Last week, the CD Howe Institute put out a report on the recent bout of inflation, and tried to pin it either on government spending or the Bank of Canada, and in the process ignored a whole lot of things that happened during the pandemic that were material to those price increases. Or the fact that early in the pandemic, we had deflation, and that the Bank of Canada needed to act fast to ensure that it did not continue lest it turn into a spiral that would lead to a depression, because that’s what deflation does.
Naturally, however, the moment Pierre Poilievre saw that they were pinning blame on government spending, he had to jump on that because it’s his entire central thesis for inflation, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. I report on economic data on a regular basis, and that includes the Consumer Price Index (or inflation) data every month, and the Bank of Canada’s Monetary Policy Report every quarter. I can tell you what prices increased and where, because that’s in the data every month. None of the causes had anything to do with government spending.
Government spending did not cause the shortage of semiconductor chips. Government spending did not bottleneck shipping canals, or cause the shutdown of global supply chains. Government spending did not cause avian flu to devastate poultry farms across North America. FFS.
I also have to take some exception to the notion that government supports like CERB were driving demand. CERB was not extra spending money. It was survival money for low-income people who were out of work because of the pandemic. It staved off a wave of bankruptcies and even more demand on provincial social services or food banks (and the lack of provincial social services is the main driver behind increased food bank use, per their own reports). The “excess demand” was coming from higher-income households who had plenty of money to spend when they couldn’t go out to restaurants or go on vacations. They were not the recipients of government support, and trying to conflate the two is disingenuous, and frankly smacks of a great deal of ideological bias.
There has been another barrage of drones and missiles that have killed at least one person in Kyiv overnight. Here is another look at how the people in Kyiv are coping with the increased attacks.
⚡️Update: Russia bombards Kyiv with drone, missile strikes, killing 1, injuring 2.
The Longest Ballot Committee crybabies have reached a high—or low—by organising some hundred candidates to be on the ballot for the Battle River—Crowfoot byelection, and they want to reach 200 when the nominations close on the 28th. It’s ridiculous and abusive, and they’re now full-on masturbating in the media insisting this is about the purity of democracy and that it’s not even about protest when this is about trying to force the government to hold a citizen’s assembly for electoral reform, because they don’t think politicians should write their own rules. Erm, except that’s what self-government means. Politicians write their own rules so that the King doesn’t. Revolutions were fought for this ability.
As for citizen’s assemblies, they are demonstrably bullshit—they’re tools used to launder accountability because there is no way to hold them accountable because you can’t vote them out for the decisions they make, and most of the time, they are easily manipulable to deliver the kinds of answers you want them to give, usually by gaming the “experts” who guide them. It’s another form of manufacturing consent, much like how referendums are easily manipulable by the government who organizes them, by shaping the questions and the conditions of those referendums to deliver results they want, at which point they manipulate the responses they get. In this case, they want this citizen’s assembly to deliver proportional representation for them (which system of PR? Who can say? But yes, that matters), because they’re crybabies who seem to think that if the person/party you vote for doesn’t automatically win, then your vote is “wasted.” There’s a technical term for that—it’s “sore loserism.” And Parliament really needs to get their shit together to close the loopholes in the rules so that the Longest Ballot organisers are stopped.
Meanwhile, the push to lower the voting age has been given a new push because the voting age is being lowered to sixteen in the UK, amidst complaints that Labour are trying to put their thumbs on the scale of the next election because their popularity is plummeting. I’m not a big fan of lowering the voting age to sixteen—teenagers make a lot of dumb choices, and just yesterday, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed that youth frequently don’t have the moral blameworthiness to know the severity of consequences in criminal activity, but they would for voting? I can guarantee you that it would mean that voter turnout percentages would plummet even further, just like they did when the voting age was lowered to 18, and we’d be in for a whole new round of handwringing about that. If teenagers want to be politically active, they should join political parties and learn how to organise, and participate in nominations and leadership contests (which is another reason why we need to reinvigorate grassroots party democracy). I’m just not convinced that lowering the voting age to 16 is going to solve any problems.
A mass Russian drone attack overnight has killed at least one person when they struck apartment buildings. Russian forces claim to have taken control of three villages along different parts of the front lines. Ukraine’s top commander says that their forces are holding firm outside of the key city of Pokrovsk.
While passenger planes calmly crisscross the skies over Europe, in Ukraine the skies are filled with missiles and drones.
Mark Carney was in Hamilton yesterday to announce plans to help the steel industry given the state of the Trump tariffs, which largely consisted of protectionist measures to support the industry from cheap imports being dumped into our market—particularly if they are looking to use Canada to avoid the US tariffs. To that end, countries that Canada has free trade agreements with can continue exporting to Canada up to 2024 levels, after which point they are subject to 50 percent tariffs. Countries who don’t have trade deals—including China and India—are subject to the 50 percent tariff once they hit 50 percent of 2024 levels, and anything coming from China is subject to an additional 25 percent tariff, unless they are coming from the US. There is also a $10 billion loan programme for liquidity support, and more measures for EI support and retraining steelworkers. The industry is largely happy with this, but do note that some free trade countries still dump steel in our market. (Full breakdown of measures here).
Carney also said that any potential trade deal (which isn’t going to happen) could include quotas on softwood lumber as a way of resolving that long-standing issue, but remained vague and non-committal about it.
Meanwhile, Carney is telling Crown Corporations and government-funded entities to “find your own savings” of up to 15 percent, which is going to be pretty hard when most of them are already operating bare-bones. Canada Post is on the verge of bankruptcy, VIA Rail doesn’t have a lot to cut if it’s trying to recapitalise for the proposed High-Frequency/High-Speed Rail expansion, and he told CBC he would boost their funding as he’s now telling them to find savings. There are some exemptions, like the courts (which are already largely underfunded), and Parliament, but this kind of austerity is not going to be good for anyone, whether in the short or long-term, and he needs to start thinking about a course correction because this is going to further reduce capacity to do anything in this country.
Russia attacked Ukraine with over 400 drones early Wednesday, and later in the day, bombed Dobropillia while shoppers were out in the early evening, killing two and injuring over 27. Trump giving Russia 50 days to come to a ceasefire just means Russia will spend the summer trying to keep wearing down Ukraine. President Zelenskyy says he wants at least half of Ukraine’s weapons to be produced domestically within the next six months.
Response efforts are still underway after last night’s Russian shelling. The Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Odesa regions came under the heaviest attack.
In particular, energy infrastructure was targeted — work is currently ongoing to restore everything in Kryvyi Rih as fully… pic.twitter.com/xwfuhD65hU
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 16, 2025
Pierre Poilievre decided he needed some more media attention yesterday, so he called a press conference in Ottawa, and declared that following the public disclosure of prime minister Mark Carney’s ethics filings, that none of this was good enough, that Carney needed to cash out all of his investments instead of putting them into a blind trust, and that nothing was good enough because he’ll be constantly managing conflicts (even though the point of the ethics screen is that he isn’t managing conflicts, his chief of staff and the Clerk of the Privy Council manage the conflict so that he’s not involved). Perish the thought that this special set of rules for Carney will only serve to keep other accomplished individuals away from political life.
Of course, the whole episode is rife with hypocrisy. These are the conflict-of-interest laws that the Harper government put into place, of which Poilievre was not only a part of, but defended them, particularly when questions arose around Nigel Wright and his assets when he was Harper’s chief of staff, and Poilievre personally swore up and down at committee that these rules were amazing and that the blind trust was blind, and so on. Of course, now that it’s convenient, his tune has changed, but that didn’t stop the CBC from pulling out the footage from the archives.
Meanwhile, Poilievre also told reporters that the country needs “more people leaving than coming,” which is not even a dog-whistle at this point but a bullhorn. If this is pandering to the far-right elements of the riding he’s trying to win, well, it is likely to backfire on his attempts to continue wooing other newcomer communities, particularly the Sikh and Punjabi communities he spent so much time wooing in the leadup to the last election. Immigration numbers have already flatlined, and it’s going to cause problems down the road, sooner than later. For Poilievre to say this as the mass deportations south of the border pick up speed shows he’s not only incapable of thinking through the implications of the things he says, but he’s fine with mouthing the words of fascists, and that’s a real problem.
(Incidentally, Poilievre once again said he opposes Alberta separation but says that they have “legitimate grievances,” and repeated his same bullshit line about the Ottawa telling Alberta to “pay up and shut up.” They pay the same income tax as the rest of us, and have the same representation in Parliament).
Russian drones killed two people in the Kherson region. President Zelenskyy is proposing a major government reshuffle that includes a new prime minister, while the current one is to be shuffled to defence. Trump’s “ultimatum” to Putin to reach a ceasefire in 50 days is just license for him to keep firing drones and missiles at Ukraine for another 50 days, and probably longer.
I held a meeting with First Deputy Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko. A report was delivered on the implementation of agreements with European and American partners regarding support for Ukraine reached during the recent Ukraine Recovery Conference. We must swiftly implement… pic.twitter.com/AIipRnpA1f
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 14, 2025
⚡️ 6 killed, 30 injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine over past day.
Ukraine's Air Force said Russian forces launched 136 drones overnight, including Iranian-designed Shahed-type attack drones, and fired four S-300/400 guided missiles.https://t.co/c4jdqUqrn9
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) July 14, 2025
A string of recent events indicate that the Ukrainian leadership is increasingly circumventing democratic institutions and sabotaging the rule of law.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) July 14, 2025
One of the stories that has been floating around the past few days is that Toronto stands to lose up to $30 million in federal funding from the Housing Accelerator Fund because council did not approve city-wide zoning for sixplexes, which was a condition that they signed up for when they negotiated their deal for this money. And of course, this also comes with voices who claim that the federal government would be “using money as punishment” if they don’t give them all the money anyway, even though they have quite deliberately thumbed their noses at the very thing that they agreed to in order to get that money.
The established media narrative is that municipalities are *always* the victims who have no tools at their disposal.
Unfortunately, we have a history of the federal government backing down when it comes to either giving money anyway when deals are broken, or by not recovering costs when they should. For example, the federal government was clawing back health transfers from New Brunswick for not funding abortion access at a clinic that was in an underserved part of the province, but when COVID hit, they released all of the clawed back money so that they didn’t look like the bad guys in ensuring that the province was living up to its obligations (or, for that matter, proving that they were sticking to their feminist principles, and using that money as leverage for the province to back down and fund the clinic). Another example is that provinces have deliberately underfunded their emergency management systems because they have been conditioned to know that the federal government will provide assistance from the Canadian Forces, and that provinces will get that assistance for free. The federal government has the authority to recover those costs from the provinces, but they never do because it would look like they’re somehow being mean to those provinces, when the provinces deliberately underfunded their own capacity.
If we want to reform things and start enforcing a system of accountability, that starts with making sure that provinces and municipalities live up to their agreements, or they don’t get transfer payments. But that requires a backbone and a willingness to actually hold them to account for those failures, and not being so timid that they refuse to actually say in clear terms that those provinces or municipalities didn’t live up to their agreements, so they would lose the funding/didn’t fund their own services because they thought they could get federal services for free, but they can’t, because there’s one taxpayer and they think they’re being clever. Nothing will change if someone doesn’t take a stand, and it’s time we start doing so.
Ukraine Dispatch
Trump says that America will resume sending Patriot missiles to Ukraine, so we’ll see how long it lasts this time.
Seven days of large-scale Russian attacks on Ukraine: over 1,800 drones, more than 1,200 guided aerial bombs, and 83 missiles of various types. The Russians are intensifying terror against cities and communities to increasingly intimidate our people.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 13, 2025
Ukrainian soldiers successfully destroyed a crew of Russian drone operators with FPV drones, those directly involved in the fatal attack on a one-year-old child in Kherson Oblast on July 9, General Staff reported on July 11.https://t.co/gUB6iuuEe2
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) July 12, 2025
The latest Trump eruption has prime minister Mark Carney backpedalling some more, and he has said that his deadline for retaliatory tariffs, which was July 21st, is now going to be August 1st, since this is when he’s extended the negotiation deadline to, again letting Trump continue to string him along. Nevertheless, he has also called a Cabinet meeting next week, and will be meeting with the premiers on the 22nd in Huntsville, Ontario. The Conservatives immediately jumped on this and tried to insinuate that this was rich snob Carney being too good to have meetings in Ottawa…except that Doug Ford had already called the Council of the Federation to meet there, and Carney will now be joining in to make it a First Ministers’ meeting.
Doug Ford arranged the First Ministers meeting in Huntsville, not Carney. Carney has been invited to join them. It might help to actually read the story you’re quoting. https://t.co/5kHoX25wpp
There is further clarity that New NAFTA-compliant goods will continue to be exempt from these new tariffs (for now, anyway), and energy and potash tariffs will continue to be ten percent instead of the new threat of 35 percent, but it’s entirely incoherent, other than the usual threats about Supply Management (with no reciprocal offer to reduce any American agricultural subsidies). Of course, Trump said a lot of wrong things about Supply Management, so that’s not helping matters any either.
The latest from @clareblackwood.bsky.social on the constantly shifting tariffs.
In the meantime, the Conservatives want to recall the trade committee to hear from trade-exposed businesses. Of course, this is really just about getting clips for social media, since they’re not getting them from Question Period, and much like the transport committee and the ferries to be built in China, this will likely be members of all parties shaking their heads and expressing their dismay at Trump and his tariffs, but not too much dismay because that’s what they do—performative displays of dismay (again, to feed their social media channels). I expect nothing to come out of these meetings (other than a fresh supply of clips), but performers gotta perform, and that’s pretty much all MPs are these days (and yes, that is a Very Big Problem).
After another unjustified tariff attack on Canadians, workers and industries, Conservatives are offering to recall the Trade Committee to help secure the best deal for Canada pic.twitter.com/O96Q7FtqQJ
A Russian attack on Kharkiv on Friday damaged a maternity hospital. Ukrainian drones, in contrast, hit a Russian fighter aircraft plant and a missile production facility. It’s almost like there’s a very different way in which the war is being conducted on either side.
Russian strikes on our people. Yet another atrocity. In Kharkiv, nine people were injured as a result of a drone attack. Among the wounded are women in a maternity hospital – mothers with newborns, women recovering from surgery. Fortunately, no children were injured. Russia is… pic.twitter.com/q51BVFpBlO
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 11, 2025
⚡️Update: 2 killed, 18 injured in overnight attack on western Ukraine.
Russia attacked cities in Ukraine's far-west overnight on July 12, killing at least two people and injuring 18 others in communities far from the country's front line.https://t.co/E6mzztZb20
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) July 12, 2025
Tim Hodgson, Cabinet’s absolute worst QP performer, was in Calgary yesterday to announce funding for some carbon capture projects (which we should be dubious about), where he was asked about that absolutely morally bankrupt letter from the Alberta and Ontario environment ministers, demanding the essential dismantling of the federal environmental protection regime. Hodgson responded by praising Bill C-5 and its giant Henry VIII clause to deal with existing environmental legislation, and obliquely hinted that said environmental legislation would be dealt with over time, which is not exactly encouraging when Mark Carney says that he still cares about the environment.
If you want to move the needle on ccus, $21m spread across 5 projects isn't going to do it. Replace that M with a B if you want to accomplish what's listed in your tweet.
Hodgson also made comments about the discussions being had about what projects they plan to designate as Projects of National Importance (PONIs), but again, it’s vague, and invites distrust because nobody knows what is supposed to qualify, or what they should be bringing forward, and it all looks like a gong show in waiting that will put way too much power in the hands of a single minister with nowhere near enough guard rails. That’s not a good thing, guys!
What is the process for this? How is the gov't deciding with whom to meet, what information they want, etc. And how is the gov't communicating what they would be willing to do to accelerate projects? pic.twitter.com/5qnxnWMAYE
Meanwhile, Erin O’Toole showed up in The Walrus of all places to wax nostalgic about back when Canada used to build things, like during the First World War, when there were ships being built along the shores of Lake Ontario at an incredible rate. And that’s great. But also remember that the lakefront back then was an industrial wasteland with no environmental regard (that was incredibly costly to clean up afterward), and you can pretty much bet that occupational health and safety were not exactly being minded then either. I cannot stress enough that maybe you should think about just what the circumstances were back “when Canada used to build,” and why that might not be a good thing to return to. Honestly…
Russia’s attack overnight Thursday and into Friday was the largest of the war so far, with 550 missiles and drones, largely at Kyiv and another four regions. (Video clips here). Two Dutch intelligence services say that Russia has been increasing use of outlawed chemical weapons in Ukraine.
Firefighting efforts and debris removal are still ongoing after another Russian strike. This was one of the most large-scale air attacks – deliberately massive and cynical. In total, 550 targets were launched, including at least 330 Russian-Iranian “shaheds”, along with missiles,… pic.twitter.com/vnn31oST0z
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 4, 2025
Our people are home. Most of them had been held in Russian captivity since 2022.
Today, our defenders who fought for Ukraine in various regions – the Donetsk region and Mariupol, the Luhansk, Kharkiv, and Kherson regions – are coming back. These are warriors of the Armed Forces,… pic.twitter.com/HR6PCPyXGO
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 4, 2025
As the parliamentary cycle starts to wind down now that MPs have gone home for the summer (minus the couple who will take part in the royal assent ceremony that usually ends the Senate sitting in June), I did want to take a moment to appreciate David Reevely’s particular annoyance at the way MPs constantly use the term “forced” when describing using ordinary parliamentary procedure to get their own way.
If you text your spouse saying, "Could you pick up some milk?" and they say they will, you didn't force them to pick up milk. They didn't force a store to supply it to them, or force the clerk to give them change from a $10. This is just normal activity.
In this particular example, where the Speaker agreed to split the vote on Bill C-5 (and no, he did not split the bill, as some have suggested—and mea culpa that I was not sufficiently clear on that in my last post), the most that the NDP accomplished here was symbolism. Yes, they could show that they voted to support one part of the bill and not the other, but the bill in its entirely goes through regardless. But again, they didn’t really “force” anything. The Speaker granted their request without a vote. This language is endemic, and the Conservatives like to use it, particularly in committee, when they would team up with the Bloc and NDP to send the committee off on some chase for new clips to harvest, but even there, simple math in a minority parliament is hardly “forcing,” because that’s pretty much a function of a hung parliament. The opposition gets to gang up on the government as a matter of course.
I get that they like to use the language to flex their political muscles, and the NDP in particular right now are desperate to show that they’re still relevant now that they have lost official party status, but maybe have some self-respect? If all you’re accomplishing is providing yourselves with new opportunities to create content for your social media rather than doing something tangible and substantive, then maybe that’s a problem that you should be looking into, especially if it’s in the process of trying to prove that you’re still relevant to the political landscape. (And also, maybe why you lost official party status). And I get that their claims that they “forced” the government to do a bunch of things during COVID earned them the praise of their existing fan-base, but they didn’t force anything then either—they pushed on an open door, and patted themselves on the back for it. (Seriously, the Liberals weren’t going to wind down those pandemic supports early, and if the NDP thinks they were the deciding factor, they have spent too long drinking their own bathwater). But no, you didn’t force anything, and stop pretending that’s what you did.
Ukraine Dispatch
Russians attacked Kyiv overnight, killing at least five and damaged the entrance to a metro station used as a bomb shelter. Russians claim to have captured the village of Zaporizhzhya in the Donetsk region. Ukrainian forces say that they are fighting 10,000 Russian soldiers inside of Russia’s Kursk region, which is preventing Russia from sending more forces into the Donetsk region. President Zelenskyy says that during the recent POW and body swaps with Russia, that Russia turned over at least twenty bodies of their own citizens (complete with passports) because they are so disorganised.
⚡️ Russian attacks kill 4, injure 23 in Ukraine over past day.
Russia launched two Iskander-M or KN-23 ballistic missiles, an S-300 anti-aircraft missile, and 47 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy drones against Ukraine overnight, the Air Force said.https://t.co/imw1bmFAL2
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) June 22, 2025
⚡️Update: Russia's mass missile, drone attack on Kyiv kills 5, injures 13.
The casualty count in an overnight attack on Kyiv has grown, with officials reporting five people killed and 13 injured in the capital and surrounding region amid the attackhttps://t.co/4nrVZE6qh9
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) June 23, 2025
⚡️ Russia seeks to advance along almost entire front in Ukraine's east, Syrskyi says.
As of mid-June, Ukrainian defenders are fighting close to 695,000 Russian troops in Ukraine across a 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) front, Oleksandr Syrskyi said.https://t.co/wttbnd3nbA
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) June 22, 2025
Good reads:
Mark Carney arrived in Brussels for both an EU and a NATO summit back-to-back. He also called for calm and diplomacy in the situation with Iran.
Ambassador Kirsten Hillman says that there is progress on trade talks with the US, and she sees a path forward.
A recent report shows that CSE inappropriately shared information on Canadians to international partners without a ministerial authorization.
Those promised pay raises for the military may not be an across-the-board increase, but a combination of different bonuses (because of course).
Here is a look at the retention crisis within the Canadian Forces.
Some Indigenous youth are preparing for a summer of protest over the different federal and provincial fast-track legislation.
The Eagle Mine in Yukon, which suffered a catastrophic contaminant release, is going up for sale.
Former Cabinet minister John McCallum passed away at age 75.
David Eby says he’s not opposed to a pipeline in northern BC, but he is opposed to one being publicly funded, especially as TMX still has plenty of capacity.
Kevin Carmichael reminds us that climate change is an existential economic threat and that it needs to be tackled, as MAGA politics has spooked efforts to combat it.
Anne Applebaum reflects on Trump’s complete lack of strategy, whether it’s with Iran, the Middle East, or anywhere.
Susan Delacourt and Matt Gurney debate what Poilievre has been up to since he dropped out of the spotlight, and the security of his future as leader.
My weekend column points out that the solution to parties hijacking their own nominations is not to demand that Elections Canada take the process over.
The Liberals’ “One Canada Economy” bill continues to be railroaded through Parliament without proper scrutiny, and with the worst possible excuses from ministers and parliamentary secretaries possible. “We won the election promising this” or “This is in response to a crisis”? Get lost with that nonsense. While there are Liberals who are quietly objecting to the process—particularly the speed through which the second half of the bill (i.e. the giant Henry VIII clause) are going through without actual Indigenous consultation on the legislation itself, they are absolutely correct in saying that this is going to damage the trust that they have spent a decade carefully building.
Here’s the thing. While ministers are going to committees and the Senate swearing up and down that these projects of national importance are going to respect environmental regulations and Indigenous consultation, the very text of the bill betrays that notion. The open-ended list of legislation affected by the Henry VIII clause shows that they can bypass environmental laws or even the Indian Act through regulation shows that clearly they don’t have to respect either environmental laws, or that the consultation doesn’t need to be meaningful, or engage in free, prior and informed consent. If they did want to respect those things, they wouldn’t need a giant Henry VIII clause to bypass them. And frankly the fact that the Conservatives are supporting this bill should be yet another red flag, because the Conservatives very much want to use this Henry VIII clause if they form government next before this law sunsets, and they can blame the Liberals for implementing it. It’s so stupid and they refuse to see what’s right in front of them.
And let’s not forget that you still have Danielle Smith and Scott Moe demanding that environmental legislation be repealed, as the planet is about to blow through its carbon budget to keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5ºC. And when it comes to Indigenous consultation, Doug Ford rammed through a bill to make these development projects law-free zones, while falsely claiming that First Nations are coming “cap in hand” while refusing to develop resources (in a clearly racist rant), ignoring that their objections are often to do with the fact that they have repeatedly been screwed over by proponents and wind up being worse off, which is why they want revenue-sharing agreements that companies don’t want to provide. When this is the “partnership with provinces” that Carney touts, it’s really, really not building a whole lot of trust.
If Ford listened to the First Nations near the Ring of Fire, they are largely concerned that proponents haven't lived up to past promises, and are not convinced the will live up to future promises either, unless they have a revenue-sharing agreement.
Meanwhile, 300 civil society groups are calling on the government to scrap the border bill because it has so many potential rights violations within it. The department offered some clarifications on the immigration and refugee portions, but that’s not sufficient for those groups. Citizen Lab also did an analysis of the lawful access provisions within the bill as they interface with American data-sharing laws, and they can be pretty alarming for the kinds of information that the Americans can demand that the border bill would provide them with.
The more I think about it, the more troubling #BillC2 is. The warrantless demand for "subscriber information" can include a demand to a women's shelter, abortion clinic or psychiatrist. All provide services to the public and info about services rendered really goes to the biographical core.
More bodies were discovered after the early morning Tuesday attack on Kyiv, meaning the death toll is now at least 28. Russians hit Ukrainian troops in the Sumy region with Iskander missiles.
During a Russian overnight attack, an Intercity+ train was damaged at its base – the same train carrying a powerful artwork by famed American artist Barbara Kruger.
Her piece, Untitled (Another Again), honours Ukrainians who move forward, no matter the obstacle.
In the wake of the G7 Summit, here’s a bit of a stock-taking on Carney’s government so far, and there are some friction points bubbling up, especially in caucus.
A Treasury Board report shows that women and minorities still face pay inequities within the federal civil service.
StatsCan data shows that there was almost no population growth in the first quarter of the year, which is a precipitous decline (and not good in the long run).
You might be relieved to hear that there were no wildlife incidents during the G7 summit in Kananaskis.
Protesters marking the second anniversary of the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar are concerned and frustrated about the moves to normalise diplomatic ties with India.
The Federal Court has denied a case by Afghan-Canadians to apply the Ukraine temporary resident rules to allow them to bring family members over.
The Senate has passed the Bloc’s Supply Management bill, which would seem to be at odds with trying to diversify our trade relationships.
Now-former Conservative MP Damien Kurek says that he wasn’t asked to step aside for Poilievre, but offered as his way to “serve.”
Saskatchewan is going to extend the life of their coal-fired electricity plants, because of course they are.
Philippe Lagassé has some more thoughts on the NATO spending goals and Canada shifting away from American procurement by degrees.
Paul Wells features a former PMO comms staffer talking about his experiences in dealing with reporters on the Hill, and how he approached the job.
Odds and ends:
For National Magazine, I wrote about former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Gérard La Forest, who passed away last week at age 99.
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Even before the G7 summit officially got underway, prime minister Mark Carney had his bilateral meeting with Trump, and it was this somewhat awkward situation where Trump defended having a “tariff concept” and said that Carney had a “more complicated” plan (how could “free trade” be more complicated?”) but there was word that talks were “accelerating,” and later in the day, we got a readout from that conversation that said that they were aiming to get a trade deal within 30 days, so no pressure there (not that you could really accept such a deal for the paper it’s written on because this is Trump and he doesn’t honour his agreements). Trump also claimed to have signed a trade deal with the UK (which he called the EU at the time), and held up a blank page with his signature on it. So that…happened.
Holy crap. The US-UK trade deal is a blank sheet of paper and only Trump signed it. (Genuine screen grab).
The rest of the summit took place, and then suddenly Trump decided he needed to leave early, right after the Heads of Government dinner, citing important business in Washington, with allusions to the Israel-Iran conflict, but he did wind up signing a joint communiqué that calls for de-escalation in said conflict, so we’ll see how that holds up. Trump leaving early does mean that he won’t be around the arrival of either Volodymyr Zelenskyy or Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum, who had hoped to have bilateral meetings with Trump on the sidelines of the summit, so that does blow a hole in what they expected to come for, particularly for Sheinbaum who rarely travels.
Meanwhile, here are some of the highlights of the day. Tsuut’ina Nation council member Steven Crowchild spoke about his meeting with Trump during his arrival in Calgary. EU officials confirmed that Carney is likely to sign a defence procurement agreement with them during his visit to Brussels in two weeks.
A Russian drone and missile attack struck Kyiv in the early morning hours, wounding at least twenty. Ukraine received another 1,245 bodies, ending this repatriation agreement, bringing the total to over 6000 war dead.
“We cannot exchange children. They are not prisoners of war. So it’s impossible — we won’t exchange them for anything. It’s absolutely unfair. To… pic.twitter.com/KLOHZ0Js57
