Cabinet shuffle: open thread

— 01.09.2017 04:15 PM

Here’s what Canadian Press says:

OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to give his year-old cabinet a facelift on Tuesday.

Sources tell The Canadian Press that the shuffle will involve at least six people.

Those expected to be moved include International Trade Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is considered likely to replace Stephane Dion at Foreign Affairs.

Also believed in the mix are Status of Women Minister Patty Hajdu, seen as a strong performer, and Democratic Institutions Minister Maryam Monsef — widely criticized for her handling of Trudeau’s promise to reform Canada’s voting system.

Employment Minister MaryAnn Mihychuk is also expected to be moved.

Sources, speaking anonymously because they are not authorized to disclose details publicly, expect at least one new face in cabinet: Francois-Philippe Champagne, currently parliamentary secretary to Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

Baseless speculation is baseless, but it’s fun. I’m on Evan Solomon’s show on CFRA discussing this very subject right now. So add your speculation to comments below!


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Toronto-Danforth Liberals are very, very unhappy

— 01.09.2017 10:51 AM

Perhaps someone else would’ve been better, eh? From Abbas in today’s Hill Times:

Several members of the federal Toronto-Danforth Liberal riding association executive are threatening to resign or won’t seek another term because of how they’re being treated by rookie Grit MP Julie Dabrusin’s office staff, Liberal sources told The Hill Times.

“The president of the riding association [Lianne Doucet], who we have a deep admiration for, was put in a position where she thought she had to resign. She was not treated very well [by] Julie’s staff,” one Toronto-Danforth Liberal riding association source told The Hill Times last week. “A lot of us are very upset by it. We’ve had a couple of very heated riding association meetings and we felt our president should have been defended [by Ms. Dabrusin] vigorously, and she was not at all. We don’t feel we’re all going in the same direction.”

Ms. Dabrusin, who was first elected in the last federal election by a narrow margin of 2.17 per cent of the vote over NDP incumbent Craig Scott, declined an interview request from The Hill Times.

“The first meeting after Julie became an MP, we were told by one of her people that the riding association was now considered pretty insignificant and the only job we had was to get her re-elected in four years,” said the source. “We feel our job is much more than that.”

The Toronto-Danforth Liberal EDA’s next annual general meeting will take place on Feb. 5 and seven to eight members of the executive will either resign before that or will not stand for another term at the meeting, Liberal sources told The Hill Times, who did not want to be identified.

I’ve met with the Toronto-Danforth executive folks, and chatted with plenty of them over the holidays, too. They’re good folks who don’t deserve to be treated like they’re supplicants by a tourist in the Liberal Party.

The good news is that salvation is at hand, perhaps.


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Ken Mailhot, Terese Marie Mailhot and Queen East

— 01.07.2017 04:51 PM

Exploring in a used furniture shop on Queen East today, Cheyenne found this. She said I should come look. 

It was stunning. It was incredible. We bought it right away. It was a huge find. 

The artist is Ken Mailhot. The piece is called Man Emerging.  It will go on our walls amongst the dozens of other West Coast prints, masks and carvings – and three totems. 

We went looking for information about Ken on the Internet. We found some things, but then we found writing about him by his daughter, the author Terese Marie Mailhot. 

Some is here and here. And below:

The National Film Board of Canada debuted the documentary as a piece with immediacy and no external narrative. I’m a woman wielding narrative now, weaving the parts of my father’s life with my own.

I consider his work a testimony to his being. I have one of his paintings in my living room. “Man Emerging,” is the depiction of a man riding a whale. The work is traditional and simplistic. Salish work calls for simplicity because an animal or man should not be convoluted. 

My father was not a monster, although it was in his monstrous nature to leave my brother and I alone in his van while he drank at The Kent. Our breath became visible in the cold when Dad came back to bring us fried mushrooms. We ate the bar fare like puppies to slop.

Wow. 

She is an amazing writer, and her Dad was an amazing artist.

Two huge finds in one day. You never know what you will find on Queen East.


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Unpresident Trump: puppet to Russia or traitor to the United States

— 01.06.2017 05:08 PM

He’s one of those things. 

He either knew Russia was attacking the U.S. in a way that constitutes an act of war – in which case he has committed treason. 

That, or he didn’t know, but – now knowing – still cravenly defends Russia. Which isn’t treason, per se. It just makes him a puppet and a pathetic coward. 

Either way, I’d say he belongs behind bars. If the United States is still a democracy that has the rule of law, that’s where he is headed. 


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The capacity to feel shame should become a provision in collective agreements

— 01.06.2017 09:40 AM

I have never thought I should look to big corporations and big unions for ethical guidance. But what Jerry Dias et al. are saying, these days – i.e., we should “join with the Trump administration,” quote unquote – is simply despicable. It’s disgusting.



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Libel, libel, oh oh, we gotta go

— 01.06.2017 08:38 AM

Spotted this in the National Post this morning:

Clarification – Yank Barry: On April 15, 2012, the National Post published an article about Mr. Yank Barry entitled “The world according to Yank: Montrealer with checkered past gets Nobel nod, or does he?”

The National Post acknowledges that Mr. Barry has engaged in extensive philanthropic work and has continued to do so since the date of the article; that he has repeatedly been nominated for a Nobel Prize for his philanthropic work since the date of the article; and that subsequent to the article, the Kingsmen website has been revised to acknowledge him as lead singer of the Kingsmen while original members were on sabbatical from 1968 to 1969, and that he has been a member from 2013 to date. The National Post does not suggest, and did not intend to suggest, that Mr. Barry did not have significant philanthropic and career accomplishments. The National Post regrets any contrary interpretation of our article that may have been made.

I don’t know who Yank Berry is, but this is the best clarification/correction/retraction/shit-eating apology of the year so far. It also provides us with an excuse to play Louie, Louie, a tune which is catchier than a drawer full of fish hooks, and was the start of punk rock:



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