Tag Archives: First Nations

Roundup: Historical revisionism of federalism in the past decade

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Last week had largely been spent trying to determine what the love-in with the premiers all means, so much so that Danielle Smith is losing her grip on reality as she insists that she’ll convince BC premier David Eby to let another pipeline cross his province (in spite of there being no actual proposals for one), while also claiming that Albertans have the “lowest living standards in the world,” and I just can’t even.

Meanwhile, I’m seeing comments from the pundit class that I’m just finding hard to square with reality. This one quote from the weekend dispatch of The Line is a good example of these pundit narratives that are completely ahistorical.

The Liberals under Justin Trudeau were so fantastically uninterested in working with the provinces, and so relentlessly hostile to basic economic growth, that having a prime minister simply acknowledge (as Carney has) that we are in an economic emergency seems like a massive step forward.

Trudeau did work with the provinces a lot in his first parliament—he had the first face-to-face meeting with them as a group in years after Harper refused to, and they got big things done—the agreement on carbon pricing, enhancing CPP, a suite of health measures that Jane Philpott negotiated with the provinces. None of this was inconsequential, but there was a very different group of premiers in 2015 than there was in 2024. And let’s also be frank—the premiers didn’t want to work together with the federal government anymore. They wanted to gang up on him for more money with no conditions (those health transfers that Philpott negotiated didn’t go toward fixing anything), while the pleading that everyone was making around finding exceptions to the carbon levy was very unproductive (not that Trudeau did any favours in his “pause” on the price for heating oil rather than a better system of rebates in areas where energy poverty was a problem). But seriously, the premiers get away with blaming Trudeau for all of the things that they refused to do that were their responsibility, and somehow he was the problem?

As well, the notion that Trudeau was hostile to basic economic growth is, frankly, unhinged. How many trade deals did he sign or push over the finish line? What was the whole attempt to stand-up a North American EV supply chain? What were the billions spent to keep the entire economy afloat during COVID? If you’re going to cite the capital gains changes as being “hostile,” then congratulations—you’re a gullible numpty who bought the lines of people who engage in tax arbitrage and want that sweet roll to continue. If you think environmental regulation was killing economic growth, just wait until you see what climate change is already doing to the economy and is going to get exponentially worse. Just because Trudeau didn’t bow to the tax-cut-and-deregulate crowd, it doesn’t mean he was hostile to economic growth. Yes, he and his government had problems. A lot of them. But let’s not make up things that are blatantly ahistorical or outright fictional just to help put a shine on Carney.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-07T21:10:14.180Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drone and missile attacks killed four people in Kharkiv on Saturday. Russian forces claim to have crossed into the Dnipropetrovsk region, while a row is now brewing over an agreement to exchange bodies of dead soldiers, which Ukraine says they are not delaying. Meanwhile, a drone attack on a Russian electronics factory has forced them to suspend production.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1931395337958084711

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Roundup: What transnational repression?

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Prime minister Mark Carney had a big day planned with the tabling of his big “One Canada Economy” bill, and he managed to stomp all over his own message with news that he had a call with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and invited him to attend the G7 summit in Kananaskis in a couple of weeks. There was a bit of a collective WTF from around the country considering that we still have not resolved the issue with the Modi government being credibly accused of ordering the murder of Canadian citizens on Canadian soil, along with other extortion rackets. Not only was this upsetting to Sikhs in Canada, but it also came on the anniversary of the attack on the Golden Temple in India, showing once again that Carney has inadequate political sense and is being poorly advised by those who allegedly have more political experience than he does.

chat is it normal to invite the head of a govt alleged to have been involved in the extrajudicial killing a canadian citizen on canadian soil to canada asking for a diaspora

— Supriya Dwivedi (@supriya.bsky.social) 2025-06-06T14:11:12.637Z

honestly hard to see this as anything other than the Carney govt thinking some canadian lives matter more than others it will also be incredibly difficult to take anything this govt says on transnational repression and foreign interference seriously given this pivot

— Supriya Dwivedi (@supriya.bsky.social) 2025-06-06T14:12:22.745Z

Carney defended the move by insisting this was about economic ties, and that he had reassurances that the law-enforcement process was ongoing (which India has refused cooperation around, and instead chose to make up a bunch of absolute horseshit about drugs supposedly being found on Trudeau’s plane). Others insisted that this was a diplomatic necessity, because diplomacy is not a reward for good behaviour (true!) and also stated that the other six members of the G7 have no problem with India and that Canada is an outlier. I would caveat that, however—the US has had their problems with India around this very problem, because some of it was also happening on US soil, and many other G7 countries don’t have the same Indian diaspora as Canada, which doesn’t mean that they would be safe from these kinds of activities. I would also say that there is an added implicit message with this invitation that you can essentially get away with murder if you’re economically important enough, and that’s a really, really bad message to send in this era of increasing authoritarianism and the democratic backsliding happening in Western countries.

On that note, Carney also had a call with Chinese premier Li Qiang, at his behest, about regularising communications channels. No doubt Carney has motivations of trying to get China to lift their tariffs on our agricultural and seafood products, which were in retaliation for our EV tariffs (because China is trying to behave in a predatory manner by trying to build a tech monoculture to suffocate our own EV industry). Not to mention, China continues to be a bad actor with its own foreign interference and transnational repression, so again, it is looking a lot like Carney is behaving like it’s 1995 and just one more trade deal with China will make them more democratic and respect human rights. Really! We mean it this time!

The last word goes to The Beaverton, who got it just right.

Carney limits G7 guests to one assassination each

— The Beaverton (@thebeaverton.com) 2025-06-06T21:09:26.706Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia launched another missile and drone attack on Ukraine in the early hours of Friday, killing at least six people. They claim this these are “military targets” in retaliation for Ukrainian “terrorist acts” against Russia, when of course we know this is nothing but bullshit. Ukrainian drones hit an industrial enterprise in Russia’s southern city of Engels.

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Roundup: Back-channel tariff talks?

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Ever since the latest round of steel and aluminium tariffs went into place, there have been questions as to when and how Canada will respond, and earlier in the week, prime minister Mark Carney counselled patience and that there were “intensive negotiations” happening, but retaliatory measures were also being prepared. We found out yesterday that Carney and Trump have been having back-channel conversations on the subject, so retaliation while this is happening may be counter-productive. But you also have industry worrying that the longer this goes without retaliation, the more they become vulnerable to other things like steel imports from other countries being diverted to Canada, which could make their situation even worse.

That being said, we may not be able to eliminate all tariffs, and some level could remain because Trump does love tariffs, and has a completely wrong-headed notion about them because of the people he has been surrounding himself with. Never mind that our auto sector can’t survive with tariffs, or that the Americans will simply pay through the nose for aluminium that they can’t smelt themselves.

Meanwhile, the Star has a really good five-point explainer about the counter-tariffs, and why the Conservatives’ claims that they were “secretly removed” is false, but rather a certain number of counter-tariffs were suspended for six months to give Canadian companies time to adjust supply chains, but there are still plenty of counter-tariffs in place.

Ukraine Dispatch

There was another missile and drone attack overnight which hit Kyiv, has killed at least four people.

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Roundup: The confidence vote that wasn’t

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Debate on the Address in Reply to the Speech From the Throne was due to wrap up, meaning a final vote. Media outlets insisted that this would be the first major confidence vote of the new Parliament, and that if the Liberals lost it, we could go back to an election, and there was all this building drama because of how they lost the vote on the Conservatives’ amendment (to “urge” the government to table a spring budget). And my headache started.

The vote on the Address in Reply is not automatically a confidence vote. It is if the opposition amendments explicitly state that they have no confidence in the government, and sometimes that happens because this is the first opportunity to test the confidence of the Chamber, especially in a minority parliament or legislature, but again, that was not the case here. But along the way, the NDP decided that they were going to play tough and declare that they would vote against it for specious reasons (and because Don Davies is an idiot, and has a long track record of being an idiot and a blowhard), while the Government House Leader, Steve MacKinnon, told reporters that this would be a confidence vote. So, if the government says it’s a confidence vote, it’s a confidence vote, and it was likely intended to be something of a bit a put-up-or-shut-up dare, which can be risky in a minority parliament, but sometimes you also need to play hardball with the opposition. This was likely going to mean that the Bloc would either vote in support or abstain (because they did say they would give the government a year before they started to seriously oppose anything, given the Trump situation), but the government was never in any serious danger of falling. If, by some fluke, they did lose a vote they declared to be confidence, they could simply hold another vote and basically say “Did you mean it?” and chances are they would win that vote, and all would go back to normal.

And in the end, there wasn’t even a vote. News of Marc Garneau’s death reached the Chamber just before the vote was to be taken, and it seems like the appetite for drama was gone, and it passed on division, meaning that they agreed to disagree, that they were going to let it pass, but not bother with a recorded vote. And thus, the least exciting outcome happened.

I must advise the beings of Bluesky that, in a truly only-in-this-particular-Canadian-parliament twist, the much-anticipated will-they-or-won't-they-trigger-an-election over it motion on the Throne speech as amended — has been adopted on division.

— Kady O'Malley (@kadyo.bsky.social) 2025-06-04T22:25:39.121Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-04T22:02:26.904Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones struck an apartment building in Kharkiv, injuring at least seventeen. Russian forces have also pushed further into Sumy region. Here’s a look at how Operation Spiderweb was carried out.

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Roundup: A lost vote for the sake of point-scoring

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The opposition shenanigans manifested during one of the very first votes of the new Parliament, where the government was not able to defeat the Conservative amendment to the Address in Reply to the Speech From the Throne. Said amendment urged the government to table a spring budget, but it’s not binding, and it looks like Mark Carney and the rest of Cabinet will take it under advisement and leave it at that (because you can’t produce a budget within two weeks’ notice, and the Conservatives know that very well).

What gets me is that you have the Conservatives (and others) going “what does it say when the government loses their first vote?” when it says nothing at all. If anything, it says that in a minority parliament, the opposition parties will do everything they can to embarrass the government, just as they have in previous parliaments, and given the current configuration of parties, this is really just a continuation of the constant juvenile bullshit we’ve seen over and over again that resulted in a paralyzed House of Commons last fall. Nothing really changed, and we’re going to see more that very same thing because we have the same insistence on juvenile point-scoring from the opposition, and we have the same Liberal government that is both inept at communicating their way out of a wet paper bag, and who are tactically incompetent because they think that they will somehow come out looking sympathetic to the procedural warfare and gamesmanship when they absolutely won’t because legacy media will simply not actually call anyone’s bullshit, but just both-sides the whole thing, and the Liberals will always lose in that framing. And I suppose what it says about the government is that they haven’t learned a single gods damned lesson from their near-death experience, and Carney’s complete political inexperience isn’t doing them any favours here either.

Meanwhile, the government introduced their big omnibus border bill, and it has a lot of troubling elements, from lowering thresholds for electronic data collection by law enforcement that won’t always require a warrant, and gives Canada Post more authority to open mail they deem suspicious. It also changes particular thresholds for asylum claims, and gives the government powers to simply stop claims or immigration processes with no explanation or apparent avenues for appeal. There are some positives, such as more resources for financial crimes, but in the grand scheme of things, I’m not sure it balances the negatives. The government claims they found the right balance that respects Charter rights, but I am dubious, and I suspect that law enforcement convinced them that they need these rights-violating powers and used Trump’s threats as a justification to get what they want.

Ukraine Dispatch

A Russian rocket attack killed at least four and injured at least 25 in Sumy. The city of Sumy remains under threat as Russians advance in that region. Ukraine detonated explosives on the concrete piers supporting the bridge linking Russia to Crimea, forcing its closure.

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1929871991034568954

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Roundup: No list of projects, unsurprisingly

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In the wake of the First Ministers’ meeting in Saskatoon, there was no list of priority projects that they planned to fast-track, and a bunch of media and pundits seemed surprised by that even though it would likely have been an impossibility given the timeline. What we got instead was more of a process that they plan to use in order to designate these projects on an ongoing basis, which makes a lot more sense from a reality-based perspective. (Photo gallery here).

That didn’t stop the questions on pipelines, even though there are no actual projects being proposed by any proponent (and I have more on that in my column out later today). I do think it’s a problem that legacy media are focusing on pipelines as though they are the be-all-end-all of projects, particularly given the economics involved. They are not magical money trees. Building them will not “unlock” trillions of dollars in the oil sands, and frankly, at a time when the country is literally burning, you would think that we would have a bit more of a critical conversation around that, but no. Oh, and the fact that they are talking about “de-carbonized” oil and gas projects is…mostly fantasy. Pathways Alliance are grifters. It’s not going to capture and store carbon on an industrial scale, and not enough for you to ramp up production. This just seems completely ridiculous on its face, but Danielle Smith thinks she’s getting a win out of this, so I’m mostly just throwing up my hands.

As well, none of these “nation-building” projects involved things like, oh, funding university research networks so that we can not only take advantage of the intellectual resources in this country, but also take advantage of the ”brain drain” in the US as they dismantle their universities in an ideologically-driven crusade, and considering that the premiers were around the table, and this is their responsibility, it would have been great if they could have paid the slightest bit of attention to that, but nope. This country sometimes…

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lqnyktksck2m

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-02T22:08:15.235Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia’s overnight attacks have killed one person in Kharkiv and injured several more in Chernihiv. As well, shelling in Kramatorsk killed at least five people. President Zelenskyy answered more questions on the Spiderweb operation, and confirmed that his was more than a year in planning. At the talks in Istanbul, there was only an agreement to swap dead and wounded prisoners, but little more.

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Roundup: More provincial buck-passing, FCM edition

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The Federation of Canadian Municipalities had their big conference in Ottawa over the past couple of days, and there were a host of mayors and councillors on the Hill to meet with MPs. Yesterday afternoon, Mark Carney addressed their conference to basically give the same speech he’s been giving for the past couple of weeks about things like “moving to delay to delivery,” and so on. But I did find it interesting that as part of this address to the FCM, he essentially told them that he’ll be too busy with nation-building projects to reform municipal funding structures.

It’s kind of funny, but at the same time, I have to ask how that’s actually his job, or the job of the federal government at all. Cities are creatures of provincial legislation. If you want to reform their funding structures, the provinces need to sit down and hammer that out, unless you want to start amending the constitution, and I’m pretty sure that nobody wants to open that particular Pandora’s Box (which, incidentally, was not a box but a jar). We could let cities collect their own income or sales taxes, or other forms of financing that would be better than simply property taxes, but provinces refuse, and in some cases, have specifically legislated against it. And we’ve known for decades now that cities have funding challenges that they need something to be done about, but have provinces responded? Of course not. They simply demand the federal government send them more money.

With this in mind, Toronto mayor Olivia Chow was also here for the FCM meeting, and she says she is encouraged by Carney’s sense of urgency on tackling the housing crisis, but again, she too is here calling for the federal government to directly intervene with money. One thing she has proposed is for necessary infrastructure to build more housing, for the federal government to basically pay the municipality’s one-third share (so they essentially pay two-thirds and the province pay the other third), and it’s just so infuriating. The federal government is not the purse for every other jurisdiction. Provinces have the very same revenue-generating tools as the federal government does, but they refuse to use them because they would rather beg for money and let the federal government be the bad guy with their taxes than the province. This kind of absolute immaturity is just exhausting, and it’s one of the reasons why things just aren’t getting done in this country.

Or ever, if we're being honest.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-05-30T13:30:00.766Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russia’s massive drone attack overnight Thursday injured two people in Kharkiv, and hit a town that sits on the border with Romania, which is a NATO member.

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QP: Parade of the newbies

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Thursday, and the novelty had worn off for journalists in the gallery, which was once again nearly empty. Mark Carney was elsewhere meeting with the mayor of Toronto, while Andrew Scheer was also absent. Stephanie Kusie led off with some nonsense concern trolling about the lack of a budget. François-Philippe Champagne loudly praised their tax cut, the GST removal on certain houses, and the removal of the consumer carbon levy in law. Kusie again repeated this same nonsense, increasingly breathy and melodramatic, and Champagne reminded her that Canadians chose the Liberals in the election. Kusie tried her first question again in French, and Champagne praised their “ambitious plan” that includes the aforementioned tax cuts. Adam Chambers took over, and he too concern trolled over the Estimates, with a focus on consultants like McKinsey. Champagne insisted that they are focusing on results, and praised the tax cuts and wondered if the Conservatives would support them. Tamara Kronis gave the same performance,and this time, Joël Lightbound took a turn to praise the tax cuts that they are delivering on “day one.” We got another go-around of the same from Carol Anstey, and Lightbound chided the Conservatives about supporting the tax cuts.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and decried plans to “control the Quebec economy from Ottawa,” and wanted a commitment to respecting Quebec’s jurisdiction when the first minsters meet on Monday. Chrystia Freeland praised her meetings with her Quebec counterpart. Normandin tried again, insisting that the Quebec nation was not a barrier to trade, and Freeland agreed that they are working together with Quebec. Patrick Bonin took over, and he decried the possibility of a pipeline going through Quebec only getting a federal assessment. Julie Dabrusin praised her party’s Quebec caucus and said that they would always take Quebec’s interest to heart.

Blake Calkins heckles Freeland “Two more years and you’ll be a parl sec.” #QP

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-05-29T18:27:08.710Z

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Roundup: Budget complaints vs Estimates votes

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The talk about the lack of a spring budget is reaching histrionics in the House of Commons, while the Conservatives nevertheless agreed to the unanimous consent motion to conduct the study of the Estimates in a rushed manner within the House of Commons as committee of the whole instead of splitting departmental spending off to relevant committees, because it will take too long to establish said committees before these votes need to be taken. And the Estimates are the actual money votes—a budget is a political document, so if the Conservatives are that concerned about where the government plans to spend, well, that’s entirely in these Estimates. The information is entirely there for them.

At the same time, we’ve heard these very same Conservatives (and some of their mouthpieces in the media) decry that there is no reduced spending within these Estimates. And of course not—these are based on last year’s budget and statutory obligations, so there wouldn’t have been any time to book any particular savings in the four weeks since the election. Not to mention that if you want to do a proper programme review in order to achieve smart savings, those take time—up to two years, which would have a better chance of achieving lasting savings. The Conservatives were masters of achieving paper savings in their last couple of budgets when they were in power, as they were so eager to get to a faux balanced budget that they booked a tonne of savings that not only didn’t materialise, but in many cases wound up costing them more (Shared Services, Phoenix) because the act of cutting the spending before the enterprise transformation was complete wound up costing more money in the end. It would seem that nobody learned a single gods named lesson from that exercise.

Meanwhile, Conservatives and their proxies keep insisting that they would rather sit into July so that they can get a budget, and let me once again say that no, they actually do not. There is almost nothing pleasant about an Ottawa summer, and if any of those MPs think they want to be sweltering in Parliament with jacket-and-tie dress codes with a humidex of 39ºC, no, they actually do not. This is performative nonsense, and everyone needs to grow the hell up.

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-05-28T13:25:16.198Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Three people were injured in a Russian attack on Svitlovodsk yesterday. President Zelenskyy warned that Russia is massing 50,000 troops outside of Sumy region, which appears to be preparations for a summer offensive. Ukrainian drones hit several Russian weapons production facilities overnight. Russia is now proposing new peace talks in Istanbul (again)—but of course, this is one more deception. If they actually want peace, they can simply pack up and go home.

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Roundup: The King and the Speech from the Throne

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The King delivered the Speech from the Throne yesterday, and it went about as well as expected. His French was strong, and the introduction that he wrote himself (or that his office wrote) included language about reconciliation, Canadian identity, and the parts of the country that he takes with him. The bulk of the speech was pretty predictable Mark Carney points, but it was weird hearing the King read out how much the tax cut is expected to save families. (Here are five key messages, the focus on joining ReArm Europe, and some deeper analysis).

https://bsky.app/profile/jrobson.bsky.social/post/3lq5yh6k44k2u

The responses to the speech were, frankly, rote and predictable. Pierre Poilievre complained that it didn’t spell out implementation, which no Speech does, and then demanded a whole bunch of non sequitur legislation be repealed, because he said so. The Bloc, naturally, claimed that Carney wants to centralize power and ignore Quebec’s interests. And Don Davies of the NDP said there wasn’t anything about workers in there, and called the King “foreign.” Does every opposition party in this country have to be so gods damned lazy? Is it really so difficult to actually come up with a new answer about something (while also not making up absolute bullshit, holus-bolus?)

Every bill he lists he has lied about what it actually does. Every. Single. Bill.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-05-27T17:30:33.538Z

https://bsky.app/profile/emmettmacfarlane.com/post/3lq67lfvxic2k

Meanwhile, whether by coincidence or by design, shortly after the Kiing and Queen departed Canada, Trump declared that the price tag for Canada to join the so-called “Golden Dome” is $61 billion, but free if they become the 51st state. You know, after the new US ambassador to Canada said that the “51st state” talk was over and that we need to “move on.” Yeah, that was really going to happen.

Old enough to remember this from the new U.S. ambassador to Canada:“From my standpoint, from the president’s standpoint, 51st state’s not coming backs.”(Ten days ago.)www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/w…

— Brian Finucane (@bcfinucane.bsky.social) 2025-05-27T21:50:20.627Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-05-27T14:08:17.858Z

Ukraine Dispatch

The number of Russian drones attacking Ukraine fell to about 60 overnight Tuesday, but there were still several injuries.

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