Roundup: Being precious about participating in the gong show

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Fewer things make me roll my eyes harder the NDP being precious about decorum or the dysfunction within the House of Commons, and it is no exception when Charlie Angus despairs about the gong show happening day-in and day-out. As much as they like to pretend that they are the “adults in the room”—and Peter Julian likes to go on television to say that whenever he’s invited on—but adults in the room don’t heckle constantly (and both Julian and Angus are amongst the very worst—remember the pledge that they were never going to heckle in 2011?), nor do they engage in constant petty insults in order to make themselves look tougher than they are, but that’s what the NDP does day-in and day-out.

The thrust of the piece linked above, however, remains the current filibustered state of the Commons (for which the writer does point out the problems with the motion without going as far as actually calling what it is—banana republic tactics that will have severe consequences in the future if a precedent is allowed to develop), and that if anything is going to get things back on track, it’s going to have to be the NDP who comes to some kind of agreement with the government in order to break the logjam so that important legislation can start moving again. What the piece doesn’t go into is how this has been an ongoing problem in the past two parliaments, since the Liberals lost their majority in 2019. That was when the Conservatives began a campaign of procedural warfare that the Bloc and NDP gleefully participated in because they would do anything to embarrass the government—right up until the end of the sitting, every December and June, and suddenly realize they had bills they wanted to pass, so they started to cooperate. The Supply-and-Confidence agreement mellowed this out a little, but only slightly, as committees continued to get worse, and the NDP were hit-and-miss on whether they wanted to make things work or not.

I am somewhat ruefully reminded of the litany of books and articles that used to constantly come out to praise minority parliaments, and how great they were because they would force parties to work together to get things done for Canadians. That hasn’t been the case for a long time now, and given that the NDP proved themselves to be bad faith actors in how they ended the supply-and-confidence agreement, it’s going to be a long time before they are awarded any trust again, at least not until they have a new leader who can earn it back. But if they do want to make the remainder of this parliament work, they have a lot to answer for, and it would be great if more people could call them on their bullshit.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian forces say that Russians are using North Korean troops in significant numbers as they conduct assaults in the occupied regions of Kursk. Ukrainian drones conducted an overnight attack Friday and hit a crucial Russian oil facility in the Oryol region, and Ukrainian special forces destroyed a Russian train carrying 40 cars of fuel to Russian troops in the Zaporizhzhia region.

Good reads:

  • The prime minister attended the memorial service for former BC premier John Horgan in BC on Sunday.
  • The Fiscal Update plans to renew a $14 billion tax break on certain investments rather than let it expire as the threats from Trump loom.
  • Sean Fraser is set to announce he’s not running again, citing family commitments.
  • Canada Post and its union spent the weekend in a hearing before the Industrial Relations Board regarding the government’s proposal to postpone the labour action.
  • There are problems at the RCMP’s police dog training centre.
  • The bill to ban horse exports for slaughter continues to languish in the Senate.
  • Former Liberal-turned-Conservative leadership aspirant Leona Alleslev plans to run again, but this time in Kingston.
  • Former senator Don Meredith’s trial for sexual assault and criminal harassment has been ongoing amidst the other drama on Parliament Hill.
  • Northern premiers want the federal government to use defence money to fund Arctic infrastructure which they say will have dual purpose in aiding defence.
  • Danielle Smith says she is prepared to use the Notwithstanding Clause to protect her anti-trans legislation if necessary (because why not double down on a moral panic?)
  • Kevin Carmichael offers some thoughts on the upcoming fiscal update, and on ways that policy solutions should be framed as the government has been doing it badly.
  • Dan Gardner looks to Thucydides to suggest ways in which Canada should deal with Trump and his tariff threats (and it’s not capitulation).
  • Jared Wesley discusses how populism has eroded the intergovernmental relations norms in Canada, and how we need to get back to them.
  • Justin Ling suggests that the increasing political violence we are seeing in the West should be a wakeup call for governments to tackle the problems leading to it.
  • Althia Raj points to how the Conservatives’ alleged conversion to being on the side of workers and unions has been little more than a façade.

Odds and ends:

Talked to Trevor Phillips @news.sky.com this morning about the dictators' network (not sure why they chose this headline)www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qut…

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum.bsky.social) 2024-12-15T11:28:47.019Z

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One thought on “Roundup: Being precious about participating in the gong show”

  1. I am reliably informed* that the North Korean troops in Russia are actually drawn from the Corean Culinary Corp. Kim Jong-un has decided on a major expansion of the Korean food industry around the world and he is starting out by getting his cooks some experience in a European-type country. I anticipate that they will advance into Poland, Germany, and possibly even the Netherlands in the next two or three years.

    On a more serious basis, DPRK troops fighting in the Kurst Oblast comes pretty close to bizarre. There’s been no reports whatsoever of Russia being short of troops, recruiting seems to be going very well though not as well perhaps as it was last year.

    Why would Russia want to bring in, perhaps, 10,000 North Korean troops, most of whom speak no Russian, have different training and tactical thinking, and whose equipment is either very old Soviet or actually Korean made? And who’s logistics and reinforcement distance is only maybe 10,000 km long? It beggars belief.

    I would not be surprised if there were North Korean troops in the Russian Far East on maneuvers. Russia and North Korea are allies; China and Russia hold annual exercises there. There may even be a few observer North Korean officers in the Kurst Oblast, but North Korean combat troops are really not worth the effort. The Russian general staff would have to spend months integrating them into how the Russian army operates.

    *My cat.

    Reply ↓

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