Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Roundup: The Auditor General on F-35s and ArriveCan

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Yesterday saw the release of the Auditor General and Environment Commissioner’s reports, and lo, these ones actually got a tonne of media attention and took centre stage in Question Period, which is a far cry from most of their recent reports. The reason, of course, is that the topics were sexy—F-35 fighter jets and the ArriveCan app gong show in particular, the latter of which the Conservatives have been salivating over for three years now, which made the day pretty much insufferable as a result. But there was more than just those.

  • The F-35 procurement costs have ballooned because of delays, pilot shortages, infrastructure, and inflation but acknowledged the Canadian government has little control over most of these factors.
  • CBSA failed to follow procurement and security rules when it used GC Strategies to contract out work on ArriveCan, and didn’t follow-up to ensure work had been done before more contracts were awarded.
  • Public Services and Procurement has been slow to modernise and downsize office space, and turn over surplus buildings for housing.
  • Indigenous Services has failed to process Indian Act status applications within the required six-month timeline, with a backlog having grown to over 12,000 applications.
  • The climate adaptation plan is falling short, with only one of its three pillars in place and little connection between spending and results.

I’m not sure that the F-35 news is all that surprising, but it does actually work to either justify a potential move away from the platform, or to reflect increases in defence spending calculations. The GC Strategies findings are also not unexpected, but one thing the Conservatives have been failing to mention is that CBSA is an arms’-length agency, so ministers had no real say over any of its contracting practices (as the Conservatives try to insist that any minister who had carriage on the file should be fired). Meanwhile, their narrative that this was somehow about “Liberal friends” was never mentioned in the report, nor was there any mention about partisan considerations, or indication that the firm had any connection to the government, so these are just rage-bait accusations used solely for the performance art, which is how most things go with these guys.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-10T21:22:14.366Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Tuesday’s attack from Russia was one of its largest strikes on Kyiv, which also hit civilian targets in Odesa, and Kharkiv was subjected to a nine-minute-long drone attack that killed at least two and injured 54. Another prisoner swap took place yesterday, this time for an undisclosed number of sick and wounded soldiers.

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Roundup: More provincial buck-passing, FCM edition

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The Federation of Canadian Municipalities had their big conference in Ottawa over the past couple of days, and there were a host of mayors and councillors on the Hill to meet with MPs. Yesterday afternoon, Mark Carney addressed their conference to basically give the same speech he’s been giving for the past couple of weeks about things like “moving to delay to delivery,” and so on. But I did find it interesting that as part of this address to the FCM, he essentially told them that he’ll be too busy with nation-building projects to reform municipal funding structures.

It’s kind of funny, but at the same time, I have to ask how that’s actually his job, or the job of the federal government at all. Cities are creatures of provincial legislation. If you want to reform their funding structures, the provinces need to sit down and hammer that out, unless you want to start amending the constitution, and I’m pretty sure that nobody wants to open that particular Pandora’s Box (which, incidentally, was not a box but a jar). We could let cities collect their own income or sales taxes, or other forms of financing that would be better than simply property taxes, but provinces refuse, and in some cases, have specifically legislated against it. And we’ve known for decades now that cities have funding challenges that they need something to be done about, but have provinces responded? Of course not. They simply demand the federal government send them more money.

With this in mind, Toronto mayor Olivia Chow was also here for the FCM meeting, and she says she is encouraged by Carney’s sense of urgency on tackling the housing crisis, but again, she too is here calling for the federal government to directly intervene with money. One thing she has proposed is for necessary infrastructure to build more housing, for the federal government to basically pay the municipality’s one-third share (so they essentially pay two-thirds and the province pay the other third), and it’s just so infuriating. The federal government is not the purse for every other jurisdiction. Provinces have the very same revenue-generating tools as the federal government does, but they refuse to use them because they would rather beg for money and let the federal government be the bad guy with their taxes than the province. This kind of absolute immaturity is just exhausting, and it’s one of the reasons why things just aren’t getting done in this country.

Or ever, if we're being honest.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-05-30T13:30:00.766Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia’s massive drone attack overnight Thursday injured two people in Kharkiv, and hit a town that sits on the border with Romania, which is a NATO member.

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Roundup: Delay to delivery?

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The new natural resource minister, Tim Hodgson, gave a speech in Calgary yesterday and everyone in the energy sector was all hot and bothered because he insisted that they were moving to a culture of delivery instead of delay. And you’ll have to forgive my cynicism, but that seems to completely ignore what the actual issues of delay have been, and if you say “Liberal regulation!” you’re going to get a smack. The premise of saying they need “one project, one review” ignores that that’s been the case for ages now—there are no duplicative reviews, because federal and provincial reviews look at different things, and on projects where they had shared jurisdiction, they set up a joint review panel so that it was *gasp!* one review. Anyone who says they were mired in duplication is frankly not being that honest.

The real issue has been proper consultation, which is what leads projects to wind up in litigation, particularly from Indigenous groups. Harper’s attempt to reform assessments to “streamline” them meant that most of those projects wound up in litigation because, well, they ignored their obligations. In some cases, like Northern Gateway, the Conservatives ignored the process that they put into place for meaningful consultation, and well, the project died on the vine as a result. And with BC and Ontario both pushing legislation to “streamline” projects which basically means bulldozing over environmental and Indigenous obligations, well, that’s all going to wind up in litigation too. This was the whole point of the Impact Assessment Act that Jason Kenney in particularly successfully villainized—it was to ensure proper consultation up-front, at the design phase of a project, so that the rest of the process would go faster because you did the hard work at the beginning. But it became the subject of lies and disinformation, and yes, the federal government’s attempt to exert jurisdiction over certain projects because the polluting effects cross borders didn’t convince the Supreme Court of Canada, but that didn’t render the entire statute or the issues of up-front consultation obsolete or moot, and nobody seems to want to explain that part.

One more thing about Hodgson’s speech was the he singled out Pathways Alliance as a project he wants to see move forward. I’m really hoping that this means he’s telling them to put up or shut up, because we know that they basically went dark because their claims about building a massive carbon capture and storage hub were overblown and they were about to face legal consequences for greenwashing thanks to new powers for the Competition Bureau. And frankly, the whole point of the emissions cap was to tell the energy sector to put up or shut up—that they have been boasting about how they’re going to reduce their emissions, so when the government basically told them to prove it, suddenly they started crying about how this as a “production cap” and it was unfair to them. Girl, please. You insisted you could do this, so prove it.

Meanwhile, we’ve had our first glimpse into Mark Carney’s PMO, and while he’s insistent on punctuality, business attire, and UK spellings (hooray!), and decision paralysis is not setting in (so far), he’s also starting to micromanage all kinds of things that he shouldn’t be, which sounds an awful lot like a Harper trait. Part of the problem so far is a lack of a proper chief of staff, and that ministers haven’t staffed up yet either, and yet he wants to operate at a breakneck pace. But there are other warning signs—because he doesn’t understand politics, he really hasn’t given thought to how to navigate a minority House of Commons, to say nothing of the Senate (ahem), and not knowing how to deal with Parliament could lead to a situation where the Conservatives can team up with the Bloc and the NDP yet again to start frustrating anything passing once again—and for all of their talk about working together and getting things done, don’t think for a second that they’re actually not more interested in scoring points and embarrassing the Liberals. Trudeau lost the ability to manage these things, in part because of disinterest, and we’ll see if Carney doesn’t make the same mistake.

Ukraine Dispatch

There was a massive missile and drone attack against Kyiv overnight, which has injured at least eight people (Photos). Ukraine and Russia exchanged 390 prisoners each on Friday, marking one of the largest swaps since the war began.

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Roundup: 611 votes short

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In more election fallout, it looks like the Liberals were just 611 votes, between two Ontario ridings and Nunavut, from getting a majority Parliament. That’s an incredibly close number for this race, and once again goes to show how every vote really does count, particularly in smaller ridings. There is also some pretty good analysis from the numbers to show that all those southwestern Ontario seats that went Conservative was not because of progressive vote-splitting, but because they were quite clearly turned off of the NDP. That clarity is going to matter if the party wants to start rethinking their path forward. Oh, and the vast majority of NDP candidates didn’t make their ten percent vote threshold for Elections Canada rebates, so the party is going to really be hurting financially for the next couple of years.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1917541319209046324

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1917541365925253229

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1917678086385959124

Elsewhere, every legacy media journalist is trying to get a story about NDP MPs crossing the floor to the Liberals (they won’t), or about Elizabeth May either becoming Speaker or getting into Cabinet, neither of which is going to happen. Ever. Especially Speaker because, as much as I respect May, nobody in the House of Commons is going to vote to put her in the Big Chair because they don’t want a sanctimonious scold in the position. There’s a reason they have voted in incredibly weak chairs for the past couple of Parliaments, and why they didn’t vote for Geoff Regan a second time when he was being a firmer hand. Stop indulging in these stupid fantasies. It’s not going to happen. Oh, and no, official party status isn’t something that is going to be negotiated, much as Don Davies likes to claim that the magic number of 12 MPs is “arbitrary,” but it’s not. You need that many MPs to fit onto committees, and that’s already doubling up. You physically cannot have enough MPs to be in all places when there are six+ committees meeting at the same time outside of QP.

Meanwhile, taking advantage of Carney’s win for her own ends is Danielle Smith, who introduced a very Trump-like package of electoral law amendments which brings back big corporate money into Alberta politics, feeds conspiracy theories, and lowers the threshold for citizen-initiated referendums, and while she didn’t outright say she would bring a separation referendum, essentially encouraged someone else to, and they already started gathering signatures. You might ask whose interest this serves, and the answer is hers, in part because she is facing a major growing scandal about health services procurement that is getting bigger by the day, and the former Cabinet minister she has since expelled from caucus, who tried speaking up about the issue, tabled a bunch more documents about what he knew, and it’s pretty damning stuff. So, what is Smith’s best weapon of mass-distraction? Stoking separatist sentiment, pretending she’s not behind it, and watching it take over the news cycle. It’s terrible, and nobody should take their eye off the ball while she pulls the fire alarm.

"If you or any other Canadians are not happy living on Treaty lands, they are free to apply for citizenship elsewhere."Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation issues a scathing rebuke of Danielle Smith's talks on a national unity crisis.

— Courtney Theriault (@ctheriault.bsky.social) 2025-05-01T03:29:35.719Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones attacked Odesa early morning, killing two and injuring at least five. A Ukrainian drone strike hit a weapons factory in Russia. South Korean intelligence says that some 600 North Korean troops have been killed out of a deployment of 15,000 soldiers.

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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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Roundup: A disinformation fest in the English debate

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Day twenty-six, and the second day of debates. Both Mark Carney and Jagmeet Singh had photo ops in Montreal before the debate, while Pierre Poilievre stayed quiet. And it looks like no one is downing tools today, in spite of it being a statutory holiday—Carney will be in Niagara Falls, followed by Colborne and Brantford. I didn’t get Poilievre’s itinerary, while Singh starts the day in Yamachiche, Quebec, and then ends the day in Burnaby, BC.

In other campaign news, the Conservatives had other incumbents release the second part of their Arctic defence policy, and it appears that they didn’t consult with any Northerners or Inuit for this part either.

And then the English debate, or as it should more properly be called, a disinformation fest. The sheer volume of utter horseshit uttered was absolutely astonishing, and yet nobody was challenged or called out on hardly any of it. Steve Paikin as moderator had a fairly light tough for much of it, and allowed a lot of talking over one another, but did keep things moving at a fairly good clip in order to have a couple of rapid-fire rounds at the end, though near the end, there was a “Leader’s Choice” segment where each leader could ask a question of one another, and everyone chose Carney to attack (quelle surprise), while Carney picked Poilievre, and returned to the security clearance issue (which Poilievre yet again lied about). I also note that at the top of each thematic section, Paikin asked a different question of each of the leaders, so they weren’t answering the same and made it hard to compare them.

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3ln2atae4lk2y

Poilievre is again lying about "printing money" and inflation. Carney: "I know you want to run against Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau is not here." #debate

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-18T00:41:27.247Z

Poilievre lying about being "gagged" if he gets his security clearance. He would merely need to be responsible in his commentary, which he refuses to do. #debate

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-18T00:46:11.096Z

As for the leaders themselves, Carney again kept his cool, even when constantly being talked over, and just kept trying to make his point with “If I may,” before they shut up. I also noted that he would keep saying how many points he had for responses before listing those points, but he also did have the occasional misspeak (for example referring to TMX as “Keystone.”) Poilievre pretty much spent the whole exercise lying about absolutely everything, shamelessly, and was not challenged on about 99 percent of it, which doesn’t help the average viewer. Singh was a little less hyper than last night, and we avoided any tantrums tonight, because the moderator did give him the chance to talk about healthcare, but also challenged him on it about the jurisdictional issue, which Singh, of course, talked around rather than answering. And as for Blanchet, he kept trying to make a pitch for a minority parliament where he can exert influence. He also demanded that whoever becomes prime minister call the other leaders to meet one week after the election in order to discuss the various crises we’re facing. (Here are the recaps from The Canadian Press, CBC, National Post, and the Star, and six takeaways from the debate).

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3ln2afzfgac22

Poilievre's dodge on Indigenous incarceration was astounding. Just absolutely amazing that he could get away with that. #debate

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-17T23:42:39.614Z

Paikin actually corners Singh on how he would deal with provinces who don't want to spend his healthcare dollars the way he wants. Singh just talks around it, doesn't actually say how he would force the provinces. #debate

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-04-18T00:19:58.773Z

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3ln2bndu4ds2h

The other notable part of the evening was that the post-debate scrums were cancelled, because of an ostensible safety issue after Rebel media started trying to accost other journalists, including trying to interrupt CBC’s broadcast before the debate. The fact that the Debate Commission’s chair didn’t even realise that Rebel and Ezra Levant had registered as third party advertisers with Elections Canada should have meant an automatic disqualification, but he said he was so afraid of losing another lawsuit meant he just caved to their demands, which is yet again another sign of democracy being under assault in this country.

Debates Commission has cancelled the post-debate scrums after this English leaders debate. This cancellation follows an altercation prior to the debate involving Rebel News and other journalists. #elxn45

— davidakin (@davidakin.bsky.social) 2025-04-18T00:23:05.379Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian missiles struck Kharkiv, killing one and injuring at least 57, as president Zelenskyy notes that Russia has shifted from targeting energy facilities to civilian targets. Russians on the front lines appear to be shifting to using mass-assault tactics as they try to advance. Ukraine says they have signed a memorandum as a first step toward a mineral deal with the US, which would involve setting up an investment fund for Ukraine’s reconstruction.

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1913102312286900366

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Roundup: No reporters on the plane

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The Conservatives have declared that there will be no media contingent on their campaign plane or busses, while still mouthing words like claiming they’ll be the “most transparent” campaign out there. (Full letter here). They won’t be, of course, because not allowing journalists on the plane/bus means that they can’t see unscripted moments (from their limited vantage point), but stage-management is much of what this is really about—giving that added bit of message control that the Conservatives are very desperate to maintain.

The claim they are advancing is that they’ll give two- or three-days’ advance notice of stops so that local media can be there, or that national media can fly (last minute, driving up costs), and that people can use “technology” to connect to the campaign, but that generally means relying on the party’s infrastructure and feeds, which allows for greater chances of manipulation (especially if they delay their feed). And before you say it, yes, media do pay for seats on that plane/busses. Thousands of dollars. For comparison’s sake, the Liberals’ proposed fees for the campaign were $1,500 per day; $6,600 per week; or $33,500 for the full campaign. Those fees cover travel, food, access to filing rooms, and Wi-Fi (but not hotels). So let me reiterate—this isn’t about costs, it’s about control. And because the Conservatives claim that they will balance local and national coverage at events, we’ve seen what this means in recent press conferences, where they refused questions from English-language national media, and only took questions from local ethnocultural outlets, and so-called “independent” faux-news outlets like Rebel “News” or Juno.

Ukraine Dispatch

Putin claimed he was willing to engage in a thirty-day ceasefire on energy infrastructure only (which doesn’t mean much given that this is the time of year Russia would be letting up on attacking those targets—they prefer to do so in the winter to freeze out the Ukrainians), and lo, continued to bomb other civilian targets. Some “ceasefire.” Ukraine then stopped an attempted Russian incursion into the Sumy region, because of course.

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Roundup: PM Carney’s first day

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At around 1030 yesterday morning, Justin Trudeau formally submitted his resignation to the Governor General, and for the next thirty or so minutes was the interregnum period during which *gasp!* His Majesty had nobody to advise him. Shortly after eleven, Mark Carney took the oath, and became prime minister, followed by oaths sworn by his entire Cabinet (save Mélanie Joly, who was still at the G7 ministerial, and would be sworn-in later in the afternoon, missing the “family photo.”) (Photos of the Cabinet arriving at Rideau Hall here).

It’s now official. Carney is the PM.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-14T15:31:46.298Z

The Cabinet was indeed decidedly smaller, and not quite gender-balanced—thirteen men, not counting Carney, and eleven women, and there was no one from Alberta or PEI in Cabinet, with only two ministers west of Thunder Bay—Terry Duguid and Jonathan Wilkinson. Carney also did not include the Leader of the Government in the Senate (which is a mistake), and the fact that he jammed Women and Gender Equality under Stephen Guilbeault in “Canadian Identity” sends a signal, as does putting both labour and employment under “Jobs,” considering that they serve very different interests. Chrystia Freeland was given the post of transport minister and internal trade (now that Anita Anand has done the heavy lifting on that file), while Karina Gould was excluded. There was some rumbling that Carney was signalling a more rightward shift with these choices, but Nate Erskine-Smith is definitely very progressive, as is Patty Hajdu.

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3lkdzo5jjqc2o

During his brief media scrum after the swearing-in, Carney resurrected the hateful phrase from Stephen Harper, circa 2006-08 of “Canada’s New Government™.” Nope. Stop it. He was asked about his assets and he only confirmed that they are in a blind trust, and pivoted to pointing out that much of it came from work in the private sector, which Poilievre hasn’t done, and later pivoted another response to Poilievre’s lack of a security clearance. Carney also confirmed that he will be heading to London and Paris early next week to meet with European allies and not to Washington to meet with Trump, but would not confirm when he plans to call the election.

Oh no, Carney has resurrected "Canada's New Government™".

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-14T17:11:58.369Z

From there, the Cabinet headed to West Block for a meeting, during which Carney put on a show of signing a piece of paper that claims to effectively end the consumer carbon levy, ostensibly by signing an Order-in-Council to set the rate to zero…but that was not an Order in Council. So, our oh-so-serious banker is performing stunts for the camera. *siiiiiiiiiiigh* He also said the rebates would still be going out for this quarter, but the whole thing has been vague (just like Carney’s entire leadership campaign). Carney claimed that the levy “failed,” but it didn’t. What failed was the government’s ability communicate their way out of a wet paper bag in that they couldn’t defend it against either the lies of the Conservatives, or the shitty job of the Parliamentary Budget Officer in his reports (that bordered on mendacity), or in getting an actual message across to the media rather than expecting the media to learn the policy and fact-check the lies, which they were absolutely never going to do. So now we will have a costlier and less efficient climate policy that will pass along costs to consumers who won’t get a rebate. Brilliant job, everyone. Slow clap.

I have questions.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-14T20:39:22.943Z

Here are some quick quotes in reaction to the transition. The Conservatives’ front-bench spent the entire day shitposting and trying to make mean memes, because that’s where we are in Canadian politics, in spite of everything that is going on around us. Oh, and Scott Moe forwarded a list of demands to Carney, because of course he did. Zeus help us.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile attack hit a residential area of Kryvyi Rih, injuring at least a dozen people. After an appeal by Trump, Putin says he’ll spare any Ukrainian soldiers still in Kursk region if they surrender (and we know how well Russians have been treating their prisoners, and how readily he’ll keep his word). Ukrainian drones hit two Russian gas compressor stations.

Many concessions have been made to Putin. Yet he still won't agree to a ceasefire. Read @mcfaulmike.bsky.social

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-03-14T20:20:53.920Z

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Roundup: Moving onto the dairy front

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The trade war seemed slightly more stable yesterday as the reprieve on most goods seemed to be holding, but it took no time at all for Trump to start musing about new, invented grievances and irritants. The latest is the dairy sector, for which there are limits as to how much the US can export to Canada tariff-free, but again, Trump has blown this out of proportion in his own mind. And as a result, he threatened 250 percent tariffs on Canadian dairy…but we don’t really export to them, certainly not liquid milk in large part because of the Supply Management system, so that would have very little impact on our industry.

The thing that did have people worried was fresh news out of the New York Times that Trump’s annexation talk has moved into threats about tearing up boundary treaties, particularly around things like the Great Lakes and cross-border river systems, and moving into things like shared military operations and NORAD, and after the floated threats about the Five Eyes a couple of weeks ago, it’s hard to ignore any of these threats, and why there needs to be a very concerted effort by the government to make plans for how we’re going to deal with this once it happens, because we know that nothing is off the table with Trump any longer.

I’m generally not into White House drama, but following it becomes more necessary than I’d like to admit these days. To that end, here is a look at an explosive meeting in the Cabinet room where several cabinet secretaries unloaded on Elon Musk, which wound up reining him in (somewhat, for now). But oh, man, the absolute stupidity of what is happening in that administration is boggling. As well, here’s a look at how framing the Trump presidency through the lens of reality television helps to make some of the chaos make a little more sense.

https://twitter.com/josheakle/status/1898212255604568305

Ukraine Dispatch

After the US cut off military aid, including access to satellite imagery for Ukraine, Russia launched a major missile attack, which targeted energy infrastructure, killed four in the eastern town of Dobropillia, while another five died in attacks in the Donetsk region. The Ukrainian forces within Kursk region appear to be nearly surrounded by Russians, though there have been counteroffensives in the past few days. Ukrainian drones did attack the Kirishi refinery.

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Roundup: First day retaliation

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[Clone Wars newsreel voice] Trade war! The American president has unleashed 25 percent tariffs across the board against allies Canada and Mexico, in violation of existing trade agreements. Retaliatory tariffs have been levied in response, and Canadian leaders are expressing their shock and dismay at what is clearly a plan to weaken our economy for annexation. But the retaliation is also coming with threats of further escalation…

It was indeed unprecedented in our lifetimes for a Canadian prime minister to stand up and blatantly call out an American president for the outright threat of annexation, and for his cozying up to Putin. Trudeau busted the notion that this was ever about the border or fentanyl, and promised further non-tariff measures to come.

On counter-tariffs. Yes they hurt one's own country more than the other country.But that's not the right way to think about it. The point is to inflict pain on the other country to make them stop their tariffs, even if self-painful.I don't like broad counter-tariffs, but use 'em where painful.

— Kevin Milligan (@kevinmilligan.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T16:41:41.923Z

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3ljkwaokc3c2w

Provincial premiers each lined up to offer their own retaliation, much of which came in the form of removing American booze from liquor store shelves, but Doug Ford threatened export taxes on energy, and Danielle Smith (who is in a state of shock for being “betrayed” by Trump) said she wouldn’t do that…but they don’t have the power to levy them or not, because that power is federal. I’m sure they think that these performances make them look serious and tough, but would it kill a single premier to learn what their actual constitutional powers actually are before they start talking in front of the cameras? (And for everyone who is once again a newfound fan of Ford because of said performance, give your heads a shake).

Federally, Jagmeet Singh called for Parliament to be summoned for an emergency session, but offered no guarantees about how long he would let it last before he decided to vote non-confidence, and the real kicker there is that implementation for any measures they want voted on takes time, which is a concept the NDP have never been able to actually grasp. As for Pierre Poilievre, his own speech largely consisted of him insisting that he’s not MAGA, blaming the Liberals for getting us to this point, and repeating his same slogans and policy demands that he’s always made, and insisted that any funds from counter-tariffs go to tax cuts, which is Trump’s whole plan for tariffs. It’s the exact same plan, but he’s totally “not MAGA,” and is proving it in a very weird way. Oh, and no, building more pipelines and refineries isn’t going to solve any problems, guys.

Consider this a reminder especially for the NDP, who seem to think that once a bill is passed, implementation happens instantly.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T19:09:05.571Z

There is little distance given that he expressly said he intends to use tariff revenue to fuel tax cuts in Canada. He is nothing more than mini-Trump.

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T18:57:36.457Z

Tax cuts do little to aid those who are already and will lose their jobs. Tax cuts were what PP offered as a solution to the pandemic. Look back to March 2020 when he offered that as the solution to the pandemic. Like it or not, we don't need tax cuts, we need employment support programs.

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-03-04T19:01:41.462Z

And then, toward the end of the day, Trump’s commerce secretary says that they might come to some kind of compromiseon the tariffs later today. Maybe, and it “won’t be a pause.” Because they all think they’re playing 3D chess here.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian drones hit an industrial target in the Russian city of Syrzan. Reuters has a look at the effect of the halt on US’ military aid for Ukraine, and the aid that other allies have provided (to date).

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