Roundup: Smith can’t get her story or timeline straight

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Danielle Smith took to the microphones yesterday to thump her chest about the proposed clean electricity regulations, but what wound up happening was a series of wrong facts about her government’s “pause” on approvals for new clean electricity projects. Smith claims that the moratorium came at the request of the Alberta Utilities Commission and the Alberta Electric System Operator, except neither requested it, the timelines don’t add up, and it looks a lot like Smith’s government has been going out of their way to screw with clean energy stakeholders.

Receipts are all below.

Smith also refused to say whether our record wildfire season across the country is related to climate change, but insisted that most of the fires in her province were set by humans. That’s also a lie, but that’s Smith’s modus operandi.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched a large-scale air attack against western Ukraine including the city of Lviv, which was the largest attack on the city since the start of the war. There were missile and drone strikes against Odessa which wounded three in the early hours of Monday. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops near the eastern front line yesterday.

Good reads:

  • The Cabinet will be holding a three-day retreat in PEI next week (never mind that they still don’t have the chiefs of staff to the shuffled ministers sorted yet).
  • Sean Fraser says past federal governments should never have retreated from affordable housing, but they did. (Thank the deficit-slaying Chrétien-Martin budget).
  • An accidental post revealed that the government is consulting with AI experts on a possible code of conduct around generative AI programmes.
  • NSICOP has given PMO their report on the RCMP’s federal policing role, and the declassified version needs to be released within 30 sitting days.
  • The sexual assault trial of the former military head of personnel was delayed by the absence of the judge.
  • The National Post’s series on judicial appointments finds two cases where judges may have donated post-appointment, and fifteen tribunal members may also have.
  • Jagmeet Singh refused to pick sides between the Alberta and Saskatchewan NDP on the clean electricity targets, until his staffer came down on the Alberta/2035 side.
  • Paul Wells reflects on Anita Anand’s shuffle to Treasury Board and the signals that it sends about the government as a whole.

Odds and ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take looks at Doug Ford, the Greenbelt scandal, and the meaning of ministerial responsibility.

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