Tag Archives: Mary May Simon

Roundup: Mixed messages about deeper integration

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Late last week, prime minister Mark Carney was at the Global Progress Action Summit in Toronto, and gave a speech that seems to be a bit of a Rorschach test about how you feel about him and the job he’s doing. While I believe he’s correct in saying that the loss of control people feel with affordability and the rise of digital asbestos leads to a “politics of grievance,” I am less convinced the same is true for immigration, and that it has proven a reliable scapegoat by everyone, Carney included, which is absolutely dangerous—especially when he uses phrases like “taking back control.” He also says that the current moment has been “seized by politicians who seek to destroy and dismantle and progressives must answer by building,” but he has been eroding and quietly dismantling the actual progressive programmes brought in by his predecessor. The fact that he is calling himself a “progressive” is stretching the definition to its breaking point.

Amidst this, there was another statement that raises even more eyebrows, which is that “Like Mexico, Canada remains open to deeper integration, including options for fortress North America in (certain) sectors. And to be clear, those offers are on the table.” Deeper integration? Fortress North America? So, after all of the talk about how being solely dependent on the US as a single trading partner has been a strategic weakness and that we need to diversify so that we have options and can’t be held hostage, we want to integrate even more closely in strategic sectors with the same country that has been trying to hold us hostage, threatening our sovereignty, and which has taken to bullying us because they think they can get away with it without consequence? I mean, I get that we cannot fully decouple from the US because of geography (and even Taiwan trades mostly with China, because of geography), but this message seems at odds with everything happening, and it’s really hard to see how he can promise this without some pretty heavy caveats up front, and I’m not exactly seeing anything that inspires me with confidence.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-05-10T23:08:01.480Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia violated the ceasefire by making drone strikes on the front lines, and Ukraine launched a few drones in response. Putin claims the war will be winding down soon, but said they will be victorious, but are even further away from their aims, so we’ll see. Here is a look into the dispute between Ukraine and Israel over shipments of stolen grain, and why Israel is uncomfortably close to Russia.

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Roundup: Undeserved back-patting for recruitment figures

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Defence minister David McGuinty held a press conference yesterday to tout that the recruiting numbers in the military are way up, and this was a sign that the government is on track with their goals to recapitalise the military. But sure, there are still several trades that they are short in, and sure, they’re still quite a bit below the targets set in 2017, but it’s a start, right?

There are a few things at play here that deserve to be teased out. One of them is that people are saying this has to do with the pay raise, but I’m sceptical because the biggest problem with recruitment has long been the military’s poor intake process, which has been overly cumbersome, has dragged out the security screening process, and as they are admitting now, they don’t have enough beds in basic training to accommodate the increase in numbers. That’s pretty much entirely on the military’s internal processes and has precious little to do with the federal government’s handling of the file in any capacity, which makes it very hard for them to pat themselves on the back for it. (One might almost call that “stolen valour”). Over the past several years, the military’s internal delays were so bad that people who wanted to serve wound up walking away because it took too long, and they found jobs elsewhere. Again, it wasn’t an issue about pay, or military housing, it was that the Forces couldn’t get their own internal bureaucracy in line, and that again is on them.

There is another conversation that nobody is having here around this, which is the correlation between the job market and military recruitment. One of the other reasons recruitment has been poor for three decades now is because the job markets changed in the country, particularly in traditionally economically-depressed regions like the east coast, which used to see high recruitment numbers. What changed? Direct flights to Fort McMurray. The promise of oil sands cash for little education, and things like two-weeks-on/two-weeks-off shifts and living in camps meant good money for people from the region, so there wasn’t any need to sign up to the military to find stable employment. And now that is starting to shift back—there are no longer jobs aplenty in Fort Mac as the oil and gas sector has radically increased automation and productivity, and there are no longer unlimited jobs for high school dropouts that get six figure salaries. That is shifting the calculation around the country, and I suspect it is going to be one of the bigger drivers of recruitment more than anything the government has done around pay or base housing.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-20T19:15:34.667Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The death toll from a shooting spree in Kyiv has reached seven; the police chief has already tendered his resignation for it.

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Roundup: The annual Standing Orders debate

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Either out or morbid curiosity or as a cry for help, I watched yesterday’s House of Commons’ debate on proposing changes to the Standing Orders, and…I didn’t hate it? There were actually some good ideas in there, and there were calls to undo a couple of changes that were made during the height of the pandemic to accommodate “hybrid parliament,” which I hadn’t realised had been changed. While this was kicked off by Liberal MP Corey Hogan’s suggestions for reforming Question Period, which I wrote about in my weekend column, there were a number of other reasonable suggestions. One common theme by several MPs across party lines was to end the vestiges of hybrid sittings, which I wholeheartedly agree with, and some of that included the remote voting app (which again, is an affront to Parliamentary democracy and should be abolished), but that will be a tougher sell. A number of MPs also had gripes about the ability of the Senate to stall or kill private members’ bills through delay, but that has nothing to do with the Standing Orders, as the House does not write the rules of the Senate.

  • Michael Chong wants to restore the Speaker’s right of recognition and do away with speaking lists, and adopt the UK practice of allocating time among the number of MPs who want to speak to a specific bill or motion. (Agreed!) He also wants to ensure that the Speaker and a committee of MPs appoint the Clerks and Sergeant-at-Arms, and wants committee spots and chairs determined by secret preferential ballots, and for the Board of Internal Economy to only be comprised of backbenchers. All of these are reasonable.
  • Yves Perron wants the prayer replaced with a moment of reflection, and to have a designated time on Fridays for a more free-flowing question-and-answer session with ministers akin to the special committee of the whole sessions during COVID. He also wants limits on the size of panels at committees to ensure that they are more manageable He also wants unanimous consent motions to be held on Wednesdays and to be tabled in advance (which I’m very dubious about).
  • Jenny Kwan and Pat Kelly both want the return of voice votes/standing five to trigger recorded votes, which was one of those hybrid rule changes that needs to be undone. Kwan wants new rules on dissenting committee reports being presented, and no Supply Days on Wednesdays of Fridays (but they are already limited as to the number they can have, and that would take up all Tuesdays and Thursdays).
  • Kelly wants to invert the times for speeches and questions and answers, so you have shorter speeches and longer question/comment segments (which I’m not opposed to).
  • John-Paul Danko is concerned about parliamentary privilege being weaponized to allow slander to be clipped and shared over socials.
  • Scott Reid had some very specific concerns about ethics complaints being weaponized (but I’m not sure that’s in the Standing Orders).
  • Kevin Lamoureux wants concurrence debates to be held after government orders, as they are used as dilatory motions. He also wants a segment where MPs can speak to any bill of their choosing for five or ten minutes on a Friday.
  • Garnett Genuis wants guardrails on unanimous consent motions used to pass bills at all stages, and wants to do away with the parties asking suck-up questions during question/comment segments after speeches.

In all, there are actually a few good ideas in there, but we’ll see how much the Procedure and House Affairs committee takes up any of them (and I am not hopeful on most). Nevertheless, it was nice to see a reasonable debate on some (mostly) reasonable ideas on how to make the House of Commons work better.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-02-06T23:56:01.289Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Canada is sending AIM missiles for Ukraine’s air defence. President Zelenskyy is calling for faster action on air defence and repairing the power grids.

https://twitter.com/FedorovMykhailo/status/2019728147579871319

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Roundup: No federal backstop for Smith’s threats

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith’s threats around withholding funding for her province’s justice system if she doesn’t get her own way on judicial appointments is attracting broader attention, and there was a particular exchange at a Senate committee the other day that bears pointing out. When asked about this thread, federal justice minister Sean Fraser essentially said that if Smith does this, it’ll be a choice, but also that the federal government is not going to swoop in and backstop this funding lapse with federal dollars.

https://bsky.app/profile/senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social/post/3me4zvsm23k27

This is a good thing. Frankly, if the federal government did this, it would set a terrible precent because all provinces are underfunding their justice systems, and if they backstop Alberta because Danielle Smith is acting like an entitled baby throwing a tantrum, then every other province will cut their own funding and hope for a federal backstop, and once again, things will get worse in our system because provinces aren’t living up to their obligations. They’re not right now, but this would make things infinitely worse. Of course, if this does happen, the federal government will actually have to get off their asses and loudly point this out repeatedly that this is the provincial government’s fault. They should be doing it right now, with the whole nonsense going on around bail reform, but this would be infinitely worse. Court delays for simple matters? Thank Smith. Criminals going free because they can’t get trial dates? Thank Smith. Did that accused murderer get released because they couldn’t actually hold a trial with no functioning court house, no prosecutors and no court staff? Thank Smith. That’s the kind of thing that they need to be doing as is, but they lack the gonads to do so, but they would need to step it up even more if Smith did pull that trigger.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Bar Association is speaking out about Smith’s unconstitutional demands, and other law organizations are joining them, while also explaining how the judicial appointment process works, and why Smith is wrong to characterize them as “activists” who act on the federal government’s behalf. It also bears reminding that the UCP purged the provincial judicial nomination committees in favour of partisan appointees, and that two sitting judges are under investigation for donating to the party, so maybe Smith’s concerns about supposedly political choices are just her projecting and admitting she wants to fix the process for her own political ends.

Ukraine Dispatch

Two people were injured in the overnight attack on Kyiv early Thursday. Ukrainian forces made a successful strike against one of Russia’s missile launch sites. The “peace talks” have seen another agreement on exchanges of prisoners of war.

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Roundup: Not being a trained seal

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Liberal MP Nate Erskine-Smith put out a video on his YouTube channel where he gives an honest assessment of the budget, including places where it fails to live up to the hype. As a backbench MP, this is not only his right, but his obligation, but boy howdy, a bunch of partisans from all stripes are losing their gods damned minds over this. A backbencher who doesn’t just lobotomise himself to read the scripts handed to him by his leader’s office? The nerve!

It's possible that Erskine-Smith has normalized dissent sufficiently — at least from him — that he can do stuff like this without it becoming a huge deal.www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jtC…

— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2025-11-10T23:00:21.434Z

I was particularly struck by the partisan talking heads on Power & Politics last night who kept going on and on about how politics is a “team sport,” and that as a “member of the government,” he needs to be on-side. Erm, except he’s not a member of the government. Government=Cabinet, and while he is on the government side of the aisle, he is not a member. This is not be just being pedantic—it’s the very nature of how our parliamentary system works. Every member of Parliament, no matter which side of the aisle you’re on, are supposed to hold the government to account, and to keep them in check. Yes, that means government-side backbenchers too. That’s the whole raison d’être of Parliament, but everyone has become so used to the us-versus-them aspect that they have lost sight of that, and it really doesn’t help that Canada has largely lost the culture of backbenchers holding their own side to account because they are so desperate to get into Cabinet, or at least become a parliamentary secretary, that they are generally one ministerial screw-up away from a promotion, so they keep their mouths shut and stand up and clap and read their scripts like a good boy or girl, and that’s something that is fundamentally wrong with how the Canadian parliament operates.

Brad Lavigne and Kate Harrison telling Nate Erskine-Smith that he needs to be a trained seal is some bullshit.Backbenchers have an obligation to hold government to account as much as opposition MPs do. Learn how a Westminster system works, FFS. #PnPCBC

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-10T23:05:20.204Z

The UK, where you have a Chamber of 650 MPs, and a smaller Cabinet (though generally a larger number of junior ministers), generally means you have a lot of backbenchers who know they’ll never get into Cabinet, so they feel empowered to stand up to their own side. Some of them are former ministers who are still serving their constituents, and will let the current government know where they are going wrong. (There are some fantastic videos of Theresa May doing just this, and some videos of her absolutely savaging her successor, Boris Johnson, in PMQs). This is a culture we need to develop here. Of course, adding another hundred or so MPs to our chamber would help (and would really help us have enough bodies for committees without having parliamentary secretaries on them).

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-11-10T23:08:02.225Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Fighting continues in Pokrovosk, Dobropillia, and towns surrounding. Here is a look at life in Kherson, where Russians hunt civilians with drones on a daily basis. The anti-corruption bureau says it has found a $100 million kickback scheme in the state nuclear power company.

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Roundup: Lost jobs and falsely attributed blame

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The news out of Calgary yesterday was that Imperial Oil plans to reduce their workforce by about 20 percent—some 900 jobs, mostly out of Calgary—by the end of 2027, in order to realise “substantial efficiency and effectiveness benefits.” The kicker, however, is that they’re not planning to cut production, or reduce their footprint, or anything like that­—they are, in fact, making themselves more productive, and that means cutting staff.

Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to the oil and gas sector knows that they have been automating and cutting their workforce for years, which is why I have always thought it foolish to count on them to create jobs.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-09-30T15:30:28.106Z

Of course, people like Danielle Smith have managed to blame the federal Liberals for those losses than the industry, which doesn't help those angry Albertans whose promise of giant paycheques in oil jobs forever won't be realized, but boy have they stoked federal tensions.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-09-30T15:30:28.107Z

Right on cue:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-09-30T15:41:47.811Z

The thing to remember here, however, is that it doesn’t matter what is actually happening, or that this has been happening in the industry since the price crash in 2014, but that everyone is going to blame the federal Liberals for these job losses. And you can bet that that blame was happening over social media, entirely falsely, because if they had planned to cut production or their footprint, then maybe you could blame it on the emissions cap, or whatnot. But that’s not what’s happening. The problem becomes what to do about the hopes and dreams of all of those straight white guys with high school diplomas who were counting on being able to make a large six-figure salary doing minimal work in the oil sands, but that dream is fast escaping because the industry has changed. But because they are angry that said dream is slipping away, they are looking for someone to blame, and they don’t want to blame the industry for increasing its productivity, so they will try and pin this on the Liberals. Because of course they will.

https://twitter.com/maxfawcett/status/1961437440595693741

The thing about oilsands companies is that over the past decade they have focused on cutting as many jobs as possible in the name of efficiency while paying as little as possible for the pollution they cause.

— Catherine McKenna (@cathmckenna.bsky.social) 2025-09-30T23:53:16.532Z

Of course, the federal government is expressing their concern about this, because they decided to put a whole lot of eggs in this basket in spite of the fact that it’s not 2014, and it won’t be 2014 again, and that no matter how much they gut the country’s environmental regulations by stealth, it won’t make the oil and gas sector come back, or make it the economic driver that it used to be. But I’m not sure that most of them are capable of grasping this fact, and that’s a problem, because we do need an economic transformation and that shouldn’t mean doubling down on the fossil fuel industry.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian guided aerial bomb attack hit Kharkiv overnight, injuring at least six. This after a daytime attack on Dnipro that killed one and injured at least twenty, and a previous overnight attack on a village in Sumy region that killed four. Ukraine has sent a mission to Denmark to train European militaries on how to combat drones. Princess Anne made a secret visit to Ukraine in support of children affected by the war. (Still the best royal).

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Roundup: Another politicized terror listing

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The federal government has listed the Bishnoi gang, which largely operates out of India, as a terrorist entity, saying that they engage in “murder, shootings and arson, and generates terror through extortion and intimidation.” The Conservatives blame them for the rash of extortion crimes, primarily in the lower mainland in BC, and the BC premier has called for this designation. The problem? Not only are we conflating criminal organisations with terrorism, which gets messy on a number of fronts, but this is another example of process that should be apolitical and technocratic being politicised, and we are now getting into territory where groups are being listed after a vote in the House of Commons, which is Very Bad.

Here’s Jessica Davis on why this is a problem.

Back in the day, when I worked on listings, they were a largely technocratic process. I won't say there was a solid methodology for choosing which groups would get listed, but it was a bureaucratic one, with departments and agencies contributing.

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:46:59.828Z

Increasingly, we've seen groups listed after votes in the House of Commons, or campaigns to have them listed, or at the behest of our (sometimes) allies like the US.

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:46:59.829Z

The listings process itself isn't particularly rigorous. A single incident can result in a group getting listed. And there is no real mechanism for challenging listings. (Yes: processes exist. In practice, it would require getting a lawyer to argue the case of a terrorist entity, likely pro bono).

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:46:59.830Z

We are overdue for listings reform. We're trying to do far too much with it. Why not create a separate criminal listings regime? Having everything lumped together as terrorist dilutes the analytic power that comes from sensical categorization, and limits our ability to identify finance mechanisms.

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:46:59.831Z

Increasingly, some of our listings are also not lawful. Look at the listing for the IRGC QF, and more recently the IRGC. There's a clear carve-out that should prevent the listings of state militaries. But we don't seem to care about the lawfulness of this process anymore.

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:46:59.832Z

Overall, this process is increasingly meaningless: governments press the listings button (not unlike sanctions) and then do very little to actually counter terrorism or tackle hard problems like RCMP reform that could actually result in real improvements in Canadian safety and security.

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:46:59.833Z

The only way a government will be incentivized to change is to have this process challenged in court, which could actually be both really bad for Canada (undermine a huge part of our sanctions regime and throw our CTF system into turmoil), but could strengthen rule of law in Canada longer term.

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:46:59.834Z

Or, you know, the Carney government could just do the right thing and fix the system itself and toughen the process so it can't be politicized. Honestly, we're a stone's throw away from listing ANTIFA as a terrorist entity if the US asks. I'm sure it's fine.

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-09-29T13:46:59.835Z

The added issue here is that the RCMP already don’t have enough resources or capacity to enforce existing terrorist designations, let along the mounting sanctions, so these declarations are rapidly becoming symbolic, and that’s a very bad thing. This is one more reason why we need wholesale reform of the RCMP and most especially its federal policing responsibilities (and by wholesale reform, I generally mean disband it and stand up a new federal policing agency), but ultimately, this situation is just exacerbated by these political listings, which are about to even more problematic the more the Trump administration starts making demands, like they did with Mexican cartels.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims that they have taken control of two villages in the Donetsk region, as Ukraine is pushing back on other fronts in the same region. The nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhia has been without external power needed to cool its reactors for six days. Neighbouring Moldova saw the pro-EU party win the election in spite of a spate of Russian interference.

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Roundup: Forgiveness over permission, C-5 edition

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With hours left on the clock before the House of Commons would vote on Bill C-5, per the terms of the Closure motion passed earlier in the week, the Speaker agreed with an NDP motion that yes, the bill was indeed abusive omnibus legislation and agreed to split it into two parts to separate it for the final vote. It was a bit late to do so, because there was no ability to only advance one half and not the other, and it wasn’t going to matter much either considering that the Conservatives were going to vote in favour of it (because they absolutely want this Henry VIII clause on the books if they should form government in the next five years). And so, the first half of the bill, on the federal trade barriers, got near-unanimous support with only Elizabeht May voting against it, and the second half on major projects—and that Henry VIII clause—had the Bloc, the NDP, Elizabeth May and Liberal Nathaniel Erskine-Smith vote against it, not that those numbers made any kind of difference.

After the bill passed, Carney called a press conference in the Foyer, and had every Indigenous MP in the caucus as his backdrop (with a few others dropping in), and he insisted that it simply wasn’t communicated effectively how much Indigenous participation would be required for these projects, and that they would respect UNDRIP, and yes they would hold consultations with rights-holders over the summer to ensure that implementation of this legislation would be done “the right way.” Oh, and he totally swears that he’s not going to put a Henry VIII clause in any other bills—really! But all of those assurances left a sour taste.

It very much seems that Carney has taken the route of asking for forgiveness rather than permission, which is a really strange way to go about building trust with those rights-holders, especially when your MPs refused to let them speak at committee or have any participation in the legislative process. And you will forgive me if I don’t believe that they won’t ever use that Henry VIII clause to bulldoze over UNDRIP obligations on a project, because they gave themselves those powers for a reason. And if they think that they got away with asking for forgiveness rather than permission worked this time, who’s to say they won’t try that again when they do use those powers? Let’s not kid ourselves.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-20T22:56:10.284Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Drone attacks from Russia in the early hours of Thursday hit apartment buildings in Kharkiv and Odesa. There was another POW swap, and again, numbers were not disclosed. President Zelenskyy says that Ukraine is developing interceptor drones to deal with the Russian drones, whose numbers have increased in the past weeks.

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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: Compromising the GG for clicks

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Last week, the Governor General held a national symposium on online harassment, and invited people who have experienced significant amount of it over the past few years to speak about it.

https://twitter.com/GGCanada/status/1778413516266840314

Of course, the Attorney General, Arif Virani, decided to make some hay around this in order to promote the online harms bill, which may be great for him, but is very bad for the GG, and he should have known that. His staff should have known that and ensured that he didn’t tweet something out that could compromise the GG and her position. The staff at Rideau Hall should have also known this and not invited Virani for this very reason, because come on.

And so, we now have a punch of loudmouths from the pundit class railing about the GG and how she has “endorsed” a controversial bill (which she actually did not), but of course truth doesn’t actually matter to these kinds of loudmouths, whose only goal is to try and embarrass the government. But this government, of course, so desperate to get their content for their socials, ignored all of this and went ahead and tried to co-opt the GG’s event for their own purposes. And of course, they’ll justify this by saying “oops, but we meant well.” Like they always do. The ends justify the means, the rules only apply to bad people, and so on. Every gods damned time with these guys.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Fragments of a downed missile fell over a settlement outside of Dnipro on Sunday, injuring twelve. Ukraine’s military chief has signalled that the battlefield situation on the front lines in the east has significantly deteriorated over the past several days, and that they are attempting to take the town of Chasiv Yar by May 9th, which is when Russia marks Victory Day.

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