Roundup: The muted federal response to Danielle Smith’s latest policy

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As expected, there was a federal response to Danielle Smith’s draconian anti-queer/trans policy video, but it was mostly just words of condemnation. Marci Ien and Randy Boissonnault had a scrum about it, but basically said that because they don’t have any document from Smith—the legislature isn’t sitting, and Smith herself said later in the day that nothing would be formally in writing until autumn—they don’t know how best to respond to this, so in the meantime, they’re going to consult and come up with ideas at the Cabinet table as to what the federal government can do, but one supposes that something like a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada of this policy, along with those of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, may be in the works. We’ll have to see, but it’ll take time, so for the moment, it’s a lot of words of affirmation.

Smith did hold a press conference, nearly twenty-four hours after her video was released, and in it, she kept repeating that she was trying to protect youth from “irreversible medical decisions,” which both conflates the purpose of any social transitioning that they may do beforehand, and buys holus-bolus into the moral panic that kids are being indoctrinated into being trans and then “mutilating and sterilizing” themselves, even though there are vanishingly few “top” surgeries for minors, and no “bottom” surgeries at all. But dubious and discredited reporting that echoes through the right-wing media ecosystem has convinced parents that it’s happening (thus the outsized concern for their “right” to know), along with the pre-existing notion that if they’re told, they can stop their kids from being queer or trans (in other words, de facto conversion therapy). But nobody wants to talk about this moral panic. (More analysis about Smith’s move here).

Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre’s office has instructed his MPs to say nothing, especially to the media, and to report all requests to his office, and if they are to say something, it’s to emphasise “parental rights over decisions related to their children,” which a) is not actually a legal right in Canada, and b) has been the dog whistle for anti-queer and anti-trans rhetoric for a long time now. And of course, he wants them to stay quiet, but not because he’s worried about another homophobic eruption from someone like Cheryl Gallant, but rather he doesn’t want anyone coming across as too sympathetic because he needs to keep demonstrating to the far-right, reactionary crowd that he thinks is going to win him the election that he’s not too “woke” or small-l liberal, because that would doom their support. It’s little different than Smith keeping this up because she doesn’t want the leopards in her party (like the “Take Back Alberta” crowd) to eat her face like they did Jason Kenney. When you let your party get taken over or be entirely beholden to the crazies, you lose control, and that’s exactly what is happening here.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that seas drones were used to sink a small Russian warship in the Black Sea, while Russia claims that Patriot missiles fired from Ukraine brought down the plane that was totally carrying POWs and wasn’t a psy op (really). Ukraine’s army chief published a series of priorities and challenges are rumours of his rift with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy continue to circulate.

Good reads:

  • Mark Holland tabled the bill to delay the expansion of MAiD for psychiatric disorders alone, and it wants to push it off to 2027. (Court challenge incoming!)
  • Jonathan Wilkinson says the bill to update the Impact Assessment Act to bring it into compliance with the Supreme Court decision will happen this spring.
  • And we’re back for another round of trade dispute panels because the Americans have raised softwood lumber tariffs yet again.
  • An employment equity task force rejected requests to recognise Muslim and Jewish civil servants as separate groups facing systemic workplace barriers.
  • Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem says they can’t solve the housing crisis by lowering interest rates because the problem remains one of supply.
  • Head of CSIS David Vigneault was at the foreign interference public inquiry warning of the “very practical limitations” to what documents they could make public.
  • Vigneault also said that China considers Canada a high-priority target for foreign interference, particularly ahead of the 2021 election.
  • Domestic extremism was a major concern for security and intelligence officials in Canada ahead of the 2021 election.
  • Here is a look at some of the criticisms of the incoming Future of Sport in Canada Commission, which isn’t the public inquiry many were calling for.
  • AFN national chief Cindy Woodhouse is calling on the federal government to resume negotiations on Indigenous policing legislation.
  • It seems Doug Ford is growing concerned that more of his MPPs may want to jump ship and run federally (presuming the federal party wants them, of course).
  • Susan Delacourt looks at the pride Poilievre is taking in getting under the Liberals’ skin, much as Trudeau did when he got under the Conservatives’ 10 years ago.
  • Althia Raj is disappointed it took seventeen years to make any changes to whistleblower protections for civil servants, and they’re small changes at that.
  • Paul Wells manages to get the government to admit they are leading a narrow COVID review panel that will report back in the first quarter of this year.
  • My Xtra column draws a straight line between Danielle Smith’s palling around with Tucker Carlson and her draconian “parental rights” plans because of her base.

Odds and Ends:

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