Tag Archives: Public Service

Roundup: “Breaking ranks” to represent his constituents

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Every news outlet in the country is framing Liberal MP Bruce Fanjoy as “breaking ranks” because he wrote a letter to the government in opposition to the latest return-to-office mandate for civil servants. Why is this language suspect? Because he’s not a member of Cabinet, so the expectation that he must be a compliant sheep and not step out of line is frankly wrong and non-existent. Backbenchers are there to hold the government to account, even if they’re in the same party. In fact, especially if they’re in the same party, because they are no good to anyone if they are nothing more than mindless clapping seals whose only purpose is to stand up and vote for the government and its programme at every opportunity.

https://twitter.com/brucefanjoy/status/2020920966893928589

The thing about Fanjoy is that he worked that riding in order to oust Pierre Poilievre, and part of that was the message that Poilievre took them for granted, and that he was going to actually represent them, and that’s what he’s doing, because there are a lot of civil servants in that riding. After all of the work in his winning the riding, can you imagine the message it would send for him to say absolutely nothing as the government moves ahead with its very ill-thought-out plan for return-to-office? It’s likely he wouldn’t win it again if that were the case. So yeah, he’s going to “break ranks” to deliver this very gentle message to the government.

This being said, I am once again going to absolutely rage at the expectation that this kind of framing devices places on MPs. It’s an old media dichotomy—we insist we want MPs to act more independently, but the moment they do, they have “broken ranks,” or the leader is “losing control,” or any other means by which We The Media police MPs into being good little drones and just following the (presidentialised) leader when that’s not what they should be doing. It’s beyond frustrating that we are worse whips than the actual party whips, which is saying something in this country with our parliament. It’s just ridiculous that this keeps happening, even when the party has room for disagreement (see: Nate Erskine-Smith).

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched 149 drones and 11 missiles early Monday, killing four people. Russian forces are also trying to push ahead at Pokrovsk, in spite of previously claiming they had already captured it. Ukraine is opening up sales of its domestically-produced weapons to help finance the war effort.

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Roundup: His photo-ops were different, you see

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Jamil Jivani has returned from his trip to Washington, and before briefing Dominic LeBlanc or anyone from the government, he turned to the pages of the National Post to pen a self-congratulatory op-ed for the trip that nobody asked for, and that op-ed says pretty much nothing but a collection of platitudes about the GM plant in his riding, and looking for ways to continue the partnership with the US, as though the US isn’t the problem. It’s empty, and has apparently accomplished absolutely nothing

What is hilarious, however, are the fact that conservative posters over on social media have been taking his photos from his meetings with various players in Washington and declaring this to be “leadership,” as opposed to photos that say nothing other than he met with them. And yes, these are the very same voices who denounce the fact that prime minister Mark Carney has travelled across the globe several times over the past nine months and has met with all kinds of world leaders, because of course, that’s just a useless photo op (per Pierre Poilievre’s talking points in Question Period), but Jivani’s pointless photo ops? Totally different. Because of course.

Meanwhile, Kirsten Hillman can’t actually say if she thinks Trump wants to preserve the New NAFTA because his positions change from day to day, and there is no consistency from anyone around him, so that’s fun. Here is more about Hillman’s time in Washington as she wraps up her diplomatic career.

Ukraine Dispatch

There was a massive drone attack on Odesa overnight, which followed a previous massive attack on energy facilities with over 400 drones and 40 missiles earlier in the weekend. The US says they want the war over by summer, but Russia can go home at any point, and these deadlines do nothing but encourage Russia.

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Roundup: No federal backstop for Smith’s threats

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith’s threats around withholding funding for her province’s justice system if she doesn’t get her own way on judicial appointments is attracting broader attention, and there was a particular exchange at a Senate committee the other day that bears pointing out. When asked about this thread, federal justice minister Sean Fraser essentially said that if Smith does this, it’ll be a choice, but also that the federal government is not going to swoop in and backstop this funding lapse with federal dollars.

https://bsky.app/profile/senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social/post/3me4zvsm23k27

This is a good thing. Frankly, if the federal government did this, it would set a terrible precent because all provinces are underfunding their justice systems, and if they backstop Alberta because Danielle Smith is acting like an entitled baby throwing a tantrum, then every other province will cut their own funding and hope for a federal backstop, and once again, things will get worse in our system because provinces aren’t living up to their obligations. They’re not right now, but this would make things infinitely worse. Of course, if this does happen, the federal government will actually have to get off their asses and loudly point this out repeatedly that this is the provincial government’s fault. They should be doing it right now, with the whole nonsense going on around bail reform, but this would be infinitely worse. Court delays for simple matters? Thank Smith. Criminals going free because they can’t get trial dates? Thank Smith. Did that accused murderer get released because they couldn’t actually hold a trial with no functioning court house, no prosecutors and no court staff? Thank Smith. That’s the kind of thing that they need to be doing as is, but they lack the gonads to do so, but they would need to step it up even more if Smith did pull that trigger.

Meanwhile, the Canadian Bar Association is speaking out about Smith’s unconstitutional demands, and other law organizations are joining them, while also explaining how the judicial appointment process works, and why Smith is wrong to characterize them as “activists” who act on the federal government’s behalf. It also bears reminding that the UCP purged the provincial judicial nomination committees in favour of partisan appointees, and that two sitting judges are under investigation for donating to the party, so maybe Smith’s concerns about supposedly political choices are just her projecting and admitting she wants to fix the process for her own political ends.

Ukraine Dispatch

Two people were injured in the overnight attack on Kyiv early Thursday. Ukrainian forces made a successful strike against one of Russia’s missile launch sites. The “peace talks” have seen another agreement on exchanges of prisoners of war.

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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: 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: The Donbas of Canada

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The mask is off. US treasury secretary Scott Bessent was on a far-right TV show to mouth the faux grievances of Alberta, and is providing succour and support for the separatist loons in the province, making it abundantly clear that the US plans to do to Alberta what Putin did with the Donbas region in Ukraine. We’ve watched the Americans also make these promises to independence-minded politicians in Greenland, some of whom naively believe that the US will simply recognise their independence from Denmark and leave them be when that isn’t their plan at all. And you can bet that they’ll start making these same promises to the Parti Québécois if they form power in the province in the next election, because they would absolutely love to break up Canada so that they can absorb the pieces.

So far, the government is downplaying this, with François-Philippe Champagne saying he’ll “remind” Bessent that they are working with Alberta to develop their resources, which is frankly not nearly enough. The US is openly meeting with separatists—those separatist organisers are openly bragging about their “high-level” meetings in Washington—and one of the top members of Trump’s Cabinet is openly supporting them. At the bare minimum, the US ambassador needs to be summoned, and if he doesn’t properly explain and apologise, then he should be expelled in order to send a message that this kind of interference is absolutely unacceptable.

And then there’s the problem of those separatists who are taking it upon themselves to “negotiate” in Washington. You might think that someone like Danielle Smith might denounce them for these actions, but she has bent over backwards to ensure that they have the easiest ride possible to their referendum, because Smith thinks that she can leverage it for her benefit. And Carney has been utterly silent, believing that his bending the knee to Smith is what is going to solve the separatism issue, even though these people have no interest in actual policy resolutions and have made hating Ottawa (and anyone named Trudeau) their whole personality. This is going to need a much stronger hand, and a forceful pushback against this American interference before it can fester even more than it already has.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-01-23T23:56:01.434Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Kyiv and Kharkiv have come under Russian attack in the early hours of the morning. The constant attacks have worsened the power grid situation, as temperatures have been falling as low as -16ºC.

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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: The Coastal First Nations aren’t budging

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Prime minister Mark Carney was in Prince Rupert, BC, to meet with the coastal First Nations, and by all accounts, it was a welcome and cordial meeting, and most of what they discussed were ongoing projects and conservation commitments in the region, along with the promises of renewed funding for ongoing projects in the area. This being said, nothing has changed on the part of these First Nations when it comes to their opposition to a pipeline in their territories or on lifting the tanker ban. The prime minister’s readout from the meeting talked glowingly about the commitments, but what was absent was any kind of commitment in writing to respecting their right to consent to projects in their territories.

Readout of Carney's meeting with Coastal First Nations.I don't see any commitment to respect their wishes if they don't grant consent to a pipeline through their territory.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-13T21:02:12.244Z

While this was happening, Pierre Poilievre decided to concern troll that there hadn’t been any meeting sooner, which wasn’t going to get things built faster. Of course, this concern is false because Poilievre has already declared that any consultation he will do will be perfunctory, and that he will ram through projects without any kind of consent (and a former Alberta minister was on Power & Politics to again insist that the obligation is consultation not consent, but that is dated with the adoption of UNDRIP which stipulates free, prior and informed consent).

Quite the concern troll given that Poilievre has flat-out said he'll build pipelines regardless of First Nations' objections.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-01-13T15:20:49.737Z

Meanwhile, when it comes to the Pathways project that Carney insists needs to move ahead if a pipeline is to move ahead (while the MOU also states that a pipeline needs to happen for Pathways to happen), this is your reminder that it’s a scam that will only happen if the government pays for it (and it’ll only remove about 12 percent of production emissions, to say nothing about downstream emissions).

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-01-13T15:08:05.432Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones have struck infrastructure in Kryvyi Rih, forcing power cuts, while the attacks overnight Tuesday consisted of nearly 300 drones, 18 ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles, hitting eight regions and killing at least four people. Ukraine’s parliament rejected former prime minister Denys Shmyhal as the new energy minister.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/2010987717274861983

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