Roundup: The Energy East distraction

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After wide reporting that Jason Kenney’s poll numbers have been tanking and that he’s currently tied with the provincial NDP, it was predetermined that Kenney was going to have to start coming up with something new to blame the federal government about in order to whip his voter base into a new round of irrational anger. He also, apparently needed to provide some cover to his friend Erin O’Toole after O’Toole’s meeting with the Quebec premier, and so Kenney’s distraction of choice was going to be Energy East, and blaming the federal government for its demise. Of course, that’s not true at all, and energy economist Andrew Leach has the receipts.

Good reads:

  • Hours before Chrystia Freeland was set to announce retaliatory measures against US aluminium tariffs, those tariffs were removed, but a quota was imposed instead.
  • Word out of the caucus retreat is that pharmacare and child care are going to feature prominently in the Throne Speech.
  • Patty Hajdu says she is hoping to avoid another sweeping lockdown of the country as our rate of new COVID infections continues to track upward.
  • Harjit Sajjan wants to assure people that money booked for defence spending isn’t going to get cut as a deficit reduction plan.
  • Unsurprisingly, the Canada-US border will remain closed to non-essential travel for yet another month, and probably even longer still.
  • The head of the Canadian Army is preparing to issue a special order designed to deal with the infiltration of far-right actors in their ranks.
  • Numerous legal groups around the country are calling on the government to appoint non-white judges to the six vacancies in the Federal Court.
  • Here is a look at how the Speech from the Throne will work under pandemic conditions.
  • A member of the Parliamentary Protective Service has tested positive for COVID, and went to work while awaiting his test results.
  • Leslyn Lewis plans to run for Diane Findlay’s seat, now that Findlay has opted not to run again in the next election.
  • Yves-François Blanchet’s spouse has tested positive for COVID. He was already isolating after one of his staffers tested positive.
  • Kady O’Malley’s Process Nerd column points out that there are still no decisions on regular operations of Parliament under current pandemic conditions.
  • Heather Scoffield suggests that the government will have a hard time with selling a green and inclusive recovery amid current economic anxieties.
  • Paul Wells picks up on this column, and further explores the fact that reality is crashing down on the Cabinet that “building back better” is going to be hard work.
  • Scoffield also notices how Chrystia Freeland has been winking to the fiscal hawks by highlighting her numerous conversations with Paul Martin.
  • Kevin Carmichael has some shade to throw at the “It’s 1995 and will always be 1995” fiscal hawks, as well as the government for their lack of a fiscal anchor.
  • Susan Delacourt remarks on how Trump hasn’t won the fights he keeps picking with Canada.
  • Colby Cosh delves into the latest research on masks in the pandemic, and how they may also help reduce the severity of infections that do get through them.
  • My column offers a reminder of what a Speech from the Throne really is, and why there is no actual obligation for a prime minister to consult the opposition on it.

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One thought on “Roundup: The Energy East distraction”

  1. Oh, dear. To be a fly on the wall for those chats. See, it’s not the “winking at fiscal hawks” that gives me trepidations about Freeland’s conversations with Martin. I really like her and think she’d make a fine leader *someday,* but I hope she’s not consulting about *other things* with *Jean Chretien’s rival*. 2004 isn’t a long time in politics after all.

    She seems to get along well with Trudeau and I’ve yet to see any sort of “faction” or “rivalry” emerge. Then again, naked ambition can go to anyone’s head… I would think she’s smart enough not to squander the capital she’s attained by building up to a JWR move, right? It could be nothing, of course, just anxieties revealing themselves among Liberals with long memories, and she legitimately is just talking finance.

    As well I gather that Trudeau is the one positioning his (presumed) successor and *he* would be the one to take leave on his own terms. Control freaks like Trump and Harper are the ones who surround themselves with inferiors. Trudeau marks a good leader in that he delegates to the smartest among his team.

    As for O’Toole, my hope is that whenever an election does come along, Kenney ends up being for him what Ford was for Scheer: as MacKay might say, “a stinking albatross around [his] neck.”

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