Tag Archives: Sudan

Roundup: At least one Speaker is laying down the law

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I will admit that it’s rare that I follow anything happening in the Saskatchewan legislature, but yesterday there were some video clips circulating of the Speaker slapping down two government ministers who had been text messaging him, accusing him of not doing enough to keep the opposition in their place, essentially. The Speaker was not having it. He read out one of those text messages into the record and demanded an apology, which he got from the finance minister.

The House leader, however? Refused to apologise for his texts and his comments about them, and stormed out of the Chamber, at which point the Speaker named him and ensured he was kicked out for the rest of the day.

I’m not sure if I’m watching in envy, because our own Speaker in Ottawa is timid and doing the bare minimum of decorum, or if it’s just great to see a Speaker acting decisively and taking absolutely no bullshit from members regardless. Nevertheless, it’s good to see a Speaker take the job seriously, and not let the government of the day try and get away with atrocious behaviour.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian aerial bomb struck an educational facility in Kharkiv on Monday, killing two and injuring four. Ukraine’s foreign minister has pointed to the success of Israel’s “Iron Dome” when it comes to defending against the Iranian attack, saying his country needs the same, but there are particular differences, one of which is that Russia is much closer which makes the defences less effective. Because of the attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid, they had to double electricity imports on Monday, without any capacity to export.

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Roundup: A housing plan to challenge the provinces and municipalities

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In one of the last pre-budget announcements, the federal government delivered their overall housing plan for 2024, which was a mixture of previously made announcements over the past couple of weeks, with a few more added in—such as plans to lease and not sell public land—to offer a more complete picture of the things that they are doing as a federal government to “unlock” the construction of hundreds of thousands of homes. And I am going to make the point that the term “unlocked” is interesting and deliberate, while most media outlets keep using the term “build” incorrectly, because they’re not saying they’re going to build x-number of units, because they have no way to actually guarantee that because they have very few levers at their disposal to actually build. The other part of “unlock” is that it very much puts the onus on the other levels of government, who do have those levers, to do the work now that the federal government has cleared the way for them.

A lot of this has shown that they have been listening to expert like Mike Moffatt, and while you can read his full thread, I did think it was nice that they put out a chart as to whose responsible for what, because there are a lot of people who are ignorant about these kinds of jurisdictional questions (or pretend to be in any case), so it’s handy that they actually spell it out.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1778804892183748617

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1778808362668306508

And a couple more thoughts from Jennifer Robson in this thread:

Ukraine Dispatch:

Shortages of air defences is leaving Kharkiv in particular more vulnerable to Russian attack. A drone attack hit an energy facility in Dnipropetrovsk in the south. Reuters has another photo series of the front lines.

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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: 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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Roundup: You can’t replace committee travel with Zoom

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Another day, another story where I roll my eyes and sigh because nobody can seem to grasp some pretty fundamental points. To wit: Scandal and pearl-clutching because the Senate’s audit committee is planning a trip to Westminster to consult with their counterparts there. Someone fetch a fainting couch for all of the zeros attached to the costs of the trip! And of course, we couldn’t have cheap outrage without getting a quote from the so-called Canadian Taxpayers Federation, whose continued existence depends on being the go-to source for media when they need a cheap outrage quote.

Some context to this story—the Senate’s audit committee has been a long and hard-fought battle to come into existence because the previous Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, was trying to steer the nascent committee in a direction that would see it be completely staffed by outsiders, which is a particular affront to Parliamentary privilege and the status of the Senate as a self-governing body in and of itself. Eventually the current composition—a mix of senators and outsider, with senators in the majority—was adopted, years after it should have been, and very much in the model that the House of Lords employs. (Note that this model had first been championed by the late Senator Elaine McCoy, and we could have saved years of fighting had people just listened to her). And because this has to do with a parliamentary body, you can’t just get advice from any audit firm in Canada, as the CTF seems to think—you need best practices from those who have dealt with the particular issues that a parliamentary body has. Of course, none of this context is in the story, because nobody pays attention to the Senate unless it’s for a cheap outrage story like this one. Of course.

Meanwhile, the most galling part of the piece is the suggestion that all of this should be done over Zoom, both out of a concern for cost and carbon emissions. And honestly, this type of suggestion needs to have a stake driven through it. This kind of work relies on human interaction, and relationship-building, and that doesn’t happen and cannot happen over Zoom. This is one of the biggest problems with hybrid sittings (which, mercifully, the Senate has ended), but which MPs refuse to believe, and apparently a few senators do too—parliament is a face-to-face institution. It cannot effectively operate remotely. The pandemic was a short-term (ish) problem that required a solution, and while this was not the best one, it was a solution that nevertheless has emboldened people to think that Parliament is a job you can do from home. It’s absolutely not, and this kind of committee travel is no exception. You cannot replace the kinds of interactions that make this travel essential over Zoom, and we need to stop thinking of Zoom as the solution to problems that aren’t actually problems.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched another overnight round of attacks on Kyiv, this time with drones, but all were shot down. The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces says it’s important that they maintain their hold on Bakhmut in advance of the counter-offensive (not the least of which because it’s degrading Russia’s forces significantly). The EU is hoping to increase production of ammunition in order to help Ukraine’s efforts. And here is one Ukrainian farmer’s novel way of de-mining his fields using parts from old Russian tanks.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1653390767329558530

https://twitter.com/war_mapper/status/1653169425749508100

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