Tag Archives: Maple Crown

Roundup: A declaration of persona non grata

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A week after the Chong revelations were made in the Globe and Mail, and two years after the briefing had been prepared by CSIS, Mélanie Joly has declared the Chinese diplomat at the centre of those revelations to be persona non grata. This declaration was made right as the Commons was voting on the Conservatives’ Supply Day motion to expel any diplomats implicated in this affair, in which all opposition parties voted for it and the government voted against, meaning that they lost (but it’s non-binding, so it’s more of an expression of opinion than anything else).

The reaction, of course, is that this is two years too late, and that the government’s insistence that this is complicated isn’t actually backed up by the Vienna Convention—though it has been said that they were likely preparing people on the ground in China for the inevitable retaliation, because China doesn’t like to do tit-for-tat, as happens with most PNG declarations, but rather they prefer to escalate. (See: the two Michaels). The Canadian Press has a brief primer on previous diplomatic expulsions from Canada.

Meanwhile, Marco Mendicino still won’t say who is either responsible or accountable for the failure to alert political actors about those Chong revelations two years ago, and is relying on vague “hostile actors” talk rather than, you know, being held to account for what is clearly a process failure within the government’s bureaucracy. That would seem to me what he should be doing as minister, because it’s been made clear that this wasn’t a CSIS problem—it was a problem further up the chain, and whether that’s because we have a poor culture of consuming intelligence at the senior levels, or because this government can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, that kind of thing needs to be addressed.

Ukraine Dispatch:

For Russia’s Victory Day, they launched one of the biggest swarms of drones against Ukraine in months, targeting mostly Kyiv and Odessa, though air defences are largely repelling the attacks on Kyiv. Russian shelling also hit two villages in the Kherson region, wounding eight people, as well as damaged the electrical grids in five Ukrainian regions. In Bakhmut, the head of the Wagner Group mercenaries says they still haven’t received promised ammunition from Russia. Elsewhere, farmers in Ukraine are having a harder time because many workers are off fighting, which is hurting their operations.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1655510660367757313

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Roundup: The Canadian coronation event

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As rain poured on the Coronation in London, where the prime minister and Governor General were in attendance, it was sunny and pleasant at the much, much smaller ceremony in Ottawa. The key feature of that event was four unveilings—new commemorative coins featuring the King’s cypher, the first stamp from Canada Post with King Charles III’s effigy, a new royal standard which was basically a more generic version of the old one, but which won’t be personalised for each monarch, and a new heraldic Canadian Crown, which will replace the current St. Edward’s Crown on things like coats of arms and military badges. We also finally got the news that the King will eventually replace his mother on coins and $20 banknotes, but the latter is likely years away.

https://twitter.com/TheCrownCa/status/1654883768522493954

https://twitter.com/TheCrownCa/status/1654912019798040579

https://twitter.com/Canadian_Crown/status/1654926551576608771

I did want to give a special shout out to Mary May Simon’s coronation dress, which was made by an Indigenous designer, and which featured her coat of arms embroidered along the front, which was amazing. (Thread below)

https://twitter.com/GGCanada/status/1654874274715279360

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian Forces have launched another massive wave of missiles against Ukraine, hitting Kyiv and Odessa, while they have intensified shelling in Bakhmut in the hopes of overtaking it ahead of Tuesday, which is Victory Day in Russia. To that end, Wagner Group mercenaries are now saying they won’t pull out of Bakhmut as they had threatened earlier (but that threat may well have been empty). Ukrainian forces have shot down a Russian hypersonic missile using an American Patriot defence system, proving the technology in the field. Russian occupiers in Zaporizhzhia have been “evacuating” civilians away from the expected front-lines of the counter-offensive. And a prisoner exchange was held over the weekend that included 45 soldiers from the Azov battalion captured at Mariupol.

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1654725483211239424

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1655150652522217473

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Roundup: It’s Coronation Day

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It’s Coronation Day, and Justin Trudeau will have arrived in the wee hours, having taken a red-eye across the Atlantic to get there. Trudeau was absent from the meeting with other Commonwealth leaders, where he could have been doing something productive like organising to help advance LGBTQ+ rights within those countries (as I suggested in my Xtra column). Nevertheless, it was bad form for him not to be there, especially as he could have moved his party convention to another weekend once the coronation date was announced.

Most of the official delegation gathered for a photo, sans-Trudeau. Not in the delegation but part of the day’s festivities is Canadian Marion Portelance, who will be playing cello at the post-Coronation concert, and it’s believed the cello she’s using was once owned and played by the King.

And because it’s her big day as a royal correspondent, our friend Patricia Treble has stories out on pretty much every platform:

  • For the Globe and Mail, a visual guide of the event and the regalia used in it.
  • For The Line, she delves into the Kremlinology of who is and is not showing up for the big event.
  • For the Star, some coronation history and some of the fascinating events that have happened during them.
  • In The Walrus, traces the indifference Canadians feel for the King to the apathy to the Crown exhibited by governments.
  • On her Substack, showcases some of the coronation scenes in London.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The leader of Russia’s mercenary Wagner Group says they’re pulling out of Bakhmut in days because they lack ammunition, and are dying in vain. (Ukraine believes they are simply reinforcing their positions). There is still shelling happening in the Kherson region, while the Russian-installed “governor” of the Zaporizhzhia region is ordering an evacuation of villages close to the front line. Meanwhile, new analysis is showing that the drone that struck the Kremlin likely launched from within Russia.

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Roundup: Grading the official Star Wars Day posts

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Yesterday was May the 4th, also known as “Star Wars Day,” and this year’s Canadian politics offerings were largely unimpressive, most had little to no effort, which is supremely disappointing. Congrats to Library and Archives Canada who made the most effort.

From the political leaders:

For someone who loves memes and trying to win Twitter, Poilievre didn’t even participate.

A sampling of government departments and organizations:

And the rest:

Internationally, we got a couple more:

That last one, the “Stand with Ukraine,” was the best, and caught the spirit perfectly. We are living in a moment where there is a resistance to tyranny taking place, so why not lean into that message?

Ukraine Dispatch:

Another day, another early morning drone attack, this time targeting Kyiv and Odessa. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an “unscheduled” trip to the Hague to call for Putin to face a special tribunal once Ukraine wins the war. The first opportunity to arrest Putin may come in South Africa this summer, and there are those who are “confident” that South Africa will do the right thing. Zelenskyy also got assurances from the Dutch prime minister that talks are progressing on acquiring F-16s for Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1654199754358771722

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1654192129260900368

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QP: Not one but two MPs being censured

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Both the prime minister and his deputy were away—Trudeau hobnobbing at the opening of the Liberal convention—while most of the other leaders were absent as well, and boy did the day start off in a raucous manner.

Michael Chong led off, and demanded the record be corrected that he had not been briefed about threats to him and his family two years ago, as two Liberal MPs had asserted in debate earlier in the day. Mendicino didn’t really correct the record, but praised the CSIS annual report being released. After an outburst from Chris Warkentin and an intervention from the Speaker, Chong said that he was informed from the National Security Advisor that the report about that Chinese diplomat who was involved in the threats against him did circulate to her two years ago in contradiction to what the prime minister said, and Mendicino thanked him for the update, but reiterated that they only found out on Monday, and took action then. Chong demanded to know why the government wasn’t following CSIS’ advice around the Chinese diplomat, and Mendicino recited that the ambassador had been summoned. Luc Berthold took over in French accused the government of spreading disinformation about their members, and Mendicino recited the lines about briefings being offered. Berthold called this disinformation, and repeated Chong’s update about the diplomat, and this time Mélanie Joly said that she empathises, and that they have summoned the Chinese ambassador.

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and quoted Richard Fadden’s belief that ministers did get the briefing about Chong, and Mendicino insisted that they only learned about it on Monday. Normandin accused the government of blaming CSIS for their failures, and raised the alleged warning ahead of the 2019 election about Han Dong. Mendicino called on all MPs to stand in solidarity against foreign interference. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, raised the fact that the prime minster has been Liberal leader for ten years, and blamed him for the housing crisis. Soraya Martinez Ferrada recited taking points about the their plans to help increase supply. Singh repeated the accusation in French, and got much the same reply.

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Roundup: Coronation details at last

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At long last, the federal government finally announced the delegation that is heading to the coronation in London, and much of it is unsurprising given that, for example, Indigenous leaders are already there along with Mary May Simon. News is that astronaut Jeremy Hanson will be Canada’s flag-bearer at the ceremony, and that there will be coronation medals created, which they didn’t do for the sesquicentennial or the Platinum Jubilee.

Meanwhile, the Globe and Mail has another particularly problematic story headline, wherein they cite the Governor General saying that King Charles “has work to do to cultivate ties with Canada.” The problem is that the story doesn’t actually say that—in the story, Mary May Simon says that because Charles isn’t as beloved as his mother, he “needs to develop his relationship further with Canada.” Which is true, but therein lies a couple of challenges. For one, he has plenty of ties to Canada that the headline incorrectly cites, and through his charity work over decades, he’s had exposure to a wide swath of the country that will be less accessible to him now that he’s King. In fact, not that he’s the King and not just a working member of the royal family, future trips to Canada will be much more circumscribed by what the government allows, because these kinds of visits are all at the behest and stage-managed by the government of the day. Charles has wanted to do more trips to Canada, trying to do one every two years, but the current government has been less interested in that, so he hasn’t been here as much as he would have liked. And that reluctance is going to play out in the future.

In other coronation-related stories:

  • Following midnight rehearsals, RCMP participating in the coronation say they’re good to go on the big day.
  • Here’s some of the history of the items being used during the ceremony.
  • There’s still no word about what our government is planning to do about the King on banknotes and coins, while other Realms go in different directions.
  • Australian constitutional scholar Anne Twomey offers some history and context on the coronation as it applies to realms like Australia and Canada.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces shelled Kherson, killing twenty-one civilians, and injuring over forty-eight. Russians claim they “foiled” an “assassination attempt” on Putin with an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin, which Ukraine denies launching. Experts also conclude that the Russian claim doesn’t make any sense.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1653824270626070540?s=61&t=4Hh5vgfw5YMHmDbMU3ctNg

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1653709872771260419?s=61&t=4Hh5vgfw5YMHmDbMU3ctNg

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QP: Belligerent framing around incompetence or dishonesty

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While both the prime minister and his deputy were in town, neither were present for QP today—very unusually for a Wednesday, where Trudeau normally is present and takes all questions if he’s in town. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and said that two years ago, CSIS prepared the briefing about threats to Michael Chong, but the prime minister said he wasn’t made aware, though a former head of CSIS said that it should have been, and wondered how the prime minister couldn’t have known. Marco Mendicino said that Poilievre knows full well that the government takes threats to MPs seriously, and that they offered a briefing when they were made aware. Poilievre said that it was impossible to believe that the PM wouldn’t have received this kind of information, and said that he either didn’t know and is incompetent, or he did and is dishonest. Mendicino insisted that the government has been taking the protection of MPs seriously. Poilievre switched to English and tried calling Mendicino incompetent—and got a warning from the Speaker—and railed that Trudeau didn’t answer when Trudeau wasn’t there (but that’s the point—to get a clip for a future shitpost). Mendicino responded that partisan rhetoric doesn’t help Chong. Poilievre repeated his insistence that Trudeau must be either incompetent in not knowing about the allegations or dishonest in saying he didn’t, to which Mendicino repeated that Chong was briefed, and that they have issued fresh instructions to CSIS about this matter. Poilievre then railed that the diplomat named by the Globe and Mail story had not yet been expelled, and Mendicino accused Poilievre of making up laws around diplomatic immunity while the government has provided new powers to intelligence agencies to disrupt interference, before patting himself on the back for the creation of NSICOP and NSIRA.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and accused the prime minister of maligning CSIS, and trie to ask whether more people knew of these allegations including Morris Rosenberg and David Johnston. Mendicino recited the pabulum about how anointing Johnston was necessary for fighting foreign interference. Blanchet went on a wandering path about the prime minister’s brother and it somehow disqualifying him from appointing a public inquiry. Mark Holland insisted that the Foundation is independent and gives scholarships, and any questions should be directed to them.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, asked when he knew about the threats against Chong. Mendicino recited that they rely on independent civil servants and have taken measures. Singh switched to English and insisted that wasn’t really his question, and said that he wrote a letter to the prime minister about calling party leaders together in order to discuss the challenge. Mendicino said that the threat landscape has changed and they are taking steps to deal with it.

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QP: Threats against an MP’s family taken seriously

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Both the prime minister and his deputy were present today, somewhat unusually for a Monday, but we’ll take it, and as a result, most of the other leaders were absent. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he raised the Globe and Mail story that there was apparently a briefing prepared two years ago that started that Chinese officials were prepared to threaten Conservative MP Michael Chong’s family back in Hong Kong, and that they consider Canada an easy target for interference, though the story state that it wasn’t clear if the prime minister actually saw this briefing. With this in mind, he railed at the prime minister for allowing this to happen (though again, we don’t know if he saw this) and demanded to know why the implicated diplomat at the consulate in Calgary hasn’t been expelled. Justin Trudeau responded that these threats are unacceptable, and that when he read this story, he tasked officials to find out more about it, and that they would take action. Poilievre repeated in English with a bit more incredulity, and got much the same answer. Poilievre insisted that this couldn’t be the case because it happened two years ago, and demanded that the diplomat named in the piece be expelled immediately. Trudeau repeated again that they are following up and will take action. Poilievre went back again to the fact that this was two years ago, and then demanded to know the date when the foreign interference registry would be created. Trudeau said that they are consulting on the registry to do it the right way, after listing the measures they have taken. Poilievre called this “administrative mumbo-jumbo,” and then said that two of the so-called Chinese “police stations” are still allegedly in operation, and Trudeau noted that the RCMP are dealing with this.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he railed about Morris Rosenberg’s alleged involvement in the Chinese donation to the Trudeau Foundation, to which Trudeau recited that he hasn’t been involved with the Foundation for ten years and the government has taken measures to deal with interference. Therrien tried to spin a conspiracy theory even harder, and Trudeau told him to wait for David Johnston’s recommendation. 

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, he returned to that Globe story said that China considers Canada uniquely vulnerable to interference, and demanded a public inquiry. Trudeau repeated that they are taking this seriously and have measures that are in place. Heather McPherson repeated the demand in English, and Trudeau replied that there is a variety of opinions on the value of a public inquiry which is why David Johnston has been tasked with the job.

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Roundup: The scope of the transition

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As Alberta heads into an election, one can be certain that Danielle Smith is going to wield the threat of the supposed “just transition” as a cudgel to attack Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley. Nevertheless, there are issues around the future of work in the province as the oil and gas extraction industry changes—a process that began years ago, and is currently far more automated than it used to be.

As Andrew Leach points out, the scale of the issue is something that the province will need to grapple with.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The death toll from the overnight strike in Uman has risen to 23, with another two deaths from a separate strike in Dnipro. Ukrainian leadership say that they are “to a high percentage ready” to launch their spring counter-offensive, and that modern weapons will serve as an “iron first.” Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy hosted the presidents of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, while seven foreign ministers met with Ukraine’s foreign minister in Odessa, all of whom were expressing support for Ukraine as Ukraine pushes for more modern aircraft.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1651966751268278272

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Roundup: The campaign leaders testify

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Yesterday was the big day when top campaign officials from the Liberals and Conservatives appeared at the Procedure and House Affairs committee to talk about foreign interference allegations in the previous two elections, and we learned a couple of things. One of which is that Fred DeLorey, the Conservative campaign director, is eminently reasonable and acknowledges they don’t know if there was any actual interference in those ridings they lost, or if it was the result of other factors, like their hard-line rhetoric on China, or gun-control measures (as the Liberal campaign insists). Another thing we learned is that the reporting on the CSIS “warnings” about MP Han Dong were not described accurately, and that they didn’t insist the party drop him as a candidate—which never did make sense if you listened to the actual intelligence experts who said at the time that that didn’t sound right.

There was also talk about how it takes an incredibly high threshold for a party to be able to drop a candidate, so if intelligence agencies had concerns, they would need to come up with something pretty tangible for the parties to exercise that kind of power (and don’t forget that their spending caps are determined by how many candidates they’re running, so if they need to drop one after the cut-off point to replace a name on the ballot, that creates even more headaches). There was also talk about how there needs to be more ongoing dialogue between national security agencies and parties, particularly between election cycles, because these agencies didn’t seem to understand how parties operated, which makes it hard for them to be making determinations about how any interference might be happening (and again, considering that the reported leaks had a bunch of details that didn’t make any sense, this could be the reason why).

Suffice to say, these were the people who should have been testifying the whole time rather than the dog and pony show we had with Katie Telford, which was just a waste of time and resources.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck a museum in Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region, killing one civilian and wounding ten others. As well, a woman died from shelling in nearby Dvorichna, and two others in the eastern Donetsk region. Elsewhere, Ukrainian forces staged raids on the east side of the Dnipro river in order to degrade Russian capacity, particularly in their shelling of Kherson, in a sign that the counter-offensive is near. Ukraine is planning on a “complete transformation” of six war-torn cities that were badly damaged in the invasion, to be rebuilt under an experimental programme according to “new principles.”

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1650769182286331905

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