Danielle Smith is at it again, claiming that accepted “on behalf of the Government of Alberta” an invitation to appear at the federal environment committee next week, and that she was sent a letter “rejecting my attendance.” The problem? It’s yet another load of horseshit from Smith, because she was never invited to the committee. Two of her ministers were invited, and she thought that she could just show up and put on a dog and pony show, but that’s not how committees work. You can’t just invite yourself to appear. The witnesses are agreed to by all parties beforehand and a motion is passed to send the invitations. Even if she’s premier, Smith can’t just attend in place of the invited ministers—again, that’s not how committees work.
In any case, the meetings were cancelled because it was really about hearing from Suncor’s CEO, and they declined, so the committee abandoned that line of testimony, but in any case, Smith is lying again, and trying to spin this into some kind of federal-provincial flamewar, and people shouldn’t treat her with any level of credulity.
Oh, but wait—The Canadian Press did just that, and the headline on the wire overnight repeats the bullshit that her appearance was cancelled, which again, is not true because she wasn’t invited, and in the meagre text of the piece, it both-sides the whole thing, because of course it does. This is utterly irresponsible of CP, who should know better.
Ukraine Dispatch:
There has been fierce fighting around Avdiivka, as Russians have been moving troops and equipment there to try and make a push to show that they’re still capable of making gains in the country as they lose territory elsewhere in the counter-offensive.
Avdiivka. We are holding our ground. It is Ukrainian courage and unity that will determine how this war will end. We must all remember this.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 12, 2023
Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov said that Russia likely has the economic and technical capacity to continue its war against Ukraine until 2025 or 2026. He suspects that Russia's human resources may last even longer: https://t.co/yjyPRVgXpppic.twitter.com/MiqDz4x0Ux
The past few days have been preoccupied by the Hamas attack on Israel, which has killed as many as a thousand, including attacking villages and killing the elderly and infants. We know that so far, two Canadians have been confirmed killed, while others have been kidnapped and taken hostage. After refuting claims that the embassy in Tel Aviv was closed for Thanksgiving, the federal government is preparing airlifts for Canadian citizens and permanent residents out of Tel Aviv, likely using military aircraft. Ahmed Hussen has also stated that humanitarian aid will continue to flow to the Palestinian people, particularly in light of the humanitarian crisis that is to come as the Gaza strip is under siege, with assurances that there are robust controls to ensure that Hamas doesn’t see any of this funding (as they are listed as a terrorist organisation under Canadian law).
(For the record, I don't think this would be a good approach, useful, or effective, but if we're in the realm of offering bad policy advice, I would have thought banning crypto would have been on offer.)
Back home, there has been pretty universal condemnation of Hamas from political leaders, but that doesn’t mean that politics haven’t been played. After Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre were at the same event over the weekend to show solidarity with the Jewish community, Poilievre decided to immediately return to his dickish self and try and score points on the non-scandal that Canada was not included in a communiqué between the Americans, the UK, France, Germany and Italy. A number of pundits and talking heads clutched their pearls and cried that we were excluded, some news reporters incorrectly framing this as the G7 (which was also minus Japan), when it turned out that this was a meeting of the Quint, which is a separate, nuclear-armed organisation that Canada is not a part of. While most reporters and outlets quickly clarified this, Poilievre decided to use it to rage-farm and claim that Trudeau has “side-lined Canada,” which is bullshit, but you’ve got a bunch of pundits on their fainting couches over this when they should know better, and Poilievre couldn’t resist the urge to score points over this, which should be unconscionable, but he likes to keep proving that there is no bottom with him.
Canada is not part of the Quint Group, which is who met and made this statement. Poilievre knows this, but would rather lie about this to rage-farm and drive clicks. pic.twitter.com/PyxDjUBP51
Matt Gurney points out that this conflict has given us a pogrom in realtime over social media, but that most people aren’t seeing it because of how news outlets sanitize the graphic elements that would inevitably galvanize them.
Palestinians deserve full human rights. No caveats. So do Israelis. Both deserve states.
War is horrifying. It destroys countless lives & is a scourge.
For there to be peace, Hamas must be eliminated. It is a theocratic death cult & it’s victims are Israelis & Palestinians.
Russia’s latest drone attack targeted the Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, with Ukraine’s air defences downing 27 drones. The counter-offensive continues to make gains in the east and the south. Ukrainian officials are investigating 260 instances of abuses at military recruitment offices, much of it related to bribery. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy replaced the country’s territorial defence forces commander, before he left to visit neighbouring Romania to strengthen ties and talk regional security.
We have data very clearly proving that Russia is interested in inciting war in the Middle East. So that a new source of pain and suffering would erode global unity and exacerbate cleavages and controversies, helping Russia in destroying freedom in Europe.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 9, 2023
Earlier this year, Ukraine launched the Marichka, an underwater naval drone that can carry a 200-kilogram warhead, and announced the creation of a special seaborne drone unit.
There are tongues wagging because backbench Liberal MP Ken McDonald has twice now voted with the Conservatives on their performative motions to cut the carbon price. McDonald, who represents a rural riding in Newfoundland and Labrador, complains that the carbon price is making life too unaffordable for people in regions like his that have no choice but to heat their homes with heating oil and to drive trucks, but along the way he seems to have missed the rebate payments, which are enriched for rural Canadians in the provinces where the federal price is the system in place. (He also thinks that Steven Guilbeault is the wrong person to sell this policy because he’s too entrenched as an environmentalist).
I have some particular difficulty with this notion that there is a particular helplessness around rural Canadians when it comes to their fossil fuel use, because there are usually options that they simply ignore—at least there are in places like rural Alberta, where I’m from, but maybe it’s different in rural Newfoundland. In any case, the government has any number of programs to retrofit homes with better insulation, to exchange oil heaters for heat pumps, and too often, the notion that “I need a truck because I live in the country” tends to mean that people buy fuel-inefficient F-150s that are actually less useful for their needs than they like to pretend. In addition, the carbon price has a negligible effect on inflation, and McDonald was repeating some of the Conservatives’ talking points that don’t necessarily reflect reality so much as they “feel” like they could or should be true even though they’re not, and that’s a problem. Simply cutting the carbon price won’t have a real impact on prices, would mean not getting the rebates, and more to the point, would not push people to make changes to reduce their exposure to those prices where they can, and we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to emissions reduction.
As for McDonald, he doesn’t seem to have suffered any particular consequences for these votes, which is fine, and he shouldn’t because we should allow MPs to break ranks on some issues. That’s how things should work. But I do worry that the bigger issue here is an inability to communicate the programme and the solutions available to help his constituents instead of just buying into the Conservative lines.
Programming note: I will be taking the full long weekend off because oh boy do I ever need it after the past three weeks. See you Wednesday!
Ukraine Dispatch:
A Russian rocket struck a café and grocery store in Hroza, in the Kharkiv region, killing 51 people including a six-year-old, which is one of the deadliest single strikes. In addition, other strikes his grain silos in Izmail. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Granada, Spain, to meet with EU leaders and plead for more aid, now that the budget showdown in the US is endangering their contributions.
Russian missile struck an ordinary grocery store in the Kupiansk district of the Kharkiv region. This was a fully deliberate, demonstrative, and brutal terrorist attack.
As of now, more than 51 people have been reported dead. My condolences to all those who have lost their loved… pic.twitter.com/yxIW2Xwy35
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 5, 2023
In the wake of the black eye that Canada collectively received after former Speaker Anthony Rota’s embarrassing blunder in recognising the Nazi-aligned veteran in the House of Commons, there has been some more soul-searching institutions around similar figures that that particular veteran. The University of Alberta returned a donation from said veteran to be used for their Ukrainian Studies programme, but more problematic for the institution was their former chancellor, Peter Savaryn, who was in the same Waffen-SS Galacia Division unit, and now Rideau Hall has apologised because Savaryn had also been granted the Order of Canada back in 1987, citing limited information sources at the time.
This has led Jewish groups in particular to call for the government to open up the archives related to the Deschene Commission, which looked at potential war criminals who resettled in Canada after the war, but a great many of their findings were redacted and kept secret. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that senior bureaucrats are reviewing the Commission report, and considering making more of it public. But this is also being used as a political wedge. Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman is demanding the government take action on this, but meanwhile, one of her own MPs, Gérard Deltell, was saying in the media that he doesn’t think they need to revisit this history, that the past should remain the past.
But this isn’t necessarily a black-and-white issue, particularly for some Ukrainian communities in this country because they saw those people as nationalists who were using any means necessary to fight the Russians, who had already invaded and subjected them to a genocide—the Holodomor—and one suspects that Cold War considerations meant that it was in our interests to focus on the anti-Soviet aspect of their records during that period. But there are also a number of monuments to those Waffen-SS Galacia Division units across this country, particularly in private Ukrainian cemeteries, because of that complicated history, and it’s something we should have a national conversation and perhaps reckoning about sooner rather than later. But we need to be aware that this is fraught territory, and will be difficult for some.
Ukraine Dispatch:
Ukraine has carried out a drone strike on a Russian defence complex over the border in the Belgorod region, which is a rare admission of such an attack. This as Russians are claiming that they shot down a major Ukrainian drone offensive on their border regions. Meanwhile, the IMF says that Ukraine’s economy is expected to keep growing next year.
Another six cases of extrajudicial executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war by russian occupiers have been confirmed in a new report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
⚡️ISW: Russia transfers Black Sea Fleet vessels to avoid Ukrainian fire.
According to sattelite images from Oct. 1 and 3, the Russian military has moved at least 10 vessels from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk.https://t.co/bGqG0UfVnI
Yesterday morning, the CBC had a story about the department of national defence looking to cut $1 billion from its books as part of the government’s ongoing spending review, and people lost their gods damned minds, both in Canada and in some international venues. The story was based on comments that were made at committee by the chief of defence staff and the deputy minister, and they talked about how it was going to be challenging to meet these reductions while worrying about capabilities. This was a bit of a surprise, because Anita Anand had previous said that defence was going to be exempt from her cost-cutting demands, but the comments from General Eyre and the deputy minister sounded like DND volunteered to do their share (which I always treat with suspicion—the previous Auditor General made his own pledge to do his part to make cuts as part of the Deficit Reduction Action Plan™, and lo, wound up delaying badly overdue IT upgrades that his successor needed to beg Parliament for more resources to deal with). And because this is not my first rodeo, I immediately presumed that what this likely means is the accounting game of shifting certain spending into future years or re-profiling some committed dollars that they can’t spend (because they simply don’t have the capacity to spend their current allocation), but a whole lot of people who should know better freaked all the way out.
Bezan asks about the plans to cut defence spending. Blair reads that the Conservatives cut defence spending below 1% of GDP and then reads some pabulum talking points that say nothing. #QP
This came up in Question Period, and Bill Blair was present, but he didn’t really answer the question—he took a swipe at the Conservatives for their record of cutting defence spending to below 1 percent of GDP (indeed, here’s a look back in history of Harper complaining to Peter MacKay that he didn’t cut the military enough) and then read some bland pabulum that didn’t even approach answering the question—because that’s what this government does. It wasn’t until nearly 4 PM that Blair posted a thread to Twitter about how they were still increasing the defence budget, and these $1 billion in savings were internal measures like cutting back on travel and consultants, but noted the spending commitments they’ve made like NORAD modernisation, and ships and planes, and so on.
As part of this growth in defence spending, we’ve committed billions of dollars in new investments – and last week we committed $650 million for 50 armoured vehicles for Ukraine. Those vehicles will be built in London, Ontario.
It absolutely mystifies me as to how this message-obsessed government took almost eight hours to craft a response to this news story that when they could have shut down the hysterical reaction to it in mere minutes had they simply sent out a similar tweet first thing in the morning. There is nothing in there to demonstrate why it took eight hours. They could also have had Blair give a reasonable response during QP that would have simply said “This reporting is exaggerated, we are looking for some efficiencies, but overall defence spending is still increasing,” and it would have defused everything. But they didn’t, either because they’re inept, or it takes them that many hours to get sign-off from Katie Telford’s office, which is a sad sign about where this government is at. But nearly eight hours for this kind of response to the story is unacceptable, and it’s a real-time demonstration in why things need to change at the top with this government.
Ukraine Dispatch:
The first American Abrams tanks are being delivered in the eastern front, in the hopes they will make a difference. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the 82nd anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre by Nazi forces.
Today, Ukraine and the world commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre, one of the most terrible Nazi crimes committed during the Holocaust.
I paid tribute to the victims and thanked the Ukrainian Jewish community leaders for coming to pray and commemorate them. pic.twitter.com/J3BVpXLqfm
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 29, 2023
⚡️Russian attack damages infrastructure in Vinnytsia Oblast.
On attack on Vinnystia Oblast the night of Sept. 30 damaged an infrastructure facility in the region, Oblast Governor Serhii Borzov reported via Telegram.
Alberta premier Danielle Smith has launched a new ad campaign trying to agitate against the federal government over the clean electricity regulations, trying to get other provinces to similarly fight back against them, claiming that people will freeze in the dark, and there will be rolling blackouts, and so on. None of this is actually true, and the fact that energy prices in her province have shot up have little to do with the clean electricity transition than the choices that her government made around how those prices are regulated. She has also lied and said that because the federal regulations use the criminal law powers that energy CEOs will be jailed in 2035 if they still use natural gas—an absolute falsehood that is not only lurid for the sake of scoring points, but ignores that not every criminal penalty is jail, but can mean large fines (because fines over a certain size become the domain of criminal law instead of administrative monetary penalties.
List of places where power bills have quadrupled: Alberta.
It's kind of a funny sub-billboard when you think about it.
Read it as, "nobody wants their own were bills to quadruple, Alberta." https://t.co/0sAyjRUJ2H
The most hilarious part, however, is that Smith is “threatening” to invoke her risible “Sovereignty Act” to fight these regulations, which will do absolutely nothing. She might as well threaten to use a magical incantation for all of the good it will do. Unfortunately, there are far too many credulous journalists and pundits who actually believe that this kind of magical incantation has any power, which is disappointing and allows Smith to continue with her nonsense.
And no, this was not just a result of NDP policies. This has been something the AESO has been talking about for more than a decade. pic.twitter.com/A7Et8IeofA
5 years is an eternity in electricity markets. If the UCP wanted to change course on the coal phase out regulation, they could have done so. If they wanted to alter carbon pricing design, they could have done so but (as I applauded at the time) they kept the right design.
Not a lot of news out of Ukraine yesterday, except for a visit from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who says that Ukraine is gaining ground in their counter-offensive, while president Volodymyr Zelenskyy continues to call for more air defences, given how many drone attacks they have been under in recent nights.
Substantial talks, as they should be between de facto allies. It is only a matter of time before Ukraine becomes a de jure one as well.
We discussed strengthening Ukraine's air defense further in order to protect people from Russian terror. pic.twitter.com/WxHdWWSsJw
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 28, 2023
⚡️Russian forces shell 7 communities in Sumy Oblast.
Russian forces shelled seven communities in Ukraine’s border Sumy Oblast on Sept. 28, firing over 180 rounds from various types of weapons, the Sumy Oblast Military Administration reported on Telegram.
The fallout from Friday’s incident in the House of Commons where Speaker Anthony Rota recognised a Ukrainian veteran who had served with a Nazi-affiliated unit was a complete and utter gong show yesterday, as Rota did not offer his resignation as he should have, and the day simply spiralled out of control. Both the NDP and the Bloc have called for Rota to resign, and the Liberals have been doing this weird hinting that he needs to “really think about” whether he can maintain confidence, without just coming right out and saying he can’t, while only the Conservatives have been de facto rushing to his defence by trying to blame Justin Trudeau and the PMO for what happened, in a stunning display of bad faith and mendacity, while also apparently trying to shield an incompetent Speaker whom they want on the job because he’s so lenient with them. The prime minister did make a brief statement about how this was an “embarrassment,” but didn’t call on Rota to resign either.
Speaking for the first time since a Ukrainian Nazi Veteran was appalled during the Zelensky speech, Justin Trudeau says “this is deeply embarrassing to the Parliament of Canada and by extension to all Canadians,” adding it is “extremely upsetting that this happened” #cdnpolipic.twitter.com/6YfkGw74D5
Ouf. A failed Poilievre UC motion to condemn the GoC over the invite/vetting, then a QP presided over by the individual who was at the centre of nearly every question, and now a blizzard of points of order over Gould's failed attempt to get the recognition struck from the record.
Much of the bad faith arguing was a deliberate conflation from every single Conservative between security screening and political vetting. The 98-year-old veteran was not a security threat. All security screening was followed. What he was not subject to was political vetting, as the Speaker is not subject to the PMO, and his office submitted their guest list to the Parliamentary Protocol Office who doesn’t share the list with PMO, and which doesn’t to background checks or vetting for political embarrassment, because that’s frankly not their job. The fact that there is a reporting relationship between the Parliamentary Protective Service and the Minister of Public Safety also has nothing to do with political vetting, as it’s not their job, and they don’t (and couldn’t) do background checks on everyone who visits the Hill, because that would be insane. Nor should PMO be doing this, as has been the assertion from a great many people who should know better, which is again utterly ludicrous.
“Lists are compared by protocol staff as there is frequently overlap between them and the names are all shared with the Corporate Security Office to facilitate accreditation of guests,” then there’s also physical security upon arrival.
No, she said that security screening—which is different from vetting—was followed. There was no vetting because he was the guest of the Speaker. This is a deliberate conflation of the two used to confuse the issue. pic.twitter.com/jA9HCGn32V
Compounding the mystifying behaviour yesterday was Government House Leader Karina Gould trying to move a motion to strike the mention of said individual from the record, but also to have the audio-visuals scrubbed as well, which is weirdly Stalinist behaviour. While I get the impulse to try and remove the taint of his visit from the record, and that Parliament has done this in committee when Conservative MP read the manifesto of a mass shooter into the record, this was nevertheless fairly gross and disturbing, and the Conservatives objected (which also turned into an absolute gong show as this went down, and Rota was, yet again, out of his depth in the Chair).
Okay, for the record, I am extremely opposed to striking the ghastly error from the parliamentary record, and even MORE so from "all multimedia recordings," as Gould suggested just now.
Now, the House COULD unanimously adopt a motion expressing its collective regret for extending the original public honour, but that would require putting hyperpartisan politics aside for long enough to agree to it. And then they could go back to arguing about who's to blame.
So while we await Rota’s resignation, which cannot happen soon enough, we’re seeing Russian propagandists having a field day with this. But should Rota finally do the right thing and resign, the session will need to suspend, possibly for a day or two, so that the election of a new Speaker can take place. The likely two candidates are Conservative Chris D’Entremont and Liberal Alexandra Mendès, currently the deputy and assistant deputy Speakers, and we’ll see how this ends up. But Rota has to resign, immediately.
Much thx to the Speaker @AnthonyRota for a very open and detailed conversation on the past Friday recognition of a 14th Waffen Grenadier Division SS member in @OurCommons. It was not intended. If the mistakes make us wiser and our bond stronger, so be it! Thank you Anthony! pic.twitter.com/XCqX8HKAfE
Russia’s early-morning attack on Odessa Monday has killed four people and caused significant damage to infrastructure at their grain storage facilities. There were early morning attacks today against the grain port at Izmail. Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials say that their attack on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters in occupied Crimea last week killed 34 officers including the fleet commander.
Two Odesa residents were killed as the result of another russian terrorist attack. Overnight, russia launched 19 Shaheds, 12 Kalibr cruise missiles, and two Oniks supersonic missiles against Odesa. All 19 UAVs and 11 Kalibrs were shot down. The port infrastructure – the marine… pic.twitter.com/gtNIhuHrfB
The supposed “1 Million March 4 Children” took place yesterday in cities across Canada, and in most instances, were drowned out by counter-protesters—a welcome sign to be sure. And to be clear, these protests have nothing to do with children, or “parental rights,” but is focused largely on the moral panic around trans rights (and the falsehood that they are mutilating and sterilising children), pronoun policies in schools, and the libel that this is somehow about gays “grooming” children, or indoctrinating them to be gay. The attendees are pretty much a toxic brew of leftover “Freedom Convoy” enthusiasts, grievance tourists, far-right nationals, and some Muslim parents whom they have temporary found common cause with (and don’t expect this to last, given that much of the far-right agitation in Canada has its roots in Islamophobia, but they’re happy to let the Muslims agitate against LGBTQ+ people on their behalf). A few arrests were made at some of the demonstrations, but they were largely peaceful in that regard. (Write-up of the Ottawa event here, with photos here).
If nothing else, a big takeaway from the day is that despite weeks and weeks of planning, organizing, coordinating, and feeding off each other's paranoia and rage, the turnout was laughable. Just because people are extremely loud online doesn't mean they represent the real world.
The hate marchers were FIXATED on equating LGBTQ2S identity with 'grooming'- but teaching someone who is vulnerable that they are your property is one of the most damaging and powerful grooming tactics that are used on abused children & adults
In terms of political reaction, the marchers didn’t get much support, outside of New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs who greeted them and made common cause with them, because of course he did. In Ottawa, Jagmeet Singh led a counter-protest march, while the Conservatives were instructed to steer clear and say nothing, not even when it was raised in Question Period, as they sat stone-faced when others clapped about the denunciation of anti-trans hate. This silence is of course deliberate—it’s not because of a lack of conviction, but because they don’t want to jeopardise any ability to try and eat into the PPC’s far-right voter base, because that’s how they think they’ll edge out the Liberals in the next election. And I really have to question how MPs like Melissa Lantsman and Eric Duncan can sit there through this as though this doesn’t affect them (because remember, there is not “good parts only” version of right-wing populism. You can’t try and dog-whistle about “gender theory” and think that it’ll stop there, because it won’t).
StOp NoRmAlIzInG SeX aNd NuDiTy.
Good grief.
So many people have whipped themselves into outrage over imagined realities.
The thing that gets me through all of this so-called movement to “protect children” is this insistence that LGBTQ+ people must be “grooming” children or indoctrinating them because there’s this belief that they’re too young to know if they’re gay or lesbian, or even trans. In most cases, that’s not true—most kids know who they are, and most of us older LGBTQ+ people have been through miserable and unsupportive youth and adolescence, and want to ensure that the next generation doesn’t have to go through what we did. That these people are masking their homophobia and transphobia as concern is one thing, but it’s the complete lack of empathy on their part that really gets me.
I’m the parent of a kid who changed their pronouns and first name at school without consulting me.
Russians conducted strikes in at least six cities, including Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, and Lviv. AP has a look inside a Ukrainian platoon that freed Andriivka. At the UN, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Security Council about Russia breaking the UN Charter.
Justin Trudeau told a climate event at the UN General Assembly that Canada is on track to exceed its methane reduction targets (but we did expand our fossil fuels).
As Trudeau has been having pull-aside meetings at the UN, Australia’s foreign minister calls the allegations about Indian agents “credible.”
Mélanie Joly relayed Canada’s “grave concerns” about Azerbaijan escalating military action in the Nagorno-Karabakh region involving Armenians.
Canada will pull some of its diplomatic staff from India following recent threats.
The Privacy Commissioner says Canada Post broke the law by harvesting information from envelopes and packages.
The Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise is investigating Levi Strauss for possible forced labour in their supply chain.
Indian officials have suddenly started claiming students in Canada face risks to their personal safety, undermining their own High Commissioner’s comments.
American politicians are warning Canada against implementing a possible digital services tax on web giants (which we won’t do if the OECD gets its act together).
A group of senators are calling on the government to institute stricter criteria for schools that host international students.
Senator Jim Quinn introduced a bill to make the isthmus between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia federal jurisdiction (but that is a money bill and illegitimate).
Here is a look at Senator Marilou McPhedran’s outsized Senate expenses (which includes some journalistic malpractice, like getting quotes from the CTF).
Liberals from Atlantic Canada are calling out Conservative opposition to a bill that would extend the Atlantic Accords to include renewable energy such as wind farms.
Pierre Poilievre tabled his housing bill, which I’m dubious will even be voteable.
The Centre Ice Conservatives/Canadians group is calling their new political party “Canadian Future” (which is almost certainly a doomed venture).
A second Doug Ford minister, Kaleed Rasheed, resigned from Cabinet and stepped away from caucus over a trip to Vegas with Greenbelt Developers and lying about it.
Paul Wells pays a visit to Hamilton East Stoney Creek after the poll numbers look to be shifting there, and talks to the putative Conservative candidate about the mood.
Odds and ends:
Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.
While the prime minister and his deputy were off to New York—the PM to the United Nations General Assembly, his deputy to meetings with the US treasury secretary—all of the other leaders were present. The anti-trans demonstrations outside the Hill were largely a failure, drowned out by counter-protesters, which was going to come up later on. Pierre Poilievre led off in French and stated that the prime minister said this was a difficult time for politicians, that the government declared victory over inflation prematurely and it rose again last month, before he demanded the government bring down taxes and so-called “inflationary deficits” (which is not a thing we’re dealing with). François-Philippe Champagne rose to much applause, before he said that he heard three things from Canadians—to help with the cost of groceries, the cost of housing, (the third thing didn’t come through), and they know that the government is there for them. Poielivre got up to needle the Liberals for their enthusiastic response to Champagne and suggested maybe they want him as leader instead, before deploying his usuals slogans. Champagne patted himself on the back for calling in the grocery CEOs before saying that people were tired of Poilievre’s slogans. Poilievre switched to English to complain about Trudeau going to New York before demanding they balance the budget and cut the carbon price. Jonathan Wilkinson got up to recite some lines about affordability before listing actions taken to address affordability while dealing with the existential threat of climate change. Poilievre again repeated that Trudeau went to New York while people have to pay carbon prices and demanded the cut it. Anita Anand pointed out that they have a plan to help Canadians unlike the Conservatives, and patted herself on the actions taken. Poilievre spouted a bunch of utter nonsense about inflation, and this time Sean Fraser for up to complaint that Poilievre only attacks the vulnerable and doesn’t have any plans to help families.
Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and complained about housing prices, and the supposed $900 million he claimed the federal government is withholding from Quebec. Fraser said he is working with the province. Blanchet insisted this was interference, and said that Ottawa should build housing (which he just said was Quebec’s jurisdiction) and then demanded the government stop subsidising the oil and gas sector and use that money for old age security. Wilkinson said that they have already ended subsidies.
Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and demanded federal action against renovictions and “demovictions” (which is not really federal jurisdiction). Fraser praised the National Housing Plan, and that the government was going to build more houses. Singh switched to French to complain there were no affordable units to rent, and wanted guarantees they would be built. Fraser again praised the National Housing Plan, and switched back to English halfway through to complete his same talking points.
Parliament is back today, and while I would normally be fairly excited, it’s feeling less and less so these days, because this current parliament is a fairly terrible one overall, that feels increasingly toxic to be around. But hey, maybe we’ll actually talk about housing and food price inflation, and some things that matter! But who am I kidding—it’ll be a bunch of complete bullshit coming from Pierre Poilievre, some non sequiturs from Jagmeet Singh about “greedflation” and the like, while Justin Trudeua and his front bench will repetitively deliver some canned pabulum that is supposed to make you feel vaguely reassured and like they’re patting you on the head. Because that’s the state of the political discourse these days, and I hate it.
As with anything this time of year, we’re also getting the usual calls about ways to “reform the workplace” of Parliament, as though this were a corporate office and that MPs are all just middle managers. They’re not, and that’s the problem with framing discussions like this. They’re all elected. They are all equal under the constitution, and in the framework of power dynamics. You can’t impose HR standards because you can’t involve an HR structure like this because power is entirely horizontal.
It’s not a regular workplace. MPs are not middle managers in a corporate structure. How do you call HR on another elected official? That whole frame of reference doesn’t work. https://t.co/LliVelmDux
The other thing that we need remember here, however, is that MPs need to divorce Question Period—which is theatre—from the every day, and I see a lot of that in these complaints, and it goes around and around. Why do people do it and get away with it? Because it’s performance, and it’s confrontational for a reason. Heckling has a place, and some of that is to knock MPs and ministers off of their talking points. And that’s why I have a hard time qualifying all of it as “bullying” or “intimidation” because while that does happen, QP is a different beast and we all need to remember that. We also need the Speaker to do his gods damned job, but that’s also the fault of MPs for consistently choosing weak Speakers and ensuring that he has weak Standing Orders to enforce, because they like it that way.
Ukraine Dispatch:
Russian missiles have again hit the grain port at Odessa, while another strike at Kharkiv was allegedly targeting a plant where armoured vehicles undergo repairs. Ukrainian forces have apparently carried out a “special operation” in Sevastopol in occupied Crimea, and reclaimed another village near Bakhmut. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian farmer was killed when his plough hit a landmine, while Norway is reporting that the number of Russian forces staged along their borders are now just twenty percent or less than what they were before Russia invaded Ukraine.
Their daily work exemplifies how to serve one’s country and people.
I am grateful to State Emergency Service employees for saving thousands of lives following Russian strikes, extinguishing over 100.000 fires, and disposing of over 430.00 explosive objects.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 17, 2023
⚡️Russian shelling damages residential buildings in Kharkiv Oblast.
Russian troops shelled the village of Podoly in the Kupiansk district of Kharkiv Oblast around 12:00 p.m. local time, hitting an apartment building, the Prosecutor General's Office reported on Sept. 17.
