You have probably heard a lot of talk from both Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh about the federal government not doing enough about housing with the lands that they own. Poilievre is making grandiose promises about all the houses they’ll build on it, and all of the office towers they’ll convert, never mind that conversions are difficult and in many cases impossible because of how those buildings are structured, while Singh is demanding that any government-built housing on public land be “affordable,” never mind that there is still a need for market-priced housing, because otherwise wealthier households are competing for the same “affordable” spaces as low-income households if your supply is constrained. (Singh also believes that the federal government can build all of this housing on their own, as if they’ll hire the planners, architects and contractors on their own—not really feasible).
Meanwhile, just building on government-owned land is actually easier said than done. Why? Mike Moffatt lays out a lot of those reasons here:
Ukrainian forces have been focused on containing attempted Russian advances near Bakhmut, while two people were killed in Russian shelling on Kherson. There was also a grenade blast that killed two in Kyiv, the cause of which remains unclear. Ukraine’s two top cyber defence officials have been sacked as an investigation into alleged embezzlement is ongoing in the cybersecurity agency.
Russia is stealing childhood of Ukrainian children. Their reality isn’t cloudless. They know a real fear and pain.
The State Emergency Service of #Ukraine have published photos showing what the childhood of young Ukrainians looks like.
According to the Prosecutor General's Office, Russia's war has killed at least 510 children as of Nov. 17. Ukrainian children have also been kidnapped, abducted, tortured, and murdered. On #WorldChildrensDay, we remember some of these child victims. https://t.co/7QX4oCHutk
Something rather unusual happened in the UK, which I figured I would explore a little bit here for how it relates to our shared Westminster system of government. There was Cabinet shuffle in Westminster yesterday, and prime minister Rishi Sunak appointed former prime minister David Cameron to the House of Lords, and to be his new foreign secretary. Cameron is a particularly interesting choice, given that his spineless decision to call the Brexit referendum to appease certain segments of his party blew up in his face and created much of the foreign policy chaos the government finds itself in,
One of the big questions around this kind of appointment is how MPs get to hold a minister who doesn’t sit in that chamber to account. There are mechanisms in the Lords for asking questions of the government, and while usually that’s directed to the Leader of the Government in that Chamber, this gives Lords an opportunity to ask questions of the foreign secretary directly. There was talk of creating a mechanism to use Westminster Hall, which is the “second chamber” used for debates in Westminster, to allow some sort of mechanism that’s not the Commons, but it never got off the ground the last time this was an issue. For the record, because of the way Australia’s parliament is structure, it is fairly common for several ministers to sit in their Senate, and to answer questions during their Senate Question Time, or however they term it there.
The House of Commons Procedure Committee also addressed questions of making Lords Cabinet ministers accountable to MPs in this 2010 report (PDF).
As for Canada, the last time we had a fairly major minister in that Chamber was Michael Fortier, starting in 2006 when Harper formed government and felt he needed a minister from the Montreal area, but didn’t have any MPs from there. So, he chose Fortier, his campaign co-chair, and made him minister of Public Works, which was a bitter twist of irony considering this was just post-Sponsorship scandal, and the complaint was there wasn’t enough accountability for that department. Fortier was later appointed minister of international trade, and faced questions from the Liberals in the Senate, but there were complaints the Bloc and NDP couldn’t use the same avenue, though they could ask questions of his parliamentary secretaries in the Chamber, or question him at committee. Previously, Joe Clark had appointed his minister of justice from the Senate, as he had no Quebec seats at all, while two of our prime ministers—John Abbott and Mackenzie Bowell—were senators and not MPs, so we do have that bit of history to draw on as well.
Ukraine Dispatch:
Ukrainian forces say that Russians have intensified the bombardment around Avdiivka, as well as tried to make a push around Bakhmut again. In Romania, the F-16 pilot training hub for Ukraine and NATO allies has now opened, but training Ukrainian pilots likely won’t start until next year. Here’s a look at how the information warfare happening has created confusion with legitimate news sources, particularly when they can’t get independent verification.
⚡️Crimean Tatar leader Dzhemilev receives Hero of Ukraine title.
Mustafa Dzhemilev, a Ukrainian lawmaker, human rights defender, and former head of the Crimean Tatar local parliament, received the Hero of Ukraine award on Nov. 13. https://t.co/RVqTFX4cNW
Because everything is stupid, it would seem that Pierre Poilievre is endorsing Scott Moe’s plan to break federal law and not collect the federal carbon price on natural gas. Or, well, instruct his Crown corporation to break the law and not collect or remit it, which puts them in legal jeopardy, which they’re frankly not going to do. But this is what happens when politics has been reduced to performative nonsense and doing stupid things to “own the Libs.” If only we still had grown-ups involved…
I honestly can't believe @PierrePoilievre is endorsing Scott Moe attempting to compel a Crown Corp to break federal law. Law and order for thee but not not for me.
(NB an order to compel a Crown Agency to break federal law is either invalid or inoperative. It won't fly.) pic.twitter.com/OP0CLAsHFp
The GGPPA imposes a requirement on the officers of SaskEnergy, and criminal law penalties apply to those officers who would withhold fuel charge payments. Scott Moe is putting SaskEnergy in legal jeopardy. Luckily, their counsel will know Sask law won'tbe operative.
Perhaps it could be like Manitoba Egg. Pass a law identical to one you don't like in another province, refer it to the BCCA for a constitutional reference, lose, appeal to scc, lose, and SCC can let us know whether such laws are invalid or merely inoperative.
In this context, it seems that Mr Poilievre was not as supportive of provincial jurisdiction and the capacity for Premiers to obstruct valid federal law. Double standard? Definitely. https://t.co/Y9haLnTk4X
Oh, and for those of you asking, the “pause” on the carbon price on home heating oil doesn’t invalidate the whole scheme, as there were already carve-outs when it came into existence. Try again.
There is a significant misconception that the scc decision implied that the carbon price needed to be applied on all emissions at all times to be valid. No. In fact, the legislation as challenged had major exemptions that favoured some provinces over others. 1/
There are also exemptions for fishing fuels, an undoubtedly regional exemption benefitting the Atlantic provinces and BC more than other regions. I'm no fan of the temporary heating oil carve out, but don't make up law to suit your anger. 3/
Ukrainian intelligence says that three Russian officers were killed in a blast by local resistance groups in occupied Melitopol. Russians targeted Kyiv overnight on Saturday, and killed four people in strikes on Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia, while pro-Ukrainian saboteurs derailed a train in Russia with an improvised explosive device.
On this day a year ago, the Ukrainian flag returned to Kherson.
We all have vivid memories of these emotions. How people greeted our soldiers, how adults and children celebrated. Thank you to every warrior who made this possible. We remember everyone who gave their lives for the… pic.twitter.com/zcoGKPCHYA
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 11, 2023
Because some of you at the back still don’t get it, no, carbon pricing does not contribute 16 percent of inflation. It contributes 0.15 percent, because inflation is a year-over-year measure, and when the increase is steady and holding, the actual impact on inflation is negligible, because that’s how inflation works. But several of you you keep insisting that your math is correct when it’s not, and so here’s economist Trevor Tombe to try and get it through to you:
The GST adds 5% to the cost of purchasing a good or service subject to this tax. Not all items are subject to it, though. I (roughly) estimate that, overall, the GST adds an average of 2.3% for consumer expenditures as a whole. (From here: https://t.co/qhHXeoYD8h)
The same logic is behind the carbon tax claim. The Bank of Canada said CTax has so-far raised price levels by 0.6%, similar to how GST raises levels by 2.3% (I estimate).
If the CTax stopped increasing, it would no longer have an impact on "inflation," but it would still influence price levels.
But even this may be wrong. Firstly, the CTax might only alter *relative* prices rather than overall levels, depending on the Bank of Canada's response.
I was going to use another example – reducing Alberta electricity prices back to levels seen in 2016-2018, but I decided that might hit some Premiers a little close to home. FWIW, electricity price levels are up 230% since May 2019. Electricity price inflation was 213% in Sept.
Ukrainian missiles struck a shipyard in occupied Crimea, damaging a Russian warship there. There are conflicting reports about the state of the counter-offensive in the Zaporizhzhia region, where Russia claims they have halted any advance, while Ukrainians say that they continue to advance, albeit slowly. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pushes back against the notion that they have entered into a stalemate, and says they need more air defences so that Russia can no longer dominate the skies. Here’s a look at Ukrainian soldiers who have turned to jiu-jitsu after losing limbs in the war.
⚡️UPDATE: Night attack on Odesa injures 5.
All five victims have been hospitalized with shrapnel wounds, Odesa Oblast Governor Oleh Kiper said.https://t.co/SL8pja9Psx
If you needed any more proof that Alberta is run by a group of petulant children, look no further than finance minister Nate Horner’s appearance on Power & Politics yesterday. While in the midst of grousing that during the (virtual) meeting with Chrystia Freeland earlier in the day on the subject of Alberta’s threats to pull out of the CPP (threats which are fairly transparently a pressure tactic to try and get out of other environmental obligations), and that Freeland was not entertaining any other carbon price exemptions, Horner said that he was going to launch a programme to subsidise anyone who wants to convert to heating oil in order to get the same break on carbon prices.
Heating oil generally costs about three-to-four times the price of natural gas for the same output. That’s the whole reason the “pause” was put into place as a stopgap to get more people switched over to heat pumps, along with a bunch of incentives to do so. If Horner actually thinks that people will pay more for heat in order to avoid paying the carbon price, and coming out at a net loss, for the simple thrill of “owning the libs,” well, that’s pretty much him telling on himself. And it’s so stupid because as the government has belatedly explained, there are actually more people who use heating oil outside of the Atlantic provinces than inside (mostly in northern communities), and they too get the “pause” in order to facilitate the switch over to heat pumps. The problem there, however, is that most of those provinces haven’t come to an agreement with the federal government in order to give the heat pumps for free to low-income households. So that may yet come, but right now, they’re still in full-on tantrum territory.
This is the stupidest thing anyone in Alberta's inner circle has said about energy in at least…actually, let's just not finish that thought.
Russians launched a new wave of overnight attacks across ten of Ukraine’s regions, and the Ukrainian air defences were able to intercept 24 of 38 drones plus a cruise missile. Here is a snapshot of the counter-offensive on various fronts, while Ukrainian troops battle exhaustion as winter approaches.
Russia fired about forty "Shahed" drones at quiet Ukrainian towns and cities during the course of the night.
Our aircraft, air defense, and mobile fire groups worked hard in ten regions of Ukraine, from east and south to the west.
In the wake of last week’s Supreme Court of Canada decision in the Impact Assessment Act, there has been a lot of fantasy being projected on what the decision said (hint: it’s not what most everyone says, no matter which sentence they’ve cherry-picked). There’s a lot of blame on the Act for projects not moving forward, as even though many of them had approvals in hand already and the economics for those projects didn’t make sense with current oil prices (as many were conceived of when there was a belief that we were reaching peak oil and that prices would start to skyrocket as a result—oops), or as with certain LNG projects that never got off the ground, they couldn’t get buyers to sign contracts for what they hoped to produce. That’s why the handwringing over Qatar supplying Europe with LNG is particularly funny, because we just don’t have the LNG capacity on the east coast—there is no ready supply of natural gas to liquefy, so without another massive pipeline project, it would mean importing product to liquefy and re-sell to the Europeans, which is not exactly a cost-savings for them when they can get it much cheaper from Qatar.
Meanwhile, here’s Andrew Leach calling out these kinds of fantasies, particularly when they’re coming from the Alberta government.
Might I suggest you ask your ministry to brief you on the number of oil sands projects with all their approvals in hand and perhaps to provide you with copies of all the "the oil will get to market no matter what" interventions from pipeline hearings, Minister Jean. https://t.co/uGFqizisib
As a bonus, Leach also calls out the excuses for inaction on the energy transition:
Same things were said about Harper's 2061 coal phase out, about Notley's 2030 phase out, etc. And almost always said by those who had already done everything on their power to delay action, while avoiding the tech deployment they now claim can't happen fast enough. https://t.co/nIGYBp0RzU
Saskatchewan is the only jurisdiction in the country to have increased emissions intensity of its electricity system since we started setting ghg emissions targets. If they didn't expect that, at some point they'd need an alternative, that's on them, but still an issue for feds.
No word on any fresh attacks against Ukrainian cities. Meanwhile, artefacts that were stolen from occupied territories were confiscated when they were attempted to be smuggled into the US, and have now been returned to Ukraine.
Today, I visited Ukraine’s south.
I spoke with our border guards in the Kherson region and congratulated the State Border Guard Service Intelligence on their day.
I also met with our military. Commander-in-Chief Zaluzhny, Chief of the General Staff Shaptala, Commander of the… pic.twitter.com/Yw5LLxCuvq
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 20, 2023
⚡️Mediazona confirms identities of over 34,000 Russian soldiers killed in Ukraine.
Mediazona, together with BBC Russia, confirmed the names of 34, 857 Russian soldiers who had been killed since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The past few days have been preoccupied by the Hamas attack on Israel, which has killed as many as a thousand, including attacking villages and killing the elderly and infants. We know that so far, two Canadians have been confirmed killed, while others have been kidnapped and taken hostage. After refuting claims that the embassy in Tel Aviv was closed for Thanksgiving, the federal government is preparing airlifts for Canadian citizens and permanent residents out of Tel Aviv, likely using military aircraft. Ahmed Hussen has also stated that humanitarian aid will continue to flow to the Palestinian people, particularly in light of the humanitarian crisis that is to come as the Gaza strip is under siege, with assurances that there are robust controls to ensure that Hamas doesn’t see any of this funding (as they are listed as a terrorist organisation under Canadian law).
(For the record, I don't think this would be a good approach, useful, or effective, but if we're in the realm of offering bad policy advice, I would have thought banning crypto would have been on offer.)
Back home, there has been pretty universal condemnation of Hamas from political leaders, but that doesn’t mean that politics haven’t been played. After Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre were at the same event over the weekend to show solidarity with the Jewish community, Poilievre decided to immediately return to his dickish self and try and score points on the non-scandal that Canada was not included in a communiqué between the Americans, the UK, France, Germany and Italy. A number of pundits and talking heads clutched their pearls and cried that we were excluded, some news reporters incorrectly framing this as the G7 (which was also minus Japan), when it turned out that this was a meeting of the Quint, which is a separate, nuclear-armed organisation that Canada is not a part of. While most reporters and outlets quickly clarified this, Poilievre decided to use it to rage-farm and claim that Trudeau has “side-lined Canada,” which is bullshit, but you’ve got a bunch of pundits on their fainting couches over this when they should know better, and Poilievre couldn’t resist the urge to score points over this, which should be unconscionable, but he likes to keep proving that there is no bottom with him.
Canada is not part of the Quint Group, which is who met and made this statement. Poilievre knows this, but would rather lie about this to rage-farm and drive clicks. pic.twitter.com/PyxDjUBP51
Matt Gurney points out that this conflict has given us a pogrom in realtime over social media, but that most people aren’t seeing it because of how news outlets sanitize the graphic elements that would inevitably galvanize them.
Palestinians deserve full human rights. No caveats. So do Israelis. Both deserve states.
War is horrifying. It destroys countless lives & is a scourge.
For there to be peace, Hamas must be eliminated. It is a theocratic death cult & it’s victims are Israelis & Palestinians.
Russia’s latest drone attack targeted the Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, with Ukraine’s air defences downing 27 drones. The counter-offensive continues to make gains in the east and the south. Ukrainian officials are investigating 260 instances of abuses at military recruitment offices, much of it related to bribery. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy replaced the country’s territorial defence forces commander, before he left to visit neighbouring Romania to strengthen ties and talk regional security.
We have data very clearly proving that Russia is interested in inciting war in the Middle East. So that a new source of pain and suffering would erode global unity and exacerbate cleavages and controversies, helping Russia in destroying freedom in Europe.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 9, 2023
Earlier this year, Ukraine launched the Marichka, an underwater naval drone that can carry a 200-kilogram warhead, and announced the creation of a special seaborne drone unit.
The day began with the speeches from the prospective candidates for Speaker—unserious Liberal candidate Stephane Lauzon bowed out before things got started, and the rest began their speeches as to why they deserved to get the job. There were also a few fulsome (in the proper sense of the word) expressions of thanks to Anthony Rota and claims that he was a “good Speaker” when he absolutely was not, which is why we were here today. The notion of respect and decorum got mentioned time and again, because they always do, for what little good it does (because the Speaker can only do so much). Elizabeth May once again said she was running (even though her being a party leader should have been disqualifying automatically, except for the fact that because the Greens don’t have official party status was the technicality that allowed it), but her running was yet again less about being a serious candidate than it was about giving herself the opportunity to make a speech about the rules, and why the Speaker needs to give up the lists provided to him or her and use their own judgment as to who should be recognised. (I actually agree, but this is one of those areas where if the Speaker did this unilaterally there would likely be a revolt). May also made the point that Rota apparently broke his own rules in recognising the Nazi-aligned veteran, however the Speaker’s office says that those rules didn’t really apply because it wasn’t an official sitting of the Commons, and Speakers have wide discretion in any case.
In the end, Liberal MP Greg Fergus was chosen, making him the first Black Speaker in Canadian history. The choice was a surprise to me because Fergus had never shown any interest in the role prior to this past week. In fact, he has always been a pretty notorious partisan (former leader of the Young Liberals, former national director of the party, former parliamentary secretary to the prime minister), and that raises questions for me, but that’s solely my opinion. Fergus did talk about subscribing to Hansard when he was 14, and being a House of Commons page, which puts him in good stead for his respect for the Chamber and the institution, but again, he’s coming into the position as a complete neophyte with no experience as a Chair occupant, which should be a little worrying given the particular state of Canadian democracy right now, and the rancorous mood.
Greg Fergus (@GregFergus) is elected the new Speaker of the House of Commons.
That rancorous mood extended to the congratulatory speeches. Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s speech danced on the edge of being partisan in his talk about what were essentially government priorities, to which Pierre Poilievre decided to one-up him and go full-partisan, that included a bizarre false history lesson where he tried to wedge his “common sense” nonsense into “common people,” and the House of Commons, with a wrong history of the name and the institution itself, before trying to compare Trudeau to King John, who was forced to sign the Magna Carta. If the words “classless jackass” crossed your mind, you would be correct, which is all the more reason why the state of Canadian democracy is in trouble, and Fergus will be hard-pressed to do much about it.
to meet out in the open on the green grass of the village commons. Nor b/c they were the common people. Historians don't know where the green comes from, but Commons comes from Anglo-Norman French "commun" ("commune" in modern French). Members represented their *communities*.
Correct, 2 knights for each shire elected by their peers (other knights). Only later were burgesses elected to represent the boroughs, when the King realized they could be the source of money.
Ukrainian forces downed 29 out of 31 Russian drones and one cruise missile in overnight attacks, while falling debris tarted fires in Dnipro. Russia claims it downed a Ukrainian missile off the coast of occupied Crimea. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was visiting troops in the country’s northeast.
Today in the Kharkiv region, I met with our brave brigades, commanders, and local authorities. On all fronts—military and civilian—we are making strides to defend our land, secure our energy system, and ensure social protection for people. Kharkiv stands proud, free, and strong. pic.twitter.com/B251NJJ17u
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 3, 2023
⚡️Russia shells 8 communities in Sumy Oblast.
Explosions occurred in the communities of Khotin, Mykolaivka, Krasnopillia, Velyka Pysarivka, Bilopillia, Yunakivka, Shalyhyne, and Esman.https://t.co/1djATf2j2M
There was a brief return to the discourse over the proposed Alberta Pension Plan over the weekend after a Colby Cosh column managed to get the criticisms of the plan right. So, I’ll let Trevor Tombe to the talking.
It explores many interpretations of the asset split formula, and provides some relevant history that most aren’t familiar with, including the Robarts claim Cosh quotes, which I was excited to share in the paper.
And a plain reading of the language is that the actual returns of the CPP are being apportioned, not some hypothetical fund. This is important for the end result. pic.twitter.com/ihWntPoloQ
Why do I go and lower it further to 20%? That’s an amount consistent with the governments stated objective for the split at the time the act was passed: assets are there to backstop obligations. It’s a more involved calculation, but yields 20% for a horizon to 2100.
In any case, I may need to rewrite some of the paper to emphasize these points more directly throughout. If @colbycosh misunderstood then others may as well.
Ukraine says that they shot down 30 out of 40 drones in an overnight attack on Saturday, and 16 out of 30 dronesovernight on Sunday, when a grain storage warehouse in Uman was hit. In turn, Russia claims to have shot down six Ukrainian drones and two missiles over occupied Crimea on Sunday. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that the country will be partnering with western arms manufacturers to start localising production in Ukraine, with a focus on air defence and de-mining.
Ukraine’s defense industry entered a new phase of development today. Our successful Defense Industries Forum demonstrated global interest in the possibility to work in Ukraine—and with Ukraine—to develop arms and everything else that any free nation needs to assure true defense. pic.twitter.com/ziiJedTZ0a
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 30, 2023
"[The large Ukrainian community in Canada] obviously stands as a model for what might be replicated in the many like-minded countries in which Ukrainians have more recently settled," writes Richard Cashman. https://t.co/kECEtAr8ZM
The supposed “1 Million March 4 Children” took place yesterday in cities across Canada, and in most instances, were drowned out by counter-protesters—a welcome sign to be sure. And to be clear, these protests have nothing to do with children, or “parental rights,” but is focused largely on the moral panic around trans rights (and the falsehood that they are mutilating and sterilising children), pronoun policies in schools, and the libel that this is somehow about gays “grooming” children, or indoctrinating them to be gay. The attendees are pretty much a toxic brew of leftover “Freedom Convoy” enthusiasts, grievance tourists, far-right nationals, and some Muslim parents whom they have temporary found common cause with (and don’t expect this to last, given that much of the far-right agitation in Canada has its roots in Islamophobia, but they’re happy to let the Muslims agitate against LGBTQ+ people on their behalf). A few arrests were made at some of the demonstrations, but they were largely peaceful in that regard. (Write-up of the Ottawa event here, with photos here).
If nothing else, a big takeaway from the day is that despite weeks and weeks of planning, organizing, coordinating, and feeding off each other's paranoia and rage, the turnout was laughable. Just because people are extremely loud online doesn't mean they represent the real world.
The hate marchers were FIXATED on equating LGBTQ2S identity with 'grooming'- but teaching someone who is vulnerable that they are your property is one of the most damaging and powerful grooming tactics that are used on abused children & adults
In terms of political reaction, the marchers didn’t get much support, outside of New Brunswick premier Blaine Higgs who greeted them and made common cause with them, because of course he did. In Ottawa, Jagmeet Singh led a counter-protest march, while the Conservatives were instructed to steer clear and say nothing, not even when it was raised in Question Period, as they sat stone-faced when others clapped about the denunciation of anti-trans hate. This silence is of course deliberate—it’s not because of a lack of conviction, but because they don’t want to jeopardise any ability to try and eat into the PPC’s far-right voter base, because that’s how they think they’ll edge out the Liberals in the next election. And I really have to question how MPs like Melissa Lantsman and Eric Duncan can sit there through this as though this doesn’t affect them (because remember, there is not “good parts only” version of right-wing populism. You can’t try and dog-whistle about “gender theory” and think that it’ll stop there, because it won’t).
StOp NoRmAlIzInG SeX aNd NuDiTy.
Good grief.
So many people have whipped themselves into outrage over imagined realities.
The thing that gets me through all of this so-called movement to “protect children” is this insistence that LGBTQ+ people must be “grooming” children or indoctrinating them because there’s this belief that they’re too young to know if they’re gay or lesbian, or even trans. In most cases, that’s not true—most kids know who they are, and most of us older LGBTQ+ people have been through miserable and unsupportive youth and adolescence, and want to ensure that the next generation doesn’t have to go through what we did. That these people are masking their homophobia and transphobia as concern is one thing, but it’s the complete lack of empathy on their part that really gets me.
I’m the parent of a kid who changed their pronouns and first name at school without consulting me.
Russians conducted strikes in at least six cities, including Kyiv, Kherson, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, and Lviv. AP has a look inside a Ukrainian platoon that freed Andriivka. At the UN, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Security Council about Russia breaking the UN Charter.
Justin Trudeau told a climate event at the UN General Assembly that Canada is on track to exceed its methane reduction targets (but we did expand our fossil fuels).
As Trudeau has been having pull-aside meetings at the UN, Australia’s foreign minister calls the allegations about Indian agents “credible.”
Mélanie Joly relayed Canada’s “grave concerns” about Azerbaijan escalating military action in the Nagorno-Karabakh region involving Armenians.
Canada will pull some of its diplomatic staff from India following recent threats.
The Privacy Commissioner says Canada Post broke the law by harvesting information from envelopes and packages.
The Ombudsman for Responsible Enterprise is investigating Levi Strauss for possible forced labour in their supply chain.
Indian officials have suddenly started claiming students in Canada face risks to their personal safety, undermining their own High Commissioner’s comments.
American politicians are warning Canada against implementing a possible digital services tax on web giants (which we won’t do if the OECD gets its act together).
A group of senators are calling on the government to institute stricter criteria for schools that host international students.
Senator Jim Quinn introduced a bill to make the isthmus between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia federal jurisdiction (but that is a money bill and illegitimate).
Here is a look at Senator Marilou McPhedran’s outsized Senate expenses (which includes some journalistic malpractice, like getting quotes from the CTF).
Liberals from Atlantic Canada are calling out Conservative opposition to a bill that would extend the Atlantic Accords to include renewable energy such as wind farms.
Pierre Poilievre tabled his housing bill, which I’m dubious will even be voteable.
The Centre Ice Conservatives/Canadians group is calling their new political party “Canadian Future” (which is almost certainly a doomed venture).
A second Doug Ford minister, Kaleed Rasheed, resigned from Cabinet and stepped away from caucus over a trip to Vegas with Greenbelt Developers and lying about it.
Paul Wells pays a visit to Hamilton East Stoney Creek after the poll numbers look to be shifting there, and talks to the putative Conservative candidate about the mood.
Odds and ends:
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