Roundup: Misreading Friday’s decision

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In light of Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision on the Impact Assessment Act, Conservatives are already making some pretty stupid demands, like this one from MP Shannon Stubbs, who wants to move a motion at the Natural Resources Committee to repeal the old Bill C-69—except that it’s not what the Supreme Court ruled on, it’s a complete misreading of what the ruling was, and more to the point, would try to repeal the parts that are constitutional, and create even more uncertainty in the market. If people think that the system that the Harper government put into place was somehow better, all it did was ensure that project approvals wound up in litigation because there was too much uncertainty and ambiguity in the rules, and it didn’t do anything to speed approvals like they claimed it would.

For those of you who aren’t quite following, the thrust of the Court’s ruling was not that the whole scheme is unconstitutional, but rather that the list of things the federal government put into the Act in order to trigger a federal environmental assessment was overbroad, particularly around the issue of treating greenhouse gas emissions as an automatic federal issue because it’s a cross-boundary effect. That was too broad for the Court’s liking, so they’re essentially telling the government to narrow the scope of what triggers an assessment—that’s it. As previously stated, the Court explicitly rejected the notion that a “provincial” project is immune from federal assessment, so any talking points related to “exclusive jurisdiction” are also bogus, but so many people are proving that they either didn’t bother to read the decision, or if they did, certainly didn’t understand it.

Meanwhile, here’s another explanation of Friday’s ruling, this time from Martin Olszynski, Nigel Banks and David Wright.

Ukraine Dispatch:

On the 600th day of Russia’s illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine, their assault on the city of Avdiivka appears to be losing steam, after Ukrainian forces repelled 15 attacks from four directions over the previous 24 hours. Russians are also apparently looking to pierce the front lines in the Kupiansk-Lyman area on the country’s northeast. Elsewhere, Russia launched another overnight attack, with five missiles and twelve drones, focused on the western part of Ukraine.

Good reads:

  • Prime minister Justin Trudeau appointed a new special envoy for Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism; Irwin Cotler had some thoughts.
  • Trudeau later spoke in the House of Commons on the situation in Israel and Gaza, calling for the hostages to be released and for international law to be upheld.
  • Arif Virani is promising that the online harms bill will be tabled, but has not offered a timeline (because crafting it is proving to be hideously difficult).
  • The federal and Ontario governments are backing yet another EV battery plant, this time for Umicore.
  • The federal labour relations tribunal wants the Senate to release emails in an employment discrimination case, but they have refused.
  • Chinese fighter jets aggressively approached a Canadian surveillance plane monitoring sanctions enforcement around North Korea.
  • The NDP are trying to have the Commons’ ethics committee study a lavish trip several Conservative MPs took courtesy of a Hungarian thinktank.
  • Suncor’s CEO appeared at committee, said they are still committed to eliminating their carbon footprint, and claims his previous comments were “misunderstood.”
  • Conservatives are trying to force CBC executives to Heritage committee to explain their rules around use of “terrorism/terrorist” in news (which is a very bad idea).
  • The Star sits down with minister Ya’ara Saks, the first Israeli-Canadian minister, about how she has been dealing with the past couple of weeks.
  • Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have scaled back their planned “Atlantic Loop” electricity grid, citing ballooning costs.
  • The Ford government introduced a bill to “protect the Greenbelt” but is mostly about indemnifying themselves against lawsuits from developers.
  • Saskatchewan’s human rights commissioner has vocally resigned over the province’s school pronouns policy, wanting no part of it.
  • For The Line, Meaghie Champion takes issue with people using the term “de-colonisation” when it comes to the situation in Israel and Palestinians.
  • Paul Wells muses about those Cabinet ministers who are sticking around rather than finding greener pastures as the government appears to be wounded.

Odds and ends:

For National Magazine, my write-up of Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision with some trenchant analysis including of the repudiation of Alberta’s arguments.

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