Tag Archives: Trade

Roundup: A major far-right terror arrest

Posted on by

The big news yesterday was that four people were arrested and charged in terrorism-related charges for plans to start an anti-government militia, and to violently seize land near Quebec City for their own purposes, and more to the point, that two of those charged are serving members of the Canadian Forces, and not reservists as we have seen in the past. They were also heavily armed and had a number of explosive devices prepared—and it was likely the largest number of weapons and devices seized in a terror-related event in Canadian history.

I can’t speak to the nature of the plot (too few details) but this is the largest amount of weapons and devices seized as part of a terrorism incident in Canada. Ever.

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T14:20:46.149Z

Details are still scarce, but former CSIS analyst Jessica Davis has some particular observations.

Not small time: "Searches conducted in January 2024 in the Québec City area led to the seizure of 16 explosive devices, 83 firearms and accessories, approximately 11,000 rounds of ammunition of various calibres, nearly 130 magazines, four pairs of night vision goggles and military equipment."

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T13:19:41.537Z

This is an ideologically motivated plot. In Canada, 77% of terrorist attacks have been carried out by ideologically-motivated actors: newsletter.insightthreatintel.com/p/rising-thr…

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T13:29:30.504Z

Over the last two decades, however, most terrorism charges have been laid against religiously-motivated terrorists. That has slowly been changing, with more ideologically-motivated individuals getting caught: newsletter.insightthreatintel.com/p/terror-on-…

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T13:29:30.505Z

They do point to the ideology — anti-government extremism. And there's a long history in Canada of breaking down our terrorism into different categories. (ideological, political, and religious). There's a lot to criticize the RCMP about, but this is not top of the list.

— Jess Davis (@jessmarindavis.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T20:09:49.002Z

Another issue here has to do with the military not doing an adequate job of investigating the full extent of far-right extremism in their ranks, in part because they refuse to let outsiders do the investigating, as Leah West demonstrates in this thread. Some of this has to do with an insistence on cleaning up their own messes, but, well, their history on that score has not been great given the sexual misconduct problems and abuse of power scandals they have been dealing with over the past couple of decades. There is still work to do, and it doesn’t help when things happen, such as the commander of the Canadian Army saying he wasn’t notified about certain army members posting to an “abhorrent” Facebook group during the investigation into it.

There is much about this story that is staggering. But the inclusion of military members while deeply troubling is not surprising. A story:I was part of the RWE CAF research network funded by the Department of National Defence to study IMVE in the military for three years 2020-2023.

— Leah West (@leahwest-nsl.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T22:30:36.625Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The only real Ukraine news today is that Trump is planning to resume weapons shipments to Ukraine, feeling hurt that Putin was bullshitting him, but more concerningly, says he doesn’t know who ordered the shipments to stop (because he’s clearly not running his own show).

https://bsky.app/profile/united24media.com/post/3ltixwozuor2a

Continue reading →

Roundup: A committee prepares to express its dismay

Posted on by

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

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

Continue reading →

Roundup: Bad pancakes and fantasy pipelines

Posted on by

It was Mark Carney’s in his first Calgary Stampede as prime minister over the weekend, and it started off on Saturday with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters pancake breakfast, where Carney struggled with flipping pancakes, and was subjected to taunts about how he was worse than Justin Trudeau at it, which he insisted he was better at other things than Trudeau was. He also quipped that he was better with Eggo Waffles, so at least he had a sense of humour about it. He ran into Danielle Smith at said event, but didn’t run into Pierre Poilievre because Poilievre stayed in his vehicle until Carney left.

From the pool report at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters pancake breakfast at the Calgary Stampede this morning:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-07-05T19:18:51.244Z

Carney also gave some local interviews, and of course, the subject of a future pipeline came up, and Carney said he was “confident” that they would get those projects built, and that the private sector was going to do it. But there are no proponents looking to build a pipeline anytime soon, so this remains a fantasy in the eyes of a number of conservatives who insist that it’s still 2014. There was also more special pleading about the Pathways Alliance carbon sequestration project, which again misrepresents what the issue is, which is that they want the government to pay for it, because it’s not economically viable, particularly with the price of carbon as low as it is industrially (and now free for the consumer).

I also need to remind everyone that in all likelihood, the federal government’s plan to use their big Henry VIII clause to simply bypass existing legislation is just going to do the same thing that Harper’s 2012 environmental rewrite did—land projects in court, because it created more uncertainty, not less. And once again, I’m going to adopt a Mallory Archer voice to ask “Do you want litigation? Because that’s how you get litigation.”

Ukraine Dispatch

While there was more trading of drone attacks over the weekend, it looks like Ukraine struck a Russian airfield and its glide bomb stores. Russia has started a new offensive in the Kharkiv region, while they claim to have taken control of two more settlements in the Donetsk region.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Didn’t quite meet the Canada Day goals

Posted on by

We have just passed Canada Day, and did Mark Carney live up to all of the promises he made that were supposed to happen by then? Erm, not really. He set some pretty lofty goals for himself, and some of those promises he started to backpedal on the closer the time got, like on internal trade barriers. First it was eliminating them all by Canada Day. And then it was federal barriers. And even then, while the legislation has passed, it’s a bit of a mess. Why? Because the approaches to lifting those barriers is a patchwork of mutual recognition agreements between some provinces and not others, and that could in turn be new barriers in and of themselves, because there aren’t any consistent approaches.

Meanwhile, his bill to cut taxes didn’t pass, but it’ll still take effect on July 1st because of the Ways and Means motion that got passed. He got the ball rolling on the ReArm Europe programme, but it is not a done deal. He also said that he wanted all departments to undertake reviews to cut “red tape” within sixty days, but when exactly that kicks in was a bit ambiguous, not that I think 60 days is an adequate enough time to do a review of all of a department’s regulations to find inefficient rules. They’ve been doing that for years, so it’s not like there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit. I guess we’ll see what they turn up before the fall.

https://twitter.com/CanadianUK/status/1940419524375072985

https://twitter.com/RoyalFamily/status/1940002704295596284

It is nice to see Prince Edward make an appearance, and say a few words, and to bring greetings from Their Majesties with a promise of a longer royal tour to come."I speak for all of my family when I say that we take immense pride in Canada and Canadians." #MapleCrown

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-07-01T16:38:04.203Z

In case you missed it:

My weekend column points out that Danielle Smith’s attack on immigrants in her “Alberta Next” panel telegraph how desperate she is to find new scapegoats.

My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at that NATO “five percent” goal, which isn’t five percent, and the conversations we should be having instead.

My column shows how Bill C-5 is the latest in a series of ways in which our Parliament has been slowly hollowing itself out, becoming a Potemkin village.

Ukraine Dispatch

The US is delaying or halting shipments of promised weapons to Ukraine, just as Russia has been ramping up attacks, because this is who Trump is. Meanwhile, Russia appears to be ramping up its offensives in Donetsk and Sumy.

Continue reading →

Senate QP: The Beatles or the Rolling Stones?

Posted on by

Things got underway early for a marathon day of debate on Bill C-5, but before that could start, Routine Proceedings and Senate Question Period had to take place, which promises to be the last sitting day of the spring, and also Senator Marc Gold’s last sitting day as Government Leader in the Senate. Some of the statements made were farewells to Senators whose terms are expiring in the coming months, another statement was about the two people who lost their lives in the recent landslide near Banff.

Back in the Senate for #SenQP, early today ahead of marathon hearings on Bill C-5.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-06-26T13:07:16.620Z

Senators Housakos led off, asking about the opioid crisis, calling the government’s response flawed and reactive and wondered why there wasn’t a national strategy to deal with it. Senator Gold noted the tragedy of these deaths, and that the government is setting up a plan to tighten the border, and noted recent statistics that use has fallen. Housakos decried the failure of the government, and wanted a more effective response that would achieve results. Gold noted that the government is working with provinces to protect people.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A major agreement with the EU

Posted on by

At the Canada-EU summit in Brussels yesterday, Mark Carney signed a new security and defence partnership, and the joint communiqué was very, very long. A lot of stuff that might have been part of a G7 communiqué, but that wasn’t going to happen given how much time and energy was spent managing Trump and the Americans, and that included a lot of talk about upholding the rules-based international order, or combatting climate change, and that kind of thing, that would have caused Trump to throw another one of his public tantrums. But that’s the world we live in now.

This means that Canada is now on the road to participating in programmes like ReArm Europe, which seeks to drive down the cost of joint military procurement projects by increasing the scale of the buys, and helps to keep those industries in Europe rather than relying on the American defence-industrial complex, but the hope is that this agreement will open the Canadian market to those procurements as well (though I am curious to know how many Canadian firms are actually Canadian and not just American branch-plants).

Today will be the big NATO summit where increasing the expected defence spending target is the major focus, though there will likely be some sidebars around de-escalation with Israel and Iran. Ukraine will also be a focus, though president Zelenskyy is not expected to attend (though he was in the UK yesterday to sign new agreements on military production there, and to have lunch with the King at Windsor Castle). Nevertheless, that five percent target—to ostensibly be divided up as 3.5% operational spending and 1.5% in related spending that has some kind of a defence-adjacent component—is going to be incredibly difficult for the majority of countries to achieve, but especially to sustain. You already have some countries who met their two percent target by front-loading a bunch of procurement, but they have no idea how they’ll manage to stay at two percent, let alone 3.5%-plus going forward. (It’s also a dumb metric because it doesn’t deal with contributions to operations, and the disparity between the denominators among member countries is pretty vast, to say nothing about the fact that it’s easier to hit your targets if you crash your economy to drag your denominator down). One hopes there will be some cooler heads around the table, but it looks like the 5 percent is a done deal, which will create problems down the road.

https://bsky.app/profile/plagasse.bsky.social/post/3lsbzgrlhpk2u

Ukraine Dispatch

The attack on Kyiv early Monday wound up killing at least ten, including a child, as an apartment block was struck. Ukraine says that it attacked and set ablaze an oil depot in Russia’s Rostov region.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1937171580552966364?s=61

Continue reading →

Roundup: “Forcing” nothing but a press release

Posted on by

As the parliamentary cycle starts to wind down now that MPs have gone home for the summer (minus the couple who will take part in the royal assent ceremony that usually ends the Senate sitting in June), I did want to take a moment to appreciate David Reevely’s particular annoyance at the way MPs constantly use the term “forced” when describing using ordinary parliamentary procedure to get their own way.

In this particular example, where the Speaker agreed to split the vote on Bill C-5 (and no, he did not split the bill, as some have suggested—and mea culpa that I was not sufficiently clear on that in my last post), the most that the NDP accomplished here was symbolism. Yes, they could show that they voted to support one part of the bill and not the other, but the bill in its entirely goes through regardless. But again, they didn’t really “force” anything. The Speaker granted their request without a vote. This language is endemic, and the Conservatives like to use it, particularly in committee, when they would team up with the Bloc and NDP to send the committee off on some chase for new clips to harvest, but even there, simple math in a minority parliament is hardly “forcing,” because that’s pretty much a function of a hung parliament. The opposition gets to gang up on the government as a matter of course.

I get that they like to use the language to flex their political muscles, and the NDP in particular right now are desperate to show that they’re still relevant now that they have lost official party status, but maybe have some self-respect? If all you’re accomplishing is providing yourselves with new opportunities to create content for your social media rather than doing something tangible and substantive, then maybe that’s a problem that you should be looking into, especially if it’s in the process of trying to prove that you’re still relevant to the political landscape. (And also, maybe why you lost official party status). And I get that their claims that they “forced” the government to do a bunch of things during COVID earned them the praise of their existing fan-base, but they didn’t force anything then either—they pushed on an open door, and patted themselves on the back for it. (Seriously, the Liberals weren’t going to wind down those pandemic supports early, and if the NDP thinks they were the deciding factor, they have spent too long drinking their own bathwater). But no, you didn’t force anything, and stop pretending that’s what you did.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians attacked Kyiv overnight, killing at least five and damaged the entrance to a metro station used as a bomb shelter. Russians claim to have captured the village of Zaporizhzhya in the Donetsk region. Ukrainian forces say that they are fighting 10,000 Russian soldiers inside of Russia’s Kursk region, which is preventing Russia from sending more forces into the Donetsk region. President Zelenskyy says that during the recent POW and body swaps with Russia, that Russia turned over at least twenty bodies of their own citizens (complete with passports) because they are so disorganised.

Good reads:

  • Mark Carney arrived in Brussels for both an EU and a NATO summit back-to-back. He also called for calm and diplomacy in the situation with Iran.
  • Ambassador Kirsten Hillman says that there is progress on trade talks with the US, and she sees a path forward.
  • A recent report shows that CSE inappropriately shared information on Canadians to international partners without a ministerial authorization.
  • Those promised pay raises for the military may not be an across-the-board increase, but a combination of different bonuses (because of course).
  • Here is a look at the retention crisis within the Canadian Forces.
  • Some Indigenous youth are preparing for a summer of protest over the different federal and provincial fast-track legislation.
  • The Eagle Mine in Yukon, which suffered a catastrophic contaminant release, is going up for sale.
  • Former Cabinet minister John McCallum passed away at age 75.
  • David Eby says he’s not opposed to a pipeline in northern BC, but he is opposed to one being publicly funded, especially as TMX still has plenty of capacity.
  • Kevin Carmichael reminds us that climate change is an existential economic threat and that it needs to be tackled, as MAGA politics has spooked efforts to combat it.
  • Anne Applebaum reflects on Trump’s complete lack of strategy, whether it’s with Iran, the Middle East, or anywhere.
  • Susan Delacourt and Matt Gurney debate what Poilievre has been up to since he dropped out of the spotlight, and the security of his future as leader.
  • My weekend column points out that the solution to parties hijacking their own nominations is not to demand that Elections Canada take the process over.

Odds and ends:

*laughs, cries*

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-06-22T21:23:58.539Z

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.

Roundup: A few amendments, but very telling ones

Posted on by

It seems that Bill C-5 did not emerge from committee unscathed, as the opposition forced a number of amendments to the bill through, most of them creating an added list of laws that the government cannot opt itself out of using the giant Henry VIII clause that is the second half of said bill. The issue here? That aside from the Indian Act being one of those laws, the remainder are mostly done for the theatre of the Conservatives (and Bloc to a lesser extent) putting on a show about trying to keep said Henry VIII clause being used in a corrupt manner. To that end, the laws protected from opt-outs include:

  • Access to Information Act,
  • Lobbying Act,
  • Canada Elections Act,
  • Criminal Code,
  • Conflict of Interest Act,
  • Investment Canada Act,
  • Foreign Influence Transparency and Accountability Act,
  • Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act,
  • Railway Safety Act,
  • Trade Unions Act,
  • Explosives Act,
  • Hazardous Products Act,
  • Indian Act,
  • Auditor General Act, or
  • Official Languages Act

Do you notice what’s missing? Any kind of environmental laws, which the Conservatives continue to demand be repealed, or any kind of UNDRIP legislation, which would ensure free, prior and informed consent from Indigenous people when it comes to these projects.

The government says they are considering the amendments and whether to support their adoption or not (but given that every opposition party has lined up behind them, they may not have a choice), but the fact remains that they have refused adequate consultation with Indigenous people in developing and passing this legislation (they could barely be arsed to hear from one Indigenous witness at committee, let along several rights-holders), or that they are damaging the trust the government spent the past decade trying to rebuild. Just amateur galaxy-brained antics that you would think a government that is ten years into their time in office would actually have learned a lesson or two by this point.

Meanwhile, you have some Indigenous voices calling on the Governor General to delay or to deny royal assent for Bill C-5, which is not going to happen. If it did, it would cause a constitutional crisis, and I can’t believe we need to keep saying this every time someone makes the suggestion because they don’t understand how Responsible Government works. This is a political problem, and it demands a political solution, not one where you pull out the constitutional fire extinguisher and try to wield it. That’s not how this works, and people need to both stop suggesting it, and journalists need to stop taking this kind of talk seriously. Just stop it.

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy says that the increasing attacks demonstrate why more pressure needs to be applied to Russia to force a ceasefire. There was another POW swap yesterday, but no word on how many were exchanged on either side.

Continue reading →

QP: Spinning an EV conspiracy

Posted on by

The prime minister was still on his way back from hosting the G7 in Kananaskis, and the Commons was moving along without him being there on a Wednesday. The other leaders were present, and Andrew Scheer did lead off today, and he returned to the party’s mendacious talking points about the supposed “insane” ban on gas-powered vehicles (which is not actually a ban), and he claimed that favourite vehicles will be “illegal,” and that the government is pricing people out of buying a vehicle. Julie Dabrusin started with the fact there is no ban, before lamenting that the Conservatives are talking down the auto sector at a time when it is under threat from Trump tariffs. Scheer insisted there is a ban, and that it would “devastate” the auto sector, blamed Carney for not getting a deal on tariffs with Trump, and claimed the “ban” on gas-powered vehicles would kill 90,000 jobs. Dabrusin praised the auto sector and praised the fact that EVs are cheaper to operate and maintain. Scheer then tried to tie this to a conspiracy about Brookfield and insisted this was about Carney’s private interests. Evan Solomon got up to recite a script about how much the government invested in the auto sector. Pierre Paul-Hus read the French script that this was taking away choice. Dabrusin reminded him that they are not banning vehicles, and that Quebec already has regulations about access ps to EVs. Paul-Hus claimed this was about trying to “control” Canadians, and Dabrusin repeated that they are not banning gas-powered vehicles, and that EVs are cheaper to maintain. Paul-Hus said that the government tried to “control” people through the carbon levy, and wanted this scrapped as well. Dabrusin called this out as absurd, and praised the auto sector.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he decried the concessions made around the border and defence, and worried that the PM came away from the G7 “empty handed.” Dominic LeBlanc said that Carney’s meeting with Trump was “constructive,” and that he was convinced they made progress. Blanchet decried Bill C-5, and LeBlanc raised the tariff war and insisted that they would respect environmental regulations and First Nations. Blanchet insisted that C-5 wouldn’t do what they claim, and Chrystia Freeland stood up to take exception to this assertion.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The G6-plus-one, day two

Posted on by

The remainder of the G7 Summit was odd with Trump’s early departure, in part because of how much space he took up at the event, and his subsequent absence case a long shadow. A number of leaders had come specifically to meet with him on the second day, including Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and with Trump gone, it made the trip seem less worthwhile for their broader goals. There was talk that a statement about support for Ukraine was scrapped because the Americans wanted the language to be watered down to useless—but Mark Carney’s office later retracted that claim, so it’s hard to say what actually happened there. Carney did, however, pledge another $4.3 billion for Ukraine and to help bring about more sanctions on Russia and their “shadow fleet,” so that’s not nothing. As for Trump, while on his way home, he was back to threats, insisting Canada will be paying tariffs unless we become a US state, and he increased the price for participation in the “golden dome,” with a number he pulled directly out of his ass.

As for the outcomes of the summit, there was an agreement on an increased use of AI (really?!) plus a “common vision” for quantum technologies. The Rapid Response Mechanism on disinformation and threats to democracy will update its reports to include transnational repression; there was also a pledge to do more to tackle migrant smuggling. There was agreement to coordinate efforts to manage the impacts of wildfires—but nothing about tackling climate change that is causing those fires. There was also talk about “economic corridors” for critical minerals, and enforcing standardised markets in order to combat Chinese dominance in that tech space.

Regarding the other meetings on the sidelines, Carney had his meeting with Narendra Modi and did raise transnational repression during his remarks, for all the good it did. The pair agreed to re-establish proper diplomatic relations and to re-appoint new high commissioners for each country, but we’ll see if India’s next representative is also tied to repression. Carney also had a meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who was supportive of the plans to reach the NATO two-percent spending target this year (right before the summit where the plan is to increase it again). As for designated protest sites, they were largely quiet on the second day. (More highlights from the day here).

https://twitter.com/supriyadwivedi/status/1935050251351495064

Ukraine Dispatch

The attack on Kyiv early Tuesday morning was even deadlier than first anticipated, with 440 drones and 32 missiles fired, killing at least 18 people and wounding 151 others; Odesa was also hit. (Photos).

Continue reading →