Yesterday, the lieutenant governor of PEI gave the nod to PC leader Dennis King to attempt to form a government, and the whole thing is going to make my head explode because dear sweet Rhea, mother of Zeus, nobody has a clue what they’re doing. Not one of them. It’s alarming. (Side note: While the media have been saying that there would be a PC minority government, or that King was premier-designate, none of that became fact until today, and media outlets not only jumped the gun, but were attempting to short-circuit the process, which is a very bad thing).

Where to begin? How about the fact that the lieutenant governor, Antoinette Perry, was giving a media statement about her decision? Because no, she absolutely should not. And King? He says that he’s thinking about naming members of other parties to Cabinet, before preparing his Speech from the Throne and first budget “in consultation” with said parties. Again, this is utter insanity. Unless you have a formal coalition, you can’t have members of other parties in Cabinet because of Cabinet solidarity. Otherwise, they would just be de facto floor-crossers, which again, if that’s what you want then just go ahead and poach them, but be honest about it. As for King saying that he hopes that by “consulting” on the Throne Speech and budget that the opposition won’t oppose them for the sake of opposing them, well, he seems to be missing the whole point of the opposition, particularly with the budget. The opposition’s job is to argue why the government doesn’t deserve Supply to carry out their programme – they are supposed to be making that case. Having all parties vote for it defeats the purpose of why we have an opposition.

PBB also took issue with referring to the consent given by Lt.-Gov Perry as "confidence." Confidence is granted by the legislative assembly not by the LG, he said #peipoli

— Stuart Neatby (@stu_neatby) May 1, 2019

And then there’s Green leader Peter Bevan-Baker, who may or may not actually be leader of the opposition, given that he’s talking about some kind of supply-and-confidence agreement with the government rather than being the opposition. And you can’t be both Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition while signing a supply and confidence agreement to prop up said government. It doesn’t work like that, because it blunts your ability to hold them to account because you need the threat of being able to remove confidence to do so. And it’s astounding that he doesn’t seem to get that basic constitutional role or function. I know that people somehow think that “cooperation” or “collaborative” governments should be the way things work, but they’re wrong, because that does away with accountability, which is at least as important. When everyone is accountable for decisions, then nobody is accountable, and that will be the death knell of our political system. It would be great if Bevan-Baker understood that simple bit of civic literacy.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau says that there need to be conversations about potentially moving people out of flood plains as climate change gets worse.
• As expected, the government announced their plans to help canola farmers with bigger loan guarantees that have a higher interest-free threshold.
• Chrystia Freeland says that Internet giants are behaving like monopolies a century ago, which may mean it’s time for government intervention or higher wealth taxes.
• The federal government released draft regulations to accompany Bill C-69, said they would exempt in-situ oilsands projects from federal reviews if the GHG cap remains.
• There are concerns raised about provisions in the budget bill that would empower the government to “blacklist” countries who don’t issue visas for deportees.
• Here’s an explanation about why starting a trade war with China over canola would be a very bad move for Canada.
• Here is the transcript of Paul Wells’ interview with Bank of Canada Governor Stephen Poloz from last week.
• Elections Canada plans to purge 103,000 names from the voter registry who are illegally signed up as they’re not citizens.
• Most major Internet companies are following Google’s lead in deciding to ban federal election ads from their platforms.
• It looks like there will be a temporary exhibit of reproductions of Indigenous art at the former US Embassy space across from Parliament Hill for late June.
• Tesla is creatively pricing its Model 3s in order to ensure that they qualify for the federal zero-emission vehicle rebates.
• Liberal MP Andrew Leslie has decided he won’t run again this fall.
• Disabled veteran Kimberly Fawcett has decided to run against Bill Blair for the Conservatives this fall.
• Here’s a look at Jason Kenney’s early moves as premier, and which promises he’s walking back on now that he’s in power, and a look at his corporate tax cut promise.
• Now that Kenney proclaimed the “turn off the taps” legislation, BC has immediately challenged its constitutionality.
• Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column makes the case for why early voting (except in particular unavoidable circumstances) is actually bad for democracy.
• Andrew Coyne wades through the various moves and court challenges between Alberta, BC, and the federal government, and declares it all to be posturing.
• Chantal Hébert looks at how the relationship between Jason Kenney and François Legault may evolve.

Odds and ends:

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