Roundup: Words with meanings and obligations

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We’re now around day fifty of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and four European presidents—Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia—visited Kyiv to show their support yesterday. (Some photos of Ukraine here). Ukrainian forces also detained one of Putin’s oligarch allies, which has led to a new round of threats from Russia. The other thing that will make Russia angry? The fact that the Ukrainians sank Russia’s flagship for their Black Sea fleet—the same ship that fired upon the border guards at Snake Island. It’s almost poetic justice.

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/1514397710509559814

Meanwhile, we are getting into a frustrating debate about whether or not to call what’s happening in Ukraine a genocide, and what makes it frustrating is the fact that there are international obligations to do something about it if that’s indeed the case. There is no argument that there are crimes against humanity happening, and those are very, very serious. But “genocide” is a specific legal term with specific intent, and for President Biden to throw the word around and saying that lawyers can sort out the details later isn’t helping, when the term obligates the US to do something about it (which they have danced around in the past because they don’t want to be obligated). And then Justin Trudeau chines in and says it’s “absolutely right” to use the term, which would then obligate Canada to do something about it as well. But we need to stop using the most serious language for things for shock value, because words have meanings, and in this case, obligations as well.

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/1513890485970116614

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/1513902439556169733

Closer to home, the Bank of Canada raised its key interest rates by fifty basis points, and has hinted that more rate hikes are on the way, as they have to not only combat inflation with the only tool they have, but they have to fight the perception that they aren’t doing enough to cool inflation (and that latter part is the bigger part of the problem). I’ll be writing more about what’s in the Monetary Policy Report in the coming days, but in the meantime, here are some smart economists giving some reaction.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1514249461857366021

Good reads:

  • Still on his budget tour, Justin Trudeau says that the measures in the document will help Canadians weather higher interest rates (which are still very, very low!)
  • Sean Fraser says that settlement services will be offered to Ukrainians arriving in the Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver airports.
  • Marco Mendicino says the country is on high alert for state-sponsored Russian disinformation campaigns, and is working closely with Five Eyes partners.
  • Nearly a third of Cabinet ministers own rental or real estate investment assets, and I wonder if we’re going to treat this as some new kind of purity test.
  • 1.5 million doses of COVID vaccines in the national stockpile have expired because uptake has slowed considerably.
  • A constitutional amendment has been successfully passed that will end CP Rail’s tax exemption in the province of Saskatchewan.
  • The military is banning the use of its letterhead for any character references for soldiers convicted of a crime.
  • Pierre Poilievre says he’ll build pipelines “in all directions,” but considering there’s pretty much no market for that, it sounds like he’s promising nationalization.
  • A former Alberta justice minister has been found in contempt of court for threatening to sue a witness in the middle of her wrongful dismissal trial.
  • Kathryn May delves into how the agreement with the NDP means that the program review in the budget is more likely about modernisation than job cuts.
  • Jen Gerson offers some home truths about the housing problem, and how no government will fix it because its paper wealth is too big to fail.
  • Kevin Carmichael parses the Bank of Canada’s statements on the interest rate hike, and what the thinking behind it is.
  • Heather Scoffield focuses on the Bank trying to reclaim its narrative, particularly when Pierre Poilievre is actively attacking and undermining the central bank.

Odds and ends:

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