Tag Archives: Pierre Poilievre

Roundup: Carney’s transition races out of the gate

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

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

Photo du jour. Crédit : Reuters.

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

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

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Roundup: Begun, the trade war has

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The inevitable has happened—Trump’s tariffs are now in effect, after Trump told reporters in his daily ramblings that there was nothing Canada or Mexico could do to forestall them. It was obvious they were going to happen—Trump and his economic advisors have decided that they love tariffs, and that it’s going to solve their revenue problems for the big tax cuts they plan to give billionaires. It won’t—tariffs are paid by the importers, who pass it along to consumers, but Trump refuses to believe that, so it’s the American people who are coming in for a world of hurt, especially as the stock market started to plunge once the markets started to realise that Trump was being serious.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T06:17:07.867Z

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T06:18:16.623Z

Here at home, Justin Trudeau announced that the first tranche of retaliatory measures would start immediately, with more to come after consultation. Of course, the last line in his statement should have been the first—that it’s the Americans who have broken the agreement that Trump himself signed, which speaks volumes about the Americans can no longer be trusted to uphold their own agreements. Oh, and Trump is still planning on increasing duties on lumber coming from Canada, so keep an eye out for that as well. As the trade war ramps up, here is a look at what to expect, and how provinces are also expected to respond with their own measures.

Trudeau's statement on the coming tariffs and counter-tariffs. #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T01:59:14.433Z

Here is the plan, from Feb 2nd:www.canada.ca/en/departmen…Tariffs on $30B of goods now; another $125B in a few weeks.Here's the detailed list of products covered by the initial action tomorrow:www.canada.ca/en/departmen…

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T02:10:25.520Z

I'm ok with some countertariffs; we need to use all tools. But tariffs on peanut butter and OJ aren't enough.We need to see aggressive non-tariff actions.No one in America seems to want to take the fight to Trump. But we can and we should and we will. Elbows up!

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T03:16:59.941Z

True to form, Pierre Poilievre decided that blaming the government for the imposition of tariffs was the way to go, with a bunch of mendacious fabrications about what they have and have not been doing, with the have-not mostly being to implement his plans with alacrity, as though he’s a super genius who has it all figured out, when, well, we know that’s not exactly true.

Of course, we were also treated to a Doug Ford performance, as he got all theatrically angry on American television and threatened to cut off electricity across the border, and that he would do it with a smile. Of course, Ford (who is claiming he got a “stronger mandate” in last week’s election in spite of losing seats) is all talk. His bluff is going to be called, and no electricity will actually be cut off, because it’s not going to be that easy to do in spite of what he thinks, and you can bet he’ll come up with some kind of excuse about why he was all bluster.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone attack injured four and damaged energy infrastructure in Odesa. Ukraine is also investigating negligence surrounding a Russian missile strike on a military graining ground over the weekend. As expected, the Americans have “paused” their aid to Ukraine, as last week’s ambush was a set-up in order to give a justification for their plans to do so.

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Roundup: An ambush in the White House

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It was an ambush. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to the White House, ostensibly to sign some kind of agreement around access to critical minerals in exchange for some kind of military support or security guarantees was a set-up for Trump and JD Vance to try and humiliate Zelenskyy in front of the cameras, with one of the reporters from Russian state outlet TASS in the room (who was removed at one point by the Secret Service, but it was obvious that someone in the White House arranged for him to be there). The whole video is sickening to watch.

Vance blew up that meeting on purpose

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-02-28T20:00:00.112Z

I've just looked again at the Starmer meeting – Vance tried to blow that up too. But Trump didn't take the bait.

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-02-28T20:38:07.909Z

While Trump and Vance started broadcasting this for their followers as a supposed sign of strength, and their lackeys and apologists broadcast Russian propaganda to justify it, word also started leaking out that Trump is planning on cutting off military aid to Ukraine for Zelenskyy’s supposed intransigence and lack of desire for peace, which is of course mendacious and part of the set-up.

This was the plan all along

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-03-01T04:52:42.168Z

In the wake of this, world leaders started tweeting their support for Zelenskyy and Ukraine, and this was probably the death knell of NATO as we know it. The one leader who has been silent is Keir Starmer, but he is also hosting a summit in London today about Ukraine and European security, which Justin Trudeau will also be attending.

I have to wonder what words are going to be had between Trudeau and Starmer…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-28T23:49:23.352Z

I wonder if this was planned at the Munich Security Conference?

— Stephanie Carvin (@stephaniecarvin.bsky.social) 2025-02-28T23:57:08.362Z

Here are some hot takes from Tom Nichols and David Frum, while Philippe Lagassé has some additional thoughts on the situation.

Closer to home, in an interview with the Spectator, Trump took credit for Chrystia Freeland’s supposed “firing” (she was not fired), and said that Poilievre’s problem is that “he’s not a MAGA guy.” Which is true—Poilievre doesn’t have much of a coherent ideology, but he’s not MAGA. What he is, however, is someone who will say anything that he feels he needs to in order to attract the MAGA crowd to his banner, no matter how ridiculous it is, and he has no morals, ethics, or scruples about it. Poilievre jumped on this to declare that he’s “Canada First,” and later did tweet support for Zelenskyy and Ukraine, and immediately got roasted in the comments by his MAGA supporters for it. Funny what happens when you play with fire.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1895631503469449464

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones struck a medical facility, among other targets, in Kharkiv. The framework for a mineral agreement that Ukraine was supposed to sign with the Americans, before the ambush, contained a number of gaps around security or dispute resolution, before it turned out to be a sham.

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Roundup: A mixed bag from the English debate

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The Liberals’ English-language debate was held last night, and it was a much more lively affair, given that they weren’t speaking in very slow and deliberate French to get their points across. The first few minutes were a complete English-dub replay of Monday’s debate, with the exact same opening statements and first responses to the same question, so it took them a while to actually get to something new, but the longer it went on, the more annoyed I started to get at some of the absolute inanities that were on display. (Here are liveblogs from the Star and The Canadian Press, while I was live-tweeting Bluesky here).

One of the early topics was Canada’s place in the world, and after the initial chest-thumping about Trump, they got into things like NATO targets. Chrystia Freeland was probably the most clear-eyed here, talking about building a new democratic world order with allies that included the UK and France because they have nuclear capabilities (which was a sign of how serious this is), because America is no longer the “leader of the free world.” But when discussing spending to hit NATO targets, everyone was quick to say that they didn’t want those dollars going to American companies, but nobody seemed to have much of an idea of just what the Canadian defence industry was capable of producing for our needs, or the fact that we need to look to other allies because our defence industry is not large and can’t produce a lot of things we need quickly (lest we start buying into vapourware that companies like Bombardier will promise but have no guaranteed ability to deliver on). Oh, and Karina Gould deserves a time-out for pitching a “procurement czar.” No! Stop with this American bullshit!

Freeland has a very clear-eyed statement about building a new democratic world order now that the US is no longer the "leader of the free world." Baylis wants to get allies to bankruptcy Boeing as an example. (Good luck with what that's going to do to our military procurement).

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T01:29:48.917Z

Boy, there is a lot of wishful thinking about the state of the Canadian defence industry, and what capabilities that Canadian industry can produce. (We may have to look to other allies' industries, guys. Be frank and forthright about it.)

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T01:34:57.570Z

And now we're into another round of AI platitudes. And Baylis wants to recreate a research and development programme that already exists and has had challenges turning R&D into procurement. Like, it already exists. That's not the problem.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T01:40:12.215Z

The cost-of-living segment was…unenlightening, and had some of the worst pitches. Chrystia Freeland wants to cut red tape (how? You’ve had nine years!), and Karina Gould wants to modernise social services (provincial jurisdiction) and bring in a basic income (not going to work—there is research to prove it). There was a question on how to improve productivity that nobody could give an actual answer to except to wave their hands and say “AI,” as though it’s a magic incantation.

Moving onto the cost of living theme.You'll never guess, but Carney wants to "build our economy."

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T01:45:12.030Z

Baylis repeats his utter nonsense about fiscal discipline raising the value of the dollar (WHICH DOESN'T MAKE ANY GODS DAMNED SENSE!)And did he mention that he was a businessman? Because he's a businessman.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T01:47:14.001Z

Ireland, where a significant fraction of the paper economy is just US tech companies moving money in and out as a tax dodge? That Ireland?

— Nick P (@npilon.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T02:14:58.888Z

The topic that broke my brain completely was asking them how they could work with provinces to increase the number of doctors. Only Gould gave something resembling a coherent answer here. And again, when the topic changed to the carbon levy, everyone on the stage but Gould was utterly incoherent about how they would replace it (Gould would keep the levy but freeze it).

We've been convening the medical colleges for decades. How do you change that?!Baylis wants to redesign the system for chronic care (again, how is this federal?!) Freeland has an anecdote about a nurse practitioner! But doesn't say anything the *federal* government can do.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T02:25:28.637Z

Gould, correctly, says provinces don't have enough accountability for federal transfers, and points to how childcare agreements have specific guideposts. (The last round of federal transfers to have more strings and required action plans by provinces).

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T02:28:35.715Z

These answers on the carbon levy are *completely* incoherent (except for Gould, who is keeping but freezing it). Gould does admit that they didn't do a good job of talking about it, which no one else could muster the self-awareness to do.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T02:37:41.651Z

Baylis keeps saying "we'll build two pipelines."Who will? The federal government? Or do you think some proponent will swoop in with little economic case for it?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T02:43:50.642Z

The final question was asking how they would differentiate themselves from Trudeau, and at first Freeland ignored the question, Gould talked around it before bringing up the fact that the party needs to get back to the grassroots, Baylis said he was going to be “focused on the economy” while Carney said he would be “laser-focused on the economy,” before adding that he’s very hands-on, and has heard from the supporters in caucus that Trudeau didn’t build many relationships with MPs, which he would do. The moderator circled back to Freeland, who talked about the campaign being a “personal liberation,” and that her style of leadership isn’t to be a “one-man band,” which is a pretty big repudiation of Trudeau’s leadership style (though I would say it’s more like a two-man band, because it’s more of a joint Trudeau-Katie Telford effort).

Overall, it was a mixed bag, and I couldn’t really determine someone I felt was a winner. Chrystia Freeland had some of the strongest responses, but some of the weakest delivery and framing of responses, and was very invested in playing nice in order to get second-place votes (because this is a ranked ballot). Gould was strong on many responses, but completely out to lunch on others, which tainted her credibility. Mark Carney kept repeating that he wants to “build the economy.” Over and over and again. Constantly. He still resorted largely to platitudes, and didn’t seem to have a good grasp of a lot of files because they have been out of his bailiwick, and his attempt at attacking Poilievre got cringey in place (Poilievre worships Trump? Really?) And then there was Frank Baylis, who kept reminding us that he’s a businessman. Over and over again, but his constant bizarre refrains about strengthening the dollar (at the expense of our exports?) and the whole thing about Ireland were just completely out to lunch, to say nothing about the fantasy economics of his pipeline plans.

Maybe I’m being too harsh of a critic, but nobody came out ahead.

Ukraine Dispatch

Another overnight attack on the Kyiv region has killed one person, injured four, and set several houses on fire. There also appears to be some progress on a critical minerals deal between the US and Ukraine, but we’ll see if it actually happens.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1894322734047310319

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Roundup: Gould takes the French debate

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It was the French debate for the Liberal leadership last night, and it was a fairly smoothly run affair, with an aggressive moderator, and very few instances of candidates talking over one another. While you can read a recap here, and the Canadian Press liveblog, I watched it in French to get a sense of how well the candidates were actually performing. The biggest blunder of the evening was Mark Carney slipping up and saying that he agrees with Hamas, which the Conservatives pounced on in bad faith, and Freeland quickly caught his error and corrected him, but it certainly coloured the online reaction.

Meanwhile, my thoughts:

  • Karina Gould was the best performer of the night. Her French was the strongest, and she was articulate in her positions, she had something of substance to say in most of the responses, and in her closing remarks, made the very salient point that they won’t win by being Conservative Lite™.
  • Chrystia Freeland’s French was very deliberate and didactic in tone, but that’s not much different from her speaking style in English. She had a bit of a mixed bag in terms of policy discussions, and could identify things the government has done or is doing, because she was there for the discussions and implementation.
  • Mark Carney had the shakiest French, but as he has throughout his entire leadership campaign, he mostly stuck to platitudes and clichés, and gave very few answers or specifics, even when pressed to do so by the moderator. It was not a shining moment for him.
  • Frank Baylis’s French was fine, being as he’s from Montreal, but he pretty much made himself irrelevant the whole evening, by constantly reminding everyone that he’s a businessman, as though that gave him any special abilities or insights, particularly when dealing with Trump, and he had some absolutely bizarre ideas associated with fiscal discipline.

Baylis: Did I mention that I was a businessman?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T01:47:54.201Z

Baylis: Fiscal discipline will make the value of our dollar rise so things will cost less.What voodoo is this? The value of our dollar has very little to do with fiscal discipline, especially when we have the lowest debt and deficit in the G7.This is not a plan for cost of living.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T02:03:10.685Z

Carney keeps falling back on platitudes. The moderator is pushing him for specifics regarding immigration, but he refuses.Freeland's plan to tie immigration levels to housing is a recipe for no immigration, and is Poilievre's plan. Gould wants hard conversations with provinces.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T02:09:00.128Z

Apparently there is no problem in this country the AI won't help solve.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T02:21:07.216Z

Ah, the west-east pipeline question, should Quebec refuse.Carney doesn't really answer the question, and mischaracterizes what Energy East was.Freeland praises energy resilience, but doesn't answer.Gould says we need a conversation respecting provinces and Indigenous people.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T02:46:23.642Z

The English debate is tonight, so we’ll see how different the candidates are with the language they are more comfortable in.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia’s overnight air attacks injured one woman in the outskirts of Kyiv, and Poland scrambled their aircraft because the attacks were targeting western Ukraine, close to their borders. G7 foreign ministers, led by Canada, are still working on a joint statement about the anniversary of the war, because the American position has now shifted into Russia’s favour. At the United Nations, the US voted against Ukraine’s resolution to condemn Russia for their invasion, and joined the ranks of Russia, Belarus, and North Korea.

The Beaverton isn't playing around.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-24T15:48:52.301Z

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Roundup: Don’t complain to the minister

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There was a whole lot of online anger over the weekend directed at CBC Radio’s Cross Country Checkup, as the topic was the whole American annexation talk, and they decided to co-broadcast this with an NPR in the US, and treated the whole thing like a though experiment when it’s our sovereignty we’re discussing. It’s not a cute thought experiment, and it’s not

https://twitter.com/HNHughson/status/1893684327973539938

While I did not personally listen, I have been informed that the topic was framed around the notion that this would be some sort of democratic process, which is not the threat, and then they invited Kevin O’Leary on to give his take, and not only didn’t bother to actually push back or fact-check anything he said, but Ian Hanomansing invited people do to their own fact-checking online after the show. Are you fucking kidding me? That’s supposed to be your job as journalists. But seriously. Kevin O’Leary. You know he has nothing of value to offer but bluster. This was a deliberate choice by producers to crank up the “controversy,” which was both irresponsible and a dereliction of duty. Just an absolute gods damned catastrophe. It’s not that we shouldn’t be talking about the threat of annexation or that Trump promises to wage economic warfare on us to turn us into a vassal state—it’s that we need to frame these discussions in a clear-eyed way, not whatever this bullshit that Hanomansing and company were doing.

The whole attempt was a sticky mixture of aggressive both-sidesing, trying to be controversial to make people angry for the engagement, and the arrogance of the host/producers that they could get away with it.That they brought in Kevin O'Leary was a *choice.*

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-24T01:56:56.438Z

To make matters worse, a bunch of people have decided to complain to the minister about this.

No. Absolutely not.

CBC may be a public broadcaster, but it is run arm’s-length from government, because it’s not a state broadcaster (regardless of what Conservative chuds like to claim). The minister has no say and should have no say in this. If you want to complain, talk to the CBC ombudsman, or the head of CBC news, but you DO NOT complain to the minister about it. That’s about as wrong as writing to the King to complain, and will get you the same form-letter response.

https://bsky.app/profile/senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social/post/3livb5f6oj22e

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched guided bomb attacks overnight Friday, killing one woman in Kostiantynivka, and then launched their largest drone attack yet overnight Saturday, with 267 drones fired, along with missiles. At least one person died as a result of a strike in Kryvyi Rih in that attack. North Korea is providing as much as half of Russia’s ammunition against Ukraine by this point. The US tried to force Ukraine to withdraw their UN resolution condemning Russia on the third anniversary of the invasion, in favour of an American resolution that soft-pedals the whole thing. (Ukraine would not). Zelenskyy said that he would be willing to step down if it meant a proper peace deal that includes NATO membership, and rejected Trump’s demands for $500 billion in “payback.”

Please share this fact sheet on Ukraine with anyone who needs itunderstandingwar.org/backgrounder…

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-02-23T07:47:10.900Z

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Roundup: A trio of interim leaders

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Rob Lantz was sworn-in as the new premier of PEI yesterday, but he’s officially an interim party leader because outgoing premier Dennis King didn’t bother to hang around long enough for a successor to be chosen (as Justin Trudeau has), which frankly just adds to the mystery surrounding why he resigned in a hurry. Usually that only happens when there’s a scandal of some variety. But what I didn’t realise was that the other two parties who have seats in the legislature also only have interim leaders, and that it’s been two years since the last provincial election, and no party has a permanent leader.

Here’s former PEI journalist Teresa Wright with more.

While I will push back on the “only chosen by 18 members” comment, because we should actually let the caucus choose the leader, it is nevertheless a problem that there are no permanent leaders in that legislature after two years. It’s malpractice, frankly, and a sign about how broken leadership politics have become in this country. I’ve seen it happen over multiple parties federally, particularly where they feel that they need between nine months and two years to find a new permanent leader so that they can generate ideas or “excitement” in the race, which again, is not how this is supposed to happen. The leader should not be the one bringing policy to the table—that should be the responsibility of the grassroots membership. And leaders should be within the caucus and not some outsider who thinks they can sail into the position without ever having run for office in the past. *coughs*

This tactic of waiting until closer to the election to pick a new leader smacks of opportunism and just having leaders to be election figureheads rather than doing the actual work that MPs/MLAs should be doing the rest of the legislative session. This is Very Bad for democracy. Legislative work needs to be done. Constituency work needs to be done. Leaders are supposed to have other responsibilities within parties than just leading an election. PEI used to be known for having a pretty robust civic culture, so this is not only disappointing, but a bad sign for the state of democracy in this country.

Especially in politics.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-21T14:38:53.896Z

Ukraine Dispatch

An overnight drone attack killed a rail worker outside of Kyiv, while falling debris damaged buildings inside the city. Russians claim to have taken three more villages in east Ukraine. American negotiators are threatening to cut Ukraine off from Starlink services unless they sign the document that demands fifty percent of their resource wealth in exchange for no protection or security guarantees.

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Roundup: Poilievre selects his echo chamber

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Yesterday, Pierre Poilievre held a media availability in the GTA, and if you ignore some of his more vacuous commentary, like claiming that he needs to cut government spending to bring down inflation when deficits never fuelled inflation in the first place, and the fact that inflation has already been tamed and is currently sitting below the 2 percent target, well, you get the drift. Nevertheless, what was particularly interesting was the fact that media who attended the event were told that they weren’t getting questions, and that only five pre-determined outlets would get questions—two far-right outlets, two ethno-cultural media outlets, and Radio-Canada.

This is clearly a strategy of speaking to an echo chamber who won’t push back on the kinds of horseshit he was peddling (like the inflation comments). It’s also noteworthy that in his interview with True North/Juno Media last week, Poilievre went on a tangent about how they should be allowed in the Parliamentary Press Gallery, and he claimed that Gallery-members are “government-approved,” when the government has zero say in who gets Gallery accreditation—the Gallery is self-governing, and we have determined that True North, Rebel, and other far-right outlets are not actually practicing journalism, but propaganda. (The Gallery has also determined that left-wing outlet PressProgress also doesn’t merit membership because it is run by the partisan Broadbent Institute). Nevertheless, Poilievre’s spokesperson went ahead and spun it as though Poilievre was oh-so available to the media while Mark Carney was not.

This is, of course, mendacious. Poilievre has been self-selective of his media availabilities, and has refused most legacy media outlets, particularly those who are inclined to push back against any of his complete and utter bunkum. And yes, we have seen similar tactics coming from Trump, who has been offering not only space for far-right outlets, but has kicked out established media outlets from their desks in the Pentagon to give them to the chuds who will mindlessly repeat his propaganda. Conservatives in this country have been moving in this direction for a while now, and for Poilievre to be so blatant about it is very telling.

Pretty much everything coming out of every political leader in this country right now. #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-21T01:36:54.542Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 161 drones and a dozen missiles at Ukraine overnight Wednesday, targeting gas infrastructure in Kharkiv, and the power supply in Odesa. The media availability from Zelenskyy’s meeting with the new US envoy was changed to a photo op, and a chill has definitely set in.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1892538057057878088

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Roundup: “Canada First” is mostly just Poilievre’s greatest “hits”

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Pierre Poilievre had his “Canada First” rally on Flag Day, Saturday, and in front of a crowd of about 800 in the smallest room in the Rogers Convention Centre in Ottawa, laid out his new vision of Canada, being the attempted pivot from just an “axe the tax” slogan, to the aforementioned “Canada First.” (Full speech transcript here). And aside from some newer talking points about retaliatory tariffs if Trump goes ahead, he nevertheless was incoherent even in his performative toughness. In saying that America has two options—a trade war, or an even deeper trade relationship with Canada, in the very same breath, he castigated the Liberals for “forcing” dependency on the American market for entirely bullshit reasons, with some revisionist history about the ghosts of energy project proposals past. Like, what? You say you want an even deeper relationship, but the Liberals were bad because they couldn’t force businesses and industry to divest from that market? What?

From there, it went into his greatest hits of stupid talking points, like his refrain about how we have the most land but aren’t building houses on it—as though we’re building residential subdivisions on the Canadian Shield or the Arctic tundra. He claimed he was right about everything, from the carbon levy to the capital gains changes (he wasn’t), and then played the victim about how nobody believed him but he was proven right. (He wasn’t). He went on some bullshit about pipeline projects that was, again, revisionist history, and then went on a tangent about the Canadian Pacific Railway and how Liberals wouldn’t get it done today. “Would some squeaky, keep-it-in-the-ground liberal cabinet minister like Guilbeault have chained himself to a tree to stop it?” My dude, do you know how many people died to make it happen? The dispossession of land, the immigrants coming over as indentured labour, those indentured immigrants blowing themselves up to create passageways through mountains? Seriously? Meanwhile, his promise to rapidly approve projects won’t actually get them built, and neither will bribing local First Nations with the promise of a greater share of royalties, and his vision of a west-east pipeline won’t change the economics.

https://twiiter.com/andrew_leach/status/1890058822175347027

There as more reheated nonsense about how he’s going to miraculously abolish interprovincial trade barriers with a magic wand. He promised to militarize the border, which is a Very Bad Thing. There was more rehashed tough-on-crime nonsense with repeated promises to repeal laws that have nothing to do with what he claims they do. He repeated his promise from last-week to unilaterally build a base in Iqaluit, with no input from the Inuit. And then it was the usual culture war bullshit, with the absolutely risible claims about how the Liberals “divide people by race, religion, gender, vaccine status.” No, they acknowledge that differences exist, that it’s not all middle-aged straight white men as the “neutral” and “norm.”

While centre-right pundits swooned at the notion that Poilievre was laying out a vision, he wasn’t really saying anything more than he’s been saying for the last two years, and all of it was vacuous noise. He was still playing it incredibly safe to avoid pissing off the MAGA supporters he’s trying to court so that they don’t go back to voting for Maxime Bernier, no matter how performatively tough he was about Trump’s threats, because he still had to mediate them with claiming that Trump was still right about the border and fentanyl (which he’s not). Apparently, nobody has actually paid attention to anything he’s said over those two years, but just instead paid attention to his churlish tone. (Oh, and I am also looking very askance at CBC for their credulously repeating everything he said without actually challenging any of it. That’s not journalism, guys, even if you’re stuck on the weekend shift).

Lots of spending going on here but if they honestly care about a balanced budget (more than rhetoric) spending cuts have to come. Like big cuts. Like more than $100b by my count

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-02-16T18:25:45.143Z

https://bsky.app/profile/lindsaytedds.bsky.social/post/3licue34m6c2h

Pretty much the whole of #cdnpoli these days.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-17T03:30:20.152Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed 33 out of 70 Russian drones overnight Friday, and an overnight drone attack on Saturday damaged a thermal power plant in Mykolaiv, leaving 100,000 people without power in subzero temperatures. Russian troops have also intensified their attacks toward Pokrovsk. Elsewhere, the ammunition acquisition programme on Ukraine’s behalf has delivered 1.6 million shells to date and is carrying on, while Emmanuel Macron is hosting an emergency European summit on Ukraine in the wake of JD Vance’s attack on liberal democracy.

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Roundup: Unilateral Arctic plans and foreign aid churlishness

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Pierre Poilievre called a press conference from Iqaluit, yesterday, where he announced his Arctic policy ideas, which include finally building an air force base in the region, doubling the number of Canadian Rangers, and building two more heavy icebreakers, but for the Royal Canadian Navy and not the Coast Guard. Oh, and that he was going to pay for it all by gutting foreign aid. Set aside the fact that the plans for an Arctic base have long been in the works with slow progress, but does the Navy even want icebreaker capability? They didn’t want the slushbreakers—sorry, Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships that the Harper government decided they needed, and here is another Conservative who wants to impose capabilities that they have not asked for, because reasons. Nevertheless, this whole thing set off the premier of Nunavut, who noted there was zero consultation on these policies, and pointed to actual sovereignty-affirming things that governments should be doing for the north that aren’t this kind of performative flexing.

As for Poilievre’s disdain for foreign aid, it’s one-part monkey-see-monkey-do with MAGA and Elon Musk dismantling USAID, but it’s juvenile, provincial, and ignores that foreign aid is soft power that also does thinks like not let Russia and China swoop in and start winning hearts and minds in those countries, which is what Trump opened the door to, and which Poilievre seems keen to follow, justified by a number of lies about the recipients of that aid based on the fact that UNRWA may have had a handful of compromised employees. He doesn’t care about the realities of this aid spending and the projection of soft power, because those recipients can’t vote for him, and he’s playing into tired populist tropes about “taking care of people at home,” even though they actually don’t care about vulnerable people at home, and just want a tax cut instead of actually helping anyone. And again, Poilievre doesn’t care.

If anything, Canada should actually be living up to its previous pledges about increased funding for foreign assistance, particularly because the dismantling of USAID is going to affect programmes that Canada was partnering with them on, and they provided much of the “thought leadership” in the space. Children are going to die of malnutrition, and preventable illness, HIV infections are going to skyrocket, and again, Poilievre doesn’t care because those people can’t vote for him. What a bleak, cursèd timeline we live in right now.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Ukrainian drone attack damaged an industrial facility—possibly an oil refinery—in Russia’s Saratov region. The US’ “freeze” of aid money means that organisations helping investigate Russian war crimes can’t pay staff or continue their work—Trump and Musk just doing Putin’s bidding.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1888916130254725208

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