Roundup: Threatening to engage in socialism to spite Trudeau

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Danielle Smith raised her magic wand and uttered an incantation and called it the “Sovereignty Act,” and said that she was going to protect the province from the Clean Electricity Regulations, only it absolutely won’t do that. For one, the final regulations haven’t even been published, and for another, she can’t compel the private electricity generators to ignore federal law. In other words, she admitted that this is entirely for symbolic effect.

https://twitter.com/molszyns/status/1729274649509577072

But wait—it gets better. She also mused about creating a new Crown corporation to take over some of these private companies so that she could order said Crown corporation to ignore federal law like Saskatchewan is trying to do with their natural gas Crown corporation (which, again, is illegal and its directors will be legally exposed). So, you have someone who considers herself some kind of staunch, libertarian conservative who is going to engage in actual socialism (as in fully nationalizing the means of production) in order to stick it to Justin Trudeau. It boggles the mind.

Steven Guilbeault, incidentally, is undeterred and will move ahead with the regulations, because he knows that her incantation is meaningless.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A major snowstorm in southern Ukraine has killed five (and three more in neighbouring Moldova), as well as knocking out power grids.

Good reads:

  • Here is a profile of Max Valiquette, who has been hired to rescue the image of Trudeau and his government from slumping polls.
  • The federal housing advocate released a report saying that colonialism is directly responsible for poor housing conditions in the north for Inuit.
  • Canadians’ life expectancy fell again for a third year in a row, but tell me again how ignoring COVID and hoping it’ll go away is working.
  • Tempers are flaring, and name-calling is increasing in the House of Commons the closer we get to the Xmas break.
  • The Commissioner of Correctional Services told the public safety committee that nobody is talking about Paul Bernardo being moved to minimum security.
  • Liberal backbencher Ken Hardie wrote stupid things on Twitter, but it has to be both-sides by having Melissa Lantsman call him out.
  • The NDP are trying to strike a tough-sounding note about the pending pharmacare legislation, which may only just be introduced before MPs rise for the break.
  • Olivia Chow signed a deal with Doug Ford to upload control over two major freeways to the province, in exchange for backing down on the Ontario Place plans.
  • Some Alberta First Nations are calling for a public review of the Alberta Energy Regulator after some fairly spectacular failures in recent years.

Odds and ends:

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