Tag Archives: Procurement

Roundup: Lewis on the first ballot

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Avi Lewis won the NDP leadership race on the first ballot on Sunday, with Heather McPherson a distant second, and surprisingly, Tanille Johnson came in third and Rob Ashton fourth.  Of course, there was chatter over social media that there were Palestinian flags on the stage when this happened by no Canadian flags, so make of that what you will. While there is a lot of talk about how “radical” Lewis’ ideas are, most of them are within the mainstream of the party, though they still suffer from some of the same problems of feasibility and inability to distinguish between federal and provincial roles, so we’ll see how that starts to play itself out.

Congratulations to Avi Lewis on your election as NDP leader.As Prime Minister I will always take a collaborative approach to how we build a stronger Canada, and I look forward to speaking about how we can work together to keep delivering for Canadians.

— Mark Carney (@mark-carney.bsky.social) 2026-03-29T16:29:29.516Z

Thank you to Don Davies for your service as Interim Leader of the NDP over this past year, and for your work to create new opportunities together for Canadian workers.

— Mark Carney (@mark-carney.bsky.social) 2026-03-29T16:29:29.517Z

Poilievre's congratulations to Avi Lewis.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-29T20:51:23.374Z

https://twitter.com/yfblanchet/status/2038279508462010734

Almost immediately, there was reaction from the two prairie provincial wings of the party, as Naheed Nenshi and Carla Beck immediately sought to distance themselves from Lewis, just as Danielle Smith and Scott Moe immediately pounced to insist that you’re the same party, and that we’re going to tar you with the same brush. Because that’s helpful. Even Wab Kinew, who spoke at the convention, is putting some distance between himself and Lewis, so this could be very interesting moving forward.

Alberta NDP Leader @naheednenshi.bsky.social immediately distances his party from the federal party. This statement just out, minutes after @avilewis.ca becomes federal NDP leader. #cdnpoli

— davidakin (@davidakin.bsky.social) 2026-03-29T15:30:29.000Z

https://twitter.com/punditsguide/status/2038286835101876641

And on top of that, the calls from within the party to start the purge of the disloyal, citing that Jeremy Corbyn didn’t do it effectively enough with Labour in the UK. Because that’s totally how you build a movement that can attract votes.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-29T20:02:15.977Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian attacks early Saturday his port infrastructure in Odesa, as well as a maternity hospital. Early Sunday, a strike on Kramatorsk killed three and injured at least thirteen. Ukraine is closing in on several agreements with Gulf states about protection from Iranian drones, with Zelenskyy currently in Jordan.

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Roundup: Poilievre’s anti-trans colours

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Yesterday, Pierre Poilievre tweeted an endorsement of JK Rowling praising the International Olympic Committee’s decision to ban trans women from sport, using a photo of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif as illustration. In spite of conspiracy theories and slander, Khelif is not trans (and is from a country where being queer is a crime). Poilievre should know this, but he is choosing to double down on anti-trans rhetoric (with a dose of misogyny and slander along the way). This is not the first time he has shown himself to be anti-trans, but this is the first major opportunity since he’s been trying to cast himself in a new light.

In case you needed any clarification where Poilievre stands on trans rights.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-27T17:16:48.712Z

The discussion of this online turned to Mark Carney’s stance on trans rights (he has been blandly supportive, and one of his children identifies as non-binary), and whether he is going to do anything about provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan, who have invoked the Notwithstanding Clause to protect their anti-trans legislation from court challenges. The answer is that he doesn’t have the constitutional tools to do anything about it other than moral suasion. And then someone will pipe up and say that he can use disallowance.

No, he can’t. Disallowance is a constitutional dead letter because it was largely meant to prevent provinces from intruding into areas of federal jurisdiction, and that power was essentially adopted by the Supreme Court of Canada’s reference function. This means that any residual disallowance power would be a declaration of war on a province, at a time when you have two provinces that are flirting with separatist agitation. It’s not going to happen. Stop pretending that it’s a possibility because it’s not.

For the last time:The federal government is NOT going to use disallowance.Stop pretending it is a magic wand to deal with asshole premiers. You want to stop them? Get off your ass and organize, organize, organize. That's how politics works.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-28T04:36:47.504Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-27T13:24:01.622Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine’s economy minister said that the rise in fuel and fertilizer prices thanks to the Iran conflict are not expected to impact Ukraine’s spring planting season.

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Roundup: Trying to deflect on forced labour

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There was a lot of talk about newly-minted Liberal MP Michael Ma’s performance at the industry committee, where he questioned a witness about whether she had personally witnessed forced labour in China, in a tactic to try and dismiss her in favour of a witness who was pro-trade in Chinese EVs. Ma later apologised, and there was apparently some confusion over just which region in China he was referring to, but still, it made for a poor clip from committee (and of the CBC reporter chasing him on the Hill), and bad clips would seem to be a cardinal sin in Parliament these days.

This being said, there would seem to me to be a tension in all of this that very few people want to actually discuss, which is the fact that Carney’s “strategic partnerships” that he’s been patting himself on the back for post-Davos speech involve countries that involve forced labour—China and Qatar—while at the same time praising all of the “good, union jobs” that those partnerships will create back home in Canada. This while the Liberals still insist that they opposed forced labour in all of its forms, and that they have strong rules about eliminated forced labour from supply chains. There is a fundamental disconnect that they seem incapable of bridging coherently, because they simply ignore the dissonance, or in Ma’s case, his attempt to throw confusion around it just wound up making him look like an ass.

This is why I wrote my column earlier in the week about the Canadian Ombud for Responsible Enterprise, whose office was designed to look for forced labour in supply chains and call it out, and the fact that Carney has left the office vacant for the past year and will almost certainly smother it in its sleep and scrap the office in the name of budget cuts—so that there is no embarrassment caused over these “strategic partnerships” with forced-labour countries in the name of being “pragmatic” in the post-rupture world of global trade. Ma just gave the government a black eye over this, so we’ll see if they can handle themselves any better in the face of these embarrassing contradictions.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims to have taken a village in eastern Ukraine, while Ukraine reclaimed a village in the Dnipropetrovsk region. President Zelenskyy arrived for an unannounced visit to Saudi Arabia, one of the countries Ukraine is supplying drone expertise.

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QP: NATO back-patting and “radical environmentalism”

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The PM was off in Halifax for his military announcement, while Pierre Poilievre was also absent, and attendance was down because this is essentially a Friday as the House is not sitting tomorrow. That left it up to Andrew Scheer to lead off, and he complained that the dollar was not rising with oil prices, and blamed the government’s “radical environmental agenda.” Mysteriously, Jill McKnight rose for the government,  to to answer the question, but to pat herself on the back for the government’s announcement that we have met the former NATO two percent spending target. Scheer said nothing about this, and kept on with his script about affordability, and blamed the industrial carbon price for declining productivity. (Seriously?!) this time, Sherry Romanado got up, and no, she didn’t answer the question either, but delivered the NATO back-patting en français. Rob Moore took over, and continued with the same script about the “radical environmental agenda” driving up the cost of living, to which Tim Hodgson got up to note that he received praise from members of the American cabinet earlier in the week for Canada’s record oil and gas production helping to keep prices down. Moore recited the lines about the industrial carbon price, to which François-Philippe Champagne got up to proclaim the “good news” of the NATO target, as well as their new bill boost home construction. Luc Berthold took over in French to decry the rising food and gasoline prices, and Champagne repeated his same response en français. Berthold then ranted about how everything was the same old Liberals, and this time Mélanie Joly pointed to inflation being stable while wages are rising at a faster rate.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she denounced Air Canada CEO Michael Rousseau, and claimed the government only helps anglophones in Quebec. Marc Miller reminded her that they have invested $4 billion in French across the country, and that the are disappointed by the CEO of Air Canada. Normandin took a swipe at the Anglo speech writers in the PMO and that they are just encouraging more Michael Rousseaus. Miller reminded her that the Liberals have a historic number of Quebec MPs, and the PM has done a lot of work to improve his French. Mario Beaulieu took over and made his own swipe at Rousseau, and Miller reminded him that anglophones do have rights in Quebec.

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Roundup: Hallucinating an immigration application

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There were a couple of immigration stories of note yesterday, the first of which was the revelation that a post-doc researcher at McMaster University—who has a PhD from the Sorbonne—had her permanent residency application rejected because it looks like the immigration department used generative digital asbestos to process the claim and it hallucinated a bunch of things about her job. Worse, while there was a disclaimer about the use of said digital asbestos, it said that a human verified it, which someone clearly did not. This is outrageous, and exactly the kind of thing that some of us were warning about when Mark Carney and Evan Solomon crowed about how great this digital asbestos was going to be for the productivity and efficiency of the civil service. Clearly that’s not the case, and now they not only need to redo her application, but it demonstrates what most of us knew was going to happen—that the humans were going to start cutting corners and not verifying the work because there is a belief in the infallibility of these programmes. This is scandalous and worthy of a resignation if we actually believed in that anymore.

The other story was that justice minister Sean Fraser says that when he was immigration minister, he would have handled things differently with the student visas, but there is one thing that is buried in the piece that everyone is going to overlook:

However, he also said the federal government was negotiating as part of “a good-faith relationship with the provinces who were requesting additional access to immigration programs at the time.”

He said those negotiations failed, leading to the federal government placing a cap in January 2024.

The provinces are very much to blame, but they keep avoiding responsibility. They were screaming for more immigrants and temporary foreign workers. They allowed these strip mall colleges to run rampant—Ontario most especially. Not one of them did anything at all about building more housing, or not keeping their healthcare system from collapsing, and not one of them stopped from the blame pile-on with the federal government. I keep making this point because nobody wants to listen—we have a problem with the provinces, and nobody wants to acknowledge it so that we can start holding the premiers accountable.

Could Carney possibly stop using Nigel Farage's framing? Why is it so hard to learn the lesson of not giving the far-right any ammunition? FFS.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-26T03:14:49.967Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian attacks on Kharkiv killed two, and damaged Danube port infrastructure in Izamil. It has been calculated that Russia has lost some 40 percent of its oil export capacity thanks to Ukrainian attacks.

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Roundup: Blame Canada, TC Energy edition

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Earlier this week, the CEO of TC Energy gave an interview to Bloomberg about how all of prime minister Mark Carney’s efforts to speed up development were useless, and that any project should be approved within six months, and look, Mexico did it so why can’t you. It’s absolutely risible, and six months is not an approval process—it’s a meaningless rubber stamp. Of course, he also continues to blame the Canadian government for a whole bunch of that were not the Canadian government’s fault, but he has a receptive audience who have convinced themselves that everything is Justin Trudeau’s fault, so he gets away with saying it, and not only that, Conservatives go around repeating it as if it were gospel.

Andrew Leach, however, has receipts, and he’s not afraid to use them.

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2034514364267671649

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2034515097482354975

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2034517279753613823

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2034518679698977152

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2034520782790099204

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2034521694111719721

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2034734811416600902

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-19T21:27:02.634Z

Poilievre on Joe Rogan

Everyone (but me, apparently) spent the day listening to it and taking notes about what he said. So, after a ten-minute discussion about kettlebells, Poilievre dismissed the conspiracy theory about Justin Trudeau’s father, he did say he’s been texting Carney about his trip in the US, that he won’t slam Carney while on foreign soil, and that when it comes to Trump talking about the 51st state stuff, he wants him to “Knock that shit off,” because he’s edgy and swears! But he’s still on about how he wants us to still be friends, sort-of defended MAiD, says that Alberta separation won’t happen, but then went on one of his bizarre tangents about the “truth” about environmentalists, claiming the environmental damage from the oilsands is “bullshit.” Because of course he did. And then they talked about UFC, because they’re bros, or something.

Justin Ling gives his take on the interview, and the unfortunate fact that Canadian politicians like going on American shows a little too much.

https://twitter.com/a_picazo/status/2034490092916482223

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/2034615508696289498

In case you were wondering why Pierre Poilievre went on Joe Rogan's podcast, I have the answer for you! It's for the ladies! The ladies who love him and his sexy Canadian kettlebell! www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZRL…

— Clare Blackwood (@clareblackwood.bsky.social) 2026-03-20T00:38:49.550Z

Ukraine Dispatch

EU experts arrived in Ukraine to inspect the damaged Druzhba oil pipeline, which is part of the dispute with Hungary. The EU president also says that they will find a way to get their €90 billion loan to Ukraine in spite of Hungary’s veto. Here is a look at queer nightlife in Kyiv in the shadow of the war.

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/2034650510192508971

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/2034574488965194127

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Roundup: Missing the point about the Senate

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Because everything is so stupid all of the time, a new conservative think tank popped up in Calgary that is issuing stupid polls, some of the questions of which fundamentally do not understand how Parliament works. They call themselves the “Aristotle Foundation,” and it’s a collection of the usual right-wing (and in some cases, far-right) suspects, and when they claim to be championing “reason, democracy and civilization,” well, you can start picking up where the dog-whistles are sounding.

In any case, they published this stupid poll (and of course, the National Post picked it up, because a bunch of their columnists are members of this think tank), and the very premise of their questions are absurd. “55 percent of non-Western respondents would be open to negotiating with Alberta or other Western provinces amid the threat of separation.” As well, there was a question on whether they “favoured reform of the House of Commons and Senate in the case of threats from Western separatism and Quebec separatism.” Why anyone would want to negotiate with a group of crybabies who make up a marginal fraction of the population is beyond me, but it’s not my poll. Nevertheless—negotiating about what, you ask? Supposed under-representation in the House of Commons and the Senate. They even have a handy chart about population per senator to make their case. I swear to Zeus, I am going to lose my mind.

If you're complaining about "per capita representation" in the Senate, might I suggest you read a fucking book for once in your life? nationalpost.com/news/canadia…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-19T04:29:03.776Z

The Senate is not and has never been a rep-by-pop chamber. It is, in fact, designed not to be. That’s the whole fucking point of why it was constructed the way it was in 1867. It’s explicitly designed along regional lines in order to counter the rep-by-pop of the House of Commons, because having two rep-by-pop chambers would be stupid and counter-productive. Yes, the Atlantic provinces have outsized representation explicitly to counterbalance their small populations in the Commons. That’s why the breakdown is regional: 24 seats for Quebec, 24 for Ontario, 24 for the Maritimes, and 24 for the west (and then the three for the territories and six for Newfoundland and Labrador were later additions). If you don’t understand this basic bit of Canadian civics, what exactly are you doing? Other than shit-disturbing? This is beyond idiotic, and I cannot believe that they want to be taken seriously.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-18T22:01:56.308Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones struck several apartment buildings in Odesa. Ukraine struck two Russian plants building and maintaining military and cargo planes. Here is a look at the interceptor drones that Ukraine is sharing with several Gulf states.

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Roundup: Oil sands histrionics, Jackpine edition

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Oil and gas company Canadian Natural Resources Limited is deferring an expansion to one of their oilsands mines, citing uncertainty until the federal government finalises their environmental policies, which naturally led the Conservatives to theatrically start going into histrionics. The problem, of course, is that the facts don’t exactly line up with this kind of outsized reaction. These mines have not really been subjected to carbon pricing and have, in fact, generated carbon credits for the company that they can sell at a profit (thanks to Alberta’s absurdly generous carbon credit system that undermines the effect of more stringent carbon pricing). And their talk about sequestering emissions misses the point.

As always, Andrew Leach is here to explain.

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2029702579563925736

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2029703932369584402

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2029700820573532644

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2029705629942857807

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2029759527567114438

I noticed that in some of the replies, it was stated that CNRL’s owner is trying to leverage this for more corporate welfare, which would not surprise me in the least.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-05T22:27:01.603Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone damaged a civilian ship carrying corn from the port of Odesa. Repair crews have restored power to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, necessary for its cooling operations. Russia and Ukraine have swapped 200 prisoners of war, out of a planned 500 each. Ukraine’s new F-16 fighter jets have been starved of American-made missiles for more than three weeks, limiting their ability to shoot down missiles and drones.

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Roundup: We are one (murderous) family

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From New Delhi, Mark Carney had his big meeting with Narendra Modi, and they announced their plans on a comprehensive trade agreement by the end of the year, along with a number of other trade plans, including a uranium agreement. Carney even said that “We are one family” with Modi, erm, except Modi’s government has very likely murdered Canadians on Canadian soil, which is a pretty strange definition of “family.” But then Carney refused to take media questions, cancelled a planned press conference, citing the need to get into the air to avoid the flight crew’s scheduling regulations, and apparently decided that he couldn’t scrum on the plane either, meaning that all of those media outlets who shelled out thousands of dollars to be there are being given nothing for the time and trouble. This is turning into a habit for Carney, as is the fact that at least one of his meetings was found out by social media and wasn’t on his itinerary.

Pretty much.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-02T15:19:39.900Z

Meanwhile, Anita Anand had to pick up the media slack, but even then, she refused to say whether she believes the attack on Iran violated international law, and only will say that Canada is not militarily involved, though she also says she wants to see a “diplomatic solution.” Other members of the government has also been backtracking on the assertion that India stopped engaging in foreign interference and repression, including secretary of state for combatting crime, Ruby Sahota, which makes it look an awful lot like that senior official was set up to try and deflect questions on the interference ahead of the trip (which backfired spectacularly because we could all tell that it was bullshit).

Meanwhile, while in London, Pierre Poilievre expounded on his idea of a critical mineral stockpile available to allies with tariff-free trade agreements (but again, I fail to see how this will change Trump’s mind). He is also getting all hot and bothered by the impact that the Iran conflict is having on the oil market, but it’s making him say dumb things about Canada trying to step in and displace that Middle Eastern oil and gas. It’s never going to happen, and none of what he’s saying is true, but nobody’s going to challenge him on it (other than Andrew Leach).

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2028513969766560215

https://twitter.com/andrew_leach/status/2028517629439414642

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-02T23:08:01.907Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine’s military continues to make gains reclaiming territory in Zaporizhzhia region, while a naval drone attack his the Russian oil terminal at Sheskharis, suspending operations. President Zelenskyy says that Russia won’t be able to fulfil its short-term goals in the invasion.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/2028512953016733884

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Roundup: Damage control over India’s foreign interference

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Consider it an own-goal, as the government spent the day doing damage control over the statement by that unnamed senior official who declared that India was no longer engaged in foreign interference or transnational repression. Out of the gate first was Liberal backbench MP Sukh Dhaliwal, who condemned that official and questioned his suitability for the role.

This seems…unlikely, especially in light of reporting a few days ago that another Sikh activist had been warned of a credible threat to life. Either the government is naively believing India, or it is misleading Canadians with this statement. globalnews.ca/news/1170676…

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2026-02-26T11:27:33.313Z

As the day progressed, more ministers needed to get involved. Gary Anandasangaree had to come out and say that no, they remain concerned about security issues, while Anita Anand went on TV to very carefully parse what that official said, and insist that they have an ongoing dialogue with the Indian government and that they are working toward dealing with these issues, and tried to very carefully walk the line of doing the whole “Everything’s fine!” line that Carney seems to be demanding as he departed for the trip, and trying to also let the Sikh community know that their concerns are being heard, but not really succeeding at that because their spokespeople were also on the political shows to talk about how they’re feeling like they’re being gaslit.

Honestly, this whole thing feels like another case of ineptitude at the highest levels of Carney’s government. He’s so quick to try and tout these trade deals and “strategic partnerships” that he both ignores real optics questions, and dismisses the concerns about things like, oh, human rights, or international obligations, or anything like that, and keeps bringing it back to his whole CEO shtick, which is frankly not a good look for a government. Things like rights and international law matters, and if Carney is going to keep sweeping this under the rug in order to get his hands on the dollars on offer, it shows those “Value(s)” he wrote a book about to be pretty hollow.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-02-26T22:27:01.610Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 420 drones and 39 missiles in the early hours of Thursday morning, injuring at least 26 people. It also appears that Russia has employed nuclear-capable cruise missiles as part of their recent attacks.

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