Roundup: Giving Legault the farm

Posted on by

Erin O’Toole paid a visit to Quebec premier François Legault yesterday, and immediately promised to give away the farm to Legault if he were to become prime minister – capitulating on Bill 21 and letting Legault expand it (in spite of the Conservatives insisting that they are all about religious freedom), signing over the language rights of federal industries in the province, and promising more provincial transfers with no strings attached, all in the name of “provincial autonomy.” At the same time, O’Toole danced around the question of pipelines, which Legault opposes and O’Toole is in favour of shoving down the throat of a province in spite of his talk of “autonomy,” so his record of policy incoherence continues unabated. (As an aside, it seems to me that giving Quebec everything it demands wouldn’t actually win O’Toole Bloc votes, but rather empower the Bloc to say that they were so effective that they got everything the demanded).

This exchange with Legault made some waves in Alberta, where the visions of Energy East continue to evade reality. So while Rachel Notley tries to score points against O’Toole, and her UCP opponents try to score their own points, here’s energy economist Andrew Leach calling out both sides on how wrong they are.

On the subject of Alberta’s oil patch, here is Leach laying out why the province over its past six premiers have engaged in a $26.4 billion boondoggle around building a refinery in the province and assuming all of the risk from their private sector partner, and will almost certainly wind up losing a hell of a lot of taxpayers’ money in the process. For everyone who insists that the province doesn’t subsidize the oil and gas sector, this is proof enough that such a claim is false, and it should enrage everyone in the province that their trust has been betrayed in such a way.

Good reads:

  • Chrystia Freeland is expected to announce new dollar-for-dollar retaliations for US aluminium tariffs.
  • The Government House Leader is trying to push a voting app on the other parties for when Parliament resumes, and I’m going to lose my gods damned mind.
  • Here is an interesting look at the Diefenbunker and how it offers a few lessons on the current pandemic.
  • Anonymous Liberals are worried that the party is leaning too far to the left and is abandoning the political centre.
  • Peter MacKay is $1 million in debt for his leadership campaign, and has quit his Bay Street firm and moved to Central Nova to consider another run for office.
  • The entire Bloc caucus is self-isolating after one of the staffers in Yves-François Blanchet’s office tested positive for COVID.
  • Blaine Higgs’ Progressive Conservatives won a majority legislature in New Brunswick. Liberal leader Kevin Vickers lost his own seat and stepped down.
  • Colby Cosh looks through the policy resolution list of the Young Liberals in advance of the party’s policy convention, and offers a reality check to many of them.

Odds and ends:

Here is a look at the man behind the @CAFinUS Twitter account.

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.

4 thoughts on “Roundup: Giving Legault the farm”

  2. ” anonymous Liberals are worried that the party is leaning too far to the left and is abandoning the political centre” means that these Liberals who are actually closet Conservatives are just trying to ensure that the rich are going to keep getting a bigger slice of the financial pie.

    • What these handful of Blue Grits (DINOs in the U.S.) are saying is that politics is about self-interest. Can’t win an election without NIMBYs in the 905. That being said, the only reason I think the current Trudeau 2.0 iteration is considered to be “too left” is because the ideological extremes have completely distorted the political calculus and moved the Overton window into the twilight zone. For every Con foaming at the mouth with conspiracy theories that Trudeau is Fidel Castro’s son, there’s a Dipper foaming at the mouth that he *isn’t.* Seems to me he’s found the sweet spot smack dab in the middle astride the knee-jerk populist absolutists. A fact that seems to be lost among the twitter cults and the self-interested punditry class of the Ottawa bubble still clutching their pearls about “muh fiscal ‘sponsability” in a time warp from 1995.

  3. The cons only care about white, Christian “freedom” to impose white, Christian religion on everyone else. Hope during the campaign Liberals remember to remind the voters that O’Toole voted against Motion 103 *after a Quebec nationalist killed people at a mosque*. He’s just another hateful con with a smiling face who pretends to be more “palatable” to “the political centre.”

Comments are closed.