Roundup: Another tranche of housing money

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As part of his pre-budget announcement tour, Justin Trudeau was in Halifax yesterday to announce a new tranche of housing funding, which comes with strings attached for provinces to access it, and if provinces don’t, well, it’ll get rolled into the municipal stream to let them access it instead. Some of this is an extension of the existing Housing Accelerator Fund, but they also have some new conditions around densification to be able to qualify for that funding, which is really about overcoming the NIMBYism that prevents a lot of it currently.

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/1775245369128939654

This having been said, there will be implementation issues, and for that, Jennifer Robson has some thoughts.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say they downed two out of three Russian drones overnight on Monday, and that so far this year, Russia has fired five Zircon hypersonic missiles at Kyiv. Ukraine continues to make its own drone attacks against Russian refineries, with the latest strike against the country’s third-largest refinery. After much debate, Ukraine has lowered its draft age from 27 to 25 as they need to replenish their troops. Ukraine’s largest energy grid operator says that recent attacks have damaged the power system, but that total collapse is unlikely.

Good reads:

  • Making another pre-budget announcement, this time focused on growing child care availability, Trudeau called out certain premiers for slow-walking implementation.
  • While announcing a school food program, Trudeau said premiers are making political hay around the carbon levy and they could have chosen their own systems.
  • Trudeau says the government will investigate allegations that two Mi’kmaq fishers were detained by fisheries officials and released hours from home with no shoes.
  • The airlift in Haiti is expanding to relatives and permanent residents, and a charter flight is being arranged (that airlifted Canadians will pay market rate for).
  • Canada has joined the condemnation of an Israeli strike that hit an aid convoy, and which killed a Canada-US dual national.
  • Canadian Forces troops have been deployed to Jamaica to train Caribbean troops for a mission to Haiti in order to help restore order.
  • NSIRA has found that CSIS is breaking data collection laws by holding thousands of entries of Canadians’ personal information obtained from foreign sources.
  • The Logic combs through the pre-budget submissions sent to the government, and distils them down to thematic bites.
  • Here’s a look at the underfunding inherent as part of the Indigenous healing lodges that are part of the Correctional Services.
  • From the foreign interference inquiry, party campaign directors say they weren’t warned, while Han Dong discussed bussing in international students.
  • The inquiry also heard that Jagmeet Singh was warned about potential threats against his life.
  • Here’s a look at the challenges behind the two billion trees pledge, and why the pledge didn’t really take the logistics into consideration.
  • Pierre Poilievre is calling for a first ministers’ meeting on the carbon price, ostensibly to let the premiers bully Trudeau.
  • Nova Scotia premier Tim Houston claims he’ll have a better climate plan than the carbon price. (He won’t, and it would simply undermine the national price).
  • Supriya Dwivedi points out a lot of the disinformation circulating around the Online Harms bill, spread by some of the same bad actors as previous efforts.
  • Emmett Macfarlane gives his take on the plusses and minuses of the Online Harms legislation, and why some of those challenges may be insurmountable.
  • Justin Ling’s third dispatch from Kyiv chronicles the frustrations of the liminal state that people find themselves in, as prosecution of the war wears on them.
  • Susan Delacourt and Matt Gurney discuss the shifting nature of just what is a “conservative” in the current day and age.
  • Delacourt also believes a three-day Mulroney-esque first ministers’ meeting is Trudeau’s best hope for defusing the carbon levy revolt. (Good luck with that).
  • Paul Wells considers the recent announcements on things like school food programs in terms of jurisdiction and Hail Mary passes by progressive governments.
  • My weekend column looks at the ways in which committees are being abused to become content creation factories rather than doing their serious work.
  • My column points to the need for provincial cooperation for all of the government’s pre-budget announcements, because they are damned no matter what they do.

Odds and Ends:

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