Tag Archives: Pierre Poilievre

Roundup: Jeneroux crosses over

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Prime minister Mark Carney got one step closer to a majority parliament yesterday as Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux formally crossed the floor, weeks after he said he would resign after floor-crossing discussions happened, and there have been rumours of threats. There is some irony in this development—Pierre Poilievre insisted that Jeneroux not resign immediately, but that it not become official until sometime in the spring, and Jeneroux simply absented himself from the Commons and from votes, and because he had not formally resigned as he might have at the time, it meant he still had a seat to cross the floor with. Oops. Jeneroux says that what changed his mind was Carney’s speech in Davos, and also made mention of a “national unity crisis,” and that he couldn’t sit on the sidelines. So that’s something. Also, Carney has bestowed upon him the title of “special advisor on economic and security partnerships,” but apparently this is not paid or a retitled parliamentary secretary position like Chrystia Freeland’s special advisor role was before she resigned.

Well. I guess Jeneroux has reconsidered his retirement. That statement:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-18T15:33:27.661Z

JENEROUX: "After further reflection with my family, and conversations with colleagues and constituents, I will be continuing to serve in Parliament — and I will be working with PM Carney as a part of his new government to help build our country's strength as we face the challenges ahead."

— Scott Robertson (@sarobertson.bsky.social) 2026-02-18T15:48:31.398Z

This, naturally, led to the usual bouts of hand-wringing and accusations of betrayal from the Conservatives, and the usual nonsense lines that Canadians had somehow voted against a majority parliament (not government—government is government, regardless if they have a majority of seats or not in the legislature), because that simply doesn’t happen. Canadians vote for a single representative, and that’s it. They don’t vote for the configuration of the Chamber, and they because they vote for the individual, that individual also gets to make the choice of whether or not to stay in the party that they were elected with, because that choice is sacrosanct in our system, no matter what anyone tells you.

It's going well.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-18T16:48:36.623Z

And the reactions? Well, former MP Rick Perkins tweeted that MPs should live in the province and community they represent, but well, that would disqualify his party’s deputy leader Tim Uppal (who made a song and dance about living in Ottawa and not Edmonton and declared he would not move back there if elected), and yes, Poilievre himself, but I am willing to give that one latitude because as opposition leader, he lives in Stornoway. But still. Perkins quickly deleted that tweet. Another unnamed former MP and two other sources in the Conservative party each told the Hill Times that ““Pierre Poilievre has become the Justin Trudeau of the Conservative Party,” which is absolutely hilarious.

Has anyone told Tim Uppal about this rule?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-18T17:22:45.316Z

Matt Jeneroux leaves Conservative party after being too intimidated by Poilievre's workout regime

— The Beaverton (@thebeaverton.com) 2026-02-18T18:37:31.796Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-02-18T14:25:04.438Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine has been able to reduce some electricity imports as the weather improves. The former head of the military is talking more about his rift with Zelenskyy.

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Roundup: The tedious nonsense around food price inflation

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The inflation numbers were out yesterday, which meant that it was time once again for Pierre Poilievre to mislead everybody with a headline number that doesn’t say what he thinks it does, and frankly, The Canadian Press was not helping. Food inflation was not actually 7.3 percent. Not really. Grocery prices are 4.8 percent, but because of last year’s stupid “GST holiday,” the price index for food from restaurants spiked in comparison, so there was a 12.1 percent year-over-year hike in that index, which completely skewed the overall food index. (Incidentally, there’s a reason why the Bank of Canada generally strips out food and energy prices from their “core” measures, because they are volatile and the Canadian government has little influence over them).

Poilievre, however, took that 7.3 percent figure, and called a press conference and published an open letter about the “Liberal Hunger Crisis,” and he is begging the prime minister to do something about it. That something, of course, is to gut environmental policies by destroying industrial carbon pricing, clean fuel regulations, and plastic regulations, each of which has virtually fuck all to do with the price of food (seriously, their impact works out to about statistically zero), but has everything to do with his crusade against any and all environmental regulations, because he believes they’re killing investment. (Just wait until he hears what contaminated groundwater and poisoned waterways does for investment. And votes). But this act where Poilievre insists he’s “trying to help” is just tedious. He’s not helping. He’s lying about the causes (which he should be able to read), and we went through this same song and dance with the consumer carbon levy, and when Carney killed it, prices didn’t change. Just stop.

This is such tedious bullshit.The 7.3% figure is driven by food at restaurants, because a year ago, there was the "GST holiday" and a year-over-year price comparison from that is skewed. Food at stores actually moderated last month.Also, Carney doesn't control Brazil's climate for coffee beans. 1/

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-17T19:59:39.814Z

And the worst part of this is that when Question Period is back on next week, Poilievre will keep up this whole act, and he’ll beg and plead for the government to do something, and will the government point out any of the facts in the StatsCan report? Will they even bother to correct that the index on food from stores was actually down last month? Nope. They will instead pat themselves on the back for their enhanced/badly rebranded GST credit, and then talk about the school food programme, and the Canada Child Benefit, and maybe dental care, or OAS for seniors, but they won’t put any gods damned facts on the table and counter any of the lies Poilievre tells to justify his nonsense. Because that’s how they insist on rolling.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-02-17T15:08:04.114Z

In case you missed it:

  • My Xtra column on the federal NDP leadership race and the particular crossroads that the party finds itself at.
  • My latest for National Magazine on Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision, upholding Newfoundland & Labrador’s COVID restrictions.
  • My weekend column on the government’s political cowardice in refusing to actually do something about the RCMP (like breaking it up) when the Force is broken.
  • My column on the apparent deal struck between the government and Conservatives on getting the budget bill passed, and why this shows the problems in Parliament.

New episodes released early for C$7+ subscribers. This week, I'm talking about Bill C-4 and what federal political parties want to do with your personal data. #cdnpoli

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-17T02:26:33.961Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Twelve Ukrainian regions came under attack as more “peace talks” are underway, while Ukraine struck an oil refinery in the Krasnodar region. President Zelenskyy says that Trump is trying to pressure him to give up territory to Russia.

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Words of condolence on a day of mourning

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Things got underway with a moment of silence in the Chamber at the start of proceedings, late as it always is on Wednesdays, and from there, things resolved to the day’s abbreviated proceedings.

Prime minister Mark Carney, surrounded by his BC MPs in the camera shot, spoke about the nation being in shock, and nine people killed, with 25 others injured. There was no speculating, but rather an admonishment that they must allow law enforcement the time and space to do their work. He spoke about Tumbler Ridge, a community of just 2400 people, founded in the 1980s in the promise of the resource economy. He spoke of the first responders, and the RCMP who entered the school immediately, and of the teachers and staff who saved lives. Carney said that he had spoken to David Eby, that minister Gary Anandasangaree is on his way to the community, along with Gregor Robertson, as he coordinates the federal response, and noted that the local MP, Bob Zimmer, was already on the scene. He raised past mass shootings in the country (and we are fortunate that it’s within the single digits and not a constant occurrence like in the U.S.), before saying that we must seek comfort from one another, and that the House mourns with them.

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Roundup: The annual Standing Orders debate

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Either out or morbid curiosity or as a cry for help, I watched yesterday’s House of Commons’ debate on proposing changes to the Standing Orders, and…I didn’t hate it? There were actually some good ideas in there, and there were calls to undo a couple of changes that were made during the height of the pandemic to accommodate “hybrid parliament,” which I hadn’t realised had been changed. While this was kicked off by Liberal MP Corey Hogan’s suggestions for reforming Question Period, which I wrote about in my weekend column, there were a number of other reasonable suggestions. One common theme by several MPs across party lines was to end the vestiges of hybrid sittings, which I wholeheartedly agree with, and some of that included the remote voting app (which again, is an affront to Parliamentary democracy and should be abolished), but that will be a tougher sell. A number of MPs also had gripes about the ability of the Senate to stall or kill private members’ bills through delay, but that has nothing to do with the Standing Orders, as the House does not write the rules of the Senate.

  • Michael Chong wants to restore the Speaker’s right of recognition and do away with speaking lists, and adopt the UK practice of allocating time among the number of MPs who want to speak to a specific bill or motion. (Agreed!) He also wants to ensure that the Speaker and a committee of MPs appoint the Clerks and Sergeant-at-Arms, and wants committee spots and chairs determined by secret preferential ballots, and for the Board of Internal Economy to only be comprised of backbenchers. All of these are reasonable.
  • Yves Perron wants the prayer replaced with a moment of reflection, and to have a designated time on Fridays for a more free-flowing question-and-answer session with ministers akin to the special committee of the whole sessions during COVID. He also wants limits on the size of panels at committees to ensure that they are more manageable He also wants unanimous consent motions to be held on Wednesdays and to be tabled in advance (which I’m very dubious about).
  • Jenny Kwan and Pat Kelly both want the return of voice votes/standing five to trigger recorded votes, which was one of those hybrid rule changes that needs to be undone. Kwan wants new rules on dissenting committee reports being presented, and no Supply Days on Wednesdays of Fridays (but they are already limited as to the number they can have, and that would take up all Tuesdays and Thursdays).
  • Kelly wants to invert the times for speeches and questions and answers, so you have shorter speeches and longer question/comment segments (which I’m not opposed to).
  • John-Paul Danko is concerned about parliamentary privilege being weaponized to allow slander to be clipped and shared over socials.
  • Scott Reid had some very specific concerns about ethics complaints being weaponized (but I’m not sure that’s in the Standing Orders).
  • Kevin Lamoureux wants concurrence debates to be held after government orders, as they are used as dilatory motions. He also wants a segment where MPs can speak to any bill of their choosing for five or ten minutes on a Friday.
  • Garnett Genuis wants guardrails on unanimous consent motions used to pass bills at all stages, and wants to do away with the parties asking suck-up questions during question/comment segments after speeches.

In all, there are actually a few good ideas in there, but we’ll see how much the Procedure and House Affairs committee takes up any of them (and I am not hopeful on most). Nevertheless, it was nice to see a reasonable debate on some (mostly) reasonable ideas on how to make the House of Commons work better.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-02-06T23:56:01.289Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Canada is sending AIM missiles for Ukraine’s air defence. President Zelenskyy is calling for faster action on air defence and repairing the power grids.

https://twitter.com/FedorovMykhailo/status/2019728147579871319

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Roundup: A sit-down meeting to foster cooperation?

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Yesterday, prime minister Mark Carney had a sit-down meeting with Pierre Poilievre about, well, we’re not entirely sure. Both of their readouts are very different spins on their conversation, but I guess it was about looking at ways to cooperate over the next few months? But let’s take this with a shaker’s full of salt.

Carney is certainly looking to get bills passed through the current minority parliament in a way that won’t be drama with every vote, particularly as he is now down two MPs (soon to be three), while Poilievre has no actual interest in going to an election anytime soon because a) he can read the polls just as much as anyone else and Carney’s favourables are particularly high right now, and b) he wants the NDP to be able to actually fight an election so that they can peel voters away from the Liberals, as the Conservatives need a relatively strong NDP to make that happen, and they are in no position right now. So he needs to save some face while playing along with Carney, so that translates to this faux conciliatory tone, while his “specific suggestions” are always to destroy all environmental laws, and to inevitably drive investment away through uncertainty and increased litigation—such a winning strategy! In any case, I suspect that they will have agreed to pass certain bills, possibly with amendments, by a certain date, before Poilievre gets to carry on with his little song and dance about imaginary taxes and “red tape,” because he has demonstrated time and again that “cooperation” means “do what I say.”

Meanwhile, Jamil Jivani headed to Washington, and apparently got a briefing from Dominic LeBlanc before he left. That said, Carney was throwing some shade around about how Jivani is not the party’s trade critic, and that he was mostly doing it for media attention. Mélanie Joly also noted that he has never said anything about the job losses at the GM plant in his riding, so she was not exactly convinced by his desire to help. In any case, Jivani had his meetings, and tweeted that he had a message from Trump, which was that he “loves” Canadians. Gee, thanks.

Ukraine Dispatch

At least seven people were killed when Russia shelled a front-line town in Donetsk. There are evacuations taking place in Zaporizhzhia region as Russians advance on more settlements. More power cuts are expected as they expect more attacks on Kyiv. Zelenskyy says that 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed so far, which is a lot less than the Russian casualties, which total over a million deaths and injuries.

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Roundup: Some noticeable omissions from the GDP concerns

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The latest GDP data was released on Friday, when the House wasn’t sitting, so the Conservatives spent yesterday making up for it, both with concern-trolling questions during QP, plus a lengthy statement about their concern about the “grim picture” of the Canadian economy. Yes, real GDP was flat in November, but that seems to be about as far as they are willing to read, because if you scratch the surface, one of the biggest drags on the economy was the fact that those motor vehicles and parts numbers were down 6.4 percent as a result of the global shortage of semiconductors. That is most assuredly not the fault of the Liberal government. Without that drag, it’s likely that the GDP would have been in the positive for the month, in spite of the other economic drags.

All of these words from the Conservatives, and none of them point out that Trump's trade war is the primary cause of this economic malaise (for which we have been surprisingly resilient to date). No, it's all the Liberals' fault.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-02-02T21:38:44.075Z

The thing is, much as with Poilievre’s big speech on Friday, there is absolutely no mention of Trump in their statement like there wasn’t in the speech. Trump and his trade war are having a deleterious effect on our economy, because we grew over-reliant on them as an export market because they’re right there, and they were a willing market that was simply too easy to trade with. Disentangling parts of our economy from theirs is going to take time, and we are taking damage from it, but to be frank, most economists figured we’d be in a recession by now as a result of Trump, and we haven’t been, showing that we had some more resilience than they initially thought. But the fact that the Conservatives cannot acknowledge the reality of the situation in order to blame the Liberals is sad and pathetic.

And it’s not just the GDP data. They’ve been doing this with food price inflation, and putting out a bunch of absolute nonsense to “prove” that their obsession with imaginary “hidden taxes” and environmental laws are the real problems, not climate change, not Trump, not factors beyond our control. Nope, it’s all Liberals and their deficits. And because they get so little pushback on it, from either the government or the media (though, to be fair, David Cochrane was actually producing data to push back on Power & Politics yesterday), they get away with this false version of reality and people believe them. It’s a problem, but nobody wants to actually acknowledge it because that seems like work, or math, which they are allergic to.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-02-02T14:08:02.462Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia is once again attacking Kyiv, Kharkiv, and other major centres, destroying energy infrastructure after a “ceasefire” for a whole couple of days. Russia also claims to have taken another settlement in Zaporizhzhia region.

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Roundup: The smell in the convention hall

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With the Conservative convention now over, we can prepare for a whole bunch of legacy media pundits insisting that Poilievre is “setting a new tone,” and that he’s demonstrating he needs to “change,” and a bunch of other equally risible nonsense. Poilievre is not going to change, no matter if you think one speech signalled an intention to or not. Aside from the fact that in all of his adult life, he has refused to change, the fact that he spent his speech talking about Trudeau and not Carney or Trump should be the dead giveaway. Legacy media keeps insisting that this time for sure he’ll change, but rest assured he won’t.

Yes, the quote that Conservatives began weaponizing in 2015 definitely created the Quebec separatist movement that dates back to the 1960s.

— Max Fawcett (@maxfawcett.bsky.social) 2026-02-01T17:53:57.593Z

And while we get voices like Jenny Byrne who keep insisting that everything the party says needs to come back to affordability, to the point that she thinks they should blame the inability to get a deal with Trump on that (and funnily enough, Trump gets no blame there). There was also another push for a bunch of more failed American-style laws in their policy debates, but I will note the attempt to undo the conversion therapy ban and to change the policy on abortion laws both failed to get enough support, so that’s a minor positive. The grassroots also pushed back at the central party for putting their thumb on nomination races, and insisted on changing the rules around it to be fairer, so that’s a rare positive in all of this.

The smell in the room, however, was the presence of the Alberta separatists, who made their presence known, and who were not denounced by anyone in any official capacity. Danielle Smith continues to give them succour, and when those separatists boasted that members of her own caucus have signed their petitions, she claimed that she “doesn’t police the responses of my MLAs,” well, we all know that’s not true either. Smith also continued her bullshit lines about Trudeau “relentlessly attacking” her province, when he in fact bent over backwards to help them when oil prices crashed, and was repaid by this. Federal Conservatives also mouthed these grievance talking points, and wouldn’t denounce separatism either, so that’s healthy, and a conversation the party should be having with itself right now.

Danielle smith repeats disinformation about 30 percent plus being in favour of this.

— Orlagh O’Kelly (@orlaghokelly.bsky.social) 2026-02-01T19:45:19.591Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone struck a bus carrying miners in Dnipropetrovsk, killing twelve people, which is one more way of targeting energy workers.

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Roundup: A predictable 87.4 percent

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After a speech that was mostly a rehash of his same talking points—falsehoods about the cost of living, blaming the Liberals for the rise of separatism, promising more trickle-down economics, and talking about hearing his autistic daughter speak for the first time, while also not talking about Trump—Pierre Poilievre won a predictable 87.4 percent approval in his leadership review. It’s not unexpected, and it endorses his current path, because these are the things his base apparently wants to hear in spite of the fact that it’s apparently not what most Canadians are looking for, particularly because his personal numbers remain so negative. If anything, this will just reinforce his behaviour, because that’s what we all need.

Could Poilievre or any of his lackeys actually look up what "post-national" means?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-31T04:28:44.469Z

Catherine O’Hara

The loss of Canadian icon is gutting. As author Kate Heartfield put it, she was like every Canadian’s cool aunt, and her loss will be deeply felt. I believe that the government should declare a national funeral be held for her (which is one step below a state funeral), because she is that important to us as a nation. Here is a collection of tributes.

She deserves a national funeral.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-30T18:55:31.866Z

Message from the Governor General on the passing of Catherine O'Hara.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-30T22:14:10.099Z

From @glasneronfilm.bsky.social:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-31T04:53:49.181Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Putin has allegedly agreed to halt strikes on Kyiv until Sunday, but that hasn’t stopped Russia from claiming to have captured three more villages.

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Roundup: All smiles with the premiers

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Mark Carney is meeting with the premiers today, after having them all over for dinner last night, and already everyone is having a big love-in, showing that they have a big united front as the country deals with the ongoing threats from the US and Trump administration. They’re all in agreement that these aren’t “normal times,” and David Eby and Danielle Smith played nice on the issue of Alberta looking to ram a pipeline through their territory (which appears to have Carney’s enthusiastic support, per Question Period on Tuesday), and I will admit that this is a big change from the latter Trudeau days, where nearly all of the premiers were lining up to take shots at the federal government.

However. Carney is letting them get away with all of their bullshit, particularly on the big things that the provinces need to be doing to Build Canada Strong™, whether that’s building housing, or taking care of their major infrastructure, or doing something about healthcare rather than letting the collapse continue. If you have a “Canada is broken” complaint, you can pretty much be guaranteed that it’s because of provincial underfunding, but the federal government is taking and will continue to take the blame, because the federal government refuses to call them out on it, and Carney is keeping this up. It’s all smiles and laughs, when it was the premiers who created the situation with immigration that the federal government had to step in with (to the long-term detriment of the country), and it’s the provinces who are exacerbating things like the affordability crisis. If Carney wants to fix things, that means leaning on the provinces to start doing their gods damned jobs.

With that in mind, I’m going to look askance as the territorial premiers want dual-use infrastructure funds to flow to them rather than have the federal government fund these projects directly, because we’ve never had provinces or territories take federal funds and spend it on other things before. And Gregor Robertson is calling on premiers to increase their spending on transitional housing, given the scale of need. Oh, you sweet summer child. The premiers don’t want to spend their own money on these things, even though it’s in their wheelhouse. They want you to spend federal dollars instead, because that’s how they’ve learned how to play this game. Just asking them to increase spending nicely isn’t going to do anything, but I can pretty much guarantee that the federal government won’t play hardball on this so that they don’t look like the bad guy, even though they’re going to take all of the blame. What a way to run a country.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-01-28T23:01:45.031Z

Ukraine Dispatch

More Russian drone and missile attacks on Kyiv and across the country overnight, and it could be as much as three weeks for some Ukrainians to get power back because of the attacks on infrastructure. Meanwhile, the US keeps stalling to give more time for Russia to keep up these attacks.

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Roundup: More threats, more attempts at vassalage

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Because everything is so stupid all the time, we began the weekend with more threats from Trump that he was going to slap 100 percent tariffs on Canadian products if we come to a trade deal with China to avoid them trans-shipping into the US. Oh, and they had “Governor Carney” in them, because of course they did. This was, of course, days after he said it was a great idea that we were pursuing a deal with China, because he would to, and he is doing so. So why the change of heart? (Because he’s addled?)

Cue Dominic LeBlanc, and others, to tell the Americans that no, we’re not pursuing a free trade deal with China, but that this was a fairly discreet tariff issue, which Carney himself repeated for the cameras on the way into the Liberals’ caucus retreat on Sunday. Nevertheless, this has a bunch of people panicking about the future of the New NAFTA review and the potential that the deal could be torn up entirely, because of course they remain our largest trading partner even as we try to diversify (and yes, because of geography, and because Canadian industry is frankly lazy, they are likely to remain so). But it got most of the premiers lined up in support behind Carney, for what it’s worth.

And then, of course, everything backed down, with a bunch of TACO jokes aside, but there is nevertheless a very serious underlying concern that if Carney and the government were to try and walk back their agreement to appease Trump, that this would essentially confirm that we have become little more than a vassal state to the US. We’re not entirely there, but Carney has made so many appeasements in the pursuit of a trade deal that isn’t going to happen that we are in very serious danger of that being the case if we relent on anything more.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-01-24T22:10:01.975Z

Ukraine Dispatch

More than 1300 apartment buildings in Kyiv are still without power after last week’s attacks. Some people in Kyiv, particularly those with disabilities, are trapped in their apartments amidst the blackouts. President Zelenskyy says the security guarantees document with the US is ready to be signed and ratified (not that any agreement with Trump is worth the paper it’s written on).

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