Roundup: First day back, and privilege is being abused

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As you may have read in the QP recap, the first day back was full of general name-calling and childish behaviour. Before QP even got started, Karina Gould called Pierre Poilievre a “fraudster” for his whole “economic nuclear winter” bullshit, while Elizabeth May referred to the NDP as “No Discernible Principles,” and added “It’s fine for Jagmeet Singh to say that he doesn’t listen to Pierre Poilievre, but Pierre Poilievre’s words come out of Jagmeet Singh’s mouth.” Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet said the situation was akin to playing chicken with four cars, and suspected that an election may wind up happening sooner than later. That said, the Bloc said they won’t vote for any confidence motion that calls for the destruction of the carbon levy, so that’s something.

The bigger issue that has been revived, however, is the demand that the opposition parties voted for regarding documents related to Sustainable Development Technologies Canada (SDTC), which the Conservatives deride as the “green slush fund” (when it was their government that set it up). The demand for these documents is an absolute abuse of parliamentary privilege, and the Auditor General doesn’t want to respond because infringes upon her independence, and the RCMP said they don’t want the documents, which was the point of why the Conservatives moved the motion to demand them in the first place. And political shenanigans from the Conservatives aside, the fact that the Bloc and the NDP couldn’t see where this was going and why this was a Very Bad Idea speaks very poorly to their own understanding of parliament, and why these kinds of privileges shouldn’t be abused (especially the fact that they have been abusing the Law Clerk and his office to do this kind of work when it’s not his job). Most concerning is the fact that using Parliament to get the RCMP to investigate where there is no evidence of criminal activity is a big flashing warning sign of authoritarian tactics of rule by law, instead of rule of law, and we absolutely do not want to go down that path in this country, and the fact that none of the opposition parties could see that this is a problem is really worrying.

Me, regarding the state of #cdnpoli:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-09-16T21:10:06.144Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia claims that they re-took two villages in western Kursk district.

Good reads:

  • The by-election results will be found here. (Sorry, I wasn’t staying up for the final tallies).
  • Chrystia Freeland announced an expansion of mortgage eligibility for first-time buyers of new builds, along with draft bills of rights for renters and homebuyers.
  • The Request for Information—the first step in a procurement process—has gone out to allied nations about replacing our submarine fleet.
  • A major cybersecurity “war games” exercise pointed out a great many holes in different organisations’ responses around the country. (Yikes!)
  • Justice Hogue and the foreign interference inquiry won’t name the parliamentarians from the NSICOP report, because it’s based on classified intelligence.
  • Wab Kinew ousted a backbencher from his party, allegedly because a partner in his law firm defended Peter Nygard (which sounds like a really dubious lie).
  • Alberta energy minister Brian Jean is defending the notion of more public funding to help clean up orphan wells rather than making polluters pay.
  • Anne Applebaum compares the assault on the independent judiciary in Poland with what is happening in the United States, as the safeguards in that country weaken.
  • Michael Spratt points to the ways that Doug Ford is talking like an authoritarian around Ontario’s justice system, and his threat to “hold judges to account.”

Odds and ends:

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