Tag Archives: GLBT

Roundup: “Canada First” is mostly just Poilievre’s greatest “hits”

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Pierre Poilievre had his “Canada First” rally on Flag Day, Saturday, and in front of a crowd of about 800 in the smallest room in the Rogers Convention Centre in Ottawa, laid out his new vision of Canada, being the attempted pivot from just an “axe the tax” slogan, to the aforementioned “Canada First.” (Full speech transcript here). And aside from some newer talking points about retaliatory tariffs if Trump goes ahead, he nevertheless was incoherent even in his performative toughness. In saying that America has two options—a trade war, or an even deeper trade relationship with Canada, in the very same breath, he castigated the Liberals for “forcing” dependency on the American market for entirely bullshit reasons, with some revisionist history about the ghosts of energy project proposals past. Like, what? You say you want an even deeper relationship, but the Liberals were bad because they couldn’t force businesses and industry to divest from that market? What?

From there, it went into his greatest hits of stupid talking points, like his refrain about how we have the most land but aren’t building houses on it—as though we’re building residential subdivisions on the Canadian Shield or the Arctic tundra. He claimed he was right about everything, from the carbon levy to the capital gains changes (he wasn’t), and then played the victim about how nobody believed him but he was proven right. (He wasn’t). He went on some bullshit about pipeline projects that was, again, revisionist history, and then went on a tangent about the Canadian Pacific Railway and how Liberals wouldn’t get it done today. “Would some squeaky, keep-it-in-the-ground liberal cabinet minister like Guilbeault have chained himself to a tree to stop it?” My dude, do you know how many people died to make it happen? The dispossession of land, the immigrants coming over as indentured labour, those indentured immigrants blowing themselves up to create passageways through mountains? Seriously? Meanwhile, his promise to rapidly approve projects won’t actually get them built, and neither will bribing local First Nations with the promise of a greater share of royalties, and his vision of a west-east pipeline won’t change the economics.

https://twiiter.com/andrew_leach/status/1890058822175347027

There as more reheated nonsense about how he’s going to miraculously abolish interprovincial trade barriers with a magic wand. He promised to militarize the border, which is a Very Bad Thing. There was more rehashed tough-on-crime nonsense with repeated promises to repeal laws that have nothing to do with what he claims they do. He repeated his promise from last-week to unilaterally build a base in Iqaluit, with no input from the Inuit. And then it was the usual culture war bullshit, with the absolutely risible claims about how the Liberals “divide people by race, religion, gender, vaccine status.” No, they acknowledge that differences exist, that it’s not all middle-aged straight white men as the “neutral” and “norm.”

While centre-right pundits swooned at the notion that Poilievre was laying out a vision, he wasn’t really saying anything more than he’s been saying for the last two years, and all of it was vacuous noise. He was still playing it incredibly safe to avoid pissing off the MAGA supporters he’s trying to court so that they don’t go back to voting for Maxime Bernier, no matter how performatively tough he was about Trump’s threats, because he still had to mediate them with claiming that Trump was still right about the border and fentanyl (which he’s not). Apparently, nobody has actually paid attention to anything he’s said over those two years, but just instead paid attention to his churlish tone. (Oh, and I am also looking very askance at CBC for their credulously repeating everything he said without actually challenging any of it. That’s not journalism, guys, even if you’re stuck on the weekend shift).

Lots of spending going on here but if they honestly care about a balanced budget (more than rhetoric) spending cuts have to come. Like big cuts. Like more than $100b by my count

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-02-16T18:25:45.143Z

https://bsky.app/profile/lindsaytedds.bsky.social/post/3licue34m6c2h

Pretty much the whole of #cdnpoli these days.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-17T03:30:20.152Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed 33 out of 70 Russian drones overnight Friday, and an overnight drone attack on Saturday damaged a thermal power plant in Mykolaiv, leaving 100,000 people without power in subzero temperatures. Russian troops have also intensified their attacks toward Pokrovsk. Elsewhere, the ammunition acquisition programme on Ukraine’s behalf has delivered 1.6 million shells to date and is carrying on, while Emmanuel Macron is hosting an emergency European summit on Ukraine in the wake of JD Vance’s attack on liberal democracy.

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Roundup: Carney’s boneheaded “green incentives”

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Liberal leadership hopeful Mark Carney revealed his plan to replace the consumer carbon levy yesterday, and it’s a handwavey bunch of “green incentives” for things like improving your home insulation, furnace, appliances, or buying an electric vehicle. This would be offset by maintaining or increasing the industrial carbon pricing system, along with carbon border adjustments. Carney claimed that the current system isn’t working, which is false, because emissions have been driven down, and then shrugs and says it’s “too divisive,” which is the Liberals’ own gods damned faults for being such incompetent communicators about how the levy works, the rebates (remember when they thought that calling them “climate action incentives” was a genius idea?), and how reducing one’s own carbon footprint maximises those rebates. The government was absolutely incapable of communicating any of it, and Pierre Poilievre swooped in and filled the space with lies and disinformation.

This is so unbelievably stupid. "Green incentives?" I live in an apartment. I can't change the insulation or heating system. Instead, with the rebate from the carbon levy, I get cash, which is a pretty nice incentive given that I don't have a car or do much that I need to pay the carbon levy for.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-31T15:13:28.930Z

This is just about as moronic as Erin O'Toole's "airmiles for carbon" plan, where you would get more rewards the more you pollute, and those of us who are already living low-carbon lifestyles get nothing. The carbon levy was fine if the Liberals could actually properly defend it.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-31T15:13:28.931Z

I find Carney’s plan absolutely infuriating for a number of reasons. One of them is that this imparts a false narrative that carbon emissions reductions can happen for free for consumers. Even if there is no consumer-facing price, industrial emitters will pass along costs, and people won’t get a rebate for those higher costs, which hurts lower-income households harder. Everyone fawning over Carney’s economic credentials should be smacking themselves upside the head because of this fiction he is trying to perpetrate and just how economically illiterate it actually is.

Meanwhile, how much of an “incentive” can it really be for one-time purchases? You can only really re-insulate your house once, or buy a new furnace once every twenty years. There is no price disincentive to increased carbon use, and there is no ongoing reward for a low-carbon lifestyle, which the rebates provide. Again, very few people actually understand this because the government steadfastly refused to actually communicate how the levy and rebates actually work, how to maximise them, and how it rewards ongoing low-carbon behaviour. They hoped that legacy media and would communicate that (they absolutely will not), and it was basically up to five economists on Twitter, which is useless to ninety-five percent of the population. So now the people who have done the work to reduce their carbon footprint will now be punished, and people will take advantage of those one-time purchases for what? The pat on the back that they can give themselves? Everyone involved here needs to take a long, hard look at some of their life choices, but then again, if they had any modicum of self-reflection, they likely wouldn’t be in politics. What an absolute disaster.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones injured four in Odessa, damaging a hospital and grain warehouse, while a missile attack seriously damaged a historic centre in the same city. Russian forces are also tightening their approach to Pokrovsk, which is a key logistics hub in the region. Ukrainian forces destroyed a Russian command post in the Kursk region, and are also reporting that they haven’t seen any North Korean troops in the area for three weeks. Ukrainian drones also damaged an oil refinery in Russia’s Volgograd region.

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Roundup: Enduring mythologies around cancelled energy projects

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The continued predations by Trump are giving people amnesia about energy projects in this country, and mythologies about what actually happened with projects are taking hold. Energy East is a good example, and people continue to believe fact-free versions of history, or that these projects are somehow still just waiting for approval and that enough political willpower is all that’s needed to get them signed off. But they don’t exist any longer, and the reasons they didn’t move ahead are more complex than the comforting lies they like to tell themselves. As usual, Andrew Leach brought the receipts.

Pierre Poilievre then decided to weigh in, because he’s a trustworthy authority on the history of energy investments in this country, particularly in the Harper era. Oh, wait—this is Poilievre, and everything he says is a lie.

There are so many projects that got approved under the Harper years that never went ahead even during Harper’s majority parliament, but they are happy to blame Trudeau, because it’s a pathology. The 2014 oil crash did permanent damage to the industry, and the recognition of a carbon-constrained future has not helped either. And as much as they like to bemoan “government regulation” on these projects, their attempt at massive de-regulation in the Harper era merely led to a succession of lawsuits and uncertainty, which is what proper regulations seek to avoid. It’s too bad that they refuse to understand that particular lesson.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a drone and missile strike against Zaporizhzhia overnight Wednesday, killing one and wounding at least 31, leaving tens of thousands without heat or power. Ukraine is drafting new recruitment reforms to attract 18- to -25-year-olds currently exempt from mobilisation orders. NATO’s Secretary General says that he wants the US to keep sending arms to Ukraine, and that he’s sure that Europe will pay for them if necessary.

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Roundup: Moe looks to capitulate as well

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There was another virtual first ministers’ meeting yesterday to discuss ongoing preparations for dealing with threats from Trump, and yes, Danielle Smith was in attendance (virtually, from Washington), and most of the premiers are on board with the need for dollar-for-dollar retaliation. Most. Smith herself was trying to sound conciliatory and saying that things were “better” from her perspective this time, but now Scott Moe is starting to say that he’s not in favour of dollar-for-dollar retaliation, because he too is more interested in capitulation to Trump. Then again, Moe is one who has a history of capitulation, like the time he caved to the demands of the so-called “Freedom convoy” and then begged them not to blockade the border crossings in his province. That’s who Scott Moe is.

For no reason at all, I am reminded of when Scott Moe capitulated to the convoy, and then begged them not to blockade border crossings in his province. Because that's who he is.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-23T03:10:09.276Z

Meanwhile, Danielle Smith says that the premiers agreed that they need to build more east-west pipelines, and good luck with that, mostly because people in Eastern Canada aren’t really keen on paying the premium that shipping Alberta oil and gas would cost (particularly on the east coast), particularly if we are moving to a carbon-constrained future where it would probably be cheaper and better in the longer-term to simply invest in building up capacity for a faster adoption of EVs rather than spend billions on infrastructure for stranded assets. Oh, and don’t think that more pipelines to the west coast are going to mean a boon for LNG either, considering that there are numerous LNG proposals on the books that have all of their approvals, but haven’t been built because the market hasn’t found a case for them, either in terms of investments or a willingness to sign long-term contracts for these projects.

There is some hope that the current situation may finally let provinces see the wisdom of eliminating internal trade barriers, largely around regulation and credentials recognition, but then again, this has been an irritant since Confederation, and that kind of inertia is really hard to overcome.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian-installed officials claim that Ukraine launched a drone attack near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility.

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Roundup: Singh’s suck-up to Sanders

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While the Liberals are busy with their leadership race, Jagmeet Singh spent part of his Friday doing the biggest virtue-signal of all in NDP terms—having a meeting with US senator Bernie Sanders. It’s no secret to anyone who’s paid attention that the NDP have essentially turned themselves into a branch plant of the “justice” Democrats, and that a number of their policy proposals in recent elections have been irrelevant in the Canadian context, but because they didn’t bother to actually check if this is a Canadian issue, or they merely divided by ten and decided that’s enough to make it Canadian, when it’s irrelevant to our country.

This drips with Singh's desperation for praise from Sanders (and American Democrats in general). #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-18T01:28:05.702Z

This comes across to me as “Notice me, Senpai!” pleading from Singh, and looking for an obliging pat on the head from the figure that his party is currently drawing their inspiration from, no matter if Sanders’ prescriptions have little relevance for Canada. Even more hilarious is the part where Singh is seeking praise for pharmacare and dental care when neither programme is fully implemented, nor are they likely to be because he’s decided to start talking tough about bringing down the Liberal government, which will merely sign the death warrant for these plans that he is trying to take credit for.

Honestly, if it’s possible to die of cringe, Singh is in serious danger of doing so.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed 33 out of 50 Russian drones overnight Thursday, with damage reported in five different regions. A Russian missile killed at least four people and damaged an educational facility in Kryvyi Rih. Russia claims it retook 63.2 of captured territory in Kursk region. A Ukrainian drone set an oil depot ablaze in Russia’s Kaluga region, south of Moscow.

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Roundup: Poilievre’s revisionist history on energy exports

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Pierre Poilievre held a media availability in Vancouver yesterday to promise that he would undo the changes to the capital gains taxes, spinning some bullshit provided to him by Jack Mintz about how this kills tens of thousands of jobs, when in reality it only provides a loophole for self-incorporated wealthy individuals to pay less tax—a fact that the Liberals were too incompetent to properly communicate. But this wasn’t the biggest whopper of the event. When asked by the media about where he stands on potential export taxes on oil exports as retaliation from Trump, Poilievre claimed that the Liberals blocked pipelines and LNG terminals, forcing Canadians to export more to the US, which gives Trump more leverage. Absolutely nothing about his is true. None of it. And with receipts, here’s Andrew Leach.

There’s more. In fact, another whole thread here about the history of Northern Gateway that Poilievre has memory-holed in order to create a false version of history to blame Trudeau rather than note the lack of action under the Harper government. (First tweet below)

And then Danielle Smith tried to start chiming in about an Alberta-first “Team Canada” approach grounded entirely in fantasy.

And just because…

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed 34 out of 55 Russian drones overnight Thursday, but debris damaged energy infrastructure in Poltava region. There was a further drone attack on Kyiv as UK prime minister Keir Starmer was visiting. Ukrainian forces have begun using remote-controlled ground assault vehicles. Ukraine attacked a major Russian gunpowder factory in the Tambov region.

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Roundup: Sympathy work for the far-right

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There are times when it becomes glaringly obvious that legacy media still has no idea how to cover the far-right, whether in the US or here in Canada, and once again, we have been let down precipitously. Yesterday, the CBC published a long sympathy piece about the two main ringleaders of the so-called “Freedom Convoy,” full of lots of photos, and it just once again goes back to how this continues to normalize these narratives. (And no, I’m not going to link to the piece for the sake of giving it hate clicks).

Big feature story by CBC doing sympathy work for those Convoy fucks, normalizing the far-right. Fuuuuuuck that.

— Emmett Macfarlane (@emmettmacfarlane.com) 2024-12-09T12:36:10.705Z

A lot of this falls back to the constant need by legacy media to both-sides everything, providing equal time and weight to narratives and concepts that don’t deserve or require equal weight, because it’s false or misleading, and doesn’t call anything out that can’t be couched in “opponents say” rather than just declaring that something is false, misleading, or batshit crazy. And this kind of sympathy work of showing that people who do very bad things are just misunderstood or are suffering because of the consequences of their actions just goes to make what they did more acceptable. It was the same with reporter who tracked down people who attacked them on January 6th and spent time with them, and did similar sympathy work, which just muddies the waters of the unacceptability of their actions, particularly if they feel a level of justification for their actions—in the case of these convoy organizers, they’re showing the boxes of thank-you cards they got from their adherents. Again, this is not only normalizing the far-right, but it is showing it in a sympathetic light. This is dangerous for legacy media to be doing, and there seems to be absolutely no critical thinking (or ethical considering) in what they think they’re doing, and what they inevitably end up doing is contributing to the erosion of democracy.

Meanwhile, the Star has a very good look at how far-right influencers have weaponized Canada as their cautionary tale, and how that has also in turn been changing perceptions in this country about ourselves, and most especially about the current government and the state of things. (I have a column on this later today). This was far better coverage of the far-right, but is still a bit tepid in the dangers of what these narratives can represent, particularly when it starts to normalize and excuse racism, misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia and transphobia, and how that is very much playing out in several provinces right now. This stuff needs to be explicitly called out, and nobody can do it effectively.

With a quick comment from me near the bottom. Canada has always been of a weird funhouse mirror for US politics. When Americans talk about Canada, they are almost always really talking about themselves. And some Canadian far-right influencers use that for their grift.

— Stephanie Carvin (@stephaniecarvin.bsky.social) 2024-12-10T01:55:07.552Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2024-12-09T14:08:01.821Z

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that he has approved increased funding for drone production for the war effort. Zelenskyy also says that Ukraine is open to having Western troops provide security once the fighting has stopped, provided that Ukraine is accepted into the European Union and NATO.

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Roundup: Tariff threats still inbound

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There were a few bits of Canada-US relations over the weekend, starting with the re-opening of the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, where François Legault secured an invite, and managed to get a few minutes with Donald Trump as a result, and allegedly spoke about the border issues and tariffs. (Incidentally, all of the people who complain about Justin Trudeau’s foreign travel also complained he didn’t attend this event, because of course they did). Trump then went on Meet the Press and extolled the virtues of tariffs, claimed that the trade imbalance somehow means that America is “subsidising” Canada (what?!) and he’s still talking about annexing Canada and maybe turning it into two states (huh?!), because of course he is.

My favourite thing that happened all week was when the premier of Quebec said he wanted to ban public prayer and then flew across the ocean to attend the re-opening of a church.

— Paul Wells (@inklesspw.bsky.social) 2024-12-09T03:21:45.529Z

Meanwhile, several Conservatives including Jamil Jivani went to the IDU conference in Washington DC, and Jivani had dinner with his old friend JD Vance, as well as UK Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch. Poilievre insists that every Conservative is telling Americans that tariffs are a bad idea…yet they are also saying that Trump is right about the border and fentanyl, so do they not make Trump’s case for him? Again, does anyone think about anything they say these days?

And senior public servants are warning Trudeau that the size of America’s debt and deficit are going to have knock-on effects to our economy because they are so closely tied, particularly when it comes to interest rates on the bond market—higher interest on US treasury bonds also drives up the rates on Canadian government bonds. Take that for what it’s worth.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainians shot down 28 out of 74 drones Sunday night, with a further 46 “lost” likely from electronic warfare. No word yet on damage or casualties. Following a meeting with President Zelenskyy at the Notre Dame re-opening, Trump called for an immediate ceasefire in the conflict, along with usual schtick about making a deal, which meant that Russia has sent along their conditions. (Why does this give me a sinking feeling?)

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Roundup: A cynical grift vs actual xenophobic bigotry

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Because apparently there isn’t enough stupidity right now in Canadian politics, Conservative MP Jamil Jivani has launched a petition about “protecting Christians from bigotry” in Canada. But it’s not a Parliamentary e-petition, given that the site leads to his own domain, so really, this is just yet another data-harvesting and fundraising exercise, and it’s the absolutely most cynical grift at that. Conservatives have long-ago learned that by appealing to the victimhood complex of self-professed Christians, that crowd will open up their wallets like there’s no tomorrow. And best of all, Jivani has roped in the support of his old Yale roommate, JD Vance, to shill for this as well (because that’ll get the MAGA crowd to open up their own wallets as well). I can’t tell you just how absolutely cynical this all is, and people are absolutely going to fall for it.

Meanwhile, François Legault is talking about new legislation, possibly invoking the Notwithstanding Clause, to ban prayer in public, but this is specifically meant to be targeting Muslims, and he’s not even being coy about it, or trying to couch it in some kind of universal secularist message. He’s literally saying he wants to send a “very clear message to Islamists,” which is absolutely outrageous. It’s also a fairly transparent play to xenophobia and scapegoating as he’s tanking in the polls and thinks that this will help him get ahead. This is the actual bigotry happening in this country, not whatever bullshit Jivani is trying to grift off of.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia and Kryvyi Riv have killed at least 12 and wounded over 40. Ukrainian officials have showcased a new locally-produced “rocket drone” that they say has twice the longest range attributed to the missiles supplied by western allies, while Ukraine’s bid to develop new missiles has been hampered by global supply chain issues.

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Roundup: Fiscal update when?

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This year’s Fall Economic Statement is very late—it’s extremely unusual for it to happen in December—but these are not normal times, and the ongoing privilege filibuster hasn’t helped matters any. The government’s attempts to get shame either the Bloc or the NDP into finally voting with the government to pull the plug on it have all been in vain, because they all want to do their part to embarrass the government as much as possible. This being said, I’m not sure what the holdup is with the Public Accounts either, though they have insisted that they’re with the Auditor General and will be released soon. In any case, the government has refused to explain exactly why these releases are so late, because we’re back to the tiresome “If you’re explaining, you’re losing” schtick, so as usual, this government never explains.

Pierre Poilievre decided that he would pretend to be magnanimous and “offer” the government two hours from the Conservatives’ allotted day on Monday to present the update, but Chrystia Freeland rejected it out of hand, calling the offer absurd, and saying “This proposal from the Conservatives is like an arsonist who set the fire in the first place, saying, ‘don’t worry about it, I’ll come with a fire truck for a couple of hours, but tomorrow I’ll be back again with matches’.” Procedurally, I don’t see how the Conservatives could offer up time to government business on an allotted day, but also procedurally, Freeland could use the daily Statements by Ministers slot during routine proceedings to deliver the update (though that may be somewhat more awkward for the associated media lockup because those statements tend to be earlier than budget or fiscal update speeches are traditionally delivered, in part because of any data from those lock-ups moving markets (which is why they are traditionally delivered after 4 PM). They could technically also deliver it outside of the Chamber (Paul Martin once read it at committee, and the Conservatives liked to deliver it off Parliament Hill entirely), but we don’t want to encourage a return to the practice of announcing things outside of Parliament (and the UK Speaker uses very strong language about this sort of thing).

If I had to guess, I would suspect that it’ll be delivered next Wednesday or Thursday, once the Supply votes are out of the way, which makes it extremely convenient for Freeland and every other minister to spread out across the country to deliver the “good news” about the programmes in the budget, whereas Poilievre would want to use the timing of the update to claim that he “forced” the government to “come clean about the numbers,” or some such bullshit like that. None of this is great, but we’re dealing with an exhausted government and a dysfunctional parliament, so nothing is as it should be right now.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine is giving soldiers who deserted or went AWOL a second chance, particularly given the shortages they’re facing on the Eastern front, and lo, some six thousand soldiers have rejoined. News leaking out of the Trump camp indicate that his plan to end the war involve major land concessions, NATO membership being off the table, and cutting military aid, unless Putin refuses, in which case they would provide more. (Land concessions are not really his goal, guys).

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