Tag Archives: Trade

Roundup: A mixed bag from the English debate

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The Liberals’ English-language debate was held last night, and it was a much more lively affair, given that they weren’t speaking in very slow and deliberate French to get their points across. The first few minutes were a complete English-dub replay of Monday’s debate, with the exact same opening statements and first responses to the same question, so it took them a while to actually get to something new, but the longer it went on, the more annoyed I started to get at some of the absolute inanities that were on display. (Here are liveblogs from the Star and The Canadian Press, while I was live-tweeting Bluesky here).

One of the early topics was Canada’s place in the world, and after the initial chest-thumping about Trump, they got into things like NATO targets. Chrystia Freeland was probably the most clear-eyed here, talking about building a new democratic world order with allies that included the UK and France because they have nuclear capabilities (which was a sign of how serious this is), because America is no longer the “leader of the free world.” But when discussing spending to hit NATO targets, everyone was quick to say that they didn’t want those dollars going to American companies, but nobody seemed to have much of an idea of just what the Canadian defence industry was capable of producing for our needs, or the fact that we need to look to other allies because our defence industry is not large and can’t produce a lot of things we need quickly (lest we start buying into vapourware that companies like Bombardier will promise but have no guaranteed ability to deliver on). Oh, and Karina Gould deserves a time-out for pitching a “procurement czar.” No! Stop with this American bullshit!

Freeland has a very clear-eyed statement about building a new democratic world order now that the US is no longer the "leader of the free world." Baylis wants to get allies to bankruptcy Boeing as an example. (Good luck with what that's going to do to our military procurement).

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T01:29:48.917Z

Boy, there is a lot of wishful thinking about the state of the Canadian defence industry, and what capabilities that Canadian industry can produce. (We may have to look to other allies' industries, guys. Be frank and forthright about it.)

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T01:34:57.570Z

And now we're into another round of AI platitudes. And Baylis wants to recreate a research and development programme that already exists and has had challenges turning R&D into procurement. Like, it already exists. That's not the problem.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T01:40:12.215Z

The cost-of-living segment was…unenlightening, and had some of the worst pitches. Chrystia Freeland wants to cut red tape (how? You’ve had nine years!), and Karina Gould wants to modernise social services (provincial jurisdiction) and bring in a basic income (not going to work—there is research to prove it). There was a question on how to improve productivity that nobody could give an actual answer to except to wave their hands and say “AI,” as though it’s a magic incantation.

Moving onto the cost of living theme.You'll never guess, but Carney wants to "build our economy."

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T01:45:12.030Z

Baylis repeats his utter nonsense about fiscal discipline raising the value of the dollar (WHICH DOESN'T MAKE ANY GODS DAMNED SENSE!)And did he mention that he was a businessman? Because he's a businessman.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T01:47:14.001Z

Ireland, where a significant fraction of the paper economy is just US tech companies moving money in and out as a tax dodge? That Ireland?

— Nick P (@npilon.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T02:14:58.888Z

The topic that broke my brain completely was asking them how they could work with provinces to increase the number of doctors. Only Gould gave something resembling a coherent answer here. And again, when the topic changed to the carbon levy, everyone on the stage but Gould was utterly incoherent about how they would replace it (Gould would keep the levy but freeze it).

We've been convening the medical colleges for decades. How do you change that?!Baylis wants to redesign the system for chronic care (again, how is this federal?!) Freeland has an anecdote about a nurse practitioner! But doesn't say anything the *federal* government can do.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T02:25:28.637Z

Gould, correctly, says provinces don't have enough accountability for federal transfers, and points to how childcare agreements have specific guideposts. (The last round of federal transfers to have more strings and required action plans by provinces).

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T02:28:35.715Z

These answers on the carbon levy are *completely* incoherent (except for Gould, who is keeping but freezing it). Gould does admit that they didn't do a good job of talking about it, which no one else could muster the self-awareness to do.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T02:37:41.651Z

Baylis keeps saying "we'll build two pipelines."Who will? The federal government? Or do you think some proponent will swoop in with little economic case for it?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-26T02:43:50.642Z

The final question was asking how they would differentiate themselves from Trudeau, and at first Freeland ignored the question, Gould talked around it before bringing up the fact that the party needs to get back to the grassroots, Baylis said he was going to be “focused on the economy” while Carney said he would be “laser-focused on the economy,” before adding that he’s very hands-on, and has heard from the supporters in caucus that Trudeau didn’t build many relationships with MPs, which he would do. The moderator circled back to Freeland, who talked about the campaign being a “personal liberation,” and that her style of leadership isn’t to be a “one-man band,” which is a pretty big repudiation of Trudeau’s leadership style (though I would say it’s more like a two-man band, because it’s more of a joint Trudeau-Katie Telford effort).

Overall, it was a mixed bag, and I couldn’t really determine someone I felt was a winner. Chrystia Freeland had some of the strongest responses, but some of the weakest delivery and framing of responses, and was very invested in playing nice in order to get second-place votes (because this is a ranked ballot). Gould was strong on many responses, but completely out to lunch on others, which tainted her credibility. Mark Carney kept repeating that he wants to “build the economy.” Over and over and again. Constantly. He still resorted largely to platitudes, and didn’t seem to have a good grasp of a lot of files because they have been out of his bailiwick, and his attempt at attacking Poilievre got cringey in place (Poilievre worships Trump? Really?) And then there was Frank Baylis, who kept reminding us that he’s a businessman. Over and over again, but his constant bizarre refrains about strengthening the dollar (at the expense of our exports?) and the whole thing about Ireland were just completely out to lunch, to say nothing about the fantasy economics of his pipeline plans.

Maybe I’m being too harsh of a critic, but nobody came out ahead.

Ukraine Dispatch

Another overnight attack on the Kyiv region has killed one person, injured four, and set several houses on fire. There also appears to be some progress on a critical minerals deal between the US and Ukraine, but we’ll see if it actually happens.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1894322734047310319

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Roundup: Gould takes the French debate

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It was the French debate for the Liberal leadership last night, and it was a fairly smoothly run affair, with an aggressive moderator, and very few instances of candidates talking over one another. While you can read a recap here, and the Canadian Press liveblog, I watched it in French to get a sense of how well the candidates were actually performing. The biggest blunder of the evening was Mark Carney slipping up and saying that he agrees with Hamas, which the Conservatives pounced on in bad faith, and Freeland quickly caught his error and corrected him, but it certainly coloured the online reaction.

Meanwhile, my thoughts:

  • Karina Gould was the best performer of the night. Her French was the strongest, and she was articulate in her positions, she had something of substance to say in most of the responses, and in her closing remarks, made the very salient point that they won’t win by being Conservative Lite™.
  • Chrystia Freeland’s French was very deliberate and didactic in tone, but that’s not much different from her speaking style in English. She had a bit of a mixed bag in terms of policy discussions, and could identify things the government has done or is doing, because she was there for the discussions and implementation.
  • Mark Carney had the shakiest French, but as he has throughout his entire leadership campaign, he mostly stuck to platitudes and clichés, and gave very few answers or specifics, even when pressed to do so by the moderator. It was not a shining moment for him.
  • Frank Baylis’s French was fine, being as he’s from Montreal, but he pretty much made himself irrelevant the whole evening, by constantly reminding everyone that he’s a businessman, as though that gave him any special abilities or insights, particularly when dealing with Trump, and he had some absolutely bizarre ideas associated with fiscal discipline.

Baylis: Did I mention that I was a businessman?

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T01:47:54.201Z

Baylis: Fiscal discipline will make the value of our dollar rise so things will cost less.What voodoo is this? The value of our dollar has very little to do with fiscal discipline, especially when we have the lowest debt and deficit in the G7.This is not a plan for cost of living.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T02:03:10.685Z

Carney keeps falling back on platitudes. The moderator is pushing him for specifics regarding immigration, but he refuses.Freeland's plan to tie immigration levels to housing is a recipe for no immigration, and is Poilievre's plan. Gould wants hard conversations with provinces.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T02:09:00.128Z

Apparently there is no problem in this country the AI won't help solve.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T02:21:07.216Z

Ah, the west-east pipeline question, should Quebec refuse.Carney doesn't really answer the question, and mischaracterizes what Energy East was.Freeland praises energy resilience, but doesn't answer.Gould says we need a conversation respecting provinces and Indigenous people.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-25T02:46:23.642Z

The English debate is tonight, so we’ll see how different the candidates are with the language they are more comfortable in.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia’s overnight air attacks injured one woman in the outskirts of Kyiv, and Poland scrambled their aircraft because the attacks were targeting western Ukraine, close to their borders. G7 foreign ministers, led by Canada, are still working on a joint statement about the anniversary of the war, because the American position has now shifted into Russia’s favour. At the United Nations, the US voted against Ukraine’s resolution to condemn Russia for their invasion, and joined the ranks of Russia, Belarus, and North Korea.

The Beaverton isn't playing around.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-24T15:48:52.301Z

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Roundup: A trio of interim leaders

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Rob Lantz was sworn-in as the new premier of PEI yesterday, but he’s officially an interim party leader because outgoing premier Dennis King didn’t bother to hang around long enough for a successor to be chosen (as Justin Trudeau has), which frankly just adds to the mystery surrounding why he resigned in a hurry. Usually that only happens when there’s a scandal of some variety. But what I didn’t realise was that the other two parties who have seats in the legislature also only have interim leaders, and that it’s been two years since the last provincial election, and no party has a permanent leader.

Here’s former PEI journalist Teresa Wright with more.

While I will push back on the “only chosen by 18 members” comment, because we should actually let the caucus choose the leader, it is nevertheless a problem that there are no permanent leaders in that legislature after two years. It’s malpractice, frankly, and a sign about how broken leadership politics have become in this country. I’ve seen it happen over multiple parties federally, particularly where they feel that they need between nine months and two years to find a new permanent leader so that they can generate ideas or “excitement” in the race, which again, is not how this is supposed to happen. The leader should not be the one bringing policy to the table—that should be the responsibility of the grassroots membership. And leaders should be within the caucus and not some outsider who thinks they can sail into the position without ever having run for office in the past. *coughs*

This tactic of waiting until closer to the election to pick a new leader smacks of opportunism and just having leaders to be election figureheads rather than doing the actual work that MPs/MLAs should be doing the rest of the legislative session. This is Very Bad for democracy. Legislative work needs to be done. Constituency work needs to be done. Leaders are supposed to have other responsibilities within parties than just leading an election. PEI used to be known for having a pretty robust civic culture, so this is not only disappointing, but a bad sign for the state of democracy in this country.

Especially in politics.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-21T14:38:53.896Z

Ukraine Dispatch

An overnight drone attack killed a rail worker outside of Kyiv, while falling debris damaged buildings inside the city. Russians claim to have taken three more villages in east Ukraine. American negotiators are threatening to cut Ukraine off from Starlink services unless they sign the document that demands fifty percent of their resource wealth in exchange for no protection or security guarantees.

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Roundup: NDP remain clueless about inflation

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Yesterday, Statistics Canada released the December inflation numbers, and they ticked up to 1.9 percent as higher energy prices offset the downward effect that the stupid GST/HST “holiday” was having on some of the indexes. That “holiday” ended last week, so that effect will end shortly, but there were also notes to watch in that some of the core measures that the Bank of Canada tracks closely started to tick back up again after months of steady declines.

In response to these results, the NDP put out a statement that crowed that the GST “holiday” had driven down food price inflation, and therefore must be made permanent. *sighs* My dudes. No. You didn’t actually read the fucking report, did you? If you had, you would have seen that the decline in food price inflation was from restaurant meals, not grocery stores, along with alcohol purchases because beer and wine was also affected by the GST/HST holiday. Also, you don’t know how inflation works, because it’s a year-over-year measure. That means that if you make it permanent, within a year, the one-time tax cut will disappear as the year-over-year figures no longer count it. It also ignores that the real driver of food price inflation is climate change (and the yes, the war in Ukraine). This is not only illiterate, but it’s sheer incompetence.

If the NDP had bothered to read the report, the food price inflation effect recorded by StatsCan was from restaurants, not grocery stores. Meanwhile, the cause of food price inflation is not the GST or "corporate greed," it's climate change.FFSwww150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quo…

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-18T16:07:47.883Z

There was something else in the report that bears mentioning, that was included in the rising energy prices, which was the provincial gas tax in Manitoba. A year ago, when Wab Kinew suspended the tax, he boasted that it meant Manitoba had the lowest inflation in the country. Well, it’s a year later, and inflation is a year-over-year measure, and said gas tax has been reinstated (albeit at a lower level than it was previously). And what are Manitoba’s numbers like? Well, their energy prices increased by 25.9%. Because inflation is a year-over-year measure, and this is the price you pay for a gimmick like suspending your gas tax for populist reasons.

Everything is just so stupid all of the time in #cdnpoli. Just relentless idiocy.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-18T16:07:47.884Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia has launched an overnight drone attack on Odessa, which has injured at least four. Ukraine launched their own overnight drone attack on Russia, hitting an oil refinery in the Samara region, after they previously hit a pumping station for the Caspian pipeline that supplies Kazakhstan. Russian forces claim to have control of the settlement of Yampolivka in the east, while Ukrainian forces destroyed a North Korean self-propelled howitzer in Luhansk region.

Meanwhile, president Zelenskyy is not visiting Saudi Arabia so as not to legitimise the “peace talks” that the US is holding with Russia without Ukraine or Europe present, where the US is throwing a lifeline to Putin rather than using the opportunity to maximize the pressure on him, while Trump himself was reciting Russian propaganda from the White House.

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Roundup: “Canada First” is mostly just Poilievre’s greatest “hits”

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Pierre Poilievre had his “Canada First” rally on Flag Day, Saturday, and in front of a crowd of about 800 in the smallest room in the Rogers Convention Centre in Ottawa, laid out his new vision of Canada, being the attempted pivot from just an “axe the tax” slogan, to the aforementioned “Canada First.” (Full speech transcript here). And aside from some newer talking points about retaliatory tariffs if Trump goes ahead, he nevertheless was incoherent even in his performative toughness. In saying that America has two options—a trade war, or an even deeper trade relationship with Canada, in the very same breath, he castigated the Liberals for “forcing” dependency on the American market for entirely bullshit reasons, with some revisionist history about the ghosts of energy project proposals past. Like, what? You say you want an even deeper relationship, but the Liberals were bad because they couldn’t force businesses and industry to divest from that market? What?

From there, it went into his greatest hits of stupid talking points, like his refrain about how we have the most land but aren’t building houses on it—as though we’re building residential subdivisions on the Canadian Shield or the Arctic tundra. He claimed he was right about everything, from the carbon levy to the capital gains changes (he wasn’t), and then played the victim about how nobody believed him but he was proven right. (He wasn’t). He went on some bullshit about pipeline projects that was, again, revisionist history, and then went on a tangent about the Canadian Pacific Railway and how Liberals wouldn’t get it done today. “Would some squeaky, keep-it-in-the-ground liberal cabinet minister like Guilbeault have chained himself to a tree to stop it?” My dude, do you know how many people died to make it happen? The dispossession of land, the immigrants coming over as indentured labour, those indentured immigrants blowing themselves up to create passageways through mountains? Seriously? Meanwhile, his promise to rapidly approve projects won’t actually get them built, and neither will bribing local First Nations with the promise of a greater share of royalties, and his vision of a west-east pipeline won’t change the economics.

https://twiiter.com/andrew_leach/status/1890058822175347027

There as more reheated nonsense about how he’s going to miraculously abolish interprovincial trade barriers with a magic wand. He promised to militarize the border, which is a Very Bad Thing. There was more rehashed tough-on-crime nonsense with repeated promises to repeal laws that have nothing to do with what he claims they do. He repeated his promise from last-week to unilaterally build a base in Iqaluit, with no input from the Inuit. And then it was the usual culture war bullshit, with the absolutely risible claims about how the Liberals “divide people by race, religion, gender, vaccine status.” No, they acknowledge that differences exist, that it’s not all middle-aged straight white men as the “neutral” and “norm.”

While centre-right pundits swooned at the notion that Poilievre was laying out a vision, he wasn’t really saying anything more than he’s been saying for the last two years, and all of it was vacuous noise. He was still playing it incredibly safe to avoid pissing off the MAGA supporters he’s trying to court so that they don’t go back to voting for Maxime Bernier, no matter how performatively tough he was about Trump’s threats, because he still had to mediate them with claiming that Trump was still right about the border and fentanyl (which he’s not). Apparently, nobody has actually paid attention to anything he’s said over those two years, but just instead paid attention to his churlish tone. (Oh, and I am also looking very askance at CBC for their credulously repeating everything he said without actually challenging any of it. That’s not journalism, guys, even if you’re stuck on the weekend shift).

Lots of spending going on here but if they honestly care about a balanced budget (more than rhetoric) spending cuts have to come. Like big cuts. Like more than $100b by my count

— Dr Lindsay Tedds (@lindsaytedds.bsky.social) 2025-02-16T18:25:45.143Z

https://bsky.app/profile/lindsaytedds.bsky.social/post/3licue34m6c2h

Pretty much the whole of #cdnpoli these days.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-02-17T03:30:20.152Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine downed 33 out of 70 Russian drones overnight Friday, and an overnight drone attack on Saturday damaged a thermal power plant in Mykolaiv, leaving 100,000 people without power in subzero temperatures. Russian troops have also intensified their attacks toward Pokrovsk. Elsewhere, the ammunition acquisition programme on Ukraine’s behalf has delivered 1.6 million shells to date and is carrying on, while Emmanuel Macron is hosting an emergency European summit on Ukraine in the wake of JD Vance’s attack on liberal democracy.

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Roundup: Paying $85,000 for the privilege of being humiliated

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As if that “big” meeting the premiers had with those mid-level White House officials who ended up trolling and humiliating them couldn’t get any worse, well, it did. It turns out, they paid a lobbyist connected with Don Jr. $85,000 to arrange said meeting, where they didn’t get properly briefed, and froze out the Canadian ambassador (who had a meeting in the White House with actual senior officials earlier that day) in the process.

Because I can’t do it justice, here’s more (full thread starts here):

/ “According to this high-level source, the premiers ‘underestimate how problematic this administration is and think that it is us, the Liberal fed govt, that’s incapable … because we are progressives.’ The source says the premiers now realize that the Trump admin is ‘a threat beyond partisanship.’”

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:22:16.642Z

/ “Another source regrets the premiers did not invite any Canadian representatives to the table, such as the Canadian ambassador to the US, for example. Kirsten Hillman is considered the person who can open any door in Washington, and she should be aware of all discussions, the source believes.”

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:23:02.640Z

/ “Some statements made by the Quebec premier have also raised eyebrows in Ottawa. A federal source believes François Legault revealed too much of his strategy.” Story cites some examples of him putting issues on, or taking them off, the negotiating table.

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:25:56.279Z

/ Ottawa, by the way, feels the same about certain other provinces publicly declaring what Canada should or shouldn’t use as negotiating leverage.

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:26:35.912Z

/ “‘It becomes dangerous to think out loud,’ said a federal source, who believes that such statements could weaken Canada’s negotiating position by revealing too much too soon. ‘We must not negotiate against ourselves,’ the source added.”

— Alex Panetta (@alexpanetta.bsky.social) 2025-02-14T15:27:17.535Z

I’m not sure that I can stress this enough—premiers have absolutely no business trying to conduct foreign negotiations. The federal government not only has been handling the situation, but they have told the premiers not to constantly react to everything coming from the Trump administration because it’s chaotic and incoherent, and then they went and tried to get their own meetings? Them meeting with senators and governors sure, I can understand, because they are more on their level as counterparts, but it’s also pretty useless in the current environment because Trump has absolutely everyone cowed.

I’m also going to point a finger at the media for emboldening these premiers because they keep saying things like “there’s a vacuum of leadership” at the federal level and so on, which is not the case. Trudeau is still on the job, even if he’s on his way out. Ministers are still doing their jobs. We have an ambassador in Washington doing her job. They have explicitly told the media that they are not going to react to everything for very good reason. There is no actual need for the premiers to step in and start freelancing. Doug Ford’s “Captain Canada” shtick was him positioning himself before an election, and thanks to uncritical media coverage, waaaaaaaay too many people fell for it. But the media needs people to light their hair on fire at every utterance, and the premiers have been only too happy to step in and fill that role, or to give the bootlicker position (because both sides!), and the federal government just winds up sidelining itself in the process. We’re handing Trump so many little wins because nobody can keep their powder dry.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone attack damaged port infrastructure in Odesa for a second day in a row. Another Russian drone pierced the outer shell of the Chernobyl nuclear plant, and while radiation levels are normal, there is a danger if power goes offline at the site for too long. Russians also claim to have taken control of two more settlements in Donetsk region.

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Roundup: Leadership hopefuls straying into provincial territory

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It’s practically an iron law of Canadian politics that the longer a federal leadership contest runs, the more likely they are to start dipping into areas of provincial jurisdiction. With the NDP, well, that’s a given because they refuse to understand the very notion that federalism exists and you can’t just wave away jurisdictional boundaries with “political willpower” (aka Green Lantern Theory), but the Liberals are all pretty much at it right now with their various campaigns.

Chrystia Freeland proposed a plan to give incentives for Canadian-trained doctors and nurses to come home, with a big bonus and a promise to get credential recognition “within 30 days.” I’m not quite sure how this is supposed to work because the federal government doesn’t pay doctors and nurses (except in cases where they are working with Indigenous Services for First Nations and Inuit facilities), and credentials recognition is run by provincial professional colleges, where the federal government has no particular sway, so I’m not sure how she plans to make that happen. As well, most provinces have not done the necessary things to attract and retain doctors and nurses, such as properly increasing their compensation, or reforming how they bill the system, so it’s hard to see how the incentives are in place for them to be tempted by her one-time bonus.

Mark Carney wants to incentivise prefabricated and modular homes…but won’t give any details on how, that would happen. And yes, housing is primarily a provincial responsibility, so again, I’m not sure just what mechanism he wants to use for said promotion.

Karina Gould proposed both reforms to EI, which her government has been sitting on for years (and yes, I know people who were working on said project years ago), and also promised to a “path” toward basic income, which is hugely problematic at the federal level because most social services are delivered by the provinces, and it’s incredibly complex to try and figure out the various supports at different levels. The BC government had an expert panel report on how to make it happen, and their ultimate recommendation was not to proceed with a basic income, but to enhance existing supports because often they are better targeted for people with complex needs. Gould seems to have ignored this research, and even more disappointing was that the CP story about Gould’s proposal talked about the NDP private members’ bill and the Senate public bill which called for a “framework” for basic income, but those bills couldn’t actually make it happen. They were empty because those kinds of bills can’t spend money, and would simply have been moral suasion. Unfortunately, progressives have consistently ignored the research on basic incomes, because it’s a solution in search of problems that they are desperate to try, and if Gould wants “evidence-based” policy, this is not it.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians launched 140 drones against Ukraine overnight Wednesday, and strikes damaged port facilities in Izmail, while two of the drones landed in neighbouring Moldova. Ukrainian drones hit Russia’s Andreapol oil pumping station, starting a fire. President Zelenskyy appeared to have visited near the front lines at Pokrovsk, praising the good work of the soldiers there. Zelenskyy also said that he would not accept any bilateral “peace deal” that the US reaches with Russia in which Ukraine is not a participant.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1890070620504985845

A reminder: Vladimir Putin could end the war in Ukraine right now, just by ordering his soldiers to go home. No need for treaties or negotiations.

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2025-02-13T12:17:35.210Z

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Roundup: Meeting some “senior officials”

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It was a big day of meetings in Washington—Dominic LeBlanc was there to meet with senior officials to try and talk them out of a trade war, while all of the premiers went down as a pack for the first time, and had their own meetings as well. And then word came down that they got a meeting with the White House, and cancelled the rest of their engagements for the day to hurry over. So just who did they meet with? The deputy chief of staff, and the head of personnel. And after their respectful meeting, said deputy chief of staff sent out a trolling tweet.

This while Danielle Smith insists that “diplomacy is working!” Sure it is. It’s working so well that you got a meeting with the head of White House personnel, and afterwords, they laughed at you on social media and continued making annexation threats and saying to take Trump seriously about it. How exactly does that show that it’s “working”? Yes, you got a thirty-day reprieve for him to keep moving goal posts in order to keep extracting more concessions, while everyone just shrugs and says “He’s a deal-maker.” Have some self-respect.

Ukraine Dispatch

A pre-dawn ballistic missile salvo killed one person in Kyiv. A report suggests that Russia has been able to withstandheavy battlefield losses because of a larger population and newer equipment, but their advantages in terms population and Cole War stockpiles are going to continue degrading over time.

Trump turned his attention to the invasion of Ukraine, and after his defence secretary said that Ukraine can’t expect their proper borders to be restored or NATO membership, Trump himself started talking about Ukraine handing over critical minerals for this bad deal of surrendered land (and people) along with no security guarantees. None of this is good.

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Roundup: Policies or platitudes?

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Chrystia Freeland is continuing to release policy ideas, and yesterday there was another list of them—a Middle Class™ tax cut (aimed at the upper end of that middle class, I would say), which seems to be about keeping pace with Mark Carney’s pledge; she is talking about cutting GST on new homes for first-time homebuyers, which echoes Pierre Poilievre’s pledge (and this particular policy has had the stamp of approval by people like Mike Moffatt); not only capping certain grocery prices, but going after the consolidation and monopolisation in the food chains before they reach the grocery oligopoly (the NDP howled that she was trying to steal their grocery cap idea, which they in turn took from France); capping credit card interest rates at 15 percent; and thousands of more early learning and child care spaces (which, I remind you, requires the cooperation of the provinces). It’s a lot, and some of them I find a bit dubious (such as the grocery price cap), but she did get the nod from experts in the field like Vass Bednar, so maybe I need to keep a more open mind about it. Nevertheless, she is coming out with a lot of proposals, and speaking to a lot of Canadian media, including in Quebec, unlike certain other leadership candidates.

Meanwhile, I continue to be completely underwhelmed by Carney, while everyone fawns over him. I am somewhat incredulous at this interview that he did with a columnist at the Winnipeg Free Press, who titled it “Mark Carney pitching answers, not slogans,” but he didn’t actually provide answers! Carney has pitched his Middle Class™ tax cut (which will inevitably disproportionately benefit the very wealthy), and then gave the platitudinous “It’s time to build … homes, building clean energy infrastructure, using all of our energy resources to maximum effect, helping to build the industries of the future now.” That actually says nothing. We know we need to build more homes and infrastructure, the question is how you’re going to do it in a way that is faster and more effectively than we’ve done to date, and that’s the real kicker that he doesn’t answer.

I also find his admission that he didn’t want to jump into politics until the top job was open to be completely off-putting. There are skills in politics that you don’t learn just jumping in at the very top, and it smacks of a particular kind of arrogance that Carney doesn’t see that. Nevertheless, the polls are suddenly swinging in his favour, so he’s clearly convinced a whole lot of people based on his resumé (a resumé that should preclude him from ever going into politics at that), and that single interview he did with John Stewart, but it feels like a whole lot of unearned credit at this point in the race.

Ukraine Dispatch

An early morning Russian missile attack on Kyiv killed at least one person and injured at least three others, while sparking several fires. Overnight Russian attacks on the Poltava region damaged natural gas production facilities in the region.

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Roundup: Unilateral Arctic plans and foreign aid churlishness

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Pierre Poilievre called a press conference from Iqaluit, yesterday, where he announced his Arctic policy ideas, which include finally building an air force base in the region, doubling the number of Canadian Rangers, and building two more heavy icebreakers, but for the Royal Canadian Navy and not the Coast Guard. Oh, and that he was going to pay for it all by gutting foreign aid. Set aside the fact that the plans for an Arctic base have long been in the works with slow progress, but does the Navy even want icebreaker capability? They didn’t want the slushbreakers—sorry, Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships that the Harper government decided they needed, and here is another Conservative who wants to impose capabilities that they have not asked for, because reasons. Nevertheless, this whole thing set off the premier of Nunavut, who noted there was zero consultation on these policies, and pointed to actual sovereignty-affirming things that governments should be doing for the north that aren’t this kind of performative flexing.

As for Poilievre’s disdain for foreign aid, it’s one-part monkey-see-monkey-do with MAGA and Elon Musk dismantling USAID, but it’s juvenile, provincial, and ignores that foreign aid is soft power that also does thinks like not let Russia and China swoop in and start winning hearts and minds in those countries, which is what Trump opened the door to, and which Poilievre seems keen to follow, justified by a number of lies about the recipients of that aid based on the fact that UNRWA may have had a handful of compromised employees. He doesn’t care about the realities of this aid spending and the projection of soft power, because those recipients can’t vote for him, and he’s playing into tired populist tropes about “taking care of people at home,” even though they actually don’t care about vulnerable people at home, and just want a tax cut instead of actually helping anyone. And again, Poilievre doesn’t care.

If anything, Canada should actually be living up to its previous pledges about increased funding for foreign assistance, particularly because the dismantling of USAID is going to affect programmes that Canada was partnering with them on, and they provided much of the “thought leadership” in the space. Children are going to die of malnutrition, and preventable illness, HIV infections are going to skyrocket, and again, Poilievre doesn’t care because those people can’t vote for him. What a bleak, cursèd timeline we live in right now.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Ukrainian drone attack damaged an industrial facility—possibly an oil refinery—in Russia’s Saratov region. The US’ “freeze” of aid money means that organisations helping investigate Russian war crimes can’t pay staff or continue their work—Trump and Musk just doing Putin’s bidding.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1888916130254725208

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