Tag Archives: Refugees

QP: Day two, and the front bench is useless

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An hour before things got underway, it was announced that Chrystia Freeland was leaving Cabinet (but not her seat) to take on a special envoy role for Ukrainian reconstruction, meaning the front bench got shifted one day into the new sitting, and the gender balance skewed just a little more male. The PM was not present, as he was off to meet with Scott Moe, but other leaders did show up.

Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and decried that a budget had not been delivered yet, and claimed that the deficit had been doubled—higher than Trudeau’s. He claimed that inflation was fifty percent higher than the target (it’s not), and worried about people relying on food banks; if people were to judge Carney based on food prices, then what was the verdict? François-Philippe Champagne said that Canadians chose a government that would focus on change, and that they were going to be rigorous in spending and ambitious in investment. Poilievre worried that empty promises led to empty stomachs, to which Champagne again praised their tax cut, which was going to help the Middle Class™. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his faux concern that deficits cause food price inflation, and the empty promises/empty stomachs line. Champagne recited the “spend less to invest more” line, before praising their tax cut and the elimination of the carbon levy. Poilievre said this government’s failure led to human suffering, and this time, Tim Hodgson stood up to praise their pledge to expand the LNG terminal in BC. Poilievre said it was insulting that nobody would answer a question on the price of food, and Gregor Robertson said that while they were concerned about the cost of food, they were taking action on housing. Poilievre again pounced on the fact that the question was about food, and this time Adam van Koeverden got up to chide Poilievre for voting against school food programmes, and that Poilievre voted against the other measures in the Food Banks Canada report, like strengthening the social safety net.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and he worried about the state of talks with the U.S. Dominic LeBlanc assured him that the talks continue, and that they are preparing for the review of the New NAFTA. Blanchet said that he heard in Washington that there is disappointment that Carney is not in Washington more often, and LeBlanc agreed that the U.S. is an essential economic partner, and that with the trade relationship changing they need to work to get the best deal. Blanchet wondered if Carney would speak to Trump on the summit circuit, or go to Washington, and LeBlanc again reiterated that we treat the American relationship with great respect, but we are also diversifying out trade relationships.

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Roundup: The problem with “building things” nostalgia

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In all of the announcements that prime minister Mark Carney made this week, particularly around the Major Projects Office and the first tranche of projects that he was championing, there was something he said that bothers me. “We used to build big things in this country and we used to build them quickly,” he said, which is something that we hear a lot, particularly from conservatives. “We built a cross-country railroad in seven years!” But nobody wants to mention how that railroad, or any of those big projects got built, and what changed, because nostalgia is a seductive liar.

What changed, of course, is that we realized we can’t just devastate the environment, and that we can’t just keep displacing Indigenous peoples on their own lands, or that we can’t treat imported labour like slaves, or with working conditions that ensured that a great many of them died along the way. (Yes, I know there are problems with temporary foreign workers and modern-day slavery, but that is a separate discussion). And what is particularly concerning is that while Carney is not acknowledging what changed is that he gave himself a giant Henry VIII clause in his major projects legislation that lets him ignore environmental legislation, or whatever he finds inconvenient, in order to get these big things built fast. Does nobody see a problem here? Really?

Meanwhile, Poilievre mocks the “speeds not seen in generations” talks, and the unspoken part of his “government get out of the way” line is that it ultimately means environmental degradation, ignoring Indigenous rights, labour rights, you name it, because those are the things that are inconvenient. So, in a way, Carney and Poilievre are ultimately aligning on these particular things, and we shouldn’t be shrugging this off. Things changed for a reason. Going back to the 19thcentury is not a sustainable way forward, no matter how dire the economic situation we find ourselves in.

Ukraine Dispatch

Three people were killed in an incursion in the Sumy region, but that incursion has been pushed back. Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s key oil terminal in Primorsk. NATO announced plans to further shore up defences on their eastern flank after the incursion into Polish airspace. And Prince Harry made a surprise visit to Kyiv in support of wounded soldiers.

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Roundup: Kenney’s omitted immigration changes

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The Conservatives are full-on throwing everything they can at the wall to see what sticks, and yesterday it was the moral panic over immigration figures. Pierre Poilievre put out a press release decrying that permits issued had blown past the proposed caps, and that the system is “facing collapse,” which I’m pretty sure is bullshit, before promising to propose “fixes” in the fall, which you can already be assured will mostly be comprised of dog-whistles. (And remember, the problem is less with immigration numbers than it is with premiers who are not doing their jobs with regards to building housing of properly funding healthcare).

Enter Jason Kenney, who went on an extended rant about how he “fixed” the system when he was minister, and how Trudeau and company broke it, but this is also revisionist history. He talks about the sweeping reforms he brought in in 2010, and how everyone praised it, but he omitted that he blunted most of those reforms before they could be implemented. You see, in 2010, it was a hung parliament and the Conservatives couldn’t push through draconian immigration legislation, so they needed to work with the opposition (most notably Olivia Chow as the NDP’s immigration critic), and they passed a bill that had plenty of safeguards in place. In 2011, there was an election where they got a majority, and before the 2010 bill could be fully implemented (because the coming-into-force provisions were going to take as long as a year), Kenney rammed through a new bill that curtailed most of those safeguards, and used tales of international migration cartels, and human smuggling rings that would bring people into the country to collect social assistance, which those cartels would then collect, and so on. Yes, there were problems with high rates of claims from certain countries, but like most things, Kenney was less than honest and building his scaremongering case, while also doing the thing where he played economic migrants against asylum seekers, and made “good immigrants versus bad asylum claimants” arguments to justify his legislation.

https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1960088637925961993

The other thing that Kenney is blatantly ignoring is that the world is not the same world as it was in 2010, and the migration situation is vastly different than it was back then. So yes, the current government is facing different challenges, but I wouldn’t expect Kenney to be honest about well, pretty much anything, because that’s who Jason Kenney is.

effinbirds.com/post/7790141…

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-08-24T20:02:02.229Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine has been stepping up drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and fuel terminals, squeezing their war economy.

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Roundup: The same counterproductive demands, once again

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The “changed” and “humbled” Pierre Poilievre was back on his old bullshit yesterday, calling a press conference in Surrey, BC, to decry crime rates, blame the government, give some misleading bullshit about past legislation, and then take friendly questions from hand-picked outlets. Sounds familiar?

But seriously, we’ve been through all of this before. Calling for a terrorism designation for the Bishnoi gang is not helpful, and risks watering down terrorism designations in general (which is why it was a problem to do it for Mexican cartels at the behest of the Trump administration, not to mention designations shouldn’t be made for political expediency). Tougher penalties for extortion? Extortion with a firearm already has a maximum sentence of life in jail, so why they want a four-year minimum is not exactly doing anything more than current sentencing already does. Repealing the former Bill C-75 on bail? As we have said time and time again, this merely codified Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence on the law of bail and made it tougher for those accused of domestic violence to get bail, so repealing it will do nothing. What is it going to take to drive home that these are not solutions, and will do nothing about the current uptick in police-reported crime (and again, these are small upticks that are well below historic norms)?

Meanwhile, Poilievre, Andrew Scheer, and others, spent their day engaging in supportive posts for transphobes, during Ottawa Pride Week no less. So yeah, up to their same old bullshit because they want to rile up the grievance mongers so that they can begin a new round of grifty fundraising. Poilievre has learned absolutely nothing from losing his seat and the election.

Conservatives are going all-in on transphobia today, as Pride Week in Ottawa is underway. #canqueer

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-08-20T21:13:56.179Z

Ukraine Dispatch

At least fourteen people were wounded in a Russian attack on the Sumy region, three people were killed in an artillery attack on the eastern city of Kostiantynivka, and a gas distribution station was hit in Odesa. Russians claim to have advanced in the Dnipropetrovsk region, while Ukrainians knocked out power in parts of Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia.

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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: Past the gushing, the premiers are up to their old tricks

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If you only listened to the effusive praise from the premiers after their meeting over the past three days in Muskoka, you might miss the strong scent of absolute bullshit wafting from them. Yes, there was plenty more gushing about prime minister Mark Carney, and his meeting with them on Tuesday about the current trade negotiations with the Americans, and his engaging with China about the current trade spat with them (where apparently a number of premiers think we should capitulate to China as well), but my gods, the rest of their statements? More of the same from our premiers.

Take bail reform. Doug Ford insisted that they would be “holding him accountable” on his promise to institute more bail reforms in the fall, but problem with bail is not the Criminal Code. The problem with bail is that the provinces have been under-resourcing their justice systems for decades. There aren’t enough court houses or staff for them, the provincial remand facilities are overflowing, and they don’t hire enough provincial court judges or Crown attorneys, nor are some provinces properly training their justices of the peace, who usually make bail determinations. That is all the provinces’ faults, but they continue to falsely blame the federal government because it’s easier than the premiers doing their jobs.

Or healthcare. Ford whinged that the Trudeau government “shortchanged them” and they want more “flexibility.” The same Doug Ford that took $4 billion in pandemic supports from the federal government and just applied it to his bottom line to reduce the provincial deficit. And you can bet that the premiers are sore that Trudeau made the last round of transfers conditional on provinces submitting “action plans” so that they can be judged to see whether the funds are actually going to healthcare spending in those priority areas rather than just being spent elsewhere, as so many billions of past healthcare dollars have been. So of course, they want Carney to try and reverse that. They’re not happy that they have been subjected to strings on those transfers.

"Ford said the previous federal government shortchanged the provinces, and that Ontario needs more money to train and hire doctors and nurses."DOUG FORD PUT $4 BILLION OF PANDEMIC FUNDS ON THE PROVINCE'S BOTTOM LINE TO REDUCE THE DEFICIT.FOR FUCK SAKES!

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-07-24T03:27:14.634Z

Even more alarming is the fact that Ford, on the advice of Danielle Smith, wants to go around the federal government and issue their own work permits to asylum seekers in the province because the federal government takes too long. That’s a pretty significant overreach, which is a very bad sign. And you can bet that none of the premiers will be held to account for any of this, because that’s how we roll in this country.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-07-23T13:25:09.670Z

Ukraine Dispatch

In spite of “peace talks” in Istanbul, there were more drone strikes traded from both sides—Russians hit residential and historic sites in Odesa, while Ukraine hit an oil storage depot near the Black Sea. More Ukrainian POWs were also returned yesterday. Facing protests for the changes to the anti-corruption agencies, president Zelenskyy now says he’ll introduce new legislation to safeguard their independence (but it remains to be seen what that legislation will actually say). European security reports show China covertly shipped drone parts to Russia using mislabelled containers to avoid sanctions.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_ua/status/1947597862574952514

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Roundup: A committee prepares to express its dismay

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The Commons’ transport committee will be meeting sometime this summer over the BC Ferries decision to buy new electric ferries from China and not Canada, never mind that no Canadian company bid on the project (likely because the major shipyards are already full-up on the naval and Coast Guard orders that will keep them occupied for years to come, which was the whole point of the National Shipbuilding Strategy). Of course, because this decision is actually in provincial jurisdiction, as transport minister Chrystia Freeland said time and again in Question Period before the House rose for the summer, the Conservatives on the committee needed to find a different angle of attack.

Enter the Canada Infrastructure Bank. It provided a loan to BC Ferries before the deal was signed, that covers both a portion of the capital costs, as well as electrification infrastructure for the ships themselves. Never mind that the Bank operates at arm’s length from government—the fact that it still reports to Parliament via a minister, Gregor Robertson in this case, means that Robertson and Freeland are going to be summoned to explain themselves, even though they have no hand in these decisions, no should they. The federal funds that go to BC Ferries is for operations and not capital costs, btu the Conservatives seemed to think that this should somehow be weaponised as well. (Oh, and BC premier David Eby said that he wants the committee to look at how unfairly the federal funding is allocated between BC and the Atlantic provinces, never mind that the Atlantic ferries are mostly interprovincial, which makes them a federal responsibility as opposed to BC’s, which is solely within the province’s jurisdiction).

So, what exactly do we expect to happen? I can pretty much guarantee that every party, the Liberals included, will spend the meetings expressing their dismay at BC Ferries’ decision, even though no Canadian firm bid on this contract. The ministers will express dismay, the MPs on the committee will all preen for the cameras, each expressing their dismay and sometimes outrage that these jobs are going to China and not Canada (never mind that no Canadian firm bid on this contract). It will be one big circle-jerk of dismay, while the CEO of BC Ferries will probably appear to say that the Infrastructure Bank loan is a loan that needs to be repaid, and that no Canadian firms bid on this contract. And everything will be done in service of clips for social media, because that’s all Parliament is any more.

Ukraine Dispatch

There is at least one dead and over 71 wounded in drone attacks on Kharkiv, as well as a death following an attack on Odesa and more injuries following a drone strike on Zaporizhzhia. Many of those attacks continued to be aimed at military recruitment offices in order to disrupt intake of new fighters. Trump says he’ll start sending more weapons to Ukraine, but who knows how long it’ll last this time.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1942141632620495134

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Senate QP: Questions about NATO math

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I haven’t been able to attend Senate Question Period in years as the move to a separate building, and a shift of their usual timing to coincide with Commons QP have kept me away, as has the fact that they pretty much always rise at the same time as the Commons, which never used to be the practice, and for which I write a peevish column at the start of every summer. This year, however, they are sitting later to pass Bill C-5, so I am actually able to take it in. It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.

Taking in #SenQP for the first time in *years*.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-06-25T18:04:29.258Z

After statements and routine proceedings, things got underway in earnest as  Senator Housakos led off, and he raised the PBO saying that he has received little information on the NATO two percent announcement, and that they have now agreed to the five percent goal at this week’s summit, And wondered how they could take this credibly. Senator Gold lamented that there was underfunding over decades, and that this was because of a changing world, but also noted that only 3.5 percent of that was over a decade, while the other 1.5 percent was for other things. Housakos again questioned the credibility of the numbers, and Gold returned to the boilerplate assurances they are doing what they can, but also noted that DND hasn’t been able to spend their current allocations.

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Roundup: The confidence vote that wasn’t

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Debate on the Address in Reply to the Speech From the Throne was due to wrap up, meaning a final vote. Media outlets insisted that this would be the first major confidence vote of the new Parliament, and that if the Liberals lost it, we could go back to an election, and there was all this building drama because of how they lost the vote on the Conservatives’ amendment (to “urge” the government to table a spring budget). And my headache started.

The vote on the Address in Reply is not automatically a confidence vote. It is if the opposition amendments explicitly state that they have no confidence in the government, and sometimes that happens because this is the first opportunity to test the confidence of the Chamber, especially in a minority parliament or legislature, but again, that was not the case here. But along the way, the NDP decided that they were going to play tough and declare that they would vote against it for specious reasons (and because Don Davies is an idiot, and has a long track record of being an idiot and a blowhard), while the Government House Leader, Steve MacKinnon, told reporters that this would be a confidence vote. So, if the government says it’s a confidence vote, it’s a confidence vote, and it was likely intended to be something of a bit a put-up-or-shut-up dare, which can be risky in a minority parliament, but sometimes you also need to play hardball with the opposition. This was likely going to mean that the Bloc would either vote in support or abstain (because they did say they would give the government a year before they started to seriously oppose anything, given the Trump situation), but the government was never in any serious danger of falling. If, by some fluke, they did lose a vote they declared to be confidence, they could simply hold another vote and basically say “Did you mean it?” and chances are they would win that vote, and all would go back to normal.

And in the end, there wasn’t even a vote. News of Marc Garneau’s death reached the Chamber just before the vote was to be taken, and it seems like the appetite for drama was gone, and it passed on division, meaning that they agreed to disagree, that they were going to let it pass, but not bother with a recorded vote. And thus, the least exciting outcome happened.

I must advise the beings of Bluesky that, in a truly only-in-this-particular-Canadian-parliament twist, the much-anticipated will-they-or-won't-they-trigger-an-election over it motion on the Throne speech as amended — has been adopted on division.

— Kady O'Malley (@kadyo.bsky.social) 2025-06-04T22:25:39.121Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-04T22:02:26.904Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones struck an apartment building in Kharkiv, injuring at least seventeen. Russian forces have also pushed further into Sumy region. Here’s a look at how Operation Spiderweb was carried out.

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Roundup: A lost vote for the sake of point-scoring

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The opposition shenanigans manifested during one of the very first votes of the new Parliament, where the government was not able to defeat the Conservative amendment to the Address in Reply to the Speech From the Throne. Said amendment urged the government to table a spring budget, but it’s not binding, and it looks like Mark Carney and the rest of Cabinet will take it under advisement and leave it at that (because you can’t produce a budget within two weeks’ notice, and the Conservatives know that very well).

What gets me is that you have the Conservatives (and others) going “what does it say when the government loses their first vote?” when it says nothing at all. If anything, it says that in a minority parliament, the opposition parties will do everything they can to embarrass the government, just as they have in previous parliaments, and given the current configuration of parties, this is really just a continuation of the constant juvenile bullshit we’ve seen over and over again that resulted in a paralyzed House of Commons last fall. Nothing really changed, and we’re going to see more that very same thing because we have the same insistence on juvenile point-scoring from the opposition, and we have the same Liberal government that is both inept at communicating their way out of a wet paper bag, and who are tactically incompetent because they think that they will somehow come out looking sympathetic to the procedural warfare and gamesmanship when they absolutely won’t because legacy media will simply not actually call anyone’s bullshit, but just both-sides the whole thing, and the Liberals will always lose in that framing. And I suppose what it says about the government is that they haven’t learned a single gods damned lesson from their near-death experience, and Carney’s complete political inexperience isn’t doing them any favours here either.

Meanwhile, the government introduced their big omnibus border bill, and it has a lot of troubling elements, from lowering thresholds for electronic data collection by law enforcement that won’t always require a warrant, and gives Canada Post more authority to open mail they deem suspicious. It also changes particular thresholds for asylum claims, and gives the government powers to simply stop claims or immigration processes with no explanation or apparent avenues for appeal. There are some positives, such as more resources for financial crimes, but in the grand scheme of things, I’m not sure it balances the negatives. The government claims they found the right balance that respects Charter rights, but I am dubious, and I suspect that law enforcement convinced them that they need these rights-violating powers and used Trump’s threats as a justification to get what they want.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian rocket attack killed at least four and injured at least 25 in Sumy. The city of Sumy remains under threat as Russians advance in that region. Ukraine detonated explosives on the concrete piers supporting the bridge linking Russia to Crimea, forcing its closure.

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1929871991034568954

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