-tariffs were “secretly” cancelled (not true), before he raised the prospect of higher steel and aluminium tariffs, and demanded to know how much the counter-tariffs would generate. François-Philippe Champagne promised to fight the unjust tariffs, and that they would build the Canada of tomorrow. Seeback complained that the Liberals don’t answer questions, and accused the prime minister of lying to steel workers. Mélanie Joly responded that she was in contact with industry leaders, and that they were in “solution mode” by promising to use Canadian steel and aluminium in major projects. Raquel Dancho took over and she too concern trolled about the dollar-for-dollar tariffs and demanded to know how much had been collected. Joly congratulated Dancho for being named her critic and said that no executive order has been signed yet. Dancho said that she could assume the figure was zero, and tried again while adding in the “punishing carbon tax” as a drain on business. Champagne insisted that they were defending workers and Canadian industry. Richard Martel took over in French to again demand to know how much in counter-tariffs have been collected, and Joly spoke about meeting with aluminium industry and union leaders over the weekend. Martel took some gratuitous swipes at Carney and said he talks out of both sides of his mouth, and Champagne insisted that they did not capitulate, and that they were standing up for industry and workers.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she claimed that the first ministers’ meeting was about forcing a “dirty oil pipeline” through Quebec. Joly pointed out the size of the Liberals’ Quebec caucus, and trotted out the lines about the standing up for industry workers. Normandin raised Carney’s meeting with oil and gas executives, and accused him of putting them first. Joly said that the job of the prime minister is to meet with everyone, and that right now they were focused on building, including high-speed rail. Mario Simard took over and repeated the same accusation, and Joly said that job creation was in the national interest. 

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Roundup: Ontario MPPs get a raise

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I don’t often write about Ontario politics, but I did want to make a couple of remarks on the fact that Doug Ford pushed through both pay raises for MPPs, as well as a restoration of their pensions, and this actually a Good Thing. MPPs have had their salaries frozen since 2009, when Dalton McGuinty froze them in response to the global financial crisis (which is always one of those dumb populist moves that astroturf groups like the so-called “Canadian Taxpayers Federation” demand, and it always ends up bad). Ford’s legislation will peg MPP salaries at 75 percent of those of MPs, who already have their own salaries adjusted automatically per a particular formula, and it pegs itself to something like judges’ salaries, all in an attempt to depoliticise the issue (and has largely been successful).

The thing about salaries for elected officials is that you want them to be high enough to discourage them from either freelancing on the job, or being susceptible to financial inducements (aka bribery) by keeping them at a reasonably comfortable level (without being obviously lavish or ostentatious). And frankly, the fact that anyone who is in a profession, like a doctor or lawyer, needing to take a pay cut to get into elected politics is usually a bad sign, because it discourages them from running or contributing in a meaningful way. And as for pensions, which Mike Harris killed in more populist excesses, it again helps to keep MPPs from pursuing other remuneration given the low salaries they’re already accepting, when they’re not earning pensionable income from their previous employers. Over time, there have been complaints that certain MPPs wouldn’t retire because they couldn’t afford to, and there was recently one story about a former Toronto MPP who wound up sleeping in a shelter after a financial collapse from a divorce. This was pretty sad indictment of how petty Ontario’s legislature had become on these questions.

This having been said, I’m still dubious about Ford’s motives, given that he has stuffed his Cabinet with MPPs in order to give them raises while going on about how hard they work. This feels a little bit like spoils of war as the province’s books get in worse and worse shape, but again, this is still the right thing to do. I know the books are a mess, and hospitals are crumbling, and they’re dismantling post-secondary education, but not giving these raises doesn’t fix any of that. Let’s hope that we’re not going to witness a bunch more hand-wringing about how nest-feathering, otherwise I can see the dumb populism making things even worse, as they force MPPs to start competing over who does sackcloth and ashes best.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-05-29T21:27:21.302Z

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that Russia is engaging in yet another deception by not handing over its peace settlement proposal ahead of their planned talks.

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QP: Parade of the newbies

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Thursday, and the novelty had worn off for journalists in the gallery, which was once again nearly empty. Mark Carney was elsewhere meeting with the mayor of Toronto, while Andrew Scheer was also absent. Stephanie Kusie led off with some nonsense concern trolling about the lack of a budget. François-Philippe Champagne loudly praised their tax cut, the GST removal on certain houses, and the removal of the consumer carbon levy in law. Kusie again repeated this same nonsense, increasingly breathy and melodramatic, and Champagne reminded her that Canadians chose the Liberals in the election. Kusie tried her first question again in French, and Champagne praised their “ambitious plan” that includes the aforementioned tax cuts. Adam Chambers took over, and he too concern trolled over the Estimates, with a focus on consultants like McKinsey. Champagne insisted that they are focusing on results, and praised the tax cuts and wondered if the Conservatives would support them. Tamara Kronis gave the same performance,and this time, Joël Lightbound took a turn to praise the tax cuts that they are delivering on “day one.” We got another go-around of the same from Carol Anstey, and Lightbound chided the Conservatives about supporting the tax cuts.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and decried plans to “control the Quebec economy from Ottawa,” and wanted a commitment to respecting Quebec’s jurisdiction when the first minsters meet on Monday. Chrystia Freeland praised her meetings with her Quebec counterpart. Normandin tried again, insisting that the Quebec nation was not a barrier to trade, and Freeland agreed that they are working together with Quebec. Patrick Bonin took over, and he decried the possibility of a pipeline going through Quebec only getting a federal assessment. Julie Dabrusin praised her party’s Quebec caucus and said that they would always take Quebec’s interest to heart.

Blake Calkins heckles Freeland “Two more years and you’ll be a parl sec.” #QP

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-05-29T18:27:08.710Z

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QP: New faces, same dynamics

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A new Parliament, a new and untested Speaker, a new and untested prime minister, and an old familiar smirking face filling in for the leader of the opposition, at least until the party leader can win a new seat. Will anything actually change with all of these new faces, or have the dynamics entrenched themselves? We are about to find out.

Andrew Scheer led off in English, welcoming Mark Carney to his first Question Period, and complained that the government “secretly” dropped counter tariffs (it wasn’t secret), and wondered how he would make up the fiscal shortfall. Carney first thanked his constituents and the Speaker, and gave the line that the tariffs have maximum effect on the U.S. while minimal effect on Canadians. Scheer chirped that he didn’t take long to not answer questions, before demanding a budget before summer vacation. Carney suggested that Poilievre’s plan did not include a budget, and said that new legislation would be on the way to build the economy. Scheer recited a bunch of bullshit about the Liberals damaging the economy, and demanded the government repeal the old Bill C-69. Carney recited some lines about building the economy and a major project office. Pierre Paul-Hus took over in French to demand a budget, and Carney insisted in French that he has a daring and ambitious plan to bring together the Canadian economy into one economy and not thirteen. Paul-Hus repeated the demand, and Carney insisted that they would act immediately to cut taxes on the Middle Class™ and reduce or remove GST on new housing. Paul-Hus then turned to the false claim that that the counter-tariffs were removed in secret, and Carney responded that he must be referring to the Conservative platform with its $20 billion deficit.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and he called the King a “foreign monarch” before wondering why there was no mention of trade in the Speech from the Throne. Carney said that if he had been there, he would have heard about the global trade system. Blanchet called the Speech “centralising” and railed against the “one economy” talking points, likening provinces to branches of a bank headquartered in Toronto. Carney said this is a crisis and a time for unity, which is why the premiers are meeting this weekend in Saskatoon. Blanchet pivoted to the climate crisis, and noted that there was “nothing” about it in the Speech. Carney said that the climate crisis does exist, which is why we need to become an energy “superpower” in clean and conventional energy, and it would come up at the G7 meeting.

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Roundup: The King and the Speech from the Throne

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The King delivered the Speech from the Throne yesterday, and it went about as well as expected. His French was strong, and the introduction that he wrote himself (or that his office wrote) included language about reconciliation, Canadian identity, and the parts of the country that he takes with him. The bulk of the speech was pretty predictable Mark Carney points, but it was weird hearing the King read out how much the tax cut is expected to save families. (Here are five key messages, the focus on joining ReArm Europe, and some deeper analysis).

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The responses to the speech were, frankly, rote and predictable. Pierre Poilievre complained that it didn’t spell out implementation, which no Speech does, and then demanded a whole bunch of non sequitur legislation be repealed, because he said so. The Bloc, naturally, claimed that Carney wants to centralize power and ignore Quebec’s interests. And Don Davies of the NDP said there wasn’t anything about workers in there, and called the King “foreign.” Does every opposition party in this country have to be so gods damned lazy? Is it really so difficult to actually come up with a new answer about something (while also not making up absolute bullshit, holus-bolus?)

Every bill he lists he has lied about what it actually does. Every. Single. Bill.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-05-27T17:30:33.538Z

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Meanwhile, whether by coincidence or by design, shortly after the Kiing and Queen departed Canada, Trump declared that the price tag for Canada to join the so-called “Golden Dome” is $61 billion, but free if they become the 51st state. You know, after the new US ambassador to Canada said that the “51st state” talk was over and that we need to “move on.” Yeah, that was really going to happen.

Old enough to remember this from the new U.S. ambassador to Canada:“From my standpoint, from the president’s standpoint, 51st state’s not coming backs.”(Ten days ago.)www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/w…

— Brian Finucane (@bcfinucane.bsky.social) 2025-05-27T21:50:20.627Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-05-27T14:08:17.858Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The number of Russian drones attacking Ukraine fell to about 60 overnight Tuesday, but there were still several injuries.

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Roundup: Delay to delivery?

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The new natural resource minister, Tim Hodgson, gave a speech in Calgary yesterday and everyone in the energy sector was all hot and bothered because he insisted that they were moving to a culture of delivery instead of delay. And you’ll have to forgive my cynicism, but that seems to completely ignore what the actual issues of delay have been, and if you say “Liberal regulation!” you’re going to get a smack. The premise of saying they need “one project, one review” ignores that that’s been the case for ages now—there are no duplicative reviews, because federal and provincial reviews look at different things, and on projects where they had shared jurisdiction, they set up a joint review panel so that it was *gasp!* one review. Anyone who says they were mired in duplication is frankly not being that honest.

The real issue has been proper consultation, which is what leads projects to wind up in litigation, particularly from Indigenous groups. Harper’s attempt to reform assessments to “streamline” them meant that most of those projects wound up in litigation because, well, they ignored their obligations. In some cases, like Northern Gateway, the Conservatives ignored the process that they put into place for meaningful consultation, and well, the project died on the vine as a result. And with BC and Ontario both pushing legislation to “streamline” projects which basically means bulldozing over environmental and Indigenous obligations, well, that’s all going to wind up in litigation too. This was the whole point of the Impact Assessment Act that Jason Kenney in particularly successfully villainized—it was to ensure proper consultation up-front, at the design phase of a project, so that the rest of the process would go faster because you did the hard work at the beginning. But it became the subject of lies and disinformation, and yes, the federal government’s attempt to exert jurisdiction over certain projects because the polluting effects cross borders didn’t convince the Supreme Court of Canada, but that didn’t render the entire statute or the issues of up-front consultation obsolete or moot, and nobody seems to want to explain that part.

One more thing about Hodgson’s speech was the he singled out Pathways Alliance as a project he wants to see move forward. I’m really hoping that this means he’s telling them to put up or shut up, because we know that they basically went dark because their claims about building a massive carbon capture and storage hub were overblown and they were about to face legal consequences for greenwashing thanks to new powers for the Competition Bureau. And frankly, the whole point of the emissions cap was to tell the energy sector to put up or shut up—that they have been boasting about how they’re going to reduce their emissions, so when the government basically told them to prove it, suddenly they started crying about how this as a “production cap” and it was unfair to them. Girl, please. You insisted you could do this, so prove it.

Meanwhile, we’ve had our first glimpse into Mark Carney’s PMO, and while he’s insistent on punctuality, business attire, and UK spellings (hooray!), and decision paralysis is not setting in (so far), he’s also starting to micromanage all kinds of things that he shouldn’t be, which sounds an awful lot like a Harper trait. Part of the problem so far is a lack of a proper chief of staff, and that ministers haven’t staffed up yet either, and yet he wants to operate at a breakneck pace. But there are other warning signs—because he doesn’t understand politics, he really hasn’t given thought to how to navigate a minority House of Commons, to say nothing of the Senate (ahem), and not knowing how to deal with Parliament could lead to a situation where the Conservatives can team up with the Bloc and the NDP yet again to start frustrating anything passing once again—and for all of their talk about working together and getting things done, don’t think for a second that they’re actually not more interested in scoring points and embarrassing the Liberals. Trudeau lost the ability to manage these things, in part because of disinterest, and we’ll see if Carney doesn’t make the same mistake.

Ukraine Dispatch

There was a massive missile and drone attack against Kyiv overnight, which has injured at least eight people (Photos). Ukraine and Russia exchanged 390 prisoners each on Friday, marking one of the largest swaps since the war began.

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Roundup: Platforms, budgets, and estimates

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The news that there won’t be a spring budget meant a day of wailing and gnashing of teeth, much of it misunderstanding about what the budget actually is and does. Pierre Poilievre summoned the media outside of West Block to decry that Mark Carney “has no plan” because there isn’t a budget, and his MPs have been tweeting up a storm to insist that “Carney lied” by not having a budget, but this, as usual, is little more than low-rent disinformation that treats voters like idiots because they don’t know the parliamentary budgetary cycle.

Budgets by their very nature are political documents. They provide guideposts for spending plans, but we just had an election and the Liberals have a reasonably comprehensive platform document, so that can provide the broad strokes for spending plans in the same way that a budget document does. The thing we are missing is an updated chart of what the current debt/deficit projections look like, and what the growth projections are, but again, the growth projections are merely an amalgamation of private sector forecasts and are no longer based on Department of Finance projections, and we’re in a moment of profound economic uncertainty because of Trump’s trade war, so they could very well go up in smoke next week, and wouldn’t be of much use to anyone. There is also the practical reality that the election was three weeks ago, and the Department of Finance wouldn’t have time to prepare a budget document, even based on the projections from the platform document, nor have it ready before the Commons rises for the summer. And if anyone thinks they want to sit in Ottawa’s hot and muggy summer climate, well, no they actually do not. That’s just political posturing (or sheer ignorance of what summer is like here).

I did also want to point you to this thread which corrects something from this The Canadian Press explainer about the budget document, budget implementation acts, and the Estimates. The estimates are the actual spending documents about how much the government plans to spend. A budget implementation act is legislation that enacts things like tax changes from the budget document, which are proper omnibus bills, but in recent years have become abusive omnibus bills as governments will stuff extraneous things into the budget document in order to include them in the omnibus BIA for the sake of expediency. It abuses process and shouldn’t be allowed (including with the fig leaf of “it was in the budget document!”) but this is also was six years of unrelenting procedural warfare has wrought—if you can’t pass bills because the opposition parties want to play games, then you shove everything into an abusive BIA, and the cycle perpetuates, which isn’t good for anyone (which is also a reminder that actions have consequences). Suffice to say, there will be an Estimates Bill passed in the four weeks that Parliament is back, so it’s not like there isn’t anything from government on spending plans.

Programming Note: I am taking the full long weekend off, because I’m utterly exhausted. See you on Wednesday.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims that they have taken two more settlements in Eastern Ukraine, which Ukraine disputes. President Zelenskyy is in Türkiye for the “peace talks” that aren’t actually going to happen because he called Putin’s bluff.

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Roundup post: Shuffle expectations

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It’s Cabinet Shuffle Day, and the “leaks” and PMO lines are that it will be more than 50 percent new faces, though it sounds like some of the key players—Dominic LeBlanc, Chrystia Freeland, David McGuinty, Anita Anand—are staying put. CTV had two sources tell them Freeland was out before being told that no, she’s staying. It also sounds like Sean Fraser will get back in, as it was the understanding for him running again after saying he was going to retire to spend more time with his family. One also has to wonder about Nathaniel Erskine-Smith in a similar boat, so we’ll see. New faces are supposed to include Gregor Robertson and Carlos Leitao, and you can bet that Buckly Belanger from Saskatchewan will have a role, as will either of the two Alberta MPs. (More rumours and speculation from the National Post, The Canadian Press, CBC, the Star, and the Globe and Mail).

It was also confirmed that it will return to a tiered structure, with a smaller core of ministers, with other portfolios likely being given to secretaries of state (who are subordinate to ministers) rather that ministers of state (who can have their own departments like regional development portfolios or certain agencies). This is in part where the commitment to gender parity will become apparent—will there be women leading in major portfolios, or will there be a disproportionate number of women relegated to secretaries/ministers of state? Trudeau decided to make everyone ministers to ensure that they were all equal in rank and salary, and that there was less of a “pink ghetto” effect with second-tier appointments. Carney will have to work to avoid playing into that effect (which is also an example of formal versus substantive equality.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Robson has some thoughts on the probable structure of Cabinet we’ll see.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched over 100 drones overnight after president Zelenskyy called Putin’s bluff on peace talks in Istanbul.

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