Tag Archives: Housing

QP: Thursday scripts with Friday faces

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It was an unusual Friday-on-a-Thursday QP, with the usual Friday start time, thanks to the Conservatives having their convention this weekend, and with the PM meeting with the premieres and Poilievre having already left for Calgary, it was going to be the b-team in play. That left it up to John Brassard to led off and accuse the prime minister of “seducing” Canadians with their own money, and accused the supposed “hidden taxes” of raising food prices. Peter Fragiskatos dismissed this and accused the Conservatives of being unserious. Brassard tried again, and Fragiskatos listed this as a populist distraction tactic. Rob Moore read the same script, and Evan Solomon recited talking points about the GST rebate and how the Conservatives are blocking their plans to build. Moore tried again, and Solomon repeated his same points. Gérard Deltell took over in French to read the same points, and this time, Marjorie Michel pointed to the previous tax cut and the GST rebate. Deltell raised food bank line-ups, and was reminded that they are following Food Banks Canada’s suggestions. 

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she raised the problems with the OAS payment system and said it was worse than claimed. Steven MacKinnon said that one error was one too many, and encouraged people to reach out to Service Canada if they have an issue. Normandin tried again, and MacKinnon again offered bland assurances that the modernised services were positive on the whole. Andréanne Larouche took over to ask the same again, and MacKinnon gave his assurances for a third time.

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Roundup: All smiles with the premiers

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Mark Carney is meeting with the premiers today, after having them all over for dinner last night, and already everyone is having a big love-in, showing that they have a big united front as the country deals with the ongoing threats from the US and Trump administration. They’re all in agreement that these aren’t “normal times,” and David Eby and Danielle Smith played nice on the issue of Alberta looking to ram a pipeline through their territory (which appears to have Carney’s enthusiastic support, per Question Period on Tuesday), and I will admit that this is a big change from the latter Trudeau days, where nearly all of the premiers were lining up to take shots at the federal government.

However. Carney is letting them get away with all of their bullshit, particularly on the big things that the provinces need to be doing to Build Canada Strong™, whether that’s building housing, or taking care of their major infrastructure, or doing something about healthcare rather than letting the collapse continue. If you have a “Canada is broken” complaint, you can pretty much be guaranteed that it’s because of provincial underfunding, but the federal government is taking and will continue to take the blame, because the federal government refuses to call them out on it, and Carney is keeping this up. It’s all smiles and laughs, when it was the premiers who created the situation with immigration that the federal government had to step in with (to the long-term detriment of the country), and it’s the provinces who are exacerbating things like the affordability crisis. If Carney wants to fix things, that means leaning on the provinces to start doing their gods damned jobs.

With that in mind, I’m going to look askance as the territorial premiers want dual-use infrastructure funds to flow to them rather than have the federal government fund these projects directly, because we’ve never had provinces or territories take federal funds and spend it on other things before. And Gregor Robertson is calling on premiers to increase their spending on transitional housing, given the scale of need. Oh, you sweet summer child. The premiers don’t want to spend their own money on these things, even though it’s in their wheelhouse. They want you to spend federal dollars instead, because that’s how they’ve learned how to play this game. Just asking them to increase spending nicely isn’t going to do anything, but I can pretty much guarantee that the federal government won’t play hardball on this so that they don’t look like the bad guy, even though they’re going to take all of the blame. What a way to run a country.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-01-28T23:01:45.031Z

Ukraine Dispatch

More Russian drone and missile attacks on Kyiv and across the country overnight, and it could be as much as three weeks for some Ukrainians to get power back because of the attacks on infrastructure. Meanwhile, the US keeps stalling to give more time for Russia to keep up these attacks.

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QP: Another round of same “gas tax” nonsense again

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The PM was in town and in the building, but was meeting with premiers instead of being at QP, which was mighty unusual for a Wednesday, but that’s Mark Carney for you. Pierre Poilievre was also absent, so it was up to Gérard Deltell to lead off in French, where he listed the nonsense “hidden taxes” as it relates to food price inflation, and François-Philippe Champagne responded with praise for their GST rebate and the other investments promised in the same announcement. Deltell reiterated the nonsense about the “gas tax,” to which Champagne praised the government’s actions, while the Conservatives only have rhetoric. Tim Uppal took over in English to make the specious arguments, and Julie Dabrusin noted that Poilievre represents one of the biggest canola-growing ridings in the country, and noted how much they stand to benefit from clean fuel regulations and biofuels. On  another go-around, Champagne admonished them to support their benefits. Lianne Rood read another tired script of the same, and Patty Hajdu noted that the Conservatives liked to raise the plight of food banks, they are now fighting against supports for them. Rood accused the government of “gaslighting” (that’s not what that means, guys), and Hajdu raised the other support for families like child care and the school food programme. 

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and said that the promised lifting of Chinese tariffs on pork has not happened, and worried the government created false hopes. Anita Anand said they were working with partners and diversifying trade relationships. Blanchet was not mollified by this answer, and demanded more specifics. Anand said that discussions were ongoing with China, including pork, and they they are working in Canada’s interests. Blanchet then wondered about action on forestry, and Champagne said they are working with the industry and have invested hundreds of millions of dollars.

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QP: Pushing a bananapants bill

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The PM was actually present today, on the day the Conservatives have their Supply Day motion to pass Pierre Poilievre’s bananapants bill, so that was going to be a…stupid dynamic from the get-go. Poilievre led off in French, and went on a tangent that there were no prices visible at Carney’s grocery store event, and demanded they lower prices. Mark Carney wondered if this was the new spirit of cooperation, and praised his meeting with Doug Ford yesterday as cooperation. Poilievre chirped that Carney only has meetings with no results, and denounced Carney’s record on food prices. Carney insisted that they have done a lot, such as cutting taxes, making the school food programme permanent, and their new GST credit. Poilievre repeated his first question in English with added smarm, and Carney repeated his lines about cooperation with Ford. Poilievre repeated his line about meetings without delivering results, and listed his “hidden tax” nonsense. Carney praised the job numbers, wage statistics, and their tax cuts before returning to the GST rebate proclamation. Poilievre then pivoted to demanding they government pass his bananapants bill, and Carney said that how they move projects forward is collaborating with the provinces, and pointed out that the premier of Nunavut was present—and got warned by the Speaker he’s not allowed to do that. Carney insisted there were no shovels in the ground, and again demanded they pass his bullshit bill. Carney praised his MOU with Alberta and insisted it would build a pipeline to tidewater (which seems very presumptuous).

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he was worried there was no movement on negotiations or tariffs with the U.S. Carney declared that the world and Washington have changed, there is nothing normal in the U.S., and that he had a thirty-minute conversation with Trump last night. Blanchet said that he knew that the world changed, and they wanted diversified trade, but that they are still exposed to the U.S. market. Carney said they are all committed to NAFTA negotiations in a few weeks. Blanchet took a dig at Carney’s understanding of history before wondering about Chinese tariffs on Quebec pork. Carney said that things are in the works and those tariffs are to be lowered, and praised the agreement for canola.

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Roundup: The Coastal First Nations aren’t budging

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Prime minister Mark Carney was in Prince Rupert, BC, to meet with the coastal First Nations, and by all accounts, it was a welcome and cordial meeting, and most of what they discussed were ongoing projects and conservation commitments in the region, along with the promises of renewed funding for ongoing projects in the area. This being said, nothing has changed on the part of these First Nations when it comes to their opposition to a pipeline in their territories or on lifting the tanker ban. The prime minister’s readout from the meeting talked glowingly about the commitments, but what was absent was any kind of commitment in writing to respecting their right to consent to projects in their territories.

Readout of Carney's meeting with Coastal First Nations.I don't see any commitment to respect their wishes if they don't grant consent to a pipeline through their territory.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-13T21:02:12.244Z

While this was happening, Pierre Poilievre decided to concern troll that there hadn’t been any meeting sooner, which wasn’t going to get things built faster. Of course, this concern is false because Poilievre has already declared that any consultation he will do will be perfunctory, and that he will ram through projects without any kind of consent (and a former Alberta minister was on Power & Politics to again insist that the obligation is consultation not consent, but that is dated with the adoption of UNDRIP which stipulates free, prior and informed consent).

Quite the concern troll given that Poilievre has flat-out said he'll build pipelines regardless of First Nations' objections.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-13T15:20:49.737Z

Meanwhile, when it comes to the Pathways project that Carney insists needs to move ahead if a pipeline is to move ahead (while the MOU also states that a pipeline needs to happen for Pathways to happen), this is your reminder that it’s a scam that will only happen if the government pays for it (and it’ll only remove about 12 percent of production emissions, to say nothing about downstream emissions).

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-01-13T15:08:05.432Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones have struck infrastructure in Kryvyi Rih, forcing power cuts, while the attacks overnight Tuesday consisted of nearly 300 drones, 18 ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles, hitting eight regions and killing at least four people. Ukraine’s parliament rejected former prime minister Denys Shmyhal as the new energy minister.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/2010987717274861983

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Roundup: Immediately approve what pipeline?

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In the wake of the Venezuela happenings, Pierre Poilievre has decided to do what Pierre Poilievre does best, which is come up with a half-baked pronouncement and make it confidently—in this case, demand the immediate approval of a pipeline to the Pacific. Erm, you know, with absolutely no plan attached, or any of the necessary details about said pipeline. But sure, approve it. (Incidentally, Alberta launched a website for its attempt to get proponents for such a plan).

Poilievre and his followers are so insistent that if government just “got out of the way” that things would get built. Of course, the other thing that Poilievre has said outright is that even though he will “consult” with local First Nations, he will push through a pipeline without their consent, on their lands, where they hold treaty rights. I don’t think he understands what that actually means, and that’s going to be a problem that will merely ensure that all of his plans will land in protracted litigation, and eventually fail (and no, you can’t invoke the Notwithstanding Clause on treaty rights).

And because of course he is, David Eby is musing about refineries instead of export pipelines, which isn’t going to happen because they are extremely expensive to build and would require billions and billions in government subsidies for little return (and yes, the Alberta government tried that and is still paying for that particular error in judgment.

Ukraine Dispatch

The new Czech prime minister says they will continue to run the ammunition sourcing programme for Ukraine, but won’t contribute money to it.

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Roundup: Freeland’s botched departure announcement

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Early Monday morning, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he had appointed Chrystia Freeland as a new advisor on economic development, which was a little peculiar considering that she is still a sitting MP, and still holds the role of a parliamentary secretary in her capacity as the prime minister’s special representative on Ukrainian reconstruction. This being said, we know she’s on her way out the door because her new job with the Rhodes Trust starts in July, so she had a definite end date in being before that.

Immediately, Conservatives like Michael Chong demanded her immediate resignation because of the conflict of interest this posed, and it wasn’t for several more hours that she announced that she will be formally resigning by the end of the month, with an immediate tweet from Carney to praise her for her work and for Ukraine, but Great Cyllenian Hermes, this was so badly handled by Carney’s PMO.

While I will grant that this pretty much went down while he was in the air on the way to Paris, they should have been prepared for this to go live at the same time as Zelenskyy’s announcement, and been aware of the time zones in play, because all they manged to do was muddy the waters around the potential conflict of interest, what is going on with any kind of approvals from the Ethics Commissioner, and not spent the bulk of daylight hours looking stunned or blindsided—especially as there was talk that the offer from Zelenskyy came in late December, even if most of Official Ottawa has been shut down for the bulk of that time period. This kind of thing continues to make Carney’s PMO look like amateur hour, and that once again, a Liberal government can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag. Honestly…

In Case You Missed It:

  • My column on whether Carney is capable of adapting to a post-neoliberal world in order to be the right prime minister for the moment (as Poilievre sure can’t).
  • My year-end episode taking a cue from the Ellie Goulding meme about how anything could happen—and did in Canadian politics in 2025.
  • My weekend column on the credulousness by which the supposed “end of the consensus on immigration” gets covered, and what gets omitted in the retelling.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take on changes that Carney has made to Canada over the past year, and what we should be watching out for as a part of it.
  • My column on the faux debate raging over whether Carney wants to turn the Senate back to a two-party system when they should worry about his appointments.
  • My weekend column on how Carney’s plans to Build Canada requires better data from the provinces, which we can’t keep waiting for them to get their acts together.

Very chuffed to see several of my stories on this list, including the most-read story of the year. Thanks to all of my readers!

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-12-29T22:50:06.873Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones hit a hospital in Kyiv on Sunday night, and struck energy infrastructure in Kharkiv as well as a US-based agricultural producer in Dnipro late Monday. President Zelenskyy is shaking up his top officials, including his spy chief.

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Roundup: Appointing another friend to an important post

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It’s now official—prime minster Mark Carney has announced his plan to name his friend Mark Wiseman to the role of Ambassador to the US as of February 15th. Wiseman has no prior diplomatic experience, but was a mergers & acquisitions lawyer before becoming an asset manager at Blackrock, and yes, he was a donor to Carney’s leadership campaign as well as his election campaign, donating the maximum for each.

There were immediate howls about this appointment from the Bloc and the Conservatives because of Wiseman’s involvement in the “Century Initiative,” which was a proposal to triple Canada’s population to 100 million by 2100, which we were on track to do regardless (before the current decision to halt immigration to the point where our population was in decline last quarter). The Bloc are treating this kind of thing like their own version of “Great Replacement Theory” because a) they are an ethnic nationalist party, and b) they see an expansion of the rest of the Canadian population as diminishing Quebec’s influence, because they heavily limit their own immigration (because again, ethnic nationalism) and their birth rate is very low. The Conservatives are treating it like Great Replacement Theory writ-large, and use it to scaremonger about Muslims and such, while also pretending to care about Quebec. There was also that stupid brouhaha about when Wiseman retweeted an Andrew Coyne column headline about said Initiative and people took it to be Wiseman insulting Quebec, so that’s great. Oh, and he apparently said he’s opposed to Supply Management, so of course Quebec and the majority of Conservatives are also opposed to his appointment.

This being said, I find myself increasingly uncomfortable by the fact that Carney keeps naming friends and former colleagues to top jobs, some elected (Tim Hodgson), some appointed (the head of the Defence Investment Agency), is a worrying trend because it’s starting to reek of cronyism. I also am reminded of the fate of Bill Morneau, who also did not grasp the ethical considerations in government of just calling up your friends and network to do things (in Morneau’s case, those friends were WE Charity), because that’s how you do them in the corporate world. Government is not the corporate world, and I know we’re all tired of hearing it, but no, you should not run government like a business or a corporation. Nothing good can come of this.

Programming Note: And that’s it for 2025. I’m taking a break from the blog until the first week of January, so enjoy your holidays everyone.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-22T23:08:01.593Z

Ukraine Dispatch

There was yet another strike on Odesa, the second within twenty-four hours. President Zelenskyy says those kidnapped villagers from Sumy region had long had dealings across the border without incident. Here is a look at Ukraine’s new low-cost interceptor drones, taking out attacking Russian drones for much cheaper. (Gallery here).

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Roundup: Lessons learned for the NDP?

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NDP interim leader Don Davies have his year-ender to The Canadian Press, talking about getting out to listen to Canadians, and reflect on the party’s devastating loss, and joking that the best part about being burnt to the ground is the ability to rebuild the foundation. And he’s not entirely wrong there, so long as he’s taking the right lessons. But in the same interview, he’s waxing poetic about pharamacare without actually seeming to understand what the issues are (i.e. the provinces), and totally ignoring the work that Trudeau did into building up the programme from the ground up (such as establishing the Canadian Drug Agency) so that provinces could sign on once they were ready, as PEI did (and NDP provinces refused to, particularly BC and John Horgan most especially).

On the same day, the NDP’s Renew and Renewal Report from the last campaign was also released, and it has a few interesting things to say. Once you get past the usual back-patting about how hard everyone worked and how it didn’t feel like it was doomed, and how the leader’s campaign went well, you start getting into some of the structural problems within the party that really do need addressing. Things like the sense that there is an allergy to fundraising in the party, and that nobody wants to actually do it, which doesn’t really help anyone (but also perpetuates the weirdness that bequests from the estates of dead people are one of the party’s top fundraising sources). And there was also a lot in there about the party not properly developing riding associations, and relying too heavily on the central party at the expense of those associations. And to be frank, this should have been a lesson the party internalized after they got nearly entirely wiped out from Quebec in 2015, because they didn’t build up their riding associations during the “Orange Wave,” but assumed that somehow those MPs would have incumbency advantage forever when they didn’t really establish grassroots after all of those accidental victories.

The other thing that is worth noting is that once again, it draws American examples for inspiration, and again it’s Zohran Mamdani. I suspect the reason for this is that too many people in the NDP’s brain trust are terminally online, and as with so many things, the American discourse pervades and they simply think that it can apply to Canada if you divide it by ten, even though we are very separate countries and that we are not just a maple cupcake version of Americana. I’m also going to note that the report said pretty much nothing about the NDP constantly trying to interfere in areas of provincial jurisdiction (particularly with their “bold progressive ideas”), because again, their American analogues don’t translate to Canada in the same way, but this was apparently an area of introspection they didn’t want to engage in. Alas.

This reminds me of something I've been wondering about. Given the various examples of the NDP being the government or official opposition at the provincial level, I'm not sure why federal New Democrats so often — or so recently? — look to the U.S. for inspiration.

— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2025-12-19T21:14:07.891Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-19T14:24:03.406Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched another missile attack on Odesa, killing seven and wounding at least 15 late Friday. There was an exchange of bodies by both governments—1003 dead Ukrainian servicemen for the bodies of 26 Russians. Ukraine and Poland are working out a cooperation agreement around drones.

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QP: Like ABBA Gold, but worse

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For what promised to be the final QP of 2025 (for real this time!), the PM was once again absent in spite of being in town. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and after claiming that his was the party of “hope,” he denounced the “hidden taxes” increasing the cost of food and demanded they be repealed. Steve MacKinnon replied that nobody calls the Conservatives the party of hope, but we wishes them a Merry Christmas all the same, and then reminded him that these taxes don’t exist. Poilievre took a swipe at Mark Carney’s absence, got his question taken away by the Speaker, and then he claimed the Liberals were blocking the attempts to pass crime bills. MacKinnon pointed out that the Conservatives have been the ones blocking except for the final day when they suddenly decided to want to move them ahead. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his first question on imaginary taxes, and Patty Hajdu stood up to remind him those taxes don’t exist, and then praised that the Canada Child Benefit cheques were going out early. Poilievre read about the Clean Fuel Regulations, and called them a tax, and Julie Dabrusin suggested he read the entire report, and pointed out that those regulations are good for canola farmers who can feed into the biofuel sector. Poilievre then returned to his horseshit assertions about the Liberals “blocking” their bail bill. MacKinnon accused Poilievre of living in a parallel universe and listed the crimes the Conservatives have been blocking the Liberals from fighting.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she said that under Carney, Canada has become a business which no longer cares about climate change, and took a swipe at Carney’s French. Dabrusin insisted that they have committed to strengthening the price on carbon and methane regulations, as clean electricity. Normandin went further on her analogy, calling Carney the CEO of Canada Inc., who needs to be reminded he is in a democratic Parliament. Joël Lightbound praised all of the measures the government is taking, and the things the Bloc voted against. Patrick Bonin took over to again lament the abandonment of climate, and this time Nathalie Provost said that they will meet the goal but needed to change their strategy because of changing circumstances.

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