There are tongues wagging because backbench Liberal MP Ken McDonald has twice now voted with the Conservatives on their performative motions to cut the carbon price. McDonald, who represents a rural riding in Newfoundland and Labrador, complains that the carbon price is making life too unaffordable for people in regions like his that have no choice but to heat their homes with heating oil and to drive trucks, but along the way he seems to have missed the rebate payments, which are enriched for rural Canadians in the provinces where the federal price is the system in place. (He also thinks that Steven Guilbeault is the wrong person to sell this policy because he’s too entrenched as an environmentalist).

I have some particular difficulty with this notion that there is a particular helplessness around rural Canadians when it comes to their fossil fuel use, because there are usually options that they simply ignore—at least there are in places like rural Alberta, where I’m from, but maybe it’s different in rural Newfoundland. In any case, the government has any number of programs to retrofit homes with better insulation, to exchange oil heaters for heat pumps, and too often, the notion that “I need a truck because I live in the country” tends to mean that people buy fuel-inefficient F-150s that are actually less useful for their needs than they like to pretend. In addition, the carbon price has a negligible effect on inflation, and McDonald was repeating some of the Conservatives’ talking points that don’t necessarily reflect reality so much as they “feel” like they could or should be true even though they’re not, and that’s a problem. Simply cutting the carbon price won’t have a real impact on prices, would mean not getting the rebates, and more to the point, would not push people to make changes to reduce their exposure to those prices where they can, and we need an all-hands-on-deck approach to emissions reduction.

As for McDonald, he doesn’t seem to have suffered any particular consequences for these votes, which is fine, and he shouldn’t because we should allow MPs to break ranks on some issues. That’s how things should work. But I do worry that the bigger issue here is an inability to communicate the programme and the solutions available to help his constituents instead of just buying into the Conservative lines.

Programming note: I will be taking the full long weekend off because oh boy do I ever need it after the past three weeks. See you Wednesday!

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian rocket struck a café and grocery store in Hroza, in the Kharkiv region, killing 51 people including a six-year-old, which is one of the deadliest single strikes. In addition, other strikes his grain silos in Izmail. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Granada, Spain, to meet with EU leaders and plead for more aid, now that the budget showdown in the US is endangering their contributions.

Russian missile struck an ordinary grocery store in the Kupiansk district of the Kharkiv region. This was a fully deliberate, demonstrative, and brutal terrorist attack.

As of now, more than 51 people have been reported dead. My condolences to all those who have lost their loved… pic.twitter.com/yxIW2Xwy35

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 5, 2023

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1709968477107138925

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau was in Vaughan, Ontario, to make an announcement related to the Housing Accelerator fund.
• Trudeau also had to point out that he never said those concerned about “parental rights” were hateful (but a whole lot of people have been telling on themselves).
• François-Philippe Champagne says the grocery giants have agreed to a plan to help stabilise prices, but there are no details to this particular plan.
• Canada is looking to send RCMP trainers to Haiti instead of contributing to any UN military mission to be led by Kenya.
• A NAFTA dispute panel has ruled in Canada’s favour on US softwood lumber duties.
• Sources are saying that India has given Canada five days to evacuate 41 of its diplomatic staff from the country.
• There are concerns that the disinformation that India is pushing out in retaliation for the alleged murder plot will create divisions where there aren’t any in Canada.
• There is a dispute about how the design for a national Afghanistan war monument was chosen, as the juried selection was overridden by a veterans’ survey.
• The Cameron Ortis trial heard that he had documents related to a money laundering probe and was allegedly trying to sell information to those being investigated.
• Conservative insiders are saying that Poilievre won’t make any public stances on the anti-trans “gender issues” until it becomes clear how it’ll benefit him. Of course.
• The NDP have rejected the government’s draft pharmacare bill, and negotiations are “fluid” (but their demand for legislated timelines sounds impossible to achieve).
• More PCers in Manitoba are trying to distance themselves from the worst that happened in the election campaign, because of course they are.

Odds and ends:

For National Magazine, I take a deeper look at the decision by the Commons to rush the bail reform bill and putting the heavy lifting onto the Senate.

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