Roundup: Demands to recall Parliament to make more speeches

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The Cabinet retreat has wrapped, and there is no big announcement on housing policy other than to say that they know there’s not one silver bullet that will solve the housing challenges, so that means more work. Pierre Poilievre dutifully summoned reporters to the Foyer in the West Block to mock the lack of action and decry “What was the solution? More speeches, more photo ops…” And then he demanded that Parliament be recalled so that they can “take action” on housing, but without a legislative proposal, all this would mean is a take-note debate, which would be a bunch of twenty-minute speeches being read into the record. You know, exactly the thing that he was mocking Trudeau about. So that’s consistent.

Meanwhile, the debate about international students is picking up, with the government seems to want to deal with the problem of dubious private colleges at the same time, even though they don’t really make a dent in the housing crisis, and leads to problems of just how the federal government determines legitimacy (which is a provincial responsibility), and there a host of other problems with the programme that they may not have the capacity to deal with. Limiting international students could have other, longer-term repercussions, as they are quite easy to stream into permanent residency, and good for Canada in the long run—but again, there are problems in the system as it is.

With that in mind, Alex Usher’s thread has concerns about how the federal government could mess things up, while Mike Moffatt’s thread offers suggestions for things the federal government could do (or in several cases, undo) to relieve the pressure. This all having been said, a bit part of the problem here is that provinces have cut or frozen funding to these institutions, and limiting international students will be a huge financial blow to them, and that should be addressed somehow.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1694317541559066707

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians targeted Ukrainian grain facilities with drone attacks, destroying some 13,000 tons of grain at the Danube port of Izmail, while Ukrainians claim to have taken out a Russian air defence system in occupied Crimea with a drone attack of their own. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hosted an international meeting about liberating Crimea from Russian control. And how to go about doing so.

Good reads:

  • Mélanie Joly levied more sanctions on Russians, and says they are monitoring reports on the apparent death of Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin.
  • Dominic LeBlanc says that he is about to give the prime minister his report on the response to the Emergencies Act Inquiry report.
  • The federal government has announced that it has found a temporary PEI-Nova Scotia ferry to replace the one that caught fire last year.
  • The CRTC is pausing any work on radio approvals or complaints for the next couple of years while they devote their resources to the Online Streaming Act regulations.
  • There are concerns about the secretive nature of the government’s generative-AI code of conduct consultations.
  • Chrystia Freeland acknowledges that she got a speeding ticket in Alberta, and promises she won’t do it again.
  • While New Brunswick doubles down on its policy of outing LGBTQ+ students, and Saskatchewan joins in, grassroots federal Conservatives are pushing Poilievre on it.
  • The OPP have asked the RCMP to take over any potential investigation of the Greenbelt scandal in order to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.
  • The Northwest Territories government is still tallying the “astronomical” cost of the wildfires and the evacuations before they can request federal financial assistance.

Odds and ends:

https://youtu.be/SlCH9V5DbRk 

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