Roundup: Singh wants to interfere

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Because things feel the need to keep getting dumber, it appears that Jagmeet Singh wrote a letter to Justin Trudeau to try to get him to interfere with the Bank of Canada’s planned rate hike. This is both dumb and dangerous because you do not interfere with the central bank! We had a political crisis about the independence of the central bank in 1961, and in the end, the Bank’s independence was strengthened because it’s important for a central bank’s credibility that their policy statements can be believed by the markets. If the government of the day undermines their credibility, then they are useless in sending signals, and right now, the signal is that they are going to get inflation under control, come hell or high water, because they don’t want it to get entrenched, and letting a wage spiral happen will help to make it entrenched. Yes, many of the drivers are outside of the Bank’s control, such as food price inflation, but it’s trying to keep those expectations from spreading further into the market, and they can do that, so long as governments don’t undermine them, and don’t come up with monetary policy ideas that fuel inflation so that the Bank needs to rates even higher.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 242:

The Russian-installed authorities of occupied Kherson are advising residents to leave in advance of an expected Ukrainian advance. Meanwhile, Russia is intensifying its attacks on power stations and other critical civilian infrastructure as a means of demoralising the Ukrainians, but that doesn’t seem to be working as planned. Elsewhere, NATO surveillance craft are flying just outside of Ukrainian airspace, and providing a look at Russian movements in the region.

Good reads:

  • High Commissioner Ralph Goodale says the Canadian government has no plans to suspend UK trade talks over the Irish border issue, as some Irish politicians want.
  • Indigenous leaders are finally being given access to the 100 Wellington building across from the Centre Block, five years after the promise by the prime minister.
  • At the UCP’s AGM, and Danielle Smith talked up WEF conspiracy theories, wants pardons for COVID rule-breakers, and is still planning on her “Sovereignty Act.”
  • A cancelled barge shipment to a remote Northwest Territories community is a big problem for those relying on it to bring their worldly possessions to them.
  • Susan Delacourt takes a bigger picture at the first week of testimony at the Emergencies Act public inquiry, and the question of nature of the occupation.
  • Chantal Hébert wonders if Chrystia Freeland’s decision to start reigning in federal spending will signal the end of the deal with the NDP.
  • Emmett Macfarlane explains why a possible decision in Quebec to allow MNAs to sit without a proper oath to the king is a constitutional problem.

Odds and ends:

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