Tag Archives: Jagmeet Singh

Roundup: A few amendments, but very telling ones

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It seems that Bill C-5 did not emerge from committee unscathed, as the opposition forced a number of amendments to the bill through, most of them creating an added list of laws that the government cannot opt itself out of using the giant Henry VIII clause that is the second half of said bill. The issue here? That aside from the Indian Act being one of those laws, the remainder are mostly done for the theatre of the Conservatives (and Bloc to a lesser extent) putting on a show about trying to keep said Henry VIII clause being used in a corrupt manner. To that end, the laws protected from opt-outs include:

  • Access to Information Act,
  • Lobbying Act,
  • Canada Elections Act,
  • Criminal Code,
  • Conflict of Interest Act,
  • Investment Canada Act,
  • Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act,
  • Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act,
  • Railway Safety Act,
  • Trade Unions Act,
  • Explosives Act,
  • Hazardous Products Act,
  • Indian Act,
  • Auditor General Act, or
  • Official Languages Act

Do you notice what’s missing? Any kind of environmental laws, which the Conservatives continue to demand be repealed, or any kind of UNDRIP legislation, which would ensure free, prior and informed consent from Indigenous people when it comes to these projects.

The government says they are considering the amendments and whether to support their adoption or not (but given that every opposition party has lined up behind them, they may not have a choice), but the fact remains that they have refused adequate consultation with Indigenous people in developing and passing this legislation (they could barely be arsed to hear from one Indigenous witness at committee, let along several rights-holders), or that they are damaging the trust the government spent the past decade trying to rebuild. Just amateur galaxy-brained antics that you would think a government that is ten years into their time in office would actually have learned a lesson or two by this point.

Meanwhile, you have some Indigenous voices calling on the Governor General to delay or to deny royal assent for Bill C-5, which is not going to happen. If it did, it would cause a constitutional crisis, and I can’t believe we need to keep saying this every time someone makes the suggestion because they don’t understand how Responsible Government works. This is a political problem, and it demands a political solution, not one where you pull out the constitutional fire extinguisher and try to wield it. That’s not how this works, and people need to both stop suggesting it, and journalists need to stop taking this kind of talk seriously. Just stop it.

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that the increasing attacks demonstrate why more pressure needs to be applied to Russia to force a ceasefire. There was another POW swap yesterday, but no word on how many were exchanged on either side.

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Roundup: Countdown to a trade deal?

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Even before the G7 summit officially got underway, prime minister Mark Carney had his bilateral meeting with Trump, and it was this somewhat awkward situation where Trump defended having a “tariff concept” and said that Carney had a “more complicated” plan (how could “free trade” be more complicated?”) but there was word that talks were “accelerating,” and later in the day, we got a readout from that conversation that said that they were aiming to get a trade deal within 30 days, so no pressure there (not that you could really accept such a deal for the paper it’s written on because this is Trump and he doesn’t honour his agreements). Trump also claimed to have signed a trade deal with the UK (which he called the EU at the time), and held up a blank page with his signature on it. So that…happened.

Holy crap. The US-UK trade deal is a blank sheet of paper and only Trump signed it. (Genuine screen grab).

— Justin Wolfers (@justinwolfers.bsky.social) 2025-06-17T00:13:56.113Z

The rest of the summit took place, and then suddenly Trump decided he needed to leave early, right after the Heads of Government dinner, citing important business in Washington, with allusions to the Israel-Iran conflict, but he did wind up signing a joint communiqué that calls for de-escalation in said conflict, so we’ll see how that holds up. Trump leaving early does mean that he won’t be around the arrival of either Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, who had hoped to have bilateral meetings with Trump on the sidelines of the summit, so that does blow a hole in what they expected to come for, particularly for Sheinbaum who rarely travels.

Meanwhile, here are some of the highlights of the day. Tsuut’ina Nation council member Steven Crowchild spoke about his meeting with Trump during his arrival in Calgary. EU officials confirmed that Carney is likely to sign a defence procurement agreement with them during his visit to Brussels in two weeks.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-16T22:08:16.537Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone and missile attack struck Kyiv in the early morning hours, wounding at least twenty. Ukraine received another 1,245 bodies, ending this repatriation agreement, bringing the total to over 6000 war dead.

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Roundup: Carney making his choice with Modi

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Spokespersons for the Sikh Federation Canada and the World Sikh Organisation of Canada were on the Hill yesterday to call on prime minister Mark Carney to rescind his invitation to Narendra Modi to attend the G7 summit, and are not ruling out actions such as barring Liberal MPs from visiting Sikh temples as a protest. They warned that more than a dozen Canadian Sikhs are under active threat from India,  and we also learned in the media yesterday that a suspected Indian government agent had Jagmeet Singh under surveillance, which prompted close RCMP protection eighteen months ago.

Oh, but Carney says, we got assurances about cooperating on a law enforcement dialogue, and yes, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme does say that Indian officials are now being cooperative on the investigation into the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar where they weren’t before, but again, how much longer is this going to continue until it’s no longer convenient and they start making up a bunch of bullshit for their newspapers again like they did with the supposed cocaine found on Trudeau’s plane (which right-wing newspapers in this Canada breathlessly repeated while the journalists who were actually on the plane repeatedly said that this never happened and that this was a bullshit information operation).

Yes, India is an important economy at a time when we can no longer rely on the Americans, but can we rely on India either given Modi’s increasing authoritarian tendencies, and his violation of human rights for minorities? Those Sikh spokespersons made the salient point about how Carney is sending the message that some lives are worth more than others, and that if there’s economic benefit, then we can turn a blind eye to human rights abuses and the fact that they almost certainly contracted an extrajudicial killing on Canadian soil. That should matter, and we should send a message that it does matter. But we’re not getting that from Carney, and even more to the point, the Liberals have had some very effective Sikh organisers in the party (which is why certain MPs were in Trudeau’s Cabinet when they were poor performers) and it would seem odd to waste that goodwill when you want to try and win a majority in the next election. I’m just not seeing a lot of principle or smart politics here.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian forces are slowly pushing back the Russian incursion in Sumy region. Ukrainian military officials say that the number of Russian soldiers killed or wounded in the conflict is now over one million, as the war is now in its third year. There was another exchange of sick and wounded prisoners yesterday. President Zelenskyy will be attending the G7 in Kananaskis next week.

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1933028255767941303

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Roundup: The kids are back

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Parliament is back today, after nearly six months away, and first order of business is to elect a new Speaker, and there are eight MPs on the list. Fergus is not going to get it, because he proved to be an unsuitable choice, and I doubt that either the Liberals or any of the other opposition parties will want d’Entremont in as an opposition Speaker, because frankly it won’t be worth it. (The rare occasion where the opposition still held the Speaker was when it was Liberal Peter Milliken during the early Harper years, because Milliken was so well-liked, and nobody has managed to live up to his legacy). If you ask me, it should go to Alexandra Mendès, who has the most experience in the Chair, and who has proven herself to be completely no-nonsense when she’s in it, but MPs have time and again decided that they weren’t looking for experience or being no-nonsense. It was the Conservatives who wanted Anthony Rota in the chair last Parliament because he was a genial idiot and was more concerned with being everyone’s friend than in really enforcing decorum and they knew he would go easy on them, while Fergus was a novel choice instead of experienced. It was only after Fergus had one too many oopses that the Bloc decided that maybe it was time for a woman in the Chair again, and were ready to back Mendès if they managed to oust Fergus. Can they get enough votes this time? Stay tuned to find out.

Meanwhile, the Liberals held their first caucus meeting, which meant the inevitable question on the (garbage) Reform Act, and wouldn’t you know it, the Liberals voted against it, which made every pundit in this country cry out about how cowardly they were, while you had journalists writing up garbage copy with things like “they won’t be able to vote out” the leader without this, which is not only wrong, but dangerously wrong. (The CBC story with that particular line did edit it out on the next pass, but yes, I was absolutely livid).

"Liberal MPs decided against adopting the Reform Act during their caucus meeting Sunday, which means they won't be able to vote out the newly-elected leader if they sour on him down the line."No. That is absolutely wrong. Could a single fucking journalist in this country learn some basic civics?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-05-25T21:21:03.151Z

MPs have always had the ability to vote out a leader. A simple non-confidence vote in caucus is all it takes. You don’t need the stupid Act and its rules because it actually makes it harder by erecting a bunch of thresholds that are absolutely unnecessary. The problem, however, is for decade we had a pundit class who kept insisting that MPs were “powerless,” and we enforced a learned helplessness among them, and then Michel Chong came in with his ridiculous Act in order to look like the democratic hero when he actually just made things worse, and now it’s an intractable frame that everyone insists on using even though it’s false, creates wrong expectations, and is now self-reinforcing because when they vote against it, they’re being explicitly told that they are giving away powers that they might otherwise have, which is bullshit. “But if MPs have the power, then why didn’t they vote out Trudeau?” Because those MPs couldn’t organise a tea party for themselves if their lives depended on it. They had woken up to the problem and were trying to do something, but they were being meek and modest, and trying to convince Trudeau to do the right thing rather than vote him out and embarrass him. Obviously, it didn’t work, and Freeland was the one who needed to make the dramatic move, which goes even more to prove that the Act is useless. The state of civics in this country is intolerably bad, and our pundit class and journalists keep making it worse.

Ukraine Dispatch

The assaults on Kyiv continued over the weekend, with dozens of drones and missiles attacking overnight Saturday, injuring 15, while Sunday saw one of the largest attacks since the start of the war, with 367 drones and missiles fired (which included areas other than Kyiv), killing at least 12 people. Russia also claims to have captured two more settlements in Donetsk and one in Sumy. Another 307 prisoners were swapped by each side on Saturday, in spite of the massive Russian attacks, and another 303 each on Sunday, bringing it to a total of 1000 each side.

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Roundup: 611 votes short

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In more election fallout, it looks like the Liberals were just 611 votes, between two Ontario ridings and Nunavut, from getting a majority Parliament. That’s an incredibly close number for this race, and once again goes to show how every vote really does count, particularly in smaller ridings. There is also some pretty good analysis from the numbers to show that all those southwestern Ontario seats that went Conservative was not because of progressive vote-splitting, but because they were quite clearly turned off of the NDP. That clarity is going to matter if the party wants to start rethinking their path forward. Oh, and the vast majority of NDP candidates didn’t make their ten percent vote threshold for Elections Canada rebates, so the party is going to really be hurting financially for the next couple of years.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1917541319209046324

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1917541365925253229

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1917678086385959124

Elsewhere, every legacy media journalist is trying to get a story about NDP MPs crossing the floor to the Liberals (they won’t), or about Elizabeth May either becoming Speaker or getting into Cabinet, neither of which is going to happen. Ever. Especially Speaker because, as much as I respect May, nobody in the House of Commons is going to vote to put her in the Big Chair because they don’t want a sanctimonious scold in the position. There’s a reason they have voted in incredibly weak chairs for the past couple of Parliaments, and why they didn’t vote for Geoff Regan a second time when he was being a firmer hand. Stop indulging in these stupid fantasies. It’s not going to happen. Oh, and no, official party status isn’t something that is going to be negotiated, much as Don Davies likes to claim that the magic number of 12 MPs is “arbitrary,” but it’s not. You need that many MPs to fit onto committees, and that’s already doubling up. You physically cannot have enough MPs to be in all places when there are six+ committees meeting at the same time outside of QP.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of Carney’s win for her own ends is Danielle Smith, who introduced a very Trump-like package of electoral law amendments which brings back big corporate money into Alberta politics, feeds conspiracy theories, and lowers the threshold for citizen-initiated referendums, and while she didn’t outright say she would bring a separation referendum, essentially encouraged someone else to, and they already started gathering signatures. You might ask whose interest this serves, and the answer is hers, in part because she is facing a major growing scandal about health services procurement that is getting bigger by the day, and the former Cabinet minister she has since expelled from caucus, who tried speaking up about the issue, tabled a bunch more documents about what he knew, and it’s pretty damning stuff. So, what is Smith’s best weapon of mass-distraction? Stoking separatist sentiment, pretending she’s not behind it, and watching it take over the news cycle. It’s terrible, and nobody should take their eye off the ball while she pulls the fire alarm.

"If you or any other Canadians are not happy living on Treaty lands, they are free to apply for citizenship elsewhere."Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation issues a scathing rebuke of Danielle Smith's talks on a national unity crisis.

— Courtney Theriault (@ctheriault.bsky.social) 2025-05-01T03:29:35.719Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones attacked Odesa early morning, killing two and injuring at least five. A Ukrainian drone strike hit a weapons factory in Russia. South Korean intelligence says that some 600 North Korean troops have been killed out of a deployment of 15,000 soldiers.

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Roundup: Numbers firming up post-election

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The numbers in the election have firmed up more, and the final count is that the Liberals managed 169 seats–just three shy of a majority. That does mean they can likely work with the NDP’s seven to maintain a functional majority in most things, but as I wrote in my column, some of this is going to depend on the mood of the Bloc, given that they will be the force to be reckoned with on the committees now that the NDP will no longer have any seats on them.

The King of Canada and his prime minister would have a lot to talk about on the day after a federal electionMaybe also about a regal Speech from the Throne to open the new Parliament?

— Patricia Treble (@patriciatreble.bsky.social) 2025-04-30T00:07:13.146Z

In election fallout stories:

  • Voter turnout was 68.6 percent, which is the highest in 31 years.
  • Here is a recounting of Bruce Fanjoy’s election night as his team learned in the wee hours that they had formally ousted Poilievre.
  • CBC has six takeaways from the election
  • Poilievre may have to vacate Stornoway if he doesn’t have a seat.
  • Yves-François Blanchet is in the mood to collaborate for the time being, saying that the country needs stability and not the threat of another election.
  • Much of the Conservatives’ “economic brain trust” (ahem, such as it was) lost their seats, including Poilievre.
  • The Star hears from Conservatives and NDPers about where their parties go next.
  • Here are the fiscal consequences of the NDP losing official party status (but doesn’t actually explain the point is they don’t have enough MPs to put on committees).
  • Both Danielle Smith and Scott Moe gave their “congratulations” on Carney’s victory, but really, they just made more demands.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1917182119689793978

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones attacked Kharkiv and Dnipro overnight, killing at least one and injuring at least 46. Russian troops have also been trying to advance into the Sumy region.

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Roundup: A Liberal minority, with some fraught seat math

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Election Day got off to a bizarre start with Donald Trump sending out a bizarre post that was essentially taunting Canada to vote for the person who would make them the 51st state, which seemed to imply that he wanted them to vote for him, because he didn’t say a name, but it was weird.

It was not a result anyone had really hoped for—as I write this, the Liberals have not managed to cross the threshold for a majority, and they may or may not have a sustainable path to a de facto majority with NDP support, particularly once you figure in who is going to be Speaker. There were some losses of incumbents whom I am glad to see the backs of for various reasons.

Seat math aside, @alexandramendes.bsky.social is the one MP who should be Speaker.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T05:16:27.125Z

If we're going to get pedantic, it's majority or minority *parliament,* not government.Government is government. It doesn't change depending on the composition of the legislature.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T02:21:46.111Z

The most dramatic part of the night was Jamil Jivani’s CBC interview after his win, in which he threw an absolute tantrum to go about savaging Doug Ford, and I’ve seen a number of conservatives on social media taking the route of blaming Ford for their loss rather than the choices that they made over the course of the campaign (but then again, most politicians are that allergic to self-reflection).

The Bloc lost seats, but could be the ones to hold the balance of power, depending how the seat math plays out once the final results are tallied.

The NDP were decimated, down to about seven seats (give or take, that may shift overnight), which is below official party status (meaning they can’t fill enough seats on committees), and Jagmeet Singh lost his own seat in the process. He announced that he’ll be resigning as leader once an interim leader can be chosen, but insisted that the NDP “built Canada” (erm…) so they deserved a future.

Singh: "New Democrats literally built this country…"Erm, you weren't a party for pretty much the first century of this country post-Confederation.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T04:47:25.595Z

Pierre Poilievre promised to keep fighting, and patted himself on the back for having “Denied the NDP and Liberals enough seats to form a coalition government” (though that seat math may yet change). He was gracious enough to congratulate Carney on his win, but also said that “We will do our job to hold the government to account,” which is likely to mean less actual accountability than more procedural warfare, because that’s how they’ve operated for two parliaments now. There is also a question as to whether Poilievre will even win his own riding—he has consistently been trailing, but it’s been slow to count (because of the Longest Ballot jackasses), but at the time I posted this, he was still trailing.

Edit: It looks like Poilievre has now lost the riding, so we’ll see how that shakes out in the weeks ahead.

Mostly empty room with Poilievre expected to speak within minutes. The Conservative leader is still trailing in his own riding.

— Alex Boutilier (@alexboutilier.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T04:52:49.862Z

At least Poilievre is being moderately gracious in defeat, and didn't let his supporters boo Carney.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T04:59:58.020Z

As for Mark Carney, he promised three things in his victory speech—humility, ambition, and unity. It was an interesting speech, and he set some goals for himself that will be difficult to accomplish, but we’ll see if he can manage. In any case, he’ll face a hostile parliament with few partners to work with, with little political experience in navigating it, while living on borrowed time, as he has the massive job of reorienting our economy and disentangling us from the Americans. It’s going to be a very interesting couple of years, if we can get this parliament to last that long.

Carney commits to admitting his mistakes openly and to learning from them quickly.That could be a *very* big change from his predecessor… (Or anyone in politics, really). If, of course, he actually follows through with it.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T05:28:20.772Z

Pretty much the consensus.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-29T07:58:38.824Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 166 drones at Ukraine overnight, and one of them killed a child after hitting a residential building in Samarivskyi in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Putin announced a ceasefire from May 8-10 to honour the victory in the Second World War, but we’ll see if he actually lives up to it.

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Roundup: Tragedy marring the final election push

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Day thirty-six, the final day of the campaign, was marred by the tragedy at the Lapu-Lapu festival in Vancouver. Some of the campaigns, particularly the Liberals, scrambled to figure out how to respond to it, without losing their election momentum while also trying to be respectful of what took place. Others, however, were less scrupulous.

Mark Carney was Hamilton, and delayed the morning’s events in light of Vancouver, before he made a statement about it. The campaign was supposed to stop in Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Richmond and Victoria, but cancelled the rally in Calgary. The Richmond stop was going to be cancelled, but was back on in a smaller capacity, as with all of the interactions over the day. Vancouver, Carney and the premier attended a memorial to lay flowers. Carney returns to Ottawa today, where he will hold his election night event.

Pierre Poilievre was in Oakville, Ontario, for his pre-planned rally, before adding a stop at a church in Mississauga to meet with members of the Filipino community there regarding the tragedy in Vancouver. Poilievre then made stops in Pickering, Peterborough, and Keene before reaching his riding in Carleton for a final rally. There were, however, some online ads the Conservatives put out that appeared to take advantage of the tragedy and fold it into their “safe streets” slogans, which was immediately pretty ghoulish. Poilievre will be in Ottawa for election night.

Jagmeet Singh was in Penticton, BC, where he also spoke about the tragedy in Vancouver, as he had apparently left the festival minutes before it happened. He still held his events in Oliver, New Westminster, Vancouver, and Coquitlam. Singh has a campaign event in Port Moody in the morning (really?), will attend a day of mourning event in Burnaby, and hold his election night event there.

In other campaign news, the CBC made a sad attempt at doing some campaign fact-checking (that gave equal weight to outdated statistics and absolute ludicrous lies). Here is an attempt to find meaning in where the leaders’ campaigns took them around the country.

It’s Election Day! Go vote!

Ukraine Dispatch

North Korea has confirmed for the first time that they sent troops to Russia to fight against Ukrainians in the Kursk region, calling them “heroes,” and that it’s an “honour” to ally with a country like Russia.

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Roundup: The final Saturday blitz

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Day thirty-five, and the final Saturday was marked by a number of stops from all of the leaders to hit as many locations as they can before people vote. Mark Carney was King City, Ontario, and spoke about reshaping the international trading system thanks to Trump’s crisis, and how he planned to do just that. From there, the campaign stopped in Newmarket, Aurora, Markham, Mississauga, and then Windsor. Carney will have another full day of stops, hitting Hamilton, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria in a single day. Oof.

Pierre Poilievre was in Delta, BC, calling for record voter turnout as he sees that as his path to beating the Liberals, and then headed to Sudbury for a rally. Poilievre will be in Oakville, and then end the day in his home riding for a rally.

Jagmeet Singh was in London, Ontario, for a campaign stop but no formal announcement, followed by stops in Windsor before flying to Vancouver and Burnaby. Singh hits Penticton, BC, followed by Oliver, New Westminster, Vancouver, and Coquitlam today.

In other campaign news, here is a comparison between the Liberal and Conservative proposals around national defence. Here is a look at people in blue collar unions willing to give the Conservatives a chance. The Star has their eyes on ten ridings that they say offer key narratives about the election. And a woman who wore a trans rights shirt to the Conservative rally in Saskatoon was removed by police, and has questions as to why.

This is so Canadian. Body Break doing a special elbows up get out to vote segment.

— Michelle Keep (@jmkeep.bsky.social) 2025-04-26T12:43:12.878Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 149 drones at Ukraine overnight, killing a man in Pavlohrad and injuring others. Russia claims that they have driven all Ukrainian forces from Kursk region, but Ukraine says they are still fighting. (More about the significance here). President Zelenskyy had a meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the Pope’s funeral in Rome, and Trump seemed to indicate that he’s afraid Putin has been playing him and has no intention of seeking peace. (You think?)

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Roundup: Leaders on the final push

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Day thirty-four, and leaders are all in the final push, making last-minute stops in key ridings that they either hope to keep, or win outright. Mark Carney was in Sault Ste. Marie to visit Algoma Steel, where he gave the Ontario-centric and, more importantly, steel-focused, version of his pitch to voters. He did say, in response to a question, that he was open to electoral reform but didn’t think that a prime minister should champion it because it politicises it. (I swear to Zeus, if this turns into another round of “citizen assembly” nonsense, I will lose my mind). He also said he’s open to reviewing the Access to Information regime (which every leader says), and called on Israel to end the blockade on food aid to Gaza. The then made stops in Georgetown, Cambridge, and London, Ontario. He also made his appearance at the virtual AFN forum, where he committed to implementation of UNDRIP. Carney is sticking in Ontario today with events in King City, Newmarket, Aurora, Markham, Mississauga, and then Windsor.

Pierre Poilievre was in Saskatoon, where he laid out his plans for his first 100 days in office (which is another imported Americanism), and it involved promising to sit through the summer in order to pass three massive omnibus bills that dealt with large swaths of his agenda. Part of his hundred days, however, was a promise to get a deal with Trump, which is not only ridiculous because nobody is getting an actual deal with Trump, but he’s been saying that Carney thinks he can control Trump but nobody can, and yet he’s simultaneously insisting that only he can control Trump enough to get a deal. It’s laughable that he thinks this is at all serious. Poilievre then stopped in Calgary for a rally, where he called for bigger voter turnout, before heading to Nanoose Bay, BC. Poilievre will be in Delta, BC, today for one of his finally rallies.

Poilievre is still peddling the fantasy that *he* can make a deal with Trump that will stick, after he says Carney is delusional for thinking he can control Trump.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T15:44:59.656Z

Jagmeet Singh was in Toronto, where he just invented the threat that the Liberals will cut healthcare if there aren’t enough NDP MPs elected, which is outrageous bullshit. For one, the problem is with the provinces, and they have long-term funding agreements with the federal government, and two, the threats of cutting healthcare are at the provincial level. This is just outright mendacity from an increasingly desperate Singh. His campaign then stopped in Hamilton and London, Ontario. Singh starts the day in London, then heads to Windsor before flying to Vancouver and Burnaby.

Singh is just literally making shit up at this point.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T15:02:12.089Z

On a side note, Yves-François Blanchet made the statement today that Canada is an “artificial country with very little meaning,” in response to questions about previous remarks about sitting in a “foreign parliament.” While this is probably self-defeating at a time of heightened patriotism, what Blanchet is really trying to do is appeal to ethnic nationalism in Quebec. All countries are artificial, but a good many around the world are bound together by a common ethnicity and language, and Canada is not. Certain elements of Quebec would like to think that they have a common ethnicity and language, but this is the kind of ethnic nationalism that fuels racism and xenophobia. It’s what François Legault has been appealing to as he attacks the rights of religious minorities. And Blanchet is trying to appeal to it to say that Liberals can’t represent Quebec because only the Bloc can truly represent “ethnic” Quebeckers. But he’s also been hoping that he’ll get a bump in the polls like he did last time after Shachi Kurl raised (badly formed) questions about Law 21, which Blanchet was able to spin into “She’s calling us racists!” and that gave him the boost in the polls he needed. It looks like he won’t get that this time around.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1916013202388721995

In other campaign news, Equal Voice’s tally shows that the Liberals, Conservatives, and Bloc are all running fewer women as candidates in this election. Elections Canada says that Poilievre’s riding of Carleton had the highest advance turnout in the country. None of the parties have been clear about how they plan to meet existing climate commitments. Singh is trying to convince George Stroumboulopoulos that their poll numbers are rebounding (really!) so they’ll come out of the election with “lots” of re-elected MPs. (Aside from the quarter of his caucus that’s not running again?)

For Canadians being inundated by riding-level polls right now:The data is crap if it has no dates, small samples (<800), high margins of error.The people showing them to you are trying to persuade you to vote for their own preferred party. It's sales pitch, not an evidence-based argument.

— Jared Wesley (@jaredwesley.ca) 2025-04-26T01:02:15.747Z

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lnnrnrygrs2r

Yes. Yes I do.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T13:35:18.917Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A drone attack on Pavlohrad killed five and injured at least eleven. A Russian general was killed by a car bomb, and Russia is blaming Ukraine (who have not yet claimed responsibility).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1915669752787149047

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