Tag Archives: Pierre Poilievre

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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Roundup: The domestic speech and the response

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Back on Canadian soil, prime minister Mark Carney gave a speech to a domestic audience in advance of his Cabinet retreat, in which he used the location of the Plains of Abraham—where the retreat is being held, at the Citadelle in Quebec City—to praise the foundation of Canada (which the Bloc took exception to), our pluralism and shared values, and our choice to offer a vision of something different to the world. Oh, and he clapped back at Trump saying we live only because of the US. It might have been nice, but he kept veering off onto weird tangents about praising digital asbestos, or federal social programmes like pharmacare that he hasn’t done a single thing with in the past year and has outright stated he’s not interested in expanding. And if anything, the speech exposed a streak of hypocrisy—Canadian values, and pluralism, but we just signed a “strategic partnership” with a country genociding an ethnic minority. We’re going to create thousands of good-paying union jobs, but we just signed “strategic investments” with a country that employs slave labour. If you’re going to pat yourself on the back for your values, maybe try and at least pretend you’re trying to live up to them?

This Carney speech is giving me whiplash. Hooray for Canadian values! (But we’re also going to do deals with people who commit genocide and practice slave labour, and scapegoat immigrants).Hooray for our social programmes, but let’s do more digital asbestos!

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-22T19:04:50.878Z

Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre released his own statement in response to Carney’s speech at Davos. The gist of Poilievre’s remarks is that of course Carney isn’t doing enough, that we shouldn’t alienate the Americans and by that we should engage with allies in the country who will help us post-Trump, and that he plans to move a motion next week to pass his ridiculous Canadian Sovereignty Act bill at all stages. (Transcript here).

And make no mistake—that bill is ridiculous. The primary gist of it is to tear up any and all environmental regulation to build more pipelines (who cares about a market case of First Nations consent?), to incentivise the reinvestment of capital gains in Canada (which was a plan so complex that Jim Flaherty walked it back after trying to do it during the Harper years), paying provinces a “bonus” for eliminating any remaining trade barriers, and to require the government to stop letting innovators in this country sell their intellectual property to Americans (and good luck with that one). It’s stupid and unfeasible and will only create a tonne of new problems while solving absolutely none, but he somehow thinks this is genius.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-01-22T15:05:14.665Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian strikes hit locations in Zaporizhzhia, as well as Kryvyi Rih. At Davos, president Zelenskyy gave a speech highly critical of Europe’s indecisiveness and inability to organise enough to project any strength. (Transcript here).

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Roundup: Conspicuous silence from Poilievre

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In the wake of prime minister Mark Carney’s big Davos speech, it has been noticed that there is a conspicuous silence coming from Pierre Poilievre, aside from the fact that he was tweeting misleading things about grocery prices, because his strategy is to keep hammering away at cost-of-living issues while the world is on fire. Apparently, his office was circulating a statement before the speech about how a trip to Davos was an “unneeded indulgence” that wasn’t going to resolve any tariffs, because of course, he doesn’t travel. That hasn’t stopped his various proxies from floating their own attack lines, either insisting that it’s nothing but an empty speech (not entirely untrue), or being utterly dismissive and saying that he needs to be back at the table with the Americans to resolve the tariff issues, as though there is a deal to be had with Trump and his mercurial whims where agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. It’s clear there isn’t, and that is becoming an ever-more irrelevant attack line with each passing day.

Meanwhile, here is a look at some of the global reaction to the speech, but one of the comments that stands out is from Michael Kovrig, who has a warning about how some of Carney’s language is being used, particularly in the way he invokes Havel, and how it sets up a false equivalency between the American-dominated rules-based order with totalitarian communism, and why that could have repercussions.

In pundit reaction, Kevin Carmichael is impressed with Carney’s Davos speech, and finds the biggest lesson in it to be the reminder from Havel that we are not powerless. Seva Gunitsky parses the references to Thucydides and Havel in the speech, and how they apply to the American empire. Althia Raj weighs some of the positives and negatives of Carney’s Davos speech. Philippe Lagassé has questions about the government’s defence and intelligence priorities in the wake of Carney’s speech, because they are greatly affected. And Paul Wells strips the speech of its applause lines and contemplates the core of it, and what some of the inevitable critiques will be.

Ukraine Dispatch

Nearly 60 percent of Kyiv remains without power after attacks on its energy grid, making it their hardest winter yet. An executive of the state grid operator died while supervising repairs at a power facility, but they won’t say how. Ukraine’s new defence minister is planning a sweeping, data-drive overhaul of the military.

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Roundup: Once again, food prices are up because of climate change

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Yesterday was inflation data day, and it did tick upward, but for the reason that there was a base-year effect, meaning that because a year ago, the government instituted their stupid “GST holiday” as a gimmick to boost them in the polls, and that shakes out in the inflation data a year later because prices are that much higher a year later (and inflation is a year-over-year measure). But where this bites particularly hard is with food from restaurants, as that was one of the beneficiaries from the “holiday,” and that pushes up the food price index further, which is already high because of things like coffee and beef.

Enter Pierre Poilievre, who sees those higher numbers and starts to immediately caterwaul about them, without actually reading the rest of the data about why things like coffee and beef are climbing in price, and spoiler, it has a lot to do with climate change. “Adverse weather conditions” is generally things like droughts or extreme weather, most of which is climate-change related. Cattle inventories are low because the drought on the prairies meant that ranchers had to cull their herds because importing feed was expensive, and that means a lower supply and lower supply means higher prices (which is basic supply-and-demand). But Poilievre keeps trying to insist that this is about “hidden taxes” and that deficits are driving inflation, which is not the case. But will anyone on the government side correct him and his disinformation? Of course not.

It's too bad reading comprehension is so difficult for these jackasses.Food purchased from restaurants is up because of the base-year effect of last year's "GST holiday."Grocery pricers are up because the two main drivers were affected by drought.www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quo…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-19T15:14:03.719Z

From the 2025 annual CPI report, on food prices. "Adverse weather conditions" is mostly droughts, but also extreme weather driven by climate change.These price increases have fuck all to do with "taxes" or government deficits. www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quo…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-19T15:14:03.720Z

But will any member of the government actually point any of this out? Of course not. They will pat themselves on the back for the school food programme, or the Canada Child Benefit, but because they believe that "if you're explaining you're losing," they never explain, and the lies just fester.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-19T15:14:03.721Z

And here’s the kicker—Environment Canada is predicting that this will once again be among the four hottest years on record, and that is likely going to mean more droughts, possibly more extreme weather—because this does affect hurricane formation—and that’s again going to impact food-producing regions, which will raise prices even more. But Poilievre and the Conservatives refuse to believe this. They have openly scoffed in Question Period about this, and said stupid things like “paying a tax won’t change the weather,” as if that was what the point was. And then there’s Carney, gutting our environmental programmes left and right in the name of diversifying our economy, which will exacerbate things even further. So long as they all continue to play this ignorant little game, things will continue to get more expensive, and they will keep looking for more scapegoats rather than looking in the mirror.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a combined drone and missile assault on Kyiv, cutting off power and water supplies in parts of the city. The night before, drone strikes cut power across five different regions. President Zelenskyy announced a new facet of their air defences system, working to transform the system with more interceptor drones.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/2013214732858052768

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Roundup: A “strategic partnership” with China

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During prime minister Mark Carney’s meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping yesterday, a “strategic partnership” was signed that will see access for a limited number of Chinese EVs into the Canadian market in exchange for the promise to remove some tariffs on canola, along with the tariffs on Canadian pork and seafood, but only for the remainder of this year, maybe. In addition, there’s talk about cooperating on combatting drug trafficking (given the fentanyl issue), but some other vague language that is likely to be used by China to demand people to be extradited for trial. None of this is terribly great, but this is the result of months of behind-the-scenes diplomacy. If you listen to Michael Kovrig, he is pointing out the language in the agreement and that China is using, and that it’s really a test that aims to employ diplomatic gatekeeping instead of reconciliation.

Two immediate thoughts1. We have conceded a lot for promises of relief – not actual relief. Thanks, I hate it.2. This is a clear sign Carney is expecting very little to come of US trade talks this year. www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/artic…

— Stephanie Carvin (@stephaniecarvin.bsky.social) 2026-01-16T13:22:38.846Z

Trump basically shrugged off the news of this deal—or at least he did today, and that may change again. Scott Moe and Danielle Smith are happy with the deal, while Doug Ford is spitting mad. Pierre Poilievre is clutching his pearls, but is also asking the very relevant question of how Carney went from saying China is the country’s greatest threat to signing a “strategic partnership” with them in the space of less than a year. And frankly, Carney and his minister have been completely evasive on the issue, and the issue of human rights in China (remember how just last year Parliament voted on a motion that said that China was executing a genocide of the Uyghurs?). Because apparently “pragmatism” means we can’t have values anymore.

This all having been said, frankly, it was incompetence on the part of Carney and his ministers to let a group of frankly bad actors frame this issue of EVs versus canola into some kind of west-east dispute around how the federal government was protecting the auto sector at the expense of the west—a bullshit assertion given that western canola producers were warned not to let China take as much market share as they did, but they were both greedy and lazy, and China exploited that. Do I think that’ll change now with this deal? Nope. They’ll continue to rely on this to keep their Chinese market share overly large so that the next time China is mad about something, they’ll come up with another excuse to ban or tariff canola, and the sector will be right back in this same situation, because they’re greedy and lazy. And with regards to the auto sector, frankly it bears a share of the blame as well for dragging their feet on producing more and cheaper EVs, or charging infrastructure, or anything else, knowing that the market was shifting—while they demanded that the federal government do everything from funding the transition to demanding they set up the charging infrastructure. (Did the federal set up gas stations across the country back at the turn of the last century? No. Why should they now?)

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims to have taken two villages—one in Donetsk, one in Zaporizhzhia. In the wake of all of the attacks on energy infrastructure, Ukraine is currently only able to meet sixty percent of its electricity needs.

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