On yesterday’s Power & Politics, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh gave an interview that was probably as close to a car crash as I’ve seen him give to date, which should probably start to worry some people. His insistence that he’s in this “for people” is baffling, because that seems to be the most basic, elementary thing that politicians are in politics for. He spoke about the “housing crisis” that the federal government is supposed to do something about (he won’t exactly say what, because in places like Vancouver, supply is an issue), he rattled off the lie that the federal government had cut healthcare (a changed escalator is not a cut, and that particular lie went unchallenged), and he insists that he can do more as an opposition member to make the government keep promises than a Liberal backbencher could. (This kind of spin is something that the Liberals will play with the exact reverse – that a backbencher can do more because they can talk to ministers in the caucus room). He also denied that seeking this seat was because of caucus pressure to get a seat (this was indeed an issue), and is promising to move there if he wins (and good luck finding a house in that market, even to rent), but won’t say what he’ll do if he doesn’t win (and it was a close three-way race in the last election).

The more painful part of the interview, however, had to do with his commentary on the current spat with Saudi Arabia, during which Singh started pontificating about energy sovereignty, and not getting oil from the Saudis any longer. Okay, great – they currently supply a mere 11 percent of Canadian oil imports, so that’s not a big deal, but energy sovereignty means pipelines going west-to-east, which the NDP had a big problem with already in a proposal called Energy East. But when asked about pipelines, Singh deflected and started talking about refineries, which is a different thing altogether. Falling back on NDP catchphrases like “value-added” and “rip-and-ship,” his argument not only didn’t make any sense (the question wasn’t refineries – but that is an issue because East Coast refineries aren’t built to handle western heavy crude), particularly economically (seriously, there’s a reason why we haven’t built new refineries and have in fact shuttered others), it ignored the question about how you have energy sovereignty without pipelines that will run through Quebec – a voter base that the NDP is desperate to hold onto.

He’s been leader for almost a year now – this kind of talking point word salad is getting a bit thin for someone who should be able to provide answers on issues of the day, and who shouldn’t just fall on reheating non sequitur talking points. But this is what the party chose (well, in as much as we’ll see how many of those memberships stay active).

Good reads:

• The Canadian government isn’t planning any retaliation against Saudi Arabia for the current spat, and the Saudis are still looking to sell oil to us.
• We still don’t know what Bill Blair’s actual job is (other than looking tough), but the PM has tasked him with a “deep analysis” of steps to tackle gun violence.
• Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion wants to impose tougher penalties and do more social media shaming of rule breakers, while cutting down on investigation times.
• US Homeland Security data shows that it’s Canadians and not Mexicans who are bigger culprits in overstaying their visas.
• StatsCan survey data shows that 14 percent of pot users who drive said they’ve done so within two hours of using cannabis, which is triple the rate of alcohol use.
• The government announced that they got a voluntary ten basis point reduction on credit card merchant fees, which won’t actually do much for them.
• Samara Canada got the datasets for that harassment survey on the Hill conducted by The Canadian Press.
• Conservative MP James Bezan is putting out “calls to action” to have constituents call Liberal MPs in closely-won ridings to demand they vote against the gun bill.
• (Ralph Goodale, incidentally, is not pleased and accused Bezan of playing politics after the Toronto shooting).
• Senator Denise Batters was forced to apologise for implying that parliamentary secretary Omar Alghabra had divided loyalties with Saudi Arabia.
• Here’s a deep dive into beer economics, and why “Buck-a-Beer” is a fantasy that won’t actually come to pass.
• Craig Forcese says that since our allies don’t have our backs in this Saudi spat shows, it’s time for Canada to consider starting our own foreign intelligence agency.
• Martin Patriquin digs at the government’s “feel-good environmentalism” that seems largely ineffective (though he gets points about the trade exposed emissions wrong).
• Colby Cosh boggles at how the federal government has pretty much ballsed up the sales job around their carbon pricing, because they can’t communicate.

Odds and ends:

Foreign Affairs won’t say why it’s dragging its feet in announcing whether Canada will participate in World Expo 2020.

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