Tag Archives: Refugees

Roundup: Letting Trump’s lackeys spin the narrative

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Because everything is so stupid all the time, there was a whole ridiculous bit of drama yesterday as US treasury secretary Scott Bessent went on TV to claim that prime minister Mark Carney aggressively walked back his Davos speech on the phone to Trump, when the rest of us didn’t know there even was a call because there was no readout. When Carney came in for his caucus meeting yesterday and was asked about it, he disputed the characterisation, said he meant what he said at Davos, and then turned it into one of those quasi-flattering but also quasi-shady remarks akin to calling Trump “transformational,” in saying that Canada was the first to recognize the changes to global trade that Trump instituted. I’m sure he thinks he was very clever about it too.

Nevertheless, the point stands that the lack of a readout from PMO about the call means that it let the Americans get out ahead in terms of spinning the call and what was said, and as this administration does with everything, is to just lie. Part of this is also transparency, so that we know when there are calls with world leaders, particularly given the situation we’re in with Trump, and the fact that they had a thirty-minute call on a range of topics that included Ukraine is actually kind of important to know, but Carney has refused to be transparent and has said he’s not going to provide readouts for these “informal” calls going forward. So you just keep letting Trump and his people lie about what’s being said? I do not understand why they refuse to understand how to deal with this kind of behaviour.

Amidst this are a bunch of conservatives, some MPs, some designated talking heads on media shows, who were so very eager to take Trump’s side and blaming Carney for harming the relationship, or in trying to insist that it’s Carney who is holding up a tariff deal instead of Trump being mercurial and untrustworthy. I get that for a lot of these people, it’s “anything to own the Libs,” and they will contort themselves to almost the point of treason in order to get that thrill they’re looking for, but for the love of Zeus, have some self-respect.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone struck a passenger train near Kharkiv, killing five, while drones attacking Odesa killed at least three. There was also a strike against a natural gas facility in western Ukraine. The US says that Ukraine needs to sign a peace deal with Russia to get security guarantees (but Russia has no interest in a peace deal).

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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.

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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.

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: Sandboxing powers?

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Over the weekend, Althia Raj published a column that points to a power the government is trying to give itself in the budget that lets ministers exempt certain people and companies from non-criminal laws, and the fact that this felt like it was being snuck into the budget implementation bill when it wasn’t in the main budget document. Jennifer Robson, inspired by Raj’s column, delves into the Budget Implementation Act to see the sections in question for herself, and makes some pretty trenchant observations about the fact that the powers in here are giving ministers a pretty hefty amount of leeway without necessarily a lot of transparency, because they have the option of simply not publishing or reporting which laws they’re suspending for whom, and that we need to worry about the injuries to democratic norms.

So, what is up with these particular powers? Well, it turns out that this is very likely some long-promised action on creating “regulatory sandboxes,” and the means to implement them.

The 2024 budget talked about working up a plan for "regulatory sandboxes"—temporary exemptions from restrictions to allow experiments with new things, especially products, that existing regulations didn't anticipate. It's in a few places, like this:

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T13:55:47.297Z

They'd consulted publicly on it before. This is generally a pretty dull type of government consultation, but it was done. www.canada.ca/en/governmen…

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T13:58:04.805Z

Having announced plans to legislate on it in 2024, the Trudeau government did not follow through, in either of the two "budget bills" that stemmed from the budget.

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T13:59:51.381Z

But the regulatory-sandbox idea returned in the 2025 budget. Not at length, but it's in the roundup of legislative changes that implementing the 2025 budget requires. (Some people start with the deficit numbers when first picking a new budget up; I start with the legislative changes.)

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T14:03:09.547Z

My point is that you have to be careful with premises like, "I didn't know about it, so they've been hiding it and being sneaky."Tech businesses have been calling for regulatory sandboxes for *years,* there've been public consultations, and it was promised in two successive budgets.

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T14:06:02.132Z

The idea's history goes back much farther than 2024, to be clear. Here's a Logic story from 2018, the first year we existed, noting a promise on regulatory sandboxes in the 2018 fall economic statement: thelogic.co/news/special…

— David Reevely (@davidreevely.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T14:10:57.100Z

So, this could very well be what that is referring to. This being said, I do see the concerns of Robson when it comes to some of the transparency around these measures, because these powers give ministers all kinds of leeway not to report on their suspension of laws for this “sandboxing,” and you have to remember that Carney already gave himself broad Henry VIII powers under his Build Canada Act legislation, which is ripe for abuse, particularly in a parliament that has largely lost its ability to do necessary oversight. I think the government needs to be extremely careful here, because this could easily blow up in their faces.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-12-06T15:08:02.695Z

Ukraine Dispatch

At least seven people have been injured in a drone strike in Sumy region. Russia claims to have taken two more villages in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. Here is a look at Ukraine’s naval drone operations, and the growing number of women in combat roles.

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Roundup: Trying to jam the Liberals on the MOU

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Because Pierre Poilievre thinks he’s a tactical genius, he has announced that next week’s Conservative Supply Day motion will be about the MOU with Alberta, and forcing a vote on the language about a pipeline to the Pacific, in defiance of the tanker ban.

It’s a transparent attempt to try and jam the Liberals, at least rhetorically, into supporting the motion in order to show support for the MOU, after which Poilievre can keep saying “You supported it!” and “Give me the date when construction starts,” as though there’s a proponent, a project and a route already lined up (to say nothing about the long-term contracts about who is going to buy the product once it’s built, because yes, that does matter). The thing is, these kinds of motions are non-binding, and really means nothing in the end. So if a number of Liberals vote against it, it doesn’t actually mean anything, other than the rhetorical notion that lo, they are not fully in lock-step on something, which actually sets them apart from pretty much every other party where uniformity and loyalty to the leader and all of his positions are constantly being enforced in one way or another. Maybe he will tolerate differences of opinion—or maybe he’ll crack the whip. We’ll see when Tuesday gets here.

Ukraine Dispatch

The International Atomic Agency says the protective shield around Chornobyl has been damaged by Russian strikes.

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Roundup: Political support for a new pipeline?

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More details are emerging about the Memorandum of Understanding that prime minister Mark Carney looks set to sign with Alberta premier Danielle Smith on Thursday, which would set the stage for political support for a pipeline to the northwest coast of BC if certain conditions are met. Those conditions include a stricter industrial carbon price in the province, and a “multibillion-dollar investment in carbon capture from the Pathways Alliance,” and there is apparently some language about Indigenous ownership and equity. In return, it looks like Alberta also gets a bunch of exemptions from other environmental legislation, which it would seem to me is just setting up fights with every other province who will want their own special deals and carve-outs.

BC premier David Eby is rightfully upset about being left out of the process (as Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe initially claimed he was part of the talks, which turned out to be mere self-aggrandisement). And while it’s true that the province can’t veto a project that falls under federal jurisdiction (and we have Supreme Court jurisprudence on this), it definitely feels impolitic to freeze him out, considering that making an agreement with Smith to overrule Eby’s stated wishes—and the wishes of the coastal First Nations—certainly has the feel of the US and Russia coming up with a “peace plan” for Ukraine. Eby also, correctly, points out that they would never do this with Quebec, which is a good point.

This being said, this remains about a hypothetical pipeline that may never come to fruition because they are unlikely to get a private sector proponent, because the oil market changed in 2014 and Alberta refuses to accept that fact. What I am more concerned about is just how many billions of public dollars are going to be consume by Pathways in order to try and make it viable, and it just won’t be, and we’ll have wasted years, billions of dollars, both of which could have been better spent coming up with a more reasonable transition to a greener future, because again, it’s not 2014 anymore.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-11-24T23:08:02.124Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones and missiles have hit residential buildings in Kyiv, starting fires and killing at least one person. Ukrainian officials are apparently working with the Americans on the so-called “28-point peace plan” to make it more palatable.

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Roundup: A 28-point capitulation plan

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Things are heating up for Ukraine now that Trump has presented his so-called 28-point “peace plan,” which is nothing of the sort, and he’s giving president Volodymyr Zelenskyy one week to agree to it, or he is threatening to withdraw American support, even though that support has been mercurial and dwindling for the past year. Nevertheless, they have some key defensive technologies that Ukraine relies upon, particularly for air defences. But in no way is this plan at all acceptable, and is little more than a demand for Ukraine to capitulate, and to pay America for the privilege because Trump is a gangster running a protection racket.

This is what a protection racket looks like, although they are rarely put in writing

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman.bsky.social) 2025-11-21T17:56:08.496Z

The “plan” (full text here) proposes that Ukraine turn over remaining areas in the regions Putin has been unable to conquer after four years, which are essentially a fortress belt. Turning those over, plus reducing the size of Ukraine’s army, is essentially an invitation for Putin to come back and invade with nothing to stop him the next time. The “deal” wants Ukraine to forgo NATO membership, which essentially gives Putin a veto over NATO. It wants Ukraine to pay the US for security guarantees, but no agreement with Trump is worth the paper it’s written on. It wants Ukraine to abandon any attempt to hold Russia accountable for its actions, including mass torture and crimes against humanity. And it wants Russia’s frozen assets returned. So Russia gives up nothing, and it positions itself to fully conquer Ukraine in a few months or a year, when Trump gets bored, and then creates an existential threat for the rest of Europe given that Putin will have gotten rid of the biggest obstacle to his expansionary plans.

Zelenskyy says he will work earnestly with the Americans on this, but that he won’t betray Ukraine’s interests, which pretty much means that he can’t accept these terms. European leaders say that they’re standing behind Ukraine, because they know the danger. But some of the reporting in Canada is abysmal, treating the plan like it’s serious when getting defence minister David McGuinty to comment on it. At least he says that any plan has to be “acceptable,” but this plan clearly is not, so I’m not sure why anyone is bothering to ask if he supports it because there is no way he could or should. This “plan” merely confirms that there is no point in relying on the US any longer, which means that Europe and Canada need to step up right now, and give Ukraine all of the support possible right now because anything less is a disaster for the future of western democracies.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-11-21T14:24:03.043Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims it has taken a string of four settlements in the Donetsk region, which Ukraine denies. They also claim that 5000 Ukrainian troops are trapped in the Kharkiv region.

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Roundup: Laughable “dedicated partners”

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Yesterday was Trans Day of Remembrance, to commemorate trans people who have died from violence and discrimination, and there were places across the country who did things like flag-raisings, and talked about the importance of inclusion, or their vague promises for LGBQT+ Action Plans™, which they haven’t delivered on (ahem, Nova Scotia). But nothing takes the cake compared to Alberta.

Alberta, which this week invoked the Notwithstanding Clause to shield three of its laws that delegitimise and attack trans rights in the province, and where a UCP backbencher compared gender affirmation to cattle castration in defending said invocation of the Notwithstanding Clause. Where a UCP candidate was temporarily booted from caucus for comparing trans students in a classroom to faeces in cooking dough, only to be reinstated months later with no questions asked. Who went through a major exercise in book-banning that aimed squarely on trans and queer materials. And with all of this, the province’s status of women minister put out a statement that, I shit you not, said “Our government remains a dedicated partner of transgender Albertans.”

The Alberta government putting out a statement for Trans Day of Remembrance two days after using the Notwithstanding Clause to override trans kids rights feels like parody at this point "Our government remains a dedicated partner of transgender Albertans.”

— Mel Woods (@melwoods.me) 2025-11-20T16:37:36.723Z

I just can’t. Words fail. It’s beyond parody. It’s just cruelty for the sake of cruelty, but Danielle Smith is doing this because she doesn’t want the swivel-eyed loons in her party base to eat her face, especially with another party convention on the way where she could face a leadership review. (And a good deal of blame falls on Jason Kenney for empowering these loons when he kicked the centrist normies out of the party). And because it bears reminding, trans people are always the first targeted by fascists, so what’s happening is the canary in the coal mine. Nothing good can come of this.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-11-20T15:05:10.130Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims that they have taken the city of Kupiansk, but Ukraine denies this. There was an exchange of soldiers’ bodies—Ukraine received 1000, while Russia got 30. The Russian-US “peace plan” involves turning over the fortified areas of the Donbas region Putin hasn’t been able to seize, and limiting the size of Ukraine’s military, none of which is acceptable.

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Roundup: Abstentions to avoid an election

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After all the build-up, the artificial drama of whether or not the government was going to fall, all of the stories written about the various possibilities of what might happen, the final vote came down 170-168, the government surviving the day. Deciding this was the fact that Elizabeth May got the assurances she was looking for in order to vote for the budget (she hopes not naively), and there were abstentions—two from the Conservatives, two from the NDP.

There was never going to be an election. Nobody wanted one, and it would very likely go badly for a least two of the opposition parties, but they all still had to look like they were talking tough (and swinging their dicks), but in reality, the Conservatives were engineering it so that they would ensure it would pass. Not only were Matt Jeneroux and Shannon Stubbs not voting, the latter on medical leave, but it appears that Andrew Scheer and Scott Reid camped out in the lobby behind the Chamber when the vote started, and only when things were wrapping up and it was clear the government was going to win, did they rush into the Chamber at the end, and claim that they couldn’t vote remotely so that they could record their votes as being against. (It’s one more argument why remote voting should be abolished, so that these kinds of shenanigans don’t happen).

Of course, as soon as this was over, the Conservatives started recording videos for their socials to denounce the NDP and the Greens for propping up the government, when they were doing just the same and were prepared to go further, because they know full well that an election right now is very likely to go badly for them, but they have to perform for their audience all the time. And sure, it’s fun to watch people call them out over this partisan bluster, but we shouldn’t even be having it, but everyone has to keep putting on a show for their chosen audience, because this is the hell that is politics in the era of the attention economy.

Speaking of today's artificial drama (and partisan dick-swinging…)

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-17T23:18:51.205Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine has allegedly attacked power plants in the Russian-controlled areas of Donetsk. Ukraine has signed a deal to obtain 100 Rafale warplanes from France, in addition to the 100 Gripens they bought. AP profiles Ukrainian energy workers who have to restore power after Russian attacks on energy systems.

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Roundup: Jeneroux heads for the exit

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It’s been a strange couple of days in the House of Commons. First of all, Pierre Poilievre made his speech on the budget (technically on the Ways and Means motion for the budget), and traditionally, the official opposition moves an amendment, followed by the next-largest party, in this case the Bloc. And these amendments are usually things like “the budget not pass because x, y, z.” But for some reason, Poilievre didn’t move the amendment in his speech like he normally would, so the Bloc took up the opportunity do so, meaning they got the amendment, and the Conservatives had to suffice with a sub-amendment, which doesn’t matter other than it being kind of embarrassing because they obviously don’t have their shit together.

And this got compounded by the votes. Unless I’m mistaken, normally these amendments/sub-amendments happen at the same time as the main vote on the Ways and Means motion, so it’s done in one fell swoop. Not this time. The Government House Leader declared that the vote on the Conservative sub-amendment would happen yesterday evening, and the Bloc amendment tomorrow afternoon, and that these would be considered confidence votes (which they aren’t normally—only the main vote). And let me stress—it is very, very, very unusual for any vote to happen on a Friday, let alone a confidence vote, and that’s only because they can now vote on their phones (which is a parliamentary abomination). This is not how this normally goes, and it’s a bunch of really childish gamesmanship. But suffice to say, the government passed the first vote as neither the Bloc nor the NDP would support the Conservative sub-amendment, and the NDP have already indicated they won’t vote for the Bloc’s amendment either—but they’re still not decided if they’re voting on the actual motion, sometime in the week after next (because next week is a constituency week).

It’s very, very unusual that they would hold any vote on a Friday, let alone a vote they have deemed to be a confidence vote.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-06T20:21:34.500Z

And then, as this was all going on, Conservative MP Matt Jeneroux announced he was going to resign his seat, and the language in his letter sounded like it was going to be pretty soon, saying he hoped he could speak in the House one more time. But then Pierre Poilievre tweets that he’s not going to retire until spring, which is weird. Paul Wells likened this to negotiating in public, and having a silent “or else.” And this is while rumours have been swirling that the Liberals have been having conversations with Jeneroux about crossing the floor, and other rumours swirling that Conservative MPs are being threatened if they follow d’Entremont across the floor. And then to compound the weirdness, Jeneroux posts on Facebook that he totally wasn’t coerced and that he’s still determining his resignation date, but it will “probably” be in the spring. This is not normal. And if you needed reassurance that things totally aren’t falling apart inside caucus, Gérard Deltell told the media that d’Entremont’s defection was an isolated case. Guys. You’re in five-alarm clown show territory now.

Per Paul Wells: I take Pierre here to be bargaining in public. The “next spring” directly contradicts Jeneroux and, the way it's placed, all clever at the end, amounts to an “if you know what's good for you.”

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-07T02:00:51.437Z

I totally wasn't coerced, he says.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-11-07T02:52:25.993Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims they are advancing in the ruins of Pokrovsk, as fighting continues. Ukraine has hit the major Volgograd oil refinery in a drone strike, and shut down its operations. And here’s what Angelina Jolie was doing in Kherson.

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