No surprise here, Mark Carney has been elected new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Some background from Radio‑Canada; CBC on what comes next.
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Kate
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Kate
In a finger to its own union, Canada Post has struck a deal with Amazon to deliver its parcels in Quebec.
Saturday there was news of activists blocking warehouses belonging to Intelcom, which had been doing deliveries for Amazon.
But it’s harder to boycott our own postal service.
Meezly
Canada Post must be desperate for revenue? Still, the hypocrisy is astonishing.
steph
Since the union shenanigans started, all my amazon purchases have gone to Temu. A lesser of evils?
Chris
>Canada Post must be desperate for revenue?
I guess you are not aware that it lost $750 million last year? So, yeah, it’s desperate for revenue.
Just a couple of days ago, Denmark announced it’s getting rid of letter delivery, so the problem is not unique to here.
For me at least, weekly letter delivery would be fine vs daily, no letter I get is urgent.
bob
Amazon is to Temu as gonorrhea is to gonorrhea in your eyes.
Joey
How is it hypocritical for seemingly revenue-hungry Canada Post – *which is in the middle of a labour fight* – to take on new business? I understand how union members would be upset about seeing their workload grow to accommodate an anti-union decision made by a private business (even if they are fairly compensated for the additional work, which they probably won’t be), but I don’t really see what Canada Pots should have been expected to do differently – let a third-party company like Intelcom take it all? Would that be better?
dwgs
Our postie is a tells me that at least some employees were upset that CP failed to act quickly enough to get into the amazon/parcel business when it took off a few years ago. Also, their salary stays the same but with so much less mail they almost always finish early. He sees the writing on the wall and believes that the days of home delivery are numbered.
Meezly
Well, you seem to have already answered part of it. Not only is Amazon anti-union, its CEO is in cahoots with a regime that’s hell bent on destroying democracy, Canada-US relations and basic civil rights.
To answer my initial rhetorical question (which didn’t really need to be answered, btw), the BOD itself are the ones likely desperate for revenue and is probably going against the wishes of the majority of its workers. Canada Post may be a for-profit business, but as a crown corporation, part of its mandate is to serve the Canadian people and the federal government is also a major shareholder. I’d rather see our federal govt step in than have it turn to an avaricious tech oligarchy.
Joey
@Meezly I think those are good reasons for Canadians, and especially Quebeckers, not to shop at Amazon. They might even be legitimate reasons for Parliament or the National Assembly to try to legislate/regulate Amazon’s presence in Canada/Quebec. I suspect we are simply expecting too much of a crown corporation, desperate for revenue growth, to take a principled stance, especially given that they just locked out their workers a few months ago. Better for legislative assemblies to act than crown corporations, IMO.
Meezly
Perhaps hypocrisy wasn’t the right word as this is exactly the kind of decision the BOD would make, but it seems hypocritical as there is a serious conflict of interest for a public institution.
I was pleased to find this article which expresses my exact concerns: https://www.disconnect.blog/p/how-amazon-threatens-canadas-post-office
“It’s not so much a business in terminal decline, but one with bad management that has been making poor decisions about the future of a public institution. The limited vision of management paired with the government’s lack of interest in reimagining Canada Post’s future is part of what has put it in this bind.”
Joey
I don’t follow. The article says that the Amazon’s decision to use its own integrated logistics (including last-mile delivery) threatens Canada Post by diverting delivery volume away from the crown corporation:
“For a long time, Amazon was deeply reliant on Canada Post, a public institution, to deliver packages across the vastness of the country. It hasn’t completely abandoned the post office, but as it’s built out its own delivery network — one that makes use of non-union labor, if not precarious gig workers, the post office is facing yet another challenge to its attempts to remake itself as letter mail volumes continue to decline.”
Which, you know, yeah fair enough. But doesn’t Amazon’s decision to partner with Canada Post represent the complete opposite of that fear? Unless Amazon has negotiated a poison pill of some kind that CP management couldn’t identify, this is far from a worst-case scenario. It might even be the best plausible outcome – after all, unionized CP workers will be doing last-mile delivery for Amazon. That’s better than an anti-labour third-party private firm or even Amazon’s own delivery operation itself, no?
I suspect that the resistance is more along the lines of, ‘What Amazon did was unethical and should be condemned from all sides. No public institution, including Canada Post in its delivery service capacity or your local municipality in its procurement capacity, should have anything to do with Amazon.’ I think that’s a very legitimate and possibly even necessary position – but it’s one we should have in the political realm, not made by crown corp management or anonymous bureaucrats IMO. Amazon’s one-two punch of anti-labour closures and cozying up to Trump poses inherently political problems, which are best addressed by political processes and actors.
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Kate
The big news in Canada on Sunday is the federal Liberals choosing a new leader in the midst of the political whirlwind caused by our onetime friends south of the border. Le Devoir looks at the high and low points of Justin Trudeau’s time as prime minister. CultMTL reports on a survey about Trudeau’s accomplishments.
Mark Carney is generally considered to be the front‑runner, but he’s not an MP, so if he becomes party leader, there will be pressure for an early election. (But see comments from H. John below.)
jeather
No one will give up a seat for him to run in? I thought that was the usual process.
Kate
Presumably some Liberal MP could resign and spark a byelection, but that isn’t likely to happen. The amazing thing is that a minority government has held on as long as it has. It’s bound to be a general election.
If it’s Carney, he has to win an election one way or the other to become an MP.
Should one of the women beat the odds and become leader, she can be prime minister right away, since both are already MPs. I don’t even think she has to check it out with the Governor General but I could be mistaken about that.
H. John
All four of the candidates can immediately become PM. All must do so by visiting HE The Governor General and requesting permission to form a government. They will then have the choice of calling an election or facing the House.
The issue for Carney, or any other winner for that matter, is that the longer they wait before calling an election, the greater the damage that the Conservatives can inflict.
The Conservatives have a massive war chest. There are no limits on what they can spend to “define” the new leader until an election is called and the Elections Canada limits on spending kick in.
Meezly
I’ve been seeing Carney attack ads on CTV the past couple of weeks about how he’s “sold out Canada”.
You can’t really tell who’s making them but it’s obvs the Conservatives. Don’t know how true the accusations are, but it shows they must be scared!
Likely the info isn’t factual and makes me wonder why these kinds of political smear campaigns are even legal?
Kate
Thank you, H. John. I didn’t realize that someone could become PM without holding a riding.
H. John
For an explanation why being an MP isn’t necessary see Wiki article on PM:
Qualifications and selection:
Examples from a recent CBC article:
Kate
I don’t think anyone would be happy with a PM from the Senate these days, but it happened twice long ago.
steph
I can’t figure out why the NDP is holding onto their vote of no confidence. According to every pole, their decision leaves them with the biggest political loss.
Nicholas
John Abbott, for whom the college is named after, was a senator when he became PM and throughout his entire term, and never became an MP (though he was previously). Bowell too. Technically a PM doesn’t even need to be Canadian, so long as they can command a majority of the house. (They do have to be to be an MP, and there’s a strong expectation to run soon, and no party would ever select a foreigner. But they could. (Side fact: you don’t need to be an American or a lawyer to be appointed to the US Supreme Court.))
There are lots of Liberal MPs who have said they won’t run again, so one of them could be convinced to retire early, I’m sure. The problem is it takes a minimum of about 50 days from resignation to swearing in a new MP. That would mean Carney is out of the House until May. There’s a summer break starting in June, and the election would be before the come back in the fall. So you come back for only about 32 sitting days with the PM in the House, after having to further prorogue (while parts of the government run out of money at the end of the fiscal year on March 31) or you have over a month of opposition attacks with no PM in the House. Seems untenable. And you’d be fighting a by-election that would be a referendum on the PM, and then have to do a real one shortly after.
I also agree that whoever wins will want to go soon, while they’re high in the polls and before the Conservatives can define them in unlimited spending attack ads.
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Kate
The SPVM have a new demining robot, the old one having aged out of use – Daniel Renaud’s phrasing here is nearly anthropomorphic: “l’ancien robot commençait à avoir de la difficulté à gravir les marches, avait besoin d’assistance pour accomplir certaines tâches, présentait des problèmes de vision…”
The new robot is made in Canada and will get used about six times a year.
(There’s not a lot of local news, Sunday morning.)
MarcG
Had to ask myself why urban police would need something called a demining robot. I guess for bomb threats?
Kate
If you have a weird package that may or may not be a bomb, you send in the robot.
I don’t know whether it has other uses. You can’t send it out for coffee and donuts.
Kevin
A couple weeks ago in my company’s cafeteria I was surprised by a large robot mop, about 80 cm cubed.
Meezly
Has anyone been to one of those popular hot pot chains? They feature robot servers! All the rage now.
Nicholas
Do the robot servers ask for tips?
Joey
@Meezly I had a work lunch at a sushi place in Mississauga a couple of years ago that had robots doing the serving. You ordered via a human, IIRC, and then a robot would show up with a tray containing your food. It made for some decent work-lunch chatter, but I didn’t get the impression that the industry was being disrupted in front of my very own eyes.
bob 22:30 on 2025-03-09 Permalink
Will he be able to save us from the surging menace of the fifth column slaves of Moscow? Only time will tell…
Kate 11:23 on 2025-03-10 Permalink
The real question is which he will serve: Canadians or capital.
nau 17:26 on 2025-03-10 Permalink
He’ll serve Canadians with capital, as evidenced by his promise to kill the (previously delayed) capital gains increases, thereby keeping the tax burden lighter on individuals whose annual capital gains exceed $250,000 and on capital gains realized by corporations and most types of trust. Let the little people keep paying; anti-Trump/PP will suffice to get their vote.
Ian 19:57 on 2025-03-11 Permalink
All federal leaders serve capital. We live in a capitalist system. The whole point of the liberals is to capture the progressive vote, and still serve capital. Even the NDP would serve capital, but would make excuses about it.