Tag Archives: Nominations

Roundup: Pre-approved invitations to litigation

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Pierre Poilievre was in Jonquière, Quebec, yesterday, promising that if elected, he would create “pre-approved, shovel-ready zones” across the country for all kinds of major projects that would only need a checklist to be approved. Just like that! Why, nothing could possibly go wrong with such a proposal, right?

In no way has this been thought through, and as Leach points out, this is the kind of approach that lost the Harper government the Northern Gateway approval. Just like there hasn’t been any thought about his Churchill proposal. And look, he’s making stuff up wholesale about Ring of Fire mines, blaming the Trudeau government for decisions taken in the Harper era. Because of course he is.

Meanwhile, Mark Carney had a meeting with Danielle Smith today, and she comically presented him with a list of “demands” with the threat of a national unity crisis if he didn’t kowtow to her. Because that’s “cooperative federalism”! But seriously, it was a separatist manifesto, divorced from reality, because this is Smith we’re talking about, and she depends on her imaginary grievances to maintain power, more within her own party than the province as a whole.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones hit civilian targets in Odesa, as well as in Kropyvnytskyi, where ten people were injured including children. Ukraine’s drone strike on Russia’s strategic bomber airfield in Engels caused a massive explosion as ammunition was ignited. Russia says Ukraine has violated the “ceasefire” with a hit on an oil depot. Zelenskyy is calling for European help in buying more artillery shells. And US intelligence confirms that Ukrainian forces in Kursk are not encircled, proving that Trump is taking his cues from Russian propaganda.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1902834475806990623

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Roundup: Unrealistic Ring of Fire promises

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Pierre Poilievre was in Sudbury to pronounce that if he forms government, he’ll set a deadline of six months to approve any federal permits for mining in the “Ring of Fire” region in Northern Ontario, and put $1 billion toward connecting roads in the region to the highway network (to be paid for by cuts elsewhere). Absent from his pronouncement? Any representatives of the First Nations in the region, for whom consultation and cooperation is necessary (and yes, most of the First Nations in the region were not thrilled when they heard this). Poilievre says that there aren’t shovels in the ground because the Liberals have a “keep it in the ground” mentality, which is hard to square with the fact that they have been moving ahead on plenty of other critical mineral projects that are better connected to existing infrastructure, the pipeline they bought to get oil to tidewater, and the fact that oil and gas production are at record highs. So much keeping it in the ground! He also didn’t learn a single gods damned lesson from the Harper years, where trying to slash the review process for big projects only meant that they wound up in litigation.

Meanwhile, a group of energy sector CEOs are demanding that, because of the trade war, the federal government use “emergency powers” to approve more resource (mostly oil and gas) projects, which seems hard to square with the fact that a) there isn’t much in the way of emergency powers that could be deployed, let alone that could affect provincially-regulated projects; b) that they are vague on the market for these products if they’re not going the US, particularly as there is little in the way of cross-country pipeline infrastructure or the fact that the East Coast isn’t going to want to pay a premium for western Canadian oil; or c) the changing energy market means that they seem to be advocating to build a bunch of assets that would be stranded before too long. As this is going on, Danielle Smith is trying to pass yet more unconstitutional/useless legislation to prevent the federal government from acquiring oil companies’ data for their planned emissions cap, because yes, everything is that stupid.

On a related note, you have farmers and Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe urging capitulation to China in order for them to lift their canola tariffs, which were placed in retaliation for the EV tariffs (which in turn were done at the Americans’ behest under Biden in order to protect the EV industry they were trying to build from Chinese dumping). Well, China just executed four Canadian dual-nationals on drug-related charges, in spite of pleas by the Canadian government for clemency. It’s a message that they’re not looking to seek our favour in spite of the fact that Trump has turned against us (and his other allies). Caving to China on this canola issue is not going to work out well in the long term, because they know this is a pressure point that they can exploit. They have exploited it in the past, and it’s why they’re doing so again, and if we cave again, they’ll just move the goal posts and make more demands of Canada that will be harder and harder to resist.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims that Ukraine is trying to sabotage the moratorium on striking each other’s’ energy facilities after a drone strike on an oil depot. Ukraine also attacked an airfield near a Russian strategic bomber base in southern Russia. Russia and Ukraine each swapped 175 prisoners, one of the largest exchanges to date.

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Roundup: No reporters on the plane

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The Conservatives have declared that there will be no media contingent on their campaign plane or busses, while still mouthing words like claiming they’ll be the “most transparent” campaign out there. (Full letter here). They won’t be, of course, because not allowing journalists on the plane/bus means that they can’t see unscripted moments (from their limited vantage point), but stage-management is much of what this is really about—giving that added bit of message control that the Conservatives are very desperate to maintain.

The claim they are advancing is that they’ll give two- or three-days’ advance notice of stops so that local media can be there, or that national media can fly (last minute, driving up costs), and that people can use “technology” to connect to the campaign, but that generally means relying on the party’s infrastructure and feeds, which allows for greater chances of manipulation (especially if they delay their feed). And before you say it, yes, media do pay for seats on that plane/busses. Thousands of dollars. For comparison’s sake, the Liberals’ proposed fees for the campaign were $1,500 per day; $6,600 per week; or $33,500 for the full campaign. Those fees cover travel, food, access to filing rooms, and Wi-Fi (but not hotels). So let me reiterate—this isn’t about costs, it’s about control. And because the Conservatives claim that they will balance local and national coverage at events, we’ve seen what this means in recent press conferences, where they refused questions from English-language national media, and only took questions from local ethnocultural outlets, and so-called “independent” faux-news outlets like Rebel “News” or Juno.

Ukraine Dispatch

Putin claimed he was willing to engage in a thirty-day ceasefire on energy infrastructure only (which doesn’t mean much given that this is the time of year Russia would be letting up on attacking those targets—they prefer to do so in the winter to freeze out the Ukrainians), and lo, continued to bomb other civilian targets. Some “ceasefire.” Ukraine then stopped an attempted Russian incursion into the Sumy region, because of course.

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Roundup: Delusions about Canadian defence industry capabilities

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On Sunday, following NDP leader Jagmeet Singh’s trip to Nunavut, he released an Arctic sovereignty and defence policyin a bit of pre-election posturing. The actual Arctic sovereignty stuff was reasonably fine, which mostly involves better investments in Northern and Inuit communities, but the defence part? Hoo boy. To start off, it was poorly worded in talking about “repatriating” the F-35 contract to “build the jets” in Canada, but it wasn’t immediately clear if he thought they could build the F-35s in Canada (nope), or if it meant restarting the entire process for selecting a new fighter, which again, isn’t really possible at this stage as the CF-18s are at the absolute end of their lifespan, and we can’t just turn procurements off on a dime.

As Philippe Lagassé explains, yes, we need to pivot away from American platforms, but that needs to be done in a managed and methodical way that is going to take years, and the NDP need to realise this (and so, frankly, to the Liberals given the kinds of crazy things all of the leadership contenders were saying during their debates). But seriously, guys, you can’t just claim we’ll meet all of our military obligations with Canadian industries alone. That’s not even wishful thinking—it’s full-on delusion. You may think that Bombardier’s vapourware promises sound great, because Canadian jobs, but when they can’t deliver? Those are some pretty hefty consequences to face.

https://bsky.app/profile/plagasse.bsky.social/post/3lkjgfvradc2r

https://bsky.app/profile/plagasse.bsky.social/post/3lkji3fx3ps2r

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https://bsky.app/profile/plagasse.bsky.social/post/3lkjivko5i22r

Carbon levy gaslighting

In amidst a bunch of “trutherism” about the document that Mark Carney signed on Friday to zero out the consumer carbon levy (for which they published an extra edition of the Canada Gazette to enact), the Conservative continue to insist that Carney is just going to raise it back up after an election, which seems to be admitting that he’s going to win, which is kind of funny.

Meanwhile, the Liberals are doing themselves no favours by spending the weekend praising Carney for “getting it done” in ending their own signature environmental policy. And Liberal MPs were all over social media patting themselves on the back for “listening to Canadians,” and making up outright Orwellian excuses for defeating their own gods damned policy. And then their supporters were in my replies offering up straight-up revisionist history about the carbon price and trying to blame it on Stephen Harper, I shit you not. I really, really not appreciate being gaslit about your stupid political moves, especially when they refuse to own why it became so divisive, particularly when they refused to properly explain or defend their own policies.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones hit a high-rise building in Chernihiv. Contrary to the Russian propaganda that Trump has been reading, Ukrainian troops in Kursk region are not encircled, even though the Russians are pushing forward to move Ukrainian troops from the region.

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Roundup: Carney’s transition races out of the gate

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The day after the leadership race concluded, the transition began. Mark Carney had meetings with Justin Trudeau, and met with the caucus, albeit fairly briefly, as things got underway. We learned that he’s chosen MP Marco Mendicino as his chief of staff, which sounds like it’s on an interim basis (because Mendicino apparently has designs on running for mayor of Toronto), but so long as it means Katie Telford is out of the job, that’s what matters. Carney promised the transition would be swift, and it sounds like he wants a pared-down PMO. We also learned that Carney has already put his assets, minus personal real estate, into a blind trust and submitted all of his disclosures to the Ethics Commissioner, well ahead of schedule, which blunts the Conservatives’ attacks on his wealth. (To be clear, the rules state he has four months to disclose after being sworn-in, and he’s now disclosed even before being sworn-in). The one thing I found surprising was that Carney has reached out to Jean Charest to offer him some kind of senior role, including possibly a ministerial portfolio, and that Charest declined, with talk from the reporters saying that he may also be reaching out to Christy Clark.

As for Trudeau, he held his final Cabinet meeting, and was photographed carrying his chair out of the House of Commons (as the rules allow MPs to buy their chair when they leave politics).

Photo du jour. Crédit : Reuters.

— Louis Blouin (@icilouisblouin.bsky.social) 2025-03-10T19:00:30.490Z

On the trade war front, Doug Ford went ahead with the 25 percent “surcharge” on electricity exports (but it’s not a tariff, because that would be a federal trade power), and insists he’s looking into turning off the electricity if things get worse (which may actually be impossible given the interconnection of the grids). In response, Trump’s commerce secretary continued to threaten further tariffs on steel and aluminium, dairy, lumber, and “reciprocal” tariffs where they misunderstand that the GST is on all goods and not just imported ones. BC premier David Eby wants the federal government to drop their tariff fight with China, citing farmers and BC industry being hit on both sides (but seriously, do you think China is a good-faith actor here?).

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia has launched airstrikes overnight in Kyiv, while their troops are attempting to break through in the northeastern Sumy region, across the border from Kursk. In Kursk, Russian forces continue to advance, but Ukraine’s top general insists they are not at risk of being encircled. Ukraine claims that they have hit oil refineries in two Russian regions.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1899104651527524818

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Roundup: First day retaliation

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[Clone Wars newsreel voice] Trade war! The American president has unleashed 25 percent tariffs across the board against allies Canada and Mexico, in violation of existing trade agreements. Retaliatory tariffs have been levied in response, and Canadian leaders are expressing their shock and dismay at what is clearly a plan to weaken our economy for annexation. But the retaliation is also coming with threats of further escalation…

It was indeed unprecedented in our lifetimes for a Canadian prime minister to stand up and blatantly call out an American president for the outright threat of annexation, and for his cozying up to Putin. Trudeau busted the notion that this was ever about the border or fentanyl, and promised further non-tariff measures to come.

On counter-tariffs. Yes they hurt one's own country more than the other country.But that's not the right way to think about it. The point is to inflict pain on the other country to make them stop their tariffs, even if self-painful.I don't like broad counter-tariffs, but use 'em where painful.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T16:41:41.923Z

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3ljkwaokc3c2w

Provincial premiers each lined up to offer their own retaliation, much of which came in the form of removing American booze from liquor store shelves, but Doug Ford threatened export taxes on energy, and Danielle Smith (who is in a state of shock for being “betrayed” by Trump) said she wouldn’t do that…but they don’t have the power to levy them or not, because that power is federal. I’m sure they think that these performances make them look serious and tough, but would it kill a single premier to learn what their actual constitutional powers actually are before they start talking in front of the cameras? (And for everyone who is once again a newfound fan of Ford because of said performance, give your heads a shake).

Federally, Jagmeet Singh called for Parliament to be summoned for an emergency session, but offered no guarantees about how long he would let it last before he decided to vote non-confidence, and the real kicker there is that implementation for any measures they want voted on takes time, which is a concept the NDP have never been able to actually grasp. As for Pierre Poilievre, his own speech largely consisted of him insisting that he’s not MAGA, blaming the Liberals for getting us to this point, and repeating his same slogans and policy demands that he’s always made, and insisted that any funds from counter-tariffs go to tax cuts, which is Trump’s whole plan for tariffs. It’s the exact same plan, but he’s totally “not MAGA,” and is proving it in a very weird way. Oh, and no, building more pipelines and refineries isn’t going to solve any problems, guys.

Consider this a reminder especially for the NDP, who seem to think that once a bill is passed, implementation happens instantly.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T19:09:05.571Z

There is little distance given that he expressly said he intends to use tariff revenue to fuel tax cuts in Canada. He is nothing more than mini-Trump.

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T18:57:36.457Z

Tax cuts do little to aid those who are already and will lose their jobs. Tax cuts were what PP offered as a solution to the pandemic. Look back to March 2020 when he offered that as the solution to the pandemic. Like it or not, we don't need tax cuts, we need employment support programs.

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T19:01:41.462Z

And then, toward the end of the day, Trump’s commerce secretary says that they might come to some kind of compromiseon the tariffs later today. Maybe, and it “won’t be a pause.” Because they all think they’re playing 3D chess here.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian drones hit an industrial target in the Russian city of Syrzan. Reuters has a look at the effect of the halt on US’ military aid for Ukraine, and the aid that other allies have provided (to date).

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Roundup: Desperately latching onto a narrative

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It’s not unexpected, but over the past fifty-two hours or so, we are getting the attempts to wedge the Canada Angle™ onto the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris handoff, and trying to somehow it to Justin Trudeau. When it comes from ignorant Americans, it’s a bit creepy and you want to tell them to worry about their own messes. When it comes from Canadians, it’s cringey and a little bit desperate.

Even if Justin Trudeau were to somehow miraculously decide it was time for him to step aside, say after a long walk along the beach during his vacation right now, there will be no automatic handoff to Chrystia Freeland. Even if she were still interested in the leadership at this point (and it’s not clear if she were, because I suspect that even she realizes that no matter how competent of a minister she is, she’s something of a charisma black hole), there is no internal process for leadership selection, and the process the party designed to bring us Trudeau needs months of voter sign-ups in order to build to a coronation for a new personality cult hermit crab to inherit the empty shell of a party brand. It’s not a quick pivot, and Trudeau would likely still need to remain in a leadership capacity until a handoff, months later, which gives his successor little runway. (As I wrote in my column, if this were a healthy Westminster democracy with caucus selection of leadership, this could have been handled weeks or months ago).

Aside from that fact, there is no consensus candidate to be that replacement that would allow for a handoff like with Harris, where the Americans’ interminable election process means that they had little time to find a replacement before their convention, and all of the major players decided to line up behind Harris. That wouldn’t happen here because there is no one that the party is going to rally around as a whole. There are frankly too many personalities who want that leadership, even if it’s a poisoned chalice by now, and I’m not sure how the dynamics of trying to convert from one cult of personality to another plays on the fly rather than after a complete crash and rebuild. In any case, this isn’t the US, it’s not even remotely the same as Biden/Harris, and the pundit class needs to cool their jets.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian attack damaged a power facility in the Sumy region, resulting in more power cuts. Russians claim that a Ukrainian drone attack damaged a ferry and killed one person in port.

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Roundup: Elections Canada’s helpful suggestions

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Amidst the (possibly overblown) hysteria that party nomination contests are a possible vector for foreign interference, Elections Canada has come along with a series of “helpful” proposals to parties in order to reduce the vulnerabilities. They insist they don’t want to actually manage these contests (which is good, because that would be an enormous expansion of the organisation, which I’m not sure we really want), but nevertheless they could play some kind of role around financial oversight of these contests, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Their suggestions include limiting votes to Canadian citizens, or at least permanent residents, which I think is reasonable, because much like I think it’s good that parties let people join by age 14 so that they can learn about and participate in grassroots organisation before they’re able to vote, bringing in permanent residents before they can also vote could help foster better civic engagement (well, if parties hadn’t decimated their grassroots as they centralised power in their leaders’ offices). Other suggestions include published nomination rules and processes (which parties will hate because they have become used to the ability to tip the scales at the behest of the leader and his or her cult of personality), publishing fuller results such as number of ballots cast and vote distribution, requiring all contestants file a financial return, and banning the sale of party memberships in bulk (the Liberals no longer have paid memberships, while the Conservatives are more expansive rules around this, for the better).

Some of these are quite reasonable, but I have my doubts that parties will do more than theatrically take them under advisement, because they simply don’t want to. They’ve spent so much time and energy in order to minimise their grassroots in favour of the leader and his or her office that they have eliminated most of the checks and balances that are supposed to keep them from getting too big for their own britches (and the Liberals have been the absolutely worst with this, with the 2016 changes to their party constitution). Will they start to re-impose these minor changes in order to hold themselves accountable? I’m not going to hold my breath.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck a playground in the southern city of Mykolaiv, killing three. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was invited to attend Cabinet in Westminster, where he reiterated the need reduce restrictions on long-range missiles so that they can strike sites in Russia where they are being attacked from.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1814328171543580848

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Roundup: Back to the constituencies

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At long last, the children—and by “children,” I mean MPs—have gone home for the summer. Finally. Not before there wasn’t another last-ditch effort by Conservatives to try and demand more committee hearings over the summer, because they need clips for their socials, after all. I also find it particularly strange that the Conservatives have been phrasing their condemnations that the other parties want to go back to their ridings to “vacation” for the summer, because normally MPs are extremely precious about the fact that this is not a break because they have sO mUcH wOrK tO dO in their constituencies and that if they had their druthers they’d do even more work in their constituencies and less in Ottawa, so this feels like the Conservatives making a tacit admission that they don’t do work in their constituencies. (I know they’re not, but this is what happens when you make dumb arguments to score points).

This being said, MPs are absolutely behaving like children over all of this, and they all need a gods damned time out, not that I expect things to get much better in the fall because the incentives for this kind of behaviour remain—it’s all about getting clicks and engagement on their socials, and acting like children gets them that, apparently. It’s too bad the incentives aren’t there for them to act like adults, but the world has gone stupid.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians resumed air attacks on Ukrainian power facilities. (Timeline of such attacks here). The fire at the oil terminal in southern Rostov burned for a second day after Ukraine’s drone strike. Here’s a look at how Russian glide bombs have accelerated the time it takes for them to destroy front-line settlements in Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1803342727267885346

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Roundup: Abdicating responsibilities and calling on Justice Hogue instead

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The reverberations from the NSICOP report continued over the weekend, with the rhetoric still as ridiculous as ever. For example, everyone keeps shouting the word “treason” about what these MPs are alleged to have done (with the exception of the one former MP in the report), and lo, it doesn’t actually meet the Criminal Code definition of “treason,” which means that it’s unlikely anyone is going to face charges for what is alleged to have happened (if indeed any of it was in fact foreign interference and not actions undertaken as part of diplomacy, and the jury is still out on that).

And rather than continue to use this opportunity to behave like adults, the Bloc and the Conservatives now want to turn this over to Justice Hogue so that she can make some sort of determination rather than put on their big-boy pants and get their classified briefings. Turning this over to Justice Hogue would be an absolute abdication of responsibility by both the Bloc and Conservative leaders, and soon it could just be the Conservative leader since Yves-François Blanchet is now considering getting a classified briefing. That hasn’t stopped Michael Chong from going on national television to literally claim that he knows better than former CSIS directors about this, and saying that if Poilievre gets briefed, his hands are tied. That’s wrong, that’s bullshit, and that’s fabricating excuses so that he can continue to act as an ignorant critic rather than an informed observer.

This is not new. This is a long-standing problem in Canadian politics that opposition leaders don’t want to be briefed because if they do, then they have to be responsible in their commentary, and they don’t want to do that. They want to be able to stand up and say inflammatory things, and Poilievre is not only no different, but that’s his entire modus operandi. He can’t operate if he has to act like a responsible grown-up, where he would have to get the information and do something with it internally in his party, but he doesn’t want to do that when he can continue screaming that the prime minister is hiding something. But it’s hard to say that the prime minister is hiding something when he is quite literally offering Poilievre the opportunity to read the classified report, so instead he lies about what that would mean, and he gets Michael Chong to debase himself and also lie about it. This is the state of politics, and it’s very, very bad for our democracy.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians appear to be making headway in their attempt to capture the strategically significant town of Chasiv Yar. Ukraine says that it struck an “ultra-modern” Russian aircraft six hundred kilometres from the front lines. The Globe and Mail has a longread about of Ukraine’s most elite special forces units, on the front lines of the war with Russia.

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