Tag Archives: Ukraine

Roundup: A genteel time that never was

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I saw a post yesterday that took a page from Hansard on that day in 1978, and well, it was full of the first prime minister Trudeau and several honourable members accusing one another of being animals, or parts thereof. And while hilarious, I think it’s a bit of a corrective when people keep insisting that Parliament used to be a much more genteel place (and we got a lot of that during the Ed Broadbent and Brian Mulroney memorials).

It really wasn’t that genteel. It never has been—there are infamous reports in Hansard about early debates in the 1860s where MPs were setting off firecrackers in the Chamber and playing musical instruments to disrupt people speaking. And I can also say that Question Period was a hell of a lot more raucous when I started covering it fifteen years ago compared to what it is today, which has a lot to do with the Liberals clamping down on applause (for the most part) for their members, which has led to there being less heckling from the Liberal benches (not saying it doesn’t happen—it absolutely does—just not as much, and certainly not in the quantities it used to be).

Question Period is worse in other ways, however—nowadays it’s all reciting slogans and everyone on the same script so that they can each get a clip for their socials, while the government gives increasingly disconnected talking points in lieu of responses, and there’s almost no actual debate (though every now and again, Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre will get into an actual exchange with one another). And the repetition of slogans or the reading of canned lines each give rise to heckling because of its ridiculousness, and yes, there is louder heckling when women ministers are answering questions (but this is not a recent phenomenon either). But there was never a golden age of gentility in our Parliament, and we need to stop pretending there was as we lament the state of things. Instead, we should be lamenting the quality of the debate, which has been dead and buried since about the time that Bob Rae retired from politics.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck an educational facility in Odesa, killing four. Russian forces are advancing in the eastern Donetsk region after the withdrawal from Avdiivka, while Ukraine waits for new arms from the west. UN experts say that a missile that landed in Kharkiv on January 2nd was indeed of North Korean manufacture. Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, visited Kyiv—the first member of the royal family to do so since the war began—and continued her work championing those affected by conflict-related sexual violence.

https://twitter.com/RoyalFamily/status/1785060798890459222

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Roundup: Asking about Canadian LNG like it’s a free cookie

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Once again, CTV’s Vassy Kapelos asks a visiting European leader if they’d like Canadian LNG, and spins a whole story out of the fact that they say yes, while absolutely ignoring all of the many reasons why it’s never going to happen. This has happened with at least three leaders now, the latest being the president of Poland, who was visiting Canada last week (the taped interview aired over the weekend), and predictably, the story is making rounds with people insisting that Trudeau is wrong to say there’s no business case for it.

To wit: There is no ready supply of natural gas to be liquified on the East Coast, because they get it shipped from the north-eastern US. Blaine Higgs’ ambitions aside, nobody wants to be fracking in New Brunswick (not the First Nations, not the people who live in the region), and that would mean either paying even more to import American gas to liquefy, or build a pipeline from Alberta (and just as a reminder, Energy East was killed by the proponent because they didn’t have enough contracts to fill it and Keystone XL, and the latter was the surer bet at the time), and it costs money to ship gas across the country in a pipeline like that, which would increase the selling price. Then they would have to build a new export terminal to liquefy said gas, (there is one existing import terminal that could theoretically be converted), but all of this takes years, billions of dollars, and would need guaranteed operations for about 45 years to pay off, which is going to put them past the 2050 Net Zero date for a rapidly decarbonizing Europe to still want the LNG—which would be at a higher price than they can get it from Algeria or the Persian Gulf. That’s why there is no business case. There have been proposals to build terminals on the east coast before, and nobody in Europe wanted to sign a contract to make it a worthwhile investment to pursue. Hell, there are plenty of fully permitted projects on the west coast not moving ahead because nobody wants to sign contracts for the product.

But Kapelos and the CTV team keep ignoring all of these issues when they ask this question, which as one reply on Twitter stated, is like asking someone if they want a free cookie. The most the story says about the feasibility of east coast LNG is “There has been political debate for years around whether Canada could or should plan to export to European countries, as well.” That’s it. Seriously? This is malpractice at this point, and no, this is not because she or anyone is “in the pocket of Poilievre,” or anyone. It’s just lazy journalism, plain and simple. It’s not serving anyone, and frankly, is distracting from the actual issues.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian drones struck a hotel in Mykolaiv on the Black Sea, severely damaging it and local energy infrastructure, but fortunately there were no casualties. Another Russian oil refinery has suspended operations after a Ukrainian drone attack. While Ukraine waits on the arrival of more American aid, their forces have had to fall back from three more villages northwest of Avdiivka.

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Roundup: Trying to set up a dog and pony show for Carney

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Because everything is stupid, the Conservatives have announced that they will move a motion at finance committee to call on Mark Carney to appear in order to…talk about his plans as future Liberal leader? Oh, man. It’s so stupid that it hurts. “Since he’s attempting to get as much media attention as possible, he should welcome the Conservative invitation to appear at Committee,” the press release read, which is an indication of how unserious and stupid this is. When asked by media about the invitation that hasn’t come, Carney said that since this was made in the media before the motion was even moved shows that this is just theatre, which of course it is. This is about gathering clips of him criticising the current government wherever possible, or of the Conservative MPs badgering and hectoring him, because they think that’s going to be gold for them online. And there is nothing for Carney to be gained here either—there is no winning against this kind of “debate me, bro!” mentality because it’s not a debate, but an exercise in being caught out, and the only way to get out ahead is to not play.

I’m really not sold on the notion that Carney is positioning himself for a leadership run, particularly at this point in time, and frankly he would be a very, very bad choice. Setting aside the fact that as a former central bank governor, he should stay the hell away from electoral politics for the sake of his successors, there are certain organizational things you need to have to have any kind of chance in politics and I’ve seen no evidence he has this or has been building this. Other Cabinet ministers have been (and have allegedly been warned to tone it down). That, and I’ve talked to people who worked with him before and they’re not of the opinion he’d have the temperament for the job, while the Liberals should see this as Ignatieff 2.0 and run far away from it.

This aside, this is just such a waste of finite time and resources for the committee. Committees are supposed to be doing the serious work of Parliament (as opposed to the theatrical parts in Question Period), and this is a signal that there is no interest in committee work being serious, but only being more theatre and content generation for social media, and that is an appalling state of affairs for our democracy.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles have struck Ukrainian power facilities in three regions, while air attacks on the Sumy region killed two. Russians have also been targeting rail lines in order to disrupt incoming US aid shipments. Meanwhile, two hospitals in Kyiv have been evacuated after comments made by Belarusian KGB officials who claim that those hospitals house soldiers, which could make them targets in coming air strikes.

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Roundup: Danielle Smith’s municipal power grab

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The Alberta government tabled a bill yesterday that gives them sweeping new powers as it relates to municipalities in the province, leaving a lot of questions as to why. Constitutionally they do have this ability, as municipalities are creatures of the province, but the motivation is the real question. Among the changes are allowing political parties to run in municipal elections in Edmonton and Calgary, which I have to wonder if this isn’t for some kind of back-handed partisan purposes, so that they can point to how many counsellors identify as NDP, Liberals, or C/conservative as opposed to having to guess under the current system, but it’s a change nobody really asked for. I am of two minds with it, because it could provide more resources and better nomination processes…but it would also create expectations between the provincial party and the municipal party, and that is something I’m not sure anyone would really look to as being a good thing.

The bill also seeks to ban electronic tabulators in municipal elections (which I’m not wholly opposed to because I prefer hand-counting ballots whenever possible), but the real thrust has to do with the ability to terminate councillors, and with overturning bylaws, and this seems to be the big one, because they are particularly butthurt that certain municipalities have implemented single-use plastic bans, and that’s far too “woke” for this provincial government. Better to overrule the decisions that those elected officials made and will be accountable to their voters for, and just strike those bylaws entirely.

As for the ability to terminate sitting councillors, the minister insists this is only for extremely serious cases (of which I can’t think of any in Alberta—we’ve had a couple in Ontario and one in Ottawa particularly), but just who decides what that threshold is are the premier and Cabinet, so it’s not like there is much in the way of safeguards, and if you’re giving this power to premier and Cabinet, to overturn an election in a municipality, is asking for it to be abused—particularly when you have someone like Danielle Smith in charge of those powers. I foresee a future gong show, because this is Danielle Smith’s Alberta we’re talking about.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian shelling killed three in the Donetsk region, while a missile attack against the Kharkiv region hit a railway station, wounding ten. Another Russian missile damaged critical rail infrastructure in the central Cherkasy region. Meanwhile, while the soon-to-be arriving new tranche of US aid is going to help Ukraine rebuild its defences, it is unlikely to recover it enough to resume a counter-offensive anytime soon.

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Roundup: Soft-pedalling the extremist camp

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It has been very interesting to watch how legacy media outlets have been covering Pierre Poilievre’s appearance at a “tax revolt” encampment on the Nova Scotia border, but also very, very predictable. For example, they take at face value that this is some kind of “anti-carbon tax” protest, much as they did during the Occupation of downtown Ottawa, but don’t actually who all of the participants are. While they may note that there are Diagolon signs, none of the outlets mentioned that much of this encampment is made up of adherents to the “sovereign citizens” movement, which is a dangerous movement that believes that with some special incantations, they can opt themselves out of laws or obligations like paying taxes. That’s kind of a big deal to be overlooked.

Somewhat hilariously, they all got the vapours over the fact that Poilievre said of Justin Trudeau “People believed his lies. Everything he said was bullshit, from top to bottom.” *gasp!* No mention of course that this was projection, that everything that Poilievre says is lies and bullshit, because they couldn’t possibly. And then it veered off to Trudeau’s response that this is a sign that Poilievre will do “anything to win,” and the whole stupid thing about not disavowing Alex Jones, which seems to be the wrong thing to try and hang this whole thing on. The matter is not that Poilievre is getting the endorsement of the biggest conspiracy theory charlatan in the United States, but rather that he is courting far-right extremists and making false promises to them that he can never keep, and that will have consequences down the road.

This being said, I also find it somewhat predictable that all of the conservatives who had a field day with the head of Hamas thanking Canada for a UN vote—which was a clear information operation—are now whinging and crying about the Alex Jones attention, and saying that Poilievre doesn’t follow him so he shouldn’t need to denounce him. I mean, good for the goose and the gander here, but if you think one is legitimate to make hay with, the other should be fair game as well by your own rules of engagement. Neither of you should make hay over these things, but consistency would be nice.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles struck residential buildings in Kharkiv, injuring six people. Ukraine launched its own drone attack against a major Russian steel factory in Lipetsk region, and partially destroyed an “oxygen station” that should do long-term damage wo their work. Ukraine’s government has also clamped down on military-aged men applying for passports as they try to deal with their mobilisation woes.

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Roundup: Khera can’t defend the budget betrayal

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It’s strange and uncomfortable to watch a minister of the Crown absolutely shit the bed on national television, and yet disabilities minister Kamal Khera did just that on Power & Politics yesterday when she was put up to defend the absolutely inadequate Canada Disability Benefit announcement in the budget. Khera had about three talking points prepared for the interview—and they weren’t short talking points, but they were talking points nevertheless—and she kept repeating them no matter what question was asked, remixing them slightly every time to make it look like she was not just saying the same thing when she was in fact doing just that. It was grating and painful to watch, and in the end, you have to wonder just whose idea it was to put her up to subject herself to that.

I get that there are probably reasons why things rolled out the way they did—not good reasons, but reasons nevertheless, which would likely be something to the effect of they gave themselves a June deadline and had no ability to actually meet it, especially as they hadn’t even managed to get assurances from the provinces that they wouldn’t just claw back their existing benefits with this new money, and they simply decided to do this bare minimum an insist that this was “just the beginning,” and that “more was coming,” and so on, but as is so often the case with this government, there is no candour, and just an attempt to feed us happy-clappy pabulum instead, Which is what Khera tried to do yesterday, and destroyed her own credibility on the file in the process.

Now the government has betrayed the disabled community and broken their trust, and it’s going to be an even tougher hill to climb going forward because they couldn’t just be honest and say that hard things are hard, they needed more time, and maybe that they were worried about their deficit figures rather than simply insulting everyone’s intelligence like they did here.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian drone attack on Odesa has injured seven, while a missile strike took out a TV tower in Kharkiv region. And while Russians claim that they have overrun the village of Novomykhailivka, Ukraine says that they still control the territory. Ukrainian military sources say that the Russians have amassed a force of 20,000 to 25,000 troops for their push toward Chasiv Yar. While US aid and armaments could come shortly, Ukraine’s has a manpower problem on their front lines, which gives Russia the opportunity because it will take months for Ukraine to train their newly mobilised conscripts.

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Roundup: Overturning decades in a single budget?

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I am a bit bemused by some of the post-budget thinkpieces out there, but the one that took the cake for me over the weekend was CBC’s “Can Trudeau’s budget restore ‘generational fairness’? Economists say don’t bet on it.” I mean, of course not. It’s one budget trying to shift the inertia of decades of wealth accumulation by one particular generation that has given no cares at all for what this leaves the following generations in their wake, and now they’re getting the vapours that the next generations may not be as well-off as them, as though a lot of them haven’t pulled the ladder up behind them. Absolutely no self-awareness, and this includes those who are loudly proclaiming that the deficit and debt are “unfair” to future generations who have to pay it off, except that a) a federal budget is not a household budget and doesn’t operate that way; and b) under-investment and austerity leaves its own scars, and we are still paying for what happened in the nineties because a lot of those bills were merely delayed, and are have been coming due now (such as the under-investment in housing or in transforming healthcare delivery).

While this piece does interview Dr. Paul Kershaw from Generation Squeeze about the fact that admitting generational unfairness is a big first step for any government, what it didn’t talk about was the point he made during his interview on Power & Politics last week that the biggest structural spending increases in the budget are not any of the new spending programmes from the government, but it’s the increases on OAS and GIS, which dwarf any of the new spending, which is some pretty important context to have in the face of all of the handwringing. I’m not saying we should cut those, but we just need to be aware of what the spending priorities are, especially when discussing “generational fairness,” and why we should do something about it now, before the divisions and resentment get any worse (and most especially before parties prey on it without any plans to do anything about it, making the resentment even worse).

Ukraine Dispatch:

The fact that the American Congress finally approved the latest aid package for Ukraine is hoped to be in time enough to make a difference as Russians push toward Chasiv Yar, but there are concerns new weapons and ammunition could take weeks to arrive. Ukrainians made long-range drone strikes against a fuel depot and three power substations within Russia, as well as damaging a Russian rescue ship in occupied Crimea. In Kharkiv, some people are evacuating as Russian forces appear to be targeting the city as part of an upcoming offensive, but others remain in their places.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1782121755756097914

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Roundup: Premiers want unconditional money

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The premiers are at it again. They’ve written yet another letter to Justin Trudeau to complain about the budget, and all of the ways that it infringes on their jurisdiction, and to call for a return to a “cooperative approach” that means just giving them “unconditional federal funding.” (It was also hilarious to watch certain premiers complain about federal spending as though they also weren’t running their own deficits, while simultaneously demanding more money from the federal government). And I get that they’re concerned that the costs of these new programmes will be downloaded onto them if a future federal government cuts their funding—it’s a legitimate concern. But at the same time, most of these programmes will have longer-term payoffs, whether it’s child care (which Quebec has proved will pay for itself), or pharmacare or dental care, which has the potential to reduce overall healthcare costs—costs the government is going to have to pay when they could have avoided doing so with proper investments.

Nevertheless, it’s not lost on me that we’ve spent years of people saying “nobody cares about jurisdiction,” and demanding the federal government do something—including some of the premiers—and when the federal government not only does something but attaches strings so that the money has to go to particular outcomes, those same premiers immediately go “No, not like that.” But once burned, twice shy—the federal government learned the hard way during the height of the pandemic when the billions they sent to the provinces largely went unspent but went toward their provincial deficits—so they’re going to very much demand strings attached to those dollars. So, of course the federal government is going to do what they can seeing as they’re shouldering the blame anyway, while the premiers continue to be precious about it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles destroyed grain storage facilities in Odesa, as well as the foodstuffs they contained that were bound for Asia and Africa. Ukrainian forces say they shot down a Russian strategic bomber, while Russia claims it crashed due to a malfunction. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the command post used by the troops defending Chasiv Yar in the east.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1781227417404600676

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Roundup: Bullshitting about pharmacare

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In a radio interview yesterday, Pierre Poilievre claimed that the proposed federal pharmacare programme would force people to give up their existing private insurance and onto a federal programme—something that is entirely no true, and boggling as to how he could think that, particularly because the government has been pretty clear that to start, the only thing it proposes to cover are diabetes medications and devices, and contraception. (This is, of course, subject to provincial approval, because the federal government can’t do this on its own).

In spite of being called out by health minister Mark Holland on the lies and “fake boogeymen,” Poilievre has gone on to try and shift the goal-posts on the different programmes that the federal government has been trying to roll out, saying things like dental care hasn’t cleaned a single tooth (not true—the initial tranche of the programme was apparently fairly well-subscribed, while the current programme only came into being in December and is still rolling out), or that the school food programme is just a press release (again, the programme is about enhancing existing programmes, not creating anything new). Regardless, there is a complete inability to be truthful about anything, whether it’s outright lies, or it’s bullshit (and there is a difference in there between them, even if the line is fairly narrow).

This should be a warning about the next election, where he will say absolutely anything, shamelessly, and media outlets will be scrambling to do any basic fact-checking, while mostly just both-sidesing the whole thing, because that’s what legacy media does best—especially in an election, where fact-checks can come days or even weeks too late, or the rather useless exercise the Toronto Star engaged in where they listened to each leader’s speeches for a week apiece, and tried to data-journalism it into a quantitative exercise when it’s fairly qualitative, and can require nuance about degrees of dishonesty or disinformation to appreciate how it’s working. Nevertheless, this is not a good sign of things to come.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles attacked an apartment building and train station in Dnipro, killing at least eight people. Ukraine’s spy agency says that their attack on the airfield in occupied Crimea seriously damaged four missile launchers and three radar stations. Here’s a look at Russia’s tactic of making smaller attacks to keep exhausting Ukrainian forces ahead of a likely spring advance. A Polish man has been arrested on suspicion of gathering information on behalf of the Russians for a possible assassination plot against Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The burgeoning defence industry in Ukraine is looking for more certainty around orders as they deal with a lack of investment and needing to relocate production facilities to avoid being targeted by Russia.

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Roundup: A dog and pony show at the bar of the House

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There was the extremely rare instance of a private citizen being summoned to the bar of the House of Commons yesterday to be admonished and to be ordered to answer questions—something that hasn’t happened since 1913. The person in question was Kristian Firth, one of the partners of GC Strategies, who was part of the ArriveCan imbroglio, and he was summoned for refusing to answer questions at committee and prevaricating in cases, and was accused of lying to the committee in other circumstances.

As expected, this became a dog-and-pony show from the very get-go, because that’s about the level at which most parliamentarians operate these days. The government didn’t want to ask him questions because he had a doctor’s note explaining he’s being treated for “mental health episodes” and is supposed to avoid extreme stress. Too bad, the Conservatives said, and refused to delay this to another day, and began their own questions, which were theatrical in nature, intended for clip-gathering, and for constructing an alternate reality where the Cabinet was somehow implicated in this whole affair and that Firth was somehow covering for them—something for which there has been absolutely zero evidence, but the Conservatives have absolutely no qualms about lying in order to tarnish reputations and try and paint the government as corrupt, in spite of the fact that there are no links between the political players and what happened on this file. The Conservatives made additional hay when they learned that the RCMP had executed a search warrant at Firth’s home for electronic records in an unrelated case, and they were quick to spread that all over social media along with the clips they had choreographed of this whole exercise. To be clear, nothing new was really learned, most of the Bloc and NDP MPs spent their time soliloquising on the record rather than asking real questions, and nothing has really changed other than the new social content gathered. What a way to run a parliament.

More budget coverage:

Because there weren’t enough stories on Budget Day itself, here are more of the follow-up stories:

  • Here is an explanation of the capital gains changes, and Chrystia Freeland pointing out that this was carefully researched and that the measures help restore fairness.
  • Here are more details on the plans to turn government buildings into housing.
  • The budget promises to redefine what counts as “rural” to qualify for the carbon rebate top-up, but offers no details as to how they’ll do that.
  • There is a measure in the budget about exploring how to make “halal mortgages” more available for Muslim Canadians.
  • The CRA is getting more tools to combat tax avoidance and evasion, including a requirement for more transparency around crypto transactions.
  • Here is a recounting of some of the angry pushback to what’s in the budget (and some of it is complete bunk, others are letting the premiers skate once again).
  • AFN national chief Cindy Woodhouse Neepinak says the budget isn’t sufficient for Indigenous people and wants a first ministers’ meeting on the subject.
  • Disability groups are deeply disappointed with how little the Canada Disability Benefit provides, but government indicates it will go up over time.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1780726502008512549

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles hit Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, killing at least 17 people, while Ukraine attacked an airfield in occupied Crimea. There was also a Russian drone attack against the Ivano-Frankivsk reg9ion in the country’s west, the debris causing fires. Ukrainian soldiers are also accusing Russia of illegally using tear gas on their trenches.

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