Roundup: The big Mali announcement

Posted on by

The formal announcement was made yesterday – six helicopters (two medical evac, four armed escorts) and approximately 250 personnel are headed to Mali as part of UN peace operations, and while this initial deployment covers off for German and Dutch forces that are pulling out, time there will be spent evaluating other ways that Canada can help build capacity in the country, which will involve training troops from other countries. While there have been some 162 peacekeeper deaths so far in Mali, all but four of those are from less advanced militaries than Canada’s, and the four Western countries’ deaths were related to a helicopter accident and not hostile actions. Chrystia Freeland did a great interview that helps lay out more of the details as to why Mali and why it’s taken so long.

Opposition reaction has been swift, and a bit curious. The Conservatives are demanding a debate and a vote on the deployment (reminder: a vote is wholly inappropriate because it launders the accountability that the government should be held to regarding the mission), while the NDP keep pointing out that this will not fulfil all of the government’s peacekeeping promises (not that they have claimed that it would), while demanding more details. Former senator Roméo Dallaire says that this is a good deployment, and reiterates that Canadians training troop-contributing nations and mentoring those forces will help to modernize peacekeeping.

In terms of hot takes, John Ivison sticks to the point that this is a political move by the government designed to help them get their UN Security Council seat as opposed to having anything to do with national security – err, except that peacekeeping isn’t supposed to be about national security. That’s kind of the point.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/975780963559948289

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/975780965787160576

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/975780968190459906

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/975780970476417024

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/975780972661587969

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/975780977145344000

Good reads:

  • Certain anonymous Liberals want the government to get ahead of the messaging on the new gun control bill rather than let the Conservatives own the narrative. Again.
  • Health Canada unveiled their plans for plain packaging for recreational cannabis, along with regulations for micro-cultivators and processors.
  • It looks like the government’s major transport bill will face amendments in the Senate, and head back to the House of Commons.
  • The arms deal with Saudi Arabia calls for Canada supply heavy assault vehicles – not the “jeeps” that the government previously dismissed them as.
  • The rejections for Canada Summer Jobs grants are up twelvefold this year – but that’s also including groups refusing to sign the attestation.
  • The Privacy Commissioner is concerned about the stories of Facebook analytics being used for electoral gain. The NDP want him to investigate.
  • Three former top national security directors are raising the alarm about Chinese telecom giant Huawei being in the Canadian market.
  • As labour relations continue to deteriorate with parliamentary security, so has the morale of the service. This is all because they are now under the RCMP’s purview.
  • The Canadian Press conducted a survey of Hill staffers on sexual misconduct, and most who experience it don’t report it. (More quotes from staffers here).
  • Bloc leader Martine Ouellet has agreed to let the membership hold a confidence vote in her in the coming months. (Hint: This process can be gamed).
  • Elizabeth May appointed a new deputy leader for the Green Party.
  • Here’s a look at how Jagmeet Singh could take a page from Founding Father Thomas D’Arcy McGee about dealing with radicals (in McGee’s case, the Fenians).
  • Arshy Mann looks at the trauma faced by Sikhs in the 1980s, and why Jagmeet Singh’s one-sided focus on victims and not perpetrators can’t hold.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column tackles the thorny subject of hostile witnesses being called before parliamentary committees.
  • Colby Cosh offers his own take on the subject of expat voting, and the emotional arguments that surround it and how those might be extended to other votes.

Odds and ends:

From me in Law Times is a look at how lawyers are disappointed by the justice minister’s lacklustre response to the justice committee report on legal aid.

VIA Rail is set to renew their entire rail fleet after getting funds in the federal budget to do so.

Help Routine Proceedings expand. Support my Patreon.