While on the one hand, it’s nice that legacy media is once again paying attention to the fact that there is an ongoing filibuster in the House of Commons that has largely paralyzed any work for six weeks now, but it would be great if they could actually make a gods damned effort at it. Pretty much every story, and the CBC’s turn was yesterday, just types of the quotes from Karina Gould and Andrew Scheer blaming one another for the filibuster. The current fascination to this story, however, is that the Supplementary Estimates votes are coming up, and every gods damned Hill reporter is dying to use the phrase “American-style government shutdown” to go along with it that they continue to gloss over the actual issues at hand.

There is a legitimate issue about the abuse of the parliamentary privilege to demand documents, because the power is only in relation to Parliament summoning those documents for their own purposes, not to turn them over to a third party. The Speaker and the clerks who advise him should never have allowed this to be considered a matter of privilege because the powers are being abused, but this is too much of a “process story” for them, so they don’t like that angle. There is also the even more pressing issue that these powers are being abused in a manner befitting a banana republic, where the powers of the state are being weaponized against those that the legislature doesn’t like, and that should be absolutely alarming to anyone paying attention.

This kind of abuse sets precedents, and if it’s allowed to happen now, it’ll be allowed to happen the next time someone wants to abuses these powers. The most that media outlets can muster up is “The RCMP says they don’t want these documents, so why are you so insistent?” but never “Why do you think it’s appropriate to behave like this is a banana republic where you are using the state to go after your perceived enemies?” We are in a particular moment in western democracies where autocrats are threatening to take over, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary has provided them a template to dismantle the guardrails of the state to delegitimize opposition and stay in power as long as possible. This is creeping into Canada, and legacy media in this country needs to be alive to the issue and call out these kinds of tactics and behaviours, rather than just both-sidesing it and using words like “polarized” or “divisive,” because that just plays into their hands.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine fired eight US-supplied longer-range missiles into Russia, two of them being intercepted, the rest hitting an ammunition supply location. President Zelenskyy addressed Ukraine’s parliament with a speech to mark the 1,000th day of the invasion.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1858871441032155385

The Kyiv Independent has compiled a photo gallery of the key events that took place during a nearly three-year-long all-out war that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions of others.https://t.co/gxfqE3IzjU

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) November 19, 2024

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau left the G20 in Brazil dissatisfied with the weak stance the summit took on Russia’s continued invasion of Ukraine.
• Trudeau also expressed support for Randy Boissonnault (because of course he is—that’s Cabinet solidarity, and he has little choice but to keep him in Cabinet).
• In her weekly economic update press conference, Chrystia Freeland reiterated that there are concerns about Mexico trans-shipping Chinese goods.
• Anita Anand warns that government departments will start to run out of money in a few weeks if the Supplementary Estimates aren’t passed (thanks to the filibuster).
• Marie-Claude Bibeau says the CRA fraud whistleblowers have compromised the investigation and “disclosed instructions” on how to defraud the government.
• The federal government has released more property to the Canada Land Bank to develop into housing, including some new parcels in Ottawa.
• The Star belatedly fact-checks Poilievre’s bullshit claim that prayer was “banned” at Remembrance Day ceremonies, and lo, finds that it was bullshit.
• A report cites that one in five immigrants ultimately leaves Canada within 25 years, and wants a retention strategy.
• Another report cites that child poverty is once again increasing as the Canada Child Benefit is no longer able to keep up with the issues it previously addressed.
• Former justice minister Irwin Cotler says he’s been told by the RCMP that the Iranian plot to kill him has been foiled.
• A Federal Court judge has tossed a lawsuit from current and former military members about the COVID vaccine mandate, as it was vexatious and lacked facts.
• The NDP are also now calling on Randy Boissonnault to resign.
• My column looks at Trudeau’s seven-minute video on immigration, and finds both the contrition and the accountability lacking in spite of the effort.

Odds and ends:

It’s also against the rules to claim the Speaker is acting with partisan motives. Andrew Scheer made that clear when he was Speaker, for the record.

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 20, 2024

Need a copy of my book “The Unbroken Machine,” or “Royal Progress,” which I contributed to? Want to give a copy as a gift? Dundurn Press is having a 25% off site wide sale!

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-11-18T23:53:05.945Z

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