Tag Archives: Pierre Poilievre

Roundup: A last-minute trip sans journalists

Posted on by

Prime minister Mark Carney took a last-minute trip to Egypt over the weekend to attend the Middle East peace summit, where he did things like praise the release of hostages, and commend the “leadership” of Trump in reaching this moment (which ignores a whole lot of what has happened up until this point). But a lot of things about this trip were unusual. For one, he ended up chartering a private plan because no military aircraft were available on short notice, which is odd in and of itself (and I can’t wait for the pearl-clutching when the Access to Information request is released about the costs of said charter). For another, he did not alert the media to the trip until he was taking off, and no accredited journalists accompanied him on the trip.

Statement from the president of the Parliamentary Press Gallery:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-10-14T23:14:12.452Z

This is a very big warning sign about how Carney is treating the office, and his obligations to transparency. Perhaps more egregiously was the fact that the PMO comms team spent the long weekend emailing journalists and pointing them to links to his posts on Twitter, as though that was some kind of substitute. It’s not. Social media posts are carefully curated and present a very stage-managed view of the world, which is not a substitute for journalism. In fact, it’s usually a form of propaganda, because it delivers a carefully crafted message in a way that is intended to influence the voting public in a certain way.

To be clear, Carney is not the first prime minister who has tried to limit media access in favour of his in-house photographers and media team, and these photographers and videographers are given privileged access to both document history, and set up carefully curated narratives. And yes, the press is going to complain about it because it’s our job to present a wider view than what the PMO wants us to see, and the public expects more transparency, which has been in retreat under Carney’s leadership because he still thinks that this is like being a CEO where you don’t say much because it might affect your stock price. That’s not how you behave in the top political office of the country, and he needs to get that message.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian glide bombs hit a hospital in Kharkiv in the early morning hours of Tuesday, while attacks on the energy grid continued. A UN humanitarian convoy in southern Ukraine was also hit by Russian drones. Ukrainian authorities have ordered the evacuation of dozens of villages near the city of Kupiansk given the deteriorating security situation, while Russia claims they took control of another village in Donetsk region. President Zelenskyy says that Ukrainian troops have advanced in their counter-offensive in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Continue reading →

QP: Trillion dollar fallacies, redux

Posted on by

With so many developing stories happening, it was probably a good thing that the PM was in attendance for a second day in a row, though it remained to be seen just how many of these issues would merit attention. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and immediately jumped into the complete falsehood about what the $1 trillion figure around investment in the American market, and said that if it’s supposed to be private money, if the government would “force” them to invest in the US or to just invest in Canada—which makes no sense whatsoever. Mark Carney responded in English that it was a momentous day and that they should recognise the Middle East peace plan, which he offered his support of. Poilievre, still in French, said that while they congratulate Trump on negotiating peace, but he asked a question in French about jobs and that the prime minister owed respect to answer the question, again about the falsehoods about the trillion dollar figure. Carney responded with his canned bullet points about having the best trade deal, and that they are still negotiating a better deal, and finally that as a result of the agreement, there would be more investment in Canada. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the same bad faith question on “forcing” investment in the U.S. Carney reminded him that he was there, before repeating his same bullet points that did not correct the disinformation or the bad faith reading. Poilievre insisted that we have he fastest-shrinking economy in the G7 (untrue), and again tried to insist that Carney was somehow going to force Canadian private money to invest money in the U.S., or just send them fleeing with high taxes. Carney reminded him that they cut income taxes, the capital gains tax, and the carbon levy, and then touted the forthcoming “generational investment budget.” Poilievre read Carney’s words on the trillion dollar investment, and framed it misleadingly, and wondered if there was an agreement that Trump would send the same north. Carney reminded him that there are no tariffs on auto parts or finished goods, and that they are working toward an agreement that will increase investment in Canada—which again, did not actually answer the question. Poilievre switched topics to energy, and the support for the a Keystone XL pipeline which can’t be filled so long as the emissions cap is in place (which is patently false). Carney said that the motion he voted against was about something that does not exist—being the supposed taxes on groceries. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and worried about the ongoing softwood lumber tariffs. Carney said that Canada currently has the best deal with the U.S. in the world, and that they are working to bring the steel and aluminium tariffs, and that the tariffs an autos and trucks are the lowest in the world. Blanchet then concern trolled that a new pipeline to the U.S. was not diversifying out economy. Carney patted himself on the back for the recent agreement with Indonesia and that more deals are coming for South America. Blanchet then pointed out that money for support programmes for steel and aluminium have not flowed yet, and Carney responded that they will have an opportunity to vote for that support in the budget.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Managing the expectations from Washington

Posted on by

Monday was a weird day of expectations management as prime minister Mark Carney headed to Washington for a “working lunch” with Trump to happen today. There were murmurs from Senior Government Sources™ that there could be some kind of relief for some—but not all—of the steel and aluminium tariffs, but those were heavily caveated and is not going to be any kind of comprehensive tariff deal, because Trump loves his tariffs. (And there is no deal to be had). Oh, and while all of this expectations management was going on, Trump declared new 25 percent tariffs on medium and heavy-duty trucks. Because of course.

Amidst this, Pierre Poilievre released a peevish open-letter to Carney that demanded “no more losing” when it comes to dealing with Trump, and a list of things he wants “wins” on, whether it’s tariffs or softwood lumber, or what have you. Because remember, under this framing, Trump is the rational actor and Carney is the one who is the inept negotiator who simply can’t get anything done. Reality of course, is entirely the opposite, that you can’t really negotiate with Trump because he has no logical basis or consistency for his “deals,” and anything he agrees to isn’t worth the paper its written on (if it’s even written down, as some “deals” were nothing more than blank pages with a signature on it).

To that end, Andrew Scheer went on Power & Politics looking to pick a fight with David Cochrane about this, and when Cochrane pointed out that yes indeed, Trump’s tariffs are both affecting our economy and we still do have the best deal of anyone with Trump, that Scheer twisted this into “agreeing” that Carney’s ineptitude has cratered the economy and soured any deal with Trump, because Scheer is a liar and a braying doofus. But this is what everyone has to deal with when it comes to the level of rhetoric and sheer sophistry coming from the Conservatives these days, which is not exactly conducive to informed debate.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-06T22:08:02.378Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine’s forces say that Russian sabotage groups are active in the city of Pokrovsk, which Russians have been trying to capture for months. Ukraine’s long-range drones have struck a Russian ammunition plant, a key oil terminal, and an important weapons depot.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Giving credence to Poilievre’s trolling

Posted on by

In spite of it being an exhaustingly packed news week, The Canadian Press took time out to get some reaction to Pierre Poilievre’s trolling tweets about prime minister Mark Carney’s many international trips of late. Yes, it’s summit season right now and there is a lot more travel coming up, but he has made a number of trips since he was appointed PM, and we have to ensure that it’s not “excessive” or something. Never mind that we’re in a moment of global crisis as the United States has turned into an authoritarian regime that is upending the post-war international order and tacitly siding with other authoritarian regimes, and this requires a global realignment of liberal democracies, but is he travelling too much? Guys.

The one thing that irked me the most in the story was the point about Carney having only attended three Question Periods since Parliament resumed last week, and only nine in the four-week spring session. There was no context to this, which is that it means once or twice per week, which is perfectly normal for any sitting prime minister. Once or twice a week was all Stephen Harper could deign to attend. Justin Trudeau started out with three a week, but then fell back to two on most weeks, but sometimes was just once. The difference of course was that Trudeau made it his practice to answer every question on Wednesdays, which no previous PM had done, and which Carney has not kept up (possibly because he may not have stamina enough to pat himself on the back for a full forty-five minute). In other words, Carney’s QP attendance is fully within the norm, and you would think that the national wire service could point this out, but that might mean that they would have to have someone with enough institutional knowledge and memory to know this, but pretty much every bureau on the Hill no longer has either. (As a reminder, I am the only journalist who goes to QP every day, because someone has to).

This being said, I think we need to once again have a discussion about the kind of insular nativism that Poilievre is stoking by making it sound like foreign travel by the prime minister is somehow illegitimate, or that every trip must come with some kind of signed agreement (even though we may already have signed agreements with countries like Mexico, and forging stronger ties is important beyond just a signed piece of paper). Trying to create this false expectation that the PM can’t go anywhere so long as there is “crime and chaos” at home is juvenile and frankly troubling, because it means that they have absolutely no idea how the real world works, and are playing with fire, especially if they ever want to form government one day.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-09-26T13:24:02.797Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The front line in the conflict has grown to nearly 1250 km in length, as Russian forces have shifted tactics to try and make breakthroughs. That said, both president Zelenskyy and his top military commander say that Russia’s 2025 offensive has failed to meet their goals, and suffered heavy losses in the process. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s assessment of the drone incursions into NATO airspace is that Russia is trying to stoke fatigue in Ukraine’s allies in the hopes of drawing down military support.

Continue reading →

Roundup: New hate crime legislation tabled

Posted on by

The government tabled new hate crime legislation yesterday, and while I’m not going to delve too deeply into it here because I’m writing something more substantial about it for another outlet, I wanted to make a couple of observations, starting with the complaints of every reporter in the room during the press conference, which was that they didn’t have copies available at the time, nor did they have press releases available, so everyone was essentially flying blind. Part of this is a function of parliamentary privilege—no one can see the bill until it has been tabled in the House of Commons (or it violates the privileges of MPs), and upon first reading it can be ordered printed, which is why there is a delay on seeing the bill. This isn’t the first time it’s happened, and you would think that some of the more senior reporters would know this, but of course not. It was also the fact that they had the press release immediately after it was tabled, but that was in part a function of the clock (the minister had a flight to catch). But the inability to at least furnish press releases was a legitimate complaint, and the minister’s staff (or the department) should have known better.

This being said, much is being made about the fact that certain symbols are being criminalized if used in the context of promoting hate, and some of the reporters in the room just could not wrap their heads around that context. “But what if someone is wearing a t-shirt?” “What if they have Nazi memorabilia in their house?” The minister was not going to engage in hypotheticals, but the fact that there is context to these offences was a little too abstract.

Some of the reactions were expected, such as the concerns that this is going to impact legitimate protest even though the government has tried to make a clear delineation in the language of the bill that intention to intimidate because of hate is the target, and yes, there are specific legal tests about this. Of course, one of the biggest problems is that we already have laws for most of these offences, but police simply don’t enforce them, and that could be the case after this bill passes as well. Or it could wind up that this bill provides more clarity for police and prosecutors than the existing jurisprudence, but that remains to be seen.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims it has taken control over two more village in Donetsk region, while president Zelenskyy says that Ukrainian forces have inflicted heavy losses on Russians on the frontline counteroffensive near two cities in the same region. Russian jets violated Estonia’s airspace as part of their latest test of NATO resolve.

Continue reading →

QP: A collegial-ish return for Poilievre

Posted on by

The first day back, and absolutely everyone was salivating for prime minister Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre’s first face-to-face since the election. As Members’ Statements were underway, Carney and Poilievre met in the centre aisle and shook hands before the show got starter. When it it, Poilievre led off by praising the people of his new riding, and wanted to see if Carney agreed that they were united in believing in…a list of his slogans. Carney said that he spoke for everyone in welcoming him back, and noted a few things changed he was last here, including the largest women’s caucus in history, and a sprit of collaboration in passing legislation. Poilievre repeated the thanks for his constituents in French before listing those slogans again and seeking agreement for them. Carney said he agreed with the sentiments expressed. Poilievre returned to English, to give a few swipes at Trudeau, and then applied those to Carney, demanding real change. Carney patted himself on the back for their tax cut and eliminating federal barriers to internal trade. Poilievre again returned to French, said that they would simply insist on Carney listening up to his promises, decried food price inflation, and demanded a budget that would address this. Carney repeated his back-patting in English, including a new point about supporting the CRTC in bringing broadband prices down. Poilievre switched back to English to repeat his same points, and Carney insisted that they were undertaking the biggest investment in the Canadian military, and promised more to come. Poilievre railed about deficits and debt, and Carney insisted that they were still going to build the strongest economy in the G7, which means being clear about the size of the challenge ahead of them.

Yves-François Blanchet took over for the Bloc, and lamented that there was still no resolution to the trade war, and wanted a commitment to ending tariffs. Carney responded that we currently have the best deal with the Americans worldwide, and that counted as a success. Blanchet contested such an assertion, and wanted the trusted relationship re-established (as though Trump was a rational actor). Carney said that he spoke with Trump over the weekend about the situation with Russia, Ukraine, and China. Blanchet demanded that Carney made it a priority to go to Washington, and Carney said that we need to diversity trade with Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Parliament returns, fall 2025 edition

Posted on by

Today is the day that the children are back in Parliament, and I wonder about just what horrors await us. Pierre Poilievre will take his seat just before the start of Question Period, where prime minister Mark Carney will be in attendance, and it will be their first face-off since the election debates, not that those debates have anything in common with QP. I have little doubt that there will be no taking of high roads, that Poilievre will denounce the Major Projects Office, the choice of those five projects, the lack of a pipeline amongst them (even though there is no project proposal on anyone’s table), and the usual bluster about crime rates and housing that doesn’t miraculously get built with the snap of a finger. Oh, and of course, the fact that there is no trade deal with Trump (even though there is no deal to be had).

The PM will be at Question Period tomorrow. #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-09-15T00:00:30.816Z

I fully expect Carney and the Liberals to pat themselves on the back for the Office being launched and those five projects being chose, and for the Build Canada Homes launch, and the summer spent trying to find savings in government departments in advance of the budget. They’ll pat themselves on the back for the legislation they passed before the summer, and for the bills they are introducing, and generally for what a good job they think they’re doing. And sure, they’ll say that there’s more work to be done, but it will nevertheless be couched in a whole lot of self-congratulations. Count on it.

Meanwhile, we’re waiting on that budget in October, but there are still a lot of bad bills on the Order Paper. The Border bill is a mass of privacy violations and data-sharing with American authorities who can’t be trusted, to say nothing about the loss of due process for refugee claimants. The cyber-security bill has a great many problems with it that should have been corrected but weren’t. We’re going to get a bail bill that is likely going to start infringing on Charter rights, to be paired with more legislation on “bubble zones” around churches and cultural community centres. And they’re running out of time on passing bills about citizenship for “lost Canadians” and for those unfairly excluded from Indian Act status, so they need to get a move on those too. There is a lot that needs to get accomplished this fall, and we’ll see how much of it actually happens, or if the Bloc will side with the Conservatives at committee and grind everything to a halt once again.

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that Ukrainian forces have pushed the Russian advance back further in Sumy region, and that they have caused significant losses to Russian forces in Donetsk and Kharkiv regions. Ukrainian drones have also struck the Kirishi oil refinery.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The problem with “building things” nostalgia

Posted on by

In all of the announcements that prime minister Mark Carney made this week, particularly around the Major Projects Office and the first tranche of projects that he was championing, there was something he said that bothers me. “We used to build big things in this country and we used to build them quickly,” he said, which is something that we hear a lot, particularly from conservatives. “We built a cross-country railroad in seven years!” But nobody wants to mention how that railroad, or any of those big projects got built, and what changed, because nostalgia is a seductive liar.

What changed, of course, is that we realized we can’t just devastate the environment, and that we can’t just keep displacing Indigenous peoples on their own lands, or that we can’t treat imported labour like slaves, or with working conditions that ensured that a great many of them died along the way. (Yes, I know there are problems with temporary foreign workers and modern-day slavery, but that is a separate discussion). And what is particularly concerning is that while Carney is not acknowledging what changed is that he gave himself a giant Henry VIII clause in his major projects legislation that lets him ignore environmental legislation, or whatever he finds inconvenient, in order to get these big things built fast. Does nobody see a problem here? Really?

Meanwhile, Poilievre mocks the “speeds not seen in generations” talks, and the unspoken part of his “government get out of the way” line is that it ultimately means environmental degradation, ignoring Indigenous rights, labour rights, you name it, because those are the things that are inconvenient. So, in a way, Carney and Poilievre are ultimately aligning on these particular things, and we shouldn’t be shrugging this off. Things changed for a reason. Going back to the 19thcentury is not a sustainable way forward, no matter how dire the economic situation we find ourselves in.

Ukraine Dispatch

Three people were killed in an incursion in the Sumy region, but that incursion has been pushed back. Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s key oil terminal in Primorsk. NATO announced plans to further shore up defences on their eastern flank after the incursion into Polish airspace. And Prince Harry made a surprise visit to Kyiv in support of wounded soldiers.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A narrower, more revealing book ban

Posted on by

Alberta’s amended book ban was announced on Wednesday, and lo, it is now being confined to graphic novels that depict supposed sexually explicit images, and wouldn’t you just know it, we’re back to the original four books that triggered this whole thing, three of those four titles being queer or trans-related. And nobody will actually say that out loud—not the premier, not the education minister, and wouldn’t you know it, not legacy media either.

To be clear, this move brings us back to the very pointed targeting of LGBTQ2S+ graphic novels that got us here in the first place.Books that were on the government's radar thanks to far-right advocacy groups like Action4Canada.

— Mel Woods (@melwoods.me) 2025-09-08T21:18:06.510Z

The Canadian Press didn’t mention anything about queer or trans materials, and they got quotes from Action4Canada, calling them a “parents advocacy group” instead of a far-right Christian nationalist organization, which they absolutely are. CBC’s reporting kept focusing on “explicit images of sexual acts,” and their televised coverage made zero mention of queer or trans materials, though the print story at least did quote the Fyrefly Institute for Gender and Sexual Diversity, who expressed concern that this could “disproportionately affect 2SLGBTQ+ representation,” but didn’t specify that three of the four main targeted books were queer or trans, which again, is important context to have. Neither of their coverage actually mentioned that if you look at the images that the government sent to the media about the offending images (which the government did actually provide), pretty much none of them were “explicit images of sexual acts” either, even if there was some nudity or allusions to sexual acts that were not graphic or explicit. I also have to wonder why neither the Alberta NDP (and Naheed Nenshi especially), or the Alberta Teachers’ Association could call this out for what it is.

There is a large portion of people who only really started to care about the Alberta book ban stuff when it was Margaret Atwood being pulled from shelves.I hope those same people are willing to stand up and defend queer and trans comics artists too, and call this what it is

— Mel Woods (@melwoods.me) 2025-09-08T21:41:10.098Z

Meanwhile, Maclean’s published a profile of six Alberta separatism supporters in an attempt to humanize them and show how they’re just ordinary people with real concerns. Those concerns? Vaccines, believing climate change is a scam designed to punish Alberta, immigration, and the general grievance addiction that social media addicts on the right have become dependent upon. They couldn’t even be bothered to correct the one gullible woman who believes that the National Energy Program is still running and siphoning the province’s wealth. No discussion about the fact that Alberta separatism is fuelled largely by Christian nationalism and white supremacy, which is really important context to have when you’re trying to humanize these people. It’s astonishingly bad journalism, but, well, that’s Maclean’s these days (just inhabiting the corpse of a once-great magazine).

https://bsky.app/profile/daveberta.bsky.social/post/3lygl7xvz7s22

In fact the #Alberta economy was impacted more because the world oil price dropped while the NEP was in place and actually continued to drop after the NEP was cancelled.#ABpoli

— True Oak (@trueoak.bsky.social) 2025-07-17T17:40:34.155Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Things have been escalating, as last night, a number of Russian drones entered Polish airspace and were downed by NATO air defences (Thread here). And the day before that, glide bombs struck in Yarova, where elderly villages were lining up for their pension cheques. And the day before that was the largest barrage of the war to date, with 805 drones and 13 missiles, and government buildings in Kyiv were hit for the first time. And Trump still isn’t doing anything while Putin mocks him.

Since January 20, Russian air raids in Ukraine have intensified dramatically

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-09-09T20:08:04.868Z

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1965345997044744662

Continue reading →

Roundup: Alberta’s book bans take shape

Posted on by

Because Danielle Smith’s Alberta continues to descend into this somewhat farcical MAGA karaoke, the alleged list of books that the Edmonton Public School Board is proposing to ban from its libraries per the government’s new policy got leaked yesterday, and you can bet that so many of the usual suspects were on it, including The Handmaid’s Tale, books by Margaret Lawrence, George Orwell, and plenty of queer titles as well, including Flamer, Fun Home, Gender Queer and Two Boys Kissing, because of course they are. (Funnily enough, Ayn Rand’s two most famous works are also on this list). These were all targeted supposedly for “explicit sexual content,” which is ridiculous in pretty much every single case (including those couple of panels from Gender Queer that has every single social conservative apoplectic).

Well, the list of books being banned from EPSB is appalling. And it's very likely that an author on this list will get their other works pulled too, especially in the absence of teacher librarians.There are books on this list that changed my life. This is what the UCP is taking away from kids.

— Bridget Stirling (@bridgetstirling.bsky.social) 2025-08-28T17:23:59.383Z

More of the list. It's truly shocking to realize just what this will mean.

— Bridget Stirling (@bridgetstirling.bsky.social) 2025-08-28T17:23:59.384Z

But based on the cheers I've heard Danielle Smith's school library content crackdown get at AlbertaNext Panels and UCP function, her political base absolutely adores this.

— Jason Markusoff (@markusoff.bsky.social) 2025-08-28T21:42:02.703Z

Of course, once the list was leaked, the minister had to start engaging in damage control, and wants “clarification” on the list, but come on. You set up a moral panic, predicated mostly on queer books, and once you started pulling that thread, whoops, the results were quickly exposed for what they really are, because Smith and company didn’t want to be upfront about the homophobia/transphobia that they were clearly pandering to. So now they’re going to take control over the book ban lists directly, which they insisted they didn’t want to do, and you can bet that the books that stay banned will pretty much entirely be queer or trans materials. Just you wait.

Meanwhile, falling oil prices have turned Alberta’s planned surplus into a big deficit, because they refuse to get off the royalty roller-coaster. Every time they insist that they’re going to, they just double down on resource revenues because they absolutely do not want to implement a sales tax, and the province’s books are constantly in an absolute mess as a result. Of course, Albertans also expect high levels of public services for their low taxes, which is a choice that provincial governments have been making for close to five decades now, and lo, here we are again. Maybe they’ll learn this time? (Haha, no, they won’t).

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-08-28T21:27:01.802Z

Programming Note: I am taking the full long weekend off, so I’ll return Wednesday morning.

Ukraine Dispatch

The Russians sent 598 drones and 31 missiles into Ukraine early morning on Thursday, most of them aimed at Kyiv, which resulted in at least 21 dead and 48 wounded, with British and European Union diplomatic buildings targeted alongside more residential buildings. (Photos here, some recounting of the scenes here).

Continue reading →