The complicated mix that is Danish politics

Denmark held a general election yesterday, and the expectation was that Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen's Social Democrats would handily win. As it turned out, her party did win the most votes although it was still the party's worst showing in over a century. Luckily, the main right-wing party, Venstre (Danish Liberal Party), also had its worst showing in a century. 

But individual parties are not the be-all-and-end-all of Danish politics, it's all about the "blocs": the "red bloc" of left-wing parties, and the "blue bloc" of right-wing parties. Joining the Social Democrats (with its 38 seats) are the Green Left (20 seats), the Red-Green Alliance (11 seats), the Danish Social Liberal Party (10 seats), and the Alternative (5 seats), giving the red bloc a total of 84 seats. The blue bloc, consisting of Venstre and a rag-tag bunch of other parties, total 77 seats. So, neither bloc achieved the 90 seats needed for a majority, leaving the Moderates party (14 seats) as potential kingmakers in the ensuing negotiations.

That's a lot of different parties, all with some level of influence on the national political scene. It's fascinating stuff, for an outsider like me, used to two (maybe three or four) main political parties. But I guess the Danes are used to all the argy-bargy and bargaining that their politics entails.

Trump apparently negotiating with himself

Desperately seeking an off-ramp from his disastrous war in Iran, Donald Trump insists that Iran is negotiating a deal. "They want a deal so badly", he assures us. In fact, he seems to think that they have had "GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS" already, and some "very, very strong talks".

Unfortunately, Iran doesn't seem to know anything about this. Iran's foreign ministry issued to a terse statement saying that, "There is no dialogue between Tehran and Washington". The speaker of Iran's parliament confirmed that, "No negotiations have been held with the US, and fake news is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped". A spokesperson for Iran's military was less subtle: "You are negotiating with yourselves ... someone like us will never come to terms with someone like you. Not now, not ever".

As usual, Trump seems cocooned in his own little world, more concerned with appearances than actual substance. Meanwhile, the US and Israel continue bombing the hell out of Iran, and Iran continues bombing anybody it can reach.

Clean power as an energy security issue

Perhaps it's not much, but maybe something good might come out of the US-Israeli war on Iran.

The UK is introducing new rules to the effect that all new homes built there (from 2028) must be installed with heat pumps and solar panels. In addition, plug-in solar panels are to be widely available in stores in Britain. The idea is to avoid being held hostage by the globalized oil and gas market, as is happening in the aftermath of the Iran war, and to move closer to "energy sovereignty" for the country.

Hey, maybe we could do that too, here in sunny Canada? Ah, no, Alberta would never allow that!

Canada's Supreme Court hears one of its most important cases ever

The Supreme Court of Canada will spend most of this week debating the legality and constitutionality of Quebec's controversial Bill 21, also known as the "secularism law", which would ban religious symbols and clothing for public employees (including teachers) in positions of authority.

It is expected be one of the Supreme Court's longest ever cases, and is being called "one of the most consequential constitutional cases in the country's recent history", "the case to end all cases", and "the most important charter case in a generation", among other superlatives. That's largely because the "Act Respecting the Laicity of the State" essentially hangs on the Quebec government's invocation of Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the dreaded "notwithstanding clause". 

Originally intended to be used only very sparingly and in cases of absolute necessity, the clause has been invoked increasingly frequently in recent years, and even pre-emptively. It effectively allows governments to pass legislation which they know contravenes the fundamental rights and freedoms of Canadians that are supposedly protected by the Charter. In recent years, it has become a favourite tool of provincial governments, particular the right-wing populist governments we have been saddled with recently in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec.

The Supreme Court case this week should give some much-needed clarity on how and when such a nuclear option can reasonably be employed. Unfortunately, the Court will not be able to get rid of the ill-conceived clause completely, but let's hope that a precedent will have been set discouraging governments from over-using it. Either way, though, we won't hear any decisions from the Court for some months, so don't hold your breath.

If you thought that democracy was failing in America...

Most people probably have a general feeling that the Trump administration has been gradually rolling back democracy in the United States over the last year or more. Such a thing is hard to quantify, but some people have been doing just that: quantifying how much democracy has been dismantled in the US under Trump 2.0.

No fewer than three separate reports published this month indicate that democracy in the USA has been eroded at record speed under Trump. The Swedish V-Dem institute shows the US falling from 20th to 51st position out of 179 in the global democracy rankings, leaving it somewhere between Slovakia and Greece. The Bright Line Watch now puts America's political system about midway between liberal democracy and dictatorship. And the US-based democracy think-tank Freedom House concludes that three countries, USA, Bulgaria and Italy, have recorded the sharpest declines in political rights and civil liberties last year.

Among the evidence: the administration's concentration of power, the undermining of checks and balances on executive power, the overstepping of laws, the circumvention of Congress, the regular attacks on news media and freedom of speech, the erosion of the country's democratic standing overseas, and the absence of criticism of (and even support for) democratic declines abroad.

It is, as V-Dem's founding director says, "The most rapid decline ever in the history of the United States and one of the most rapid in the world". He says that the Trump administration has rolled back democracy as much in one year as Modi in India and Erdogan in Turkey managed in ten years, and as much as Orbán in Hungary did in four.

In the contemptuous style typical of the whole Trump administration, a White House spokesperson dismissed this as "a ridiculous claim made by an irrelevant, blatantly biased organization", calling Trump a champion for freedom and democracy and the most transparent and accessible president ever. How do these people live with themselves?

These democracy monitors note, though, that the US has not yet passed the point of no return, and that the Trump effect is not necessarily permanent. Another presidential election in less than three years time, and even the upcoming mid-term elections later this year, could put substantial limits on Trump's slide towards authoritarianism. Gods, let's hope so!

A head-scratcher of a Liberal budget

Mark Carney and his Liberal government have brought down a distinctly Conservative-style budget. As always, there are winners and losers, but which departments gain and which are being cut shows a distinct change of emphasis from the past. And the fact that there are more cuts than increases also marks a break with the Liberals' free-spending past.

All in all, there are $31 billion in cuts and just $23 billion in new spending for 2026-7, so a pretty substantial net $8 billion cut in overall spending. 

The biggest losers are the Canada Revenue Agency ($4.3 billion, or nearly 41% of its old budget), Department of Fisheries and Oceans ($4.3 billion, or nearly 70% of its budget), Department of Indigenous Services ($3.0 billion, or 11%), Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs ($2.6 billion, or 18%), Global Affairs ($2.1.billion, or 23%), and Canada Post ($2.0 billion, or 99%). 

There are some huge surprises there. Wait for some significant push-back, although probably not from then opposition Conservatives. It's a brave (or foolish) man who cuts money for Indigenous people these days, and "sunsetting" overseas programs smacks of Trumpism. And almost totally cutting loose Canada Post suggests that they have completely given up on the Crown corporation, so don't expect any Christmas cards in the mail next December.

The main winners in the budget are the Department of Finance (with a whopping $8.5 billion increase, or nearly 6%% of its original budget), Department of Employment and Social Development ($5.7 billion, or 5.4%), Department of National Defence ($5.3 billion, or 12%), and  Department of Housing Infrastructure and Communities ($1.4 billion of 15%). 

Injections of cash into defence and housing align with recent rhetoric, and a shot in the arm of Employment and Social Development perhaps makes sense in these times of tariffs and layoffs. But what is the finance department going to do with an additional $8 billion? (A bit of research suggests that this includes accelerated investments to counter the effects of US tariffs, affordability measures like the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, investment in Build Canada Strong projects, including housing, investment in a new financial crimes and anti-fraud agency, and financial support for built-in-Canada defence and infrastructure projects.) 

No doubt all will become clearer in the coming days, but so far it seems like a bit of a head-scratcher of a budget. As a Liberal budget it is - that word again! - unprecedented. I can't help but think that some of this stuff will come back to bite them later.

Should I be concerned that Canada's happiness is slipping?

There's a World Happiness Report published every year - I've mentioned it from time to time in this blog: it seems like an interesting idea, a fun but functional concept.

This year, as always, Finland is top of the list, followed by all the other Scandinavian and near-Scandinavian countries (and, interestingly, Costa Rica). This year's Index has generated more attention that usual here in Canada, though, because Canada has fallen precipitously from 6th to 25th.

Scandal! Horrors!

Why Canada's happiness rating has fallen more than almost any other country is unclear. Social media, weakened family ties, a crumbling welfare state, and several other factors have all been mooted. But other countries are also living under the threat of  tariffs, dire climate change, even existential violation. Other countries use social media at least as much as we do. Why are Canadians more upset about everything than the denizens of other countries?

Actually, that's not the point of my entry.

What I found out this year is that the Global Happiness Index is actually based on a sample population's response to just a single "life evaluation" question. So, people are self-reporting how they feel at a particular point time, which doesn't sound very scientific somehow. Maybe the Canadians were sampled on the day Trump imposed tariffs on Canadian steel and car exports, or the day Trump reiterated his threat to make us the 51st US state? Maybe the Finns are the most delusional people, not actually the happiest? (Finland used to have the highest suicide rate in the world and, although it has improved that statistic impressively in recent years, its suicide rate is still worse than average. How happy can they really be?) And anyway, what happened to Bhutan, the self-styled "kingdom of happiness", with its famous Gross National Happiness metric? It's not on the list at all!

So, should I be concerned about the mental state of Canadians? Well, maybe, although perhaps 25th out of 147 is not all that bad. But surely we can do a better job of measuring happiness than a simplistic question.

Once again, Ford makes inappropriate noises about the judiciary

Doug Ford again, I'm afraid. I'm getting tired of complaining about him, but he seems to have been opening his mouth without engaging his brain more and more just recently, as I have reported here several times in the last month or two.

Yesterday, in addition to his controversial comments about a trigger-happy homeowner, he parroted the Toronto Police Association's and Chief of Police's (dubious) assertion that veteran Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy should apologize to three Toronto Police officers after an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) investigation found no evidence of perjury or collusion in their evidence at the trial of Umar Zameer, a man accused of fatally running over one of their colleagues. In his usual over-the-top, overwrought way, Ford stated that the judge "should apologize for accusing them of everything under the sun". 

For the record, Zameer was found not guilty back in 2024; that part at least is not at issue. So, in the end, the police officers' testimony - truth or lies - did not actually change the verdict.

The OPP report did indeed exonerate the three police officers, despite the fact that their testimonies were remarkably similar to each other, and totally at odds with the security video and the testimony of the two expert witnesses. It was this inconsistency with the other evidence, and the similarity of their own contributions, that led Justice Molloy to suggest that there was some collusion and perhaps even some untruths, in what was a case that was very close to home for them. Her comments were a reasonable conclusion, as many legal experts have averred. In fact, the OPP's report conclusions came as a surprise to many, and some have alleged a possible cover-up, particularly as the publicly-available report was severely redacted and, it is argued, the OPP is not the right body to be reviewing the actions of police officers anyway. There have been calls for a public inquiry into the matter, or at the very least the release of the full report.

Either way, it is entirely inappropriate for Doug Ford to be commenting publicly on the report, and especially inappropriate for him to be questioning the competence and independence of a senior Ontario judge, just because he happens to disagree with them. But then, "inappropriate" is Ford's middle name these days. I'm sure he sees what is happening south of the border, and concludes that he can get away with such nonsense too.