It’s now around day sixty-three of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia is waving around the threat of nuclear action if NATO members don’t stop arming Ukraine, which some are taking as mere talk. But still. There have also been more attacks over the border in Moldova, which Russia is trying to blame on Ukraine. Allied defence ministers met in Germany, and more weapons are on the way to Ukraine, so that warning by Russia isn’t dissuading them too much.
https://twitter.com/rafaelmgrossi/status/1519031867642728450
Closer to home, the special joint committee on the Emergencies Act (which is not the inquiry) held their first major meetings last night, hearing from two ministers, and ostensibly the commissioner of the RCMP and the head of CSIS, but those latter two barely got any questions, because like I predicted seven weeks ago, this was really just about showboating as opposed to substance. And yeah—showboating and demands to release documents that we have no idea if they’d actually be relevant (but still operating under the assumption that the government is engaged in some sort of cover-up), while Conservatives still went to bat for the far-right extremists, grifters and conspiracy theorists who made up the occupation.
Seven weeks ago, I wrote this column about how this special committee was going to play out, and oh look—I was right. This is about showboating, and not seriously parliamentary work. https://t.co/NboVPU8GcD https://t.co/ejLId6eyBI
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 26, 2022
https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1519079631042789378
https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1519081717126074369
What we did hear from Marco Mendicino included the fact that the Ottawa Police being the police of jurisdiction created challenges, and that that they had no choice but to invoke the Act in as limited way as possible. The head of CSIS did manage to get a question, in which he said that the agency is spending about fifty percent of their time currently on ideologically-motivated violent extremism, and that extremist content in the occupation didn’t surprise him. You can read Rachel Aiello’s livetweeting thread here for more, but it was pretty ridiculous overall. It’s a sad indictment of the fact that we are no longer a serious parliament made up of serious people, taking the business of the nation seriously.
I am shocked that it took 50 minutes for Parliament's committee probing the convoy protests to ask a question to the commissioner of the RCMP.
— Alex Boutilier (@alexboutilier) April 26, 2022
The amount of work that went into making sure those national security officials danced around questions without answering? All wasted now.
— Alex Boutilier (@alexboutilier) April 26, 2022
Interesting Qs from Sen. Boniface, paraphrased: Did the gov’t check to see if municipal and provincial governments actually exhausted all options before triggering national emergency? Minister says existing powers were ineffective, re-explains intersection between jurisdictions.
— Rachel Aiello (@rachaiello) April 26, 2022
Finally a Q to another official. This time RCMP head Lucki. Was the RCMP at the table from the very beginning? She says yes. What role did they play w Hill security? One element: Provided staging area for MPs to be driven into the precinct if they wanted to not walk up on foot.
— Rachel Aiello (@rachaiello) April 26, 2022
The committee was supposed to provide real-time oversight while the Act was invoked, but since MPs and senators couldn’t shut up long enough to vote before the government revoked the orders, and it was never established. So now they are making work for themselves to showboat. https://t.co/1BdxkRDpVf
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) April 27, 2022
Good reads:
- The government plans to include provisions in the budget bill that would allow them to seize and sell off assets of Russians under sanction.
- The Environment Commissioner unveiled his spring reports, which criticized the Output Based Pricing System, the “Just Transition” plan, and hydrogen plans.
- The Information Commissioner tabled a scathing report on Library and Archives Canada’s inability to comply with Access to Information requests. (Response here).
- CN Rail is searching for francophone board members after the backlash from the news that they appointed a unilingual anglophone board.
- The Federal Court set aside a federal decision to phase out BC fish farms, citing a lack of procedural fairness.
- Some praise for Justice Paul Rouleau, who is leading the Emergencies Act inquiry.
- The itinerary for Charles and Camilla’s visit has now been finalised.
- Facebook officials told a parliamentary committee they have not ruled out blocking news content in Canada if they don’t get their own way.
- Patrick Brown and Roman Baber are now over the threshold and are officially in the leadership race (but how Baber managed I am somewhat boggled).
- Jean Charest released an environmental plan, but it’s based a lot on the magic of hopeful future technology to remove carbon from the air. No, seriously.
- Pierre Poilievre promises to revive dead energy projects like a Quebec LNG project the province abandoned, but he claims would get First Nations approval. (Sure, Jan).
- Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie thinks that a committee study on resource development and violence against Indigenous women is “disgraceful.”
- Paul Wells talks to NDP national director Anne McGrath about the Supply and Confidence agreement, and the communications around it.
- My column looks at the Emergencies Act inquiry and hopes that this will be the place where we get answers on police in action, as other avenues are hopeless now.
Odds and ends:
https://twitter.com/Canadian_Crown/status/1518946760097419264
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