Tag Archives: Ukraine

Roundup: Absolving the provinces, child care edition

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Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, let’s talk about the absolute bullshit framing of The Canadian Press’story about the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ report into the state of the early learning and childcare programme. The headline: “Ottawa set to miss 2026 deadline for establishing $10-a-day child care: report.” This is wrong. It is not “Ottawa” or the federal government who are going to miss the deadline. It is a number of provinces and territories who will, and yes, that matters.

The report makes it quite clear from the start who is responsible: “Provinces, territories and Indigenous governing bodies have the main responsibility for implementing CWELCC, with the federal government providing much of the funding and high-level policy considerations as it does with Medicare, housing, and other social programs under provincial or territorial jurisdiction.” Nowhere in the report does it assign blame or responsibility to the federal government for the goals not being met. It’s quite explicit about which provinces are meeting their targets and which are not, and if there is a particular issue levelled at the federal government, it’s that the goal of an “average of $10/day” is not the same as a $10/day cap, and that it’s an imprecise and problematic concept. But that’s not how the CP story frames the issue.

This goes back to one of the constant problems in Canadian media, where every problem is blamed on the federal government, and so long as they provide funding to the provinces for programmes that the provinces are responsible for carrying out, then somehow the federal government is assigned a disproportionate share of the blame. Indeed, who does CP reach out to for comment? The federal minister’s office, and not the provincial ministers in those lagging provinces, when it’s their gods damned responsibility, not the federal government’s. And this pattern keeps repeating itself over and over again, and we wonder why provincial governments are never held accountable for their failures. This is one prime example right here. And yes, this CP wire copy was distributed in pretty much every other outlet with the same misleading headline, and that same headline and framing were used in television interviews on CTV News Channel throughout the day. I wish I knew why it’s impossible for legacy media to have a basic grasp of civics, but they refuse to, and this is what we end up with. It’s unacceptable.

Today or any day, really.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-07-09T15:31:50.296Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia’s attack on Ukraine early Wednesday was the largest yet, at 728 drones and 13 missiles. The attack early this morning has thus far reported two deaths and 13 injuries.

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Roundup: A major far-right terror arrest

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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

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Roundup: A committee prepares to express its dismay

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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

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Roundup: Bad pancakes and fantasy pipelines

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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.

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Roundup: Everyone wants a PONI

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Tim Hodgson, Cabinet’s absolute worst QP performer, was in Calgary yesterday to announce funding for some carbon capture projects (which we should be dubious about), where he was asked about that absolutely morally bankrupt letter from the Alberta and Ontario environment ministers, demanding the essential dismantling of the federal environmental protection regime. Hodgson responded by praising Bill C-5 and its giant Henry VIII clause to deal with existing environmental legislation, and obliquely hinted that said environmental legislation would be dealt with over time, which is not exactly encouraging when Mark Carney says that he still cares about the environment.

Hodgson also made comments about the discussions being had about what projects they plan to designate as Projects of National Importance (PONIs), but again, it’s vague, and invites distrust because nobody knows what is supposed to qualify, or what they should be bringing forward, and it all looks like a gong show in waiting that will put way too much power in the hands of a single minister with nowhere near enough guard rails. That’s not a good thing, guys!

Meanwhile, Erin O’Toole showed up in The Walrus of all places to wax nostalgic about back when Canada used to build things, like during the First World War, when there were ships being built along the shores of Lake Ontario at an incredible rate. And that’s great. But also remember that the lakefront back then was an industrial wasteland with no environmental regard (that was incredibly costly to clean up afterward), and you can pretty much bet that occupational health and safety were not exactly being minded then either. I cannot stress enough that maybe you should think about just what the circumstances were back “when Canada used to build,” and why that might not be a good thing to return to. Honestly…

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia’s attack overnight Thursday and into Friday was the largest of the war so far, with 550 missiles and drones, largely at Kyiv and another four regions. (Video clips here). Two Dutch intelligence services say that Russia has been increasing use of outlawed chemical weapons in Ukraine.

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Roundup: Questions about the barriers to building

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There was an interesting piece from The Logic yesterday where they asked the proponents of three projects to describe what their barriers are, and they’re…not all that coherent? One of them was complaining that they don’t really know where to apply for things and that it’s a black box once they do. And I find that curious, because there is a city full of consultants, lobbyists and government relations professionals out there whose job it is to help you navigate these kinds of processes. These people exist. It’s their jobs. Other proponents are complaining about federalism—some things trigger federal rules, some provincial, and they just want a one-stop shop. Which, sure, I get, but there are joint review processes available for certain projects that have both federal and provincial assessment components, but also that’s the nature of a federal state. Neither jurisdiction is going to abdicate their sovereignty, and I think that there are legitimate concerns if you expect one level of government to give up their process to “avoid duplication,” because it’s not actually duplication—they each look at different things, and I would not trust certain provincial governments to adequately address the concerns of federal legislation in their own processes.

The other complaint that these proponents have has to do with negotiating with provincial electricity suppliers for their projects, and the process of trying to negotiate adequate electricity for the project so that they can advance their proposals, which again, is not a barrier the federal government can do anything about. And sometimes hard things are hard, but I didn’t see any particular barriers in these descriptions that seemed insurmountable—it was a lot of “we don’t know what we’re doing,” and “I don’t want to have to do it,” particularly where there are environmental concerns. Which is one of the reasons why I’m particularly concerned about Bill C-5 federally, which can essentially ignore rules with the wave of a pen, and Ontario’s Bill 5, which literally can declare certain zones in the province to be lawless. These are not good approaches, but they seem to be what our leader have settle on, particularly because Mark Carney seems to operate on an ethos of seeking forgiveness rather than permission, which is not a good look for a government.

Meanwhile, here is Andrew Leach with a couple of added observations about these projects:

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia has launched an all-night attack on Kyiv that has injured at least fourteen. There were also strikes against port infrastructure in Odesa that have killed two people, and shelling of Pokrovsk has killed five people. There was also an airstrike against Poltava that his a military recruitment office that killed two people. Meanwhile, the EU was discussing how to adapt to Trump’s decision to withhold needed arms to Ukraine, as some cannot be sourced elsewhere.

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Roundup: Didn’t quite meet the Canada Day goals

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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.

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Roundup: Passing a flawed bill with a demand for trust

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Bill C-5 passed the Senate yesterday afternoon, little more than 24 hours after it was first tabled in that Chamber. Because they did a pre-study in committee of the whole, the bill went directly to Third Reading debate. There were a number of amendments tabled, some of them pointing out legitimate drafting errors in the bill, and all of them defeated, some on voice votes, some on recorded divisions. A few themes emerged through debate and proposed amendments, many of which were around the concerns of Indigenous people. It wasn’t just the lack of consultation, and it wasn’t just the stories of Indigenous senators’ staff being subjected to racist tirades over the phone. Some of it was, quite correctly, the concern that these projects will move ahead and the local First Nations will be screwed out of a financial stake in these projects yet again. None of this swayed enough senators to risk actually making amendments, because they have been sufficiently cowed into going along with the government’s ludicrous insistence that this is of such great urgency that there can be no delays, which amending would mean, either by needing to recall the House of Commons to deal with, or to postpone passage of the bill until September.

Another theme that kept being brought up, which continue to annoy me, is that the Canadian Senate is somehow or should be bound by a kind of “Salisbury Convention” like the House of Lords, which it isn’t, and frankly should not apply here. “Oh, the government campaigned on this and won the election, so we shouldn’t oppose it.” They didn’t campaign on an open-ended Henry VIII clause that is ripe for abuse, but that’s what these senators just rushed through. The Government Leader, Senator Marc Gold, told senators that they “Have to trust the government.” No, you absolutely do not. In fact, it is your job not to “just trust” them. I can’t believe I need to say that. So many senators just abdicated their responsibilities, and then patted themselves on the back for it.

And the government now has a giant Henry VIII clause that they promise to use responsibly—really! Just trust them!

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-06-26T20:11:56.159Z

Here is @senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social's appearance on #PnPCBC.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-06-27T00:06:53.676Z

I also have to take a moment to push back against something that was said in debate, which was when the Conservative leader in the Senate, Senator Housakos, claimed that they needed to pass this bill to “bend some environmental rules” because the country is “facing bankruptcy.” Like hell it is. The rush to denigrate the record of the past decade, where the country faced some very serious challenges including a global pandemic which they have mostly memory-holed, did call for some higher spending, but we are nowhere near the “debt bomb” levels of the 1990s, and people need to stop pretending otherwise. And we especially don’t need this kind of absolute horseshit to justify bad legislation and Henry VIII clauses, because that’s the kind of genie you may not be able to put back in the bottle. Yikes.

Programming Note: I’m taking an extended long weekend, through Canada Day, because I am exhausted. See you on the flipside, everyone!

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine’s top commander says that they have halted Russia’s advance into the Sumy region, and have stabilised the front lines. Russia claims to have taken the village of Shevchenko in Donetsk region, which is near a lithium deposit that they covet.

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Roundup: It’s not five percent

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Now that the big NATO summit is over, can we please stop saying that the commitment is to five percent defence spending? Because it’s not. It’s 3.5 percent within a decade, but the whole other 1.5 percent is stuffing a whole lot of things to pad the numbers, whether it’s ports, or airports, or critical mineral mines. It’s creative accounting designed to make Trump think everyone is doing more (because he doesn’t understand NATO and tries to treat it like a protection racket), from a summit that was pretty much an exercise in placating him at all costs. (Takeaways more broadly, and for Canada specifically).

I’m much more concerned about Carney’s vague talk that this spending means trade-offs and possible cuts in other areas, but won’t give any examples of what that could look like. I’m especially concerned because of the way he’s talked about things like using AI, which is entirely in the vein of his having bought into the hype, and what that will inevitably mean are job cuts/losses, and a very, very costly mistake by government when it turns out that AI can’t do what they were sold on it doing for them, and it will compound all of those problems. I’m also not convinced about all of those future revenues that he thinks critical minerals are going to bring in, which sounds a little too much like counting chickens before they’ve hatched, and so on.

Bill C-5 in the Senate

Bill C-5 began deliberations in the Senate yesterday, and passed second reading on a pro forma voice vote, and will have study in committee of the whole today. There was a minor bit of disruption as Senator Patrick Brazeau collapsed from an unspecified “medical event” as he was asking questions to Senator Housakos following his speech as opposition leader, but we’re going to see a lot of hand-wringing about whether the Senate will actually amend the bill. There is pressure from the AFN national chief to slow the bill down, but there will be pressure from both the Government Leader and the Conservatives to pass it as quickly as possible, without amendments, and we’ll hear the usual doom arguments about how it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to recall the House of Commons if they did amend it—never mind that the world would not end if the bill didn’t pass until September.

Meanwhile, we see columnists like Tanya Talaga once again calling on the Governor General to deny royal assent to the bill, and I just can’t. This is actual journalistic malpractice. She can’t deny royal assent. It goes against every tenet of Responsible Government, and if she did, it would be a constitutional crisis of absolutely epic proportions. If it passes and you disagree with it, challenge it in the courts. That’s how the system works. But that column should not have been published, and the editors should have either told her to take out the references to the GG going outside of her authority, or the column should have been spiked. There is absolutely no excuse for this.

Ukraine Dispatch

President Zelenskyy had a meeting with Trump on the sidelines of the NATO summit (in a more “calibrated” wardrobe), and Trump said he would “consider” more Patriot missiles, but that means absolutely nothing.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1937826703255994570

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Roundup: Danielle Smith attacks immigrants as part of “Alberta Next” panel

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Danielle Smith is at it again. Under the rubric of going on the offensive against Ottawa, she is going to chair a series of town hall meetings dubbed the “Alberta Next Panel” to get feedback on how the province should stand up to the federal government. And if you’ve heard this before, it was about five years ago that Jason Kenney did a similar thing dubbed the “Fair Deal” panel, but he didn’t chair it himself because he had enough self-awareness to know that would be nothing more than an absolute shit show, but Smith wants to be a woman of the people. Kenney’s panel was mostly a flop, but Smith is trying to resurrect some of those unpopular ideas, along with some absolute bullshit about working with other provinces to change the constitution. She has a couple of credible people on the panel, and a couple less-credible people, but the fact that she is chairing ensures that this will be nothing short of a fiasco.

And already, the signs are bad. Really, really bad. Like one of the topics is to “just ask questions” about denying social services to immigrants who don’t have status yet, which is supposed to somehow be pushing back if the federal government is somehow forcing “the number or kind of newcomers moving to our province,” blaming them for high housing costs, high unemployment and importing “divisions and disputes,” which is an outrageous provocation. Remember that it wasn’t that long ago that the Alberta government was falling all over itself to attract displaced Ukrainians, while denouncing any plans to “redistribute” asylum-seekers that had crossed into Quebec to other provinces in order to share the burden. And why might that be? Because Ukrainians are mostly white?

https://bsky.app/profile/senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social/post/3lsfguwp55k2t

https://bsky.app/profile/senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social/post/3lsfhatsvsc2t

This is straight-up MAGA bait, because Danielle Smith has to keep that base of her party placated at all times or they will eat her face like they did Jason Kenney. In a sense, this is Kenney’s fault, because he invited these fringe and far-right assholes into the party while he chased out the centrist normies, because he wanted a “pure” conservative party who would keep the NDP out of power forever, and well, they didn’t appreciate his appeal to common sense during the pandemic, and his fighting back against them now is tinged with bitter irony because the only reason they now hold as much power and influence in the province that they do is because he put them there, rather than allowing them to fester on the sidelines. And so, Smith is going to keep this pander to them, as ugly and fascistic as it is, because they made a deal with their devils as a shortcut to getting back into power and staying there in perpetuity. And Smith is going to keep feeding the separatists in the province through this kind of inflammatory rhetoric, because she thinks they suit her purposes in trying to threaten the rest of the country as leverage for her selfish demands. It’s a grotesque situation, and she is determined to gerrymander the next election to keep it going.

I wonder what happens when you invite the worst possible fringe elements into your party because you’re mad someone else got a turn.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-06-23T17:09:32.466Z

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian ballistic missile struck Dnipro around mid-day Tuesday, killing seventeen and injuring more than 200 others; other attacks made for a total of twenty-six civilian deaths over the course of the day.

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