Tag Archives: Citizenship

Roundup: Positive feelings about a useless meeting

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We seem to be caught in a pattern where Donald Trump will invite a world leader to the White House—yesterday it was NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte—and he goes on an unhinged rant while they’re sitting there, trying to avoid saying anything that will set him off. And yesterday’s rant included a full-on threat to annex Greenland (while Rutte tried to downplay NATO’s involvement in any way, which is true to the extent that it only operates by consensus), and went on an extended rant about Canada not working as a real country, and made up the lie that America pays for our military (not true in the slightest), before repeating the falsehood that the US subsidizes us.

Meanwhile, Dominic LeBlanc and François-Philippe Champagne had their meeting with Howard Lutnick, with Doug Ford along for the ride as he continued to try and make himself the main character (and I watched Conservative talking head pundits also putting forward this distorted view of reality). Ford came out of the meeting, effusive about how “positive” it was and how they were going to have more meetings next week (and was later corrected that officials were going to meet, not him), while the two ministers basically talked a lot and said nothing, because nothing could be accomplished here. But they had to pretend that something came from this meeting when obviously nothing did, as there were no changes to any tariffs, and Ford’s pressure tactic around the electricity “surcharge” remains off the table again.

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lkc6vantcc2f

Elsewhere, Trump’s pick for US ambassador to Canada had his Senate confirmation hearing, and when asked, he said that Canada is a sovereign country, and tried to claim that Trump’s expansionist rhetoric is about “negotiation tactics,” but it certainly doesn’t seem to be. And yeah, he said the bare minimum to ensure that he wasn’t PNGed before he could even arrive in the country. Closer to home, Scott Moe continues to call for capitulation to China regarding their tariff fight, because of course he did, and claimed it was about protecting Quebec’s industries over Saskatchewan’s, except Quebec doesn’t really have much of an auto sector, but Moe’s brain is pretty smooth, after all.

Ukraine Dispatch

An overnight attack on Dnipro injured three women and damaged apartment buildings. Ukrainian forces are in retreat in parts of Kursk region, which means losing a bargaining chip in possible peace negotiations. And Putin has all kinds of conditions on a possible ceasefire, because he’s not serious, and Ukraine only went along with the plan to call his bluff.

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Roundup: Begun, the trade war has

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The inevitable has happened—Trump’s tariffs are now in effect, after Trump told reporters in his daily ramblings that there was nothing Canada or Mexico could do to forestall them. It was obvious they were going to happen—Trump and his economic advisors have decided that they love tariffs, and that it’s going to solve their revenue problems for the big tax cuts they plan to give billionaires. It won’t—tariffs are paid by the importers, who pass it along to consumers, but Trump refuses to believe that, so it’s the American people who are coming in for a world of hurt, especially as the stock market started to plunge once the markets started to realise that Trump was being serious.

Here at home, Justin Trudeau announced that the first tranche of retaliatory measures would start immediately, with more to come after consultation. Of course, the last line in his statement should have been the first—that it’s the Americans who have broken the agreement that Trump himself signed, which speaks volumes about the Americans can no longer be trusted to uphold their own agreements. Oh, and Trump is still planning on increasing duties on lumber coming from Canada, so keep an eye out for that as well. As the trade war ramps up, here is a look at what to expect, and how provinces are also expected to respond with their own measures.

True to form, Pierre Poilievre decided that blaming the government for the imposition of tariffs was the way to go, with a bunch of mendacious fabrications about what they have and have not been doing, with the have-not mostly being to implement his plans with alacrity, as though he’s a super genius who has it all figured out, when, well, we know that’s not exactly true.

Of course, we were also treated to a Doug Ford performance, as he got all theatrically angry on American television and threatened to cut off electricity across the border, and that he would do it with a smile. Of course, Ford (who is claiming he got a “stronger mandate” in last week’s election in spite of losing seats) is all talk. His bluff is going to be called, and no electricity will actually be cut off, because it’s not going to be that easy to do in spite of what he thinks, and you can bet he’ll come up with some kind of excuse about why he was all bluster.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian drone attack injured four and damaged energy infrastructure in Odesa. Ukraine is also investigating negligence surrounding a Russian missile strike on a military graining ground over the weekend. As expected, the Americans have “paused” their aid to Ukraine, as last week’s ambush was a set-up in order to give a justification for their plans to do so.

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Roundup: Clutched pearls over a paper move

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Because everything is stupid, the Conservatives spent the whole day screaming, both at a media availability and over social media, that Mark Carney “lied” about his involvement with Brookfield Asset Management relocating their headquarters to New York, and tried to tie this to Trump inviting companies to relocate to the US. This is something that the Conservatives have been howling about for months, but they claim that there is “proof” now that Carney “lied” because his timeline of events doesn’t match up. And maybe he was wrong, but this has pretty much been a non-story from the start, because this was largely a paper move to their pre-existing New York office in order to get access to the New York Stock Exchange, while their parent company remains headquartered in Toronto. It’s not an actual scandal, but the Conservatives have been ginning up faux-outrage over Carney for two years now, and this is just the latest example.

But I can’t get over the fact that every single Conservative has been lining up to declare that Carney “lied,” when pretty much every single member of that party has been lying about everything under the sun for years now, because they know they can get away with it. The fact that someone like Andrew Scheer isn’t bursting into flames over the abused irony of him of all people trying to call Carney a liar is just too much. It’s not just projection—it’s a complete lack of self-awareness that they lie so much about everything (especially things they don’t actually need to lie about!) that they don’t even realise that they’re doing it anymore, and then they start running for their fainting couches over this absolute non-issue. Unbelievable.

The Conservatives have also taken to calling Carney “sneaky,” and claiming that he’s hiding the truth about his assets, and whether this business activities were benefitting from his advising the government. But as this fact-check explains, he is under no obligation to comply with conflict-of-interest laws because he is not yet a public office holder, but if he does win the contest and becomes prime minister, lo, he will be subject to the disclosures. Again, this is just more faux outraged being ginned up, and making the Conservatives look like they are desperate.

Ukraine Dispatch

The overnight attack on the Kyiv region overnight Tuesday killed two and damaged energy facilities. Russia claims that it retook two settlements in the Kursk region, as more North Korean troops arrive. Ukraine’s drones have hit Russia’s Tuapse oil refinery. Ukraine’s prime minister says a preliminary agreement has been reached with the Americans on an economic deal that includes access to rare earth minerals.

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Roundup: A mixed bag from the English debate

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The Liberals’ English-language debate was held last night, and it was a much more lively affair, given that they weren’t speaking in very slow and deliberate French to get their points across. The first few minutes were a complete English-dub replay of Monday’s debate, with the exact same opening statements and first responses to the same question, so it took them a while to actually get to something new, but the longer it went on, the more annoyed I started to get at some of the absolute inanities that were on display. (Here are liveblogs from the Star and The Canadian Press, while I was live-tweeting Bluesky here).

One of the early topics was Canada’s place in the world, and after the initial chest-thumping about Trump, they got into things like NATO targets. Chrystia Freeland was probably the most clear-eyed here, talking about building a new democratic world order with allies that included the UK and France because they have nuclear capabilities (which was a sign of how serious this is), because America is no longer the “leader of the free world.” But when discussing spending to hit NATO targets, everyone was quick to say that they didn’t want those dollars going to American companies, but nobody seemed to have much of an idea of just what the Canadian defence industry was capable of producing for our needs, or the fact that we need to look to other allies because our defence industry is not large and can’t produce a lot of things we need quickly (lest we start buying into vapourware that companies like Bombardier will promise but have no guaranteed ability to deliver on). Oh, and Karina Gould deserves a time-out for pitching a “procurement czar.” No! Stop with this American bullshit!

The cost-of-living segment was…unenlightening, and had some of the worst pitches. Chrystia Freeland wants to cut red tape (how? You’ve had nine years!), and Karina Gould wants to modernise social services (provincial jurisdiction) and bring in a basic income (not going to work—there is research to prove it). There was a question on how to improve productivity that nobody could give an actual answer to except to wave their hands and say “AI,” as though it’s a magic incantation.

The topic that broke my brain completely was asking them how they could work with provinces to increase the number of doctors. Only Gould gave something resembling a coherent answer here. And again, when the topic changed to the carbon levy, everyone on the stage but Gould was utterly incoherent about how they would replace it (Gould would keep the levy but freeze it).

The final question was asking how they would differentiate themselves from Trudeau, and at first Freeland ignored the question, Gould talked around it before bringing up the fact that the party needs to get back to the grassroots, Baylis said he was going to be “focused on the economy” while Carney said he would be “laser-focused on the economy,” before adding that he’s very hands-on, and has heard from the supporters in caucus that Trudeau didn’t build many relationships with MPs, which he would do. The moderator circled back to Freeland, who talked about the campaign being a “personal liberation,” and that her style of leadership isn’t to be a “one-man band,” which is a pretty big repudiation of Trudeau’s leadership style (though I would say it’s more like a two-man band, because it’s more of a joint Trudeau-Katie Telford effort).

Overall, it was a mixed bag, and I couldn’t really determine someone I felt was a winner. Chrystia Freeland had some of the strongest responses, but some of the weakest delivery and framing of responses, and was very invested in playing nice in order to get second-place votes (because this is a ranked ballot). Gould was strong on many responses, but completely out to lunch on others, which tainted her credibility. Mark Carney kept repeating that he wants to “build the economy.” Over and over and again. Constantly. He still resorted largely to platitudes, and didn’t seem to have a good grasp of a lot of files because they have been out of his bailiwick, and his attempt at attacking Poilievre got cringey in place (Poilievre worships Trump? Really?) And then there was Frank Baylis, who kept reminding us that he’s a businessman. Over and over again, but his constant bizarre refrains about strengthening the dollar (at the expense of our exports?) and the whole thing about Ireland were just completely out to lunch, to say nothing about the fantasy economics of his pipeline plans.

Maybe I’m being too harsh of a critic, but nobody came out ahead.

Ukraine Dispatch

Another overnight attack on the Kyiv region has killed one person, injured four, and set several houses on fire. There also appears to be some progress on a critical minerals deal between the US and Ukraine, but we’ll see if it actually happens.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1894322734047310319

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Roundup: Don’t complain to the minister

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There was a whole lot of online anger over the weekend directed at CBC Radio’s Cross Country Checkup, as the topic was the whole American annexation talk, and they decided to co-broadcast this with an NPR in the US, and treated the whole thing like a though experiment when it’s our sovereignty we’re discussing. It’s not a cute thought experiment, and it’s not

https://twitter.com/HNHughson/status/1893684327973539938

While I did not personally listen, I have been informed that the topic was framed around the notion that this would be some sort of democratic process, which is not the threat, and then they invited Kevin O’Leary on to give his take, and not only didn’t bother to actually push back or fact-check anything he said, but Ian Hanomansing invited people do to their own fact-checking online after the show. Are you fucking kidding me? That’s supposed to be your job as journalists. But seriously. Kevin O’Leary. You know he has nothing of value to offer but bluster. This was a deliberate choice by producers to crank up the “controversy,” which was both irresponsible and a dereliction of duty. Just an absolute gods damned catastrophe. It’s not that we shouldn’t be talking about the threat of annexation or that Trump promises to wage economic warfare on us to turn us into a vassal state—it’s that we need to frame these discussions in a clear-eyed way, not whatever this bullshit that Hanomansing and company were doing.

To make matters worse, a bunch of people have decided to complain to the minister about this.

No. Absolutely not.

CBC may be a public broadcaster, but it is run arm’s-length from government, because it’s not a state broadcaster (regardless of what Conservative chuds like to claim). The minister has no say and should have no say in this. If you want to complain, talk to the CBC ombudsman, or the head of CBC news, but you DO NOT complain to the minister about it. That’s about as wrong as writing to the King to complain, and will get you the same form-letter response.

https://bsky.app/profile/senatorpaulasimons.bsky.social/post/3livb5f6oj22e

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched guided bomb attacks overnight Friday, killing one woman in Kostiantynivka, and then launched their largest drone attack yet overnight Saturday, with 267 drones fired, along with missiles. At least one person died as a result of a strike in Kryvyi Rih in that attack. North Korea is providing as much as half of Russia’s ammunition against Ukraine by this point. The US tried to force Ukraine to withdraw their UN resolution condemning Russia on the third anniversary of the invasion, in favour of an American resolution that soft-pedals the whole thing. (Ukraine would not). Zelenskyy said that he would be willing to step down if it meant a proper peace deal that includes NATO membership, and rejected Trump’s demands for $500 billion in “payback.”

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Roundup: The heresy of well-wishes

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It began with Anita Anand writing that she was not only going to stay out of the Liberal leadership race (which was a surprise given that she had previously been organizing an effort before the job was even open), but was also not going to be running again in the next election—which is a shame, because she was not only an extremely competent minister, but probably the best defence minister the country has had in a couple of decades at least. Former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole did the classy and dignified thing and saluted her work.

https://twitter.com/erinotoole/status/1878482424193073181

That simply wasn’t going to be on.

https://twitter.com/jenni_byrne/status/1878513929229320380

Whether Byrne misgendered O’Toole by accident or deliberately (because Conservatives thought it was hilarious to call Trudeau “Justine” and feminise him at every single opportunity), or if she was referring to Anand, it almost doesn’t matter because this is the kind of toxic, purity-test bullshit that she thinks the party really needs—and make no mistake, she is running the party. (If people thought it was bad that Katie Telford was running the PMO, should Poilievre win it’ll be Byrne doing the same). There’s a reason why Conservative MPs aren’t allowed to travel with anyone from other parties anymore, or why Byrne is attacking O’Toole for showing a modicum of human decency is praising someone from the other side—because in her conception of the world, they are not rivals or people who disagree on matters of policy, but rather they are the enemy, and if you don’t realise that you are a heretic and the problem. This is going to make Canadian politics even more toxic the more this takes hold.

This in turn led to people praising O’Toole for being a decent Conservative, which is in and of itself revisionist history, and ignores his own behaviour during his leadership contest and right up until his ignoble ouster as leader, where he lied about everything under the sun, and acted imperiously with his own caucus, going so far as to kick Senator Batters out of caucus for daring to challenge him. That, in his retirement, he did the classy thing to wish Anand well, doesn’t change his prior behaviour, and it makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills that everyone else has memory-holed his actual record.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian forces shelled Kherson, targeting power systems that left tens of thousands without power. Russia also claims it captured Shevchenko, near Pokrovsk. South Korean intelligence says that North Korean troops captured by Ukrainians in Kursk haven’t expressed a desire to defect. It is believed there have been there have been more than 3000 North Korean fatalities to date (which includes suicides to avoid capture).

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Roundup: A grubby way to extend a non-story

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The Globe and Mail’s ongoing pursuit of this story of alleged “tensions” between Chrystia Freeland and the PMO amidst the courting of Mark Carney continue to confound. While none of the substance of these stories actually make sense if you think about it for more than twenty seconds, as I point out in my weekend column, what I find particularly grubby is the way the Globe has been carrying on the story.

To recap, they started with this rather bullshit non-story about these “tensions,” which weren’t actually news because there are always tensions between a PM or Cabinet and a finance minister, because they have to say no to all kinds of grand spending plans. It as a non-story based on gossip and some “strategic” leaks that don’t actually serve any purpose, but they insisted this had ten sources, so it must be credible, but it’s hard to get a sense of what they actually said that would make this something that is actually news. The Globe then followed up with a story saying there’s a fresh attempt to recruit Mark Carney amidst these “tensions,” and the Conservatives put two and two together, and created this delusional scenario about Trudeau somehow throwing Freeland “under the bus” before he replaces her, which was not in the story, but they created this fever dream while simultaneously policing feminism, belittling Freeland while claiming Trudeau was bullying her (and also claiming that they don’t do tokenism in their party, which is laughable). It was pretty gross to watch.

So, what does the Globe do? Write up these fevered delusions as though they’re actually news, and then sends reporters to Freeland’s presser to have her respond to these bizarre, delusional accusations the Conservatives dreamed up, extending the non-story even further. In essence, they set the cat among the pigeons and then spend days writing about the aftermath, all of which is chasing phantoms, rumours, delusions, and frankly, misogynistic outbursts. I have a really hard time with this kind of “journalism,” which feels more masturbatory than it does ethical or in the service of educating the public. I get that they’re doing this for clicks, but it’s pretty icky, especially given how much misogyny has flowed from it.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched a massive aerial attack on Ukraine on Friday, with 93 cruise and ballistic missiles, and more than 200 drones, targeting more critical infrastructure. Russian forces are also continuing their march toward strategic city of Pokrovsk. Ukrainian drones hit a fuel storage facility in central Russia, while the new head of Ukraine’s ground forces says he plans major improvements to troop training, management, and recruitment to help deal with manpower shortages. Ukraine also announced it was planning to send food aid to Syria because Russia has cut them off from the aid they were providing.

https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1867521042912325739

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Roundup: Danielle Smith’s personal border patrol

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While Alberta premier Danielle Smith continues to prefer capitulation to Trump’s predations and boot-licking as her preferred course of action, she announced that she would be creating a $29 million Interdiction Patrol Team using Alberta Sheriffs, which are not actually police officers because they don’t enforce criminal laws, along with dogs and drones. Nevertheless, the plan is that they will create a two-kilometre “interdiction zone” along the entire border with Montana, and arrest people in said zone, which grossly exceeds their constitutional authority and any provincial exercise of power. This is supposed to be done in coordination with the RCMP and CBSA, but again, this is going well beyond her constitutional authority for a lot of security theatre, particularly because there is not exactly a lot of traffic across that border to begin with. This being said, she had been planning to do something like this for years now, likely as kayfabe because she relies on a lot of American narratives to feed her radicalised support base, but with the added context of Trump, it just legitimises his position unnecessarily.

Meanwhile, it looks like one option the federal government might explore is potential export taxes instead of retaliatory tariffs as a last resort, but upon hearing this, Smith and Scott Moe freaked out, and Moe began demanding a federal election, because of course he did, given that he would rather capitulate. So much for Team Canada!

Of course, this is again all for show. CBSA’s president says that US law enforcement knows that the amount of fentanyl that comes from Canada is essentially “slippage,” and that the small packages are difficult to detect. The RCMP Commissioner says that there is talk with American counterparts about joint aerial patrols along the border. We’ll see how this starts to shape up over the next few weeks, but it is diverting a great deal of resources for a relatively minor problem that isn’t really our responsibility to begin with because Americans are supposed to police their own side of the border.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian officials say that they have reclaimed three settlements in Kursk region, while Ukrainian troops have been ordered to hold the line, at least until Trump takes office. President Zelenskyy visited an artillery unit on the southeast frontline.

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Roundup: Turnabout is fair play in procedural warfare

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If you needed yet another example of how the state of the current parliament continues to degrade, yesterday was yet another example. It was the first of the allotted Supply Days (aka “opposition days”) that the Speaker had to intervene in order to schedule, and it barely happened at all. Why? The NDP used procedural shenanigans to delay the debate on the confidence motion that used Jagmeet Singh’s words as the fodder by calling for concurrence debate on a committee report that dealt with abortion access, and the Liberals played along, which meant that the Conservatives’ debate didn’t end up happening until after QP, meaning they only had a couple of hours’ worth of clip-gathering instead of a full day, and boy were they put out about it. But that’s the thing with procedural warfare—if you wage it against others, eventually they will wage it against you.

There were other shenanigans that happened after QP—Liberal MP Jaime Battiste tried to move a unanimous consent motion to get the First Nations water bill out of committee and over to the Senate, but the Conservatives refused. As they did, Battiste took his water glass and started shouting at the Conservatives, and went into the aisle, apparently planning to throw the glass at them before he thought better of it. And then Andrew Scheer tried to move a motion that would have had the same effect, but with language that denigrated the government, and of course that too was shut down, and Scheer had the audacity to play the victim after that stunt.

It’s good that there’s only one sitting week left, because my tolerance for this kind of bullshit is at its end.

Ukraine Dispatch

The Americans have been pressuring Ukraine to lower the conscription age to 18 in order to bolster their fighting force, which is creating dilemmas for those teenaged boys.

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Roundup: The imagined need for Cardy

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I don’t really want to give the “Canadian Future Party” (formerly the “Centre Ice Conservatives”) too much air time and attention, but their interim leader, Dominic Cardy (formerly leader of the New Brunswick NDP who defected to that provinces’ Progressive Conservative Party but now sits as an independent after a falling out with Blaine Higgs) was making the media rounds yesterday, and he was mostly saying ridiculous things about the state of politics as they are today.

In order to try and claim the centrist high ground, Cardy rightly points to the fact that the Conservatives are moving to the far right in many areas (and many of his party’s organizers appear to be disaffected Conservatives), but he then tried to insist that they are going to be different from the Liberals by claiming that the Liberals are moving to the “extremes.” Reader, I howled with laughter. The Liberals have barely budged from their amorphous centrist position, moving ever-so-slightly to the left by actually implementing some of the programmes they’ve been trying to for a couple of decades, like child care, which has a hell of an economic case to recommend it when you look at the participation of women in the labour force and the economic returns that it brings. I’m not sure what “extremes” Cardy seems to be thinking of—the Liberals haven’t nationalized any industries; they haven’t abolished private property or beheaded any billionaires. Hell, they’ve barely raised the taxes on said billionaires, whose existence remains a policy failure in any just society. For all his talk about being an “economic disaster,” the country’s books are the strongest in the G7, the deficits that have been run outside of the height of COVID were rounding errors in the size of our economy, we had the lowest inflation spike of comparator economies, it returned to the control zone fastest, and we’ve achieved the soft landing of avoiding a recession after said inflationary spike. Cardy’s economic daydreams appear to be coming from some kind of fantasyland.

Selley is right—this isn’t an issue about ideologues, and Cardy’s going on about their policies being “evidence-based” is another one his weird fantasy daydreams. If we wanted a technocracy, we would install one, but governing is about making choices, and sometimes there are trade-offs to that policy. You can’t just keep shouting “evidence-based!” because sometimes the decisions you need to make will need some kind of an ideological grounding in order to weigh which trade-offs you’re willing to make. Nothing Cardy is offering here has even the hint of being serious, and people should recognize that fact.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile struck port infrastructure in Odesa on Wednesday night, while a drone attack killed two medics in Kharkiv region, and more energy infrastructure was hit in the Chernihiv region. Ukraine says they have pushed furtherinto the Kursk region, and are now claiming this is about creating a “buffer zone” to prevent shelling of Ukrainian territory from positions within Kursk. Here is a look at the use of drone warfare as part of the Kursk operation, such as using them to strike four airfields in surrounding regions.

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