Roundup: Chalk up a couple of own-goals

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Political own-goals can be painful but also hilarious, and we saw two of them happen yesterday. The first was courtesy of the federal Conservatives, whose intended shitpost went awry when they wound up praising the Liberal government. It was obviously deleted within an hour or so, but the damage was done, and the day was spent with Liberals tweeting that the Conservatives told the truth for once. Oops.

The other was in Alberta, where a committee was examining the Energy Department’s budget, and questions arose about the spending on the province’s “war room,” whose job is supposed to be pushing back against the supposed “falsehoods” about their energy sector. You may have heard that last week, said war room decided to do battle against an obscure Netflix film called Bigfoot Family that shows a battle against an oil magnate seeking to blow up an Alaskan wildlife preserve. As a result of the war room’s ham-fisted campaign, the movie made the top ten streamed films, and had pretty much the opposite effect of what was intended. Nevertheless, the province’s energy minister, Sonya Savage, defended the attack against the film, and some UCP MLAs were praising the war room’s ability to make a film reach the top ten to be “pretty awesome.” Erm, they achieved the opposite and had more people watch the film they wanted to censor, guys. It’s so mind-numbingly dumb, and I just cannot even.

Good reads:

  • As expected, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization has now approved use of AstraZeneca vaccines on people over the age of 65, citing new evidence.
  • Here’s a deeper look into the issue of AstraZeneca vaccines and the incidents of blood clots in some European countries.
  • The vaccine developed by Quebec’s Medicago has been approved for phase 3 trials, and are now looking for 30,000 volunteers.
  • The government is investing another $200 million in domestic vaccine research and production capacity, but it may not be enough to satiate industry demands.
  • A fairly high-profile senior woman in the infantry has requested to be released from the military, citing the inability to hold top leaders to account for sexual misconduct.
  • The executive vice-president of Enbridge told a committee that the Michigan governor can’t stop Line 5, and that this is now before the federal court in the US.
  • This is your periodic reminder that Canada remains an international outlier in not repatriating its children from detention camps in Syria.
  • Erin O’Toole, reversing a policy of Andrew Scheer’s, says he won’t cut foreign aid (in addition to the usual pledges about the Office of Religious Freedoms).
  • COVID cases are again rising in Ontario, and more than half of new cases are variants, which means we’re entering the Third Wave.
  • Heather Scoffield explores the need for re-training for those whose jobs won’t be coming back in the same way once we’re on the other side of the pandemic.
  • Andrew Coyne goes to bat for our constitutional monarchy (when the PM wouldn’t), rightfully pointing out that it’s really better than the alternatives before us.
  • Robert Hiltz calls out the toothless record of the Competition Bureau, and fully expects them to wave through the Rogers-Shaw deal like they always do.
  • My column looks at the recently announce Advisory Group to select the next Governor General, and finds it to be yet another of Trudeau’s half-measures.

Odds and ends:

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One thought on “Roundup: Chalk up a couple of own-goals”

  1. “…National Advisory Committee on Immunization has now approved use of AstraZeneca vaccines on people over the age of 65….”

    This is true but it’s useful to note that in the same statement the Committee included this language: “NACI still recommends that in the context of limited vaccine supply initial doses of mRNA vaccines would be prioritized for those at highest risk of severe illness and death….” That “highest risk” group includes those over 65. Therefore, the mRNA vaccines (i.e., those from Pfizer and Moderna) can and should be offered to persons over 65 as a first option, rather than AstraZeneca.

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