Roundup: The imagined need for Cardy

Posted on by

I don’t really want to give the “Canadian Future Party” (formerly the “Centre Ice Conservatives”) too much air time and attention, but their interim leader, Dominic Cardy (formerly leader of the New Brunswick NDP who defected to that provinces’ Progressive Conservative Party but now sits as an independent after a falling out with Blaine Higgs) was making the media rounds yesterday, and he was mostly saying ridiculous things about the state of politics as they are today.

In order to try and claim the centrist high ground, Cardy rightly points to the fact that the Conservatives are moving to the far right in many areas (and many of his party’s organizers appear to be disaffected Conservatives), but he then tried to insist that they are going to be different from the Liberals by claiming that the Liberals are moving to the “extremes.” Reader, I howled with laughter. The Liberals have barely budged from their amorphous centrist position, moving ever-so-slightly to the left by actually implementing some of the programmes they’ve been trying to for a couple of decades, like child care, which has a hell of an economic case to recommend it when you look at the participation of women in the labour force and the economic returns that it brings. I’m not sure what “extremes” Cardy seems to be thinking of—the Liberals haven’t nationalized any industries; they haven’t abolished private property or beheaded any billionaires. Hell, they’ve barely raised the taxes on said billionaires, whose existence remains a policy failure in any just society. For all his talk about being an “economic disaster,” the country’s books are the strongest in the G7, the deficits that have been run outside of the height of COVID were rounding errors in the size of our economy, we had the lowest inflation spike of comparator economies, it returned to the control zone fastest, and we’ve achieved the soft landing of avoiding a recession after said inflationary spike. Cardy’s economic daydreams appear to be coming from some kind of fantasyland.

Selley is right—this isn’t an issue about ideologues, and Cardy’s going on about their policies being “evidence-based” is another one his weird fantasy daydreams. If we wanted a technocracy, we would install one, but governing is about making choices, and sometimes there are trade-offs to that policy. You can’t just keep shouting “evidence-based!” because sometimes the decisions you need to make will need some kind of an ideological grounding in order to weigh which trade-offs you’re willing to make. Nothing Cardy is offering here has even the hint of being serious, and people should recognize that fact.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck port infrastructure in Odesa on Wednesday night, while a drone attack killed two medics in Kharkiv region, and more energy infrastructure was hit in the Chernihiv region. Ukraine says they have pushed furtherinto the Kursk region, and are now claiming this is about creating a “buffer zone” to prevent shelling of Ukrainian territory from positions within Kursk. Here is a look at the use of drone warfare as part of the Kursk operation, such as using them to strike four airfields in surrounding regions.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau made a “surprise” visit to the Ontario caucus retreat in Sudbury, again not posting it on his itinerary until after it happened.
  • Mark Miller says he’s willing to start the process of citizenship revocation for the terror suspects if they obtained those citizenships in a fraudulent manner.
  • Mary Ng is criticising the US for once again raising softwood lumber tariffs.
  • Here is a deep dive on the issue of tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, and the political decision that Chrystia Freeland will need to make shortly.
  • Privy Council Office won’t say whether CBC president Catherine Tait also got a bonus, citing privacy laws. (Cue more crocodile tears from Conservatives).
  • The cost-cutting exercise at DND has impacted the maintenance budget, where some 48 percent of the Canadian Army’s equipment is currently unserviceable.
  • The RCMP have interviewed the financial agent from MP Han Dong’s 2019 nomination race, but seems to have been focused on process questions.
  • Former Conservative Cabinet minister Chuck Strahl passed away after a long battle with mesothelioma.
  • A member of the Green Party Fund’s board resigned, citing the constant drama within the organization.
  • Quebec is opting to allow advanced directives for MAiD, regardless of the fact that the federal Criminal Code doesn’t currently allow for them.
  • The leader of BC United is promising a major tax cut if elected, but his math doesn’t add up, and of course the story doesn’t quote a single tax economist.
  • Kevin Carmichael takes a look into the sagging employment data for men and boys, as women have been steadily closing the labour gap.
  • Paul Wells observes the collapsing social standing of journalism as evidenced by the pushback against attempts to have Kamala Harris race the media substantively.
  • My column returns to that “Canadian dream on life support” op-ed and looks at the structural problems it identified, which are decades in the making.

Odds and ends:

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.