Tag Archives: Foreign Policy

Roundup: The details behind Guilbeault’s exit

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If there’s a story you need to read this weekend, it’s Althia Raj’s look behind the scenes on how Steven Guilbeault’s resignation went down. It’s a tale of deception, freezing Guilbeault out during the process, undermining all of the work on climate action that had been done on this point, creating special carve-outs for Alberta that will piss off every other province, and breaking the word that had been given to Elizabeth May in order to secure her support. And then, they wanted Guilbeault to say some bullshit thing like he was “putting them on notice” until April or something like that, and it was untenable for him to stay, so he resigned. It was complete amateur hour. And Carney undermining his word is a very big problem, particularly because when he was a central banker, his word needed to be believed in order for it to have power. That’s why central bankers need to be ruthlessly apolitical, so that they don’t have the appearance of making calls for partisan benefit. Carney has undermined his credibility entirely because he has shown that his word now means nothing.

This point is disturbing: Guilbeault "was also deeply troubled by the ease with which the PMO was casting aside its moral obligation to May. What was the Liberals’ word worth?"Mark Carney seems to have forgotten the first rule of central banking: Your word, your credibility, is all.

— Blayne Haggart (@bhaggart.bsky.social) 2025-11-29T02:23:29.613Z

There are some particular threads in here that should be unpacked, which is that the motivation for this whole exercise seems to have been that they felt it “necessary for Canadian unity and to combat separatism in Alberta.” This doesn’t achieve that at all. It weakens unity because it gives Alberta special treatment that includes a lower carbon price and an exemption from other emission regulations that no other province gets, which makes it look an awful lot like they got it because the whined the loudest (and they’re not wrong). And it will do nothing about separatism because it fundamentally misunderstands it. It’s not about “unfair treatment,” because that was never the case—it was about a culture of grievance.

Albertans have been force-fed grievance porn for decades, like a goose being fattened for fois gras.You'll never guess what happens next…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-28T22:43:39.019Z

To that end, Danielle Smith is at the UCP annual general meeting this weekend, and when she crowed to the crowd about all the things she secured from Carney—she got him to bend the knee, give her everything she wants, and she has to give up pretty much nothing in exchange—they booed her. Nothing any government will do will actually satisfy them, because they don’t know how to process success. They have been force-fed grievances by successive premiers as a way of distracting from their failures and the fact that they have tied themselves to the external forces of world oil prices, and it’s not giving them unlimited wealth anymore. They don’t have the same future they hoped for because world oil prices never recovered after 2014, and the industry is increasing productivity, laying off workers while increasing production. They’re angry about that, and they’ve been conditioned to blame Ottawa, ever since the 1980s when they blamed the National Energy Programme for a global collapse in oil prices, and they’ve been blaming Ottawa and anyone named Trudeau ever since. Jason Kenney in particular threw gasoline on that fire, and then pretended like he wanted to put it out by pouring a glass of water on that fire and patted himself on the back for it, and then Danielle Smith came in with a brand-new box of matches. There is no satisfying them, and Carney was a fool for thinking he could swoop in and be the hero. Now he’s alienating voters in BC and Quebec where he can’t afford to lose seats, for no gain in Alberta of Saskatchewan. He didn’t outplay Danielle Smith—he capitulated, and got nothing in return, just like every time he has capitulated to Trump.

Danielle Smith gets booed at UCP convention after mentioning working with Canada

— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson.bsky.social) 2025-11-28T22:17:35.805Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones and missiles attacked Kyiv overnight, killing at least one and injuring at least eleven. Ukrainian forces are still fighting in Kupiansk, in spite of Russian claims that they control the settlement. President Zelenskyy says that his chief of staff has resigned over the ongoing corruption investigations.

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Roundup: Managing the expectations from Washington

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Monday was a weird day of expectations management as prime minister Mark Carney headed to Washington for a “working lunch” with Trump to happen today. There were murmurs from Senior Government Sources™ that there could be some kind of relief for some—but not all—of the steel and aluminium tariffs, but those were heavily caveated and is not going to be any kind of comprehensive tariff deal, because Trump loves his tariffs. (And there is no deal to be had). Oh, and while all of this expectations management was going on, Trump declared new 25 percent tariffs on medium and heavy-duty trucks. Because of course.

Amidst this, Pierre Poilievre released a peevish open-letter to Carney that demanded “no more losing” when it comes to dealing with Trump, and a list of things he wants “wins” on, whether it’s tariffs or softwood lumber, or what have you. Because remember, under this framing, Trump is the rational actor and Carney is the one who is the inept negotiator who simply can’t get anything done. Reality of course, is entirely the opposite, that you can’t really negotiate with Trump because he has no logical basis or consistency for his “deals,” and anything he agrees to isn’t worth the paper its written on (if it’s even written down, as some “deals” were nothing more than blank pages with a signature on it).

To that end, Andrew Scheer went on Power & Politics looking to pick a fight with David Cochrane about this, and when Cochrane pointed out that yes indeed, Trump’s tariffs are both affecting our economy and we still do have the best deal of anyone with Trump, that Scheer twisted this into “agreeing” that Carney’s ineptitude has cratered the economy and soured any deal with Trump, because Scheer is a liar and a braying doofus. But this is what everyone has to deal with when it comes to the level of rhetoric and sheer sophistry coming from the Conservatives these days, which is not exactly conducive to informed debate.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-06T22:08:02.378Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine’s forces say that Russian sabotage groups are active in the city of Pokrovsk, which Russians have been trying to capture for months. Ukraine’s long-range drones have struck a Russian ammunition plant, a key oil terminal, and an important weapons depot.

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Roundup: A “summit” that achieved nothing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

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Roundup: The changing votes of the 905

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There was an interesting piece in the Star over the weekend, where a bunch of their reporters went out into the 905 belt around Toronto, in order to talk to newcomer communities who have been increasingly switching their votes from the Liberals to the Conservatives, and managed to capture a few of those ridings this time around (and costing the Liberals their majority). But while we shouldn’t always assume that immigrant and newcomer communities will be Liberals, even though there has been this particular trope that they have been told to vote Liberal because Pierre Trudeau really opened up immigration into this country back in the seventies, I do think that trope is overused and misses some of the other points, like the fact that they often pick up on dog-whistling by Conservatives, or that their ways of trying to engage with newcomer communities can be ham-fisted (such as the famous example of Jason Kenney going to every ethno-cultural buffet event and saying things like “I hear you guys hate the gays too. You should vote for us!” And no, that didn’t wind up being successful, even though a mythology was built up around it that doesn’t reflect voter turnout).

What I found instead in this Star piece was that in many of these communities, they were blaming the federal Liberals and Justin Trudeau for things that are squarely within provincial jurisdiction—like housing, or the uptick in crime that that has been hammered away at in those areas. No, none of the reporters made this distinction in the story, and we find ourselves back in the place where nobody in this country wants to hold the premiers to account for their failures. (For their corruption, yes, to an extent, but not their failures to do their jobs). Pierre Poilievre has successfully weaponised the incompetence of the premiers against the federal Liberals and Trudeau in particular, which Trudeau let him get away with time and again because he refused to call the premiers out. But the even bigger irony is that these are regions that have increasingly been voting for Doug Ford, who has been the cause of, or done nothing about, the very problems they are raising as to why they switched their votes.

I would also note that there are some other fairly disturbing undertones in some of the responses from these voters—far-right talking points like “mass immigration,” for example, or the fact that they appear to be pulling up the ladder behind them. They immigrated this country and bought houses in these suburbs, but immigrants who came in behind them and can’t find affordable housing are the problem? Do you see the issue here? I think this is a warning sign we should be paying more attention to, but again, if the premiers did their fucking jobs, we wouldn’t be seeing some of these issues able to take root within these newcomer communities.

Ukraine Dispatch

An overnight drone attack on Kyiv has injured at least 11, as Russia is calling for a ceasefire in advance of celebrations to mark the anniversary of VE Day. The mayor of the Russian port city of Novorossiisk has called a state of emergency after an alleged Ukrainian drone attack. Ukraine says that they shot down a Russian Su-30 fighter jet with a missile fired from one of their maritime drones.

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Roundup: NDP remain clueless about inflation

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Yesterday, Statistics Canada released the December inflation numbers, and they ticked up to 1.9 percent as higher energy prices offset the downward effect that the stupid GST/HST “holiday” was having on some of the indexes. That “holiday” ended last week, so that effect will end shortly, but there were also notes to watch in that some of the core measures that the Bank of Canada tracks closely started to tick back up again after months of steady declines.

In response to these results, the NDP put out a statement that crowed that the GST “holiday” had driven down food price inflation, and therefore must be made permanent. *sighs* My dudes. No. You didn’t actually read the fucking report, did you? If you had, you would have seen that the decline in food price inflation was from restaurant meals, not grocery stores, along with alcohol purchases because beer and wine was also affected by the GST/HST holiday. Also, you don’t know how inflation works, because it’s a year-over-year measure. That means that if you make it permanent, within a year, the one-time tax cut will disappear as the year-over-year figures no longer count it. It also ignores that the real driver of food price inflation is climate change (and the yes, the war in Ukraine). This is not only illiterate, but it’s sheer incompetence.

If the NDP had bothered to read the report, the food price inflation effect recorded by StatsCan was from restaurants, not grocery stores. Meanwhile, the cause of food price inflation is not the GST or "corporate greed," it's climate change.FFSwww150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quo…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-18T16:07:47.883Z

There was something else in the report that bears mentioning, that was included in the rising energy prices, which was the provincial gas tax in Manitoba. A year ago, when Wab Kinew suspended the tax, he boasted that it meant Manitoba had the lowest inflation in the country. Well, it’s a year later, and inflation is a year-over-year measure, and said gas tax has been reinstated (albeit at a lower level than it was previously). And what are Manitoba’s numbers like? Well, their energy prices increased by 25.9%. Because inflation is a year-over-year measure, and this is the price you pay for a gimmick like suspending your gas tax for populist reasons.

Everything is just so stupid all of the time in #cdnpoli. Just relentless idiocy.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-18T16:07:47.884Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia has launched an overnight drone attack on Odessa, which has injured at least four. Ukraine launched their own overnight drone attack on Russia, hitting an oil refinery in the Samara region, after they previously hit a pumping station for the Caspian pipeline that supplies Kazakhstan. Russian forces claim to have control of the settlement of Yampolivka in the east, while Ukrainian forces destroyed a North Korean self-propelled howitzer in Luhansk region.

Meanwhile, president Zelenskyy is not visiting Saudi Arabia so as not to legitimise the “peace talks” that the US is holding with Russia without Ukraine or Europe present, where the US is throwing a lifeline to Putin rather than using the opportunity to maximize the pressure on him, while Trump himself was reciting Russian propaganda from the White House.

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Roundup: Ford’s false “mandate” demands

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Ontario premier Doug Ford confirmed that yes, he will be calling an early election on Wednesday, and spouted a bunch of bullshit about needing a “strong mandate” to deal with Trump, which is fiction. He went so far as to call for the “largest mandate in Ontario history,” which veers dangerously close into one-party-state delusions. And incredibly, Ford said “So you better pray that we get elected, because I’m going to protect everyone’s job, including the media’s job,” which no he won’t, and then said, “Imagine Bonnie Crombie or Marit Stiles sitting across from President Trump negotiating a deal. It would be an absolute disaster. And God help us if that ever happens.” Premiers do not engage in international negotiations. Ever. That is explicitly outside of their jurisdiction. Ford is not going to negotiate with Trump, even if he thinks that “businessman to businessman” they can work something out.

This is pure distraction. Ford has been planning on an early election for months, and now he has Trump as a fig-leaf of an excuse. He wanted to go to an election before the federal election because he doesn’t want Pierre Poilievre to taint his chances in 2026, when the next election is supposed to be held, and he’s afraid of this nonsense “theory” that Ontarians like to have different parties in power federally and provincially. And by running against Trump, he figures he can distract everyone from his corruption (RCMP investigation ongoing) and absolute mismanagement of the healthcare system to the point of its collapse, his dismantling of the post-secondary education system, and the size of the deficits he’s been running after all of his lamentations about Kathleen Wynne’s record when he has done worse by absolutely every metric. But Trump? Well, that’s a real distraction, and his playacting the “Captain Canada” role has been helping him build that, even though he hasn’t actually filled any federal vacuum in leadership (there is a conscious decision not to react to every Trump utterance), and it’s already had the Baby Spice effect on people’s brains.

Meanwhile, his constant claims that he needs a “mandate” is a fraught political concept that doesn’t actually mean anything in a Westminster system. He has a majority legislature. His opposition parties are largely ineffective or in disarray (and he has invoked the Notwithstanding Clause to neuter third-party groups from campaiging against him). Those opposition leaders said they will support anything he needs to do to counter the effect of any Trump tariffs. His claims that he needs a “mandate” to do this is an import that doesn’t actually mean anything. He was elected to govern for four years—he doesn’t need to call an election every time a crisis comes up to say that he needs a “mandate” to deal with it. Nothing would get done if he did. This is naked self-interest, and it needs to be exposed as such, but the Queen’s Park media won’t, and I suspect that Uncle Doug will sail to another election victory, both because he continues to beguile the population, and the opposition parties continue to be useless. It’s absolutely embarrassing.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a drone barrage against residential buildings in Kyiv overnight Friday, killing three. Russians claim they are about to overtake the town of Velyka Novosilka in the Donetsk region. Ukraine launched an overnight drone attack against one of Russia’s largest oil refineries in the Ryazan region, causing an explosion and damage. Reuters got access to the drone unit that is launching these long-range attacks into Russia to damage their war capabilities.

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Roundup: The shuffle and the kabuki responses

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The Cabinet shuffle happened, and four ministers had a change in portfolio, with eight new faces joining the ranks. Nothing is too much of a surprise here—David McGuinty did get public safety, Nathaniel Erskine-Smith got housing as was expected and that means he is going to run again. Anita Anand is now solely transport but also got “interprovincial trade,” which is interesting. There is no minister from Alberta, as George Chahal remains tainted (and has been vocal in calling for a secret ballot in caucus on Trudeau’s future), so Terry Duguid from Winnipeg is pretty much it for the prairie representative. In some respects, this may be a “caretaker” Cabinet as the leadership question remains in the air, or it could have a short shelf-life, as threats of non-confidence circle ever-closer. It doesn’t solve any problems, it doesn’t really put a fresh face on government, and the only thing that can do that is for Trudeau to make as graceful an exit as possible, because the number of MPs who are publicly against him continues to grow, and he could very well be pushed by the next caucus meeting.

Trudeau does keep saying he wants MPs to be the "voice of their ridings in Ottawa"…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-12-20T16:36:01.558Z

Amidst this, Jagmeet Singh decided to publish an open letter to say that he was ready to vote non-confidence in the government, but…blamed them for things that are completely within provincial jurisdiction, like healthcare and building housing. But more to the point, this is more performance art after he got called out by absolutely everyone for his “all options are on the table” equivocation, and this letter also didn’t specify that he would seek to vote them out at the first opportunity, so he has wiggle room. Trudeau may yet prorogue (but most likely if he does decide to step down), and if a new leader is chosen before Parliament comes back, Singh can always prevaricate and equivocate yet again about giving said new leader a chance, or something else like that. This is just more of the kabuki theatre that Canadian politics has descended into.

And Jagmeet Singh wants to rush us into the Poilievre era. Great.

— Emmett Macfarlane (@emmettmacfarlane.com) 2024-12-20T17:53:04.092Z

And then to top it all off (and possibly to try and call Singh’s bluff), Pierre Poilievre called a press conference to say that he wrote a letter to the Governor General so that she can “reconvene” parliament and demand a confidence vote. Erm, except we’re not prorogued, so Parliament is merely adjourned and not suspended, and it’s at the call of the Speaker to recall the House on a non-sitting week, not the Governor General. Never mind that the government just survived a series of confidence votes, this is deliberate obfuscation and confusion of our system, and no doubt he will attack the GG if she doesn’t accede to his request (which she can’t, because it’s not in her powers to do so). Poilievre is deliberately misleading people about how our system operates so that he can claim that constitutional safeguards are illegitimate if anyone tries to use them against him. Aspiring autocrats love to weaken the guardrails, and Poilievre is engaged in a very concerted effort to do that right now.

Programming Note: This is it for 2024, barring some major news happening. Loonie Politics content will continue on its usual schedule, but the blog is on holiday because the burnout is real. Thanks for sticking with me all year, and we’ll see you in 2025.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck Kyiv in the morning rush hour, killing at least one person and damaging a historic cathedral. Ukrainian forces needed to pull back from two locations in the eastern Donetsk region, lest they become encircled. Here is a look at some of the people staying in Pokrovsk, in spite of Russia’s advance.

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Roundup: No backbench rebellion…for now

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As far as backbench revolts go, this one was a bit of a damp squib, or to put it another way, Wells’ First Rule has once again borne out in practice—For any given situation, Canadian politics will tend toward the least exciting possible outcome. Purportedly, Trudeau addressed caucus and got emotional talking about the toll has taken on him, including his children constantly seeing the “Fuck Trudeau” flags and so on, but nevertheless there was a frank airing of grievances from some MPs, though nobody had a copy of that memorandum calling on him to step down that had names attached (oh, the bravery!). In the end, it looks like it was only 24 backbench MPs who had signed onto this (not that anyone could see the names), which is not 40, and makes it easier for them to be dismissed (though still, that number could very well grow). Nevertheless, there was a commitment for everyone to reflect more about what was said, and a few voices have said that they want Trudeau to give some indication by Monday if he plans to stick around or to call it a day (though I can’t imagine that he would want to make any such decision on their timetable).

While the message coming out of caucus was that they have never been stronger or more united, that sounds an awful lot like the “We’ve never been more united” speech just before or after someone crosses the floor. Others, like Nathaniel Erskine-Smith, said that the palace intrigue needs to stop and that the knives need to turn outward rather than inward—a reference that the real enemy is Pierre Poilievre, and not Trudeau, though again, nobody is saying that this matter is done with, particularly given that everyone needs to reflect on what happened.

This having been said, I think it’s fair to question the organizational abilities of those leading this backbench revolt, because a lot of what has come out in public has been pretty shambolic, as is the fact that there seems to be absolutely no plan for the day after if Trudeau did take their message and decide to start planning his exit. I think in part that’s because there has been no heir apparent, or nobody for anyone to rally around as a focal point for who could replace Trudeau, and that may have as much to do with the fact that a good many MPs were political operatives or even staffers who were around during the Chrétien-Martin wars, and remain traumatized by them, and the fact that Trudeau had very consciously focused on rooting out those camps when he took over the party. We’ll see what happens over the next week or two, but just because nothing happened today doesn’t mean that the tide isn’t shifting.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians have captured two villages in the Donetsk region in the east, and are currently storming four more settlements in the Donbas region, but those attacks are currently being repelled. The Americans have now corroborated that as many as 3000 North Korean troops are now in Russia, training for a possible deployment to Ukraine. Here is a look at how fire trucks in Nikopol now have anti-drone jammers mounted on them because Russians have been targeting them.

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Roundup: Another committee demand

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The Conservatives are demanding yet more “emergency” committee hearings, but because it’s a committee they don’t control, they are getting in front of the cameras to make performative demands. Case in point, yesterday Andrew Scheer called a press conference to demand that the NDP and Bloc agree to recall the public safety committee to examine how a suspected terrorist was able to immigrate and obtain citizenship when he may have been videotaped dismembering a prisoner in 2015.

Of course, the Conservatives’ case and rationale is largely hyperbolic, and their blaming the current government for crime rates is both specious and done entirely in bad faith. But then again, Scheer is a lying liar who lies constantly, so he’ll say anything to get attention, and that’s all this is really about—attention. The Conservatives need to get fresh clips for their socials, and summer committee meetings are precisely the kind of thing that they think makes them look good, so that’s why they have been trying to run committees over the summer, and claiming that the other parties want to be “on vacation” rather than doing work in their constituencies. (This becomes one of those areas where you could accuse the Conservatives of projection in that they treat constituency time as “vacation” or a “break” rather than simply doing other kinds of work in the riding).

This is just one more demand for a dog-and-pony show. I’m not sure what exactly a parliamentary committee could do here.

In case you missed them:

  • For National Magazine, I look at BCCLA’s fight to try to see secret documents to hold CSIS to account for possibly improper spying on environmental groups.
  • Also for National Magazine, I delve into the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision on annuities the Crown owes for several Ontario First Nations for treaty breaches.
  • My weekend column conducts a thought experiment on how the Liberals could possibly hold a leadership contest under their current rules anytime soon.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at the performative hairshirt parsimony on display as people lose their minds over the purchase of the diplomatic condo.
  • My column goes through some of Poilievre and company’s recent deceitful claims when it comes to drug decriminalisation and safer supply.
  • My feature story in Xtra looks at queer diplomacy in Canada, and how we’ve made great strides in the past decade, but we still have a lot more to do.
  • My weekend column on Jagmeet Singh’s continued announcements that are either economically illiterate, or entirely the domain of the provinces.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine says that their forces downed four Russian missiles and 15 drones overnight. Nevertheless, a missile did strike the Kharkiv region, killing one and injuring twelve. The first group of F-16 fighters are now in Ukraine, and ready to be deployed.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1820400963833958849

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1820799395371110697

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Roundup: Watering down a non-binding motion

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Much of the sitting day was consumed with a great deal of nonsense, some of it procedural, as the NDP moved a Supply Day motion that, among other things, called for the immediate recognition of Palestinian statehood. This was supposed to have been debated on the previous Friday that the House sat, before they decided to suspend because of the death of Brian Mulroney, and it got picked up today.

From the start of the debate, Mélanie Joly corrected pointed out that you don’t change foreign policy with an opposition motion (and one could argue that matters of foreign policy should perhaps be confidence measures), but behind the scenes, Liberals spent the day trying to negotiate amendments to the motion in order to find some shared language that more of them could support, because this was going to divide the Liberal caucus one way or the other (and one suspects that the NDP was fully trying to create some mischief and sow some discord, if only to try and claim a self-righteous position in the matter of Gaza). And at the very last minute, they did come up with an amendment that softened the NDP’s motion a lot, including the removal of the call for an immediate declaration of statehood, but it all went sideways at that point, as the amendment was moved before French translation had been provided, and there were howls of protest from both sides as MPs felt blindsided by them. Andrew Scheer got all huffy saying that the amendments were out of order because they essentially changed the fundamental nature of the motion, but the Deputy Speaker eventually decided that since the NDP, who moved the original motion, didn’t object, then the motion could be considered in order. There were then subsequent votes to adopt the motion, and when that passed, to vote on the amended motion as a whole, and it too passed.

In the aftermath, the NDP declared victory, and Jagmeet Singh crowed about what they “forced” the government to do. Erm, except it’s a non-binding motion and nobody is forced to do anything, and pretty much everything in the amended motion were things the government was doing already. Of course, the NDP watering down their motion in order to claim a hollow, moral victory is pretty much 100 percent in keeping with how they roll, particularly lately, while the Liberals dodged yet another bullet on this particular file where they cannot win no matter what they do.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian defences shot down 17 out of 22 Russian drones yesterday, but there was still damage to Kryvyi Rih from those that got through. Ukrainians continued to target Russian refineries, as drone warfare remains one of Ukraine’s best weapons against Russia. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials are alarmed that Putin’s talk about creating a “buffer zone” inside of Ukraine means a likely escalation in the conflict.

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