Roundup: Brown’s poor choice of words

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It is approximately day ninety-six of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has stormed the city of Sievierodonetsk after trying unsuccessfully to encircle it. Some 90 percent of the cities buildings are damaged, and Russian forces have not cared about civilian casualties. At the same time, president Volodymyr Zelensky ventured out of Kyiv and visited the city of Kharkiv, and thanked the Ukrainian defenders in that city who pushed the Russian invasion back on that front.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is getting new shore-to-ship missiles from Denmark while howitzers from the US are arriving, and it is hoped that these missiles can help better defend their coast line (and possibly sink the Russian Black Sea fleet in the process). Also, here is a look at those evacuating from cities like Lysychansk in eastern Ukraine.

Closer to home, Patrick Brown is trying to walk back on his calling social conservatives “dinosaurs” in his book, saying it was a “poor choice of words.” But he was trying to make a point in the statement that those dinosaurs are becoming less relevant to the party, which in Ontario especially, tends to mean that you need to go on bended knee to Charles McVety and his particular ilk so that you can get their endorsement, which Doug Ford was certainly willing to do, and Brown was not, instead trying to expand the party membership through other ethno-cultural communities that could go around that traditional social conservative membership bloc. And I’ve heard certain Conservative organisers say that they want “open memberships” like the Liberals have in order to grow the party away from being beholden to the social conservatives—erm, but maybe you should just adopt more centrist or mainstream policies that will attract more people to the party if you want to move away from that particular base. Mind you, there is a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation in that those members will keep fighting to keep the policy book in their favour, but there is also no guarantee that “open memberships” will help you organise around these social conservatives any differently either. Suffice to say, if the party wants to grow away from this base, it requires a lot more organisational ability than they seem to be demonstrating to date.

Good reads:

  • David Lametti says the government is open to making tougher bail restrictions for gun crimes; he also says a review of the Notwithstanding Clause is needed.
  • Harjit Sajjan spoke about the needs of Ukrainians sexually assaulted by Russians, and how abortion may not be available in countries like Poland if they flee there.
  • A second charter flight carrying Ukrainian refugees arrived in Montreal over the weekend. (Will the Quebec government insist they learn French in six months?)
  • Statistics Canada says that crimes involving handguns are on the rise (but there data is poor because of no common definitions by police).
  • Two of the newest slushsbreakers—err, Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships were named in honour of two Canadian WWII naval heroes.
  • Chris Selley remarks on the boringness of Charles and Camilla’s visit, and why that is a sign of a sustainable forward course for our monarchy.
  • My weekend column looks at the court case involving New Brunswick’s lieutenant governor, and Trudeau’s decision around the vice-regal appointments committee.

Odds and ends:

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