Canada gets back to summer as usual -- complaining about the Liberals!

(Remembering summer evenings - a mural in Kipling, Sask.)

After the breakneck pace of patriotism and panic of the past seven months - Trump's 51st State threats and TACO tariffs, Trudeau's resignation, the hockey game, "Elbows Up!", Carney winning the leadership and then the election - its almost a relief that Canada seems to be taking its own version of a summer break now by getting back to complaining about the Liberals.

I'm reading posts about First Nations leaders feeling insulted by Carney, right-wing think tanks blaming inflation on the Liberals, Poilievre complaining about Liberal spending priorities, city mayors arguing about housing and cycling paths, people saying government spends too much or cuts too much, people worried about the CBC -- sounds just so typically Canadian, doesn't it.

For example:

Here is Dale Smith's column on Monday about the Usual Suspects blaming inflation on the Liberals. Again.
And on a side note, Smith's daily column really is a must-read - he always makes sense.

Dale Smith / Routine Proceedings

Roundup: Spending vs inflation
Last week, the CD Howe Institute put out a report on the recent bout of inflation, and tried to pin it either on government spending or the Bank of Canada, and in the process ignored a whole lot of things that happened during the pandemic that were material to those price increases. Or the fact that early in the pandemic, we had deflation, and that the Bank of Canada needed to act fast to ensure that it did not continue lest it turn into a spiral that would lead to a depression, because that’s what deflation does.
Naturally, however, the moment Pierre Poilievre saw that they were pinning blame on government spending, he had to jump on that because it’s his entire central thesis for inflation, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. I report on economic data on a regular basis, and that includes the Consumer Price Index (or inflation) data every month, and the Bank of Canada’s Monetary Policy Report every quarter. I can tell you what prices increased and where, because that’s in the data every month. None of the causes had anything to do with government spending.

Government spending did not cause the shortage of semiconductor chips.
Government spending did not bottleneck shipping canals, or cause the shutdown of global supply chains.
Government spending did not cause avian flu to devastate poultry farms across North America.
FFS.

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) July 20, 2025

I also have to take some exception to the notion that government supports like CERB were driving demand. CERB was not extra spending money. It was survival money for low-income people who were out of work because of the pandemic. It staved off a wave of bankruptcies and even more demand on provincial social services or food banks (and the lack of provincial social services is the main driver behind increased food bank use, per their own reports). The “excess demand” was coming from higher-income households who had plenty of money to spend when they couldn’t go out to restaurants or go on vacations. They were not the recipients of government support, and trying to conflate the two is disingenuous, and frankly smacks of a great deal of ideological bias.

While some think the Carney government is spending too much, others think it is cutting too much:

Carney is implementing a Canadian DOGE to make more $$ fund the military and the carceral state . www.thestar.com/politics/fed...

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— Robyn Maynard (@policingblack.bsky.social) July 16, 2025 at 4:19 PM

The Liberals promised they'd fight Trump and protect jobs. Fast forward just a few months, and they're cutting jobs to appease Trump with huge military and border spending. Apparently Carney cares more about Trump than he does about Canadian workers. www.ctvnews.ca/ottawa/artic...

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— Leah ProudLakota (she/her) (@leahgazan.bsky.social) July 10, 2025 at 1:43 PM

Next example: 

After pushing in June to his One Canadian Economy Act approved, Carney held a high-profile meeting with First Nations leaders last week, and it sounds like it was a start, at least, toward acknowledging the need for buy-in to Canadian economic and infrastructure projects. 

But Carney and the ministers' offices may have been trying too hard to keep discussions tamped down, creating an atmosphere where some First Nations leadership felt treaties were being disrespected.

First Nations leaders left last week’s two-day summit with a clear message for Prime Minister Mark Carney: this isn’t consultation.

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— APTN News (@aptnnews.bsky.social) July 21, 2025 at 1:48 PM

Karen Pugliese / APTN News

Broad consultation needed on One Economy Law, don’t rush timelines: Indigenous leaders warn
First Nations leaders left last week’s two-day summit with a clear message for Prime Minister Mark Carney: this isn’t consultation.
“Consultation is going to have to be much more robust than this meeting,” said Chief Derek Nepinak of the Minegoziibe Anishinabe in Manitoba.
“What’s going to have to happen is at the community level – on the ground – proponents and government are going to have to win the community over, and that means sitting down – genuine goodwill, real consultation standards – with opportunity.”
Held behind closed doors in Ottawa on July 16 and 17, the meeting brought together chiefs and senior federal officials to discuss Carney’s plan to fast-track major development projects in the name of “nation-building” to lessen Canada’s trading dependence on America.
While the government initially framed the event as part of its consultation efforts, Indigenous leaders pushed back. Federal officials later softened their language, calling the summit a “first step,” although they offered few details on what the next step might look like.
...First Nations leaders didn’t dance around the word consultation—they told Ottawa it must include community-level dialogue, provinces at the table, possible Kelowna-style round tables, and full recognition of free, prior and informed consent as laid out in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).
It wouldn’t be as fast as Carney said he wants to move.
...Several times during the two-day summit, and in scrums and interviews outside the meeting room, First Nations leaders pushed the government for a guarantee of free prior and informed consent, including the right to say no to a project
Each time, the government side-stepped the issue saying they would not choose projects that First Nations weren’t interested in, so it would not come to that....

But these are good signs:

#IdleNoMore 2.0 Leaked tape: ‘If the provinces aren’t trying hard enough, we’ll bring them up’ Carney tells chiefs www.aptnnews.ca/national-new... #RespectOurTreaties #CdnPoli

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— Harold Coxeter is my math hero 🪷 (@deepgreendesign.bsky.social) July 18, 2025 at 5:27 PM

Premier Doug Ford now says he's not willing to move ahead with an economic project "without the green light" from First Nation communities.

Here's how day 1 of the Premier's meeting in Huntsville. #onpoli #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/awJiBJSsmm

— Colin D'Mello | Global News (@ColinDMello) July 21, 2025

And next example:

Canadians are starting to complain again about abysmal Liberal communications again - we don't know why the Carney government is doing things, and they aren't telling us.

Evan Scrimshaw / Scrimshaw Unscripted

Memo To Mark Carney: Time To End The Take It On Faith Strategy
Time To Lead With Our Comms
...This government is trying to do a lot of things - whether you agree or disagree with those things! - and yet it’s been marked by a lack of communication with the public. Gregor Robertson faces a huge question about how he’ll respond to the decision of Toronto City Council to break their deal with the Feds, we’re revamping our Armed Forces, we’re negotiating an entire new relationship with the Americans, and we’re doing all of this with a government whose mentality is that we should just take it on faith that they know what they’re doing.
The problem with that is that right now, people do trust him. People do generally trust him, as Sunday’s Abacus Data polling that showed him with net favourable impressions in every region of the country showed. But that won’t last forever, and governments that think everything will be fine and they will be trusted indefinitely are the ones that lose and lose badly....

This might be a point to remember, too:

The journalist class really hates that Mark Carney is so calm and disciplined. Hard to get scandal pieces written when the man puts on a Master Class in political communications and diplomacy every single day. #cdnpoli

— RealMattHopkins (@realmatthopkins.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 7:24 PM

Meanwhile: Poilievre is still rage-farming against the Liberals, as he desperately tries to get re-elected. He has to dog-whistle to the Alberta separatists and Convoy supporters, then hope the rest of Canada won't remember anything he is saying:

No wonder the people of Ottawa kicked this guy into the unemployment line. For 3 weeks the capital was occupied. Citizens were threatened. Businesses were forced to shut from harassment. Poilievre brought the donuts. Canada is dealing with threat from Trump while Poilievre whines about the convoy.

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— Charlie Angus (@charlieangus104.bsky.social) July 21, 2025 at 5:42 PM

Poilievre while campaigning: “Jail, not bail!” Poilievre when his friends get sentenced: “Disproportionate consequences!”

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— Holly Hoye 🇨🇦 (@hollyhoye.bsky.social) July 21, 2025 at 7:04 PM

Put more simply, the piffleswipe Pierre Poilievre is altogether unhinged. Always has been, ever since he was a teenaged political obsessive compulsive. Always will be. Some ‘tone shift’. 🤷🏼🤭🤷🏼

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— David Hamer (@davidhamer1951.bsky.social) July 21, 2025 at 2:32 PM

And this is just too good not to share again:

If this bugs you so much, talk to your MP.

— toni (@tonih_78) July 16, 2025

But just because we're back to bitching about the Liberals, doesn't mean we're not still really pissed at Trump:

www.cbc.ca/news/politic... "Do they think Canadians are not going to respond when the president says, 'I want to turn you into the 51st state & begger you economically unless you bow to the US?” "Obviously, Canadians are outraged." Outraged is putting it mildly My #BoycottUSA is forever #NastyUSA

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— 🇨🇦🇨🇦 Proud Canadian 🇨🇦🇨🇦 (@beppil007.bsky.social) July 21, 2025 at 9:31 PM

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