Tag Archives: Official Languages

Senate QP: Guilbault explains the coming cuts

Posted on by

The Senate, under its new leadership, has returned to the recent practice of holding a special Question Period in order to question a minister, and today it was Steven Guilbeault, while we are told this will happen every couple of weeks—and hey, because they held it at 3:30 and not competing with Commons QP, I could be here. As things were about to get started, it was the Speaker pro tempore in the Big Chair today, and he offered a reminder that questions are limited to one minute, and answers to a minute-and-a-half, which is a far sight better than the thirty-five second clock in the Commons. It was also a much longer QP than usual, being about sixty-five minutes, which I didn’t realise going into it. (I also didn’t have access to an earpiece for the first couple of rounds so I had difficult following, so please forgive any particular lapses).

At the Senate for a special #SenQP with minister Guilbeault.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-09-25T19:31:34.022Z

Senator Housakos led things off by asking about the appointment of a new official languages commissioner, and accused the government of holding out for a Liberal friend. Guilbeault disputed this, and noted the support the government has given to official languages over the past few years. Housakos again pressed that they have not take this appointment seriously, and Guilbeault again pointed to the resources they are devoting to official languages.

Housakos switched to English to ask about policies that allowed a Canada Post employee to be bullied a at work for displaying a Canadian Flag at his desk. Guilbeault noted that Canada Post is not under his remit, but he suggested he could raise it with his colleague. Housakos again worried about the harassment this employee suffered for being patriotic, and Guilbeault again deferred any response. (I have to wonder if there was more to this story than Housakos claimed).

Continue reading →

Roundup: A committee of handwringing over ferries

Posted on by

On Friday, the Commons transport committee met to wring their hands and express their dismay at BC Ferries’ decision to buy new ships from a Chinese firm, and lo, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Chrystia Freeland expressed her dismay. Gregor Robertson expressed his disappointment. The representative of the Canada Infrastructure Bank pointed out that they don’t make any decisions on procurement, and that their loan was secured before that decision was made. And the head of BC Ferries pointed out, once again, that no Canadian shipyard bid on these ships, if they did, it would take them a decade to deliver them (at least), and that the Chinese bid was $1.2 billion cheaper than any of the others.

That of course didn’t stop opposition MPs from doing the performative song and dance. Conservative Dan Albas demanded the government cancel the loan—which the government can’t do because the Infrastructure Bank is arm’s length. And now they want all documents and emails released, which is going to tell them yet again that no Canadian shipyards bid on this contract.

1) This procurement is entirely provincial jurisdiction2) The Infrastructure Bank operates at arm's length and ministers can't cancel any loans it gives3) NO CANADIAN SHIPYARDS BID ON THIS CONTRACT!Is the federal government going to dictate that one of them build these ferries? Seriously?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-08-05T13:50:03.050Z

Perhaps most galling of all was Bloc MP Xavier Barsalou-Duval wanted an apology from the government and from the Canada Infrastructure Bank because it’s “unacceptable” that the government plans to invest in foreign infrastructure when our own steel industry is facing tariffs from Trump—but the federal government isn’t investing. BC Ferries, a provincial Crown Corporation is, and the loan from the Infrastructure Bank is a fully repayable loan. You would think the Bloc of all people would rather the federal government respect a decision by a provincial body, but apparently that only matters if it’s in Quebec.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-08-04T13:08:04.388Z

In case you missed it:

  • My weekend column on the false choice between emissions caps and prosperity, as the costs of climate change are already being felt in significant ways.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take points out that Poilievre and the Conservatives had a chance to deal with the Longest Ballot nuisances, but chose stupid games instead.
  • My column which responds to what was in that weekend CBC story on the “radically overhauled” Senate and the problems with some of the arguments made.
  • My long weekend column looks at the current issue with contracts for freelance interpreters in Parliament, and why it’s exacerbating an existing crisis.
  • My column asks if it’s time to revive the Economic Council of Canada as we did with the Law Commission, given the uncertain times we live in.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims to have captured another village in the Dniporpetrovsk region. On Monday, Ukraine destroyed one Russian military jet and damaged four others stationed in occupied Crimea. Ukrainian officials say that Indian components have been found in Russian drones. Two days after Ukraine’s parliament voted to restore anti-corruption agencies’ independence, they announced that they had uncovered a major graft scheme involving drone procurements.

https://twitter.com/Denys_Shmyhal/status/1952763302699729187

Continue reading →

Roundup: Reassuring Inuit leadership

Posted on by

Mark Carney was in Inuvik to have his meeting with Inuit leaders regarding Bill C-5 and the major projects they are hoping to build, and seems to have convinced them that nothing is going to impact on their particular treaty rights, even though it’s still a lot of “just trust me,” because I cannot stress enough that he gave himself the power to override pretty much any legislation with that massive Henry VIII clause in C-5, meaning that he intends to use it. Said Inuit leaders didn’t seem quite as exercised about the colonial structures being built into the Major Projects Office and its proposed Indigenous advisory council (which reports to PMO and not to the Indigenous nations they are supposed to be representing), but again, we’ll see once things are a little more fleshed out.

During the meeting, Carney and Anita Anand announced that Iqaluit resident Virginia Mearns, who is Inuk, will be Canada’s new Arctic ambassador, a role that Mary Simon once held. As part of this office and Arctic strategy, there are plans to open new consulates in Alaska and Greenland.

Meanwhile, the demands for PONIs continue to dwell largely in fantasyland, with projects that have no proponents being demanded approval of, nor projects that have a particular economic case to be made for them. It’s just “more pipelines.” Like, come on, guys.

Programming Note: I’m off for the next week-and-a-bit. See you on the far side of the long weekend.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-07-24T21:27:03.912Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Two people were killed in a Russian attack on Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine, while at least 33 were injured in a glide bomb attack on Kharkiv. President Zelenskyy has introduced a bill to restore the independence of the anti-corruption agencies, and says he welcomes input from friendly governments.

Continue reading →

Roundup: First ministers meeting on nation-building projects

Posted on by

Today is the day where Mark Carney meets with the other first ministers in Saskatoon, and they’re going to hash out the list of major “nation-building” projects that they hope to start prioritising over the next year or two under the proof-of-concept that Canada can indeed build Big Things once again. In the lead-up to this, Carney held a closed-door meeting with oil and gas executives in Calgary, in order to discuss “partnerships” with them, never mind that the series of demands that they sent to him (essentially, scrap all environmental regulations) is a non-starter, but I’m sure we’ll get even more of this posturing from Danielle Smith in the coming days.

While I’m sure there will be more announcements at the end of the meeting, whether it’s more trade barriers being knocked down (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario signed another MOU yesterday), I find myself bracing for what is likely to be a boneheaded level of discourse that is going to be Conservatives and most members of the media wondering where the agreement for a pipeline is at the end of the day, completely ignoring the fact that there are currently no pipeline proposals on the table, and you can’t just pre-approve a theoretical pipeline in a vague direction. But surely, Energy East! That project died because the proponent thought the safer bet was Keystone XL. There is no west-east pipeline being proposed currently by anyone, and not one that is going to displace oil imports in Atlantic Canada (Energy East was an export pipeline). We are not going to build LNG terminals on the East Coast, because there is no business case for it. Carney saying he wants to build isn’t going to change the economics of these non-existent projects, but you just know that people are going to be pointing to a lack of agreement on “pipelines” or whatever is just going to subject us to an insufferable discourse, and I’m really, really not looking forward to it.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-01T14:08:14.462Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia engaged in overnight shelling and air attacks on Sumy and Zaporizhzhia regions. Previously in the weekend, they had a major drone attack that included Kyiv. But Ukraine got their kicks in, in a big way—a massive drone attack that had been in the works for nearly 18 months, dubbed “spiderweb,” which saw transport trucks with hidden compartments placed across Russia near strategic airfields, and over Sunday, they all attacked, destroying upwards of 40 Russian strategic aircraft on their airfields, some of which are irreplaceable nuclear bombers. After which, Ukraine said sure, we’ll meet for “peace talks” in Istanbul again, and they’re bringing a “roadmap” to a peace settlement. After the kicking they gave Russia, I’m sure talks will be interesting.

Pretty dramatic day in Russia: Ukrainian drones have reportedly attacked four Russia air bases, destroying a significant number of strategic bombers and radar planes. (Tu-95s, Tu-22, A-50)Russian milbloggers are furious. One calls it a "black day," another says they need to nuke Kyiv.

— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) 2025-06-01T12:10:24.320Z

Good reads:

  • Carney has named former UN ambassador Marc-André Blanchard has his new chief of staff, starting in July, and David Lametti will be his principal secretary.
  • Canada Post has rejected its union’s offer for binding arbitration, wanting instead a vote from the membership on their “final offer.”
  • The NDP are starting to opine about what the leadership race should look like, but very few are declaring their intentions to jump into that race.
  • Don Davis is grousing that the government isn’t being transparent enough about trade talks with the US that aren’t actually happening.
  • New language laws came into effect in Quebec over the weekend, and here are five things to know about them.
  • Kevin Carmichael notes that a decade of “feminist” government hasn’t done enough to eliminate the economic “child penalty,” which requires more child care spots.
  • Kevin Milligan laments that a form of NIMBYism has essentially made tax reform in this country impossible.
  • Susan Delacourt pays heed to the fact that while Carney talks about humility, there was a whole lot of humbling that happened in that election.

Odds and ends:

New episodes released early for C$7+ subscribers. This week I'm back with @patriciatreble.bsky.social to talk about what we saw during the royal visit. #cdnpoli #MapleCrown

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-06-01T23:29:40.604Z

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.

Roundup: Budget complaints vs Estimates votes

Posted on by

The talk about the lack of a spring budget is reaching histrionics in the House of Commons, while the Conservatives nevertheless agreed to the unanimous consent motion to conduct the study of the Estimates in a rushed manner within the House of Commons as committee of the whole instead of splitting departmental spending off to relevant committees, because it will take too long to establish said committees before these votes need to be taken. And the Estimates are the actual money votes—a budget is a political document, so if the Conservatives are that concerned about where the government plans to spend, well, that’s entirely in these Estimates. The information is entirely there for them.

At the same time, we’ve heard these very same Conservatives (and some of their mouthpieces in the media) decry that there is no reduced spending within these Estimates. And of course not—these are based on last year’s budget and statutory obligations, so there wouldn’t have been any time to book any particular savings in the four weeks since the election. Not to mention that if you want to do a proper programme review in order to achieve smart savings, those take time—up to two years, which would have a better chance of achieving lasting savings. The Conservatives were masters of achieving paper savings in their last couple of budgets when they were in power, as they were so eager to get to a faux balanced budget that they booked a tonne of savings that not only didn’t materialise, but in many cases wound up costing them more (Shared Services, Phoenix) because the act of cutting the spending before the enterprise transformation was complete wound up costing more money in the end. It would seem that nobody learned a single gods named lesson from that exercise.

Meanwhile, Conservatives and their proxies keep insisting that they would rather sit into July so that they can get a budget, and let me once again say that no, they actually do not. There is almost nothing pleasant about an Ottawa summer, and if any of those MPs think they want to be sweltering in Parliament with jacket-and-tie dress codes with a humidex of 39ºC, no, they actually do not. This is performative nonsense, and everyone needs to grow the hell up.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-05-28T13:25:16.198Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Three people were injured in a Russian attack on Svitlovodsk yesterday. President Zelenskyy warned that Russia is massing 50,000 troops outside of Sumy region, which appears to be preparations for a summer offensive. Ukrainian drones hit several Russian weapons production facilities overnight. Russia is now proposing new peace talks in Istanbul (again)—but of course, this is one more deception. If they actually want peace, they can simply pack up and go home.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The magical money tree of tax shelters

Posted on by

Day seventeen, and while the western leg of the tours rolled along, the announcements were decidedly more tepid after Monday’s double-headers. Mark Carney was in Delta, BC, and announced that his housing plan would favour more homes built with Canadian lumber, hence trying to offset some of the issue with higher American tariffs on softwood. Carney starts the day in Calgary, before heading to Saskatoon.

Pierre Poilievre was in Edmonton, and promised to crack down on tax havens and book $1 billion to the treasury for it—a wildly optimistic number considering that you usually need to spend a fair amount to recover that much because doing the work of cracking down takes a lot of resources. And along the way, he essentially said he’d open the door to small businesses to evade taxes because resources would be directed away from them. This was really just an attempt to take a shot at Carney because Brookfield used Bermuda as a tax haven for certain investments, which Carney could not sufficiently and explicitly denounce when asked about it, for which the Conservatives and NDP pounced. The other notable part of the day for the Conservatives was Poilievre badgering and hectoring reporters to lavish praise on the size of his Edmonton rally, which sounds awfully similar to another guy obsessed with the size of his…crowds. Poilievre starts his day in Sault Ste. Marie, and then heads to Brampton.

Another magical money tree.The Conservatives are really starting to sound like the NDP here…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-08T14:55:29.888Z

Jagmeet Singh was in Vancouver and his home riding in Burnaby, and didn’t make any actual announcements—he just sent out a series of press releases sniping at Liberal candidates who were in the real estate business in the area and Carney himself, for what it’s worth. Singh remains in Vancouver, and heads to Saskatoon later in the day.

In other campaign news, Poilievre’s tone toward Carney is getting a harder edge as he insists that Carney was not a businessman but a “political grifter,” (never mind that Poilievre has also never  been a businessman), and we’re into trading jabs about haircuts and resumes.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones attacked Dnipro and Kharkiv overnight, injuring at least 17 people. Russians also claim to have driven Ukrainian soldiers out of the Kursk region. President Zelenskyy says that two Chinese nationals have been captured fighting alongside Russians in the eastern Donetsk region, and that they have information that there are more.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Pre-approved invitations to litigation

Posted on by

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

Continue reading →

Roundup: Singh’s suck-up to Sanders

Posted on by

While the Liberals are busy with their leadership race, Jagmeet Singh spent part of his Friday doing the biggest virtue-signal of all in NDP terms—having a meeting with US senator Bernie Sanders. It’s no secret to anyone who’s paid attention that the NDP have essentially turned themselves into a branch plant of the “justice” Democrats, and that a number of their policy proposals in recent elections have been irrelevant in the Canadian context, but because they didn’t bother to actually check if this is a Canadian issue, or they merely divided by ten and decided that’s enough to make it Canadian, when it’s irrelevant to our country.

This drips with Singh's desperation for praise from Sanders (and American Democrats in general). #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-18T01:28:05.702Z

This comes across to me as “Notice me, Senpai!” pleading from Singh, and looking for an obliging pat on the head from the figure that his party is currently drawing their inspiration from, no matter if Sanders’ prescriptions have little relevance for Canada. Even more hilarious is the part where Singh is seeking praise for pharmacare and dental care when neither programme is fully implemented, nor are they likely to be because he’s decided to start talking tough about bringing down the Liberal government, which will merely sign the death warrant for these plans that he is trying to take credit for.

Honestly, if it’s possible to die of cringe, Singh is in serious danger of doing so.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed 33 out of 50 Russian drones overnight Thursday, with damage reported in five different regions. A Russian missile killed at least four people and damaged an educational facility in Kryvyi Rih. Russia claims it retook 63.2 of captured territory in Kursk region. A Ukrainian drone set an oil depot ablaze in Russia’s Kaluga region, south of Moscow.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The virtual meeting with the premiers over Trump

Posted on by

Prime minister Justin Trudeau had his virtual meeting with the premiers yesterday evening, and it has been a really interesting divergence in reactions. Jagmeet Singh is panicking and demanding performative forcefulness, while Pierre Poilievre is trying to leverage the moment for his own political ends, claiming that the solution is to do everything he says (conveniently!). Premiers have been all over the map, going from caution to outright boot-licking (looking at you, Danielle Smith), and this was one of the messages that emerged from that meeting. I also find it particularly crass the number of premiers who set up American flags for their backdrops before their media availabilities before and after the meeting. Seriously, guys?

Chrystia Freeland met with reporters and spoke about the need for a united front and not to be seen to be squabbling with one another, but premiers with their own agendas haven’t really seemed to warm to that necessity, because they’d rather score points against the current government with boneheaded accusations that they were “blindsided” by the threats, and that they don’t have a plan. (They’ve had a plan for over a year, guys. You might want to actually pay attention). And after the meeting, most of the premiers made their own individual points about how they want so many more resources poured into their province (such as more RCMP members that don’t exist because they can’t recruit and train them fast enough, or retain them in the toxic culture of the Force), but Smith remains particularly stubborn in trying to leverage this into foregoing the emissions cap and trying to say that Trudeau shouldn’t be leading the effort to defend Canada (again, to her benefit).

Meanwhile, Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, took a much more aggressive stance with threatened retaliation (which Trudeau has thus far not threatened, preferring a “methodical” approach). Sheinbaum had a call with Trump and basically pledged to keep doing what they were already doing, and Trump declared victory, so maybe Canada will do the same? Trudeau has talked about strengthening border measures, which has been an ongoing process, particularly since the amendment of the Safe Third Country Agreement, so maybe that too will be enough to get Trump to declare victory? I guess we shall see, but in the meantime, we’ll see how many premiers can keep their cool.

Ukraine Dispatch

Explosions were heard in Odesa, Kropyvnytskyi, Kharkiv, Rivne and Lutsk amid reports of a cruise missile attack last night. Three were wounded in a drone attack on Kyiv the night before. Russian forces claim to have taken the settlement of Nova Illinka in Donetsk region. Germany’s intelligence chief says that Russian sabotage in NATO countries could trigger Article 5.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1861772687229501452

Continue reading →

QP: Attempting to be clever about a poor policy decision

Posted on by

The prime minister was in Toronto for the ill-considered GST “holiday” announcement along with his deputy, and most of the other leaders made themselves absent as well. Pierre Poilievre had just given a press conference but was not present, leaving it up to Frank Caputo to lead off instead, asking a ghoulish about sexual killers getting reduced security in prison, falsely blaming the former Bill C-83 (which was about solitary confinement reform). Dominic LeBlanc castigated the Conservatives for constantly repeating the names of heinous killers who are behind bars. Caputo then switched to denouncing the announced “affordability package” and demanded an election. Arif Virani declared that today was a great day for affordability and hoped the Conservatives wouldn’t be muzzled from voting for it. Caputo dismissed the measures and again demanded the carbon levy be cut instead. Virani gave a paean about how great the measures were for Xmas. Luc Berthold took over in French to say the best course was to cut the carbon levy, but the framing was odd because it doesn’t apply in Quebec, and François-Philippe Champagne praised the proposed measures. Berthold insisted the measures would raise inflation and demanded an election, and Champagne said that they don’t need an election, and the Conservatives need to support it.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and complained about the state of official languages and the decline of French. Ginette Petitpas Taylor, newly in the portfolio, said she looked forward to working with the Quebec government. Therrien quoted Quebec’s French Language Commissioner in saying that the federal government is “anglicising” Gatineau and Quebec, and Petitpas Taylor said she was offended by this as a New Brunswicker.

Alexandre Bourlerice rose for the NDP, and took credit for the government temporarily cutting the GST on certain items, and demanded this be made permanent. Champagne said that the NDP is just waking up and that the government has long understood the affordability needs and giving people a hand at Xmas. Don Davies made the same demand in English, and Anita Anand yelled that it was tax-free on essential goods for the holidays and how great this was, ending with a swipe at the Conservatives about “How can they claim to speak for Canadians when they can’t even speak for themselves?”

Continue reading →