Tag Archives: Mark Carney

Roundup: A mere reminder to respect international law

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Well, that kind of felt like a close one, as Trump made genocidal threats against Iran, and then backed down at the very last minute for a two-week ceasefire (negotiated by Pakistan?!) that would seem to effectively hand over control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran’s control in exchange for extortion payments? Maybe? There are a lot of competing narratives, nut none of them are any good, and the most that Mark Carney could muster himself to do was to say that “all parties” must respect International Law. Well then.

Meanwhile, you had Americans on social media imploring the rest of the world to Do Something about Trump, when he’s their president and they have all of the tools to remove him at their disposal if they were to so choose, and they could have spent the day protesting in the streets nation-wide, and made it really uncomfortable for their government, but nope. It’s not even learned helplessness—it’s an absolute refusal to both understand their own civics, and take responsibility for their actions.

Trump expects the rest of the world to clean up his mess in Iran, while American voters expect the rest of the world to clean up the mess they made in electing Trump.Just perfect. Chef's kiss.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-04-07T16:03:58.527Z

Back home, Mark Carney says he’s looking at ways to “cushion the blow” of high gas prices as a result of this conflict, while he keeps having to answer questions about why gasoline prices are so high when we produce our own at home. He never seems to want to explain why we are bound to the world price (i.e. so that we can export into the global market), and also never gets around to saying that the last time the federal government proposed price controls on oil and gas, well, Alberta has an absolute meltdown that they still harbour zombie resentment toward today (even though they blamed the NEP for the collapse in prices when it was, in fact, a global oil price shock, but it was more convenient to blame Pierre Trudeau and it stuck).

In case you missed it:

  • For National Magazine, I delve into whether there is any basis for the Chief Justice to recuse himself if the Supreme Court hears the Emergencies Act appeal.
  • My weekend column looks at a recent push by some senators to start using the tools at their disposal to break up omnibus budget bills.
  • My column notes that Poilievre treats “cutting wasteful spending” as the very same kind of magical money tree that the NDP does when it comes to wealth taxes.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take finds it a problem that Poilievre is evaluating the effectiveness of his shadow cabinet based on their social media presence.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians attacked two busses in Dnipropetrovsk, killing eight people and injuring more than two dozen others. Ukraine has regained more territory along the frontlines in the east and southeast parts of the country. There is a looming shortage of the miniature jet engines that Ukraine’s deep-strike drones require.

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Roundup: The Senate rumour mill churns

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There has been a raft of rumours out about the Senate the past couple of days, the latest being that there could be yet another caucus forming, possibly out yet another split within the Independent Senators Group, because there is some friction over the current leadership—erm, “facilitatorship”—and that is not entirely unsurprising. The ISG is large and unwieldy, and when you have that many type-A people in a room who all have their own ideas on how to do things, and their own agendas, it’s little wonder that they can barely organise themselves to do anything. So we’ll see if this happens, but nevertheless, I can confirm that I’ve heard grumblings about the current state of the ISG.

Meanwhile, there is another rumour circulating, both from the Globe and Mail and iPolitics that prime minister Mark Carney is looking to appoint Tom Pitfield to the Senate—the same Tom Pitfield who won a turf war within the PMO that saw David Lametti take a job as UN ambassador instead of the post he was supposed to take up within PMO. The rumours also state that he would take over as Government Leader in the Senate and take up a seat in Cabinet like the post is supposed to be, but this too is being denied. The source of this rumour also hints that Carney is going to start appointing partisan Liberals to the Senate again, which I’m not necessarily opposed to, provided that there is no expectation of a whip, which never really existed in the Senate before, but with almost no former Liberal senators left, the new batch may be under some false pretences.

Meanwhile, I find myself baffled by the notion that Carney is looking to appoint Pitfield and partisans in order to move bills through the Senate, as though there is obstruction happening there. There is not. Government bills are passing through at a pace that is actually too fast for proper scrutiny in many cases because of an exaggerated sense of faux urgency, while the real problem remains in the House of Commons, which has barely passed any legislation, leaving senators bored and preoccupied with their own hobby-horse bills, and frankly, some of this talk about splitting caucuses is likely a result of that boredom.

Programming Note: I will be taking the full long weekend off. See you next Wednesday.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a daytime drone attack and killed four people in the central Cherkasy region, damaging more energy infrastructure. Russia also claims to have fully taken control of the Luhansk region, which Ukraine denies. Ukraine struck a missile component factory in Russia’s Bryansk region.

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Roundup: Danielle Smith’s Soviet-style political neutrality

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Yesterday was Trans Day of Visibility, and because of the times we live in, it was treated as an excuse to attack trans rights. In the US, the US Supreme Court struck down Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy in an 8-1 ruling, under the ludicrous rubric that banning “talk therapy” was impacting free speech (even though talk therapy should be classed as medical services, as the dissenting judge pointed out). And in Idaho, the governor signed a bill to make it a felony for a trans person to use a public washroom that is not their assigned sex at birth.

Back in Canada, Alberta premier Danielle Smith tabled a bill that purports to “remove politics and ideology” from schools, which among other things, means ensuring there are no Pride flags ever raised at Alberta schools. (Noted is that the current ban on informing parents if a student joins a GSA is not being changed). There are a lot of questions around what this is supposed to mean, and whether it’s only in classrooms, or if teachers are allowed to post opinions online, or anything like that, but it’s a weird and troubling decision by Smith to pursue this particular line of attack, and especially because it’s going to create a system of surveillance and denunciations, which is starting to sound pretty Soviet for a self-professed “libertarian” like Smith.

This can be taken is so many dangerous directions. And once something like this is enshrined in legislation, it creates a culture of surveillance where educators are going to live in fear of being secretly recorded and reported (look at what's happening in the U.S.!!)

— Mel Woods (@melwoods.me) 2026-03-31T21:14:57.962Z

The bill seeks to "bar school divisions or employees from making statements on “political, social or ideological matters” outside the school division’s purview."Curious if the government will think a teacher talking about being LGBTQ2S+ issues at all is "outside the school division's purview."

— Mel Woods (@melwoods.me) 2026-03-31T21:07:49.094Z

"Nicolaides also wouldn’t say whether the flag limitation would apply to stickers or magnets or other imagery teachers might have in their classrooms, except to say they can’t have ideological symbols."In a similar vein, could teachers get in trouble having, say, a Pride flag sticker on desk?

— Mel Woods (@melwoods.me) 2026-03-31T21:09:05.569Z

For a government who loves free speech, this seems a massive affront to freedom of expression for teachers and school staff on like, a very basic level.Very curious what the unions will say about all of this …

— Mel Woods (@melwoods.me) 2026-03-31T21:10:49.732Z

This in and of itself is a problem—it treats straight, white men as the default norm, and everyone else as “political,” and when you are effacing queer and trans people in the dame of “neutrality,” that is very, very political and is not neutral in the slightest. And Smith is going to keep getting away with this kind of thing because nobody is protesting around the clock or organizing a general strike to stop her.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian drones struck the Russian oil terminal at Ust-Luga for the fifth time in ten days. European diplomats were in Bucha to commemorate the 2022 massacre by Russian forces there. President Zelenskyy is hoping the Americans can convince Russia to enter into an “Easter truce” (and good luck with that).

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Roundup: Lewis on the first ballot

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Avi Lewis won the NDP leadership race on the first ballot on Sunday, with Heather McPherson a distant second, and surprisingly, Tanille Johnson came in third and Rob Ashton fourth.  Of course, there was chatter over social media that there were Palestinian flags on the stage when this happened by no Canadian flags, so make of that what you will. While there is a lot of talk about how “radical” Lewis’ ideas are, most of them are within the mainstream of the party, though they still suffer from some of the same problems of feasibility and inability to distinguish between federal and provincial roles, so we’ll see how that starts to play itself out.

Congratulations to Avi Lewis on your election as NDP leader.As Prime Minister I will always take a collaborative approach to how we build a stronger Canada, and I look forward to speaking about how we can work together to keep delivering for Canadians.

— Mark Carney (@mark-carney.bsky.social) 2026-03-29T16:29:29.516Z

Thank you to Don Davies for your service as Interim Leader of the NDP over this past year, and for your work to create new opportunities together for Canadian workers.

— Mark Carney (@mark-carney.bsky.social) 2026-03-29T16:29:29.517Z

Poilievre's congratulations to Avi Lewis.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-29T20:51:23.374Z

https://twitter.com/yfblanchet/status/2038279508462010734

Almost immediately, there was reaction from the two prairie provincial wings of the party, as Naheed Nenshi and Carla Beck immediately sought to distance themselves from Lewis, just as Danielle Smith and Scott Moe immediately pounced to insist that you’re the same party, and that we’re going to tar you with the same brush. Because that’s helpful. Even Wab Kinew, who spoke at the convention, is putting some distance between himself and Lewis, so this could be very interesting moving forward.

Alberta NDP Leader @naheednenshi.bsky.social immediately distances his party from the federal party. This statement just out, minutes after @avilewis.ca becomes federal NDP leader. #cdnpoli

— davidakin (@davidakin.bsky.social) 2026-03-29T15:30:29.000Z

https://twitter.com/punditsguide/status/2038286835101876641

And on top of that, the calls from within the party to start the purge of the disloyal, citing that Jeremy Corbyn didn’t do it effectively enough with Labour in the UK. Because that’s totally how you build a movement that can attract votes.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-29T20:02:15.977Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian attacks early Saturday his port infrastructure in Odesa, as well as a maternity hospital. Early Sunday, a strike on Kramatorsk killed three and injured at least thirteen. Ukraine is closing in on several agreements with Gulf states about protection from Iranian drones, with Zelenskyy currently in Jordan.

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Roundup: Poilievre’s anti-trans colours

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Yesterday, Pierre Poilievre tweeted an endorsement of JK Rowling praising the International Olympic Committee’s decision to ban trans women from sport, using a photo of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif as illustration. In spite of conspiracy theories and slander, Khelif is not trans (and is from a country where being queer is a crime). Poilievre should know this, but he is choosing to double down on anti-trans rhetoric (with a dose of misogyny and slander along the way). This is not the first time he has shown himself to be anti-trans, but this is the first major opportunity since he’s been trying to cast himself in a new light.

In case you needed any clarification where Poilievre stands on trans rights.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-27T17:16:48.712Z

The discussion of this online turned to Mark Carney’s stance on trans rights (he has been blandly supportive, and one of his children identifies as non-binary), and whether he is going to do anything about provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan, who have invoked the Notwithstanding Clause to protect their anti-trans legislation from court challenges. The answer is that he doesn’t have the constitutional tools to do anything about it other than moral suasion. And then someone will pipe up and say that he can use disallowance.

No, he can’t. Disallowance is a constitutional dead letter because it was largely meant to prevent provinces from intruding into areas of federal jurisdiction, and that power was essentially adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada’s reference function. This means that any residual disallowance power would be a declaration of war on a province, at a time when you have two provinces that are flirting with separatist agitation. It’s not going to happen. Stop pretending that it’s a possibility because it’s not.

For the last time:The federal government is NOT going to use disallowance.Stop pretending it is a magic wand to deal with asshole premiers. You want to stop them? Get off your ass and organize, organize, organize. That's how politics works.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-28T04:36:47.504Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-27T13:24:01.622Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine’s economy minister said that the rise in fuel and fertilizer prices thanks to the Iran conflict are not expected to impact Ukraine’s spring planting season.

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Roundup: Hallucinating an immigration application

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There were a couple of immigration stories of note yesterday, the first of which was the revelation that a post-doc researcher at McMaster University—who has a PhD from the Sorbonne—had her permanent residency application rejected because it looks like the immigration department used generative digital asbestos to process the claim and it hallucinated a bunch of things about her job. Worse, while there was a disclaimer about the use of said digital asbestos, it said that a human verified it, which someone clearly did not. This is outrageous, and exactly the kind of thing that some of us were warning about when Mark Carney and Evan Solomon crowed about how great this digital asbestos was going to be for the productivity and efficiency of the civil service. Clearly that’s not the case, and now they not only need to redo her application, but it demonstrates what most of us knew was going to happen—that the humans were going to start cutting corners and not verifying the work because there is a belief in the infallibility of these programmes. This is scandalous and worthy of a resignation if we actually believed in that anymore.

The other story was that justice minister Sean Fraser says that when he was immigration minister, he would have handled things differently with the student visas, but there is one thing that is buried in the piece that everyone is going to overlook:

However, he also said the federal government was negotiating as part of “a good-faith relationship with the provinces who were requesting additional access to immigration programs at the time.”

He said those negotiations failed, leading to the federal government placing a cap in January 2024.

The provinces are very much to blame, but they keep avoiding responsibility. They were screaming for more immigrants and temporary foreign workers. They allowed these strip mall colleges to run rampant—Ontario most especially. Not one of them did anything at all about building more housing, or not keeping their healthcare system from collapsing, and not one of them stopped from the blame pile-on with the federal government. I keep making this point because nobody wants to listen—we have a problem with the provinces, and nobody wants to acknowledge it so that we can start holding the premiers accountable.

Could Carney possibly stop using Nigel Farage's framing? Why is it so hard to learn the lesson of not giving the far-right any ammunition? FFS.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T03:14:49.967Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian attacks on Kharkiv killed two, and damaged Danube port infrastructure in Izamil. It has been calculated that Russia has lost some 40 percent of its oil export capacity thanks to Ukrainian attacks.

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Roundup: More demands to interfere with judicial nominations

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Three more premiers have now joined Danielle Smith in her demand for more say in judicial appointments, both at the provincial superior court level as well as when it comes to Supreme Court of Canada nominees, and it would be the usual suspects—Scott Moe, Doug Ford, and François Legault. Quite immediately, federal justice minister Sean Fraser essentially told them to go pound sand, which is the correct answer, but that doesn’t mean they won’t cause a fuss about this, and try and invent a new grievance out of this.

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mht45l24ec2w

Clearly these premiers, each of whom are constitutional vandals who have invoked the Notwithstanding Clause, are looking to politicise the appointments to their own ends, often with nonsense around judges being too “soft on crime.” Never mind that the vast majority of criminal cases are heard by provincially-appointed judges, whose appointments they already control (and Doug Ford has taken steps to make the process more partisan in Ontario), they are looking to exert more influence over appointments because they believe they can find candidates who will be more favourable to their positions, particularly when their constitutionality is challenged. Danielle Smith likes to refer to federally-appointed judges as “agents of Ottawa,” even though they are from the province they are appointed in, on the advice of local judicial advisory committees, which provincial governments already play a role in, both in terms of advising and vetting potential nominees to ensure that they don’t see problems with them.

I would add that the other thing about these judges being federally-appointed is that they are paid for by the federal government, and considering how much provinces already underfund their justice systems, I would not want to see them in control of even more appointments, whom they will underfund and undermine at every turn.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-24T21:22:01.960Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched nearly 1000 drones at Ukraine, 550 of which were during the daytime and hit as far as Lviv. Here is a look at Ukraine’s strikes on Russian energy facilities.

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Roundup: Big problems with student visas

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Yesterday was Auditor General Report Day, and there were three on offer—the replacement for the Phoenix pay system, recruitment problems with the RCMP, and problems with the student visa system.

In short:

  1. The Phoenix replacement, Dayforce, is taking lessons learned from the problems of Phoenix, but in terms of simplifying pay rules, there has been no progress with the unions (which is not a surprise).
  2. The RCMP recruitment process is so bad partly because the RCMP hasn’t done enough workforce planning, their application process times keep getting longer, and they aren’t filling training classes. (Of course, the real problem is the force is horribly broken and needs to be dismantled and replaced).
  3. The student visa issue has been beset by problems with anti-fraud controls, and there has been a lack of resources to investigate cases. Additionally, the planned reductions in visa numbers wound up being way worse than intended (but that’s hardly a surprise when they get the message that they’re not wanted).

The thing that gets me in particular about the student visa issue is that the provinces are getting off scot-free here. I know the AG has no mandate to investigate provinces, but so many of the problems with this programme started with the provinces, who have not been held accountable for them, whether it’s because they cut university funding, which made them reliant on the higher tuition of foreign students, or the fact that several provinces, most especially Ontario, let these fraudulent strip mall colleges flourish, which were in turn used to be a source of cheap labour, and the federal government, which doesn’t have the mandate or capacity to investigate these colleges, is left taking all of the blame. No, the department is not blameless, as the audit shows, but the wider problem is not addressed by this, and continues to go without any accountability.

PBO candidate

The nominee for the new Parliamentary Budget Officer, Annette Ryan, appeared at the finance committee, where the Conservatives outright declared that they will not vote for her because they claim that the interim PBO, Jason Jacques, was “silenced” for calling the government out, and that he should get the job. Except that he disqualified himself, and he was not fired, nor did he “expose” anything. He made an ass of himself on camera, but that’s what the Conservatives want, and they are now spreading lies to make that point. Just unbelievable.

This is pathetic.Jacques wasn't fired. He didn't "expose" anything. His term expired, and he disqualified himself from the permanent post because he decided he wanted to play for the cameras. But that's why Poilievre wants him on the job, because for him, Parliament is a clip factory.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-24T00:46:12.483Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-23T13:08:04.927Z

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy is warning of an imminent “massive attack” against the country. He also says that he has “irrefutable proof” that Russia is providing intelligence to Iran.

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Roundup: Longest Ballot Committee is back at it

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The losers at the Longest Ballot Committee are back at it, this time targeting the by-election in Terrebonne, because of course they are. Despite the fact that their supposed protest has not garnered them any actual traction to their cause, which tracks, because their means of protest is pretty divorced from the results they’re trying to achieve, which is to convince people that what we really need is proportional representation. Flooding the ballot with names nobody will vote for doesn’t scream “We need PR,” but what do I know? And then, their “longest ballot” turned into the shortest ballot in Battle River—Crowfoot, when it simply became a write-in ballot because it was easier for Elections Canada at that point (even though those ballots take more time to verify).

This being said, we could have had measures to help blunt their attempts when the House of Commons was trying to pass changes to the Canada Elections Act in the previous parliament, and the Chief Electoral Officer had suggestions for how to thwart these losers, but none of it got implemented. Why? The Conservatives, led mostly by the antics of Michael Cooper. The Conservatives decided to fuck around with that bill instead of treating it seriously for a myriad of reasons, some of which included the fact that one of the proposals was to move the “fixed” election date a week later to avoid Diwali, but it also would have put a bunch of MPs (mostly Conservatives) over the line for their pensions, and the Conservatives (and Bloc and NDP) decided that this was a ploy by the Liberals to get their MPs those pensions (again, even though it was mostly the Conservatives who would benefit).

Cooper then spent his time on dilatory motions, such as “reasoned amendments” at second reading to prolong debate, and then once at committee, it was all manner of silly buggers, like “Change the fixed election date to three weeks from now so that the election is before Jagmeet Singh’s pension comes to pass,” and on and on it went, until we had the prorogation for Trudeau’s announced resignation, and the election call once the leadership had passed, before prorogation ended. That meant the bill died, and no changes were made to blunt the losers at the Longest Ballot Committee from doing this over, and over again, no matter that the Conservatives complained when Poilievre was targeted. And so, here we are, with them going at it yet again.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia made a rare daytime drone attack on Kyiv, that included targeting the city’s independence monument. Russia claims to have taken a dozen settlements over the past two weeks, which Ukraine is disputing (as they push Russian lines back).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/2033471908142789046

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Roundup: Myth-busting the carbon price on diesel

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For months, we’ve been hearing the Conservatives blame the industrial carbon price and the clean fuel standard for rising food prices, often citing the so-called “Food Professor” as the source of these claims. They’re hilariously wrong, but just how wrong? Energy economist Andrew Leach does the math, and demonstrates where the “Food Professor” went so wrong. (Some of these are threads, so be sure to click through because they were too long to replicate in this post).

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2033225831443816578

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2033324064933347805

And the longest explainer thread is here:

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2033309960902426664

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 430 drones and 68 missiles at Ukraine on Saturday, and six people were killed, five of them in Kyiv. President Zelenskyy says that Ukraine wants money and technology in return for the anti-drone assistance they are providing to countries in the Gulf region.

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