Tag Archives: Lawful Access

Roundup: The tedious nonsense around food price inflation

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The inflation numbers were out yesterday, which meant that it was time once again for Pierre Poilievre to mislead everybody with a headline number that doesn’t say what he thinks it does, and frankly, The Canadian Press was not helping. Food inflation was not actually 7.3 percent. Not really. Grocery prices are 4.8 percent, but because of last year’s stupid “GST holiday,” the price index for food from restaurants spiked in comparison, so there was a 12.1 percent year-over-year hike in that index, which completely skewed the overall food index. (Incidentally, there’s a reason why the Bank of Canada generally strips out food and energy prices from their “core” measures, because they are volatile and the Canadian government has little influence over them).

Poilievre, however, took that 7.3 percent figure, and called a press conference and published an open letter about the “Liberal Hunger Crisis,” and he is begging the prime minister to do something about it. That something, of course, is to gut environmental policies by destroying industrial carbon pricing, clean fuel regulations, and plastic regulations, each of which has virtually fuck all to do with the price of food (seriously, their impact works out to about statistically zero), but has everything to do with his crusade against any and all environmental regulations, because he believes they’re killing investment. (Just wait until he hears what contaminated groundwater and poisoned waterways does for investment. And votes). But this act where Poilievre insists he’s “trying to help” is just tedious. He’s not helping. He’s lying about the causes (which he should be able to read), and we went through this same song and dance with the consumer carbon levy, and when Carney killed it, prices didn’t change. Just stop.

This is such tedious bullshit.The 7.3% figure is driven by food at restaurants, because a year ago, there was the "GST holiday" and a year-over-year price comparison from that is skewed. Food at stores actually moderated last month.Also, Carney doesn't control Brazil's climate for coffee beans. 1/

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-17T19:59:39.814Z

And the worst part of this is that when Question Period is back on next week, Poilievre will keep up this whole act, and he’ll beg and plead for the government to do something, and will the government point out any of the facts in the StatsCan report? Will they even bother to correct that the index on food from stores was actually down last month? Nope. They will instead pat themselves on the back for their enhanced/badly rebranded GST credit, and then talk about the school food programme, and the Canada Child Benefit, and maybe dental care, or OAS for seniors, but they won’t put any gods damned facts on the table and counter any of the lies Poilievre tells to justify his nonsense. Because that’s how they insist on rolling.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-02-17T15:08:04.114Z

In case you missed it:

  • My Xtra column on the federal NDP leadership race and the particular crossroads that the party finds itself at.
  • My latest for National Magazine on Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision, upholding Newfoundland & Labrador’s COVID restrictions.
  • My weekend column on the government’s political cowardice in refusing to actually do something about the RCMP (like breaking it up) when the Force is broken.
  • My column on the apparent deal struck between the government and Conservatives on getting the budget bill passed, and why this shows the problems in Parliament.

New episodes released early for C$7+ subscribers. This week, I'm talking about Bill C-4 and what federal political parties want to do with your personal data. #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-17T02:26:33.961Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Twelve Ukrainian regions came under attack as more “peace talks” are underway, while Ukraine struck an oil refinery in the Krasnodar region. President Zelenskyy says that Trump is trying to pressure him to give up territory to Russia.

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Roundup: Disabusing a conspiracy theory

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At the Commons’ heritage committee, there was a bit of a showdown between the Conservatives’ heritage critic, Rachael Thomas, and minister Marc Miller, and it’s an indication of just how stupid the online discourse is right now. You see, a couple of weeks ago, there was a conference in Ottawa for independent film and television producers, and the president of the Canadian Media Producers Association said that they have the prime minister’s back. Immediately, every far-right and bad faith conservative on social media claimed that this was media declaring their bias for the government, when the “media” in question is film and scripted television, not journalism.

Thomas, however, went into this exchange trying to corner Miller to “prove” that this was about journalists being in the tank for Carney. Miller disabused her of that notion, but she kept it up online afterward, completely discrediting herself in the process, but this is part of her shtick—making wildly incredulous claims, which sound absolutely ridiculous to you and I, but to a segment of very online people are absolute catnip. Things like her saying on the floor of the House of Commons that Justin Trudeau was a “dictator.” I wish I was kidding.

https://twitter.com/MarcMillerVM/status/2022019724943798359

There’s a reason why Thomas does this, with Poilievre’s blessing, is because it creates a separate reality for these very online people, which is a darker and more dystopian version of the country that they believe is going to hell around them (often “because woke” or some other such nonsense), but it fuels them with this urgency about how they need to “save” the country from itself, and if that just happens to mean that they need to do it by undemocratic means, well, that’s just what they’ll have to do. Having watched the bifurcated American media create separate news ecosystems that in turn became separate realities for Democrats and Republicans, Conservatives in this country have been salivating at the opportunity to do the same, and Thomas is happy to give them fodder to construct this false reality that they radicalise themselves with. It’s good that Miller is at least one of the very few members of the government to call this out, but also note that in the reporting, The Canadian Press very carefully both-sides her comments rather than simply declaring that she is making shit up, and that is a problem in and of itself, because the Conservatives learned that they can just outright lie and legacy media won’t call them on it. Thomas took that lesson to heart more than most, and this kind of stunt at committee is the result.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-02-12T22:27:02.144Z

Programming Note: I am taking the full long weekend off from the blog.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian attacks have again left people without power in Kyiv, Dnipro and Odesa, however the weather has been warming, which is reducing the energy deficit. Ukraine says two Nigerians were found fighting for Russia after a drone strike in Luhansk.

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QP: Grousing about the PM’s travels

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With the PM still in Abu Dhabi, other leaders opted not to show up as well, nor did Pierre Poilievre did show, so it was up to Andrew Scheer to lead off in English, where he breathily recited the script about things get worse every time Mark Carney travels. Maninder Sidhu read a response about Carney signing a Foreign Investment and Promotion Agreement with the UAE. Scheer then pivoted to the tanker ban on BC’s northwest coast, and wondered if American tankers were included. Tim Hodgson read a non-response about working with stakeholders about a potential pipeline. Scheer then answered his own question and railed that American can still travel those waters, and said the government was hampering its own industry. Hodgson dismissed this as empty anger. Pierre Paul-Hus took over in French to repeat the same snide remarks about Carney’s travels, to which Dominic LeBlanc said that his colleague across the way might be confused, and praised the agreement signed in the UAE. Paul-Hus claimed that the government was elected on false pretences, before pivoting to the CRA and the problems with the call centres. Joël Lightbound assures him that they are well on the way with their 100-day plan, and things were getting better. Paul-Hus noted the cuts that were made by the previous minister, and demanded that the government treat this like an emergency. Lightbound insisted that it was what they were doing, and the online portals were now working.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc lambasted Carney for choosing travel to a petro-monarchy instead of the COP30 conference in Brazil. Stephen MacKinnon said that he chose to be in Ottawa to vote for the budget. Normandin accused the government of setting the country back ten years on climate, and MacKinnon assured her that the UAE is one of top ten investors in renewable energy. Patrick Bonin repeated the same accusations, to which Julie Dabrusin assured him that she was at the conference and that they were Building Canada Strong™.

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QP: Credit cards and a prima donna PBO

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The PM was in the building, but was entertaining the King and Queen of Sweden, so he was not present for QP today. Pierre Poilievre was, however, and he led off in French, declaring that Canadians needed an “affordable budget,” but that the prime minster was “creating more inflation,” and cited the PBO on the size of the deficit—ignoring that that’s not what is driving inflation, and it’s really not what is causing food price inflation. Poilievre demanded the government account for the extra $5000 in inflation the budget would create (huh?), and François-Philippe Champagne said he was glad that Poilievre read the summary of the budget, but listed the things that they voted against. Poilievre rhetorically asked what Canadians were getting for the prime minister’s travel, listing places where tariffs had increased. Champagne retorted that Canadians were wondering how the Canadians dared to vote against Canada. Poilievre switched to English, repeated his lines about the size of the deficit and what the PBO said, and again wondered how single moms and seniors can pay another five grand in inflation (which, again, is not how inflation works). Champagne deployed his “take no lessons” line, and listed the things the Conservatives voted against. Poilievre mocked that he didn’t think anyone could cram that many slogans into an answer, and this was coming from him, before he listed the drop in housing starts. Gregor Robertson said that he was ignoring the year-to-date figures, which said that housing starts were up five percent (which is also pretty selective as the biggest markets are down). Poilievre then retired to the question about the trips Carney took and the tariffs that increased from those counties as a result. Maninder Sidhu got up to praise the good news of Germany buying a billion dollars in military equipment from Canada. Poilievre broke the prop rules to show a blank list of tariffs that were reduced, and Sidhu read a script about Poilievre referring to non-oil exports as “pixie dust.”

Christine Normandin rose for the Bloc, and worried about TVA and the layoffs they are facing, demanding federal actions. Steven Guilbeault said it was incomprehensible that the Bloc would raise this while they voted against the budget and the historic investments in culture therein. Normandin tried to play this as Ottawa not caring about their television, and Guilbeault again listed the cultural investments the Bloc voted against. Martin Champoux took over to say there was nothing for private broadcasters in the budget, and again demanded federal action. Steven MacKinnon gave a similar response about the investments in Quebec that the Bloc voted against.

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Roundup: Poilievre’s second backtrack attempt

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Still under fire for his comments about Justin Trudeau and the “despicable” leadership at the RCMP, Pierre Poilievre has been forced to backtrack a second time. The first was his tactic of issuing clarifications only to media outlets and not his social media or party channels, and that didn’t mollify people, so this time he held a media availability and insisted that he didn’t say what we all heard him say, and then sent his MPs out to do media to also overly parse what his language was, and to try and spin it to say something other than what we all heard him say, and to insist that what we all heard him say was out of context. (It was not). He is now claiming that he didn’t say Trudeau should be jailed—only that he “clearly” broke a law that would impose jailtime (even though it was not clear he broke said law), and that clearly isn’t the same thing. Kind of like how they’re not scapegoating immigrants, they’re just criticising Liberal immigration policy (wink).

Meanwhile, members of his caucus are getting restive, and while they all made a big show of publicly supporting him, several have been quietly talking to media outlets about their dissatisfaction. While some are saying they’re undecided if they want to vote for him continuing in the leadership review, I also suspect that there are very few Conservatives in the caucus who have the spine or the intestinal fortitude to actually vote against him, no matter how inappropriate the comment, because there are precious few MPs in any party who would dare stand against their leader and face the wrath of having their nomination papers go unsigned.

Carney Speech

Prime minister Mark Carney gave a speech last night that was intended as a kind of pre-budget positioning, but also a kind of victory lap to pat themselves on the back for all of the work they’ve been doing since the election. Carney promised that the budget was going to unleash all kinds of private sector investment, but I also feel like we’ve been hearing that refrain for the past two decades and not a lot of it has really materialized. He said he wants to double non-US exports over the next decade. He spoke about “betting big,” and getting back to a culture of doing big things, but the thing about that kind of talk is that it ignores the people who were impacted by that, most particularly Indigenous people who were displaced or exploited in the process. He said that this is going to take more than a few months and can’t happen overnight, but he also talked about “sacrifices,” particularly as he talks about cutting government spending.

My problem with this particular rhetoric is that he never quite makes it clear who will be making those sacrifices, and you can be damn sure it’s not CEOs or rich white dudes. In fact, you can pretty much set your watch by the fact that the “sacrifices” are going to be on the backs of women’s programmes, queer/trans people and other minority groups whose funding is going to be slashed to nothing, it’s going to be the poor who will find that programming designed to assist them will be gone (but hey, they’ll get their benefits thanks to automatic filing, whenever that actually happens). We’ve seen this happen time and again, and the cycle of time is coming around once again, and Carney is making no move to stop it and finding a new path.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-22T22:02:55.404Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The fairly massive attack early Wednesday targeted several cities and killed six, including two children, as a kindergarten was struck. Russia claims it took two more villages in Donetsk region. Sweden has signed a letter of intent about supplying 150 Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine.

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Roundup: More than just the CRA in the Auditor General’s gaze

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It was Auditor General Day yesterday, and boy were there some doozies. Pretty much all of the media attention was focused on the CRA audit, and the finding that call centres pretty much didn’t answer the phones, and when they did, they only gave correct information about seventeen percent of the time in the calls the Auditor General’s office made—yikes! The government is quibbling with the methodology, because of course they are, but also calling the report “constructive criticism” instead of “scathing,” and because these are the Liberals, François-Philippe Champagne thundered that the “good news” was that they had already started their one-hundred-day action plan to fix things without waiting for the report. (No, seriously—he declared this to be “good news” in Question Period). That said, when pressed about whether inadequate staffing was a problem, and what the coming civil service cuts were going to mean, the Secretary of State, Wayne Long, had no answer for it, which you would think is a pretty important detail considering just how embarrassing this is for the government. He also had no answers as to why things deteriorated this badly under the Liberal watch, and just kept saying that he was appointed on May 13th. Come on.

But there were plenty of other reports that were also not good:

  • There are plenty of cybersecurity vulnerabilities, not the least of which is because Shared Services Canada still can’t do their jobs properly since they were established under Harper.
  • Military housing is tremendously inadequate and much of it in a state of disrepair, and housing for single members is needed most especially.
  • Military recruitment is a gong show, and they couldn’t even ask why twelve out of every thirteen applicants abandoned their application.
  • There are still barriers to ending the remaining boil water advisories on First Nations reserves, even though they’ve been at this for a decade, and half of previous AG recommendations still haven’t been implemented.

The good news is that most of the legacy media outlets actually sent reporters to do reporting on these reports rather than just relying on CP wire copy, but really, only the CRA story got attention in QP and on the evening talking head shows, which is too bad because there was plenty more to talk about. But that’s indicative of the state of media these days.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-21T14:08:04.164Z

Ukraine Dispatch

There was a Russian attack on Kyiv overnight. Ukraine struck a Russian chemical plant with its newly acquired Storm Shadow missiles, which was a key supplier of gun powder and rocket fuel.

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Roundup: Cold water on that fantasy pipeline

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Ever since Alberta premier Danielle Smith started her latest scheme of trying to get the ball rolling on a bitumen pipeline to the northwest coast of BC, everyone has been trying to get some kind of answer as to whether this project—which has no actual proponents, no route, and no hint of buyer contracts—is going to get some kind of fast-track approval. Of course, that’s the kind of thing that the government’s Major Projects Office push has engendered by its very existence, because Smith and the Conservatives federally have been ratcheting up their rhetoric to stake the future of the country on this imaginary project.

At a committee appearance, Major Projects Office CEO Dawn Farrell didn’t answer MPs questions as to whether her powers include being able to violate the BC tanker ban, which would be essential for such a project to happen. But of course, this response was because there is no project, no route, nothing to judge any hypotheticals on, so the safest course is not to answer, because hypotheticals have a way of spinning out of control. And such a question may not wind up mattering at all, because natural resources minister Tim Hodgson came out to say that any pipeline through BC needs approval of the provincial government and affected First Nations. So good luck with that.

So now we will start seeing the fallout from this, with more threats from Danielle Smith, and howling denunciations from the Conservatives. Apparently, the country can’t work so long as we have things like environmental laws, and who cares that oil production increased while emissions as a whole declined (though not necessarily within the sector), so it’s not like those laws were exactly detrimental to the sector. “Oh, but we could have been making even more money!” Really? Would pumping more supply into the market not have possibly depressed prices? There is no guarantee that just trashing our environmental laws would increase investment and make us more prosperous, because things are complex, and climate change has costs. We need to start talking about that fact.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-09T14:05:25.084Z

Programming Note: I’m going to take the full long weekend off, so have a great Thanksgiving everyone.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian attack on Kyiv hit an apartment building and targeted energy sites. Here is a look at the use of saboteurs in the war, both in Russia recruiting them in Ukraine, and Ukraine employing them within Russia. President Zelenskyy is taking credit of the gas shortages in Russia, thanks to new missile and drone strikes against Russian energy facilities. That could be one reason why the Russian war economy has stalled, forcing producers to furlough staff.

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Roundup: Pipeline necromancy in the discussions

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With the prime minister back in Canada, a couple of additional things were made known about the meeting with Trump, and one of them was the fact that the “energy” portion of their conversation involved Mark Carney floating the possibility of reviving the Keystone XL pipeline. For those of you unaware, this is entirely an American decision—all of the infrastructure on the Canadian side of the border is pretty much in place, and this project was never in contention. The Trudeau government supported it, but the resistance was on the American side of the border, not only from environmental concerns, but also because there were conspiracy theories developing in places like Nebraska that this was a secret ploy to drain their aquifers. No, seriously. Nevertheless, this is something that the proponent abandoned after Biden rescinded the permits (even though part of the network was built and renamed), so it would need someone to pick it up again.

Meanwhile, US commerce secretary Howard Lutnick spoke virtually at a Eurasia Group event in Toronto, and said that there will be no tariff-free auto deal with Canada, that the most we can hope for is a relationship around auto parts, and that Canada needs to get used to coming in second place to the US. Lutnick also expressed a desire to replace the New NAFTA with bilateral deals rather than a trilateral agreement with Mexico. When Carney later addressed the same event virtually, he said that the government will come to some bilateral agreements with the US, and spoke of “granular discussions” around steel and aluminium tariffs, but didn’t address these comments, just as he didn’t address the reports of Lutnick’s remarks during QP.

It’s hard to know what to make of any of this. After insisting that there was a “rupture” in our trade relationship, this is yet one more proposal to deepen integration and reliance on the American market…but it’s also probably the most viable pipeline for Alberta (though there are proposals to optimise the capacity of the Trans Mountain Expansion that would increase its maximum capacity for west coast exports—not that it’s anywhere near capacity at the moment). On the other hand, if they want to pay for our oil, and also pay their own tariffs to do so, then why not take their money? None of this is going to stop Danielle Smith or the Conservatives from demanding that Carney rip up all of the government’s environmental legislation so that they can crank up production with no consequences (even though there are absolutely environmental consequences that are getting more and more expensive each year), and this isn’t going to create that many jobs in the sector, even if production is increased, given that they are increasingly relying on automation and have been since the last price crash in 2014. But everything is stupid all the time, so this is no exception.

effinbirds.com/post/7804636…

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-08T13:25:07.008Z

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that Ukrainian forces are inflicting heavy losses on the Russians in a counter-offensive in the Donetsk region.

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Roundup: Managing the expectations from Washington

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Monday was a weird day of expectations management as prime minister Mark Carney headed to Washington for a “working lunch” with Trump to happen today. There were murmurs from Senior Government Sources™ that there could be some kind of relief for some—but not all—of the steel and aluminium tariffs, but those were heavily caveated and is not going to be any kind of comprehensive tariff deal, because Trump loves his tariffs. (And there is no deal to be had). Oh, and while all of this expectations management was going on, Trump declared new 25 percent tariffs on medium and heavy-duty trucks. Because of course.

Amidst this, Pierre Poilievre released a peevish open-letter to Carney that demanded “no more losing” when it comes to dealing with Trump, and a list of things he wants “wins” on, whether it’s tariffs or softwood lumber, or what have you. Because remember, under this framing, Trump is the rational actor and Carney is the one who is the inept negotiator who simply can’t get anything done. Reality of course, is entirely the opposite, that you can’t really negotiate with Trump because he has no logical basis or consistency for his “deals,” and anything he agrees to isn’t worth the paper its written on (if it’s even written down, as some “deals” were nothing more than blank pages with a signature on it).

To that end, Andrew Scheer went on Power & Politics looking to pick a fight with David Cochrane about this, and when Cochrane pointed out that yes indeed, Trump’s tariffs are both affecting our economy and we still do have the best deal of anyone with Trump, that Scheer twisted this into “agreeing” that Carney’s ineptitude has cratered the economy and soured any deal with Trump, because Scheer is a liar and a braying doofus. But this is what everyone has to deal with when it comes to the level of rhetoric and sheer sophistry coming from the Conservatives these days, which is not exactly conducive to informed debate.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-06T22:08:02.378Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine’s forces say that Russian sabotage groups are active in the city of Pokrovsk, which Russians have been trying to capture for months. Ukraine’s long-range drones have struck a Russian ammunition plant, a key oil terminal, and an important weapons depot.

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Roundup: NSICOP vs lawful access

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Yesterday, the CBC’s national security reporter filed a story about the NSICOP report into lawful access, which was frankly a poor piece of journalism. The story merely quoted from the report without any outside comment, but more than that, the focus and entire framing of the story was more on the frustrations of police and CSIS that they don’t have lawful access tools—and by lawful access, we mean the ability of police or intelligence services to access your digital online history and movements, usually without a judicial warrant. This is very bad. In fact, it’s so bad that the Supreme Court of Canada has twice ruled that it’s unconstitutional, and that police can’t even get your ISP information without a warrant because it offers too much access to the “digital breadcrumbs” of your online life that it can and will violate your privacy.

This is not mentioned in the CBC story. The report talks extensively about the Supreme Court’s definition of privacy and why it’s important, and why it’s important to try and find pathways for information that still require a judicial warrant, and so on. But how was this reported in the story? A single sentence: “It dives into one of the most controversial issues in national security: balancing the individual right to privacy while safeguarding public safety.” If that’s not soft-pedalling one of the major problems underpinning this whole report, I’m not sure what is. And then the story goes back to enumerating the complaints about how hard it is to access that data.

I do think that the NSICOP report’s findings are a problematic in places because it essentially wants Parliament to thread that needle in a way that makes it sound easy.

In the Committee’s view, the primary way the government could facilitate and enable national security investigations while at the same time protecting Canadians’ right to privacy would be to modernize lawful access legislation, based on clearly articulated principles that reaffirm the requirement for a legitimate need for exceptional, targeted and judicially authorized access emphasize privacy and cybersecurity protections, and define transparency and oversight mechanisms. In light of the complexity of the lawful access challenge, the Committee suggests that the government implement an incremental approach to allow for meaningful engagement with stakeholders and a diversity of input.

I also question the wisdom of encouraging a comprehensive data-sharing agreement with the US, given that they are no longer a functional democracy and it’s probably a very bad thing if their authorities have easy access to Canadians’ data for their own purposes. And these are real problems that Parliament needs to confront, in both the (terrible) omnibus border bill C-2, which has lawful access provisions in it, or how it and the cyber-security bill, C-8, can try and force companies to put in backdoors to their encryption (which at least the NSICOP report says is a bad idea). This is a very problematic area of law, but that CBC story did absolute injustice to it, and most especially about the absolute importance of privacy rights, and why we shouldn’t make it easy for police to access our data whenever they claim it’s necessary (especially because CSIS has a history of not being candid with the courts about why they need information or warrants).

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine has hit Russian oil infrastructure in both the Bryansk and Samara regions, which is widening the fuel crisis in that country. Under the theory that Trump repeats whatever the last person he was speaking to says, he was saying that Ukraine can win the war and reclaim their territory with NATO help.

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