Roundup: One month into Russia’s invasion

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It’s now day twenty-nine of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or one month since it began. To that end, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling on people to gather in public around the world to show support for Ukraine to mark the occasion. NATO is estimating that somewhere between 7000 and 15,000 Russian troops have been killed to date (as many as 30,000 to 40,000 if you count killed or wounded), and to put that in comparison, Russia lost 15,000 fighting in Afghanistan over the course of a decade. And on that note, here’s a look at what went wrong for Russia (beyond Ukraine’s resilience).

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1506790177364131846

Closer to home, many more questions are being asked of some of the plans outlined in the Liberal-NDP supply and confidence agreement, especially around the areas of pharmacare and dental care. NDP MPs like Don Davies are already talking tough, insisting there should be a “phased in” approach, but the timelines for the Canadian Drug Agency to do their work are pretty much what was already being planned through the Hoskins Report, but the biggest obstacle remains the premiers. So far, only PEI has signed on, and I keep saying this, but the NDP have not been publicly haranguing their provincial counterparts in BC to sign onto the system, so that can’t be a good sign. Likewise with dental care, the expectation seems to be some kind of national insurance plan which builds on the system used for First Nations and Inuit people, who call under federal responsibility, but there are a lot of complicating factors to extending that approach, as Jennifer Robson points out in this thread. Right now, it’s a lot of handwaving and wishful thinking, which isn’t helpful.

And then there are the premiers, who are none too happy with these proposals as they consider them to be intrusions in areas of provincial jurisdiction (which they might be if done incorrectly). Of course, they would rather the federal government just turn over more cash to them with no strings attached, which should never happen considering how many provinces just took the federal pandemic money and applied it to their bottom lines, and then praised how low their deficits were this fiscal year (while their hospitals remain overloaded, and in plenty of cases, their health care workers are leaving in droves from burnout and low wages).

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau addressed the European Parliament yesterday to urge them to unite in the face of Russia’s attempt to overturn the international rules-based order.
  • The federal government has issued $5 billion in green bonds for the first time.
  • Federal carbon price rebates in Ontario and Manitoba are increasingly rapidly this year to make up for too-small rebates the past two years.
  • Faced with a recruitment and retention crisis, the Canadian Forces is recognising the need for culture change and that they can’t just all be white men anymore.
  • Part of that culture change is adopting a gender-neutral dress code.
  • Canadian Forces members are being warned not to travel to Ukraine to participate in the fighting, even if they are on leave.
  • The winning design for the new LGBTQ+ monument is being unveiled today, and CTV got the scoop on what it will look like.
  • Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what happened to the makeshift memorial on Parliament Hill for the unmarked graves found at residential school sites.
  • An investigation says that former Unifor president Jerry Dias accepted a $50,000 kickback; Dias says he’s suffering from addiction issues and is now in rehab.
  • Patrick Brown insists he did not support the niqab ban when he was in Harper’s caucus, and that the mention in his newsletter at the time was just “information.”
  • The federal and Ontario governments announced investments in a new electric vehicle battery plant, but won’t say how much they’re investing.
  • Court documents show Jason Kenney’s close involvement in the “kamikaze” campaign in the original UCP leadership contest that helped to secure Kenney’s win.
  • The UCP has suddenly changed up the rules for the upcoming leadership vote on Kenney, and it’s now going to be mail-in ballots.
  • Heather Scoffield wonders what tough choices will need to be made in the upcoming budget given the new commitments with the NDP agreement.

Odds and ends:

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One thought on “Roundup: One month into Russia’s invasion”

  1. The culture change in the CF is going to be slow. Commanders will dictate but the real change will occur through the influence and peer acceptance of women recruits and officers progressing through the ranks.

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