Roundup: The bitumen-soaked petard

Probably the most important piece you could read from yesterday’s offerings was this analysis from energy economist Andrew Leach, who dismantled much of the logic behind the Conservative environmental “plan” that Andrew Scheer was so proud of. Aside from the fact that it lacks detail, it’s full of contradictions (such as eschewing carbon taxes, and yet does largely the same thing with large emitters), and a lot of things that don’t make sense. Leach not only calls out the fact that the “plan” is full of straw men and distractions (such as the focus on raw sewage), but probably most devastating is that he punches holes in the plan for the Canada Clean Brand™ that Scheer is trying to promote – the notion that Canadian products are “cleaner” and should displace those abroad, thus keeping Canadian jobs and still (ostensibly) lowering emissions. And while that may be true enough with aluminium, it’s certainly not for our oil exports, which kind of blows the whole thing out of the water. Oops.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau announced a one-time funding boost for refugee legal aid in Ontario, after the province cut those funds to pressure the federal government.
  • Trudeau also publicly expressed his concern for the situation in Hong Kong.
  • Another excerpt from Aaron Wherry’s forthcoming book on Trudeau has him explaining his side of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s departure from Cabinet.
  • The union representing CRA employees is campaigning against Scheer’s pledge of a “single tax form for Quebec” because it’s based on a misleading premise.
  • Two Coast Guard vessels were among six ships caught and fined for violating the slowdowns to protect right whales.
  • Here’s an interview with outgoing ambassador to the US, David McNaughton, about what he had to deal with during his time in office.
  • Canadaland has a longread about the changes at Postmedia to drive the outlet as a more coherently conservative voice (even in papers with no conservative history).
  • The use of mass text messages by parties (or third-party groups) could prove vulnerable on privacy grounds, because parties don’t have safeguards.
  • The electoral debate commission says that Maxime Bernier won’t be invited, as polls show his party doesn’t stand a chance of winning more than one seat.
  • The Liberals declared a “national election urgency” to suspend their nomination rules because they are still short some 100 candidates with the writ weeks away.
  • The Liberals are planning on running on rosy economic data, despite some of the middling economic indicators over the past few months.
  • The provincial election is now officially underway in Manitoba. Here are interviews with Brian Pallister and Wab Kinew, plus ten ridings to watch.
  • Chantal Hébert reads the electoral mood around the country, and in particular Québec, where fortunes currently favour the Liberals and the Bloc.

Odds and ends:

Jimmy Kimmel’s joking bid to become the mayor of Dildo, Newfoundland and Labrador, has attracted the premier’s attention.

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