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Danielle Smith tries to play both sides—again

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith has launched the next phase of saving her political skin with an address to her party to declare that separatists should exit the party and form their own. Contrast this to a few days ago where she said that they need to remain united in order to keep the NDP from forming government, and she’s not actually threatening expulsion, torn-up membership cards, or unsigned nomination papers. Instead, she’s appealing them to respect the vote, and saying that in a democracy, when you don’t win, you respect the result.

Being absolutely pedantic, the "block" on their supposed "path to prosperity" was the collapse of global oil prices in 2014. It had fuck all to do with Trudeau.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T20:30:18.844Z

I’m sorry, what? She and her predecessors spent a decade ginning up crybaby separatist threats because the Liberals were in power federally. She overturned legitimate municipal zoning regulations because she doesn’t like the mayors who won in Calgary and Edmonton. The whole reason the UCP exists is because people like Jason Kenney were so outraged that the NDP dared to win an election in a one-party state like Alberta that they needed to pull out all of the stops and bring all of the crazies into the party, including the separatists, in order to gain an overwhelming numerical superiority to force them out. She is in the process of literally gerrymandering the electoral map so that she can’t lose the next provincial election. And she has the absolute gods damned temerity to say that you need to respect the result when you lose? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

This is just Smith trying to play both sides so that she can keep everyone inside the tent for the time being so that she can survive long enough until the next election. It won’t stop the separatists from plotting against her, but she probably thinks she can out-organize them, even though she literally handed them the ability to level up their own organizing on a silver platter. I can’t wait to see this blow up in her face, but for the time being, I’m just going to continue to boggle at her sheer shameless hypocrisy.

Danielle Smith Hopes Alberta Is Happy Now youtu.be/bkk04sAzcMM?…

— Clare Blackwood (@clareblackwood.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T14:20:05.460Z

American election interference

The US Embassy released a statement that contained claims that Canada was engaging in “election interference” in the US, and it included things like Doug Ford’s Ronald Regan ads months ago, Mélanie Joly’s counter-tariffs strategy, and the fact that a Liberal MP *gasp!* canvased with a Democrat candidate for a primary earlier this year. Oh, and eleven Canadians illegally voted in US elections between 2012 and 2024. It’s so patently absurd, but they are trying to build up their “Blame Canada” narrative so that they can find new excuses to punish us after the midterms. Just risible.

The U.S. Embassy Wants Canada To Stop Interfering In Its Electionsyoutu.be/thdHKQ4hMcs

— Clare Blackwood (@clareblackwood.bsky.social) 2026-10-21T23:12:08.377Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-10-21T19:08:03.700Z

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Surrendering the field to the separatists, once again

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As the Alberta referendum is now in advanced voting, I am finding my patience being severely tested as the “Lead Not Leave” crowd continues to rely on the same lies and manufactured grievances that the separatists employ to try and insist that while their grievances are real (they’re not), there is a better solution than separation, such as a federal government that capitulates to their demands. But Justin Trudeau did not cause the oil price crash in 2014, Stephen Guilbeault wasn’t even elected until 2019 and wasn’t environment minister until 2021, none of them did anything to cause capital to flee the country (that was the oil price crash), and the oil companies themselves went along with the plans to reduce emissions, claiming they were committed to the goal (only to relevel that—surprise!—they were lying as soon as they had a federal government that was more willing to capitulate than hold them to their promises).

Honestly, fuck off with this revisionist history. Trudeau and Guilbeault didn't cause the world price of oil to crash in 2014. They did nothing to "shut in" Alberta's resources. Trudeau offered help to Alberta in 2015 when Harper didn't. www.readtheline.ca/p/jim-dinnin…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-15T02:44:22.717Z

The fact that the "remain" camp keeps telling everyone the lies about these fabricated grievances means that they are just accepting the separatists' arguments, and that just seems incredibly stupid because it's validating their false narratives. Can nobody have an honest conversation about 2014?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-15T02:44:22.718Z

I cannot stress enough that if you agree with the separatists’ lies, then you have already surrendered the field to them. You are saying that they’re right about the issues, but only wrong in the solutions, which is ridiculous. The “Lead Not Leave” crew also engages in the other false narratives about Albertans, that they are somehow unique examples of people who work harder and are more ingenious than the rest of the country, which isn’t true either. Alberta, when it was carved out of the Northwest Territories, happened to be rich in resources that the First Nations signed treaties to share. Albertans are not harder workers than anyone else. Their ability to extract resources was not thanks to something special about them—they got a shit tonne of federal dollars and special tax treatment.

Speaking as an Albertan, I cannot roll my eyes hard enough every time someone insists that Albertans are a separate people because of their "work ethic" and "entrepreneurial spirit," as though it was their hard work and ingenuity that put the oil in the ground in the first place.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-15T02:50:18.115Z

"Oh, but it was our ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit that developed the oil sands!"No, it was a fuckload of money and tax breaks courtesy of Jean Chrétien, both when he was Pierre Trudeau's finance minister and later prime minister. Not that you'll ever hear an Albertan admit that fact.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-10-15T03:10:23.265Z

Their good fortune is virtue! Cree first identified the oil sands. Europeans needed a Treaty to exploit it. And now Alberta (a non party) want to end said treaty through individual votes-which contravenes international law, Canadian law Cree law (per Sylvestre). open.alberta.ca/dataset/d5a7…

— Orlagh O’Kelly (@orlaghokelly.bsky.social) 2026-10-15T03:57:27.341Z

Groups like “Lead not leave” and the federal Conservatives who claim to be fighting for the remain side in this referendum rely on these lies and falsehoods to make their point, which is just conceding that the separatists have a point. Until any of them can have anything approaching an honest conversation about what happened in 2014 (and 1981 for that matter), we’re just perpetuating this same cycle of manufactured grievance and this referendum will solve nothing.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-10-14T13:08:03.510Z

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For National Magazine, I dig into the issue of “digital trade alignment” that the Americans were pursuing, and why that is a backdoor to attacking sovereignty.

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The most cynical of election calls

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Yesterday, BC premier David Eby went to Government House to request a dissolution in one of the most cynical moves I have ever witnessed politically, and now BC is dealing with simultaneous provincial and municipal elections. No, seriously. Municipalities vote on the 17th, and then provincial polls are on the 24th, which is suicidally stupid for any political operatives because your volunteers are now split between different campaigns. Eby made a big song and dance about how this is “necessary” because of the Trump threat—because apparently the thought to try and take a card from Doug Ford, who called his own unnecessary early election because he was worried that if Pierre Poilievre won the election federally then Ontario voters would turf him because of the silly notion that in Ontario, there is often a pattern of having opposite parties in charge federally and provincially (which is not a hard and fast rule in any way).

Of course, the real reason is that the opposition in BC is in complete disarray, and Eby wanted to take full advantage of that fact. The BC Conservatives just had their leader resign, and there are two other contenders on the right side of the spectrum—the centre-right CentreBC, which took in a lot of those Conservative defectors and was standing up a new party and had some big-name organisers attached, and the far-right OneBC. And then things got weird. A bunch of CentreBC MLAs, including the leader, headed back to the Conservatives now that Kerry-Lynne Findlay is gone, leaving just one CentreBC MLA in place, who automatically became the leader, and she’s not going back to the Conservatives, having been burned by them too badly. And then Kerry-Lynne Findlay’s husband left the Conservatives to join OneBC, which also gives you an idea about where the pair of them should have been all along. (Leader profiles here).

I don’t for a minute believe that the BC Conservatives’ problems were solve by Findlay’s departure, and that the party still has no existential ideology, and that they only exist to try and find advantageous voter math, which didn’t work for them the last time, and is unlikely to continue to work for them. (Timeline of the drama here). Parties need to have a reason to exist other than “We’re not the NDP,” and “uniting the right” keeps leading to all kinds of problems because there are whole segments on the right that you DO NOT want to “unite” with, and lo, both the UCP in Alberta and the BC Conservatives have found this out the hard way, and yet neither party seems to have learned this lesson. We’ve let mainstream centre-right parties radicalise and slide towards fascism in order to appease these worst possible elements (the alternative is that these worst possible elements simply don’t vote, and they want those votes), and nobody seems to have woken up to the fact that this is a very bad thing that we do not want in a Liberal democracy. And yet, nobody seems willing to stop them. Just the worst possible outcome, and it’s playing out in real-time in BC as this cynical exercise gets underway.

https://twitter.com/vancolour/status/2102409115696054670

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-09-22T13:08:01.985Z

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Greer’s version and his telling non-denials

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The info war aspect of our trade war is heating up, both in terms of childish tantrum—see Trump’s Instagram post of the bald eagle attacking the Canada goose (neglecting that in the end of that particular exchange, which was caught on video a couple of years ago, the goose eventually prevailed and drove the eagle off), but also American officials giving their version of what happened. Jamieson Greer was on CBC to insist that everything was fine on Tuesday night when Trump and prime minister Mark Carney spoke on the phone, and then at the last minute, the Canadians had new demands, presumably coming from the premiers. But there were some interesting omissions and non-denials in that interview, both ignoring the involvement of Howard Lutnick, and shrugging off disagreements around implementing that agreement, which is a pretty important detail. When the details of implementation include expanding just what is covered by auto tariffs, that’s a big detail, for example. And Greer did not deny that the point of this is to destroy the auto industry in Canada, trying to recast the Auto Pact and previous trade agreements as Canada somehow taking advantage of the American industry, which is hardly what happened. That non-denial spoke volumes, pretty much confirmed that this is the goal. (For more, Jennifer Robson goes through his responses and annotates them here).

Meanwhile, back in Canada, Scott Moe again roared that he didn’t want any hint of export taxes on energy or potash, nor is he going to take US booze off the shelves in the province—but he will subject it to an additional 50 percent tariff, which is the most useless symbolic gesture since most people are boycotting it of their own accord. As for Danielle Smith, she held a press conference and gave a dire warning about the effect of any export taxes, that it will force Americans to import heavy oil from Venezuela and it will cause a chain reaction and destroy the Canadian economy. I am dubious, not the least of which is that if you paid any attention to the discourse around the American kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, that the state of the oil industry in that country is so dire that it would take a decade of sustained investment to bring them back up to an export capacity that would threaten us, and no major oil company wants to invest because of their past investments being expropriated. So, I’m really not sure that Smith’s scenario is all that credible. I’m not saying there wouldn’t be retaliation, because you can bet there would be, but her scenario comes off as abject nonsense (while she continues to counsel capitulation). Smith also rejected the calls to cancel her referendums because of the trade war, like the Parti Québécois leader promised to hold off on. Smith claimed it’s because she’s following her “citizenship initiation” law, but she gamed those rules to ensure there would be a referendum, so this is her putting her own party problems above the nation, once again.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-08-26T19:08:03.507Z

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Roundup: The separatists continue their takeover

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Things in Alberta continue to go poorly for people who care about things like democracy and accountability, while separatist leaders are encouraging their followers to all take out UCP memberships so that they can nominate separatist candidates for the party in advance of the next election, so that they can further push Danielle Smith to ensure that they get their referendum, and everything they want to go with it. The party is de facto separatist already, as they control the bulk of the UCP grassroots mechanism, and this would just be completing the takeover provided that no centrist normies also take out memberships to stop them. That is, if they consider the UCP actually worth salvaging.

"I never thought leopards would eat MY face," sobs politician, who encouraged leopards to keep eating faces and hold province-wide vote on face-eating

— Mel Woods (@melwoods.me) 2026-05-11T16:28:13.006Z

The fact that when he created the party, Jason Kenney didn’t provide for any adequate failsafe mechanisms to prevent hostile takeovers is not unsurprising, considering how he crowed about how this would be a “grassroots party,” but then he chased out the centrist normies who would have provided a check on the absolute loons that came to dominate the membership. Of course, Kenney thought that he could control these face-eating leopards, while they noticed that this face was right there, so they ate it. And now Smith continues to believe that she too can control these leopards, even though they’ve fully backed her into a corner and she is doing their bidding rather than the other way around, and it’s only a matter of time before her face is fully eaten as well, while the province goes to absolute shit because she was too self-interested to do the right thing at any point in time.

Meanwhile, as the voter list leak scandal rolls along, it sounds like the UCP staffer that attended the Centurion Project webinar was the caucus executive director (which is an odd title), but she didn’t pass along any information to Smith’s office about the fact that they doxxed Jason Kenney and Rachel Notley as part of the demonstration. That’s kind of embarrassing for Smith, given that she chastised Naheed Nenshi for not informing her about what happened, while her own staffer was there, watched what went down, and thought it was a-okay and not worthy of reporting. That’s not good.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-05-11T13:08:04.717Z

Ukraine Dispatch

As attacks resumed on Ukraine, president Zelenskyy noted that Russia has no intention of ending the war. Ukraine has is making drone deals with some twenty countries, including Canada.

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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: Alberta uses Notwithstanding Clause against teachers

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The Alberta legislature sat until about 2 AM on Tuesday morning to pass their bill to end the teacher’s strike with the invocation of the Notwithstanding Clause, with time allocation limiting debate at each stage of the bill to a mere hour apiece, which makes this an affront to both parliamentary democracy, and the very notion of rights in the province given that Danielle Smith has decided there is little to fear from her tramping over them. Oh, and while the legislature was sitting until 2 AM, Smith herself was in an airport lounge on her way to Saudi Arabia.

There are too many disingenuous arguments made to justify invoking the Clause for me to rebut here, but suffice to say, merely saying that the Clause is part of the constitution therefore that justifies its use is horseshit, or that the Supreme Court of Canada invented a right to strike, therefore the Clause is justified to pushback against judicial activism is also motivated reasoning. Even more than that, Smith’s government is claiming they can’t meet the teachers’ demands because they’re too expensive is also risible—they’re the richest province in the country, but they made the choice to double down on resource royalties (whose value has been plunging) in order to cut taxes once again. This is self-inflicted, ideological, and one has to wonder when Albertans are going to wake up that their government is quite literally undermining the entire public sector in the province quite deliberately.

https://bsky.app/profile/lindsaytedds.bsky.social/post/3m4azh342fk27

Populations on whom Canadian governments have used or threatened to use the notwithstanding clause, allowing them to override Charter rights: – trans and nonbinary kids- religious minorities – homeless people – teachersedmontonjournal.com/news/politic…

— Anna Mehler Paperny (@mehlerpaperny.bsky.social) 2025-10-28T00:33:22.757Z

We’ll see what the next steps are in terms of responses, given that the teachers’ union has decided against work-to-rule, but for the moment, say goodbye to extra-curricular activities as teachers exempt themselves from them. There is talk of mass protest from other labour unions in the province, and a general strike is always a possibility. But can I just take a moment to say that those of you who are bringing out the “No Queens” stuff already to please just not. We live in a constitutional monarchy and we have a Queen, and aping American protests is lazy and gauche. Find a different slogan.

Guys. Come on.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-10-28T12:56:29.934Z

effinbirds.com/post/7810977…

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-10-28T21:22:02.896Z

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that he won’t cede land in any future peace talks, just in case you were wondering.

https://twitter.com/KI_Insight/status/1983180684031349128

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Roundup: The weird fixation on east coast LNG

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There was another report about Europeans looking for Canadian LNG, this time in The Logic in a conversation with the German ambassador. What it did not really mention was the actual business case—only that the “long timelines” involved was a reason why former prime minister Justin Trudeau said that there wasn’t a business case for it. The thrust of the piece is that demand maybe longer than just short-term because even rapid electrification will still require some gas, however there is a boatload of context about this that journalists who have this weird fetish for LNG never actually touch on.

First of all, this discussion is only about east coast LNG, not west coast, where the conditions are different, and where there a whole bunch of potential projects that are fully permitted, and have all of their approvals in place, but aren’t moving ahead because the market isn’t showing demand (and by demand, we mean signing long-term contracts to buy the product). While this was also the case on the east coast, it’s complicated by the lack of ready supply of natural gas to liquify. Neither Quebec nor New Brunswick are about to start fracking for the sake of domestic supply, and the costs to bring a pipeline from western Canada to New Brunswick for export purposes is a lot to consider when we think about what is “long term.” That means supply is likely to becoming from the US, and that in turn will drive up local prices because they’re competing with the theoretical export terminal. To add to that, the “long term” we need to keep in mind is that these kinds of plants need to be operating for a good forty years or so to get their money’s worth. Is anyone in Europe thinking about the infrastructure necessary on that kind of time scale? Unlikely, and unlikely at that time scale for the kinds of prices that Canada would be offering, which are higher than they could get elsewhere.

What do they mean by "long-term"? Because these kinds of projects need a 40-year lifespan or so to actually get their money's worth, by which time we'll be well past net-zero goals.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-09-25T13:37:04.762Z

This is why these stories never actually make sense, because those journalists never actually talk to an energy economist about it, or if they do, it goes right out the other ear while they maintain this weird fixation on LNG. I’m not quite sure what it’s in service of—have they simply absorbed the propaganda of the oil and gas industry, who say dumb and wrong things like how our fossil fuels are the “cleanest” (they absolutely are not), or worse, that it will displace coal (the final emissions profile is not that much lower than coal, and as David Cochrane is the only journalist to push back on this talking point, there is no guarantee that they wouldn’t just use Canadian LNG in addition to coal rather than displacing it)? Or is this some kind of sad attempt at playing gotcha with Trudeau and the business case line? Because certain journalists are relentless in badgering and hectoring European leaders about this, and it’s just weird, and just completely ignorant of the facts on the ground.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian attack on Chernihiv meant power cuts for 70,000 people. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte says that members can target Russian planes that enter their airspace as necessary. And president Zelenskyy says he is ready to leave office once the war is over.

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Roundup: No First Ladies in Canada, so stop asking

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Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I’m going to sigh and rub the bridge of my nose, and maybe massage my temples a few times of this particular doozy of a piece in The Walrus about Mark Carney’s wife, Diana Fox Carney. The subhed refers to her as the “unofficial First Lady,” but in the story itself, it just refers to her as a “First Lady” along with other spouses of heads of state or heads of government interchangeably, and I just can’t you guys.

Guys. Stop it.Canada's "First Lady" is Queen Camilla. Stop trying to import Americanisms, even if you try and couch them in "unofficial" status.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-09-15T11:44:05.416Z

First of all, it matters that we’re a constitutional monarchy and not a presidential republic. That means that our “First Lady,” if we were to have one, would be Queen Camilla. If you were discounting the Canadian monarch, the next candidate would be the spouse of the Governor General (who once upon a time was called the “Chatelaine/Chatelain of Rideau Hall” as an unofficial title). Yes, this matters, in particular because the difference between a head of state and a head of government matters a great deal, particularly when it comes to the kind of role they play within government, and just because the American system fuses the two together, that’s pretty much unique in the world, and is a far cry from how our Westminster system operates. And right at nearly the very bottom of the piece, she writes:

In this way, being a first lady in Canada is fundamentally different from being one in the US, where the position, while unofficial, comes with an office and staff. In Canada, the prime minister’s spouse has no formal role or institutional support, and technically isn’t even the partner of a head of state. As a result, the title “first lady” doesn’t really apply in the same way.

No kidding! In fact, it undermines the whole gods damned point of your story. You just tried to compare apples and hedgehogs, tried to mash two fundamentally different concepts together, and then was like “Oh well, maybe she’ll get more active at some point!” No! We don’t elect spouses, and they don’t have a role for a reason. If she wants to have a role, she should seek a seat. (This especially goes for Poilievre’s wife, by the way). But trying to jam the spouse of a prime minister into the “First Lady” box is both fundamentally wrong, and a sign of really lazy conceptualizing of how our system of government works. The Walrus should absolutely know better.

Speaking of terrible reporting, the Globe and Mail put out a story yesterday that had the headline that “Liberal staffers strategized over $1-billion loan for Chinese ferries while Freeland dismissed federal connection,” which sounds like they were maybe somehow involved in the loan or procurement while claiming otherwise. But no. The story was about how comms staffers in ministers’ offices were trying to spin the story. That’s it. I saw lots of reactions on social media from people who read the headline and assumed that something hinky was going on that should be looked into by parliamentarians, but no. It’s about comms staffers spinning. Can we just not? This was not a story, and it especially was not a story about some kind of cover-up.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-09-14T20:02:07.093Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a massive attack against Zaporizhzhia, killing at least one and injuring at least seven so far. International monitors say that cluster munitions have resulted in over 1200 civilian casualties since the Russian invasion began in 2022.

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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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