Roundup: A Pollyanna about Tuesday’s outcome

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I have not said much about the American election because not my circus, not my monkeys, and I really can’t get worked up about a contest I have no say in, however, comments made by the US ambassador to Canada this weekend have utterly boggled my mind. “I firmly believe that regardless of the outcome of the election, the United States is going to remain the most durable democracy in the world,” David Cohen said, and went on about how democracy will “easily” survive whatever the outcome of that election.

No. America has been teetering on the brink of autocracy for a while now, and while I get that his job is to be blandly reassuring as the ambassador, this just smacks of being a giant Pollyanna. And for Canada, where so much of what happens in the US leaks over the border and affects our politics here, those autocratic impulses are not far behind either. We already have provincial governments using tactics lifted directly from the authoritarian playbook, as is Pierre Poilievre, and he’s not shy about it either. And if America stops defending other democracies around the world under an autocratic regime, things are going to get very difficult indeed as these democracies are under threat from Russia and other autocratic actors who want to break them in order to show their own populations that democracy doesn’t work, so better to suck it up and live with the corruption of their autocratic states. And then there is Trump’s vision of NATO as a protection racket, that he fully intends to upend, and already Viktor Orbán is salivating at the thought of a Trump victory handing Ukraine to Russia, destroying a democracy the way he has been doing in Hungary.

There will be consequences, and I don’t think it helps anyone for Cohen to shrug it off like that.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian guided bomb hit a supermarket in Kharkiv, injuring at least five. Ukrainian forces destroyed 66 out of 92 Russian drones sent into the country overnight Saturday, and fortunately, no casualties were reported. Russians have also taken control of the village of Vyshneve in the Donetsk region, while Ukrainian forces hold back one of the most powerful offensives since the start of the invasion.

Good reads:

  • All party leaders are condemning an attack on a Brampton Hindu temple over the weekend by what appears to be Khalistani extremists.
  • The government has extended their pledge-matching for aid to Lebanon until November 17th.
  • The Star looks at how personal relationships at the top levels may impact whatever happens with Canada after Tuesday’s US election.
  • CSIS has been tracking the flow in intelligence across government and partner agencies as a way of finding the leaks to media.
  • The RCMP are planning to use fake personas online to track ideological extremists, but civil liberties groups worry that they could cause more problems.
  • Here is a look at how Canada could adopt more European-style housing techniques to help solve the current crisis.
  • The labour dispute at the BC ports could lead to a lock-out this week.
  • Danielle Smith survived her leadership review with a 91.5% vote, but she had to pander so hard to her party’s lunatic base to get there, which isn’t sustainable.
  • Kevin Carmichael looks to historical examples of short-sighted budgeting in order to ponder how to build a more resilient Canadian economy.
  • Susan Delacourt ponders the reasons why American-style polarization has been creeping across the border into Canada.
  • Delacourt and Matt Gurney debate Poilievre’s assertion that it wouldn’t be “fair” for Liberals to get a new leader in advance of the next election.
  • My weekend column points out how easy it would be for the Liberals to expose Poilievre as a liar on his economic credentials, but they just don’t bother.

Odds and ends:

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