Tag Archives: Public Service

Roundup: Naïve assumptions about the energy transition

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There were a couple of longreads over the weekend that are worth your time when it comes to understanding where we are at with the current government. The first was a deep dive into Carney’s past climate “leadership,” from his time at central banks to the UN, and a pattern emerges throughout where much of this “leadership” was fairly surface-level. Scratch the surface, and you find a lot of on naïve assumptions around a market response to the clean energy transition, coupled with some arrogant beliefs that he was right and no one could tell him otherwise (as those companies he was touting were also heavily invested in fossil fuels). In the time since, we have all watched as Carney has systematically betrayed that former climate leadership, and continues to rely on a “just trust me” approach to that clean energy transition as he breaks his word with little regard.

The second longread was in the Globe & Mail about Tim Hodgson and his adjustment going from banker CEO to Cabinet minister, with his belief that government bureaucrats are essentially lazy and stupid, and needing to learn how to be politically sensitive to the realities that he has little patience for as he looks to secure deals as quickly as possible. Along the way, he is learning that things don’t work like that, and that there are plenty of other considerations that he continues to ignore, like obligations regarding First Nations. And how he continues to alienate the actual clean energy people in his own department, along with the part of the Liberal caucus that actually care about climate change, because hey, he needs to be Mr. Business. This is what “running government like a company” is bringing, and it comes with a hell of a lot of ideological blind spots, while they insist that they’re not being ideological.

As well, in year-enders, Carney has been criticising the Trudeau approach to climate change as “too much regulation, not enough action,” which goes back to his particular assumptions about the market and why the government wasn’t able to rely on carbon pricing alone to achieve its goals, Oh, and he’s still completely sold on the belief that carbon capture is the route to go, even though it only captures a fraction of the emissions from the production process (and none of the downstream uses), so the math doesn’t even work there. He also talks about “guardrails” in dealing with China, but considering there has been no hint of that with India, I’m not holding my breath.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-20T15:08:01.975Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Following more Russian airstrikes and bombings in the Odesa region, president Zelenskyy says that Russia is trying to cut off Ukraine’s Black Sea access. Russian forces have crossed the border in Sumy region and kidnapped 50 villagers. Ukraine has signed an agreement with Portugal go co-produce sea drones. Here is a look at a Ukrainian artist who is reflecting the war through his collection and work.

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Roundup: Lessons learned for the NDP?

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NDP interim leader Don Davies have his year-ender to The Canadian Press, talking about getting out to listen to Canadians, and reflect on the party’s devastating loss, and joking that the best part about being burnt to the ground is the ability to rebuild the foundation. And he’s not entirely wrong there, so long as he’s taking the right lessons. But in the same interview, he’s waxing poetic about pharamacare without actually seeming to understand what the issues are (i.e. the provinces), and totally ignoring the work that Trudeau did into building up the programme from the ground up (such as establishing the Canadian Drug Agency) so that provinces could sign on once they were ready, as PEI did (and NDP provinces refused to, particularly BC and John Horgan most especially).

On the same day, the NDP’s Renew and Renewal Report from the last campaign was also released, and it has a few interesting things to say. Once you get past the usual back-patting about how hard everyone worked and how it didn’t feel like it was doomed, and how the leader’s campaign went well, you start getting into some of the structural problems within the party that really do need addressing. Things like the sense that there is an allergy to fundraising in the party, and that nobody wants to actually do it, which doesn’t really help anyone (but also perpetuates the weirdness that bequests from the estates of dead people are one of the party’s top fundraising sources). And there was also a lot in there about the party not properly developing riding associations, and relying too heavily on the central party at the expense of those associations. And to be frank, this should have been a lesson the party internalized after they got nearly entirely wiped out from Quebec in 2015, because they didn’t build up their riding associations during the “Orange Wave,” but assumed that somehow those MPs would have incumbency advantage forever when they didn’t really establish grassroots after all of those accidental victories.

The other thing that is worth noting is that once again, it draws American examples for inspiration, and again it’s Zohran Mamdani. I suspect the reason for this is that too many people in the NDP’s brain trust are terminally online, and as with so many things, the American discourse pervades and they simply think that it can apply to Canada if you divide it by ten, even though we are very separate countries and that we are not just a maple cupcake version of Americana. I’m also going to note that the report said pretty much nothing about the NDP constantly trying to interfere in areas of provincial jurisdiction (particularly with their “bold progressive ideas”), because again, their American analogues don’t translate to Canada in the same way, but this was apparently an area of introspection they didn’t want to engage in. Alas.

This reminds me of something I've been wondering about. Given the various examples of the NDP being the government or official opposition at the provincial level, I'm not sure why federal New Democrats so often — or so recently? — look to the U.S. for inspiration.

— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2025-12-19T21:14:07.891Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-19T14:24:03.406Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched another missile attack on Odesa, killing seven and wounding at least 15 late Friday. There was an exchange of bodies by both governments—1003 dead Ukrainian servicemen for the bodies of 26 Russians. Ukraine and Poland are working out a cooperation agreement around drones.

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Roundup: More bespoke agreements that undermine certainty

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Prime minister Mark Carney is set to sign an agreement with Doug Ford about “reducing the regulatory burden” for major projects in the province, again with the “one project, one review” line (which I have reservations about as I mentioned yesterday). Ford is keen to use this to develop the “Ring of Fire” region, in spite of the fact that a) there are much more accessible critical mineral projects that could be more easily developed, and b) they have yet to get most of the First Nations in the region to agree, mostly because they are looking for revenue-sharing agreements because they have been burned by proponents who promised them all kinds of things for previous developments and didn’t live up to their agreements. Funny that.

As Andrew Leach points out, this pattern of bespoke deals with provinces is going to wind up being a bigger problem than it winds up solving because there won’t be consistent rules across the country, and inconsistent rules and malleable agreements mean regulatory uncertainty, particularly because they are likely to change further as governments change on either level of government. Letting Alberta undermine federal standards as part of the MOU was a prime example of just that (not that Alberta plans to live up to their end of the agreement).

Meanwhile, here’s a callout about the things the oil and gas industry likes to promise before reneging because it will cost them too much money, such as with the methane regulations that were announced yesterday. Funny that.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-17T14:25:03.817Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia has attacked Zaporizhzhia, injuring at least 26 people. Ukraine reports that they control over 90 percent of Kupiansk, which Russia claimed to have conquered weeks ago. President Zelenskyy says that any territorial concessions would need to be put to a referendum (which would fail).

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Roundup: Methane regulations, and Alberta’s exceptions

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There were some movements on the environment front today, as Mark Carney admitted to a Radio-Canada year-end interview that we’re not on track for either our 2030 or 2035 emissions targets (we knew 2030), but tried to make the case that they need to find climate solutions in the current economic climate, which seems to go against what they’re actually doing, by eliminating the consumer carbon levy, weakening or outright undermining the industrial carbon price, and weakening emissions to make it easier for the oil and gas sector to produce and export more, which isn’t going to bring in billions because there is a supply glut on the market that will keep depressing prices. Meanwhile, the costs of climate change continue to increase, and will get even more expensive the longer we delay action.

With this in mind, Julie Dabrusin announced new methane regulations with the aim to reduce them by 75 percent over 2014 levels by 2035, which is great—except if you’re Alberta. You see, part of the MOU with Alberta means that the methane regulations that Carney and Dabrusin keep patting themselves on the back for don’t have to reach their targets until 2040, which means weaker regulations and longer timelines so that they can pollute more for longer because the industry whinged and cried that it wasn’t fair they had to spend more money.

Meanwhile, the federal government has signed a “one project, one review” agreement with New Brunswick, which sounds fine in theory, but the thing that I keep getting hung up on in competencies. Everyone keeps saying they don’t need two reviews because it’s “duplication,” but each level is assessing different things, because each of them has specific competencies, such as species at risk (provincial), fish habitats or migratory birds (federal), site contamination (provincial—unless it crosses a border), and so on. And there were already provisions for joint review panels, so again, I’m not sure what this is all about other than reducing the actual oversight because it would seem to be ensuring that less rigorous assessments are done than with a joint review panel, particularly if the provincial assessors are supposed to be assessing federal areas of responsibility, which they may not have the expertise in.

Ukraine Dispatch

Europe has launched an international commission for war damages in the invasion of Ukraine. The Kremlin says a proposed Christmas ceasefire depends on the status of peace talks (which essentially means it’s not going to happen).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/2000830874183712972

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Roundup: The Speaker hypothetical

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It looks like NDP interim leader Don Davies may have been done dirty by CTV News over the weekend as their headline suggested that his “party ‘open’ to Speaker of the House role in exchange for resources.” While the text of the story presents this as a proposal that no one has actually discussed, the fact that this is the headline from an interview on CTV Question Period makes it sound like this was somehow being floated. It was not.

Instead, in the interview, he was asked about his scenario as a hypothetical for him to weigh in on, given that it could give the Liberals one more vote in order to be an effective majority, and he said he’d be open to it, as the discussion around official party status was now closed (which was not what he was telling the Star a week ago, but perhaps those illusions have since been shattered) but he’s still trying to get additional resources, never mind that it’s not like his party needs them for caucus management or committee research or anything like that.

This is an object lesson in why politicians don’t like to answer hypothetical questions—because they get blown up like this, and to be frank, it feels like that kind of question is borderline, if not outright, irresponsible. And sure, Davies could have simply said “I’m not going to answer hypotheticals like that,” and probably will going forward, but asking these kinds of hypotheticals also doesn’t get you very useful answers in journalism either, and so you’ve built an entire story around this this hypothetical scenario that is outright delusional. Nobody came out ahead here, especially the readers, so I fail to see the point.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-12T23:56:01.838Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Odesa suffered further attacks on Saturday, leading to a major blackout.

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Roundup: Being too clever about the MOU’s language

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Today is the Conservatives’ big Supply Day, where they are bringing forward their motion that cherry-picks two phrases from the MOU with Alberta, and hopes to jam the Liberals with it. Pierre Poilievre may claim that the language is “lifted directly from the MOU,” so the Liberals should put up or shut up, but of course, he’s being too cute by half. It’s not language directly lifted from the MOU. The MOU states a “private sector constructed and financed pipelines, with Indigenous Peoples co-ownership and economic benefit, with at least one million barrels a day of low emission Alberta bitumen with a route that increases export access to Asian markets as a priority” whereas the motion simply says “pipelines enabling the export of at least one million barrels a day of low-emission Alberta bitumen from a strategic deepwater port on the British Columbia coast to reach Asian markets,” and adds “respecting the duty to consult Indigenous people.” One of these things is not like the other.

— Kady O'Malley (@kadyo.bsky.social) 2025-12-08T22:44:00.568Z

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3m7jbmdjkfk2i

Liberal MP Corey Hogan, the party’s sole Calgary MP, called out these shenanigans, both in a media scrum and on his Twitter, where he points out entirely why the Conservatives haver phrased it this way—to either make the Liberals look like they’re ignoring Indigenous consultation and consent, or to make it look like they’re not serious about building it, and in either case, it sends a signal to someone that will cause doubt and will inevitably delay any decisions. And the government indicated last night that they’re going to vote against it, citing that the Conservatives are not using the full language from the MOU. This in turn will set up weeks of Conservatives screaming that they knew the Liberals were lying the whole time and never had any intention of building a pipeline.

https://twitter.com/coreyhoganyyc/status/1998142565791477875

The thing we need to remember in all of this is not the shenanigans, or the Conservatives thinking they’re too clever, or any of that—rather, it’s that they think they can ram through these projects without Indigenous consent. Sure, they’ll talk about “meaningful consultation,” but consultation is not consent, and in their press releases, consent is never mentioned, nor is even consultations. That’s not realistic, nor even legal in the current framework. Of course, they also think a new pipeline will “unblock the trillions of dollars of privatesector energy investment to produce more oil and gas, build profitable pipelines and ship a million barrels of oil to Asia a day at world prices.” My dudes—this is a post-2014 world. It’s not going to be trillions of dollars, and world oil prices are tanking because of a supply glut. All of this is fantasyland.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-08T14:08:03.419Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians have attacked Sumy for the second night in a row, cutting off power in the region. Here is a look at those remaining in Kostiantynivka, as Russians approach.

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Roundup: Rustad’s reluctant ouster

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It’s some chaos in the BC Conservative Party after the majority of the caucus let the party’s board of directors that they have no confidence in John Rustad’s leadership (though this may not have been an actual caucus vote—it may have been something like a letter signed with enough signatures). The board said that a caucus vote confirmed Trevor Halford as interim leader, and they declared Rustad “professionally incapacitated,” given that incapacitation is one of the only ways to replace a leader per the party’s constitution. And then John Rustad said he’s not going anywhere.

This is, of course, insane. No leader can survive a vote of non-confidence from the majority of his or her caucus. The confidence convention is one of the most fundamental aspects of our parliamentary order as part of the conventions that govern our unwritten constitution. And if Rustad continues to insist that he’s the leader and refuse to leave with any shred of his dignity left intact (but good luck with that at this point, because yikes), the next step is likely for the majority of his caucus to simply remove themselves and form official opposition as a splinter party (though the legislature ended the fall sitting yesterday, so that may not actually happen). There is some precedent for this—when the then-Alliance Party got fed up with Stockwell Day’s leadership, a number of its MPs broke away and sat as a separate caucus until Day stepped down, and the when the Bloc were reduced to a rump caucus in the Commons and had a leader without a seat who also became a problem, most of them removed themselves from caucus until she stepped down.

This whole sorry exercise should be a reminder that the current system of membership election and removal of leaders is antithetical to our system, and creates problems with leaders who refuse to take a hint. That’s why a confidence vote is the ultimate tool, and if he refuses to abide by it, like a mad king, he just isolates himself ever further into irrelevance. In any case, Rustad is finished, even if he is going to throw a tantrum about it for the next day or two.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-03T14:25:05.918Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine hit the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia with remote-controlled explosives, which supplies Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia.

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Roundup: Miller back in Cabinet

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Mark Carney had a small Cabinet shuffle yesterday afternoon, counter-programming the latter part of Question Period, where he appointed Marc Miller to Cabinet to replace Steven Guilbeault after his resignation last week in protest over the MOU with Alberta. Miller becomes the new minister of Canadian Heritage, now dubbed “Canadian identity and culture and official languages,” because it sounds a little more like it’s holding the line against the onslaught of Americanisms. But there were a couple of other adjustments made to Carney’s front bench—environment minister Julie Dabrusin took over the responsibilities for Parks Canada, which were under Heritage for some strange reason (much of which involves the fact that they are responsible for things like historical designations, but which created all kinds of problems around things like marine protected areas), while Joël Lightbound was named the new Quebec lieutenant, though I’m mystified why that required a swearing-in as opposed to it simply being a ceremonial title, like deputy prime minister (which Carney does not have). It also bears noting that no one was put in as new transport minister, and that Steve MacKinnon continues to do double-duty.

Miller is an interesting choice—he was a good minister, and I’m glad he’s back in Cabinet, because he was one of the best communicators, hands down, in the Trudeau government, and that kind of frankness and candour is desperately needed in the current front bench where the rule of “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” means that most of what comes out of every minister’s mouth is back-patting, if they say anything at all. But it’s also a choice that is going to ruffle feathers in Quebec because he’s not Québécois (though he is a Montrealer and speaks French, Swedish and Mohawk). There is so much anxiety around Quebec language and culture in the province that the Canadian Heritage portfolio might as well be a Quebec-focused one, and certainly there have been jokes floating around Ottawa for years about how if you got a meeting with the minister of heritage, he or she would tell you to come back when you were French.

Nevertheless, Miller is going to be responsible for some big files coming up with new online harms legislation, as well as a potential mandate review/transformation of the CBC, which didn’t take off under the previous government following the release of a discussion paper on the subject, and then Carney having his own ideas about what to do with CBC during the leadership contest, none of which has actually happened in the six months he’s been in power. I do think Miller will be suited to the task—he’s handled big, tough files before, and going up against web giants is something I think he can be pretty good at.

Ukraine Dispatch

Four people were killed and more than 40 injured in a Russian missile attack on Dnipro. Putin has again claimed that Pokrovsk has been taken over by Russian forces, along with Vovchansk, but Ukraine has not confirmed.

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Roundup: Questions about the “energy accord” with Alberta

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The news broke early yesterday that Alberta and the federal government are getting close to striking an “energy accord” of some variety with a memorandum of understanding that could allow for a bitumen pipeline to the northwest coast of BC with “limited exemptions” to the tanker ban so long as conditions are met, including changes to industrial carbon pricing, carbon capture, and lowering or eliminating the emissions cap. There were also Sources™ who said that it would require a private sector proponent, buy-in from coastal First Nations, and environmental approvals, which could mean it won’t happen at all.

As the day went on and other outlets started to get their own sources to confirm the story, differing details emerged. While Tim Hodgson said in Question Period that the BC government would need to be on-side, his office later said that no, they’re not getting a veto as part of the MOU. And then there are the Liberals themselves, many of whom are deeply opposed and will point out that ending the tanker ban will risk billions in ongoing projects from First Nations in the region. And those First Nations are not going to give consent, which would seem to make this whole thing moot anyway, unless the plan is ultimately to run roughshod over their rights yet again.

So, while we await the details, where the devil will lie, I am once again going to point out that we shouldn’t count on any kind of “grand bargain” with the oil companies or Alberta as a condition because they won’t live up to it. They have proven time and again that they won’t, or that they will lie to claim that they will do all kinds of things to reduce their emissions and to decarbonise when they actually have no intention of doing so. Meanwhile, the market may ultimately prove to be the veto here, because it’s no longer the world from before 2014, and nothing the federal or provincial government will do is going to change that fact.

Ukraine Dispatch

The death toll from the attack on Ternopil early Wednesday has risen to 25, with more than 73 injured. The latest US “peace plan” proposal is just more of the same rehashed Russian propaganda. Ukraine also plans to seek $44 billion in damages from Russia for their carbon emissions as a result of the war.

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Roundup: Red flags around the “grand bargain”

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The more I read about the budget’s “climate competitiveness,” the more I find myself questioning just what is on offer from Mark Carney. There is an attempt to build this so-called “grand bargain” that failed the last time it was tried, where approving the Trans-Mountain Expansion was supposed to help fund the green transition and provide the social licence for doing things like the tanker ban on the northwest coast of BC, and yet here we are, where the oil and gas sector and by extension, the provincial government of Alberta, have not lived up to their end of the bargain at all. The companies that insisted they were going to meet their 2025 Net-Zero targets suddenly started to complain that it was too hard, and when the greenwashing legislation kicked in, suddenly all of those Net-Zero pledges vanished, as though they were never real to begin with.

That’s why I’m particularly unimpressed that one of the promises in the budget is to water down the greenwashing legislation, which sounds an awful lot like Carney is looking for the industry to lie to him once more about all of the reductions that they’re totally going to make in the future—really! You just need to let them have a free hand with even fewer environmental regulations in the meantime. As well, the fact that Carney is pinning his hopes on so-called “decarbonized” oil production with the Pathways project is even looking like he’s going to lose a tonne of money trying to get it to scale up, because hey, he’s offering a bunch of tax credits for them to operate, which is a de facto subsidy for oil operations. But it’s extremely expensive, and all of those oil companies want even more taxpayer money to make it work, while they pocket their profits, naturally. Nevertheless, it looks an awful lot like Carney is going to capitulate to that sector and remove the emissions cap on a bunch of half-hearted greenwashed promises and pretend that he still cares about the environment.

Speaking of the tanker ban, BC premier David Eby and the coastal First Nations are organising a pushback against any move by the federal government to lift it in order to push a pipeline through the region, while Danielle Smith puts ever more pressure on the federal government to approve that project (even though there’s no proponent, or route, or even just a line on a map). Will it be enough to dissuade Carney? At the pace he’s going, I’m not taking any bets.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-11-05T14:25:06.884Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The fighting continues in the streets of Pokrovsk, which is the kind of fighting that can’t be done with the same kind of drone warfare that the rest of the front line has become accustomed to.

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