Tag Archives: The Senate

Roundup: Concerning nomination irregularities

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Liberal MP and provincial Liberal leadership hopeful Nate Erskine-Smith has formally filed an appeal over the results of Saturday’s nomination vote in Scarborough Southwest, listing a number of irregularities that included there being more votes in the ballot box than the number of people who registered to vote—34 added votes, when he lost by a mere 19 votes. There were also accusations that a suspicious number of people arrived to vote who “just lost their drivers’ licence” or “just moved to the riding,” and even more suspicious allegations of those who were on speakerphone or video calls in the voting booth, being directed how to vote.

The party’s interim leader had already dismissed this as Erskine-Smith being a sore loser, but there were scrutineers at the event, who are providing affidavits, who pointed to these irregularities, and they are people who have done election monitoring abroad, so we should be fairly confident in their observations. And even more to the point, Erskine-Smith has effectively removed himself from the race and wants an investigation for the sake of an investigation, because these are serious allegations. There have been operatives from both Liberals and Conservatives over on social media saying these kinds of tactics are endemic, but unfortunately most are pointing to the fact that the party allows temporary residents to vote, meaning that again, there is scapegoating happening (and to be clear, when Erskine-Smith says that there were temporary residents voting, his primary complaint was that they appeared to have no idea why they were there, which is not the same as a temporary resident who got involved in the riding association or campaign. There are problems with how these contests are run, but I’m also not certain that putting them under the jurisdiction of Elections Canada or the provincial election agency is necessarily the answer given how much of an expansion of their mandate and capacity would need to be, to the point that it would be unwieldy.

As for Erskine-Smith’s future, he has confirmed that he is resigning his federal seat regardless by the time the Commons rises for the summer. After that, he’s not sure. He lost this nomination, and it’s clear that there is a segment of the establishment within the Ontario Liberal Party that is going to resist him and his plans to make changes to how things are run, so it may not be worth his time and energy if this is how things will play out. It would be a loss for the provincial party, which needs a good kick in the ass, and he might be the best placed to do it, but if the party establishment is going to pull out all the stops to prevent him from getting that far, is there a point? (Meanwhile, Doug Ford will chortle and be premier for ever).

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched over 200 drones early Tuesday, killing at least six people in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Zelenskyy is facing a new challenge now that his former chief of staff has been charged with money laundering.

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Roundup: Closer to a deal with Danielle Smith

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Prime minister Mark Carney met with Alberta premier Danielle Smith Friday morning in Ottawa, and by all accounts, they made progress on finalising the terms of the MOU that would see a west coast pipeline built, with Smith saying that their final sticking point is the industrial carbon price but she expects they will get to a “win-win” deal. I don’t actually believe it will be win-win because every deal so far has been an abject capitulation where Alberta gets to flout the rules, either with longer timelines than everyone else, or a weaker effective carbon price (because the province keeps instituting new credits that lower the price). Smith also keeps saying that this deal will help “quell separatism,” which is also bullshit because they don’t actually care policy (which you’ll see in a moment), and the fact that she is encouraging them is not exactly doing anything to quell the movement—quite the opposite, in fact. Everything she has done has encouraged them.

And then by mid-afternoon, the government released their consultation documents for their planned “streamlining” of environmental assessments, which pretty much involves gutting the systems worse than Stephen Harper did, puts unrealistic timelines on consultations (particularly for Indigenous communities which lack the resources to do the work in an expedited manner), and gives a whole lot of power to individual ministers to approve projects with fewer safeguards, which is ripe for abuse and corruption. None of this is good or positive, in spite of the whinging of certain industry executives because they simply don’t want to put in the work. Everything just feels like we’re going backward, and we’re back to “pollution is fine because we’re in a trade war,” as if there aren’t long-term costs and consequences.

Meanwhile, Richard Warnica of the Star went to Alberta and spent time with the separatists, and it’s a swamp of conspiracy theories and fabrications (which he performatively fact-checked a bunch of, and lo, it’s all false. All of it). It’s an absolutely disturbing read, but it also skirts some of the underlying issues—that this is a movement that is steeped in white and Christian nationalism (and these people were deliberately marginalised back in the seventies and eighties by the Lougheed and Getty governments), that has festered in a poisoned information ecosystem and a political ecosystem that has relied on scapegoating Ottawa for the past five decades rather than dealing with the reality of their situation (they’re price-takers for oil, and the fact that they’re a virtual one-party state has invited all manner of corruption in their system). So no, any regulatory changes that Mark Carney might push through won’t mollify them. Another pipeline will make no difference—the last one didn’t, and the province absolutely reneged on the “grand bargain” it was supposed to represent. This is a quasi-cult whose brains have rotted on social media and Fox News, and simply giving them everything they say they want won’t actually solve any problems. It will likely just make things even worse.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-05-08T19:08:04.965Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A three-day ceasefire and 1000 prisoner exchange has apparently been agreed to, while Russia plans a scaled-back Victory Day parade (because they have no tanks left and they are paranoid Ukraine will attack). Ukraine is running short of air defence missiles after the massive assault over the winter.

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Roundup: Taking what advice on appointments?

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Prime minister Mark Carney once again said on Wednesday that Senate appointments will be made “in due course,” which doesn’t help when nearly ten percent of the Chamber’s seats are vacant or will be before summer is out, but for the first time, he indicated that he would be preserving the independent appointment committees. Sort of. (Currently only the federal members of these committees remain in place, and those for Nova Scotia, but none of the other provinces). “I will take into account the advice of the independent advisory committee that was established by my predecessor,” was what Carney said.

The problem is that’s not actually saying anything. Taking advice into account? Either these committees will be providing short-lists for appointments that Carney will choose from, or they won’t be. That was the point—they took the applications (which was always a mistake—they should have been doing the searching for worthwhile nominees to tap on the shoulder), vetted them, and honed them down to the short-lists, which Trudeau would then choose from, because he remains constitutionally responsible for those appointments. But what “advice” are they supposed to be offering if not a short-list of candidates? Will he look at their list and then decide to choose one of his friends from another hedge fund or big bank? Will he give them a list to do due diligence on? Maybe. None of this is clear, and it looks like he either doesn’t understand this responsibility that is part of his office, or he doesn’t care, and I’m not sure which is worse at this point when he’s been in office for a year now.

Meanwhile, Carney also said that he’s waiting on the joint parliamentary committee report before coming to any decision on the MAiD expansion for irremediable mental health issues, but it cannot be understated that said committee has been an absolute sham process. The two co-chairs are hostile to MAiD and have stacked the witnesses to be overwhelmingly against it, and have sidelined groups like major national psychological and psychiatric organisations who might actually argue that they can provide adequate safeguards. This is just going to result in more Charter litigation, and so many people will continue to suffer needlessly because a bunch of MPs and senators were too squeamish to actually listen to evidence that they didn’t want to hear.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-05-06T19:08:02.023Z

Ukraine Dispatch

In spite of Ukraine giving Russia an early start to their Victory Day ceasefire, Russia attacked several cities in eastern Ukraine, killing at least 27 people. The new Hungarian government returned to Ukraine the confiscated $82 million USD in cash and gold that was seized while transiting the country.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/2051983745297617183

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Roundup: The new GG, Louise Arbour

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Yesterday morning, at the National Gallery, prime minister Mark Carney announced that the King had approved of his choice of Louise Arbour to be the next Governor General. Arbour is a former Supreme Court of Canada justice, but has had a long and varied career both in Canada and internationally. Highlights include working with the Law Reform Commission, associate dean at Osgood Hall law school, appointment to the Ontario Superior Court and Court of Appeal, war crimes prosecutor at the Hague, prosecuting Rwanda and Yugoslavian war criminals, and secured the first genocide conviction since 1948. She was then appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada, and after a few years, left that post to become the UN Human Rights Commissioner for a term, where she was attacked for calling out Israel’s actions during the war with Lebanon in 2008, even though she also criticised Palestinian militants’ rocket attacks against civilians. (She has also been portrayed on film by Wendy Crewson).

In the time since, she has served in a number of other capacities including working on several reports for the federal government, most recently around the transformation of military justice, particularly as it relates to sexual assault. At 79, she is the oldest appointee to the office in Canadian history, however that’s not necessarily a bad thing—we have had a spate of appointing Governors General who are too young, leaving them with a big question mark of what to do when their term ends when they should fade quietly into retirement. (Seriously—Ed Schreyer was made GG in his thirties, and he tried to run for office afterward, which is very bad form).

Most of the grumbling that did come from this appointment seemed to come from the fact that she is from Quebec and not from out west (even though by tradition, this was to be a francophone appointment), though I’m not sure how many reasonably high-profile Franco-Albertans/Saskatchewanians/British Columbians that had the right combination of experience and other factors there are out there. Regardless, this could have been something that a properly constituted vice-regal appointment committee might have tried to address, but we have no idea what kind of search mechanism was used to come up with this appointment, so that kind of black box doesn’t help in trying to understand Carney’s thinking here.

Starting with Massey, the birthplaces of governors general:Toronto, OntMontreal, QueLacombe, NWT (now Alberta)Saint-Anicet, QueBeausejour, ManPrud'homme, SaskSaskatoon, SaskMemramcook, NBVictoria, Hong KongPort-au-Price, Haiti Sudbury, OntMontreal, QueFort Severeight, QueMontreal, Que

— Aaron Wherry (@aaronwherry.bsky.social) 2026-05-05T21:45:00.042Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ahead of Russia’s ceasefire, they made a glide bomb attack on Kramatorsk, Zaporizhzhia and Chernihiv, killing at least 17 civilians and wounding 45 others. There was also an attack on Dnipro that killed four.

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Roundup: Reading into the Spring Update

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There was a bit of a dust-up, if we can call it that, online over the weekend, following Althia Raj’s weekend column, in which she calls out the fact that while Carney claims he’s protecting social programmes, he is in fact cutting them along with transfers to provinces. And she’s not wrong in the fact that there is a lot of sunsetting funding with no indication that it’s being renewed again, which makes it hard for provinces or organisations to plan on what their future funding will be. Enter Tyler Meredith, who was an economic advisor to Justin Trudeau (but who is now out of government), and he took issue with Raj’s assertions in this thread:

https://twitter.com/tylermeredith/status/2050715852773695646

And I take his point that no decisions have been made on any of this funding that is due to sunset, but I also think he’s being a bit overly generous with the government on some things, such as the creation of a personal support workers’ tax credit as “proof” that the government is being too bro-focused. One tax credit does not a care economy/women’s state make, particularly one that is that low. And to that end, Raj gave her own response in this thread:

And she brings the receipts when it comes to what’s in the documents, particularly around how Carney’s rhetoric around things like pharmacare not matching the reality on the ground, where there is a half-assed programme in a few provinces, which has not been extended to all others in the past year, and which seems to be no closer to negotiating toward the creation of an actual national programme, beyond the things the NDP insisted on in the dumbest way possible. Which brings me to this point that Mike Moffatt made about the two exchanges:

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/2050943140949856708

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/2050945741221195827

The Carney government doesn’t like to give a lot of details, and relies an awful lot on saying “just trust me” to a whole lot of things, which it really shouldn’t do. And then for everyone to get upset because they we can’t read minds or scry into the future is a problem in trying to communicate to the public. We’re not getting good information out of this government, and that needs to change, and these exchanges are a perfect encapsulation of that.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone hit a bus in Kherson, killing two and injuring seven others. Ukraine struck the port of Primorsk, the largest oil export port on the Baltic Sea.

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Roundup: Overplaying the ethics committee report

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The Commons committee on access to information, privacy and ethics released their latest report yesterday, reviewing the Conflict of Interest Act, and it was, well, a doozy. This is one of those kinds of reports that was always going to be a problem because it’s so highly partisan, and the fact that the committee reflects a minority parliament made this even more so. Reading through it, it was quickly obvious that this was mostly an exercise in the Conservatives (and Bloc) looking to score points based on Mark Carney’s past, and trying to suggest a whole bunch of new rules that would essentially target him personally, which goes against pretty much every principle of good governance. Remember that bad facts make bad case law, and well, this is terrible all around.

It was also quite striking just who the majority on the committee was listening to, which was mostly “Democracy Watch’s” Duff Conacher, whose only credibility is that he branded himself a one-man watchdog who answers media requests, so he gets phoned all the time and provides quotes on too many stories. He’s also lost pretty much every court battle he’s ever waged, and thinks that he should be the only arbiter of parliamentary ethics in this country. They also listed to disgraced “journalist” Sam Cooper (who is so credulous he once believed that a clip from a Hong Kong film was secretly obtained proof of a Canadian official being compromised by Chinese agents), who pretty much was only there to back up Conacher. Experts who warned the majority that they were creating more problems than they were trying to solve were largely ignored, because they didn’t fit the narrative. Unsurprisingly, the Liberals had a nine-page dissent at the end of the report that called these kinds of things out, for all the good it will do.

Why? Because looking at the reporting of the report’s contents and recommendations, it was framed in such a way that the committee agreed to these points when in fact it was only the Conservative and Bloc members of the committee and not the Liberals, which then distorts the report because it makes it sound like it was more unanimous than it was. Mention of the Liberal dissent was waaaaaaay down in the copy, and doesn’t really spell out that this was the Conservatives and Bloc trying to use the committee to attack Carney and the Liberals, which is pretty relevant information when you’ve got a report of this nature. And while I don’t want to give the reporter on this piece a hard time, you can’t really consider what the main body of the report says as what the committee believed—only what the opposition members believed.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-04-23T19:08:02.093Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The Russian strike on Dnipro early Thursday killed three people and injured another ten. Ukraine is boasting that their new interceptor drones can be controlled over thousands of kilometres.

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Roundup: A mere reminder to respect international law

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Well, that kind of felt like a close one, as Trump made genocidal threats against Iran, and then backed down at the very last minute for a two-week ceasefire (negotiated by Pakistan?!) that would seem to effectively hand over control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran’s control in exchange for extortion payments? Maybe? There are a lot of competing narratives, nut none of them are any good, and the most that Mark Carney could muster himself to do was to say that “all parties” must respect International Law. Well then.

Meanwhile, you had Americans on social media imploring the rest of the world to Do Something about Trump, when he’s their president and they have all of the tools to remove him at their disposal if they were to so choose, and they could have spent the day protesting in the streets nation-wide, and made it really uncomfortable for their government, but nope. It’s not even learned helplessness—it’s an absolute refusal to both understand their own civics, and take responsibility for their actions.

Trump expects the rest of the world to clean up his mess in Iran, while American voters expect the rest of the world to clean up the mess they made in electing Trump.Just perfect. Chef's kiss.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-04-07T16:03:58.527Z

Back home, Mark Carney says he’s looking at ways to “cushion the blow” of high gas prices as a result of this conflict, while he keeps having to answer questions about why gasoline prices are so high when we produce our own at home. He never seems to want to explain why we are bound to the world price (i.e. so that we can export into the global market), and also never gets around to saying that the last time the federal government proposed price controls on oil and gas, well, Alberta has an absolute meltdown that they still harbour zombie resentment toward today (even though they blamed the NEP for the collapse in prices when it was, in fact, a global oil price shock, but it was more convenient to blame Pierre Trudeau and it stuck).

In case you missed it:

  • For National Magazine, I delve into whether there is any basis for the Chief Justice to recuse himself if the Supreme Court hears the Emergencies Act appeal.
  • My weekend column looks at a recent push by some senators to start using the tools at their disposal to break up omnibus budget bills.
  • My column notes that Poilievre treats “cutting wasteful spending” as the very same kind of magical money tree that the NDP does when it comes to wealth taxes.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take finds it a problem that Poilievre is evaluating the effectiveness of his shadow cabinet based on their social media presence.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians attacked two busses in Dnipropetrovsk, killing eight people and injuring more than two dozen others. Ukraine has regained more territory along the frontlines in the east and southeast parts of the country. There is a looming shortage of the miniature jet engines that Ukraine’s deep-strike drones require.

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Roundup: The Senate rumour mill churns

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There has been a raft of rumours out about the Senate the past couple of days, the latest being that there could be yet another caucus forming, possibly out yet another split within the Independent Senators Group, because there is some friction over the current leadership—erm, “facilitatorship”—and that is not entirely unsurprising. The ISG is large and unwieldy, and when you have that many type-A people in a room who all have their own ideas on how to do things, and their own agendas, it’s little wonder that they can barely organise themselves to do anything. So we’ll see if this happens, but nevertheless, I can confirm that I’ve heard grumblings about the current state of the ISG.

Meanwhile, there is another rumour circulating, both from the Globe and Mail and iPolitics that prime minister Mark Carney is looking to appoint Tom Pitfield to the Senate—the same Tom Pitfield who won a turf war within the PMO that saw David Lametti take a job as UN ambassador instead of the post he was supposed to take up within PMO. The rumours also state that he would take over as Government Leader in the Senate and take up a seat in Cabinet like the post is supposed to be, but this too is being denied. The source of this rumour also hints that Carney is going to start appointing partisan Liberals to the Senate again, which I’m not necessarily opposed to, provided that there is no expectation of a whip, which never really existed in the Senate before, but with almost no former Liberal senators left, the new batch may be under some false pretences.

Meanwhile, I find myself baffled by the notion that Carney is looking to appoint Pitfield and partisans in order to move bills through the Senate, as though there is obstruction happening there. There is not. Government bills are passing through at a pace that is actually too fast for proper scrutiny in many cases because of an exaggerated sense of faux urgency, while the real problem remains in the House of Commons, which has barely passed any legislation, leaving senators bored and preoccupied with their own hobby-horse bills, and frankly, some of this talk about splitting caucuses is likely a result of that boredom.

Programming Note: I will be taking the full long weekend off. See you next Wednesday.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a daytime drone attack and killed four people in the central Cherkasy region, damaging more energy infrastructure. Russia also claims to have fully taken control of the Luhansk region, which Ukraine denies. Ukraine struck a missile component factory in Russia’s Bryansk region.

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Roundup: More demands to interfere with judicial nominations

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Three more premiers have now joined Danielle Smith in her demand for more say in judicial appointments, both at the provincial superior court level as well as when it comes to Supreme Court of Canada nominees, and it would be the usual suspects—Scott Moe, Doug Ford, and François Legault. Quite immediately, federal justice minister Sean Fraser essentially told them to go pound sand, which is the correct answer, but that doesn’t mean they won’t cause a fuss about this, and try and invent a new grievance out of this.

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3mht45l24ec2w

Clearly these premiers, each of whom are constitutional vandals who have invoked the Notwithstanding Clause, are looking to politicise the appointments to their own ends, often with nonsense around judges being too “soft on crime.” Never mind that the vast majority of criminal cases are heard by provincially-appointed judges, whose appointments they already control (and Doug Ford has taken steps to make the process more partisan in Ontario), they are looking to exert more influence over appointments because they believe they can find candidates who will be more favourable to their positions, particularly when their constitutionality is challenged. Danielle Smith likes to refer to federally-appointed judges as “agents of Ottawa,” even though they are from the province they are appointed in, on the advice of local judicial advisory committees, which provincial governments already play a role in, both in terms of advising and vetting potential nominees to ensure that they don’t see problems with them.

I would add that the other thing about these judges being federally-appointed is that they are paid for by the federal government, and considering how much provinces already underfund their justice systems, I would not want to see them in control of even more appointments, whom they will underfund and undermine at every turn.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-24T21:22:01.960Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched nearly 1000 drones at Ukraine, 550 of which were during the daytime and hit as far as Lviv. Here is a look at Ukraine’s strikes on Russian energy facilities.

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Roundup: Missing the point about the Senate

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Because everything is so stupid all of the time, a new conservative think tank popped up in Calgary that is issuing stupid polls, some of the questions of which fundamentally do not understand how Parliament works. They call themselves the “Aristotle Foundation,” and it’s a collection of the usual right-wing (and in some cases, far-right) suspects, and when they claim to be championing “reason, democracy and civilization,” well, you can start picking up where the dog-whistles are sounding.

In any case, they published this stupid poll (and of course, the National Post picked it up, because a bunch of their columnists are members of this think tank), and the very premise of their questions are absurd. “55 percent of non-Western respondents would be open to negotiating with Alberta or other Western provinces amid the threat of separation.” As well, there was a question on whether they “favoured reform of the House of Commons and Senate in the case of threats from Western separatism and Quebec separatism.” Why anyone would want to negotiate with a group of crybabies who make up a marginal fraction of the population is beyond me, but it’s not my poll. Nevertheless—negotiating about what, you ask? Supposed under-representation in the House of Commons and the Senate. They even have a handy chart about population per senator to make their case. I swear to Zeus, I am going to lose my mind.

If you're complaining about "per capita representation" in the Senate, might I suggest you read a fucking book for once in your life? nationalpost.com/news/canadia…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2026-03-19T04:29:03.776Z

The Senate is not and has never been a rep-by-pop chamber. It is, in fact, designed not to be. That’s the whole fucking point of why it was constructed the way it was in 1867. It’s explicitly designed along regional lines in order to counter the rep-by-pop of the House of Commons, because having two rep-by-pop chambers would be stupid and counter-productive. Yes, the Atlantic provinces have outsized representation explicitly to counterbalance their small populations in the Commons. That’s why the breakdown is regional: 24 seats for Quebec, 24 for Ontario, 24 for the Maritimes, and 24 for the west (and then the three for the territories and six for Newfoundland and Labrador were later additions). If you don’t understand this basic bit of Canadian civics, what exactly are you doing? Other than shit-disturbing? This is beyond idiotic, and I cannot believe that they want to be taken seriously.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2026-03-18T22:01:56.308Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones struck several apartment buildings in Odesa. Ukraine struck two Russian plants building and maintaining military and cargo planes. Here is a look at the interceptor drones that Ukraine is sharing with several Gulf states.

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