Jason Kenney made his triumphant return to Ottawa yesterday, now bearing the title of premier of Alberta, and he went before a Senate committee to a) bluster, and b) warn that if he didn’t get his way that separatist sentiment would rise in Alberta, even though he insisted that he’s a federalist, but this was somehow beyond his control. Erm, except an actual federalist wouldn’t give oxygen to these swivel-eyed loons, nor would someone who was actually concerned about the state of the federation feed them a diet of lies and snake oil to keep them angry for the sake of electoral gain.

Part of Kenney’s bluster was his threatening to launch court challenges against Bill C-69 if it gets passed in its current form, because he claims it intrudes on provincial jurisdiction – but he’s also said a lot of bogus things about the constitutionality of his promises (up to and including his threat about holding a referendum on equalisation, which he is also now equivocating on in the media), so I’m not sure he’s got a lot of credibility to spare in this legal analysis. But these kinds of threats also put me in mind a certain sense of contagion with the court cases around the carbon tax, and according to one environmental lawyer that I interviewed recently for an upcoming article, there is a sense that the provinces are trying to lay out markers in the area of shared jurisdiction, and this may be more of that – provinces trying to grab more power for their own sake.

The thing that really bothers me about Kenney’s “I’m a federalist, but…” line is that he doesn’t seem to care how dangerous it is, and how very antithetical it runs to his so-called “open for business” shtick. Do you know what drives away business investment (beyond destroying certainty by promising to tear up the environmental regime that they were partners in developing and increasing the political risk by constantly threatening lawsuits)? Separatist sentiment. Ask Quebec what it did for them, when all of those national headquarters fled Montreal for Toronto (remember when Montreal used to be the financial capital of Canada?) and their housing market plummeted? Yeah, not sure that’s something that Kenney should be trying to repeat, even if he’s using it as a threat. Beyond that, he can’t just say “I’m a federalist, but…” and not take some responsibility for the anger he’s stoked knowing full well that he can’t deliver on those promises, which will just cause that anger to fester. I know some people are trying to claim that he’s simply trying to channel that separatist sentiment into more harmless paths, but he’s courted it rather than smacked it down. “I’m a federalist, but…” just winks to them, and it’s beyond irresponsible.

Good reads:

• The Commissioner of Elections put out a statement to debunk Conservative insinuations that PMO pressured him about SNC-Lavalin’s illegal donations.
• Here’s a look at how Quebec columnists are criticizing Justin Trudeau’s French accent and how they try to frame him because of it.
• Carolyn Bennett says the government is backing away from planned changes to the modern treaty and self-government process after Indigenous opposition.
• Marie-Claude Bibeau says that now isn’t the right time to launch a WTO challenge against China over the canola issue.
• Public Procurement is backing away from policies that would ban suppliers from talking to media, saying that they were overzealous.
• It looks like Canada will be repatriating that garbage in the Philippines a company here sent over, but no word on cost or final disposition of it.
• The Canadian commander in Iraq says the local forces need to step it up if they don’t want ISIS to come back.
• At the Commons justice committee, there are concerns that people don’t believe that online hate speech has consequences, so they are more likely to spread it.
• The Commons Board of Internal Economy has ruled that Jason Kenney didn’t break any rules by claiming his mother’s basement as his primary residence.
• The PBO is set to start costing platforms for the next election.
• Former US Ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman has written about how the Harper PMO froze him out in a snit over the Keystone XL pipeline.
• The Conservatives are making a (desperate) attempt to get the RCMP to investigate the PM’s vacation with the Aga Khan. (PS – MPs directing the RCMP is a bad look)
• The New Brunswick Liberal Party’s new leader, Kevin Vickers, says he believes in carbon pricing and would absolutely implement it.
• Alberta has a growing problem of remediating orphan wells after company bankruptcies, in spite of a Supreme Court of Canada decision mandating it.
• Jason Kenney claims he won’t use government dollars to run ads against Trudeau in October, but considering his election campaign was against him last month…
• Susan Delacourt parses the Conservative tactics with the petty diminution of referring to Trudeau as “Liberal leader” instead of PM, and their new ad campaign.
• Matt Gurney looks at Andrew Scheer’s political calculus, and wonders if he really needs to do much more than pay lip service to climate change in his platform.
• Heather Scoffield tries to sort out the rift between Kenney and Trudeau, and the consternation over Bill C-69.
• Robert Hiltz begs us to stop paying attention to horserace polls, and he’s absolutely right about it.

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