Tag Archives: RCMP

Roundup: Tariffs are likely biting worse than claimed

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You may have heard time and again that some 85 percent of goods traded with the US are covered under the New NAFTA and are not exposed to the new 35 percent tariffs, but that number could actually be misleading (and variable depending on who’s talking). In actual fact, that 85 percent figure is trade that is eligible to be compliant with New NAFTA rules, but a lot of it actually isn’t, because a great deal of that trade was simply done without the compliance with the New NAFTA rules because it was easier for many businesses just to pay the old tariff rates because there are significant costs to be compliant with the New NAFTA rules. That calculation has changed now with the Trump tariffs, and a lot of businesses are scrambling to get their compliance certification, but for many small businesses, it’s incredibly hard to do because they don’t have the staff or resources to do so. This means that the tariffs could be biting harder than some people are saying.

Meanwhile, media outlets like the CBC have been trying to get an answer from prime minister Mark Carney or his office about where he stands on the 2030 climate targets, and lo, they cannot get one. Which is not great considering how much Carney professed to be trying to get Canada and the world taking climate change seriously. And in the time since, he’s eliminated the consumer carbon levy (which was working to reduce emissions), and has given himself permission to violate all kinds of other environmental laws through the giant Henry VIII clause in Bill C-5, so it’s not exactly sending a signal that he’s too interested in that 2030 target, even though it was already going to more effort to achieve it than the Trudeau government was making. It’s not great, considering that we’re still living in a climate emergency, regardless of the tariff situation.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian bomb strikes in Zaporizhzhia have injured at least twelve. Three people swimming in a restricted area off the coast of Odesa were killed by an explosive object, likely an unexploded mine (which is why the area is off-limits). Unsurprisingly, president Zelenskyy has rejected any kind of “land swap” deal made without the involvement or consent of Ukraine.

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Roundup: Spending vs inflation

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Last week, the CD Howe Institute put out a report on the recent bout of inflation, and tried to pin it either on government spending or the Bank of Canada, and in the process ignored a whole lot of things that happened during the pandemic that were material to those price increases. Or the fact that early in the pandemic, we had deflation, and that the Bank of Canada needed to act fast to ensure that it did not continue lest it turn into a spiral that would lead to a depression, because that’s what deflation does.

Naturally, however, the moment Pierre Poilievre saw that they were pinning blame on government spending, he had to jump on that because it’s his entire central thesis for inflation, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. I report on economic data on a regular basis, and that includes the Consumer Price Index (or inflation) data every month, and the Bank of Canada’s Monetary Policy Report every quarter. I can tell you what prices increased and where, because that’s in the data every month. None of the causes had anything to do with government spending.

I also have to take some exception to the notion that government supports like CERB were driving demand. CERB was not extra spending money. It was survival money for low-income people who were out of work because of the pandemic. It staved off a wave of bankruptcies and even more demand on provincial social services or food banks (and the lack of provincial social services is the main driver behind increased food bank use, per their own reports). The “excess demand” was coming from higher-income households who had plenty of money to spend when they couldn’t go out to restaurants or go on vacations. They were not the recipients of government support, and trying to conflate the two is disingenuous, and frankly smacks of a great deal of ideological bias.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-07-19T21:10:16.169Z

Ukraine Dispatch

There has been another barrage of drones and missiles that have killed at least one person in Kyiv overnight. Here is another look at how the people in Kyiv are coping with the increased attacks.

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Roundup: The rules Poilievre defended are no longer good enough

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Pierre Poilievre decided he needed some more media attention yesterday, so he called a press conference in Ottawa, and declared that following the public disclosure of prime minister Mark Carney’s ethics filings, that none of this was good enough, that Carney needed to cash out all of his investments instead of putting them into a blind trust, and that nothing was good enough because he’ll be constantly managing conflicts (even though the point of the ethics screen is that he isn’t managing conflicts, his chief of staff and the Clerk of the Privy Council manage the conflict so that he’s not involved). Perish the thought that this special set of rules for Carney will only serve to keep other accomplished individuals away from political life.

Of course, the whole episode is rife with hypocrisy. These are the conflict-of-interest laws that the Harper government put into place, of which Poilievre was not only a part of, but defended them, particularly when questions arose around Nigel Wright and his assets when he was Harper’s chief of staff, and Poilievre personally swore up and down at committee that these rules were amazing and that the blind trust was blind, and so on. Of course, now that it’s convenient, his tune has changed, but that didn’t stop the CBC from pulling out the footage from the archives.

Meanwhile, Poilievre also told reporters that the country needs “more people leaving than coming,” which is not even a dog-whistle at this point but a bullhorn. If this is pandering to the far-right elements of the riding he’s trying to win, well, it is likely to backfire on his attempts to continue wooing other newcomer communities, particularly the Sikh and Punjabi communities he spent so much time wooing in the leadup to the last election. Immigration numbers have already flatlined, and it’s going to cause problems down the road, sooner than later. For Poilievre to say this as the mass deportations south of the border pick up speed shows he’s not only incapable of thinking through the implications of the things he says, but he’s fine with mouthing the words of fascists, and that’s a real problem.

(Incidentally, Poilievre once again said he opposes Alberta separation but says that they have “legitimate grievances,” and repeated his same bullshit line about the Ottawa telling Alberta to “pay up and shut up.” They pay the same income tax as the rest of us, and have the same representation in Parliament).

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones killed two people in the Kherson region. President Zelenskyy is proposing a major government reshuffle that includes a new prime minister, while the current one is to be shuffled to defence. Trump’s “ultimatum” to Putin to reach a ceasefire in 50 days is just license for him to keep firing drones and missiles at Ukraine for another 50 days, and probably longer.

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Roundup: A major far-right terror arrest

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The big news yesterday was that four people were arrested and charged in terrorism-related charges for plans to start an anti-government militia, and to violently seize land near Quebec City for their own purposes, and more to the point, that two of those charged are serving members of the Canadian Forces, and not reservists as we have seen in the past. They were also heavily armed and had a number of explosive devices prepared—and it was likely the largest number of weapons and devices seized in a terror-related event in Canadian history.

I can’t speak to the nature of the plot (too few details) but this is the largest amount of weapons and devices seized as part of a terrorism incident in Canada. Ever.

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T14:20:46.149Z

Details are still scarce, but former CSIS analyst Jessica Davis has some particular observations.

Not small time: "Searches conducted in January 2024 in the Québec City area led to the seizure of 16 explosive devices, 83 firearms and accessories, approximately 11,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibres, nearly 130 magazines, four pairs of night vision goggles and military equipment."

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T13:19:41.537Z

This is an ideologically motivated plot. In Canada, 77% of terrorist attacks have been carried out by ideologically-motivated actors: newsletter.insightthreatintel.com/p/rising-thr…

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T13:29:30.504Z

Over the last two decades, however, most terrorism charges have been laid against religiously-motivated terrorists. That has slowly been changing, with more ideologically-motivated individuals getting caught: newsletter.insightthreatintel.com/p/terror-on-…

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T13:29:30.505Z

They do point to the ideology — anti-government extremism. And there's a long history in Canada of breaking down our terrorism into different categories. (ideological, political, and religious). There's a lot to criticize the RCMP about, but this is not top of the list.

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T20:09:49.002Z

Another issue here has to do with the military not doing an adequate job of investigating the full extent of far-right extremism in their ranks, in part because they refuse to let outsiders do the investigating, as Leah West demonstrates in this thread. Some of this has to do with an insistence on cleaning up their own messes, but, well, their history on that score has not been great given the sexual misconduct problems and abuse of power scandals they have been dealing with over the past couple of decades. There is still work to do, and it doesn’t help when things happen, such as the commander of the Canadian Army saying he wasn’t notified about certain army members posting to an “abhorrent” Facebook group during the investigation into it.

There is much about this story that is staggering. But the inclusion of military members while deeply troubling is not surprising. A story:I was part of the RWE CAF research network funded by the Department of National Defence to study IMVE in the military for three years 2020-2023.

— Leah West (@leahwest-nsl.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T22:30:36.625Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The only real Ukraine news today is that Trump is planning to resume weapons shipments to Ukraine, feeling hurt that Putin was bullshitting him, but more concerningly, says he doesn’t know who ordered the shipments to stop (because he’s clearly not running his own show).

https://bsky.app/profile/united24media.com/post/3ltixwozuor2a

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Roundup: A few amendments, but very telling ones

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It seems that Bill C-5 did not emerge from committee unscathed, as the opposition forced a number of amendments to the bill through, most of them creating an added list of laws that the government cannot opt itself out of using the giant Henry VIII clause that is the second half of said bill. The issue here? That aside from the Indian Act being one of those laws, the remainder are mostly done for the theatre of the Conservatives (and Bloc to a lesser extent) putting on a show about trying to keep said Henry VIII clause being used in a corrupt manner. To that end, the laws protected from opt-outs include:

  • Access to Information Act,
  • Lobbying Act,
  • Canada Elections Act,
  • Criminal Code,
  • Conflict of Interest Act,
  • Investment Canada Act,
  • Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act,
  • Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act,
  • Railway Safety Act,
  • Trade Unions Act,
  • Explosives Act,
  • Hazardous Products Act,
  • Indian Act,
  • Auditor General Act, or
  • Official Languages Act

Do you notice what’s missing? Any kind of environmental laws, which the Conservatives continue to demand be repealed, or any kind of UNDRIP legislation, which would ensure free, prior and informed consent from Indigenous people when it comes to these projects.

The government says they are considering the amendments and whether to support their adoption or not (but given that every opposition party has lined up behind them, they may not have a choice), but the fact remains that they have refused adequate consultation with Indigenous people in developing and passing this legislation (they could barely be arsed to hear from one Indigenous witness at committee, let along several rights-holders), or that they are damaging the trust the government spent the past decade trying to rebuild. Just amateur galaxy-brained antics that you would think a government that is ten years into their time in office would actually have learned a lesson or two by this point.

Meanwhile, you have some Indigenous voices calling on the Governor General to delay or to deny royal assent for Bill C-5, which is not going to happen. If it did, it would cause a constitutional crisis, and I can’t believe we need to keep saying this every time someone makes the suggestion because they don’t understand how Responsible Government works. This is a political problem, and it demands a political solution, not one where you pull out the constitutional fire extinguisher and try to wield it. That’s not how this works, and people need to both stop suggesting it, and journalists need to stop taking this kind of talk seriously. Just stop it.

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that the increasing attacks demonstrate why more pressure needs to be applied to Russia to force a ceasefire. There was another POW swap yesterday, but no word on how many were exchanged on either side.

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Roundup: The G7 summit begins

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It’s the big G7 leaders’ summit today and tomorrow, so expect wall-to-wall coverage on that for the next 48 to 72 hours or so, depending if we have any eruptions (which could very well happen). Here’s a piece setting the stage for the event, where the side conversations with the additional leaders invited are also going to play a key part in the event. The ongoing Israel-Iran conflict is likely going to also feature in the discussions. Here is a look at some of the agenda items that Carney had laid out, including quantum technologies. Here’s a look at the security in the region, which is helped by the fact that it’s an isolated location with no local services.

Things got off to an early start with Keir Starmer arriving on Saturday evening for dinner with Mark Carney, before the pair went to a local pub to take in the hockey game together (which was apparently on mute in the local Royal Oak, because of course it was a Royal Oak). They had a formal meeting in West Block on Sunday morning, and talked about more trade and bilateral cooperation on a number of files. Carney will have a sit-down with Trump this morning before the summit begins formally.

The rest of the leaders began arriving in Calgary Sunday afternoon. So far we’ve had one civilian aircraft enter the restricted airspace and needing to be chased down by CF-18s. And on his way to the G7, French president Emmanuel Macron had a stopover in Greenland to offer support against American aggression.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians struck the Kremenchuk oil refinery in the Poltava region, which provides fuel to Ukrainian forces. A recent attack also damaged the Boeing office in Kyiv. Russia handed over another 1200 Ukrainian war dead on Sunday.

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Roundup: Carney making his choice with Modi

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Spokespersons for the Sikh Federation Canada and the World Sikh Organisation of Canada were on the Hill yesterday to call on prime minister Mark Carney to rescind his invitation to Narendra Modi to attend the G7 summit, and are not ruling out actions such as barring Liberal MPs from visiting Sikh temples as a protest. They warned that more than a dozen Canadian Sikhs are under active threat from India,  and we also learned in the media yesterday that a suspected Indian government agent had Jagmeet Singh under surveillance, which prompted close RCMP protection eighteen months ago.

Oh, but Carney says, we got assurances about cooperating on a law enforcement dialogue, and yes, RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme does say that Indian officials are now being cooperative on the investigation into the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar where they weren’t before, but again, how much longer is this going to continue until it’s no longer convenient and they start making up a bunch of bullshit for their newspapers again like they did with the supposed cocaine found on Trudeau’s plane (which right-wing newspapers in this Canada breathlessly repeated while the journalists who were actually on the plane repeatedly said that this never happened and that this was a bullshit information operation).

Yes, India is an important economy at a time when we can no longer rely on the Americans, but can we rely on India either given Modi’s increasing authoritarian tendencies, and his violation of human rights for minorities? Those Sikh spokespersons made the salient point about how Carney is sending the message that some lives are worth more than others, and that if there’s economic benefit, then we can turn a blind eye to human rights abuses and the fact that they almost certainly contracted an extrajudicial killing on Canadian soil. That should matter, and we should send a message that it does matter. But we’re not getting that from Carney, and even more to the point, the Liberals have had some very effective Sikh organisers in the party (which is why certain MPs were in Trudeau’s Cabinet when they were poor performers) and it would seem odd to waste that goodwill when you want to try and win a majority in the next election. I’m just not seeing a lot of principle or smart politics here.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian forces are slowly pushing back the Russian incursion in Sumy region. Ukrainian military officials say that the number of Russian soldiers killed or wounded in the conflict is now over one million, as the war is now in its third year. There was another exchange of sick and wounded prisoners yesterday. President Zelenskyy will be attending the G7 in Kananaskis next week.

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1933028255767941303

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Roundup: A big defence commitment?

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Yesterday, at Fort York in Toronto, prime minister Mark Carney announced that Canada would meet its NATO commitment of two percent of GDP by the end of next fiscal year instead of by 2030, in part through use of greater pay, more funds for sustainment, support for the defence industry, and some good ol’ creative accounting. Carney prefaced this by making a very real point about the changing nature of America’s place in the world: “The United States is beginning to monetize its hegemony, charging for access to its markets and reducing its relative contribution to our collective security.”

One of the big question marks has to do with the status of the Coast Guard, and how it gets folded into the calculation around defence spending—there were mixed messages on whether it stays under Department of Fisheries and Oceans, of if it will be moved into Department of National Defence (though there is also an argument for it to go to Public Safety), and the question of whether or not to arm those ships is a fraught one because of the training requirements for armaments. It sounds like there will be things like CSE’s cyber-capability being counted as part of this calculation as well, which again, seems to be more fudging numbers that we typically accused other nations of doing while we were more “pure” in terms of what we counted toward our spending commitments, and that seems to be going away.

I would add that while we get a bunch of competing narratives around the target, whether it’s the Conservatives’ memory-holing the fact that they cut defence spending to below one percent of GDP (in order to achieve a false balance on the books in time for the 2015 election), or the notion that we are nothing more than freeloaders in NATO, we should keep reminding people that even with lower per-capita defence spending, we have been punching above our weight taking on the tough missions in NATO (Kandahar, leading a multi-country brigade in Latvia) where as other allies who have met their two percent targets don’t contribute (looking at you, Greece). A poor metric of spending is not a good indicator of contribution, but it has created a whole false narrative that we should be correcting, but that’s too much work for the pundit class, who are more interested in hand-wringing and calling Justin Trudeau names than they are in looking at our actual contributions. (Here’s a timeline of the spending target melodrama).

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia made another massive overnight attack against Ukraine, launching 479 drones and twenty missiles of various types, targeting the western and central parts of the county. Another prisoner swap did go ahead yesterday.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1932086386145841186

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Roundup: Danielle Smith’s weapon of mass distraction

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith continues to be in increasing hot water—and oh, look, her justice minister is related by marriage to someone at the centre of the healthcare procurement scandal—so she has decided to go full-bore into her weapon of mass distraction, which is to attack the federal government and to try and call out Mark Carney for…reasons. She’s asking Carney for a “reset” of relations with Alberta (translation: Give me everything I want), because of course she is. One of the things she announced was a new court challenge of the clean electricity regulations, because of course she is. Nothing like making the lawyers a bunch more money.

https://twitter.com/maxfawcett/status/1917945085674791322

Throughout this, Smith insists she’s not stoking separatism *cough* and that these are just “hypotheticals” about the group of loons in the province itching to trigger a plebiscite by starting to gather signatures (before the bill has even passed), but the fact that she is lowering the threshold for just this eventually is a sign that she knows she’s doing it deliberately. And hey, she even says that there’s no appetite in the province for their own separate pension plan after all (because she got spanked by the reality that she couldn’t raid the majority of the CPP on the way out), so that must mean she’s serious about not stoking separatism, right? Does she think we’re all stupid and can’t see through her transparent bullshit?

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lo4edxbfjs2l

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lo4eimwtas2l

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lo4ekdqy2s2l

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lo4en275nc2l

Of course, because Scott Moe can’t help himself, he said that he’s a “true Canadian” but wouldn’t stop a public vote on separation if they triggered a plebiscite under provincial legislation. So…as premier he’s willing to also drive out investment and opportunity from companies that have no interest in dealing with this kind of nonsense? Wow, that’s some smart politicking!

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone attack late Thursday set houses ablaze in Zaporizhzhia and injured 14, but didn’t cause any deaths.

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Roundup: Leaders on the final push

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Day thirty-four, and leaders are all in the final push, making last-minute stops in key ridings that they either hope to keep, or win outright. Mark Carney was in Sault Ste. Marie to visit Algoma Steel, where he gave the Ontario-centric and, more importantly, steel-focused, version of his pitch to voters. He did say, in response to a question, that he was open to electoral reform but didn’t think that a prime minister should champion it because it politicises it. (I swear to Zeus, if this turns into another round of “citizen assembly” nonsense, I will lose my mind). He also said he’s open to reviewing the Access to Information regime (which every leader says), and called on Israel to end the blockade on food aid to Gaza. The then made stops in Georgetown, Cambridge, and London, Ontario. He also made his appearance at the virtual AFN forum, where he committed to implementation of UNDRIP. Carney is sticking in Ontario today with events in King City, Newmarket, Aurora, Markham, Mississauga, and then Windsor.

Pierre Poilievre was in Saskatoon, where he laid out his plans for his first 100 days in office (which is another imported Americanism), and it involved promising to sit through the summer in order to pass three massive omnibus bills that dealt with large swaths of his agenda. Part of his hundred days, however, was a promise to get a deal with Trump, which is not only ridiculous because nobody is getting an actual deal with Trump, but he’s been saying that Carney thinks he can control Trump but nobody can, and yet he’s simultaneously insisting that only he can control Trump enough to get a deal. It’s laughable that he thinks this is at all serious. Poilievre then stopped in Calgary for a rally, where he called for bigger voter turnout, before heading to Nanoose Bay, BC. Poilievre will be in Delta, BC, today for one of his finally rallies.

Poilievre is still peddling the fantasy that *he* can make a deal with Trump that will stick, after he says Carney is delusional for thinking he can control Trump.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T15:44:59.656Z

Jagmeet Singh was in Toronto, where he just invented the threat that the Liberals will cut healthcare if there aren’t enough NDP MPs elected, which is outrageous bullshit. For one, the problem is with the provinces, and they have long-term funding agreements with the federal government, and two, the threats of cutting healthcare are at the provincial level. This is just outright mendacity from an increasingly desperate Singh. His campaign then stopped in Hamilton and London, Ontario. Singh starts the day in London, then heads to Windsor before flying to Vancouver and Burnaby.

Singh is just literally making shit up at this point.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T15:02:12.089Z

On a side note, Yves-François Blanchet made the statement today that Canada is an “artificial country with very little meaning,” in response to questions about previous remarks about sitting in a “foreign parliament.” While this is probably self-defeating at a time of heightened patriotism, what Blanchet is really trying to do is appeal to ethnic nationalism in Quebec. All countries are artificial, but a good many around the world are bound together by a common ethnicity and language, and Canada is not. Certain elements of Quebec would like to think that they have a common ethnicity and language, but this is the kind of ethnic nationalism that fuels racism and xenophobia. It’s what François Legault has been appealing to as he attacks the rights of religious minorities. And Blanchet is trying to appeal to it to say that Liberals can’t represent Quebec because only the Bloc can truly represent “ethnic” Quebeckers. But he’s also been hoping that he’ll get a bump in the polls like he did last time after Shachi Kurl raised (badly formed) questions about Law 21, which Blanchet was able to spin into “She’s calling us racists!” and that gave him the boost in the polls he needed. It looks like he won’t get that this time around.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1916013202388721995

In other campaign news, Equal Voice’s tally shows that the Liberals, Conservatives, and Bloc are all running fewer women as candidates in this election. Elections Canada says that Poilievre’s riding of Carleton had the highest advance turnout in the country. None of the parties have been clear about how they plan to meet existing climate commitments. Singh is trying to convince George Stroumboulopoulos that their poll numbers are rebounding (really!) so they’ll come out of the election with “lots” of re-elected MPs. (Aside from the quarter of his caucus that’s not running again?)

For Canadians being inundated by riding-level polls right now:The data is crap if it has no dates, small samples (<800), high margins of error.The people showing them to you are trying to persuade you to vote for their own preferred party. It's sales pitch, not an evidence-based argument.

— Jared Wesley (@jaredwesley.ca) 2025-04-26T01:02:15.747Z

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lnnrnrygrs2r

Yes. Yes I do.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-25T13:35:18.917Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A drone attack on Pavlohrad killed five and injured at least eleven. A Russian general was killed by a car bomb, and Russia is blaming Ukraine (who have not yet claimed responsibility).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1915669752787149047

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