Roundup: A trio of interim leaders

Posted on by

Rob Lantz was sworn-in as the new premier of PEI yesterday, but he’s officially an interim party leader because outgoing premier Dennis King didn’t bother to hang around long enough for a successor to be chosen (as Justin Trudeau has), which frankly just adds to the mystery surrounding why he resigned in a hurry. Usually that only happens when there’s a scandal of some variety. But what I didn’t realise was that the other two parties who have seats in the legislature also only have interim leaders, and that it’s been two years since the last provincial election, and no party has a permanent leader.

Here’s former PEI journalist Teresa Wright with more.

While I will push back on the “only chosen by 18 members” comment, because we should actually let the caucus choose the leader, it is nevertheless a problem that there are no permanent leaders in that legislature after two years. It’s malpractice, frankly, and a sign about how broken leadership politics have become in this country. I’ve seen it happen over multiple parties federally, particularly where they feel that they need between nine months and two years to find a new permanent leader so that they can generate ideas or “excitement” in the race, which again, is not how this is supposed to happen. The leader should not be the one bringing policy to the table—that should be the responsibility of the grassroots membership. And leaders should be within the caucus and not some outsider who thinks they can sail into the position without ever having run for office in the past. *coughs*

This tactic of waiting until closer to the election to pick a new leader smacks of opportunism and just having leaders to be election figureheads rather than doing the actual work that MPs/MLAs should be doing the rest of the legislative session. This is Very Bad for democracy. Legislative work needs to be done. Constituency work needs to be done. Leaders are supposed to have other responsibilities within parties than just leading an election. PEI used to be known for having a pretty robust civic culture, so this is not only disappointing, but a bad sign for the state of democracy in this country.

Ukraine Dispatch

An overnight drone attack killed a rail worker outside of Kyiv, while falling debris damaged buildings inside the city. Russians claim to have taken three more villages in east Ukraine. American negotiators are threatening to cut Ukraine off from Starlink services unless they sign the document that demands fifty percent of their resource wealth in exchange for no protection or security guarantees.

Good reads:

  • Anita Anand says the federal government is removing 20 out of the 39 remaining federal exceptions related to internal trade, but there are few details.
  • Civil society groups are calling on the government to suspend the Safe Third Country Agreement, particularly for LGBTQ+ people under threat in the US.
  • Ruby Dhalla has been disqualified from the race for several alleged Elections Act violations that include corporate donations and foreign campaign staff.
  • The CBC fact-checks the claims that Mark Carney released AI-generated images of his crowds at events (and gives a lesson on helping to spot fakes).
  • Carney apparently plans to skip “unofficial” debates run by party groups like the Women’s Commission or the Young Liberals.
  • Doug Ford and Tim Houston are at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington to try and get traction on preventing tariffs.
  • The firm at the centre of the AHS scandal was found to have been charging double the public rate for private surgeries (and was being investigated for it).
  • Justin Ling has a longread about bioweapon panic, Russian propaganda, and the members of the Trump administration who spread those lies far and wide.
  • Steve Scherer sees Trump embracing a Munroe Doctrine 2.0.
  • My weekend column questions whether Poilievre actually pivoted in his position to deal with the Trump threats as so many breathless pundits are claiming.

Odds and ends:

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

One thought on “Roundup: A trio of interim leaders”

Comments are closed.