Tag Archives: Justin Trudeau

Roundup: It’s Coronation Day

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It’s Coronation Day, and Justin Trudeau will have arrived in the wee hours, having taken a red-eye across the Atlantic to get there. Trudeau was absent from the meeting with other Commonwealth leaders, where he could have been doing something productive like organising to help advance LGBTQ+ rights within those countries (as I suggested in my Xtra column). Nevertheless, it was bad form for him not to be there, especially as he could have moved his party convention to another weekend once the coronation date was announced.

Most of the official delegation gathered for a photo, sans-Trudeau. Not in the delegation but part of the day’s festivities is Canadian Marion Portelance, who will be playing cello at the post-Coronation concert, and it’s believed the cello she’s using was once owned and played by the King.

And because it’s her big day as a royal correspondent, our friend Patricia Treble has stories out on pretty much every platform:

  • For the Globe and Mail, a visual guide of the event and the regalia used in it.
  • For The Line, she delves into the Kremlinology of who is and is not showing up for the big event.
  • For the Star, some coronation history and some of the fascinating events that have happened during them.
  • In The Walrus, traces the indifference Canadians feel for the King to the apathy to the Crown exhibited by governments.
  • On her Substack, showcases some of the coronation scenes in London.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The leader of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group says they’re pulling out of Bakhmut in days because they lack ammunition, and are dying in vain. (Ukraine believes they are simply reinforcing their positions). There is still shelling happening in the Kherson region, while the Russian-installed “governor” of the Zaporizhzhia region is ordering an evacuation of villages close to the front line. Meanwhile, new analysis is showing that the drone that struck the Kremlin likely launched from within Russia.

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Roundup: Grading the official Star Wars Day posts

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Yesterday was May the 4th, also known as “Star Wars Day,” and this year’s Canadian politics offerings were largely unimpressive, most had little to no effort, which is supremely disappointing. Congrats to Library and Archives Canada who made the most effort.

From the political leaders:

For someone who loves memes and trying to win Twitter, Poilievre didn’t even participate.

A sampling of government departments and organizations:

And the rest:

Internationally, we got a couple more:

That last one, the “Stand with Ukraine,” was the best, and caught the spirit perfectly. We are living in a moment where there is a resistance to tyranny taking place, so why not lean into that message?

Ukraine Dispatch:

Another day, another early morning drone attack, this time targeting Kyiv and Odessa. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an “unscheduled” trip to the Hague to call for Putin to face a special tribunal once Ukraine wins the war. The first opportunity to arrest Putin may come in South Africa this summer, and there are those who are “confident” that South Africa will do the right thing. Zelenskyy also got assurances from the Dutch prime minister that talks are progressing on acquiring F-16s for Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1654199754358771722

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1654192129260900368

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Roundup: The scope of the transition

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As Alberta heads into an election, one can be certain that Danielle Smith is going to wield the threat of the supposed “just transition” as a cudgel to attack Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley. Nevertheless, there are issues around the future of work in the province as the oil and gas extraction industry changes—a process that began years ago, and is currently far more automated than it used to be.

As Andrew Leach points out, the scale of the issue is something that the province will need to grapple with.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The death toll from the overnight strike in Uman has risen to 23, with another two deaths from a separate strike in Dnipro. Ukrainian leadership say that they are “to a high percentage ready” to launch their spring counter-offensive, and that modern weapons will serve as an “iron first.” Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy hosted the presidents of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, while seven foreign ministers met with Ukraine’s foreign minister in Odessa, all of whom were expressing support for Ukraine as Ukraine pushes for more modern aircraft.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1651966751268278272

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Roundup: Andrew Scheer, media critic

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In the wake of Bill C-11 receiving royal assent, Conservatives have been doing a full court press on social media to denounce this supposed “censorship” bill (which is nothing of the sort—it obligates web giants and streaming services to report Canadian revenues and pay into media creation funds based on a percentage of those revenues). And because he’s a wannabe fourteen-year-old shitposting edgelord, Andrew Scheer is taking shots at the media about the reporting on this.

What you might notice is that Scheer is calling The Canadian Press newswire “CBC’s news service” because CBC is one of CP’s clients and the content they buy from the wire funds its operations. This, of course, taints CP in the Conservatives’ estimation, and Pierre Poilievre bullied a CP reporter about this at a press event a couple of weeks ago, and tried to insinuate that this means that they somehow fit stories to the government narrative in order to get that CBC money. It’s a complete fabrication, but it’s intended to be—this is all about flooding the field with bullshit.

Scheer goes on to complain about how the story is covered—because he’s a media critic, don’t you know. The story doesn’t quote a Conservative source, but it cites their (misleading) position that the bill is “censorship” (again, this is a lie), but because it’s CP, it rather obsequiously both-sides everything. It doesn’t actually call out the Conservative position as the bullshit that it is, but because it’s not complete stenography of the Conservative line, it must be “bought media” and advances this farcical notion that the government is “shutting down dissent.” Hardly.

But truth doesn’t matter to Scheer. He’s been trying to delegitimise mainstream media for years now (recall that he called True North (aka Rebel Lite™) and Post Millennial “credible” sources, which should tell you everything you need to know about Scheer’s media literacy skills and judgment). Even though the Conservatives have learned how to manipulate mainstream outlets with their persistent both-sidesing, and knowing that it lets them get away with lying, it’s not enough, because occasionally, that both-sidesing can showcase how much the Conservative narrative is full of falsehoods, and they couldn’t possibly have that. Best to have their own stenographers and ensure that only their narratives get out.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians made an overnight attack against civilian targets in a variety of cities, leaving at least five dead. Russian forces are also trying to cut off supply lines to Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut, but the Ukrainian forces have managed to resist these attacks, and take back some other sections of the city that Russians have been occupying. Ahead of the spring counteroffensive, some 98 percent of promised NATO aid has arrived in Ukraine, amounting to over 1550 armoured vehicles, 230 tanks, and “vast amounts” of ammunition. Here’s a look at mental health supports available for Ukrainian soldiers.

https://twitter.com/gerashchenko_en/status/1651785146142453765

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1651456287408832512

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Roundup: No authority to examine

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It was not unexpected, but the Auditor General did confirm yesterday that she wasn’t going to be looking into the Trudeau Foundation’s private donations because it’s not within her wheelhouse. Which is what I’ve been saying for over a week now—the Foundation isn’t a Crown corporation, its only reporting relationship to the Industry Minister is around the status of the initial endowment, and the Conservatives put them under the Access to Information and Privacy regime in 2007 because they put all kinds of organisation with a tangential relationship to government under the regime during their performative toughness. It doesn’t fall under the Financial Administration Act, so there is no basis for the AG to examine their books.

This news of course has the Bloc somewhat apoplectic, and they insist that if she doesn’t have the authority to look into their books, then Parliament should give her that authority. Which is, frankly, boneheaded. She already has more than enough work to do. The very last thing we need to do is turn her into some kind of roving commission of inquiry for MPs to sic her upon anyone who turns their ire (through a motion in the House of Commons that she would “consider”), especially because she’s already unaccountable for her parliamentary audits. Extending those into past Parliament or Crown corporations would be a disaster.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have bene trying to weaponise the Public Accounts Committee into looking into the Foundation, which again, is beyond their ambit. It’s especially beyond their ambit because the Auditor General hasn’t produced a report on them, and she won’t—because she has no authority to—so that particular committee has no authority to look into it. And yet, they voted on doing just so, but with the caveat of not calling any elected officials or members of the Trudeau family to testify. I can’t believe that the committee clerk didn’t warn the Chair this is out of bounds, but this is an opposition-chaired committee—in this case, Conservative John Williamson—and it sounds like he opted to ignore that warning and proceed anyway, which is incredibly poor form, especially since this whole exercise is about little more than letting Garnett Genuis perform for the cameras. And once again, we prove that ours is not a serious Parliament.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Estonia’s prime minister met with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the northwestern city of Zhytomyr, and said that she supports Ukraine’s accession to NATO “as soon as conditions allow” (which means the war has to be over and Russian forces no longer occupying territory).

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Roundup: Angst over a poor metric

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A lot of ink (or, well, pixels, I supposed) has been spilled over the past week about those leaked documents where Justin Trudeau allegedly told NATO leadership privately that Canada will never reach the two percent of GDP defence spending target, which shouldn’t be a shock to anyone who has paid a modicum of attention. And while we get these kinds of analysis pieces that try to dig more into the two percent target and its significance, we have to remember that it’s a lousy metric. Greece has been above it for years because of a stagnant economy and including military pensions in their calculations—and you can easily get to 2 percent of GDP by tanking your economy, while growing your economy makes that spending target increase impossibly. The other thing that the two percent metric doesn’t capture is engagement—Canada routinely steps up to meet its NATO commitments even without reaching the spending target, while certain European countries may meet the spending target but don’t participate in these missions (again, looking at you, Greece, but not just Greece).

Part of the problem is that while this is a conversation that requires some nuance, the two percent target is too easy for journalists to focus on, and that becomes the sole focus. It’s a problem because We The Media keep reducing this to a single binary “are we meeting/not meeting that two percent” rate, which doesn’t help advance the conversation in any way, but most of us refuse to learn because a simple binary is easier to understand/convey.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Fighting continues in the western part of Bakhmut, as Wagner Group mercenaries are worried about the coming Ukrainian counter-offensive. Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation says that new technologies are going to help them win the war, particularly as they enhance the accuracy of modern artillery.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1649397099300093954

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QP: That big, imaginary IOU

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The prime minister was present today, for the second day in a row, and all of the other leaders were as well, all eager to get their clips for their respective socials. Pierre Poilievre led off in English, unusually, and he chided the government for allowing the public service to go on strike, questioning his competence, and demanded to know how the prime minister would “fix the government he broke.” Justin Trudeau said that unlike the Conservatives, they respect unions, which is why they are making progress at the bargaining table. Poilievre switched to French, and repeated the same accusation of incompetence, and Trudeau reiterated his same response. In English, Poilievre moved onto the subject of the prime minister’s vacation and asserted that the stay at this resort comes with a “big IOU,” because those Trudeau Foundation donors would obviously expect something in return, and demanded that the prime minister pay back the “$80,000 gift.” Trudeau insisted that these were family friends, that he has stayed at this place many times since he was a year-old, and that they worked with the Ethics Commissioner to ensure the rules were followed. Poilievre insisted that they didn’t begrudge vacations, and that he took one at the same time on a Sunwing package that he paid for himself—which earned him sycophantic applause from his caucus—and demanded again to repay the cost of accommodation so that he “doesn’t owe anyone anything.” Trudeau once again reiterated that these are family friends for 50 years, and he has been to that resort many times with his family, and made mention of the security requirements. Poilievre repeated that this was about wealthy donors who expect IOUs and would have “inordinate influence” on him (so family friends wouldn’t have the same influence without the stay at their resort? Really?) to which Trudeau hit back about Poilievre running to billionaire tech giant fiends to attack local news, which Canadians should be concerned about.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he raised the Chinese donations to McGill and the Trudeau Foundation, citing it as being too close to Trudeau, so they needed a public inquiry. Trudeau insisted that they were after the wrong Trudeau, he is not his father, and has not had anything to do with the Foundation for a decade. Blanchet insisted that Trudeau must have known about the Green Family donation to the Foundation, and Trudeau insisted that because he doesn’t deal with the Foundation, he wasn’t aware.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, lamented that the civil service unions have gone on strike, took some jabs at the government and demanded that they negotiate a solution and not impose back-to-work legislation. Trudeau insisted that they continue to bargain in good faith. Singh repeated his demand in French, and got much the same response.

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Roundup: The optics ouroboros

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So, that big CBC/Radio-Canada “scoop” that dominated the news yesterday about Justin Trudeau’s Christmas vacation. Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I figured I would make a few remarks, because there were some very obvious things about it that were just being shrugged off, or actively ignored by some of my fellow journalists. To begin with, there is not a lot of substance to the story. It’s some typical cheap outrage—how dare the prime minister go on a luxury vacation on taxpayer dollars when there are people struggling in Canada—mixed with a specious connection that doesn’t mean anything in substance, but which looks bad when you make it sound sinister in order to fit it in with the current nonsense around the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Fit those two in a particular frame that makes it sound salacious, and you have the makings of a story that dominates Question Period. Congratulations! You’ve set the agenda for the day, you can pat yourselves on the back to your heart’s content.

But the whole connection to the Foundation is a construction that implies a relationship that doesn’t exist. Yes, the Trudeau and Green families have been friends for 50 years, but the donation to the Foundation was a bequest after the death of one of the Green family members, and it was done two years ago, which was eight years after Trudeau stepped away from any involvement in the Foundation. Implying that there was something untoward about the donation and then vacationing with Trudeau—who has been family friends his entire life—is simply scandal-mongering. And this gets justified with the pearl-clutching about “optics!” But you’re the one creating the optics with the distorted framing of the situation, so you’re literally inventing a mess that doesn’t actually exist, so that you can report on the invented mess, and then report on the follow-up reactions from other political leaders who will tut about “optics.” Which you created in the first place with your framing, like some kind of ouroboros. Very convenient, that.

None of this is to say that Trudeau shouldn’t know better than to take these kinds of trips, because he knows full well that there is an intrinsic culture of petty and mean cheapness in Canadian media, and that his opponents will take full advantage of it. And lo, the story also quotes unnamed Liberal Sources™ who are once again shocked and dismayed that the prime minister once again did something with poor optics, because that’s who he is. And Trudeau then made it worse, as pointed out in my QP recap, by not answering about the gift of the accommodations, which just perpetuates the story rather than cutting it off at the start. “Yes, I accepted the gift of the accommodations. Yes, the Ethics Commissioner cleared it. Yes, I paid the equivalent commercial rate for the flight.” And it stops their ability to try and stretch this into a scandal. But Trudeau and the people who advise his communications are so tone-deaf that they keep doing this. They keep stepping on every rake in their path, every single gods damned time.

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops in the eastern city of Avdiivka, which is facing an advance like Bakhmut, which itself is facing an increase in Russian shelling and air strikes. Ukraine has reached a deal with Poland about grain and other food products transiting that country, but the future of the Black Sea deal remains in doubt.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1648431809200553985

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QP: Interminable questions about Trudeau’s Xmas vacation

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Both the prime minister and his deputy were present, together, for the first time in probably two months, which should have been notable, but ended up not being as a result of today’s news cycle. Pierre Poilieve led off in French, cited a poll that said many Canadians had to cancel summer vacation plans, and then raised that CBC story about the prime minister’s Christmas vacation where he stayed at the villa of someone who donated to the Trudeau Foundation. (Note that this link is entirely specious), and asked if the prime minister paid for his lodgings at the villa. Justin Trudeau noted that he has been friends with that family for 50 years and that they worked with the Ethics Commissioner to ensure that all rules were followed, and if Poilievre was really preoccupied by the cost of living, he would support the budget. Poilievre switched to English to reiterate the question, with some added smarm, and Trudeau repeated his response with a couple of added attempted jabs. Poilievre insisted that nothing was free and demanded to know who much was paid for the accommodation, to which Trudeau noted that Poilievre seems to have struggle with the concept of friendship, and that this family friendship goes back fifty years, before he pivoted to Poilievre running to American billionaires in order to attack the local news that Canadians rely on. Poilievre insisted that this was about power and influence, and took a swipe at the Aga Khan, before Trudeau hit back that there were security considerations before chiding Poilievre for not voting to support Canadians. Poilievre took more swipes, including at the Queen’s funeral (which he termed “a vacation”) before deploying his tired “this prime minister is out of touch while Canadians are out of money” line. Trudeau said that if Poilievre cared about Canadians as he did about partisan attacks, he would support their plans for things like child care and dental care.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he took his own swing at the vacation story, and Trudeau insisted that the Ethics Commissioner cleared everything. Blanchet tried to pivot to that dubious Chinese donation to the Trudeau Foundation, and Trudeau stated bluntly he hasn’t had anything to do with the Foundation for ten years.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he demanded help for workers instead of CEOs. Trudeau recited his lines from a script about the grocery rebate and the help they are delivering. Singh repeated the question in French, and Trudeau repeated his response extemporaneously.

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Roundup: Troll-bait taken

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Well, Pierre Poilievre’s troll-bait worked, and everyone was frothing at the mouth over the application of “government-funded media” to CBC’s main Twitter account (but not its news accounts, or any of their French accounts). And the Conservatives lapped it up; Andrew Scheer, pleased as punch and in full smirking doofus mode, even gave a trollish member’s statement ahead of Question Period which was quickly clipped for use as a shitpost. In protest, CBC declared they would “pause” their use of Twitter, which just cedes the field the flood of bullshit. And then later in the day, Elon Musk decided to adjust his tag to say “70% government-funded,” as if it makes a difference to the insinuation Poilievre was trying to impart, only for a short while later, change that to “69% government-funded,” because this is Musk and Poilievre we’re talking about, and they have the mentality of twelve-year-olds in their quest to become shitposting edgelords.

 

Justin Trudeau, somewhat cleverly, noted that Poilievre ran to the arms of American web-giant billionaires to support his attack on Canadians, which bolsters the Liberals’ narrative about their legislation to curb the power of web giants and forcing them to pay into the Canadian content ecosystem (which the Conservatives have been falsely decrying as government censorship). The NDP and the Bloc went with the tactic of calling this an attack on Quebec culture, which may do more damage to the Conservatives in the province where they are hoping to make inroads.

But this is all culture war bullshit, and yet, people fell for the troll bait. The Liberals immediately tried to fundraise off of this, and played right into the Conservatives’ hands.

I did note that three former CBC bureau chiefs did impart their experiences about editorial independence, and governments going after them for their reporting, which is not exactly the narrative that Poilievre has been trying to prompt.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The Ukrainian grain deal is threatened as Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have all banned Ukrainian grain as part of protectionist measures, and the EU is likely to mount some kind of response. The prisoner exchange on Sunday saw 130 Ukrainians returned, but it’s not clear how many Russians were turned over. A top Ukrainian official said that they will launch their counteroffensive when they’re good and ready, and not before.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1648018653885898756

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1647891561915596800

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