Tag Archives: India

Roundup: Conspicuous silence from Poilievre

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In the wake of prime minister Mark Carney’s big Davos speech, it has been noticed that there is a conspicuous silence coming from Pierre Poilievre, aside from the fact that he was tweeting misleading things about grocery prices, because his strategy is to keep hammering away at cost-of-living issues while the world is on fire. Apparently, his office was circulating a statement before the speech about how a trip to Davos was an “unneeded indulgence” that wasn’t going to resolve any tariffs, because of course, he doesn’t travel. That hasn’t stopped his various proxies from floating their own attack lines, either insisting that it’s nothing but an empty speech (not entirely untrue), or being utterly dismissive and saying that he needs to be back at the table with the Americans to resolve the tariff issues, as though there is a deal to be had with Trump and his mercurial whims where agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. It’s clear there isn’t, and that is becoming an ever-more irrelevant attack line with each passing day.

Meanwhile, here is a look at some of the global reaction to the speech, but one of the comments that stands out is from Michael Kovrig, who has a warning about how some of Carney’s language is being used, particularly in the way he invokes Havel, and how it sets up a false equivalency between the American-dominated rules-based order with totalitarian communism, and why that could have repercussions.

In pundit reaction, Kevin Carmichael is impressed with Carney’s Davos speech, and finds the biggest lesson in it to be the reminder from Havel that we are not powerless. Seva Gunitsky parses the references to Thucydides and Havel in the speech, and how they apply to the American empire. Althia Raj weighs some of the positives and negatives of Carney’s Davos speech. Philippe Lagassé has questions about the government’s defence and intelligence priorities in the wake of Carney’s speech, because they are greatly affected. And Paul Wells strips the speech of its applause lines and contemplates the core of it, and what some of the inevitable critiques will be.

Ukraine Dispatch

Nearly 60 percent of Kyiv remains without power after attacks on its energy grid, making it their hardest winter yet. An executive of the state grid operator died while supervising repairs at a power facility, but they won’t say how. Ukraine’s new defence minister is planning a sweeping, data-drive overhaul of the military.

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Roundup: A stop before the China trip

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Today is the big day, as prime minister Mark Carey is departing on his big ten-day tour to China, Qatar, and Davos, Switzerland, but before he leaves, he will be making a stop in Prince Rupert, BC, for a meeting with Coastal First Nations, months after he signed his MOU with Danielle Smith about a pipeline that they intend to push through their territory over their objections. (Carney says no project will go ahead without them, but I would not put much stock in that particular promise).

We have also learned that Scott Moe will be joining Carney on the trip, because if there’s one thing that Carney needs, it’s Canada’s smoothest-brained premier to bleat on about canola. The federal officials who briefed reporters ahead of the trip suggested that there may be some relief from the current tariffs being imposed by China on canola, beef and seafood, but for the dispute not to be at an end just yet. Apparently there are “active discussions” about dropping the EV tariffs, which some people still think would be a good idea given that we are no longer counting on a North American EV strategy, but that presupposes that China’s intentions with the EV market are pure, which they’re not—they would be collecting massive amounts of data from Canadians, and they could cripple those EVs through software if they wanted, beyond the economic damage they would be doing to our auto industry by displacing it with product that they have subsidised at uncompetitive rates.

Meanwhile, two Liberal MPs cut short their trip to Taiwan to “avoid confusion” with Carney’s upcoming trip, which seems like bad form, and of course, they are being accused of “kowtowing” to the Chinese government. It’s hard to say whether this should be interpreted as a gesture or as “clarity,” or whatnot, considering that the Chinese government may not understand the nuances of who is a backbencher and who is government (and to be frank, there are plenty of Canadians, including those within parliament, who don’t understand the difference), but it does leave a bad taste to look like they are complying in advance with yet another authoritarian (and Carney seems to be doing a whole lot of complying).

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-01-12T23:08:02.309Z

Ukraine Dispatch

There has been another intense bombardment of Kyiv and Kharkiv overnight. Russian drones hit two foreign-flagged vessels in port near Odesa, which were carrying corn and vegetable oil. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine says that civilian casualties were up sharply last year.

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Roundup: Political support for a new pipeline?

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More details are emerging about the Memorandum of Understanding that prime minister Mark Carney looks set to sign with Alberta premier Danielle Smith on Thursday, which would set the stage for political support for a pipeline to the northwest coast of BC if certain conditions are met. Those conditions include a stricter industrial carbon price in the province, and a “multibillion-dollar investment in carbon capture from the Pathways Alliance,” and there is apparently some language about Indigenous ownership and equity. In return, it looks like Alberta also gets a bunch of exemptions from other environmental legislation, which it would seem to me is just setting up fights with every other province who will want their own special deals and carve-outs.

BC premier David Eby is rightfully upset about being left out of the process (as Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe initially claimed he was part of the talks, which turned out to be mere self-aggrandisement). And while it’s true that the province can’t veto a project that falls under federal jurisdiction (and we have Supreme Court jurisprudence on this), it definitely feels impolitic to freeze him out, considering that making an agreement with Smith to overrule Eby’s stated wishes—and the wishes of the coastal First Nations—certainly has the feel of the US and Russia coming up with a “peace plan” for Ukraine. Eby also, correctly, points out that they would never do this with Quebec, which is a good point.

This being said, this remains about a hypothetical pipeline that may never come to fruition because they are unlikely to get a private sector proponent, because the oil market changed in 2014 and Alberta refuses to accept that fact. What I am more concerned about is just how many billions of public dollars are going to be consume by Pathways in order to try and make it viable, and it just won’t be, and we’ll have wasted years, billions of dollars, both of which could have been better spent coming up with a more reasonable transition to a greener future, because again, it’s not 2014 anymore.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-11-24T23:08:02.124Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones and missiles have hit residential buildings in Kyiv, starting fires and killing at least one person. Ukrainian officials are apparently working with the Americans on the so-called “28-point peace plan” to make it more palatable.

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Roundup: Confusion over who authored the “peace plan”

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It has been a crazy weekend when it comes to making heads of tails of what is happening with the so-called “28-point peace plan” between Russia and Ukraine. A bunch of US legislators at the Halifax Security Conference were insisting that they were told that the plan was the starting point of negotiations, that the deadline of Thursday was to start talks, and that this was all a big misunderstanding. You had other reports saying that people were saying that this was the Russian plan that was just for discussion purposes. Then you had reports saying that no, the White House said that this is the plan, leaving everyone in the dark as to just what the hell was going on.

What the actual fuck is going on.America put forward a nearly carbon copy version of the Russian plan for Ukrainian conquest, admitted it and backtracked, then doubles down.

— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) 2025-11-23T02:54:54.829Z

As this was happening, world leaders, including Canada, were treating this as if it’s a starting off point that “needs work” as opposed to being a betrayal of Ukraine and that it should be killed with fire, because nobody wants to make Trump too angry, because they rely too much on the Americans for too many things still (though Ukrainians have pointed out that it’s no longer 2023, and they are much more self-reliant). European leaders did come out with their own suggested 28 pointswhich are far more fair to Ukraine, but seem to be willing to let Russia continue to occupy territory it has gained by force (unless I’m misreading it), and still doesn’t call for much in the way of penalties other than to pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

PMO readout of Carney's call with Zelenskyy. Maintaining the façade that the "peace plan" is a good start (when it is in fact a betrayal).

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-23T20:07:37.708Z

Meanwhile, Anne Applebaum savages the plan as not being anything more than a starting off point for a larger future war, while the only beneficiaries are some unnamed Russian and American investors, because this is what Trump is really all about. Paul Wells laments the “don’t wake Trump” tactic that those world leaders are using, because it rewards how much of a betrayal it is, and soft-pedals the fact that it invites future wars of aggression.

G20 Outcomes

There were a number of things coming out of the G20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, and it leave a whole lot of questions about prime minister Mark Carney and his values and priorities. Carney had plenty of praise for his hosts, and talking about the G20 being a bridge following the rupture of the US withdrawing from its role with global institutions, and that he has no “burning issue” to talk with Trump at the moment, and they’ll talk when they’re ready to. This being said, Carney also declared that the government’s “feminist foreign policy” was effectively dead, in spite of it being about the best way to achieve outcomes and at a time when the US is doing things like calling reproductive rights and gender equity “human rights violations” (no, seriously). Carney announced a joint technology partnership with India and Australia, and that talks were being revied about a comprehensive trade agreement with India, in spite of their foreign interference in Canada and trans-national repression (that their High Commissioner insists is all a delusion).

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3m6dt3iyjjc2i

So, nothing on trans-national repression or India's foreign interference.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-23T22:26:23.696Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Four people were killed in a drone attack on Kharkiv on Sunday. The death toll from last week’s missile strike on Ternopil is now up to 34. Ukraine has struck power and heat stations in the Moscow region.

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Roundup: Abstentions to avoid an election

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After all the build-up, the artificial drama of whether or not the government was going to fall, all of the stories written about the various possibilities of what might happen, the final vote came down 170-168, the government surviving the day. Deciding this was the fact that Elizabeth May got the assurances she was looking for in order to vote for the budget (she hopes not naively), and there were abstentions—two from the Conservatives, two from the NDP.

There was never going to be an election. Nobody wanted one, and it would very likely go badly for a least two of the opposition parties, but they all still had to look like they were talking tough (and swinging their dicks), but in reality, the Conservatives were engineering it so that they would ensure it would pass. Not only were Matt Jeneroux and Shannon Stubbs not voting, the latter on medical leave, but it appears that Andrew Scheer and Scott Reid camped out in the lobby behind the Chamber when the vote started, and only when things were wrapping up and it was clear the government was going to win, did they rush into the Chamber at the end, and claim that they couldn’t vote remotely so that they could record their votes as being against. (It’s one more argument why remote voting should be abolished, so that these kinds of shenanigans don’t happen).

Of course, as soon as this was over, the Conservatives started recording videos for their socials to denounce the NDP and the Greens for propping up the government, when they were doing just the same and were prepared to go further, because they know full well that an election right now is very likely to go badly for them, but they have to perform for their audience all the time. And sure, it’s fun to watch people call them out over this partisan bluster, but we shouldn’t even be having it, but everyone has to keep putting on a show for their chosen audience, because this is the hell that is politics in the era of the attention economy.

Speaking of today's artificial drama (and partisan dick-swinging…)

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-17T23:18:51.205Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine has allegedly attacked power plants in the Russian-controlled areas of Donetsk. Ukraine has signed a deal to obtain 100 Rafale warplanes from France, in addition to the 100 Gripens they bought. AP profiles Ukrainian energy workers who have to restore power after Russian attacks on energy systems.

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Roundup: Heavy-handed caucus management

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The Ways and Means motion on the budget survived its second confidence vote, on the Bloc’s amendment, as no other party supported it (unsurprisingly). But outside of that, the drama inside the Conservative caucus room continues to spill out into the open as the party tries to deflect scrutiny. Leaks are talking about ten to fifteen very unhappy members, though nothing to indicate they’re going to cross the floor or leave caucus. At least not in the immediate future. Nevertheless, it is probably not lost on anyone that Andrew Scheer and Chris Warkentin storming into Chris d’Entremont’s office to yell at him when he let it be known he was contemplating crossing the floor is probably not great caucus management.

To that end, Scheer huffed and puffed his way out to the Foyer after Question Period yesterday to claim that it’s the Liberals who are harassing Conservatives, and it was that “harassment” that drove Matt Jeneroux to tender his resignation when there are accounts about how he was meeting with senior Liberals and was allegedly “eighty percent there” in terms of being convinced to cross over before this all blew up. Of course, nothing Scheer says is remotely believable, and his trying to claim that the Liberals are manufacturing this to “distract” from their budget is beyond risible considering just how complete and total their sales job on said budget is. The fact that Scheer is resorting to that kind of a dismissal is a sign of just how completely out of his depth he is here.

Scheer says Liberals are trying to “undemocratically” get a majority through backroom deals and accuse Liberals of harassing Conservatives to cross the floor. (Sure, Jan)

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-07T17:16:03.099Z

Scheer claims Jeneroux was pressured into resigning because Liberals were harassing him. He’s actually claiming that.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-07T17:18:59.423Z

What gets me is that no one in that caucus seems to have learned a single gods damned lesson after Erin O’Toole’s final days. For those of you who memory-holed the whole incident in trying to rehabilitate O’Toole’s image while trying to turn him into a statesman, in the dying days of his leadership, he weaponized the (garbage) Reform Act to kick out any member of caucus who dared to question him, and that member of caucus was Senator Batters, which was a big mistake because she has some pretty deep networks. Within days, the vote in caucus on O’Toole’s leadership was organised and he lost decisively. And despite this object lesson, Poilievre and Scheer are trying to use a heavy-hand and threats to enforce loyalty? Seriously? The other thing that seems to be emerging is a rift between the eastern and western flanks of the party, as eastern Tories are much more progressive and even-tempered than the Reform-rooted Conservatives, who are increasingly turning MAGA, and Poilievre needs to get a handle on this and start mending some fences before this blows up in his face.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-11-07T14:24:04.975Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The fighting continues in Pokrovsk, while Ukrainian forces are stepping up their assault on Russian forces in Dobropillia to ease the pressure on Pokrovsk. Ukrainian soldiers fighting with drones are being rewarded with points for confirmed hits and kills, leading to ethical concerns about the gamification of war. Ukraine says that 1400 Africans from dozens of countries have signed up to fight for Russia as mercenaries, but mostly are just used in “meat assaults.”

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Roundup: Jivani’s tour for disaffected young men

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Something that has gone largely unnoticed has been Conservative MP Jamil Jivani’s campus tours, modelled after the late fascist Charlie Kirk’s campus tours that were deemed essential to youth outreach for Trump’s MAGA movement. There has been some acknowledgement that under Poilievre, the Conservatives have been attracting a lot of disaffected young men, but as Jivani’s little campus tour is showing, this is much more explicitly about disaffected young white men, who are tired of being confronted about the concept of toxic masculinity, who don’t think that they can speak freely, and who can’t find jobs.

If anything, there is some bitter irony in Jivani cultivating this particular demographic because he has been beating the anti-DEI drum that Poilievre has appropriated from the MAGA cult, but part of this tour is about getting these young white men to present themselves as the real victims. To suggest that they need special policies to address their needs is pretty hard to square with the whole cry about “merit” that is supposed to replace DEI. If they need special programs, then they are not able to get ahead by merit alone, no? Of course, we know that the real reason why they want to eliminate DEI is precisely because they can’t compete based on merit, so they want to return to a system that systemically discriminates against those who are deserving but can’t get a fair shake.

This of course gets to the real issue in play—that these rallies are attracting groups who are Diagolon-aligned, and whose talk about “remigration” is code for ethnic cleansing. Sure, Jivani can tell them that it’s “complicated,” but this is not a group that believes in nuance. The fact that Jivani can’t denounce that kind of rhetoric but instead tries to mollify it is an indictment about where the Conservative party is headed in this country. Someone remarked that this is no longer the party of Stephen Harper. Unfortunately, it’s becoming the party of Donald Trump, whether they want to believe it or not, and that’s a very terrifying prospect for where things could be headed in this country, because there is no “good parts only” version that they think they can achieve.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-23T21:27:02.365Z

Ukraine Dispatch

An attack on Kyiv overnight Wednesday wounded nine people. Two Ukrainian journalists were killed by a Russian drone in Kramatorsk, while an investigation has been launched into Russian soldiers killing five civilians in a village in the Donetsk region.

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Roundup: Fixing CPC nomination races?

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Word has been obtained by the Globe and Mail that the Conservative Party plans to change their nomination processes after riding associations have been making their objections known to the central party about the way those races were handled in the lead-up to the election. You may recall that there were a number of sudden disqualifications, or where would-be candidates had spent months fundraising and selling memberships only for someone else to be parachuted into the riding as candidate in their place, leading to a few of them deciding to help the Liberal in the riding instead because of such a betrayal by their party.

While it sounds good that the party is hearing these complaints and planning to make changes, we’ll see what changes they end up implementing, because this is something that all parties are failing on. Grassroots nomination races are supposed to be the place where the local party members can most influence the party by selecting who they want on the ballot, but it’s also a place where they should be able to hold the incumbent accountable for their actions (or inaction), and replace them on the ballot if they so choose. But increasingly, parties have been protecting incumbents under the dubious rhetoric that they’re too busy in Ottawa to run in an open nomination, or that it somehow prevents mischief when sometimes that means thwarting the will of a local membership base that is dissatisfied.

If the Conservatives re-commit to transparent, open nominations, that’s a good thing for democracy, which is something that the Liberals most especially right now are failing at (thanks especially to rules that Trudeau pushed through when he revamped the party’s constitution to centralise power under the dubious excuse of needing to be more “nimble.”) But I also don’t hold out too much hope that these rules will be the grassroots rules we should have, because too many party leaders have come to depend on being able to put a thumb on the scales of nomination races to get their preferred candidates into caucus, even though that has created more problems in the long run than it solved.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-18T14:08:03.467Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian forces attacked a coal mine in southeastern Ukraine on Sunday, but there were no fatalities. It turns out that during that meeting at the White House last week, Trump was back to using Russian propaganda and demanding Ukraine surrender the entire Donbas region.

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Roundup: Federal-provincial meetings without provincial commitments

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The federal and provincial justice ministers wrapped up a two-day meeting in Kananaskis yesterday, where they discussed shared priorities, particularly around the supposed big problem of bail reform. But did they come up with any commitment to do the actual thing that would make a measurable difference with the bail system, which is for the provinces to actually properly fund the court systems, including hiring and adequately paying Crown prosecutors, training justices of the peace, ensuring there are enough functional court houses that are properly staffed, and that they have enough provincial court judges (who deal with the bulk of criminal cases)? Hahahaha, of course they didn’t.

Readout from the federal-provincial justice ministers' meeting.I don't see a commitment in here from the provinces to properly fund their court systems (but more money for police!), which means all of these promised Criminal Code reforms are next to useless.Slow clap, everyone.FFS

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-10-17T20:09:12.929Z

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-10-17T20:11:58.895Z

Without any of these commitments by the provinces, any tinkering that the federal government does to the Criminal Code is going to mean nothing. It’s just going to clog the justice system even more; it’s going to crowd the already overcrowded provincial jails even more. It’s going to ensure that there are sentencing discounts when people do go to trial and get sentenced. It’s going to mean more lawsuits for keeping wrongfully accused in those overcrowded provincial jails for longer while awaiting trial, only to be acquitted after their lives have been destroyed. Because the federal government refuses to apply enough public pressure to the provinces for them to do their jobs. It’s not actually that difficult, but they absolutely refuse, and so nothing is going to get better, and they will continue to take the blame every time there is another high-profile incident that happens when someone is on bail.

Meanwhile, the federal and provincial health ministers had their own meeting in Calgary, where they totally pledged “deeper collaboration,” but as with justice, there is no commitment by the provinces to do their jobs and properly fund their systems, nor any commitment to reforming things like how family doctors can bill the system, or the practical things that doctors themselves demand. No, instead we get certain ministers like Alberta’s who want more federal support and a move away from “one-size-fits-all” funding programmes, which is ridiculous because the last round of healthcare transfers required the provinces to come up with their own action plans for their own priorities, and those action plans acted as the strings for future tranches of funding by ensuring that priorities were actually met. So again, this is just setting up future failure where they will again blame the federal government. Because apparently this federal government is incapable of learning.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims it has captured three more villages—one in Dnipropetrovsk region, and two in Kharkiv region. President Zelenskyy was in Washington, where Trump waffled on promised military equipment support again, so no surprise there.

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Roundup: A last-minute trip sans journalists

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Prime minister Mark Carney took a last-minute trip to Egypt over the weekend to attend the Middle East peace summit, where he did things like praise the release of hostages, and commend the “leadership” of Trump in reaching this moment (which ignores a whole lot of what has happened up until this point). But a lot of things about this trip were unusual. For one, he ended up chartering a private plan because no military aircraft were available on short notice, which is odd in and of itself (and I can’t wait for the pearl-clutching when the Access to Information request is released about the costs of said charter). For another, he did not alert the media to the trip until he was taking off, and no accredited journalists accompanied him on the trip.

Statement from the president of the Parliamentary Press Gallery:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-10-14T23:14:12.452Z

This is a very big warning sign about how Carney is treating the office, and his obligations to transparency. Perhaps more egregiously was the fact that the PMO comms team spent the long weekend emailing journalists and pointing them to links to his posts on Twitter, as though that was some kind of substitute. It’s not. Social media posts are carefully curated and present a very stage-managed view of the world, which is not a substitute for journalism. In fact, it’s usually a form of propaganda, because it delivers a carefully crafted message in a way that is intended to influence the voting public in a certain way.

To be clear, Carney is not the first prime minister who has tried to limit media access in favour of his in-house photographers and media team, and these photographers and videographers are given privileged access to both document history, and set up carefully curated narratives. And yes, the press is going to complain about it because it’s our job to present a wider view than what the PMO wants us to see, and the public expects more transparency, which has been in retreat under Carney’s leadership because he still thinks that this is like being a CEO where you don’t say much because it might affect your stock price. That’s not how you behave in the top political office of the country, and he needs to get that message.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian glide bombs hit a hospital in Kharkiv in the early morning hours of Tuesday, while attacks on the energy grid continued. A UN humanitarian convoy in southern Ukraine was also hit by Russian drones. Ukrainian authorities have ordered the evacuation of dozens of villages near the city of Kupiansk given the deteriorating security situation, while Russia claims they took control of another village in Donetsk region. President Zelenskyy says that Ukrainian troops have advanced in their counter-offensive in the Zaporizhzhia region.

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