Tag Archives: Pharmacare

Roundup: Unclear goals means poor accountability

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The Parliamentary Budget Officer released his report on the plans for Build Canada Homes yesterday, and the headline conclusion is that the $13 billion fund will only produce some 26,000 new housing units, which is not a lot. He also tracks the declining funding in other existing housing programmes, that BCH doesn’t really make up for, though the government’s response that has been that his report merely assumes that funding agreements coming to an end won’t be renewed, and that they could be three or four years down the road when they do expire, so fair enough.

New PBO report out today, that finds that in the first 5 years of the Build Canada Homes program, it's will have $7.3 billion of spending on an accrual basis ($13 billion on a cash basis) and lead to fewer than 26,000 homes being built.Read here: www.pbo-dpb.ca/en/pu…

— Dr. Mike P. Moffatt (@mikepmoffatt.bsky.social) 2025-12-02T15:11:25.000Z

The fed reaction to PBO's housing report makes clear what I said at a conference last week: The gov't has no long-term plan, no targets, no KPIs, no accountability metrics. 5 years from now we won't know if BCH worked, because there's no benchmarks.www.cbc.ca/news/poli…

— Dr. Mike P. Moffatt (@mikepmoffatt.bsky.social) 2025-12-02T20:12:57.000Z

That said, Mike Moffatt makes the point that the report highlights the lack of long-term planning, and metrics by which BCH can be held to account. Sure, it’s supposed to “catalyse” investment from the private sector, and do things like make federal lands available for development, but it’s fair to point out that the lack of planning makes it hard to tell just what they’re planning to do, and how that funding will be applied. Gregor Robertson insists that this is just the initial investment, that more will come in future years, and so on, but again, you would think they would have a better grasp on the plan and what it’s supposed to entail. I know it’s been a few months, but clear goals would really help set the direction they are supposed to be headed in. This government has thus-far relied on a lot of hand-waving regarding their plans, and this is very much an example of what that looks like and why it’s not very helpful for evaluating what they’re supposed to be doing.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-02T22:22:02.159Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine continues to deny Russia’s claim that they control Pokrovsk. Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines don’t believe in the current “peace deal,” saying Russia will simply invade again in the future.

Russian propaganda in full force for the Witkoff visit: Putin is claiming to have captured Ukrainian cities that he doesn't control, and having himself photographed in military uniformkyivindependent.com/putin-claims…

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-12-02T12:18:09.879Z

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1995802755034734819

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Roundup: Political support for a new pipeline?

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More details are emerging about the Memorandum of Understanding that prime minister Mark Carney looks set to sign with Alberta premier Danielle Smith on Thursday, which would set the stage for political support for a pipeline to the northwest coast of BC if certain conditions are met. Those conditions include a stricter industrial carbon price in the province, and a “multibillion-dollar investment in carbon capture from the Pathways Alliance,” and there is apparently some language about Indigenous ownership and equity. In return, it looks like Alberta also gets a bunch of exemptions from other environmental legislation, which it would seem to me is just setting up fights with every other province who will want their own special deals and carve-outs.

BC premier David Eby is rightfully upset about being left out of the process (as Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe initially claimed he was part of the talks, which turned out to be mere self-aggrandisement). And while it’s true that the province can’t veto a project that falls under federal jurisdiction (and we have Supreme Court jurisprudence on this), it definitely feels impolitic to freeze him out, considering that making an agreement with Smith to overrule Eby’s stated wishes—and the wishes of the coastal First Nations—certainly has the feel of the US and Russia coming up with a “peace plan” for Ukraine. Eby also, correctly, points out that they would never do this with Quebec, which is a good point.

This being said, this remains about a hypothetical pipeline that may never come to fruition because they are unlikely to get a private sector proponent, because the oil market changed in 2014 and Alberta refuses to accept that fact. What I am more concerned about is just how many billions of public dollars are going to be consume by Pathways in order to try and make it viable, and it just won’t be, and we’ll have wasted years, billions of dollars, both of which could have been better spent coming up with a more reasonable transition to a greener future, because again, it’s not 2014 anymore.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-11-24T23:08:02.124Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones and missiles have hit residential buildings in Kyiv, starting fires and killing at least one person. Ukrainian officials are apparently working with the Americans on the so-called “28-point peace plan” to make it more palatable.

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Roundup: A 28-point capitulation plan

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Things are heating up for Ukraine now that Trump has presented his so-called 28-point “peace plan,” which is nothing of the sort, and he’s giving president Volodymyr Zelenskyy one week to agree to it, or he is threatening to withdraw American support, even though that support has been mercurial and dwindling for the past year. Nevertheless, they have some key defensive technologies that Ukraine relies upon, particularly for air defences. But in no way is this plan at all acceptable, and is little more than a demand for Ukraine to capitulate, and to pay America for the privilege because Trump is a gangster running a protection racket.

This is what a protection racket looks like, although they are rarely put in writing

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman.bsky.social) 2025-11-21T17:56:08.496Z

The “plan” (full text here) proposes that Ukraine turn over remaining areas in the regions Putin has been unable to conquer after four years, which are essentially a fortress belt. Turning those over, plus reducing the size of Ukraine’s army, is essentially an invitation for Putin to come back and invade with nothing to stop him the next time. The “deal” wants Ukraine to forgo NATO membership, which essentially gives Putin a veto over NATO. It wants Ukraine to pay the US for security guarantees, but no agreement with Trump is worth the paper it’s written on. It wants Ukraine to abandon any attempt to hold Russia accountable for its actions, including mass torture and crimes against humanity. And it wants Russia’s frozen assets returned. So Russia gives up nothing, and it positions itself to fully conquer Ukraine in a few months or a year, when Trump gets bored, and then creates an existential threat for the rest of Europe given that Putin will have gotten rid of the biggest obstacle to his expansionary plans.

Zelenskyy says he will work earnestly with the Americans on this, but that he won’t betray Ukraine’s interests, which pretty much means that he can’t accept these terms. European leaders say that they’re standing behind Ukraine, because they know the danger. But some of the reporting in Canada is abysmal, treating the plan like it’s serious when getting defence minister David McGuinty to comment on it. At least he says that any plan has to be “acceptable,” but this plan clearly is not, so I’m not sure why anyone is bothering to ask if he supports it because there is no way he could or should. This “plan” merely confirms that there is no point in relying on the US any longer, which means that Europe and Canada need to step up right now, and give Ukraine all of the support possible right now because anything less is a disaster for the future of western democracies.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-11-21T14:24:03.043Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims it has taken a string of four settlements in the Donetsk region, which Ukraine denies. They also claim that 5000 Ukrainian troops are trapped in the Kharkiv region.

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QP: Credit cards and a prima donna PBO

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

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

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Roundup: Only premiers can make pharmacare happen

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The Star takes a deep dive into the notion of pharmacare as a nation-building project, instead of just thinking of mines, pipelines or other major infrastructure, and it’s an interesting piece to read. This being said, it once again ignores the problem of the premiers in the equation, which is starting to feel like a pattern for a newspaper that actually has the resources and the bench depth in their Queen’s Park bureau to actually take on this state of affairs. You can’t look at an issue that is almost entirely squarely within an area of provincial jurisdiction, whether that’s pharmacare or bail courts, and then ignore provincial culpability, and yet, this is what keeps happening in legacy media.

As for the pharmacare issue, yes, there are plenty of good arguments to be made for a universal single-payer system, and yes, the Liberals did spend years trying to build up this system on the back-end before the NDP made this a condition of their supply-and-confidence agreement, and put in the work of doing things like establishing the Canadian Drug Agency and getting an agreement with PEI off the ground for a full co-pay system (because they had no provincial drug plan), but that went entirely unrecognised as the NDP demanded a useless piece of legislation that tried to do things backwards, to legislate before an agreement had been made with provinces, and this is what the media kept their focus on, in particular because the NDP made such a dog-and-pony show about it, while at the same time, refusing to call out their provincial counterparts who actively resisted signing onto a federal pharmacare programme. Former BC premier John Horgan was particularly vociferously opposed, but did Jagmeet Singh, Don Davies or Peter Julian say a gods damned word about it? Nope.

Premiers have been allergic to this issue for decades now, because they don’t want to have to pay for one more thing, particularly as they are trying to starve the existing healthcare system in the hopes that they can privatise it to relieve themselves of the burden of paying for it. But nobody wants to hear that. They’d rather blame the federal government for supposedly under-funding (they don’t), or that they aren’t working hard enough to get a pharmacare deal with the provinces when the Trudeau government worked for years before NDP made their demands, and got an extremely limited agreement and called it a win. And premiers continue to be let off the hook.

effinbirds.com/post/7813695…

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-27T13:08:08.642Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian forces are reinforcing positions in Pokrovsk as some 200 Russian troops have infiltrated the city in small groups. A UN inquiry has found that Russians have been using drones to hound and hunt down civilians who live near the front lines.

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Roundup: Carney won’t retaliate

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Prime minister Mark Carney has dismissed calls by Doug Ford and others to retaliate against increasing American trade actions, insisting that this is not the time, and that this is the time to keep negotiating. But to what end? There is no deal to be had, and any deal they come up with isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. The talks keep “stalling,” and every time, the Americans make another demand to restart them, and Carney capitulates, and then the talks resume for a few days, and then they “stall” again. Because there isn’t a deal to be had. Sure, we currently have the “best deal” of everyone, which doesn’t amount to much given the constant tariffs under bullshit “national security” reasons, but their demands are increasingly encroaching on our sovereignty and ability to make our own policy decisions, again, for nothing. When do we start saying no more? Hopefully before we’re a vassal state.

Carney also said that he got “reassurances” from Stellantis about the Brampton plant that they decided to move production away from, but again, what good is that if they decide to keep shifting production south to avoid the tariffs, as Trump wants? Carney also isn’t saying if he’d drop Chinese EV tariffs for the sake of saving the canola trade, but again, that would be foolish because the next time China wants to make a point, they would tariff canola again, or come up with some kind of falsehood about “concerns” about the product, like they constantly do. It would be great if Carney could actually articulate that concern, rather than give false hope that this would be some kind of lasting solution to the canola issue.

Meanwhile, Carney announced his bail and sentencing reform plans, most of which are pretty much the opposite of what the legal community has warned against, and which does nothing about the fact that the real problem with bail is provinces under-resourcing their court systems, or that their jails are overcrowded, and that they’re not funding community supervision programmes, or that their underfunding social programmes means more people are going to find their way into crime. Tinkering with the Criminal Code and endangering people’s Charter rights will do nothing about this. And it’s so infuriating that Carney just capitulated to a bunch of complete falsehoods by the Conservatives, and this will change nothing (other than crowding those provincial jails even worse), and they’ll still get blamed when another case slips through the cracks.

They say they're going to work with the provinces, but rest assured that those provinces won't do what they need to do (resource their court systems), and that the situation is going to get even worse, and the federal government will again take the blame, and tinker with the Criminal Code even more.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-10-16T15:39:15.421Z

Also, as Dale notes, provinces have no room to incarcerate more people. Judges are reducing custodial sentences because jail conditions are so bad. bsky.app/profile/jour…

— Anna Mehler Paperny (@mehlerpaperny.bsky.social) 2025-10-16T18:03:49.009Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian attacks on Ukrainian gas facilities will force them to import more gas this winter. A large Russian assault near Dobropillia was repelled by Ukrainian forces. Reuters takes a deeper dive into Russia’s attacks on Russia’s energy industry. AP has a photo gallery of displaced Ukrainians at a hostel in Dnipro.

Good reads:

  • Lina Diab says that there will be some adjustments coming to the provincial nominee programme numbers.
  • Tim Hodgson says the Americans are interested in “energy security” as part of conversations about reviving the Keystone XL pipeline.
  • Both Alberta and Saskatchewan’s health ministers say that Marjorie Michel hasn’t approached them about joining the federal pharmacare programme.
  • DND and the Canadian Forces are suing NSIRA to block the release of a report on their intelligence activities, claiming the redactions aren’t sufficient.
  • FINTRAC has levied a $600,000 fine on the First Nations Bank for lack of proper controls over money laundering, which they acknowledge.
  • Former PBO Kevin Page and the head of the IMF both say that Canada’s finances are sustainable and could increase spending without issue.
  • As Mélanie Joly tries to press Lockheed Martin for more industrial benefits for F-35s, the company points to 30 companies in Canada providing components.
  • A study shows that Canadian passport holders outpace Americans for visa-free access to other countries.
  • Here is a look at the process to create the Supreme Court of Canada’s new ceremonial robes.
  • In more Dollarama Trumpism, Poilievre is calling for the RCMP to investigate and jail Trudeau for past ethics scandals, saying the senior ranks are “despicable.”
  • The premier of PEI is calling for a federal investigation into allegations of Chinese foreign interference and money-laundering in the province.
  • Wab Kinew is lobbing broadsides at other premiers over their use of the Notwithstanding Clause as he moves a bill to refer future all uses to the courts.
  • Rob Shaw chronicles BC Conservative leader John Rustad’s plummeting fortunes.
  • John Michael McGrath makes the depressing point that Canada has very little leverage when it comes to trying to preserve our auto industry.
  • My Xtra column points out that Carney’s hate crime bill is mostly empty symbolism because the real problem is a lack of police enforcing existing laws.
  • My (delayed) column makes the case that youth may be avoiding politics because they no longer have an entry point with grassroots party organisations.

Odds and ends:

https://twitter.com/RichardAlbert/status/1978906504154489171

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Roundup: Five projects already approved or underway

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As expected, prime minister Mark Carney revealed the first five projects for the Major Project Office yesterday, and they were all…projects that have approvals and are underway in some stage, some more than halfway through construction, making one wonder just what exactly this was supposed to do. Carney made some vague remarks about getting them over the finish line, but the only halfway plausible explanation I heard came from an executive from one of the mining projects on Power & Politics who said this was sending positive signals necessary for investor confidence. Carney also made vague remarks about greenhouse gas targets and whether he planned to keep them, but his talk of a “grand bargain” doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of economic sense.

It was less the five announced projects that got premiers (other than David Eby) salivating, but the promises in the next tranche of projects that Carney says will be announced “by the Grey Cup,” because Canadian sports references. This includes a potential offshore wind farm in Nova Scotia, and expanding the Port of Churchill in Manitoba, which would also mean a need for expanded icebreaking capacity in Hudson’s Bay, which sounds an awful lot like a fairly significant federal subsidy. Dominic LeBlanc touted the possibility of construction on high-speed rail starting within four years (at least in the Toronto-to-Quebec corridor, and not the Windsor-to-Toronto arm). Perhaps most surprising, however, was Danielle Smith praising the projects, including the possibility of “Pathways Plus” (being the Pathways Alliance carbon capture scheme, which remains unviable without a high enough carbon price), and being effusive about her meeting with Carney on Wednesday, which one might take as a worrying sign that she is finding common conservative ground with Carney.

And predictably, the federal Conservatives went out to mock everything as being pathetic, that this was just an email to an office that doesn’t exist yet, and that everything is in the realm of mere possibility—and the lack of a pipeline on the list, though they are unable to name any pipeline project that is ready for federal approval. And the worst part remains that there is plenty to criticise, particularly that these five projects are already at underway, and that this is Carney trying to give himself undue credit for them. But no, they instead need to make cartoonish arguments, because they are incapable of being serious, even when they have been handed legitimate criticisms on a silver platter.

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that allies need to rethink their air defences in light of the drone incursion in Poland, given that countering drones requires different, layered defences than planes or missiles.

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Roundup: Carney offers another capitulation on the promise of more talks

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Following a virtual Cabinet meeting Friday morning, prime minister Mark Carney summoned the media to the temporary press theatre in Ottawa, and announced that he is going to capitulate to Trump once again, dropping most of the retaliatory tariffs as a “goodwill gesture” for a trade deal that is never going to happen. He insisted that he was given assurances by Trump himself that this was going to jump-start those negotiations, for real this time. And when pressed about this being “elbows down,” Carney responded with a bunch of other nonsensical hockey analogies, becaused that’s the level of political discourse in this country.

Carney is dropping most retaliatory tariffs, because of course he is.Going to re-post my column from last weekend:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T16:17:13.949Z

Carney just spinning, spinning, spinning about why this totally isn't a capitulation—really!—even though we're getting nothing for this."We have the best deal and we need to preserve that." "We're matching what they're doing," only it's not actually matching the counter-tariffs that remain.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T16:37:27.080Z

And we can totally believe him because he means it this time! For realsies!

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T16:40:32.869Z

Just like surrendering on the Digital Sales Tax would kickstart negotiations, right? That capitulation got us something, right?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T16:45:34.098Z

It’s getting incredibly difficult not to feel like we’re being played here. Previous capitulations have earned us nothing, because they’re not going to, and there is no trade deal to be had. Trump is just going to keep extorting us, and forcing us to repeal more of our domestic laws he and his tech bro friends don’t like, and eventually we’ll become a vassal state unless we keep punching back. There is no goodwill to be had in making this gesture because there is no goodwill from Trump, period. But while Carney keeps insisting that he’s doing this in concert with building Canadian capacity, he’s not proving it with his actions. Austerity is going to do the opposite, and that’s what we’re getting. The only people who are applauding this (other than the Carney stans, for whom he can do no wrong) are the big business lobbyists in this country, who think we should bend the knee to get a deal, never mind that there is no deal to be had, and bending the knee is going to only turn us into a vassal state.

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lwyzxe6p3s2m

I'd have more confidence in Carney's US strategy if his domestic policies were at all up to the task of safeguarding Canadian independence. Taken together, they're bad news.A government that's cutting state capacity in a crisis isn't serious about nation building. We need more government, not less.

— Blayne Haggart (@bhaggart.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T17:39:50.048Z

Right on cue, the business lobbyists are praising Carney's capitulation strategy. #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T17:59:11.201Z

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-08-22T16:38:30.903Z

Pierre Poilievre did hold his own press conference later in the afternoon, and while he did (correctly) point out that this was another capitulation, he also seems to still believe that Trump is a rational actor and would respond rationally to a negotiation, and says that everyone else is getting a better deal than we are, which is utter nonsense. And, because this is Poilievre, he made yet another pitch for his usual bullshit of obliterating environmental laws and so on, because of course he did.

Ukraine Dispatch

Trump says he might sanction Russia in another two weeks, which gives them two more weeks of unrestrained attacks, and more chance to play Trump. Meanwhile, here are attacks Ukraine has been making on Russian energy facilities.

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Roundup: Reassuring Inuit leadership

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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.

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QP: Spinning an EV conspiracy

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The prime minister was still on his way back from hosting the G7 in Kananaskis, and the Commons was moving along without him being there on a Wednesday. The other leaders were present, and Andrew Scheer did lead off today, and he returned to the party’s mendacious talking points about the supposed “insane” ban on gas-powered vehicles (which is not actually a ban), and he claimed that favourite vehicles will be “illegal,” and that the government is pricing people out of buying a vehicle. Julie Dabrusin started with the fact there is no ban, before lamenting that the Conservatives are talking down the auto sector at a time when it is under threat from Trump tariffs. Scheer insisted there is a ban, and that it would “devastate” the auto sector, blamed Carney for not getting a deal on tariffs with Trump, and claimed the “ban” on gas-powered vehicles would kill 90,000 jobs. Dabrusin praised the auto sector and praised the fact that EVs are cheaper to operate and maintain. Scheer then tried to tie this to a conspiracy about Brookfield and insisted this was about Carney’s private interests. Evan Solomon got up to recite a script about how much the government invested in the auto sector. Pierre Paul-Hus read the French script that this was taking away choice. Dabrusin reminded him that they are not banning vehicles, and that Quebec already has regulations about access ps to EVs. Paul-Hus claimed this was about trying to “control” Canadians, and Dabrusin repeated that they are not banning gas-powered vehicles, and that EVs are cheaper to maintain. Paul-Hus said that the government tried to “control” people through the carbon levy, and wanted this scrapped as well. Dabrusin called this out as absurd, and praised the auto sector.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he decried the concessions made around the border and defence, and worried that the PM came away from the G7 “empty handed.” Dominic LeBlanc said that Carney’s meeting with Trump was “constructive,” and that he was convinced they made progress. Blanchet decried Bill C-5, and LeBlanc raised the tariff war and insisted that they would respect environmental regulations and First Nations. Blanchet insisted that C-5 wouldn’t do what they claim, and Chrystia Freeland stood up to take exception to this assertion.

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