Tag Archives: The Monarchy

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: A “summit” that achieved nothing

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So, that Trump-Putin meeting went about as well as expected. Trump literally rolled out the red carpet for a murderer and war criminal, gave him a military flypast, and then invited him into his limo (even though Putin brought his own), which freaked out every single security expert on social media and television, because they were alone together, and nobody knows if Trump explained to him the security measures in the vehicle, or if anything else was said with no one else around to hear.

The meeting went nowhere, in spite of talk about an “understanding,” and in the press conference after, Putin went first, spoke at length, flattered Trump obsequiously, and Trump rambled at his incoherent best about how they didn’t come to an agreement, and they didn’t take any questions at the end. But they were chummy, and Trump still thinks he’s Putin’s best friend, and the war will continue, as we all knew it would.

I continue to be struck by Putin's confidence in the idea that he can play Trump. His whole remarks stuck to the idea that the only barriers to peace are Ukraine and Europe. Not even a hat tip to what Russia wants or expects from a deal. Just total bullshit and Trump flattery.

— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) 2025-08-15T23:29:30.125Z

The fact that they didn't take questions seems to be a tacit acknowledgement that they got nowhere and have nothing to say. At best, Trump is going to be irate that the bombardment of Ukraine continues after today.At worst, Trump is going to be sucked into a vortex of time-wasting summits.

— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) 2025-08-15T23:30:37.487Z

The Kremlin just dropped this clip of Putin and Trump getting chummy post-press conference.

— Justin Ling (@justinling.ca) 2025-08-15T23:41:32.030Z

Just to hammer this in:I don't know of an example in US history of comparable *in-person humiliation* for a US president. And of course for the country. Trump will soon realize how visibly he was "owned." In view of the whole world.

— James Fallows (@jfallows.bsky.social) 2025-08-16T00:17:22.899Z

The meeting was a disaster for everyone except two people. Trump got his photo op and his ego boost. Putin got his photo op, whitewashing of war crimes and no sanctions. No one in Ukraine, Europe or the United States benefited in any way.

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-08-16T04:12:52.329Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ahead of the meeting, Russia attacked Dnipropetrovsk with missiles, killing at least one and wounding at least one other. Ukrainian drones hit the Syzrn oil refinery in Russia’s Samara region.

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Roundup: The First Hogue Report

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On a very busy Friday, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue released the first report of the foreign interference public inquiry, to some moderate fanfare. Much of it was broadly what was in the Johnston report, but with some more nuance, which left some of it open to degrees of interpretation, some partisans claiming it proves there was meddling, others leaning on the parts where she said that what there was wasn’t enough to amount to changing an election outcome, and there certainly wasn’t some grand effort by China to win the election for the Liberals. At most, it might have cost Kenny Chiu his seat, and there remained questions about Han Dong’s nomination, but even there, there wasn’t a lot of evidence to prove or disprove anything one way of the other.

To that end, key points, and five things from the report. It wasn’t just China, but India, Pakistan, Iran, and a few others. Some candidates in the 2019 election “appeared willing” to engage in foreign interference, with more staff members implicated, around advancing the interests of China, but there weren’t any firm conclusions about who much any foreign interference actually tipped the scales in any one riding. The government also announced that they are tabling legislation on Monday, which is likely to include the foreign agent registry, and possibly some updates to CSIS’ mandate and powers.

Justice Hogue did make a couple of comments about nominations being a possible gateway for foreign interference, but that’s something that would be hard for governments or agencies to do much to involve themselves in because of how parties operate as private clubs, by necessity. That said, as I wrote in this column a couple of weeks ago, open nominations are practically extinct in the current moment so perhaps there isn’t that much danger after all.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Debris from destroyed drones fell on Kharkiv, injuring three and starting a fire. Russia says it has pushed Ukrainians back from 547 square kilometres so far this year, as Americans delayed their crucial aid shipments.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1786364727032971377

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Roundup: Danielle Smith’s municipal power grab

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The Alberta government tabled a bill yesterday that gives them sweeping new powers as it relates to municipalities in the province, leaving a lot of questions as to why. Constitutionally they do have this ability, as municipalities are creatures of the province, but the motivation is the real question. Among the changes are allowing political parties to run in municipal elections in Edmonton and Calgary, which I have to wonder if this isn’t for some kind of back-handed partisan purposes, so that they can point to how many counsellors identify as NDP, Liberals, or C/conservative as opposed to having to guess under the current system, but it’s a change nobody really asked for. I am of two minds with it, because it could provide more resources and better nomination processes…but it would also create expectations between the provincial party and the municipal party, and that is something I’m not sure anyone would really look to as being a good thing.

The bill also seeks to ban electronic tabulators in municipal elections (which I’m not wholly opposed to because I prefer hand-counting ballots whenever possible), but the real thrust has to do with the ability to terminate councillors, and with overturning bylaws, and this seems to be the big one, because they are particularly butthurt that certain municipalities have implemented single-use plastic bans, and that’s far too “woke” for this provincial government. Better to overrule the decisions that those elected officials made and will be accountable to their voters for, and just strike those bylaws entirely.

As for the ability to terminate sitting councillors, the minister insists this is only for extremely serious cases (of which I can’t think of any in Alberta—we’ve had a couple in Ontario and one in Ottawa particularly), but just who decides what that threshold is are the premier and Cabinet, so it’s not like there is much in the way of safeguards, and if you’re giving this power to premier and Cabinet, to overturn an election in a municipality, is asking for it to be abused—particularly when you have someone like Danielle Smith in charge of those powers. I foresee a future gong show, because this is Danielle Smith’s Alberta we’re talking about.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian shelling killed three in the Donetsk region, while a missile attack against the Kharkiv region hit a railway station, wounding ten. Another Russian missile damaged critical rail infrastructure in the central Cherkasy region. Meanwhile, while the soon-to-be arriving new tranche of US aid is going to help Ukraine rebuild its defences, it is unlikely to recover it enough to resume a counter-offensive anytime soon.

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Roundup: Simping for the return of Stephen Harper

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Yesterday, former Conservative campaign manager and current media darling Fred DeLorey wrote a column for iPolitics that posited that under a Pierre Poilievre government, appointing Stephen Harper to the Cabinet post of foreign affairs would be a “bold declaration of Canada’s readiness to assume a pivotal role in shaping global affairs.” It’s a…novel…argument, and while I will admit that I haven’t read the piece because my subscription has lapsed, I wanted to make a few points regardless.

The first point is that while it is possible for a prime minister to appoint a minister who doesn’t have a seat, the convention is that they find one as soon as possible, whether in the Commons or in the Senate, because otherwise they can’t report to Parliament or sponsor legislation without needing a proxy to do it for them. Harper himself appointed Michael Fortier to the Senate in order to serve as minister of public works, and later international trade. (Fortier resigned from the Senate to run for a seat in the Commons in the next election and was soundly defeated). I find the notion of Harper being given a Senate seat to be far too ironic considering his utter disdain for the institution, and in particular its appointed nature. The alternative is asking one of Poilievre’s MPs to resign in a safe seat to run a by-election for Harper to run in, but again, I have seen zero desire on his part to get back into electoral politics. He’s also a one-man show, and the party is still very much his cult of personality, three leaders later, so I have a hard time envisioning him being a team player and not undermining Poilievre’s authority at every turn.

As for it being a “bold declaration,” I think that on the face of it, it smacks of trying to copy Rishi Sunak giving David Cameron the post in the UK government (along with a seat in the Lords), and Sunak’s government is about to be wiped out in the upcoming general election. There has also been plenty of chatter since this proposal went up over Twitter, and a lot of it is from people who still, to this day, believe that Harper is some kind of Bond villain, and that his IDU is some kind of SPECTRE. He’s not, and it’s not. The IDU is a social club for terrible people, and Harper has spent a lot of time cultivating friendships with autocrats and dictators, and has been part of the move to create permission structures for far-right parties to engage in increasingly autocratic far-right behaviour. It’s hard to think of what kind of cachet Harper is going to have on the foreign policy circuit given that he didn’t really have any foreign policy wins when he was in office. Conservatives love to recount how he allegedly told Putin to get out of Ukraine at a major summit, and look how effective that was—Putin went from occupying Crimea to launching a full-scale invasion of the rest of the country. Harper really showed him! Meanwhile, he’s spent so much time cuddling up to these terrible people and laundering their actions in pretending that they are “centre-right democratic parties,” unless that’s the kind of foreign policy that Poilievre wants to cultivate (which is possible). I just fail to see where DeLorey sees an upside in any of this.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians have been pounding Ukrainian power facilities, including a hydroelectric dam on the Dnipro River, or power supplies in Kharkiv, during which president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling on allies to summon the political will to deliver needed air defences. Russia says these are “revenge strikes” for attacks across their border, an claims these military targets including “concentrations of troops and foreign mercenaries.” Ukraine says that Russian oil refineries are legitimate targets. Ukraine is also worried that Russia could be preparing as many as 100,000 troops to make a new offensive push this summer, or to replenish depleted units.

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1771149078010765485

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Roundup: Stupid polls about the monarchy

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It appears to be the season for reporting on really stupid polls, because there was yet another one yesterday, saying that an increasing number of Canadians want to “reconsider” our ties to the monarchy, which is already a misleading turn of phrase because we have a domestic monarchy, and have since 1931. Yes, we time-share their natural persons with the UK and thirteen other realms, but the Canadian monarchy is a Thing, and it’s not a gods damned foreign imposition.

What makes this kind of polling even more irresponsible is the fact that there is simply nothing in there about what they expect to replace it with, because there are myriad options, and absolutely no exploration of any of them. It’s also extremely relevant because that’s how Australia’s republican movement faltered—voters were not in favour of the appointed head of state option presented in the referendum, and since its failure, support for the monarchy in that country has increased. (Better the devil you know, and all of that. On top of that, getting rid of the monarchy would require a wholesale rewrite of our constitution (because it’s the central organizing principle), and would abrogate all of the treaties with First Nations, because they are all with the Crown, which would add a whole other layer of complexity for our relationship and reconciliation. (In fact, there is a compelling argument that ending the monarchy would simply mean completing the colonial project).

There is no simple yes/no choice for the future of the monarchy in Canada—it’s yes/which model to replace it with (because you can’t not have an organizing principle for executive power, and you really want to have some kind of a constitutional fire extinguisher available), and how to go about doing it, and stupid poll questions like this just elide over that reality in a completely misleading way.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Ukrainian attack on a shipyard in occupied Crimea has damaged two Russian ships undergoing repairs at the facility and caused a fire. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has vetoed an anti-corruption bill that contained a loophole that allowed people to forgo disclosing assets for another year. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen also praised Ukraine’s progress toward EU membership, but said that they still have more work to do.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1701984458960765381

https://twitter.com/rustem_umerov/status/1702012801131102435

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Roundup: The reason we don’t have a “First Lady”

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In a bid to find an angle on the Trudeau separation story, the CBC gave us a look at how in Canada, the position of prime minister’s spouse is untitled and unofficial—which is true. But nowhere in the piece does it mention the reason why, which is because we’re a constitutional monarchy. That’s pretty much the whole reason why the spouse of the prime minister has no official title or role, because as head of government, the prime minister doesn’t merit the same symbolic weight of a president in a republic, who is their head of state. Hence, their spouse because the “First” lady/gentleman, because they occupy that symbolic position. And there is good reason for why we organise our government like this, because in our system, it keeps prime ministers in check by not assigning them the symbolism or honours, and prevents them from creating cults of personality around it. The arrangement is that our head of state—or more properly, our sovereign—has the power, and the prime minister “borrows” or exercises it on their behalf, and that helps to keep them in check.

To that end, our sovereign is King Charles III, so if we had a “First Lady,” it would be Queen Camila. And could this CBC piece actually point this out or acknowledge it? Of course not. The piece did note that spouses of the Governor General are also granted the use of the title of “Your Excellency,” but it also omitted that there was a practice where we gave the spouse of the Governor General the title of “Chatelaine of Rideau Hall” when it was only women in the role, but it has fallen into disuse. I think we should absolutely revive it, and employ something like Châtelain or Castellan for a male spouse, particularly because they tend to play a fairly active role, unlike the spouse of a prime minister.

One of the good things about the fact that the role of a prime minister’s spouse is that it gives them the flexibility to be as involved or uninvolved as they choose to be. Laureen Harper preferred to remain out of the spotlight and kept her advocacy to things like fostering homeless cats. Sophie Grégoire Trudeau had a public profile of her own before her high-profile marriage and his becoming prime minister, so she could use that profile to pursue her own projects around mental health and wellness that didn’t have to be tied to the government. She did complain that she needed more staff to deal with the volume of requests being asked of her, but I would hesitate before we put some kind of formal mechanisms into place to make this a more official role because we’re not Americans, and these are roles that the Queen and the Governor General and their spouse should be doing more than the spouse of a prime minister.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine is investigating the attacks on grain port infrastructure as possible war crimes. Here is a look at the de-mining work that Ukrainian forces need to undertake on the front lines as Russians have booby-trapped everything, including the bodies of their own dead. And audits have uncovered corruption at Ukrainian military recruitment centres, which president Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls “revolting.”

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1687124892951408641

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Roundup: Johnston says no public inquiry

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It was David Johnston Day, as his first report was delivered, and he did not recommend a public inquiry for very good reasons—particularly that it could not be necessarily public given the nature of the information, and that it would be window dressing at this stage of the game, considering he had already done a lot of the heavy lifting, and planned to do public hearings as part of his final report. You can read the full report here, but here are the five key takeaways. There was plenty of scathing material in there, particularly to the system of information dissemination within government, but also to the way media stories torqued partial information into falsehoods (the Han Dong allegations were discredited in the report). There is a problem with information culture within government, and while this government has done a lot to fix some things, they are not adapting fast enough to the changing environment, and that is on them. (Check out some of the threads linked below as well).

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1661045080705187842

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1661080153122848781

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/1661211717924188161

Johnston’s decision was necessarily a no-win scenario, and everyone is unhappy, but nobody has exactly explained how a public inquiry was going to restore trust in the democratic system—particularly as it comes under attack by bad faith actors who spent the day trying to discredit Johnston and his report (never mind that he did address the alleged conflicts and consulted with a former Supreme Court of Canada justice before accepting the job), and that no matter who would lead either the Special Rapporteur process or a theoretical public inquiry, there would be the same bad faith attacks because they don’t actually want to restore faith in the process. They want people to distrust because they cynically hope to leverage that in the next election. Pierre Poilievre in particular has refused to strike any kind of statesmanlike tone and refuses to be briefed because he knows that the moment he actually knows the intelligence and can’t talk about it, he can’t outright lie and make accusations with wild abandon, and that’s his entire shtick. But this is a fairly classic Canadian problem, where MPs don’t want to know the actual secret information, because then they’d have to stop talking, which they don’t want to do. Remember, ours is no longer a serious Parliament.

There is a conversation to be had about the role media is playing in undermining the faith in democracy, but you can rest assured there will be no self-reflection around it. Rather, there will be self-justification and rationalization, and sniping that Johnston expects us to take the intelligence he’s seen at face value, which is ironic considering that the media outlets reporting on these leaks are expecting us to do the very same thing, even though there are agendas at play within that reporting.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1661050997936996356

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1661051520018706432

In pundit reaction, Justin Ling gives a fairly balanced summation of the report with some insightful commentary. Susan Delacourt is sceptical of Johnston’s assertion that politicians and media can play their parts in restoring faith in democracy. Andrew Coyne is unhappy with the notion that we are expected to just trust Johnston (ignoring the contradiction made above), and while he credits Johnston with inviting NSICOP and NSIRA to review his findings, the same secrecy problem remains. Matt Gurney despairs at the picture of incompetence the report paints.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Following his return to Ukraine after meetings at the G7 in Hiroshima, Japan, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visted marines on the front lines in the country’s east. Over the weekend, the Russians claimed they overran Bakhmut over the weekend, which Ukraine denies, particularly as they have been reclaiming territory surrounding it. Russians are also claiming Ukrainian “sabotage groups” are crossing the border into the Belgorod region, but it sounds like these may be disaffected Russians, as Ukrainans deny involvement. Russians later claim to have “crushed” these groups.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1660291196030271490

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1660884230174560256

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Roundup: Grading the official Star Wars Day posts

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Yesterday was May the 4th, also known as “Star Wars Day,” and this year’s Canadian politics offerings were largely unimpressive, most had little to no effort, which is supremely disappointing. Congrats to Library and Archives Canada who made the most effort.

From the political leaders:

For someone who loves memes and trying to win Twitter, Poilievre didn’t even participate.

A sampling of government departments and organizations:

And the rest:

Internationally, we got a couple more:

That last one, the “Stand with Ukraine,” was the best, and caught the spirit perfectly. We are living in a moment where there is a resistance to tyranny taking place, so why not lean into that message?

Ukraine Dispatch:

Another day, another early morning drone attack, this time targeting Kyiv and Odessa. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an “unscheduled” trip to the Hague to call for Putin to face a special tribunal once Ukraine wins the war. The first opportunity to arrest Putin may come in South Africa this summer, and there are those who are “confident” that South Africa will do the right thing. Zelenskyy also got assurances from the Dutch prime minister that talks are progressing on acquiring F-16s for Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1654199754358771722

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1654192129260900368

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Roundup: You can’t replace committee travel with Zoom

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Another day, another story where I roll my eyes and sigh because nobody can seem to grasp some pretty fundamental points. To wit: Scandal and pearl-clutching because the Senate’s audit committee is planning a trip to Westminster to consult with their counterparts there. Someone fetch a fainting couch for all of the zeros attached to the costs of the trip! And of course, we couldn’t have cheap outrage without getting a quote from the so-called Canadian Taxpayers Federation, whose continued existence depends on being the go-to source for media when they need a cheap outrage quote.

Some context to this story—the Senate’s audit committee has been a long and hard-fought battle to come into existence because the previous Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, was trying to steer the nascent committee in a direction that would see it be completely staffed by outsiders, which is a particular affront to Parliamentary privilege and the status of the Senate as a self-governing body in and of itself. Eventually the current composition—a mix of senators and outsider, with senators in the majority—was adopted, years after it should have been, and very much in the model that the House of Lords employs. (Note that this model had first been championed by the late Senator Elaine McCoy, and we could have saved years of fighting had people just listened to her). And because this has to do with a parliamentary body, you can’t just get advice from any audit firm in Canada, as the CTF seems to think—you need best practices from those who have dealt with the particular issues that a parliamentary body has. Of course, none of this context is in the story, because nobody pays attention to the Senate unless it’s for a cheap outrage story like this one. Of course.

Meanwhile, the most galling part of the piece is the suggestion that all of this should be done over Zoom, both out of a concern for cost and carbon emissions. And honestly, this type of suggestion needs to have a stake driven through it. This kind of work relies on human interaction, and relationship-building, and that doesn’t happen and cannot happen over Zoom. This is one of the biggest problems with hybrid sittings (which, mercifully, the Senate has ended), but which MPs refuse to believe, and apparently a few senators do too—parliament is a face-to-face institution. It cannot effectively operate remotely. The pandemic was a short-term (ish) problem that required a solution, and while this was not the best one, it was a solution that nevertheless has emboldened people to think that Parliament is a job you can do from home. It’s absolutely not, and this kind of committee travel is no exception. You cannot replace the kinds of interactions that make this travel essential over Zoom, and we need to stop thinking of Zoom as the solution to problems that aren’t actually problems.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched another overnight round of attacks on Kyiv, this time with drones, but all were shot down. The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces says it’s important that they maintain their hold on Bakhmut in advance of the counter-offensive (not the least of which because it’s degrading Russia’s forces significantly). The EU is hoping to increase production of ammunition in order to help Ukraine’s efforts. And here is one Ukrainian farmer’s novel way of de-mining his fields using parts from old Russian tanks.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1653390767329558530

https://twitter.com/war_mapper/status/1653169425749508100

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