Roundup: A potential recruiting ground

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It was outgoing Ottawa mayor Jim Watson’s turn to present to the Emergencies Act public inquiry yesterday, and it sounds like he was also caught up in the thinking that the occupation would fizzle by the first Tuesday, as the previous protest convoy had done. The most interesting part was a transcript of a call between Watson and Justin Trudeau where Trudeau accused Doug Ford of hiding from his responsibilities, given that he checked out of this process early on, and that he was doing it for political reasons. There was also concern that the OPP and RCMP had not sent as many people as they promised. In response to the reported comments at the inquiry, Ontario’s current solicitor general sent a huffy missive to media outlets saying that they don’t interfere with police operations and ensured that they provided tools for Ottawa, which clearly, they did not. Of course, Watson also said that he feels the federal and provincial governments have “equal responsibility” for policing in the occupation context, which…is not how this works.

We also learned that CSIS didn’t believe the occupation had the involve of foreign actors, but they were concerned that this was going to be a recruiting ground for harder-edged, violent far-right groups (which is a pretty coherent concern that unfortunately seems to be growing).

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 237:

Approximately one-third of Ukrainian power stations have suffered damage from Russian attacks, either from missiles or kamikaze drones, as the regime tries to demoralise the Ukrainian people.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1582285715970613248

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau promises that Canada will hit its 2030 emissions reduction targets.
  • Dr. Theresa Tam has added her voice to the encouragement to get bivalent COVID boosters in over to stave off a fall resurgence of the pandemic.
  • Marco Mendicino says that he’s concerned by reports the RCMP hid their badge numbers as they cleared the occupation on the Ambassador Bridge in February.
  • François-Philippe Champagne announced funds for new Earth-observing satellites.
  • Citizen Lab has concerns about the federal privacy legislation that also aims to beef up cyber-security in the private sector.
  • There are questions about how the forestry sector calculates its carbon emissions.
  • Former judge Mary-Ellen Turpel-Lafond gave an explanation about her Indigenous ancestry that is opposite documentary evidence and a previous claim she made.
  • Danielle Smith is apologising for yet more past comments, this time about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
  • Kevin Milligan challenges the truism that Canada can’t build any major projects, and lists the accomplishments that are playing out in BC.
  • Justin Ling traces where Danielle Smith is getting her disinformation from, and a lot of it is antisemitic and pro-Kremlin, and what it says about her government.
  • Andrew Coyne walks through Liz Truss’ embrace of populism over fact, and the car crash that resulted because populists prefer fantasy to reality.
  • My column looks at how a single line from Chrystia Freeland’s Brookings Institute speech has been taken way out of context and spun to drum up artificial drama.

Odds and ends:

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