Roundup: A decision without the grassroots

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There was a shocking announcement out of BC, where the leader of the “BC United” party (former the BC Liberals, which are not the same as the federal Liberal Party) declared that he was suspending his party’s campaign in favour of supporting the upstart BC Conservatives so that they could defeat the provincial NDP in this fall’s election. It’s stunning, and while I don’t really follow BC politics closely, there are a few observations that I am qualified to make from my particular perch.

One of those observations is that BC has a history of parties forming and dissolving in opposition to the NDP, so this is just the latest iteration of the same, and yes, that kind of history does make a difference. The other, more important observation is just how much this was leader-driven, with no real chance to consult or address the grassroots members of the party, which is a very real problem. Political parties are not supposed to belong to their leaders—they are supposed to belong to the grassroots members, many of whom don’t want to have anything to do with the BC Conservatives because the party is led by a climate-denier (he was kicked out of the then-BC Liberal caucus for expressing those sentiments), and is a party that has devoted itself to culture war bullshit (particularly anti-LGBTQ sentiments) and other social conservative nonsense. A lot of right-of-centre but socially progressive voters in the province have every right to be pissed off about this development, because it should be their party and they should be the ones to make the call about whether they will field candidates and run, even if the polls are against them. And if this is an attempted party merger under the rubric of not splitting the anti-NDP vote (and papering over the very big and cultural issues that kept the parties apart since their mutual inception), it’s also being done against the will of the grassroots membership (whose party this is). It sounds like there are a lot of frustrated incumbents and would-be candidates who are incredibly unhappy with this decision, and I’m curious about what kind of fallout will happen, but this kind of move is beyond cynical.

The other thing I noticed during the press conference was the use of catastrophising language with regard to the NDP, and why the BC United leader felt it was necessary to oppose them to the detriment of his own political fortunes. These are supposed to be rivals, not enemies, and yes, that does matter in politics, especially in this day and age where the polarization has become so great because they have personalized it to such a tremendous extent. They should be grown-ups about what has happened here, but I suspect it’ll be mostly a bunch of poll-driven narratives that only serve to alienate the grassroots members, whose party once again is supposed to belong to.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck Kryvyi Rih, which was already observing an official day of mourning for the previous day’s attack that killed four, while a family of four were killed when a Russian bomb hit a home in Izmailivka in Donetsk region. Ukrainian drones continue to strike oil infrastructure in areas outside of Moscow

Good reads:

  • The prime minister addressed a union event in Winnipeg and defended the call for arbitration in the rail dispute as being necessary but reluctant.
  • The Parliamentary Budget Officer says the federal government could spend another $46 billion per year and remain sustainable (but that feels like an invitation).
  • The Auditor General is refusing to turn over certain documents related to her SDTC audit, because they don’t belong to her (and the order is an abuse of privilege).
  • The public safety committee met about the alleged terror suspects, and Dominic Leblanc says this was security services doing their jobs amidst outrage theatre.
  • Some fifty Liberal ministerial staffers have declared that they won’t help with the LaSalle—Émard—Verdun by-election because of the response to Gaza.
  • A study by the Canadian Digital Media Research Network finds that the Conservatives were not behind the boosting bot campaign (which is not a surprise).
  • Ontario plans to ban solar collector farms from being on prime agricultural lands.
  • More alarm in Alberta for the government’s plan to offload certain hospitals to third-party operators, many of them faith-based.
  • Mike Moffatt points to ways that the government needs to go further in limiting the Temporary Foreign Workers programme.
  • Susan Delacourt tries to find lessons from the Democrats that the Liberals could employ, and that might mean trying to redefine progressivity.

Odds and ends:

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