Roundup: Benefits based on political rather than economic need

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith paid for television airtime last night to announce that she would be making “inflation-fighting measures,” which are mostly cheques to people, but targeted payments rather than just the old model of money to everyone. Of course, where she blamed the cause of inflation is pure fiction, so that was classic Smith, and common among populist “conservative” parties these days. There were some good measures in there like re-indexing several social programmes (the decision not to index them being purely spiteful legislated poverty).

This being said, the targeting is done pretty deliberately, and it’s not entirely based on need, unless you count her political need as what she’s addressing. Money for relatively affluent seniors, and to families with children are politically motivated—seniors vote, and suburban mothers are a highly desirable demographic because women are less likely to vote conservative, and while Smith is likely to clean up in rural ridings by default (because this is Alberta), her problem are the urban ridings (and when I say urban, I really mean suburban because again, this is Alberta and its cities all have miniscule urban cores surrounded by endless suburbs). And while it wouldn’t be a political party pandering or bribing voters by ensuring that singletons get nothing, as usual, this is done with a little more intention than the usual policy objectives of appealing to families. It’s about buying the votes she needs to hang onto power in the spring, and it’s so blatantly obvious that it’s pretty insulting.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 273:

Fighting continues near Bahkmut, and Russians accused Ukrainians of targeting power lines in Donetsk (but they also are masters of projection, so take that as you will). Meanwhile, the government has begun evacuating people from Kherson to prevent them from freezing to death over the winter, and to prevent any losses of life due to the cold. As well, Ukraine’s counter-intelligence forces searched an Orthodox Christian church in Kyiv, shortly after its priest was speaking favourably of Russia, and they wanted to ensure that there are no Russian operatives working out of the church.

https://twitter.com/CFOperations/status/1594799007750295552

Good reads:

  • Steven Guilbeault announced that Nova Scotia, PEI, and Newfoundland and Labrador will be subject to the federal carbon price backstop as of July 1st.
  • Mélanie Joly met with Belarus’ exiled opposition leader and announced a new round of sanctions on members of the Lukashenko regime and its military.
  • Carolyn Bennett called out Poilievre’s odious video on opioid policies.
  • The Chief Electoral Officer says he had no reports of any Chinese interference in the 2019 election, and says it would be premature to make any conclusions from media.
  • An internal memo from CSIS calls for modernising their enabling legislation, which hasn’t been substantially updated since it was first created in 1984.
  • At the public inquiry, Marco Mendicino and Dominic LeBlanc testified, while the lawyer for the occupiers was kicked out as he spun a libellous conspiracy theory.
  • The former army reservist who rammed his truck into the gates of Rideau Hall has been granted day parole after two years of a six-year sentence.
  • At a Senate committee, Pablo Rodriguez said he was open to amendments on the broadcasting bill, and insisted they won’t affect user-generated content.
  • The House of Commons unanimously condemned FIFA’s threat to punish players who wear One Love armbands at the World Cup.
  • At committee, an amendment was adopted to the gun control bill to give an evergreen definition of “assault rifle” to prevent loophole exploitation.
  • As the deadline approaches, only one candidate has been declared for the Ontario NDP leadership race, which is really concerning.
  • Heather Scoffield notes that the federal government seems to be taking on larger roles when it comes to environmental policy (though I suspect it’s overblown).
  • David Moscrop points out that while Poilievre is dining out on “everything feels broken,” it’s decades of austerity at the hands of parties like his that broke things.
  • Justin Ling recounts what he heard from the Ukrainian delegates at the Halifax Security Forum, particularly about what peace with Russia should look like.
  • Ling also details what he heard on the disinformation panels at the Forum.
  • Shannon Proudfoot offers her observations of the testimonies of both Bill Blair and Marco Mendicino at the public inquiry.
  • My column delves into the bad logic and flaws in Pierre Poilievre’s simultaneous denunciation of carbon prices and the government’s environmental record.

Odds and ends:

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