News roundup, 8 July 2026

- A new bill before the US Congress would direct the US Trade Representative to investigate the bans on American alcohol by most Canadian provinces. In the modern American tradition of contrived backronyms, the bill is called the Combating Attacks on our National Alcoholic Drinks by Allies (CANADA) Act. It was introduced by Claudia Tenney, who represents a large part of rural and small-town New York State and who is a rabid Trump supporter. Curiously, the bill makes no mention of the annexation threats and tariffs that led to the bans in the first place.

- Markus Chambers has become the latest Winnipeg city councillor to announce that he will not be running again this fall. Chambers, who represents the suburban St. Norbert-Seine River ward, says that he wants to spend more time with his family, which is fair enough. However, the sheer number of veteran councillors who are quitting is significant - Janice Lukes, John Orlikow, and Brian Mayes are also not running again. One thing all those councillors have in common is that they represent suburban (or largely suburban) wards; I wouldn't be surprised if they know darn well that continuing to insist on car-centric design and exclusively single-family neighbourhoods is financially unviable (you just don't have enough taxpayers per kilometre of street, water main, etc to properly maintain the infrastructure) but for these councillors to acknowledge this in front of their constituents would be politically unviable.

- Mark Carney has appointed Conservative MP Richard Martel to the Senate. This creates a vacancy in the riding of Chicoutimi-Le Fjord, which Martel narrowly won in the last election.

- The leader of a rightwing fringe party, the Freedom Party of BC, has been charged with vandalizing a Pride crosswalk in Surrey. Amrit Birring, 58, was arrested along with a 67 year old man and charged with mischief over $5,000.

- Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has resigned his seat and announced that he will run for reelection in the resulting byelection. Some may remember when Canadian Liberal MP Sheila Copps did that in 1996; she had promised in the previous election campaign to resign if the GST wasn't abolished, but then ran again, winning without difficulty. In Farage's case, his critics believe this is a way of distracting the public from an investigation into his finances; all the other parties, from the Greens and Labour on the left, to the Liberal Dems in the centre, to the Conservatives and Restore Britain on the right are refusing to contest the seat and give him the attention he seems to crave. He won't be acclaimed, though; comedian Jon Harvey, aka Count Binface, has said that he will contest the seat.

Colin Kenny sees the writing on the wall

The Senate's Standing Committee on National Security recently issued a report (summarized in this op-ed piece in the Globe) saying how much good we're supposedly doing there. Well, Colin Kenny disagrees vehemently. And he's not afraid to say what he thinks:

The Taliban know what is going on here, and whether NATO leaves in 2011 or 2014, they are going to continue to pursue a murderous civil war.

So what are we accomplishing in Afghanistan, at the cost of so much money that could be spent wisely around the world and at home, at the cost of so many young Canadian lives?

From the Ottawa Citizen (h/t pogge). I'd feel a bit better if he said "at the cost of so many young Canadian and Afghan lives", but I fully agree with his overall conclusion, namely that we should just get the hell out of there.

As an aside, I wonder if Kenny plays chess? After all, a chess player knows that when defeat is inevitable, the reasonable thing to do is to resign. To continue with a futile struggle right down to the mate is an insult to your opponent, as well as a waste of time and effort for both sides. With war, all of the above also applies, but we're also wasting lives -- theirs as well as ours. Why continue?

The budget passes

It seems all the Cons' fulminations about calling an election in the fall may have had some effect:

It took a long night and many words of despair from both Liberals and independents but the Senate passed a contentious omnibus budget bill Monday that contains measures its detractors say have little to do with the budget.

Bill C-9 is now law after opposition attempts to amend it were defeated by a vote of 48 to 44. It received royal assent late Monday night and the senators have been released to begin their summer vacations.

From the Globe. But wait -- I thought that the Cons didn't have a majority in the Senate yet, despite their best efforts to stack the deck. Oh, wait...

The Liberals say they tried to get enough of their members in their seats to stop the bill. Senator Terry Mercer of Nova Scotia, who has been laid up with a bad back and was not expected to make it to Ottawa for the vote, was in the chamber. But seven of his Liberal colleagues did not show up.

From the same Globe story, my bold. Funny thing that; there have been whispers of this in the freaking news media about this for a month and a half, yet somehow the Liberals weren't able to get their acts together to ensure everyone showed up for this vote. But then, we all know that the most important thing is for Iggy to keep the keys to Stornoway for as long as possible.

Senate may be about to justify its existence

The Senate is, not unreasonably, the target of a lot of criticism, but every so often it does something worthwhile. It may be about to do something of this sort with the rather perverse budget bill that the Conservatives have put forward:

Rebellious Liberal senators are threatening to carve large swaths out of an omnibus Conservative budget bill, excising everything from plans to sell off Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. to breaking Canada Post’s monopoly on overseas mail.

“The Senate has very strong views because that’s where sober second thought comes in,” Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Wednesday. “I can tell you, Liberal senators are steaming for very good reason. This is a terrible way to do legislation and we said so last year, we said so this year.”

Bill C-9 is a confidence matter that could bring down the government if it is defeated. For that reason, the Conservative government has stacked it with measures that the opposition is unlikely to support – none of the political parties wants to go to the polls at this juncture.

The decision to lump all of these policies is an “abuse of power” on the part of the government, Mr. Ignatieff said. “But the issue is whether you trigger an election,” he said.

The Senate, however, could hive off the items that are not budget matters without risking an election. While the decision to do that has not been taken, there is strong sentiment running in that direction.

“We’ve done it before in my time with animal cruelty legislation,” said Joseph Day of New Brunswick when asked if the Senate could split up the 900-page bill. “The Senate will do what we are constitutionally required to do.”

From the Globe. Of course, in an ideal world the elected House of Commons would be the venue for this, but this is not an ideal world.

This does raise the question of what should be done with the Senate. The idea of an unelected body with legislative powers makes many Canadians uneasy, and with good reason, but there's another way to look at it. The House of Commons represents a snapshot of the will of the people at the time of the general election; the Senate could be seen as representing the cumulative will of the people over the course of several decades. Of course, if the House were elected by proportional representation the need for an upper house would be greatly diminished. In any case, this is academic, since it's highly unlikely that any government is going to open up the Constitution in this country any time soon.

Senate reform, Harper style

Just like the last round:

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is set to fill Senate vacancies with some of his closest Conservative backers in the second round of Red Chamber patronage appointments in less than a year.

Mr. Harper’s campaign chair, Doug Finley, and his long-time communications assistant, Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, are set to become senators in the coming days. Conservative Party president Don Plett is also on the list of Senate nominees.

Mr. Finley was a key player in the controversial “in-and-out” advertising system in the 2006 election, in which the Conservative Party sent funds to local campaigns to buy national television ads. The strategy allowed the party to stay within maximum spending limits, but has come under sharp criticism by Elections Canada. Mr. Finley is expected to take an Ontario seat, while Mr. Plett will be a Manitoba senator and Ms. Stewart-Olsen will represent New Brunswick.

This is the second time in a row that Mr. Harper has appointed senators when Parliament is not sitting, allowing him to escape opposition attacks. He named 18 new Conservative senators to the Liberal-dominated chamber last December, just before Christmas, including party fundraisers and officials.

While Mr. Harper has long been critical of the Senate and its appointment system, and had vowed not to fill any vacancies until reforms had been put in place, he argued last year that he had to start making his own nominations.

From the Globe and Mail. Funny thing, that...