Tag Archives: NATO

Roundup: Not the first real test

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We’re around day forty of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces have retaken more territory, but that has come with some awful discoveries. In Bucha, outside of Kyiv, they have found mass graves and the bodies of civilians who were simply executed by Russian soldiers. At least 410 bodies have been found, traumatising witnesses, as they must now work with investigators who will put together the case for war crimes tribunals. In the meantime, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian obsession with capturing Mariupol has given them needed time in other parts of the country, where forces have had time to build up defences, and now reclaim areas where Russians have been though. Nevertheless, the human toll is staggering, and the atrocities are only now being uncovered, which may further spur more aid from Western countries given how graphic the scale of these atrocities are.

Closer to home, it’s budget week, so expect a veritable slough of thinkpieces about how this week is the “first big test” of the NDP-Liberal supply and confidence agreement, and its sub-variations of environmental policy, or defence spending. But that’s actually a little absurd, because this budget was always going to pass (it’s been too close to an election, and nobody is in shape to let the government fall), and frankly, the budget was already baked in and probably on its way to the printers when the confidence agreement was signed, so it’s not like Chrystia Freeland was going back to the drawing board to redraft the whole thing in light of the agreement. That was never a serious question (and frankly, most of the agreement is just about doing things the Liberals had already promised anyway).

The real test will be next year’s budget, when everyone has had a year to simmer, the Conservatives will have a new leader, and the NDP will have received the pushback from their own base. We’ll be out of the too-close-to-the-last-election safe zone, and the NDP will have a decision to make whether they think this still serves their purposes (because this agreement is only good as long as the either the NDP or the Liberals think they can still get something out of it). This budget was always a gimme—it’s the next one that things will start to get interesting.

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Roundup: No more human resources to spare

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I believe we are now in day thirty-seven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces are believed to be leaving the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after their soldiers soaked up “significant doses” of radiation while digging trenches in the area. (You think?) There were also plans for another humanitarian corridor to evacuate people from Mariupol, but it doesn’t appear to have been honoured.

Meanwhile, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that he had sacked two high-ranking members of the security services, citing that they were traitors. As for the Russians, the head of CGHQ in the UK says that they have intelligence showing that some Russian soldiers in Ukraine have refused to carry out orders, sabotaged their equipment, and in one case, accidentally shot down one of their own aircraft. There are also reports that Russian troops have resorted to eating abandoned pet dogs because they have run out of rations in Ukraine, which is pretty awful all around.

Closer to home, the Senate was debating their orders to extend hybrid sittings yesterday, as the sixth wave has been picking up steam, and one point of contention are the resources available to senators to hold sittings and committee meetings. In particular, they have a Memorandum of Understanding with the House of Commons about sharing common resources, and that MOU gives the Commons priority when it comes to resources available. This has hobbled the Senate, but even if they did try to come up with some way to add resources, the biggest and most constrained resource of them all is the finite number of simultaneous interpreters available, and we are already in a problem where as a nation, we’re not graduating enough of them to replace the attrition of those retiring, or choosing not to renew their contracts because of the worries that those same hybrid sittings are giving them permanent hearing loss because of the problems associated with the platform and the inconsistent audio equipment used by the Commons. These hybrid sittings exacerbated an already brewing problem of not enough new interpreters coming into the field, and Parliament is going to have a very big problem if they can’t find a way to incentivise more people to go into the field. We rely on simultaneous interpretation to make the place function, and if the number of interpreters falls precipitously low—because MPs and senators insisted on carrying on hybrid sittings in spite of their human cost—then we’re going to be in very big trouble indeed.

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Roundup: Displacing and dispersing Ukrainians into Russia?

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We are now on day thirty of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and while Kyiv remains safe, there are reports that as many as 400,000 Ukrainians have been forcibly relocated into Russia, where they are being dispersed to economically depressed regions in that country. The Russians are claiming that these relocations are voluntary, but Ukrainian officials worry they may be used as hostages. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the NATO summit happening in Brussels and asked for aircraft and tanks, but was mostly only promised more of the same kinds of aid that they have been receiving to date.

Closer to home, there are now two more prospective entrants into the Conservative leadership race—former floor-crosser-turned-deputy leader Leona Alleslev, who has launched a website and who has volunteers getting the necessary signatures required to launch a bid; as well, a failed candidate named Joel Etienne from York Centre, who has also put up a website and is collecting signatures. One of the other leadership candidates, Marc Dalton, seems to have enough self-awareness that he knows he’s a long-shot candidate, but seems to be pinning his hopes on the vagaries of preferential ballots as his salvation. Oh, and he still hasn’t lined up his entrance fee yet, so that’s probably a sign about his chances.

As these entrants keep lining up, Candice Bergen is warning them not to call those in the race that they disagree with as “not Conservative” because that’s “identity politics,” and they don’t want to wedge, divide and polarize, because that’s what they accuse the Liberals of doing—which is kind of hilarious when you think about it. They’ve explicitly framed this contest as one for the “soul of the party,” and the contest is going to entirely be about whether they find a leader who can appeal to enough of the moderate Canadians in the suburbs who can deliver them an election victory, or whether they retrench into their “values” and electoral consequences be damned because they’re acting like Conservatives and not Liberals. And when you set up the contest as one about what constitutes those “values,” with a purity test or two thrown up around them, who is and is not a Conservative is going to be a bigger sticking point in this race the longer it goes on.

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Roundup: Wondering who the real winner of the confidence agreement is

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We are now on day twenty-eight, four weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it looks like Russia’s attempts at occupying Mariupol continue to be thwarted, though the city is being reduced to rubble. As well, Ukrainian forces retook a strategic suburb of Kyiv, so that is as good of news as can be hoped for in the situation. Remember how Russia thought it was a matter of marching?

Back in Canada, the supply and confidence agreement between the Liberals and NDP was made official, and boy were there a bunch of reactions. Some of them were expected, like the Conservatives abusing the term “coalition” (it’s not a coalition) and claiming it’s a “power grab” rather than a legitimate exercise of cooperation in a hung parliament as happens not infrequently in Westminster systems. Oh, and she said that this ultimately benefits Putin. No, really—she said that. Even more problematic were certain CBC reporters pushing this bizarre notion that Canadians “elected a minority government” and that this agreement somehow violates it, which no, is not how things work. We don’t elect governments, and there is not majority/minority option on the ballot, and it’s been just as much a recurring narrative in the past two parliaments that a hung parliament means that “Canadians want us to work together” (which is just as silly a notion, frankly), but honestly, I expect better from the CBC than to push this kind of nonsense, and it’s embarrassing for them as the national broadcaster to be pushing this nonsense.

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In the meantime, there is a bunch of pearl-clutching that this agreement somehow means that we won’t be increasing defence-spending, even though the NDP has no veto on budgets, and the fact that we can’t even spend the current allocation so it’s way too soon to worry about this. The early indications of the outlined dental care plan could help millions—but it’s light on details and the actual mechanism that will be used given that this is an area of provincial jurisdiction (but some good perspective threads from economist Kevin Milligan here and here). The consensus seems to be that the Liberal are the real winners here and not the NDP, but others argue that the Conservatives could be the real winners because it will give the next leader time to rebuild the party and establish themselves given that the next election will be more than three years away (maybe). And then there is the question about whether this agreement gives Trudeau the runway to accomplish a few more things before turning it over to his successor, though he says otherwise when asked (which of course he will, because saying he won’t run again makes him lame duck instantly). It does make for a different dynamic for the next couple of years in any case, so we’ll see how it shapes up.

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QP: In the din of clinking glasses, talk of a political marriage

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It was to be the only day that the prime minister was going to be present this week, given that he’ll be off on a red-eye flight to Europe tonight for NATO and G7 meetings over the rest of the week, and all of the other leaders were present as well. With Speaker Rota recovering from scheduled heart surgery, his deputy, Chris d’Entremont, was again in the big chair. Candice Bergen led off, script in front of her, and she railed about the “secret backroom deal” between the so-called new NDP-Liberal government, to which Trudeau calmly noted this was about stability in order to deliver the things that Canadians asked for in the election, instead of the toxicity we had seen. Bergen falsely stated that inflation was because of government spending, and that the “new NDP-Liberal government” would spend even more. Trudeau returns to the line about working across party lines to avoiding the toxic atmosphere that has developed. Bergen worried that natural resource and fisheries jobs were in danger because of this deal, for which Trudeau worried about how toxic partisanship slowed down delivery of help for Canadians, while this job would get good jobs for Canadians while respecting Parliament. Bergen insisted that the deal disrespected Parliament and voters—which is blatantly absurd—before railing about gas prices and demanding taxes on it be cut. Trudeau cautioned her about spreading misinformation and that they had plenty of room for debate and disagreement under the agreement like Parliament works. Luc Berthold took over in French and acted confused about who was in charge and trolled that Jagmeet Singh should be named deputy prime minister, and Trudeau repeated that this deal would allow the House to operate more constructively.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and worried that the basis of the agreement, with pharmacare and dental care, would trample over provincial jurisdiction, to which Trudeau insisted that they believe in working collaboratively with provinces, but they would ensure all Canadians get high-quality healthcare. Blanchet worried that the NDP were hostile toward Quebec’s Law 21, to which Trudeau gave a paean about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he demanded support for their Supply Day motion on higher wealth taxes, to which Trudeau reminded him of their previous actions, and the investments they are making, but did not signal support. Singh repeated the question in French and got the same answer. 

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Roundup: A confidence agreement in the works?

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We are now on day twenty-seven of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Ukraine has refused to surrender the strategic port city of Mariupol to the Russians. As well, Russian shelling destroyed a shopping centre in Kyiv killing eight, which is escalating the attacks facing the capital. Also of note was a possible leak of Russian casualty figures, citing 9,861 killed and 16,153 injured over the course of the invasion, which contradicts Russian propaganda figures to date, and which could turn up the pressure on Putin by the Russian people.

Back in Canada, news started spreading over the evening that the Liberals and NPD had reached a tentative agreement to a supply-and-confidence agreement that would see the NDP agree to support the next four Liberal budgets so that they can stay in power until 2025 in relative stability, and in return, the Liberals will make “real progress” on national pharmacare and dental care. I’m a little confused why those would be the conditions, given that they’re wholly dependent upon the provincial governments signing on, and while the current federal government put a framework in place for national pharmacare, thus far only PEI has signed on (and I haven’t seen the NDP publicly haranguing John Horgan to sign on either). And while people ask why they can’t do what they did with early learning and child care, part of that answer is that the reason why provincial governments are gun-shy about these programmes is they are concerned that if they set them up, a future federal government will cut funding and leave them holding the bag for very expensive programmes. While Quebec has shown that child care will pay for itself once more women are in the workforce and paying taxes, I’m not sure the calculation is quite the same for the other two, or will at least take much longer for the fiscal benefits to work their way through the system. So could the government come to the table with a lot more money—maybe. But that doesn’t eliminate the trepidation that once 2025 hits that their fears won’t come true. There are also reports that the deal could include more for housing, reconciliation, and some form of wealth taxes, so we’ll see what gets announced this morning.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are touting this as evidence of a “coalition” and that it’s “backdoor socialism,” which doesn’t make sense. It’s not a coalition because there are no Cabinet seats for the NDP, and these kinds of confidence agreements are easily broken (see: British Columbia and the deal with the Greens, which Horgan’s NDP tore up when the polls looked good enough to get a majority, which he did). It’s not socialism because they’re not going around nationalising the means of production. They’re still going to wail and gnash their teeth, and pretend that this is somehow illegitimate when it’s one hundred percent within how hung parliaments work under our system, but I’m not going to say it will last the full four years. It will however alter the narrative of the Conservatives’ leadership contest, and could be read either as Trudeau giving himself enough runway to make a few more accomplishments before turning it over to a successor, or for him to try and build the case for re-election. Either way, it’s fairly unprecedented at the federal level in this country, and could make for interesting days ahead.

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Roundup: Three new entrants for the Conservatives

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I believe we are now on day twenty-six of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia’s list of alleged war crimes continues to add up as the shelling of Mariupol continues, and it sounds like there is no immediate military solution to the crisis in that part of the country. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is calling on members including Canada to increase spending, which we’re doing, but it’s not going to happen overnight. Indeed, as my weekend column points out, we literally can’t spend any more right now until we fix the structural problems inhibiting it. And sure, Greece is spending 3.2 percent of its GDP on the military, but how much are the contributing to NATO operations right now? Very, very little. Closer to home, HMCS Halifax departed for a six-month tour in the North Atlantic as part of NATO operations in the Baltic region.

Back in Canada, the Conservative leadership race got three new entrants—Scott Aitchison, Marc Dalton, and Joseph Bourgault. Aitchison, whose video announcing his intention to run was indistinguishable from a truck commercial, is giving the tired line that “Ottawa isn’t working” but has the self-awareness to know that his party has played a part in the divisive nature of the rhetoric. Oh, and he opposes carbon prices but doesn’t think that should be a “purity test” for the party. Dalton wants to launch a national inquiry into the pandemic response, including the supposed contracts to benefit “Liberal friends” (which has been repeatedly disproven) and on the so-called Charter breaches and apparent cover-up of vaccine injuries and deaths. *sigh* And Bourgault is a nobody businessman from rural Saskatchewan who is part of an organisation claiming the government and “globalists” are using the pandemic to “justify the great reset.” This is what the party has to offer?

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Roundup: A middle power and a convenor

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We are on day twenty-two of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the shelling and air strikes against civilian targets continue—an apartment building in Kyiv, a theatre where children were sheltering in Mariupol. Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the US Congress yesterday, invoking Pearl Harbour and 9/11 as part of his demand to close the sky” (which isn’t going to happen), and added that if America can’t do that, then to at least give Ukraine the planes so they can do it themselves. That was obviously a demand he couldn’t make of Canada (no, seriously—third-hand CF-18s would not be of much use to them), so we’ll see if that gets him any further aid from the US—hours after his address, Joe Biden signed an order authorising another $800 million worth of lethal aid, including anti-aircraft systems, so that presentation may have done its job.

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Meanwhile, closer to home, Mélanie Joly’s comments that Canada isn’t a military power, but a middle power whose strength is convening to make sure diplomacy happens and convincing other countries to do more is rubbing a bunch of former military leaders the wrong way. We do contribute militarily, oftentimes more so than other allies who meet the stated NATO spending targets (which is one more reason why those targets are not a great measurement of anything), though our ability to do more is being constrained. That’s one reason why I’m getting mighty tired of the number of articles and op-eds over the last few days calling for more spending, while none of them address the current capacity constraints, particularly around recruiting.

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Roundup: Three weeks into the invasion

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We’re now in day twenty-one of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine—three weeks, when Russia considered it a mere matter of marching. Talks appear to be making some slight progress, and in a curious statement, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated publicly that Ukraine would not be seeking NATO membership (but worth noting that NATO does not accept prospective members who are engaged in an active territorial dispute, which Ukraine has been with Russia, not only with the annexation of Crimea, but with the “breakaway” regions in its east). While Mariupol continues to be shelled, some 20,000 citizens were able to flee, which is progress. Zelenskyy will address the US Congress later today.

And there was Zelenskyy’s address to the Canadian Parliament, where he and Justin Trudeau addressed each other on a first-name basis, Zelenskyy referring to “dear Justin” on several occasions. While he continued his appeals to “close the skies,” he knows it’s not going to happen, but he has to ask—it’s his job to do so. And at the very least, it could spur other actions that have not yet been attempted that won’t consist of essentially declaring war on Russia, which is important. In response to the speech, the Putin regime put Trudeau and some 300 other Canadians, including MPs and Cabinet ministers, on the blacklist from being allowed into Russia, for what that matters. (For what it’s worth, Chrystia Freeland was blacklisted years ago).

Meanwhile, as all of this was happening, Governor General Mary May Simon got to have tea with the Queen at Windsor Castle, as well as meet Charles and Camilla at Clarence House. Unfortunately, it looks like the era of future Governors General spending the weekend with the Queen and family at Balmoral in advance of appointment seems to be at an end, but glad that this meeting was able to take place at long last.

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Roundup: Asking the parochial questions

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On day fifteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, they bombed a children’s hospital in Mariupol, at a time that it was supposed to be under a ceasefire. And it’s not surprising that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is still insisting on “closing the skies,” but that wouldn’t stop the shelling from artillery and missile batteries on the ground, and yes, it would draw the rest of NATO into a shooting war with a nuclear power. So while he’s justified in asking for the assistance, it would not actually improve the situation and would most likely wind up making things a whole lot worse. To make matters worse, a power outage at Chernobyl means that it could start leaking radiation unless power lines are repaired, which requires a cease-fire in the area, so that’s alarming. And all of the chaos is making it hard for aid efforts, including those by Canadian non-profits to reach those in the country who need it.

Justin Trudeau, Chrystia Freeland, Mélanie Joly and Anita Anand were in Berlin yesterday for more meetings on the situation in Ukraine, and Trudeau vowed that Putin would face justice for his war crimes under the International Criminal Court. He also announced another $50 million worth of military aid being sent to Ukraine, and that he had invited Zelenskyy to address Canada’s Parliament, much as he did the UK’s earlier this week. On a related note, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg addressed the Ottawa Defence Conference yesterday and said that while Canada is playing a “leading role” in NATO’s response to the invasion, he is still calling for more military spending (which may not do any good given that our military doesn’t currently have the capacity or personnel to spend its current allotment).

And then, during a media availability with Freeland and Joly, a CBC reporter demanded to know why they were in Europe for “photo ops” rather than doing important work back home. And I can’t even—especially when he went on about the “taxpayer’s dime” when he tweeted about the exchange, trying to make himself sound put out by being smacked down about it. Aside from the “people are saying” framing, which is both ridiculous and telling, I’m not sure what pressing matters they should be attending to back home. The Commons is on March break this week and next. It’s just such parochial bullshit and the kind of cheap outrage/hairshirt parsimony that the CBC loves to engage in, and we wind up with poorer journalism as a result.

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