Tag Archives: Pierre Poilievre

Political blackmail under the guise of a unity speech

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Pierre Poilievre kicked off his supposed “unity campaign” in Calgary yesterday (as he skipped the installation of the Governor General to do so), and gave a speech which was little more than a remix of the same campaign speech he’s been giving for three years now. And not even a good remix, but a shitty extended dub mix that is mostly just a lot of electronic noise. In it was the usual litany of invented grievances that Albertans have been touting for years—pretending that the federal government is somehow interfering in their jurisdiction, or that Justin Trudeau’s environmental policies were somehow strangling the province’s resource sector and that the global oil price crash of 2014 didn’t happen (just like the oil price crash of 1981 didn’t happen, and all of their woes were the fault of Pierre Trudeau). It’s a tired mythology that is not true, but is so intrinsic to the core of the invented grievances that have dominated Alberta politics for more than four decades.

But what is particularly dangerous about this kind of tactic is that it hijacks a potential national unity crisis for partisan ends. It makes unity conditional on the conservatives, federally or provincially, getting their own way as though there aren’t political considerations in the rest of the country either. As Andrew Coyne puts it, this message posits that the rest of the country needs to “prove” that it’s worth saving, and if that means dismantling what little federalism we have in this country, then so be it. The notion that the only Canada worth having is their narrow vision of the country, which is exclusionary and frankly mean, is not a unity message. It’s little more than the same kind of blackmail that Danielle Smith and Jason Kenney before her were trying to use in leveraging separatist sentiment to hold a knife to their own throats to force concessions from the federal government because they think it worked for Quebec. (It did not, and Quebec’s economy has never actually recovered). It’s fundamentally undemocratic, and shows them to be little more than crybabies who can’t handle the fact that sometimes democracy means you lose at politics.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-06-08T19:08:01.492Z

My Latest:

  • My latest for National Magazine on Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision and the warning they gave to judges about how to do a credibility analysis.
  • My weekend column takes note of the way in which Poilievre’s rhetoric tends to catastrophize what is happening, along his tendency to rewrite history.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take on that Conservative MP trying to refuse his raise, and why that kind of populism is poisonous to democracy.

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Ceding the recession narrative

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The is-it-or-isn’t-it recession talk continued apace over the weekend and on Monday, as Pierre Poilievre demanded an emergency debate on it (which the Speaker denied), while more economists continued to line up on the side of “it’s not a recession.” Even the senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada appeared at committee and warned them not to take a single point of data when the economic indicators as a whole remain mixed.

Ignore all of those other economists, including the Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada. Andrew Scheer, who couldn't even complete his insurance certification, is going to school you on the recession.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-06-02T01:36:43.140Z

This being said, prime minister Mark Carney has been wholly silent on it since the data were released on Friday morning. He made two separate media appearances yesterday but took no questions at either one, and he has avoided Question Period yesterday and he’s avoiding it today, and it really starts to look like he’s ceding the ground to Poilievre, who keeps bellowing his ridiculous narratives while Carney, who is supposed to have the economic gravitas as a former central bank governor, remains absent. And there are important things we should probably be talking about with this data, such as the fact that in periods of slow growth, these indicators dipping below zero are less important than the overall picture, and that overreacting and panicking can lead to greater problems or damage in the longer term. But we’re not having this conversation because, again, Carney is ceding the field, and given that Poilievre seems to enjoy this unearned economic credibility, it’s frankly arrogant to think that his bogus narratives can’t gain traction because they absolutely can, and that will spell trouble overall.

My Latest:

  • For National Magazine, my dive into Friday’s pair of Supreme Court of Canada decisions on the exceptions for the Jordan timelines on trial lengths.
  • My weekend column points to things that Steven Guilbeault’s departure has highlighted as just how much this government is backsliding on its climate goals.

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A technical recession?

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Yesterday morning, Statistics Canada reported that the first quarter of GDP was very slightly in the negative on an annualized basis—on a real GDP quarter-over-quarter basis, it was flat (and if you really want to get into it, GDP per capita was up after a second quarterly population decline). This immediately led to a flurry of speculation of whether this is a “technical recession,” meaning two quarters of negative growth, or not, given that the data were mixed. And three economists who spoke to the Financial Post said it’s not a real recession, and it was also noted that when the data are revised in the next quarter’s release, it may very well be revised upward. To add to that, the preliminary estimate for April GDP is that it rose 0.4 percent, so that means that we would already be out of said recession if we were indeed in one.

Pierre Poiliever, however, pounced on this, screaming that it’s a RECESSION and he quickly added to all of the QP scripts that morning that “Canada is the only G7 country in a recession,” but since most of the questions were on prime minister Mark Carney’s in-flight meal service on the government jet, it sounded an awful lot like he was blaming said recession on said in-flight catering. Because we’re a serious country. Poilievre then called a hasty press conference to say that this was all Mark Carney’s fault, because no other G7 country is in a recession, as though their economies weren’t as exposed to the US and its tariffs as ours is. Once again, we appear to have no actual adults in our parliament.

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2060452517142827077

Noted economist Andrew Scheer has deigned to correct The Canadian Press' headline.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-29T22:54:32.367Z

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Roundup: Referendum on a referendum reactions

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It was a strange day in the wake of Alberta premier Danielle Smith put having a referendum about a future referendum, as everyone was offering reactions. Prime minister Mark Carney summoned a small press pool to the empty Library of Parliament in the Centre Block, undergoing renovations, to make the somewhat bizarre case that he is “renovating the country” and that Alberta is essential to that. (Huh?) Pierre Poilievre says that national unity is the prime minister’s job, before going on to repeat the invented grievances that the separatists are furiously masturbating over, while other Conservative MPs started tweeting variations of the same. A group of small-c conservatives launched a “Vote to Stay” campaign, and Jason Kenney is attaching himself to that while refusing to take any responsibility whatsoever for creating this situation when he invited the separatists into his “united” party (before they ate his face). Here is some assorted reaction quotes, while the Calgary Chamber of Commerce is denouncing the move as coming at the worst time for the economy in the province.

Takes no responsibility for creating this situation, and now wants to swoop in to play hero.Fuck that guy.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T17:20:14.040Z

Also, "Alberta Built Canada"? Because apparently we're going to engage in self-aggrandizing bullshit in the name of national unity? Speaking as an Albertan, my eyes rolled so far back in my head I saw black.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T17:20:14.041Z

Brexit lessons: – An insurgent populist right will be invigorated by a referendum, not vanquished- They don't care about Leave/separate as a real policy. They possibly don't even want it implemented. It's a vehicle for grievances, racism, and graft- Crypto and dark money will sink you

— Lauren Dobson-Hughes (@ldobsonhughes.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T14:09:20.929Z

Brexit lessons cont:- The pro movement will make dry, factual cases for support that don't resonate- The Leave/Cede side will make emotive, wildly untrue claims that are actually about tapping into grievances and identity- Dark money will sink you

— Lauren Dobson-Hughes (@ldobsonhughes.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T14:10:51.779Z

And Smith? She was busy casting blame about to everyone else for “causing” this to happen when she knows damn well this is her decision. She also told the separatists to focus on the referendum rather than trying to oust her, which just confirms once again that this is all about her own fortunes, and to hell with the rest of the province and the country as a whole. Smith also says she wants to try to amend the Constitution to “refine” Indigenous land rights, as though this isn’t their land that they agreed to share (and we’ve been screwing them over ever since).

Danielle Smith Is Holding A Referendum Whether You Whiny Losers Like It Or Notyoutu.be/N_q4WLMdUQQ

— Clare Blackwood (@clareblackwood.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T19:41:46.443Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-05-22T19:08:02.606Z

Supreme Court

Yesterday was both the final hearing for Justice Sheilah Martin before she retires, and also the final hearing in the iconic courtroom at the Supreme Court’s building before the Court decamps for their new digs this summer so that the building can undergo needed reparations. As someone who was there for the final sitting in Centre Block, being present for the last hearing at the SCC was also a little bittersweet.

You can watch the Chief Justice’s remarks, plus Justice Martin’s farewell speech, here.

Justice Martin makes remarks on her decision to retire in advance of the mandatory date, and asserts that her health is excellent. She then speaks about her time on the bench. #SCC

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T13:37:45.698Z

Justice Martin: “The joke is often that it’s like having eight spouses. And I will add: in an arranged marriage.” #SCC

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T13:41:48.569Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck a UN relief supply warehouse in Dnipro, destroying $1 million worth of aid. Ukrainian drones hit another Russian oil refinery, this time in Yaroslavl, some 700 kilometres away from the Ukrainian border.

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Roundup: A referendum on a referendum

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith held a televised address last night to announce that the province would be holding a non-binding referendum on whether to hold a binding referendum on separation. No, seriously. After the separatists’ petition was tossed by the Court of King’s Bench, and the Forever Canada petition was unsuitable for the purposes of such a referendum on separation, Smith decided to try and be too-clever-by-half, and sit on that fence as hard as possible so that she can try and throw the separatists a bone without looking like she is actively campaigning for them (in spite of the fact that she has given them absolutely everything under the sun to make their lives easier, including a referendum with no democratic mandate).

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mmfrqdahts2x

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T01:00:14.133Z

While I will write about this in more depth in my weekend column, let me say for the moment that this was Smith’s choice, and it does nothing but prolong the uncertainty, make it more likely to give the separatists leverage because it can be shrugged off as a non-binding vote that will become the repository of the grievances that Albertans have been marinating in since the eighties, and spiral out of control like Brexit did. But Smith refuses to confront the separatists, and nobody will actually say the words “Normal people can buy UCP memberships and drown out the separatist loons trying to take control of the party.” No one person has even suggested that. Instead, we’re pretending that referendums are democracy when they are in fact just elite-driven fuckery dressed up in democratic clothes, and ignoring the crisis in grassroots democracy that has created this crisis in the first place. It’s absolutely damning about the state of the province.

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2057607415596831039

Jen Gerson: "The momentum here right now is on the side of people who treat the idea of the Republic of Alberta as a kind of religious movement. It's a millenarian movement … heavily influenced by the kind of nihilism that infects a lot of the broader MAGA movement."

— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson.bsky.social) 2026-05-21T21:03:33.190Z

Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre was asked about a potential referendum earlier in the day, and he said he would fight for Canada, but did so in the most tepid way possible while he continued to grind on the invented grievances that have helped get us to this point, because he is both a coward and intellectually bankrupt. Yes, it’s important that we have conservatives be the voices for national unity in the province, but if you’re going to do it by carrying on the fictions that somehow the Liberals were responsible for the oil crash in 2014, you’re not actually helping. And if someone suggests Jason Kenney be that voice because he is now an enemy of the separatists after they ate his face after he brought them into the “united” party, then they deserve a smack upside the head. Kenney created this mess, and he refuses to take responsibility for that fact, and until he does, he shouldn’t be any kind of voice of moral authority here.

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mmeymnle2k2j

"Unblock the resources." Oil production is at record highs. Alberta has the highest per capita incomes in the country. Just mouthing along with the invented grievances of the bad faith actors who put us in this position.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-05-21T19:44:20.395Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-05-21T13:08:04.230Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Here is a look at all of the Russian energy sites that have been attacked by Ukrainian drones over the past couple of weeks.

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Roundup: Preparing to gut environmental laws

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The federal government is openly musing about changes to the Impact Assessment Act and the Fisheries Act in order to speed up project approvals, which sounds like it could be a dubious proposition. Federal Sources™ still insist that they will need Indigenous consultations and “robust” environmental assessments for projects, but if they keep “streamlining” these processes, they’re not robust. And then you just get more litigation. They don’t seem to learn this lesson.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, continue to demand that all environmental laws be repealed as “anti-development,” and continue to propagate falsehoods about projects that didn’t move ahead for reasons that have nothing to do with the assessment regime. They seem to have no concept of the fact that there are other factors at play, whether it’s the crash in oil prices in 2014, or the fact that there were no customers willing to sign long-term contracts that would make these projects viable enough to pursue.

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2052386968798118276

And then there are the oil companies themselves, who continue to try and flex their influence in order to scrap environmental laws. While whinging that any carbon pricing makes them uncompetitive (blatantly untrue given the credits in the system), Canadian Natural announced yesterday that they are moving ahead with two steam-driven oilsands projects, but still holding off on expanding one of their mines. Looks like they can still operate within the regulatory environment, even while grousing about it. These companies are not fragile babies who are one look askance away from insolvency, and government needs to stop treating them as though they were (while the Conservatives really need to stop credulously believing everything that these companies say).

Ukraine Dispatch

Ahead of its ceasefire, Russia fired dozens of more drones into Ukraine, hitting a kindergarten in Sumy, claiming Ukraine violated their own ceasefire first. President Zelenskyy has warned that if Russia continues to violate the ceasefire, then Ukraine will carry on with its long-range strikes.

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Roundup: Reading into the Spring Update

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There was a bit of a dust-up, if we can call it that, online over the weekend, following Althia Raj’s weekend column, in which she calls out the fact that while Carney claims he’s protecting social programmes, he is in fact cutting them along with transfers to provinces. And she’s not wrong in the fact that there is a lot of sunsetting funding with no indication that it’s being renewed again, which makes it hard for provinces or organisations to plan on what their future funding will be. Enter Tyler Meredith, who was an economic advisor to Justin Trudeau (but who is now out of government), and he took issue with Raj’s assertions in this thread:

https://twitter.com/tylermeredith/status/2050715852773695646

And I take his point that no decisions have been made on any of this funding that is due to sunset, but I also think he’s being a bit overly generous with the government on some things, such as the creation of a personal support workers’ tax credit as “proof” that the government is being too bro-focused. One tax credit does not a care economy/women’s state make, particularly one that is that low. And to that end, Raj gave her own response in this thread:

And she brings the receipts when it comes to what’s in the documents, particularly around how Carney’s rhetoric around things like pharmacare not matching the reality on the ground, where there is a half-assed programme in a few provinces, which has not been extended to all others in the past year, and which seems to be no closer to negotiating toward the creation of an actual national programme, beyond the things the NDP insisted on in the dumbest way possible. Which brings me to this point that Mike Moffatt made about the two exchanges:

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/2050943140949856708

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/2050945741221195827

The Carney government doesn’t like to give a lot of details, and relies an awful lot on saying “just trust me” to a whole lot of things, which it really shouldn’t do. And then for everyone to get upset because they we can’t read minds or scry into the future is a problem in trying to communicate to the public. We’re not getting good information out of this government, and that needs to change, and these exchanges are a perfect encapsulation of that.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone hit a bus in Kherson, killing two and injuring seven others. Ukraine struck the port of Primorsk, the largest oil export port on the Baltic Sea.

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Roundup: The 2026 Spring Economic Statement

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It was the Spring Economic Update yesterday, and this was less of a mini-budget than in previous years, but still had a few new elements. Overall, yes the deficit is lower than anticipated because growth was greater than projected, but in true Liberal fashion, Mark Carney and the government added new spending measures that took up some of that room, both with some previously announced measures like the “pause” on the excise fuel tax, and new measures like $6 billion in incentives for skilled trades workers.

Some highlights:

  • That $6 billion for skilled trade workers includes support during training and a completion bonus (as half of those who start apprenticeships don’t finish)
  • There is a shift toward attracting more foreign investment.
  • There will be a small break in CPP deductions for the next year.
  • Canada is making progress on diversifying to non-US export markets.
  • There is money for sports, the Financial Crimes Agency is finally getting its implementation legislation, and crypto ATMs are being banned.
  • The Defence Investment Agency is getting more structure and oversight, and there is also more funding for military trades.
  • They plan to resurrect the ability for Canada Post to search and seize mail.
  • There are new tax credits for enhanced oil recovery (because Carney has full-on decided he no longer cares about the environment.)
  • There are promises for $4.3 billion in First Nations education, Inuit food security, and Indigenous child welfare.
  • More odds and ends here.

In pundit reaction, David Reevely considers this to be Carney buying time until his big projects can start to pay off. Lindsay Tedds delves into the issues surrounding the so-called “Sovereign Wealth Fund.” Kevin Carmichael gives some thought to the deficit position, as well as the choices that Carney is making with what they are putting additional resources into. Susan Delacourt ponders the juggling act of the government both trying to build long-term, while still looking for tangible effects in the here-and-now. Paul Wells looks at the context of some of the numbers presented, and the government’s “fiscal prudence” back-patting.

Housing items in today's federal economic statement. Delighted to see they're planning to move on reforms to make it easier to build multiplexes! This is aligned with one of our recommendations from our January report.

— Dr. Mike P. Moffatt (@mikepmoffatt.bsky.social) 2026-04-28T21:46:33.000Z

Well, this isn't even remotely true (as @lindsaytedds.bsky.social and I discussed in my latest episode).

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-04-29T02:20:59.692Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-28T19:08:02.092Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine says that it shot down over 33,000 Russian drones last month, which is a new monthly record. Ukrainian drones have been causing fires at Russia’s Tuapse roil refinery. Ukraine is now trading diplomatic blows with Israel over ships carrying stolen grain docking in Israeli ports.

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Roundup: Thirteen cherry-picked charts

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Ahead of the spring economic update, the National Post ran a story that contained thirteen charts that they claim were proof that Justin Trudeau delivered a “lost decade” to the Canadian economy. To absolutely no one’s surprise, the charts were awfully selective in how they presented the data, because everybody has decided that they have a vested interest in creating an image of how much Trudeau “doomed” the country. And to be perfectly fair, Mark Carney himself has engaged in these kinds of rhetorical games, which his insistence on using the “new government” moniker has been nothing more than an effort to disassociate himself with his predecessor.

To wit: yes, we fell behind the US on GDP per capita because we rapidly increased our population while the US didn’t, and that increase staved off an economic downturn post-pandemic, until everyone decided to start scapegoating those same immigrants for provinces under-investing in housing and healthcare capacity. The rise in business insolvencies? Mostly a post-pandemic correction when a lot of businesses that would not have survived did only because of those pandemic supports, and the levels are returning close to the pre-pandemic baseline. The number of self-employed freefalling? Again, this was because of the pandemic because a whole lot of those self-employed got stiffed by the companies they invoiced and they didn’t get paid, so they took salaried jobs. I can’t speak was much to the number of high-value start-ups fleeing Canada other than the fact that many of them specifically set themselves up to sell to American companies because that’s where the money was. Total investment per worker declining? My dudes, corporate Canada decided they don’t care about productivity because they only want to be rent-seekers, so that’s what they do. Climbing cost of living? The chart is without context to demonstrate how we compare internationally given the inflation spike late in the pandemic, where Canada did far better than most of our comparators. Home prices? The chart cuts off at 2015 so it doesn’t show that they also doubled under Harper, but this is mostly a provincial/municipal problem as the federal government has very few levers for the problems of charges and zoning. Public sector rising faster than private sector? What does that include? Does it include provinces? Does it include nurses or teachers? How does it compare to under-investment and cuts in the Harper years? Again, context matters. Federal deficits? Have you seen the state of the world? Healthcare wait times? That’s provincial—how are you trying to pin that on Trudeau? He gave plenty of transfers to provinces that got put on their bottom lines to pay down deficits rather than hiring nurses or expanding capacity. The rise in the violent crime severity index? The piece scapegoats this on immigrants, again without any context for how those figures are way down from historical highs.

It’s shitty journalism, but this is the kind of thing that the we’ve come to expect from the Post, simply in service of a narrative.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-27T13:17:49.975Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The attack on Odesa early Monday wound up injuring fourteen, and hit residential buildings and a hotel. A worker at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, still under Russian control, was killed in a drone attack.

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Roundup: Kinew’s very bad promise

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On Saturday night, Manitoba premier Wab Kinew promised to ban social media and chatbots for youth, which may sound like a good idea, but it’s very, very bad. Why? This is essentially just internet surveillance. You need to upload ID in some variety to access anything, which means that you are being tracked, either by government or by third parties who will either profit form that tracking, or who will leave your data vulnerable to being hacked. This is exactly the same issue with people who want age verification for internet porn—the same problems exist, and those problems are very, very bad.

Using what age verification tools, exactly?This is going to end so very badly. This is just more internet surveillance, and politicians cannot get that through their heads.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-04-26T03:54:14.098Z

I’ve written about this problem a lot over the past few years, and there is no good system of age verification. It simply doesn’t exist, but too many politicians treat it like a “nerd harder” problem, meaning that they are sure that the nerds will just figure it out rather than accept the fact that it’s really just surveillance of all of your online activities. And even worse, most kids will figure out workarounds, leaving all of that surveillance in place for everyone else, while you didn’t solve the problem you wanted to.

As I wrote in @xtramagazine.com, age verification is bad tech, and it is going to just harm so many people unnecessarily, most especially queer and trans people.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-04-26T03:58:36.941Z

I get why Kinew is doing this, which is because it’s a populist move. Yes, it’s well-intentioned, but again, there is no good way to implement this (and frankly, I’m not entirely sure which tools he has to enforce this at the provincial level). But boy howdy do a lot of people need to start speaking up about why these kinds of age verification tools will only do so much damage to the internet at large, while doing nothing about the problems of social media on minors, most especially because it also allows the platforms to get away with not doing their own due diligence of content moderation or online safety tools that would shield minors from the worst of the problems. So instead, politicians want to remove everyone’s internet privacy instead. It’s bad news all around.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-26T23:08:01.383Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone attack on Dnipro killed ten people and injured dozens of others early morning Saturday. And just this morning, a drone attack on Odesa wounded at least ten people. Ukraine marked the 40th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster on Sunday.

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