Chrystia Freeland's turn for an embarrassing gaffe

The Liberal Party of Canada are prodigiously good at shooting themselves in the foot. Justin Trudeau is the shooter-in-chief, but he is ably abetted by several cabinet ministers. Even when things are going reasonably well (which is rare of late) they seem to be able to conjure a faux pas or a gaffe or an indiscretion, seemingly out of nowhere, handing the political opposition some timely ammunition.

The latest such debacle comes courtesy of Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who was once thought of as a natural successor to Trudeau, should he ever actually deign to stand down. She usually comes across as a thoughtful, methodical politician (albeit with a particularly annoying diction that makes you feel like an errant five-year old), and has managed to keep her bloopers and scandals to a minimum.

You may have already seen it - the video has been quite viral for a few days now - but the incident occurred when Rebel News personality (let's not call him a journalist) David Menzies accosted Freeland in the street, asking why Iran's IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) is not officially designated a terrorist group. 

Ms. Freeland seemed to be accompanied only by her aide but, after meeting with a stony-faced silence, Menzies was manoeuvred into a group of plainclothes RCMP officers, one of whom bumped him on the shoulder and then arrested him for "assault of a police officer", slamming him into a walll and handcuffing him. 

Overkill? Slightly. It was maybe not the face of Justin Trudeau's repressive police state, as opposition leader Pierre Poilievre would have it, but it was certainly the most unconvincing, bare-faced and poorly-executed set-up, and quite clearly fabricated to remove the (admittedly annoying) Menzies from Freeland's ambit. The wheedling, protesting Menzies, video recording throughout, was released about twenty minutes later, on the grounds that "no credible security threat existed". Duh.

It's hard to know how directly complicit Ms. Freeland was in all this, or whether it was purely the work of an over-zealous RCMP protection detail (she regularly travels with a security detail after several previous run-ins with the likes of Menzies and his hard-right buddies). But Jeez, talk about badly-handled! 

Menzies has been arrested many times for his political "work", and the guy is an unpleasant thorn in the side of many politicians, both Liberal and Conservative. But dealing with questions from idiots is part of a politician's remit and goes with the territory. Freeland could, at the very least, have said "no comment". Being annoying is not illegal, however much you might like it to be. Arresting the guy in the street on trumped-up charges is the kind of thing that happens in Russia, Iran or China. It should not be happening here in Canada.

The whole incident was captured on video, and now has pride of place on Rebel News' website, under the screaming banner "SHOCK FOOTAGE", and the headline "Chrystia Freeland's bodyguards assault and arrest David Menzies when he asks her a question". Would it really not have been better to have politely said "No comment"?

I wouldn't care that much, and the Trudeau government deserves everything it gets after this and several other bad publicity events in recent months, were it not for the fact that I can see a certain Pierre Poilievre sitting back and laughing at it all, adding it to his stock of evidence of Liberal incompetence and overreach. The Liberals clearly do not deserve another term in office, but the thought of the smug Poilievre and his merry band replacing them is scary indeed.

Bored with COVID? Me too, but I'd still like to avoid long COVID

Canada, like everywhere else, is experiencing yet another new wave of COVID-19. Like many a wave before, pretty much everyone knows someone who has it, or has had it, recently. Most people have not had that bad a time of it, certainly not compared to the early variants, although hospitalizations (especially when we add on influenza, RSV, etc, as well) are surging to crisis levels again, even if ICU rooms are not as overwhelmed as they once were. The new JN.1 variant is not as nasty as some variants that have gone before, but it is still hospitalizing, and even killing, some older and immune-compromised individuals.

Even if you feel like you are officially over it, COVID is not to be taken lightly, and not least because of the continuing risk of long COVID. I have talked about long COVID several times over the last few years. But it's hard to get too worked up about something that will probably not affect you, isn't it?

But therein lies the rub. You see, long COVID is actually way more common than you probably think. According to the Canadian COVID-19 Antibody and Health Survey, about 3.5 million (11.7% of the total adult population, or about 1 in 9) have experienced long-term symptoms after a COVID infection and, as of June 2023, 2.1 million (6.8% of all adults) were still reporting symptoms, with half of them reporting little more no improvement over time.

Given that an estimated 64% of the Canadian adult population has had COVID-19 at some point (almost certainly a large underestimate), then by my calculations at least 18% of those who have been infected with COVID have gone on to experience long COVID symptoms (nearly 1 in 5!) And the more times you contract the virus, the greater the chance of your ending up with long COVID.

Lots of research is being carried out on long COVID, but there is still much that remains unknown. Because of the way COVID attaches to, and gains access to, the body's cells, it can affect any or almost all of the body's systems and organs (unlike the flu virus, for example, which only affects the cells of the lungs). This is why such a bewildering range of different symptoms can present themselves with a COVID infection (up to 100!), and why long COVID can manifest in so many different ways, with fatigue (65%), brain fog (39%) and shortness of breath (28%) being the most common.

Vaccinations are having less and less effectiveness against the new COVID strains (although they do still reduce the severity of the infection if you do catch it). However, it's still in everyone's interests to avoid the virus if at all possible. So, masks in enclosed spaces, avoid superspreader-type events, frequent hand-washing, improve ventilation where you can, etc, etc. I know, boring! But you might thank me one day.

Don't blame Trudeau if Canadian federalism fails

Not that many people are too fond of Justin Trudeau these days. After eight or nine years, his administration is looking pretty long in the tooth. His popularity is flagging badly, all sorts of errors and poor decisions are creeping in, and all that early promise has petered out. I have argued previously that the Liberals need to cut him loose, if they want any chance of winning another election, slim though the chances of that are anyway.

All that being said, though, Trudeau is not responsible for half the things that the current crop of populist Conservative premiers (and a populist Conservative federal opposition leader) claim. To hear them tell it, pretty much everything that is (in their slightly biased opinion) wrong in Canada is Trudeau's own personal fault. It kind of goes with the territory or the job description, sure, but some of their claims are just disingenuous, misleading and indefensible.

And, surprisingly enough, the man to put this in context is the Globe and Mail's Andrew Coyne. I don't always agree with Mr. Coyne's politics, but I do respect his acumen and integrity, and he is spot on in this case when he takes issue with John Ibbitson's ridiculously partisan article a few days earlier.

Ibbitson seems to have drunk deeply of the populist Conservative CoolAid, whether dispensed by one of the premiers or by Mr. Poilievre. His particular allegation is that Trudeau is personally responsible for destroying Canadian federalism, that he has "put the federation under greater threat of schism than at any time since the 1995 Quebec referendum in sovereignty", and has "unquestionably driven federal-Alberta relations to the brink". 

Reading Mr. Ibbitson's piece and listening to Pierre Poilievre, you'd think that everything Trudeau does and says is with the express intention of battering and belittling the provinces, not to improve the country's welfare state, or to make some attempt to keep Canada at least close to its international climate change commitments. And all that stuff about unilaterally amending the Canadian Constitution, not collecting a perfectly legal federal carbon charge, declaring that federal laws don't apply to one province, and holding the country's pension plan hostage - well, the provinces were forced into that by ... well, by Justin Trudeau.

Trudeau is a Liberal, and he has a liberal vision for the country, which he is perfectly within his rights to pursue, having won the last federal election (well, the last three, actually). Those who are doing the complaining are of course Conservatives, who obviously have a different vision. But the vicious, and often illegal, responses of these Tory premiers are what is undermining the Constitution, not Mr. Trudeau, who has actually managed to stay remarkably equanimous in the face of all the crap he is having to deal with from some of the provinces.

So, fed up that co-operative federalism doesn't seem to be working these days? Don't blame Trudeau; blame the machinations of a bunch of Machievellian provincial populists, who seem intent on destroying the good parts of Canadian federalism for their own nefarious and partisan ends.

Reducing airplane contrails can reduce GHG emissions (but not much))

I never realized it, but apparently airplanes that leave contrails contribute significantly more to greenhouse gases and climate change than those that don't. In fact, according to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), contrails increase aviation's share of global CO2 emissions from 2.5% to 3.5% (although how they can measure that I have no idea).

Contrails, those white vapour trails left in the sky by some planes, are formed in moist, cool atmospheric conditions, when ice and water vapour cling to the sooty emissions of aircraft, and produce a kind of long cloud that trails the aircraft. They are particularly prevalent over the North Atlantic and parts of North America and Europe, where the cool, wet air is most suitable for their formation, and particularly at night.

Not all flights produce contrails, and some routes are bigger offenders than others. Studies have estimate that between 2% and 12% of flights create 80% of all contrails (although that seems a very wide and inconclusive range to me). 

It seems that, in these days of Big Data, contrail creation can be predicted with a reasonable level of accuracy, and that is something that people like Google, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and various airlines and plane manufacturers have recently involved themselves with. Airlines in particular are keen to reduce their outsized and rather embarrassing carbon footprints, and until electric planes or some other sustainable aviation fuel (green hydrogen?) become available, this is one of the few things airlines can do right now to mitigate their carbon emissions.

Real world studies are already underway, with some American Airlines flights following routes suggested by Google specifically to reduce their contrail production. This may involve flying at a higher or lower altitude than usual, or taking a different route completely, depending on local atmospheric conditions. Available results thus far from these trials suggest that the re-routing saved 54% of contrails, BUT ... fuel consumption rose by about 2% in doing so. 

American Airlines' chief sustainability officer says that a 2% added fuel-burn is probably too much, and that the trade-off of extra fuel use for fewer contrails is not working out in terms of overall carbon emissions (and certainly not in terms of added costs). Other airlines, including Canadian ones, are eagerly watching the trials, though.

I just can't look away from American politics

I probably spend an unconscionable amount of time staring open-mouthed at the train-wreck of American politics. Most Canadians do. It's partly because, living next door to a giant, it's always good to know when it might decide to roll over. But, as much as anything, it's a complete inability to look away from a train-wreck in progress, however depressing the spectacle may be.

So it is that I note that a new poll shows US Republicans are leaning even further towards Donald Trump and ConspiracyTheoryLand, nearly three years after that other train-wreck, the January 6th Picnic in the Park. I say that because that's how a majority of Republicans seem to view that flirtation with chaos. For example, in the poll, only 18% of Republicans believe the evidence of their own eyes that the people who entered the Capitol were "mostly violent", down from 26% two years earlier. 

Yes, even fewer of them are inclined to worry about such an event now than previously. It's hard to know if these people genuinely believe this, or if they are deliberately trying to mislead the polls because they want to see Trump back in power, for whatever reasons of their own. I can't believe that all of these people are just stupid or so suggestible that they will lap up any old guff presented to them by a weird guy in a red cap. Some of them at least must have voted for George Bush at some point, fir example. Hell, some of them must have voted for Barack Obama!

Either way, it seems that 72% of the Republicans polled believe that "too much is being made" of the storming of the Capitol, and only 24% believe that it was an "attack on democracy that should never be forgotten". When asked whether they thought that Joe Biden's 2020 election victory was "legitimate", only 31% of them did (or were willing to admit to pollsters that they did), down from 39% two years ago.

Make of all that what you will. It really does seem like the right-wing of America, young and old, are content to live in some kind of fantasy world. They are willing to block out what the rest of the world is telling them so that they can get what they want (whether that be fewer Latino faces around them, a few more dollars in their pockets, an ability to ignore what is going on in the rest of the world, or a complete stop to progress, accountability and sustainability - who knows what they want or why they want it?)

It's a train-wreck alright, but I just can't look away.

Why has the war in Ukraine ground to a stalemate?

World events have overtaken the Russia-Ukraine war but, almost two years later, it's still dragging on. But why has it become so bogged down? Shouldn't Russia's supposed armed superiority have clinched it by now? Shouldn't Ukraine's counter-offensive, with some of the best weapons the West can supply, have wrested back control of their poor battered country?

Well, the much-vaunted 2023 Ukrainian counter-offensive seems to have pretty much sputtered out, without making a huge dent in the Russian occupation of its land. Rather, the war seems to have devolved into a stalemate, with tiny hard-fought gains and losses back and forth on the frontline, and the occasional major long-distance strike in either direction. 

Russia continues to batter Ukraine's cities into uninhabitable rubble with its apparently random drone attacks on residential and infrastructure targets. A long war is widely considered to favour Russia, which is surviving Western sanctions quite well because some other countries are not willing to commit themselves or are willfully ignoring calls for sanctions (looking at you, India and China).

But why has the war degenerated into a stalemate? A Deutsche Welle report explains.

Russia's tank-traps, fences and minefields (more than 8 million mines!) along the border of its occupied territories has effectively stalled Ukraine's counter-offensive, fancy Western weaponry notwithstanding, as Russian troops have reinforced their frontline positions while Ukraine waits for more weapons.

Yes, NATO countries are supplying Ukraine with weapons, but - according to Ukraine and to some other Western military experts - it only gets enough to protect the status quo, and not enough for a serious push-back.

Russia still enjoys air superiority, as Ukrainian airforce personnel are still being trained to use the belatedly donated F-16 aircraft. Ukraine is usually able to shoot down most aircraft-delivered Russian missiles and drone attacks using donated state-of-the-art defensive weaponry (although some still get through), but they are not yet able to deploy advanced aircraft for "active" air defence, i.e. actually shooting down Russian jets. And the ones that do get through continue to damage the country and its infrastructure, and depress the population still further.

Russia's military industrial complex is still able to function, and it continues to produce large numbers of drones and missiles, as well as buying more from "friendly" (read opportunistic and unethical) countries like Iran and North Korea using its copious oil revenues. 

The increased use of spy drones and electronic reconnaissance on both sides has led to what is being called a "transparent battlefield", where both sides know what is happening, i.e. stalemate. One example of this is that tank attacks by both sides are being easily countered because the other side can see them coming, and there is no element of surprise.

As some Western benefactors start to balk at continued enabling of apparently lacklustre Ukrainian progress, and particularly with American Republicans doing everything they can to delay or remove American support, Ukraine's prospects do not look good. With the potential wild card of a Trump electoral victory in late 2024 in the offing, in which case all bets are off, you can see why military commentators are much less sanguine than they were a year ago.

Saskatchewan thumbs its nose at Canada's carbon tax

I guess I have to make some sort of comment on Saskatchewan's ill-advised move to stop collecting and remitting to Ottawa the federal carbon tax in its natural gas bills.

Actually, when I say Saskatchewan, what I really mean is Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. Because Moe has personally "instructed" SaskEnergy (the provincial gas utility) to stop collecting the carbon charge element of its bills to residential customers as of the beginning of 2024, and for some reason the utility went along with it. Moe's justification is that it's "not fair" that the federal Liberals have given a carbon tax break to heating oil users in Atlantic Canada, and not to Saskatchewanians (is that really the demonym?)

While I admit that the Liberal move was ridiculous and inexcusable (although for very different reasons than Moe would probably list), heating oil is a very different beast from natural gas, and calling it "not fair" just sounds puerile and adolescent. Oh, and also, unilaterally not paying the tax to the feds - a tax, incidentally, that the courts have repeatedly ruled it is perfectly within its rights to levy - is highly illegal.

The issue won't come to a head until the end of February, the due date for paying over January's levy. At that point, though, officers of SaskEnergy will be officially breaking federal law and could face hefty fines or even jail time for failing to remit the tax, notwithstanding the series of iffy legal moves Saskatchewan has made to shift the responsibility and supposedly protect the utility's executives. 

Moe calls Saskatchewan's violation of federal law "unfortunate". Well, I sincerely hope it proves extremely unfortunate for the right-wing populist. Even co-populist Danielle Smith in Alberta stopped short of outright law-breaking with her equally iffy Alberta Sovereignty Act, however much tub-thumping she engages in.

This is legal nonsense on a par with the predilection of the current crop of populists for using the "notwithstanding clause" to defy the Canadian Constitution (which I have railed against elsewhere), or possibly even worse. This is a challenge to the constitutional order of the country, and to the rule of law. It cannot be allowed to proceed.

Canada-US dispute over Arctic boundary line

It happens from time to time, but the claims of ownership of the Arctic Sea (known as the Beaufort Sea in this area) by Canada and the USA are once again under dispute.

It may sound academic in the extreme, but the argument centres around whether the border between Canada and the USA for the statutory 200 nautical miles off the Beaufort Sea coast is extended directly north along the 141st meridian, as Canada claims, or perpendicular to the line of the coast at the point of the border, as thr4 USA prefers.

I didn't understand the difference between the two at first, but a map makes clear the effect, which is actually quite significant.

The triangular region in dispute is about 21,000 square kilometres in area, and is estimated to contain upto 1.7 billion cubic metres of natural gas and over a billion cubic metres of oil (although technically both countries have environmental preservation programs within the disputed area, at least AT THE MOMENT).

Now, the Canadian position is based on the 1825 Treaty of St. Petersburg between Russia and Britain (subsequently transferred to the USA and Canada, who are current owners of the landmasses in question), which rules that the maritime boundary is to be an extension of the land border which follows the 141st meridian. The USA claim follows the "principal of equidistance", which is a general legal concept regularly used in maritime boundary claims. The difference occurs because the coastline at the border point is not quite exactly east-west.

Call me biased, but I would have thought that the former trumps the latter.