It is now day one-hundred-and-forty of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces are claiming to have hit a Russian ammunition depot near the captured city of Nova Kakhovka in the south. At the same time, Russians continue their attacks on the cities of Sloviansk and Toetsk in the Donetsk province, killing at least nine civilians. Here is a look at efforts to train Ukrainian soldiers and civilians in combat first aid. Over in Russia, the government is poised to enact legislation that can force companies to supply the military, including making employees work overtime, as the country tries to replenish its supplies after depleting them in the invasion thus far.
today at least 15 Ukrainians killed, 5 wounded by another russian attack. Yet another evidence that appeasement policy does not work with russia pic.twitter.com/T8WGjIeWBJ
— Yulia Kovaliv (@kovaliv_y) July 11, 2022
Closer to home, the Council of the Federation meeting ended, and lo, the premiers were unanimous in demanding that the federal government come to the table with them to, well, accept their demands to give them more money with no strings attached. Only they had both a wounded tone, which quickly switched to sanctimony when they were challenged, particularly about the pandemic spending that couldn’t be tracked. Some premiers, Tim Houston most especially, seem to think that we all have amnesia about 2004 to 2014, when the bulk of those six percent health transfer escalators were spent on other things. Saying that they all want improved outcomes is one thing, but the federal government isn’t stupid—they are well aware that provinces would be just fine with status quo that the federal government paid more for, and that they spent less on. That’s why they want conditions—so that provinces don’t pull this kind of thing once again. Premiers were also pretending that they had no idea what kinds of outcomes the federal government is looking to achieve, because most of the is in last year’s election platform. It’s not hard to find. And frankly, federal health minister Jean-Yves Duclos is right when he says that these outcomes should be agreed to at the ministerial level before the first ministers sit down to talk dollars, because you want to have a plan in place before you attach dollars to it, rather than the opposite, which John Horgan seems to think is how government should function. (You can find my thread as I was live-tweeting the closing press conference here).
Horgan blaming the federal government for collapsing healthcare when it’s literally his jurisdiction is a choice.
He can raise his own taxes to spend it on healthcare. It’s 100 percent in his powers and capabilities. #PnPCBC pic.twitter.com/o1HKBLIOib— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) July 12, 2022
Considering the Alberta Auditor General’s report, and that of Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer on pandemic dollars, I have zero faith in Horgan’s assurances here. https://t.co/S9xUaoLvqa
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) July 12, 2022
https://t.co/iFixbLrUII pic.twitter.com/ZcDQOah1qR
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) July 12, 2022
https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1546912224148688897
https://t.co/1jpG5g6h57 pic.twitter.com/aZ18KLslWf
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) July 12, 2022
On a related note, The Canadian Press devoted several hundred words of wire copy yesterday to the fact that the promised $2 billion to clear up surgical backlogs hasn’t flowed yet…because the budget only received royal assent a couple of weeks ago. And that premiers are complaining they haven’t received the money yet. I mean, premiers know how a budget cycle works. This is not a news story—it’s not even a real process story. It’s complaining for the sake of complaining. The only piece of interest in the story was that the government tabled a bill about the spending commitment, then abandoned it in order to wrap the spending in their budget bill a couple of weeks later. This isn’t the first time they’ve done so, and it’s a really annoying habit that they have, but again, not actually a news story.