Roundup: Danielle Smith and prosecutorial independence

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Because it never ends in Danielle Smith’s Alberta, we learned last night that members of her staff were indeed calling up Crown prosecutors to totally not pressure them on cases, only it wasn’t around public health order rule-breakers—it was around those arrested as part of the blockade at the Coutts border crossing. Remember that? Where they arrested Diagolon members for their plot to murder RCMP officers, where they had a hit list? Yeah, totally normal for the premier’s office to be calling them up and totally not pressuring them by asking if those prosecutions are in the public interest, over and over.

https://twitter.com/emmmacfarlane/status/1616209929165213696

When news broke, Smith denied that she was in contact, or that anyone in her office was…except there are emails, and her story around totally not pressuring those very same Crown prosecutors around pandemic rule-breakers kept changing, depending on which media outlet she was talking about, so her denials are pretty hard to believe, especially since she didn’t seem to understand how pardons work in Canada until earlier this week, by which point her story had changed about six or seven times (and is probably still changing).

Of course, I don’t expect that anyone is going to resign or be fired for this, because that would mean that someone would need to possess enough self-awareness, or have a shred of humility, or even be capable of feeling shame for their actions, and that’s pretty much a foreign concept in Smith and her cadre. And all of those voices who were having meltdowns about the Double-Hyphen Affair and the alleged pressure being applied to Jody Wilson-Raybould (which my reading of the situation seems to have largely come from Bill Morneau’s office) are strangely silent about what happened here, because I’m sure it’s totally different.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 331:

Ukraine is awaiting the decision of allied governments and particularly Germany about providing them with modern tanks, especially Leopard 2 tanks (which Germany controls the export licences for) as they meet at the Ramstein Air Base in Germany. Meanwhile, here are some testimonials from Ukrainian soldiers who are big fans of the armoured vehicles we have sent them so far, with another 200 on the way.

Good reads:

  • Sources™ say a series of health transfer deals are imminent, as both a bigger federal transfer and individual deals on priority areas.
  • Ahmed Hussen spend $93,000 of constituency funds on PR help from a foodie-focused firm…but it appears to have been within the rules, if a bit bewildering.
  • Liberal ministers have spent the week publicly doling out funds for gun crime prevention, while touting their gun control legislation at the same time.
  • The government has reached an agreement to repatriate six Canadian women and thirteen children currently in Syrian detention camps, but are leaving out four men.
  • The Canadian military’s shrinking footprint in the Middle East is freeing up personnel for other NATO missions in Europe (because there is a shortage).
  • The National Gallery has hired an outside consultant to act both as HR manager and Chief Operating Officer, which is pretty alarming for governance reasons.
  • Here is a great explainer about the current state of high grocery prices.
  • Here is an explainer on how ground penetrating radar is being used to find potential unmarked graves at the sites of former residential schools.
  • MP Yasir Naqvi is objecting to the mayor of Ottawa’s sudden desire to re-open Wellington Street to traffic (which would be a bad thing).
  • Jagmeet Singh says he wants to see pharmacare legislation or the deal’s off (never mind that the real problem is getting nine other provinces to sign onto it).
  • Former senator Lillian Dyck speaks about the problem of former judge Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond and her now-discredited claims about Indigenous heritage.
  • A state funeral will be held on Monday for former Ontario Lieutenant Governor David Onley.
  • Doug Ford says he wants to make it easier to credential doctors and nurses from other jurisdictions (but why would they want to move to the low pay here?)
  • Danielle Smith has named Preston Manning (who has been running a “people’s commission” on COVID lockdown harms) to review the province’s COVID response.
  • Susan Delacourt talks to Justin Trudeau about why he’s not picking a fight with Doug Ford over his plans for more private delivery of healthcare.
  • Robert Hiltz gives a scathing rebuke of Doug Ford’s unwillingness to treat the problems in the healthcare system, opting for private clinics instead.

Odds and ends:

For Xtra, I had a catch-up interview with NDP MP Blake Desjarlais about his first year on the job.

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One thought on “Roundup: Danielle Smith and prosecutorial independence”

  1. Singh just doesn’t get it!
    He wants to be PM but he has no understanding of how Federal-Provincial
    relations work. Can one imagine if he were in power with the dummies he would have in his caucus?
    Shudder.

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