One of CBC’s worst reporters is back again with the “scandalous” news that the prime minister is preparing to fill all ten vacant Senate seats before he resigns, and the original title of the article was “Trudeau plans on stacking Senate before retiring: source” before it was toned down in an update. The framing that the prime minister—who is still the prime minister—is doing his job and filling these vacancies as he is constitutionally mandated to do, is somehow inappropriate or unfair, is wrong, and frankly, is well into the category of misinformation (which is probably why the headline got changed).
The story then quotes a single Conservative senator to claim that this is somehow illegitimate, which it’s not, and there is no counter voice from an expert. For the TV version of this story, said reporter got video of Andrew Scheer claiming it’s inappropriate and that the vacancies should be left until after an election, which is again false, and there was no counter. There was no proper acknowledgment that Trudeau won a series of confidence votes in December, and that gives him the constitutional right to make these appointments, but hey, then he couldn’t frame the story as this being somehow wrong or inappropriate, and the fact that he gets away with this is infuriating.
This is, of course, bullshit. Trudeau won a series of confidence votes in December. He’s legitimately able to make appointments until that fact changes. pic.twitter.com/k11VBvVnpt
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 27, 2025
This particular reporter has a pattern when it comes to trying to gin up scandals around any appointments. When it’s with judges, he resorts to histrionics about appointees who made political donations in the past, as though the low campaign contribution limits in Canada allows one to buy influence or access, or that they somehow bribed their way into these appointments. With recent Senate appointments, he’s now judging what is and is not a partisan appointment given past history, ignoring that a) there is no Liberal caucus in the Senate for them to be a part of, and b) past legislative experience is actually a good thing to have in that Chamber, and that the lack of it with so many appointees has been a problem. But hey, the CBC editors let him get away with these self-imposed purity tests, so he’s going to keep on doing them. It’s a disservice to the country, and the gods damned public broadcaster shouldn’t be letting their reporters personal bugaboos dictate their coverage, particularly when it taints the reporting.
Ukraine Dispatch
An overnight air attack injured four in Kharkiv after houses were hit. Other critical infrastructure was damaged during overnight drone attacks on Sunday night, where 57 out of 104 drones were downed. Russia’s Ryazan oil refinery suspended operations after a Ukrainian drone attack last week. President Zelenskyy says that the realities of the current war means that they can’t change mobilisation rules as soldiers leaving for home en masse would mean Russians would “kill us all.”
On January 27, the world honors the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. It was the Nazis' deliberate attempt to erase an entire nation—to kill all its people and destroy everything that reminded the world of the Jewish nation. Six million victims.
The crime of the Holocaust… pic.twitter.com/CQC14lvvpF
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) January 27, 2025
Russia intensifies attacks near Pokrovsk, seeks to encircle Ukrainian forces.
Russian forces have intensified their assaults near Pokrovsk, deploying small groups in an attempt to encircle Ukrainian troops, spokesman Victor Trehubov said. https://t.co/pN7uBCqtpo
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) January 27, 2025