Toronto mayor Olivia Chow woke up and chose violence, as the kids say, when it comes to her budget proposals for Toronto. While the 10.5 percent property tax increase is long-overdue for a city whose property taxes remain well below the national average after years of austerity governments who have allowed the city to crumble so they can keep from increasing said property taxes (and this is not unique to Toronto either), she is also calling for an additional measure—federal blackmail. The proposal is called a “federal impacts levy,” or an additional six percent increase ostensibly to cover the costs of providing services for asylum seekers, and is basically holding the federal government at knifepoint, saying pay up or all your safe seats in this city are going to be in jeopardy.

The asylum seeker issue is rife with other levels of government falsely claiming that this is solely a federal responsibility, so they should foot the whole cost. It’s not actually true—the federal government is responsible for refugees once their claims have been approved, but before that point, they generally fall under the social services provided by provinces and municipalities, and the federal government will reimburse a portion of those costs. Of course, premiers like to wash their hands of this because of course they do (and there is a constant rhetorical battle happening in Question Period where the Bloc keep demanding that the federal government owes Quebec some $450 million for the provision of services, again falsely claiming sole federal responsibility), which leaves cities often bearing the burden, and Toronto and Montreal most especially as they get the lion’s share of asylum claimants. There remain questions around Toronto, if they have followed the proper channels to request federal funds for this (I believe there is a need for a certain provincial action to accompany it which may not have been undertaken), but again, they have been given millions of dollars this year for assistance with this.

My bigger concern is the Pandora’s Box that this kind of federal blackmail opens up. While some pundits will declare it to be genius, and on a strategic level, it is a clever way to back the federal government into a corner, but at the same time, this invites other cities or provinces to start adopting this kind of tactic, and even more to the point, it once again leaves the province—whose constitutional responsibility the city is—off the hook for their own underfunding and downloading of services to try and make their own bottom lines look good. We already have provinces who think they can just declare themselves exempt from federal laws, and others who are openly breaking those laws (or at least threatening to under the cover of legal fictions), while the pundit class says it’s the prime minister’s fault, that he made them break the law and behave this way. Chow is now pushing this envelope even further, and I worry about the long-term consequences for this country so that she can solve her short-term problem of being an adult around her city’s fiscal crisis.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Two Russian missiles struck a hotel in Kharkiv, injuring eleven people, many of them journalists. Ukrainian forces have been shifting toward building fortifications and a more defensive posture in recent months. Speaking in Vilnius, Lithuania, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that they have shown that Russia can be stopped, but that Ukraine still needs more air defence systems and ammunition. Zelenskyy added that there are “clear signs” of a slowdown in Russia’s defence industry as he called on allied nations to tighten sanctions.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1745019147065721141

https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1745348642100109636

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau has tasked Mélanie Joly and Dominic LeBlanc to look at alternative ways other than the ICC to look investigate sexual assaults committed by Hamas.
• Mark Holland signed the detailed three-year health care agreement with Nova Scotia, and reiterated that he won’t let Americans raid Canada’s drug supplies.
• Three years after (reluctantly) admitting that systemic racism exists in the RCMP, the force is finally running a pilot project to collect and analyse race-based data.
• The Canadian Forces are worried about keeping the weapons systems on their new Cyclone helicopters up to date, in part because it’s an “orphan system” only we use.
• Statistics Canada has provided some data on existing drug coverage throughout the country, as the Liberals and NDP try to shape pharmacare legislation.
• Human-caused climate change is behind the loss of spring snowpack, which has a huge impact on available water resources.
• Sentencing arguments will take place in the Cameron Ortis trial today and tomorrow, with the Crown seeking twenty years as his defence wants time served.
• Politico chronicles how Trudeau’s star has become increasingly tarnished, and how his messaging isn’t meeting the moment with an angry population.
• While the government is silent on the question of the genocide case brought against Israel, there are split opinions among the Liberal caucus (as is to be expected).
• The Conservatives are calling for an ethics investigation of the PM’s vacation, claiming he mislead the Ethics Commissioner, which the PMO denies.
• Blaine Higgs is speeding up nominations for his party’s next election, and some old school Tories are upset he’s turning the party into a religious-based organization.
• Saskatchewan’s use of the Notwithstanding Clause to protect their school pronoun policy is being challenged in court.
• Kevin Carmichael tells some home truths about Canada’s economy in order to posit that coming tougher times may finally be what spurs needed innovation.
• Philippe Lagassé provides some proper context to the recent spate of military procurement and some of the criticisms being levelled against it.
• Supriya Dwivedi explains her decision to join the PMO as a senior advisor.
• Andrew Coyne calls out his fellow columnists blaming Justin Trudeau for the spate of premiers threatening lawlessness.
• Susan Delacourt looks at the principles Poilievre is putting on display when he goes to bat for Rebel Media rather than any other media outlet in the country.

Odds and Ends:

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