Roundup: The non-retracted story and the myths around it

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It’s day one-hundred-and-fourteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Severodonetsk has not fallen yet. French president Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Premier Mario Draghi all visited Kyiv together, while Romania’s president, Klaus Iohannis, arrived on a separate train. They were there to show European unity, in spite of the fact that there have been many criticisms levelled at them in recent weeks for being slow to deliver promised aid, or trying to appease Putin. The fact that they could see some of the atrocities in Irpin, outside of Kyiv, may have given them some perspective on the conflict as well. They did also come with a message about trying to facilitate Ukraine’s entry into the European Union, which would have a great deal of symbolic weight in the conflict.

Meanwhile, NATO defence ministers met in Brussels to discuss ways to continue bolstering their Eastern flank, which will mean more forward-deployed combat formations.

Closer to home, there has been a pervasive bit of disinformation circulating, spread by certain media outlets, that CBC had retracted some of its reporting on the occupation, and in particular about its funding. That’s false—there was on radio correction, but the stories themselves stood, and are still there. Nevertheless, this notion that there was this retraction has been the basis of part of the Conservative attacks on Marco Mendicino in the justification for the invocation of the Emergencies Act, and in particular the financial tools that were used to freeze bank accounts of participants. While the Conservatives, citing these certain outlets, claim that the allegations of “dark money” fuelling the occupation was false, there was indeed foreign money coming in, though not as much as some people assumed. Of course, the Conservatives are also lying about just who this occupation was made up of, so any of their assertions what is true or false around the entire situation are suspect because they have a vested interest in protecting the occupiers, believing they can harness them to their own ends. (Spoiler: They really won’t in the end).

Good reads:

  • Chrystia Freeland had a major speech in Toronto to reiterate the government’s affordability measures (and take a shot at Pierre Poilievre).
  • Jonathan Wilkinson is getting set to release his critical minerals strategy, where the message is to ensure that China and Russia don’t continue to dominate this market.
  • Experts say that the new cybersecurity law has a lot of good points, but needs some tweaks around transparency, and finding ways to engage provinces.
  • François-Philippe Champagne reintroduced a new digital privacy bill that will also create an AI and Data Commissioner that can audit companies’ activities.
  • The government is still consulting on how to move ahead with its dental care promise, as each of the three particular models has its own downfalls.
  • The new head of the Canadian Army is Indigenous, for the first time ever.
  • The RCMP is renewing its core values statement for the first time in over twenty-five years, and is now admitting their history isn’t all that shiny.
  • Harassment and bullying complaints have been levelled against AFN national chief RoseAnne Archibald, which she claims is retaliation for clearing up corruption.
  • The two Sikh men arrested on Saturday after the bomb threat hoax want answers from the police, as well as a public apology.
  • The same group of far-right extremists, grifters, conspiracy theorists and grievance tourists want to spend the summertrying to “protest” on Parliament Hill.
  • The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada held his annual press conference and talked about security and backlogs. (My own write-up will be out later today).
  • The House of Commons voted unanimously to lift its vaccine mandate by Monday, so the three or four anti-vaxxer MPs can finally return to the Chamber.
  • Pierre Poilievre is now accusing Patrick Brown of having Brampton city staff working full-time on his leadership, but the sources are not trustworthy.
  • Susan Delacourt declares that the government needs to turn over documents around the Emergencies Act invocation, lest trust in government continue to erode.

Odds and ends:

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