Tag Archives: First Nations

Roundup: On the policing of Trudeau’s feminism

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One of the sub-plots around the lead-up to Chrystia Freeland’s resignation was the continued policing of feminism by the Conservatives, because it’s in their interests to dismiss Justin Trudeau as a “fake feminist.” The CBC has a whole write-up about how gender was never mentioned in the letter but is being used as an attack line. I’m inclined to agree with University of Calgary’s Melanee Thomas, cited in the piece, who notes that the only real gendered element was the “frustration” that qualified women can experience when men in power dismiss their advice.

I have to say, though, that the piece lacks some of the specific comments that the Conservatives made, and chose some of the tamer quotes rather than the unhinged ones, where Freeland was belittled as someone who apparently had no agency in order to attack Trudeau, which seems like a really interesting way to defend her, but also not really defend her. My absolute favourite was Leslyn Lewis standing up to declare that she wasn’t a token, with the obvious implication that Freeland was, which again, is hard to square with defending her honour (but not really) by insisting that she had no qualifications and was only there as a quota. It was pretty grotesque, and also a little delusional, because if there is anyone who is more likely to be a token, it’s Lewis, who is a crazy conspiracy theorist who shouldn’t hold a portfolio and yet does, and sits in Poilievre’s camera shot for quite obvious reasons.

One of the most common refrains from the Conservatives as they have tried to denigrate Trudeau’s feminism, as performative as it might be, is that they keep insisting that women and minorities in their caucus all earned their places, but any in the Liberal ranks were all token diversity picks, which is incredibly dismissive, and just perpetuates the very notions that straight white men are the only ones who can really be considered “qualified” without question. It makes it really, really hard to take the feminism-policing from those who continue to push that kind of a narrative, whether they think that’s what they’re doing or not.

Ukraine Dispatch

South Korean intelligence suggests that at least 100 North Korean troops in the Kursk region have been killed so far, another 1000 have bene injured in combat, and that they are struggling with drone warfare. Here is a look at why Russia is so eager to take Pokrovsk. A combined Ukrainian missile and drone strike damaged an oil refinery in the Rostov region. Russia alleges that Ukraine has used white phosphorus in attacks, which Ukraine denies and says Russia is the one who used it.

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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.

Surveying the #cdnpoli landscape:

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-12-13T14:33:23.449Z

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.

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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.

I look forward to all the right-wingers who whined endlessly about the federal government's very reasonable use of the Emergencies Act to react to this rule-of-law destroying nonsense.

— Emmett Macfarlane (@emmettmacfarlane.com) 2024-12-12T20:28:44.210Z

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!

Between this and Ford’s musing about export controls on hydro, my intuition is this is a better approach than chats over meatloaf and ipad playlists. Granted, there’s a certain ‘spaghetti on the wall’ -ishness to handling Trump 2.0

— Jennifer Robson (@jrobson.bsky.social) 2024-12-12T19:40:32.132Z

But promising to never ever, no matter what, reduce oil exports, is … not wise. Oil is leverage.Pledging loyalty is not.

— Jennifer Robson (@jrobson.bsky.social) 2024-12-12T19:49:03.034Z

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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QP: Policing feminism as a gross concern troll

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Neither the prime minister or his deputy were present today, and neither were most of the other leaders either. Andrew Scheer led off today, and he raised today’s Globe and Mail story that says Trudeau has made more outreaches to Mark Carney to get involved in politics, which Scheer interpreted as a plot to replace Freeland with Carney, and that he is somehow orchestrating the larger deficit spending. Arif Virani took this, for some reason, and he praised the work Freeland has been doing for Canadians, which yesterday’s Bank of Canada rate cut apparently reflected, and then praised their GST “holiday.” Scheer claimed the rate cut was because the economy is performing so poorly—which is not what the governor said in his remarks—and again claimed that Carney was pulling all the strings before replacing Freeland, concern trolling for Freeland’s future. Virani quoted Tiff Macklem’s remarks about inflation being tamed. Scheer disputed this, and quoted other Liberal MPs who wanted more fiscal discipline and demanded they get a “free vote,” to which Virani cited IMF economic growth projections and our status as having the lowest debt and deficit in the G7. Dominique Vien took over in French, and she too concern trolled about Freeland’s future and called Trudeau a “fake feminist,” this time François-Philippe Champagne deployed his “take no lessons” line before praising the Bank of Canada lowering rates, and the upcoming GST “holiday.” Vien repeated the claim that Trudeau was about to replace Freeland with Carney, and called him a hypocrite for his speech at Equal Voice about being a proud feminist. Diane Lebouthillier responded by wondering how a woman from Quebec could attack a woman like Freeland who brought in child care, and the Speaker called for order, she dismissed the men heckling because women are the ones who handle men head on.

Claude DeBellefeuille led for the Bloc, and worried about the Senate voting on their Supply Management bill, and wondered if the government contacted each of their appointments to tell them how to vote. Marie-Claude Bibeau reminded her that senators are independent. DeBellefeuille wanted each party leader to tell senators to support the bill in its original form, and Bibeau repeated her same point.

DeBellefeuille wonders if the government contacted each of their senate appointees to tell them how to vote on the Supply Management bill. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-12-12T19:30:46.447Z

Alexandre Boulerice led for the NDP and demanded the government improve access to healthcare in Quebec, which is a provincial responsibility. Mark Holland praised the investments they have made with the provinces. Brian Masse demanded the government consult with workers before a Trump plan, and demanded a “Buy Canada” plan (which is utterly boneheaded in a trade-dependent economy). Mary Ng said that all voices matter in this issue.

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QP: Fantasizing about a “collapsing” economy

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Wednesday, the final proto-PMQ of the year, and the prime minister was indeed present and ready to respond to all questions put to him, while his deputy was elsewhere. All of the other leaders were also present today, and Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and again cited the Globe and Mail story about the supposed tensions between Freeland and Trudeau over the size of the deficit, and demanded to know why he pushed her to break her promise on capping it. Justin Trudeau said that Poilievre was dramatizing things to distract from his voting against programmes that help people, and that he muzzles his MPs to prevent them from speaking out for their communities, or get his security clearance. Poilievre again demanded to know why Trudeau forced his finance minister to break her promise and Trudeau responded with a list of things Poilievre voted against. Poilievre switched to English and repeated his first question on the Globe story, and Trudeau once again called these little “dramas” a distraction from his record of voting against supports for Canadians or refusing to get his security clearance. Poilievre accused a Trudeau of bullying Freeland, said that he is too weak to control his own caucus, and then Poilievre proclaimed that he leads by inspiration and that Trudeau leads by intimidation. Trudeau said that Poilievre likes to claim things are broken because he keeps breaking them. Poilievre  mocked this, and then claimed that Freeland was going to be humiliated by reading a fiscal update authored by Mark Carney, and Trudeau accused Poilievre of using Canadians’ struggles for his own gain but that he won’t lift a finger to help them.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, complained about a committee study, and wondered what the PM would say to the thousands of Muslims who are happy to assimilate into Quebec. Trudeau praised diversity and rights. Blanchet then wondered if Trudeau was defending religious “indoctrination” at certain Quebec schools, to which Trudeau praised the Charter, and then said it was the responsibility of those schools to hire the best teachers they could.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, said that Trump was a bully and that Trudeau was too weak to stand up to him. Trudeau said that they were taking a measured approach, working with leaders across the country, and were not freaking out like the NDP were. Singh exclaimed that Trudeau’s job wasn’t safe either, and then repeated the same question/demand in French. Trudeau reminded him that they defeated Trump tariffs in the past.

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Roundup: Healthy tensions made dramatic

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The Globe and Mail had one of those stories that sets the cat among the pigeons, where they got a number of sources to describe the tensions between PMO and the department of finance over their spending plans, and in particular that the PMO was adamant that they wanted to do that stupid GST “holiday”/rebate cheque programme, while Chrystia Freeland was trying to keep a lid on spending because she had fiscal anchors that she was trying to stick to.

As for those anchors, Freeland had her usual Tuesday economic good news press conferences yesterday, and very deliberately said that the Fiscal Update next Monday will show that the debt-to-GDP ratio fiscal anchor would be met—but steadfastly refused to mention the other two fiscal anchors she spoke of in the spring, being a cap on the size of the deficit, and a target for the deficit to be less than one percent of GDP by 2026-27. Freeland repeatedly said that the debt-to-GDP ratio was the one that mattered and that we would see on Monday that it was continuing to decline, but the interpretation of that statement is essentially that the deficit will indeed by higher than $40.1 billion, but that overall GDP grew enough that the higher number is less of an issue. We’ll have to see on Monday, but she very much appeared to be telegraphing lowered expectations.

As for those tensions, if anyone has been around Parliament Hill for any length of time, this should be normal. PMO wants to do things that are politically expedient, and that usually involves spending money, which finance tries to rein in as much as they can. This appears to be little different from that very ordinary standard operating procedure. This, of course, didn’t stop Pierre Poilievre from pouncing on this in QP as proof that the PM has “lost control” of his Cabinet (which is risible on the face of it), and every journalist was trying to get some kind of comment on it (when they weren’t trying to get a comment on Trump’s latest slights). Maybe I’ve been up here too long but “PMO wants to spend money, finance tries to say no” isn’t really news. That’s a day that ends in y. Maybe we don’t need to be so breathlessly dramatic about everything all the time?

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian missile hit a clinic in Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday, killing at least six and injuring at least 22. A missile attack also damaged an industrial facility in Taganrog the same night. President Zelenskyy says that he used his meeting with Trump in Paris to raise the issue of security guarantees.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1866509325197316109

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Roundup: A cynical grift vs actual xenophobic bigotry

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Because apparently there isn’t enough stupidity right now in Canadian politics, Conservative MP Jamil Jivani has launched a petition about “protecting Christians from bigotry” in Canada. But it’s not a Parliamentary e-petition, given that the site leads to his own domain, so really, this is just yet another data-harvesting and fundraising exercise, and it’s the absolutely most cynical grift at that. Conservatives have long-ago learned that by appealing to the victimhood complex of self-professed Christians, that crowd will open up their wallets like there’s no tomorrow. And best of all, Jivani has roped in the support of his old Yale roommate, JD Vance, to shill for this as well (because that’ll get the MAGA crowd to open up their own wallets as well). I can’t tell you just how absolutely cynical this all is, and people are absolutely going to fall for it.

Meanwhile, François Legault is talking about new legislation, possibly invoking the Notwithstanding Clause, to ban prayer in public, but this is specifically meant to be targeting Muslims, and he’s not even being coy about it, or trying to couch it in some kind of universal secularist message. He’s literally saying he wants to send a “very clear message to Islamists,” which is absolutely outrageous. It’s also a fairly transparent play to xenophobia and scapegoating as he’s tanking in the polls and thinks that this will help him get ahead. This is the actual bigotry happening in this country, not whatever bullshit Jivani is trying to grift off of.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia and Kryvyi Riv have killed at least 12 and wounded over 40. Ukrainian officials have showcased a new locally-produced “rocket drone” that they say has twice the longest range attributed to the missiles supplied by western allies, while Ukraine’s bid to develop new missiles has been hampered by global supply chain issues.

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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: Fiscal update when?

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This year’s Fall Economic Statement is very late—it’s extremely unusual for it to happen in December—but these are not normal times, and the ongoing privilege filibuster hasn’t helped matters any. The government’s attempts to get shame either the Bloc or the NDP into finally voting with the government to pull the plug on it have all been in vain, because they all want to do their part to embarrass the government as much as possible. This being said, I’m not sure what the holdup is with the Public Accounts either, though they have insisted that they’re with the Auditor General and will be released soon. In any case, the government has refused to explain exactly why these releases are so late, because we’re back to the tiresome “If you’re explaining, you’re losing” schtick, so as usual, this government never explains.

Pierre Poilievre decided that he would pretend to be magnanimous and “offer” the government two hours from the Conservatives’ allotted day on Monday to present the update, but Chrystia Freeland rejected it out of hand, calling the offer absurd, and saying “This proposal from the Conservatives is like an arsonist who set the fire in the first place, saying, ‘don’t worry about it, I’ll come with a fire truck for a couple of hours, but tomorrow I’ll be back again with matches’.” Procedurally, I don’t see how the Conservatives could offer up time to government business on an allotted day, but also procedurally, Freeland could use the daily Statements by Ministers slot during routine proceedings to deliver the update (though that may be somewhat more awkward for the associated media lockup because those statements tend to be earlier than budget or fiscal update speeches are traditionally delivered, in part because of any data from those lock-ups moving markets (which is why they are traditionally delivered after 4 PM). They could technically also deliver it outside of the Chamber (Paul Martin once read it at committee, and the Conservatives liked to deliver it off Parliament Hill entirely), but we don’t want to encourage a return to the practice of announcing things outside of Parliament (and the UK Speaker uses very strong language about this sort of thing).

If I had to guess, I would suspect that it’ll be delivered next Wednesday or Thursday, once the Supply votes are out of the way, which makes it extremely convenient for Freeland and every other minister to spread out across the country to deliver the “good news” about the programmes in the budget, whereas Poilievre would want to use the timing of the update to claim that he “forced” the government to “come clean about the numbers,” or some such bullshit like that. None of this is great, but we’re dealing with an exhausted government and a dysfunctional parliament, so nothing is as it should be right now.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine is giving soldiers who deserted or went AWOL a second chance, particularly given the shortages they’re facing on the Eastern front, and lo, some six thousand soldiers have rejoined. News leaking out of the Trump camp indicate that his plan to end the war involve major land concessions, NATO membership being off the table, and cutting military aid, unless Putin refuses, in which case they would provide more. (Land concessions are not really his goal, guys).

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QP: Using Crombie and Joly as cudgels

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The prime minister was present and ready to take all questions, while his deputy found better things to do. All of the other leaders were present today, and Pierre Poilievre led off in French, as is his usual wont, and claimed the PM was weak, lost control of the border, his spending, and his own party, and used Bonnie Crombie’s words as proof (even though it’s not the same party). Justin Trudeau said that his caucus was unified about the GST “holiday,” and claimed Conservatives wanted to vote for it and that Poilievre gagged them. Poilievre repeated the “lost control” slogan to apply it to food insecurity, and wanted assurances from the Economic Statement next week. Trudeau said it would come in due course, and that the government was helping people while Poilievre was jostling for his own political interests. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his first question while adding in the claim that Mélanie Joly launched her leadership campaign in the New York Times. Trudeau said that the Liberals are allowed to have different opinions while Poilievre just muzzles his MPs. Poilievre went on about the Joly story, and said Trudeau needs to get the hint that his party doesn’t want him any more. Trudeau gave a paean about Canadians pulling together when they face threats but Poilievre can’t help himself. Poilievre said that Trudeau was giving Canadian jobs to Trump, and listed “taxes” as proof, while Trudeau said that Canadians see through Poilievre’s shallow games, and that he wants them to struggle because he thinks it helps his prospects.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and demanded the federal government respect the unanimous motion in the Quebec National Assembly to get rid of the religious exemption for hate crimes, and Trudeau hit back that if they cared about it, they would do something about the Conservative filibuster so that said bill could come up for debate. Blanchet repeated the demand, and Trudeau again repeated his point about the Bloc not helping to end the filibuster.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and demanded permanent GST exemptions for “daily essentials,” and Trudeau patted himself on their GST “holiday.” Singh recited his new line about the Conservatives being “boot-lickers for billionaires” and the Speaker had to interject before Singh repeated his demand in French. Trudeau repeated his same self-congratulatory response.

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