Roundup: Maligning legitimate Senate appointments

One of CBC’s worst reporters is back again with the “scandalous” news that the prime minister is preparing to fill all ten vacant Senate seats before he resigns, and the original title of the article was “Trudeau plans on stacking Senate before retiring: source” before it was toned down in an update. The framing that the prime minister—who is still the prime minister—is doing his job and filling these vacancies as he is constitutionally mandated to do, is somehow inappropriate or unfair, is wrong, and frankly, is well into the category of misinformation (which is probably why the headline got changed).

The story then quotes a single Conservative senator to claim that this is somehow illegitimate, which it’s not, and there is no counter voice from an expert. For the TV version of this story, said reporter got video of Andrew Scheer claiming it’s inappropriate and that the vacancies should be left until after an election, which is again false, and there was no counter. There was no proper acknowledgment that Trudeau won a series of confidence votes in December, and that gives him the constitutional right to make these appointments, but hey, then he couldn’t frame the story as this being somehow wrong or inappropriate, and the fact that he gets away with this is infuriating.

This particular reporter has a pattern when it comes to trying to gin up scandals around any appointments. When it’s with judges, he resorts to histrionics about appointees who made political donations in the past, as though the low campaign contribution limits in Canada allows one to buy influence or access, or that they somehow bribed their way into these appointments. With recent Senate appointments, he’s now judging what is and is not a partisan appointment given past history, ignoring that a) there is no Liberal caucus in the Senate for them to be a part of, and b) past legislative experience is actually a good thing to have in that Chamber, and that the lack of it with so many appointees has been a problem. But hey, the CBC editors let him get away with these self-imposed purity tests, so he’s going to keep on doing them. It’s a disservice to the country, and the gods damned public broadcaster shouldn’t be letting their reporters personal bugaboos dictate their coverage, particularly when it taints the reporting.

Ukraine Dispatch

An overnight air attack injured four in Kharkiv after houses were hit. Other critical infrastructure was damaged during overnight drone attacks on Sunday night, where 57 out of 104 drones were downed. Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery suspended operations after a Ukrainian drone attack last week. President Zelenskyy says that the realities of the current war means that they can’t change mobilisation rules as soldiers leaving for home en masse would mean Russians would “kill us all.”

Good reads:

  • Prime minster Justin Trudeau was in Poland for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and heard warnings of the rise in antisemitism.
  • Mélanie Joly isn’t saying if the government is open to earlier renegotiations for NAFTA if that’s what Trump is getting at with his threats.
  • Anita Anand announced that land reserved for more than fifty years for a possible Pickering airport will be turned over to Parks Canada instead.
  • The federal government announced $663 million in transit funding for Vancouver, plus $180 million over ten years for Ottawa transit.
  • The Royal Canadian Navy identified the sailor who died when his boat capsized in Halifax harbour on Friday.
  • The Industrial inquiry commission began hearings on the situation facing Canada Post, including the labour dispute.
  • The Logic tracks how tech bros in Canada have also made a rightward shift, because they think that the Conservatives can give them tax cuts.
  • Chrystia Freeland pitched aggressive retaliations for Trump tariffs.
  • Jonathan Pedneault is returning to the Green Party, potentially as co-leader, six months after he left citing “life-altering news” about his health.
  • Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office says the move to put alcohol in corner stores cost the province over $600 million more than initially stated.
  • Danille Smith’s government released an anti-science, anti-evidence COVID report, and doctors in the province are very, very mad.
  • Anne Applebaum delves into Europe’s attempt to curtail Musk and social media tech bros, and how they are using the Trump administration to undermine the EU.

Odds and ends:

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One thought on “Roundup: Maligning legitimate Senate appointments

  1. Thank you, Dale.I was furious at CBCNN for this reporting. Especially when Andrew Scheer appeared as some sort of expert on the Senate Appointments.There should be a public apology by CBC to the P.M. for this distortion of facts.

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