Tag Archives: Ukraine

Roundup: Trying to make Churchill happen. (It’s not going to happen)

Posted on by

In light of news that the new Major Projects Office is due to be launched this week, and comments that prime minister Mark Carney and others have been making about the possibility of an LNG terminal at the Port of Churchill, Manitoba, it behoves me to once again bring up energy economist Andrew Leach, who has a giant reality check for everyone saying this is going to be a thing. It’s not—unless we want to spent billions of taxpayer dollars on a money-losing exercise, that is. Which is not what this whole drive toward expanding resource extraction is supposed to be about.

That said, I think that Leach is ultimately correct here—that Carney and his brain trust have spent too long reading the Conservatives’ talking points about resource development and have believed them to be true, which they obviously are not. But when you have legacy media in this country just completely uncritically regurgitating the talking points from the Conservatives and Danielle Smith, and reporters and political talk show hosts just uncritically mocking the “no business case” line about why we don’t have LNG terminals on the east coast without talking to a gods damned energy economist about why that didn’t happen, well, of course it becomes easy for someone like Carney to just uncritically believe this nonsense, because that’s all that’s being presented. Justin Trudeau and his Cabinet couldn’t actually articulate why there was no business case (because “if you’re explaining, you’re losing,” so they never explained anything), and trusted the media to do it for them, which media wasn’t going to do, and could barely be arsed to even both-sides that particular issue. And this is where we are today, and Carney is going to be forced to take the loss on this one, because Liberals refuse to take Conservatives to task for their bullshit.

Speaking of, Pierre Poilievre was in Charlottetown, PEI, to decry that the incoming clean fuel regulations are “Carney’s Carbon Tax 2.0,” even though Trudeau’s government put through those regulations years ago, they’re not a tax, and associated costs are not going into government coffers, but simply businesses passing along the costs of reducing their emissions. It’s the same brand of dishonest bullshit that he trades in, and even some Conservatives are getting tired of it, telling the National Post that he’s become a caricature of himself. So, way to go there.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-08-27T22:01:25.944Z

Ukraine Dispatch

There was a massive Russian drone and missile attack on energy infrastructure across six regions of Ukraine in the early morning hours, looking in part to exacerbate an existing has shortage. Russia also says that they object to the European proposals around security guarantees, which is not a shock at all.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Kenney’s omitted immigration changes

Posted on by

The Conservatives are full-on throwing everything they can at the wall to see what sticks, and yesterday it was the moral panic over immigration figures. Pierre Poilievre put out a press release decrying that permits issued had blown past the proposed caps, and that the system is “facing collapse,” which I’m pretty sure is bullshit, before promising to propose “fixes” in the fall, which you can already be assured will mostly be comprised of dog-whistles. (And remember, the problem is less with immigration numbers than it is with premiers who are not doing their jobs with regards to building housing of properly funding healthcare).

Enter Jason Kenney, who went on an extended rant about how he “fixed” the system when he was minister, and how Trudeau and company broke it, but this is also revisionist history. He talks about the sweeping reforms he brought in in 2010, and how everyone praised it, but he omitted that he blunted most of those reforms before they could be implemented. You see, in 2010, it was a hung parliament and the Conservatives couldn’t push through draconian immigration legislation, so they needed to work with the opposition (most notably Olivia Chow as the NDP’s immigration critic), and they passed a bill that had plenty of safeguards in place. In 2011, there was an election where they got a majority, and before the 2010 bill could be fully implemented (because the coming-into-force provisions were going to take as long as a year), Kenney rammed through a new bill that curtailed most of those safeguards, and used tales of international migration cartels, and human smuggling rings that would bring people into the country to collect social assistance, which those cartels would then collect, and so on. Yes, there were problems with high rates of claims from certain countries, but like most things, Kenney was less than honest and building his scaremongering case, while also doing the thing where he played economic migrants against asylum seekers, and made “good immigrants versus bad asylum claimants” arguments to justify his legislation.

https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1960088637925961993

The other thing that Kenney is blatantly ignoring is that the world is not the same world as it was in 2010, and the migration situation is vastly different than it was back then. So yes, the current government is facing different challenges, but I wouldn’t expect Kenney to be honest about well, pretty much anything, because that’s who Jason Kenney is.

effinbirds.com/post/7790141…

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-08-24T20:02:02.229Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine has been stepping up drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and fuel terminals, squeezing their war economy.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Carney visits Kyiv

Posted on by

Prime Minister Mark Carney landed in Warsaw on Saturday for a trip that was announced as being to Warsaw, Berlin, and Riga, when early Sunday morning, he turned up in Kyiv for Ukraine’s Independence Day, along with defence minister David McGuinty. (Photos here). There is a bit of symbolism here because Canada was the first western nation to recognize Ukraine’s independence after it broke away from the Soviet Union. Carney laid a wreath at Ukraine’s national memorial alongside president Zelenskyy and his wife, and also had meetings that included Ukraine’s new prime minister.

Carney announced a new $2 billion aid package for Ukraine—new tranches of supplies of military aid, medical equipment, arms; purchases of items prioritised by NATO including US-made equipment, munitions, and air defence capabilities; drone-counter-drone and electronic warfare equipment; armoured vehicles, as well as more ammunition procured through the Czech process. Carney also said that he was not ruling out Canadian troops being part of any security guarantees if a ceasefire is achieved (not that it’s likely to happen).

Here is a broader look at Canada’s contributions to Ukraine. AP has some photos from Ukraine’s independence in 1991, as well as photos from around Europe to mark this Independence Day.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia captured two settlements in Donetsk on Friday, and another one in Dnipropetrovsk on Sunday. A Ukrainian drone struck the fuel terminal of  Russian nuclear power plant, as we also learned that the US has been restricting the use of long-range missiles against Russia. There was a prisoner exchange on Sunday of 146 prisoners of war on both sides.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The growing incoherence with environmental protections

Posted on by

This government’s incoherence with regard to its environmental policies continues apace, as Tim Hodgson told Vassy Kapelos that exceptions to things like the tanker ban or emissions cap could be made through Bill C-5, which doesn’t make any gods damned sense. Why have a tanker ban or an emissions cap if it’s only applied on an ad hoc basis? If you want to get rid of them (and with that tanker ban, be ready for a major fight with local First Nations), actually lay out a rationale for it other than hand-wavey nonsense, But seriously, Hodgson is worse than any Trudeau-era minister when it comes to being unable to communicate his way out of a wet paper bag, and I fail to see how he could possibly have been considered a star by Carney.

Meanwhile, while Alberta continues to beat the drum for the obliteration of environmental laws, they keep using examples where there are already permits in hand, and where the market has determined that they don’t see a business case to move ahead, which has nothing to do with government. But hey, why be honest about it?

Oh, and because this government seems to be pinning a lot of hopes on reinventing the wheel, there already was a pre-existing major projects office, but Carney has determined to recreate it under a different minister, just because, and not actually learn any lessons as to why projects take time or approvals take as long as they do.

effinbirds.com/post/7772964…

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-08-21T14:04:55.394Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched another massive attack in the early morning hours of Thursday, with 574 drones and 40 missiles, and one of the targets was an American-owned household electronics company based in Lviv, because they know the Americans won’t respond. Ukraine attacked an oil refinery in Russia’s Novoshakhtinsk city. And Putin’s demands include the whole Donbas region, and a prohibition on joining NATO or having Western troops in the country, which are clearly unacceptable because Russia has no intention of ending the war.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The same counterproductive demands, once again

Posted on by

The “changed” and “humbled” Pierre Poilievre was back on his old bullshit yesterday, calling a press conference in Surrey, BC, to decry crime rates, blame the government, give some misleading bullshit about past legislation, and then take friendly questions from hand-picked outlets. Sounds familiar?

But seriously, we’ve been through all of this before. Calling for a terrorism designation for the Bishnoi gang is not helpful, and risks watering down terrorism designations in general (which is why it was a problem to do it for Mexican cartels at the behest of the Trump administration, not to mention designations shouldn’t be made for political expediency). Tougher penalties for extortion? Extortion with a firearm already has a maximum sentence of life in jail, so why they want a four-year minimum is not exactly doing anything more than current sentencing already does. Repealing the former Bill C-75 on bail? As we have said time and time again, this merely codified Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence on the law of bail and made it tougher for those accused of domestic violence to get bail, so repealing it will do nothing. What is it going to take to drive home that these are not solutions, and will do nothing about the current uptick in police-reported crime (and again, these are small upticks that are well below historic norms)?

Meanwhile, Poilievre, Andrew Scheer, and others, spent their day engaging in supportive posts for transphobes, during Ottawa Pride Week no less. So yeah, up to their same old bullshit because they want to rile up the grievance mongers so that they can begin a new round of grifty fundraising. Poilievre has learned absolutely nothing from losing his seat and the election.

Conservatives are going all-in on transphobia today, as Pride Week in Ottawa is underway. #canqueer

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-08-20T21:13:56.179Z

Ukraine Dispatch

At least fourteen people were wounded in a Russian attack on the Sumy region, three people were killed in an artillery attack on the eastern city of Kostiantynivka, and a gas distribution station was hit in Odesa. Russians claim to have advanced in the Dnipropetrovsk region, while Ukrainians knocked out power in parts of Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Undue back-patting for Poilievre

Posted on by

It really should not have been a surprise to anyone that Pierre Poilievre won the by-election in Battle River—Crowfoot by around 80 percent, which is why he chose that riding after all. But that won’t but an end to the back-patting about the “hard work” he put in, and so on. What I find particularly odd is this narrative that has emerged, from Jason Kenney and others, about how this somehow proved that Poilievre stuck it to the so-called “separatist” movement in the province, and exposed them for the empty shell that they are. Because I don’t see him having done that at all.

https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1957815691299713180

This was a federal by-election and there was no real “separatist” presence, particularly when the ballot question in the riding was whether Poilievre deserved a second chance after he was defeated in his own riding. There was no actual separatist narrative being advanced, and even if there was, Poilievre basically said that they have “legitimate grievances,” which is not exactly a rousing condemnation. More to the point, those separatists are focused on the provincial level, because they know that they can wedge Danielle Smith internally within the UCP, because these are the same face-eating leopards that Jason Kenney invited into the party while he kicked out the centrist normies (and those leopards subsequently ate his face). Smith is the one giving these losers oxygen, especially as she has tried to do everything she can to ensure that they get the referendum that they’re looking for, so that she can play it to her advantage in trying to leverage concessions from the federal government. It’s going to blow up in her face eventually, but this has nothing to do with Poilievre and everything to do with Smith, so giving Poilievre any credit here is grasping.

As for Poilievre’s return to Ottawa, could legacy media be less credulous about his supposed change in tone, or his bullshit about how he’ll work with the government on “non-partisan solutions,” which in his mind is the obliteration of environmental legislation, and the other bullshit in his so-called “Canadian Sovereignty Act.” He has explicitly stated this outright. Stop pretending he’s going to act “prime ministerial” or “statesmanlike,” because he is completely incapable, nor is he willing because that doesn’t get him clicks on social media/funds in the party’s coffers.

Ukraine Dispatch

Within hours of the “peace” talks in Washington, Russia launched their biggest overnight attack of the month, with 270 drones and ten missiles, striking energy facilities in Kremenchuk and Chernihiv. But hey, they’re going to draw up options for “security guarantees” that Russia won’t agree to, because their goal is the elimination of Ukraine. (Why are we pretending otherwise?)

Continue reading →

Roundup: Minister shocked at decades-old endemic problem

Posted on by

Things with the Air Canada labour dispute threatened to veer into farce yesterday as things did not go as the government had hoped. Early in the morning, the Canadian Industrial Relations Board declared that the ongoing strike action by the flight attendants was now an illegal strike—but they didn’t refer it to the courts for enforcement, even though union leaders said that they were willing to go to jail for it (but there is no criminal offence here, merely administrative monetary penalties). And then, gallingly, the minister declared that she was shocked—shocked!—to learn about the allegations of unpaid labour, and ordered a probe of the situation, promising to close any loopholes in the law, but she can’t have been shocked. This has been an ongoing issue for decades. In the last parliament, both the Conservatives and the NDP put forward private members’ bills about this. The NDP in particular made a bunch of members’ statements and questions in QP about the issue, but Hajdu is only now learning about it? Come. On.

https://bsky.app/profile/lyleskinner.bsky.social/post/3lwoofl4ahs2v

Air Canada, meanwhile, is cancelling more flights, because they didn’t think that the union would not obey the back-to-work order (that has no enforcement mechanism). The union is trying to get an injunction because they argue that the order is abusing Section 107’s powers (and they are very likely right about that). And then Air Canada insisted that they won’t negotiate until the planes are flying again…but then talks resumed with a mediator by night, so we’ll see where this is at by morning.

Meanwhile, the broader problem of the moral hazard of continued government intervention, particularly the use of Section 107 (which doesn’t require a legislative process, or anything other than an email or phone call), has other unions on edge that this is going to permanently imbalance labour relations, because employers can simply declare an impasse and wait for the government to intervene. While I do think that these Quebec unions in the CP story are not differentiating between provincial and federal legislation enough (Section 107 is a federal power that applies only to federally-regulated workplaces), but we also know that many provincial governments are not exactly worrying about rights these days, which includes labour rights. Next steps remain the courts, who are likely to strike down these uses of Section 107 as being abusive.

Ukraine Dispatch

The toll from those strikes on Kharkiv and elsewhere early Monday have climbed to at least ten dead and 23 wounded. A Russian general was seriously wounded on the front lines.

At the conclusion of the meeting at the White House, Trump has agreed to European security guarantees (for now, anyway) after Ukraine offered to buy $100 billion in weapons from the US, and  now Trump wants to set up a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy (not that it will change anything as Putin doesn’t want to end the war). AP has a timeline of the changes in the front lines from February 2022 until now.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Attempts to end the Air Canada labour dispute didn’t take

Posted on by

It took almost no time at all on Saturday for the jobs minister, Patty Hajdu, to invoke Section 107 of the Canada Labour Code to try and put an end to the labour disruption at Air Canada (which was both a strike and a lockout), instruction the Canada Industrial Relations Board to send them to binding arbitration. This after the government kept mouthing the words that the best deals happen at the bargaining table, and insisting that they are on the side of workers. Well, they’re less vocal about that part under the current leadership of Mark Carney. (More on the rise of Section 107 in a story I wrote for National Magazine a few months ago).

Patty Hajdu is invoking Section 107 to order binding arbitration for Air Canada and the flight attendants' union. #cdnpoli 1/2

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-08-16T17:11:57.456Z

But it didn’t end that easily. The union is fighting this use of Section 107, and they have opted to remain on strike because the CIRB has no enforcement mechanisms, so the disruption continues, flights continue to be cancelled, and I have no doubt that the Federal Court will be a busy place tomorrow, unless Air Canada decides that they actually want to get back to the bargaining table for real.

My prediction: the Courts will find that the use of s.107 for the Minister to direct the labour board to order binding arbitration to end a labour dispute is both unconstitutional and exceeds the statutory purpose of s.107 as it makes back to work legislation moot. #cdnlaw

— Lyle Skinner (@lyleskinner.bsky.social) 2025-08-16T23:07:55.308Z

A couple of other things to note: This is likely going to have bigger repercussions in the industry because that unpaid work is fairly standard across most airlines, and it hearkens back to an earlier age where flight attendants were promised a chance to see the world in exchange for poor wages, and well, that’s far less tenable these days considering how much seniority they need to build in order to actually get work those flights. And for the Conservatives to suddenly decide they’re on the side of flight attendants is just rank opportunism, so that they can say “Liberals bad!” Nobody actually believes they’re suddenly champions of the working class, even if they have tried to pivot to appealing to blue-collar unions.

https://bsky.app/profile/senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social/post/3lwm5ud2lmc24

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lwksfe2c6c2o

effinbirds.com/post/7785610…

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-08-17T14:08:02.041Z

Ukraine Dispatch

An overnight drone attack on Kharkiv has killed three and injured at least seventeen others. Ukraine also says it pushed back Russians further in the Sumy region. President Zelenskyy met with his “Coalition of the Willing” allies virtually, and a number of European allies will be joining his meeting at the White House today, as Trump is looking to demand Ukraine give up more land that Russia has been unable to seize in order to “make a deal.” Here is a look at the effect of drone warfare on those on the front lines, particularly around things like medical evacuations.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A “summit” that achieved nothing

Posted on by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch

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

Continue reading →

Roundup: Going to war over the EV mandate

Posted on by

Pierre Poilievre called a press conference yesterday in rural Saskatchewan to declare that he’s going to war with the government over the EV mandate, during which he said that he’s going to call it a “Carney tax” (for the nonsense reason that manufacturers that don’t meet their targets can face penalties), and he lied entirely about what the mandate does, right up to claiming that this is about killing rural and small-town life in Canada. It’s not only unhinged, but entirely indicative of the fact that Poilievre hasn’t learned a single gods damned lesson about why he lost the last election. These kinds of stunts for the sake of the attention economy aren’t exactly showing him to be credible about, well, anything.

He also once again demanded that the prime minister cancel the loan to BC Ferries for the ships they plan to get from China, because of the canola tariffs, which again, is not how this works. The prime minister can’t tell the Infrastructure Bank what they can and can’t do, because it was set up to ensure that it wasn’t ministers directing their investments. That’s the whole point of making it an arm’s-length agency. (And also, once again, no Canadian shipyards bid on this contract).

But Poilievre also decided to blame Carney for China’s bullying tactics, saying that they smell weakness. Erm, China bullies regardless. That’s why we shouldn’t be giving into their pressure tactics, because it’ll embolden them to do more again, and to do other things, like kidnapping more Canadians, and engaging in hostage diplomacy. Again, did Poilievre pay absolutely no attention for the past decade? Or is this yet more elaborate performance art for the sake of getting clicks on his social media, in the hopes that those clicks turn into gullible people opening up their wallets to him. The answer, of course, is the latter.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-08-14T14:08:08.062Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian forces say that they have stabilised their eastern front after that brief breakthrough by Russians earlier in the week. The latest prisoner swap with Russia returned 84 Ukrainians, many of them civilians.

Continue reading →