Over on the Financial Post’s op-ed pages, Senator Richard Neufeld worries about all of the angry Canadians the Senate’s energy committee is hearing from over Bill C-69. I have no doubt that they are hearing from angry people, because there has been a massive disinformation campaign around this bill from the start. The Conservatives and their provincial counterparts in Alberta have dubbed it the “no more pipelines” bill, even though it’s nothing of the sort. Neufeld worries that the bill means that we can never have any more major projects in this country, which is absurd on the face of it, but hey, there are narratives to uphold.

I’ve talked to a lot of environmental lawyers about this bill, and the potential amendments that it could merit. It is certainly not a bill without flaws, and the government seems to have acknowledged that (and apparently there is some kind of gamesmanship being played right now, where the government has a list of amendments they want to introduce at the Senate committee via one of their proxies but they won’t release them ahead of time for some reason). This having been said, there seems to be no acknowledgment of a few realities – that the current system that the Harper government put into place isn’t working and has only wound up with litigation; that we simply can’t bully through projects past Indigenous communities anymore, because Section 35 rights mean something; and that the bill sought to eliminate a lot of heavy lifting by putting more consultation on the front end so that projects could be better scoped, and that it would mean not needing to produce boxes of documents that nobody ever reads in order to check boxes off of lists as part of the assessment process. This is not a bad thing.

But like I said, there are problems with the bill, and Neufeld lists a few of them in passing while trading in more of the myths and disinformation around it. But so long as that disinformation campaign goes unchallenged – and this includes by ministers who can only speak in talking points and can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag because they’re too assured of their own virtues that they don’t feel the need to dismantle a campaign of lies – then the anger will carry on, and when this bill passes in some amended form (and it’s likely it will), then it will simply become another propaganda tool, which should be concerning to everyone – including those who are weaponizing it, because it will blow up in their faces.

Good reads:

• Dominic LeBlanc is stepping away from Cabinet temporarily while he undergoes treatment for a second bout of cancer, but plans to run again in the fall.
• Bill Morneau is ending certain steel anti-dumping measures while promising others after the Canadian International Trade Tribunal ruling.
• The Fiscal Monitor shows that the government is in surplus after windfall revenues – but that won’t last as new spending measures kick in.
• The government is appealing the court ruling ordering the Lobbying Commissioner to re-examine the Aga Khan, citing it’s not the court’s job to set policy.
• Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion is back from his medical leave.
• The Chief Public Health Officer says getting information about vaccines out is made difficult by trolls and bots spreading misinformation as a way of increasing mistrust.
• A BC woman who survived cancer and has breathing trouble is launching a Charter challenge of the mandatory alcohol screening that this government passed.
• The head of the Immigration Consultants of Canada Regulatory Council prepares to turn into a self-regulating college, per the budget implementation bill.
• The Japanese Ambassador to Canada has advice for how to deal with China’s propensity to kidnap a country’s nationals as a bargaining technique.
• Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner has decided he won’t run again this fall, citing being too old and cranky. The National Post compiled some of his greatest hits.
• Andrew Scheer makes no apologies for his closed-door meetings with oil and gas executives, saying he’s standing up for the industry and its jobs.
• James Bowden looks at how Quebec is planning to implement electoral reform without a referendum.
• Andrew Coyne fears that political grandstanding will cost the country both carbon pricing, as well as the Trans Mountain expansion.
• Heather Scoffield weaves together the surplus, lower growth on the horizons, and the ways in which the Conservatives and Liberals have constrained each other.
• Colby Cosh digs into the Green platform on PEI, and notes why it may be difficult for other Green parties to replicate elsewhere.
• My weekend column tells Senators that they shouldn’t be afraid to let private members’ bills die – particularly as some are bad and never should have passed.

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