Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Roundup: Misreading Friday’s decision

Posted on by

In light of Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision on the Impact Assessment Act, Conservatives are already making some pretty stupid demands, like this one from MP Shannon Stubbs, who wants to move a motion at the Natural Resources Committee to repeal the old Bill C-69—except that it’s not what the Supreme Court ruled on, it’s a complete misreading of what the ruling was, and more to the point, would try to repeal the parts that are constitutional, and create even more uncertainty in the market. If people think that the system that the Harper government put into place was somehow better, all it did was ensure that project approvals wound up in litigation because there was too much uncertainty and ambiguity in the rules, and it didn’t do anything to speed approvals like they claimed it would.

For those of you who aren’t quite following, the thrust of the Court’s ruling was not that the whole scheme is unconstitutional, but rather that the list of things the federal government put into the Act in order to trigger a federal environmental assessment was overbroad, particularly around the issue of treating greenhouse gas emissions as an automatic federal issue because it’s a cross-boundary effect. That was too broad for the Court’s liking, so they’re essentially telling the government to narrow the scope of what triggers an assessment—that’s it. As previously stated, the Court explicitly rejected the notion that a “provincial” project is immune from federal assessment, so any talking points related to “exclusive jurisdiction” are also bogus, but so many people are proving that they either didn’t bother to read the decision, or if they did, certainly didn’t understand it.

Meanwhile, here’s another explanation of Friday’s ruling, this time from Martin Olszynski, Nigel Banks and David Wright.

Ukraine Dispatch:

On the 600th day of Russia’s illegal and unjustified invasion of Ukraine, their assault on the city of Avdiivka appears to be losing steam, after Ukrainian forces repelled 15 attacks from four directions over the previous 24 hours. Russians are also apparently looking to pierce the front lines in the Kupiansk-Lyman area on the country’s northeast. Elsewhere, Russia launched another overnight attack, with five missiles and twelve drones, focused on the western part of Ukraine.

Continue reading →

Roundup: An unearned victory lap amidst the Court’s repudiation

Posted on by

Yesterday morning, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the federal Impact Assessment Act is partly unconstitutional, and that the federal government was over-broad in the criteria they used to trigger a federal environmental assessment. Ironically, while Jason Kenney and the federal Conservatives liked to call the legislation the “No More Pipelines Bill,” the section that governs pipelines was found to be entirely constitutional, so it was fairly laughable as they started crowing over social media about their supposed victory. It might have helped if they had actually read it and not just the headlines.

The more important part of the decision, however, was the fact that while it did find part of the federal legislation ultra vires Parliament, it also explicitly repudiated the arguments that the Alberta government and the Alberta Court of Appeal were making, in claiming that the province somehow has interjurisdictional immunity for so-called “provincial” projects. That’s not true, and the Court said so, which means that when Danielle Smith and Pierre Poilievre were claiming that the Supreme Court “affirmed” that provinces have the exclusive right to develop their own resources, that’s wrong. It’s not what the Court said, and in fact they said the opposite of that. Alberta’s “victory” was a pretty hollow one because the Court affirmed the federal role in environmental assessments and that they can assess whatever they want once their ability to make said assessment is triggered—the only real issue was the criteria for the trigger, which needs to be narrowed. The federal government has pledged to do just that, and because this was a reference opinion by the Court and not a decision on legislation, it has not been struck down. In fact, because there don’t seem to be any projects under assessment that would be affected by the decision, it seems to show that the law is carrying on just fine, and that the amendment will be a fairly surgical tweak (and yes, I spoke to several legal experts to that effect yesterday).

Meanwhile, the reporting on the decision largely ignored this repudiation of the provincial argument. The Canadian Press, the National Post, and the Star all missed that point entirely in their reporting. Only the CBC caught it—in the main story it was given a brief mention amidst the egregious both-sidesing, but Jason Markusoff’s more nuanced analysis piece did get a little more into it, but again, it did not really point out that Kenney’s crowing over social media was for naught, and that Smith’s victory lap was not really deserved. (Smith later went on Power & Politics and lied about what projects that the Act supposedly impacted, such as the Teck Frontier mine—that project was assessed under the Harper-era regime, and was shelved because the price of oil couldn’t justify the project’s viability). It would be nice if we had more journalists actually talking to more experts than just one while they both-sides the ministers and Smith, because they would find that they missed a pretty significant part of the decision. (My own story that does precisely this analysis was delayed in publication, so it should be up on Monday).

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces pounded Avdiivka in the Donbas region for a fourth day in a row as they try to make gains in that area. Ukrainian authorities say that Russians have destroyed 300,000 tons of grain since they started attacking Ukrainian port cities in July (because they’re trying to weaponise hunger).

Continue reading →

Roundup: Scoring cheap points in a tragedy

Posted on by

The past few days have been preoccupied by the Hamas attack on Israel, which has killed as many as a thousand, including attacking villages and killing the elderly and infants. We know that so far, two Canadians have been confirmed killed, while others have been kidnapped and taken hostage. After refuting claims that the embassy in Tel Aviv was closed for Thanksgiving, the federal government is preparing airlifts for Canadian citizens and permanent residents out of Tel Aviv, likely using military aircraft. Ahmed Hussen has also stated that humanitarian aid will continue to flow to the Palestinian people, particularly in light of the humanitarian crisis that is to come as the Gaza strip is under siege, with assurances that there are robust controls to ensure that Hamas doesn’t see any of this funding (as they are listed as a terrorist organisation under Canadian law).

Back home, there has been pretty universal condemnation of Hamas from political leaders, but that doesn’t mean that politics haven’t been played. After Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre were at the same event over the weekend to show solidarity with the Jewish community, Poilievre decided to immediately return to his dickish self and try and score points on the non-scandal that Canada was not included in a communiqué between the Americans, the UK, France, Germany and Italy. A number of pundits and talking heads clutched their pearls and cried that we were excluded, some news reporters incorrectly framing this as the G7 (which was also minus Japan), when it turned out that this was a meeting of the Quint, which is a separate, nuclear-armed organisation that Canada is not a part of. While most reporters and outlets quickly clarified this, Poilievre decided to use it to rage-farm and claim that Trudeau has “side-lined Canada,” which is bullshit, but you’ve got a bunch of pundits on their fainting couches over this when they should know better, and Poilievre couldn’t resist the urge to score points over this, which should be unconscionable, but he likes to keep proving that there is no bottom with him.

Matt Gurney points out that this conflict has given us a pogrom in realtime over social media, but that most people aren’t seeing it because of how news outlets sanitize the graphic elements that would inevitably galvanize them.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia’s latest drone attack targeted the Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, with Ukraine’s air defences downing 27 drones. The counter-offensive continues to make gains in the east and the south. Ukrainian officials are investigating 260 instances of abuses at military recruitment offices, much of it related to bribery. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy replaced the country’s territorial defence forces commander, before he left to visit neighbouring Romania to strengthen ties and talk regional security.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The Speaker election shapes up

Posted on by

With the end of the sitting day last night, Anthony Rota was no longer the Speaker, and Bloc MP Louis Plamondon, the Dean of the House, became Speaker in his place, albeit temporarily. The too-clever-by-half motion that the House passed on Tuesday reads that he was “deemed elected” and is the Speaker to be “styled the Interim Speaker,” which means they’re trying to get around the Constitution for two days in order to run the election on Tuesday instead of today. As is joked, this means that Plamondon is entitled to a portrait (and a Scotch), but it remains mystifying why they couldn’t just swallow the two lost sitting days if they wanted to leave this until Tuesday (Monday is not a sitting day).

There are currently four declared candidates for the position—the Deputy Speaker, Chris d’Entrement, and the two Assistant Deputy Speakers, Alexandra Mendès and Carol Hughes, along with a surprise fourth entrant, Liberal MP Greg Fergus. d’Entrement has been somewhat acquitting himself in QP over the past couple of days, and seems to have been most vocal in the media, with some outlets ignoring Mendès completely, which they shouldn’t, considering that she came very close to defeating Rota last time. Fergus could be the spoiler this time for Mendès changes when it comes to getting enough votes from fellow Liberals, but it is a ranked ballot, so that could make things more interesting as the math works out. I also have it on good authority that Mendès would be interested in having a Speaker’s Port in addition to a Speaker’s Scotch (as she is Portuguese), and I would very much love to see that happen (as I am a port drinker and not a scotch drinker). I’ve also heard from colleagues to do drink scotch that Rota’s choice was a poor one, so his replacement ushers in hopefully a better one.

Meanwhile, the former Chief of Protocol was interviewed on Power & Politics last night, and unequivocally showed that everything Pierre Poilievre has been insisting over the past three days about the government vetting everyone in the building for a diplomatic event has been false. The government doesn’t vet the guests of the Speaker or MPs—only guests of the government, as it should be, because Parliament and the Speaker are independent of government.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian officials say they destroyed 34 out of 44 drones launched by Russia overnight, whose main target was Odesa, and there have been no casualties. Meanwhile, they have also seen several hundred Wagner fighters returning to the fight in eastern Ukraine, but they don’t expect them to have much impact.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1707162952929866144

Continue reading →

Roundup: What our diverse Cabinet isn’t thinking enough about

Posted on by

It’s one of those mid-August “let’s quote a random academic” stories, but this piece on the added diversity in the Cabinet shuffle did get me thinking about a slightly more serious topic than perceived tokenism and need to ensure that these new ministers are adequately supported. Part of my thinking was simply the fact that I have interviewed some of the previously-new Cabinet ministers from after the previous election, and a recurring theme was that having more diverse voices around the Cabinet table is a net benefit, and that they have a lot of really enriching conversations as a result. Which is fair!

But the other thing I got to thinking about was intersectionality, and how such a diverse Cabinet should be getting better at it—but this is still a PMO with a strong central impulse (because the PM’s circle of trust is so small and too many things funnel through his chief of staff, Katie Telford). This is something that they should be better at, and should be more aware of, but perhaps this is one more of Trudeau’s blind spots, where he believes that simply paying lip service to the existence of intersectionality is enough, rather than actually doing the work.

And with that in mind, here’s economist Lindsay Tedds, who is actually doing the work of intersectionality, and is calling on the government to get their act together.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1689841585746579456

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1689841590423224321

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1689841594617434112

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1689841599197671426

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1689843815614664705

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck a house not far from the Polish border, killing an year-year-old boy. Meanwhile, all of the heads of regional army recruitment centres have been fired as part of ongoing battling of corruption within the country, after audits found abuses within those centres.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Toronto’s asylum-seeker problem

Posted on by

There is a bit of an issue happening right now around asylum seekers in Toronto and other parts of the GTA unable to find shelter spaces and some of them sleeping on the streets, and everyone wants to blame the federal government, because of course they do. Reality is, of course, far more complicated and you’d better believe that there is plenty of blame to go around.

To start: the federal government is responsible for refugees, meaning those who have had a status determination, most of whom came over with sponsorship and under some formal programme or structure, and that usually comes with supports, either provided by government or communities. What is the bigger problem in Toronto are those asylum seekers who don’t have a status determination, and may have entered the country in an irregular manner, and because they don’t have status, they also can’t get work permits until they do. And this largely is the responsibility of provinces and municipalities until they get that status determination. But this isn’t to say that the federal government isn’t helping with this situation, because they are, operating certain resettlement services including hotels for some claimants, and they have sent hundreds of millions of dollars to help provinces and municipalities most affected offset their costs. But of course, this money it’s not enough, in part because there are bigger challenges that cities like Toronto haven’t overcome.

In a very real sense, this is a culmination of how broken things have become, particularly under decades of austerity measures by conservative governments and city councils. Provinces are under-funding social services and affordable housing, driving more people to shelters, while the city resists building housing in order to please NIMBY residents clutching their pearls about their property values, so that keeps people in shelters who shouldn’t be there, including these asylum claimants. And because both Toronto and the Ford government have decided the solution to these deep-seated problems is to simply demand more money from Ottawa rather than accepting responsibility for their share of the problem and, oh, doing something about it, it’s leaving the federal government in the position of trying to push back and say things like they need all levels of government to work together, which is also true. I suspect we’ll see some additional federal funds in the next few days as yet another stopgap measure, but this shouldn’t let cities or the province off the hook, as they need to properly step up and start fixing the underlying problems that have led them to this point.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian launched an overnight drone attack against president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, and sixteen of the seventeen were shot down, but the last drone and falling debris caused damaged and injured one woman. Progress in the counter-offensive remains slow as Zelenskyy says that the Russians are throwing everything they have at it. Here is a profile of Kyrylo Budanov, Russia’s spy chief. Meanwhile, it sounds like Zelenskyy’s pressure tactics at the NATO summit riled people in the White House, and there was much fighting over the language of the communiqué around Ukraine’s eventual membership in NATO.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A Canada Day fail in Ottawa

Posted on by

It’s Canada Day, and we are having festivities again this year, and included in them will be astronaut Jeremy Hansen, whom The Canadian Press has interviewed here. There will be an Indigenous ceremony ahead of the main show at noon, so the attempt to balance things carries on.

Meanwhile, the City of Ottawa continues to embarrass itself by deciding that the brand new LRT station they built near LeBreton Flats, where the festivities are being held (because there is no room on Parliament Hill with the construction), is suddenly deemed to be too small to handle the crowd, so they’re telling people to get off at the station before and walk a kilometre to the site. Absolutely ridiculous, but that’s been the story of everything with this LRT.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1674860701804814346

Programming note: I’m going to try to make this a quasi-long weekend, so no roundup post on Monday. See you Tuesday and enjoy Canada Day!

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck a school in a village near the front lines in Donetsk region, killing two and injuring six, and only because students were not in school at the time. Defence officials say they continue to advance in all directions along the front lines both in the east and the south, including around the flanks of Bakhmut. Here is another look at how the Ukrainian army is trying to wear down and outsmart Russian occupiers. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ordered the northern border to be strengthened given that Wagner Group forces are moving into Belarus, while it sounds like Russia is reducing the number of their personnel at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which increases fears that they could be attempting sabotage of the plant.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1674798244579221504

Continue reading →

Roundup: Poilievre tries out new tough-on-crime disinformation

Posted on by

As evidenced in Question Period yesterday, the Conservatives have found a new lie to suit their narrative around the transfer of Paul Bernardo, and it’s citing the former Bill C-83, which allegedly eliminated solitary confinement in Canadian prisons on favour of “structured intervention units.” We can pretty much be assured that the legislation did not do what it said it would, and “structured intervention” is largely still solitary confinement, and the actual problems haven’t been solved, but the underlying notion here was that this bill was in response to the finding of the courts and international human rights bodies that solitary confinement is a violation of human rights. Nevertheless, this is being blamed for the conditions that allowed for Bernardo’s transfer, which again, is not true. It’s not the first time they’ve done this tactic—they also did it with the former Bill C-75 on bail reform, which was about codifying Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence around bail, and actually created several more categories where a reverse onus was needed, which made bail tougher to get. That didn’t stop the lies then, and it isn’t around C-83 now.

In the meantime, here is the Alberta Prison Justice Society with some important context around prison transfers and security classifications, which a lot of people should know (and in some cases, do know but are lying about it in order to drum up outrage, because politics is all about rage-farming and shitposting these days).

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians struck the settlement of Novoberyslav in the Kherson region, killing a married couple when their house was bombed. The Ukrainian advance continues in the south, while Russians are trying to trying to dislodge Ukrainian positions in the east. Meanwhile, a group of African leaders are visiting Kyiv to discuss Ukraine’s “peace formula” to end the war.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Mendicino’s future in doubt

Posted on by

The political future of Marco Mendicino is in the balance as the revelation has circulated that his office was aware of the potential transfer of serial rapist and killer Paul Bernardo to a medium-security facility (designed to treat violent sex offenders) for months but didn’t inform him until it happened, made worse by the fact that the prime minister’s office was also informed, and they kicked it to Mendicino’s office to deal with. And by deal with, we’re not talking politically interfering with an arm’s length body, but at least doing something, whether it’s ordering a review or coming up with a communications plan to get ahead of it. But they didn’t.

There is a lot of talk about ministerial responsibility and accountability, and what that means in a situation like this. The assumption is always that every offence is a resigning offence, which is wrong, and Mendicino says that he’s taken “corrective action” in his office, but as the minister, the buck stops with him, and in this case, it’s a pattern of incompetence coming home to roost, and it’s not the first time, and he’s been a terrible communicator on a number of the files before him, to the point of framing things in a manner that could be construed as misleading, such as issue of “police advice” on the invocation of the Emergencies Act. Mendicino says he won’t resign, but it’s getting hard to see how “corrective action” in his office can be handled without a head rolling, or someone falling on their sword, and at this point, we are getting to the point where Mendicino should probably consider doing so in order to get ahead of things, and looking like he still has some principles left.

The other thing to consider is that he may be out of this job sooner than later, because the rumours of a Cabinet shuffle are pretty loud, and his name is at the top of the list as someone who isn’t performing well and needs to be out of their portfolio. (Also on that list are Omar Alghabra and Joyce Murray). We are at a point in the life of the government where they need a shake-up in order to try and throw off some of the fatigue that is weighing them down, and to get some new blood in some of their portfolios in order to get fresh perspectives. There’s also a major rotation of staff happening in a number of offices, which is also needed at this point. We’ll see if this situation accelerates Trudeau’s plans for when this shuffle is going to happen, which Mendicino could force by doing the honourable thing. (That said, it might mean that Bill Blair might be tasked with taking Public Safety back on, at least until a new minister can be appointed, and that wouldn’t be a good thing because he shouldn’t have that portfolio for very obvious reasons).

Ukraine Dispatch:

The Russian strikes against Odessa and Donetsk early Wednesday morning killed six and damaged dozens of homes. Ukraine’s counter-offensive is still testing Russian defences, largely in the south, as they have thus far only committed three of their twelve battalions to the operation so far.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1668981197693648898

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1668957867301302275

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1668878494762250241

Continue reading →

Roundup: The Chief Justice gives a strong warning

Posted on by

Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, Richard Wagner, delivered his annual news conference yesterday, which had been planned a month ago and the timing was purely coincidental regarding the sudden resignation of Justice Russell Brown. That was not the main topic of his remarks, however—that was about the slow pace of judicial appointments as some eighty or so spots remain unfilled, and it can take up to a year-and-a-half to fill the positions of chief justice or associate chief justice in a province. And Wagner has been pretty vocal about this.

Wagner did note that the prime minister did call him after getting his letter, and said that he was going to do what he could to improve the situation, but appointments are a problem for this government. In fact, the only time they have managed timely appointments are for the Supreme Court of Canada. One of the problems is that right now, a number of Judicial Advisory Committees, which vet prospective candidates, remain empty, meaning they need to be filled before they can get to the work of vetting applications for judges. And it’s not just the courts—nearly one fifth of Senate seats are currently vacant for much the same reason. And it’s not like these vacancies are a surprise—judges typically give six months’ notice before they retire, if they don’t reach mandatory retirement. Senators also age out, the date of which is clearly known and posted, so they have absolutely no excuse for not moving fast to fill upcoming vacancies. And yet they don’t.

As you have no doubt heard me say before on numerous occasions, one of the biggest problems is that this government made the decision to rely on self-nominations for these kinds of positions, while at the same time, committing to diversifying the bench (or the Senate). But when you rely on self-nomination, the kinds of people they want to apply and to appoint aren’t applying because they don’t see themselves in these roles (because the ingrained perception is that judges or senators are old white men), meaning that they need to go out and push people to apply and that takes time. They could instead just go out and nominate people, or have their appointments committees do that work, rather than just passively waiting for applications. To add to that, there is frequently a demonstrable difference in the performance of someone who was nominated (for whom they often see it as an honour to be considered) versus someone who applies (and feels entitled as a result),  But they refuse to see this and do that work, so we’re left constantly waiting for their poor process to play out, with the resulting delays that it entails while things crumble around them.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The Russian attack on Kryvyi Rih—the hometown of president Volodymyr Zelenskyy—killed at least eleven people when it struck an apartment building. As well, Russian missiles struck Odesa, killing at least three people in the early Wednesday morning. As well, independent confirmation is starting to roll in about Ukrainian gains in the counter-offensive.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1668511155160055808

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1668523632266469377

Continue reading →