It’s on or about day one-hundred-and-forty-six of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces have shelled the city of Toretsk in the Donestk region, smashing more buildings as they continue to try and take control of the area. Ukraine is also calling out Russia’s conduct when it comes to prisoners of war, citing illegal treatment.

This is why Zelensky just can't bargain away heaps of Ukrainian territory. Because people live in these places and allowing the Russians to rule them means violence–rape, murder, deportation. https://t.co/3QoQAlro5y

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman) July 18, 2022

Meanwhile, there are no assurances around weapons that Canada is sending to Ukraine that they’re being tracked so that they can ensure they won’t wind up on the black market. NATO partners are having discussion about this, but Canada is merely monitoring rather than participating. Ukrainian officials assure Canada that they are closely monitoring any movement of weapons, as are our allies, and are insisting that information to the contrary is likely Russian disinformation.

Closer to home, emergency rooms are closing in some parts of the country as hospitals are facing a severe staff shortage, particularly among nurses. And gosh, it’s quite a coincidence that Ontario gave nurses an effective pay cut that they haven’t reversed, or that Alberta tried to cut nurses’ pay because they said they were making too much relative to nurses in other provinces. No, seriously, that’s their case. This is while the premiers have mishandled COVID, refuse to do the simplest things like mask mandates at this point, and then wondering why the hospitals, which never recovered from the previous waves of the pandemic, are once again collapsing. A very cynical person might think premiers have created this situation, either to pressure the federal government to hand them more money without strings, or to set up the conditions to force more private delivery of care (which won’t actually do anything about staffing or resources other than distribute them toward those who can pay), but it looks clear that they aren’t prepared to give the necessary damn that the situation requires, and that’s a problem.

Good reads:

• Steven Guilbeault released a discussion paper on the options to cap emissions in the oil and gas sector, and will now begin consultations on the shape of the policy.
• The federal government announced some $870 million to support the recovery in BC from last November’s flooding.
• Health Canada intends to reject a Vancouver plan to acquire “safer” illicit drugs via black market means, saying they should go through pharmaceutical companies.
• There are complaints that the ArriveCan app is “glitching” by requiring fully-vaccinated travellers to quarantine without positive tests.
• Liberal backbencher Sukh Dhaliwal has decided to run to for the mayor of Surrey.
• Conservative Party officials walked journalists through their leadership ballot verification process, as they’re already starting to arrive.
• Patrick Brown announced he’s going to run again for the mayor of Brampton, while he continues to insist that the Conservatives would find any excuse to keep him out.
• The leader of the Quebec Green Party was expelled from the federal party for his criticism of the leadership process.
• Matt Gurney excoriates Rogers, the rest of the telecom sector, Interac, and pretty much every who hasn’t thought about redundancy in the event of an outage.
• Colby Cosh explores the BC Court of Appeal decision that shut down the attempt to bring more private healthcare into the province.
• Paul Wells walks us through the talk about a possible fall election (which won’t happen) and the various calculations that everyone is making.
• My Xtra column catches up with Liberal MP Rob Oliphant, and what he’s been up to as parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs.

Odds and ends:

For National Magazine I delve into Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision on streaming royalties and the Court monkeying with administrative law—again.

My Loonie Politics Quick Take previews summer showboat season—erm, the summer emergency committee meetings MPs have called.

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