Roundup: Bill Morneau has learned no lessons

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We’re now around day ninety-nine of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and…there wasn’t a lot of news I could find, other than the fact that Russia continues to pound cities in the Donbas region. Germany says they will send more advanced radar and anti-aircraft systems to Ukraine, but we’ll see how timely their deliveries really are.

Closer to home, Bill Morneau delivered a speech where he says he’s worried about the economic progress of this country because he says he doesn’t see enough focus on growth (never mind that it’s the dominant focus of the last two budgets). But then he went on about how he wants some kind of “permanent commission” to focus on said economic growth, and I just cannot even. It’s called Parliament. David Reevely lays this out in the thread below, but I will add that Morneau really was never any good at being in government. He kept trying to play things like he was still in the corporate world, where it was about who you knew, and it was paired with the mindset of this government where if you mean well, then the ends justify the means, so rules got broken an awful lot. That’s why Morneau was eventually forced to resign over his role in the CatastrophWE. And he demonstrates with this speech that he has learned precisely zero lessons.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau says they are open to other drug decriminalisation requests, but that it must be done in concert with provinces so that there is a framework around it.
  • There are now fifty-two cases of monkeypox confirmed in Quebec and two in Toronto, and can we not do this, guys? One pandemic has been enough.
  • Anita Anand says she stands by General Wayne Eyre’s decision to keep the provost marshal in place in spite of the botched handling of the file of the two cadets.
  • Getting things like the Canada Child Benefit to those who don’t complete their income tax forms, like many First Nations people, is a challenge for the government.
  • The chair of the Emergencies Act inquiry is looking for all federal documents on the invocation, including those under Cabinet confidence.
  • CBC has compiled the government’s use of secret orders-in-council, but seeing as there are limited uses for this tool, it may simply be a case of circumstances.
  • A coalition of privacy commissioners around the country found that the Tim Horton’s app caused massive privacy violations for users.
  • The ethics commissioner has been inundated with public demands that he investigate claims related to the World Economic Forum conspiracy theory.
  • Louise Arbour talks to the Star about her report, and why she’s sceptical that it can bring about change given how entrenched the military culture is.
  • The Irving shipyards say they need more federal money to upgrade the yard to build more warships. Gods forbid they spend any of their own money on it.
  • Google has been contacting each MP and senator to warn them about their reading of the online news bill.
  • A recent report shows that military veterans are playing an outsized role in anti-government extremist movements.
  • The House of Commons voted unanimously in support of a Senate public bill on ensuring Canadian companies do not source products that use forced labour.
  • Civil liberties groups warned senators that the new bill on digital searches at the border will violate privacy because the threshold is so low.
  • Issues of abortion and gun control are apparently helping Conservative leadership candidates sign up members.
  • Patrick Brown is trying to win Chinese-Canadian votes (and sign up members) by claiming the party has wrongly not separated the people from the Chinese state.
  • Kevin Carmichael parses the Bank of Canada’s statement on the interest rate decision, and where they see the economy moving in the next few months.
  • Paul Wells reflects on partisan plays versus governance plays, and why that has contributed to the broken state of our federal government.

Odds and ends:

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