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Jun 29 2025

The Roundup: OttawaSpends update. Fontaine sorry. Russian attack.

SUN JAN 29 2025
David Akin's Roundup
OttawaSpends update. Fontaine sorry. Russian attack.
Canada

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly says in a post on X the orders issues to Hikvision Canada Inc. are the result of a national security review under the Investment Canada Act. [Global]

The measures, promised during the recent federal election campaign, would also create a criminal offence of wilfully intimidating or threatening people attending events at these venues. The minister's statement comes as civil libertarians point to existing provisions intended to curb such behaviour and push back against the idea of new measures that could infringe on freedom of expression and assembly. [CP]
Ottawa Spends: Carney government handouts move at a quickened pace
So here's the count for 45th Parliament spending announcements measured at two months to the day after the April 28 election.

There have been 46 spending commitments made for a combined total $462,306,869.

That's significantly more than the last two Parliaments. Two months after the 2021 election, the government had made only 18 spending announcements for a total of $89.1 million. Two months after the 2019 election, the government had made 18 spending announcements worth $64.7 million.

For this note, I'm relying on a database I've maintained for Global News through five Parliaments -- more than 40,000 spending announcements. All the data is culled from press releases issued by the government of the day.

That's Prairies Economic Development Minister Eleanor Olszewski, above, at a June 24 event in Edmonton where she handed out cheques totalling nearly $11 million to seven Alberta businesses. The press release has all the details that goes into my database.

There has been one big spending announcement so far in the 45th Parliament:  A $410-million contract to the Bird Construction Group to a build a new Transportation Safety and Technology Science hub. This new federal facility will be constructed in the riding of Ottawa--Vanier which is represented by Liberal MP Mona Fortier.

So right off the top, Fortier easily leads all MPs in terms of the value of federally funded projects in her riding.

And, similarly, Ontario leads all provinces in new funding commitments made by the Carney government since the election.

Here is the chart that totals things up  for each province, ranked by the combined value of federally funded projects. Let me explain a little further. The first column, PROV, is the province where the project is located. One of the categories in the PROV column is "NATIONAL". That means the funds for a particular announcement will be spent across multiple provinces. For the second column, "Funding Total" we simply add up the value of all the federal funding commitments for projects in a given province. "Projects Funded" is the number of projects to be funded in that province. So far, no projects have received federal funding commitments in New Brunswick, Nunavut or the Northwest Territories.
So how about individual MPs? Well, as I mentioned, Fortier, so far, has abrough home the most bacon for her constituents with that one new $410-million building. Number two is Chrystia Freeland, the transport minister and Liberal MP for University--Rosedale where 3 projects with a combined value of $9.5m have received federal funds. A Conservative, Todd Doherty, is third with a single $4.9-million project -- a solar power project at Anahim Lake --  receiving federal funding in his riding of Prince George-Cariboo. So far though, just 30 of 343 MPs have seen federal funds flow to their ridings.

And what about the partisan slant? Well, two months in to this parliament and there have been no spending announcements for projects located in any riding held by a Bloc Québecois MP. Liberals lead with 27 projects with a combined value of $449.3 million (Again, that one Fortier project is the biggie). But 14 projects with a combined value of $17.4 million have been funded in ridings held by Conservative MPs and just 2 projects worth $1.76 million in NDP ridings.

I'll try to update in this space over the course of this Parliament but, in the meantime, you can track each spending announcement via a special X account I've maintained now since about 2012 called @OttawaSpends. - DA
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The Provinces
Manitoba Accessibility minister apologizes for interpreter comments
Manitoba’s Minister for Accessibility Nahanni Fontaine is apologizing to the deaf and hard of hearing community for comments about an American Sign Language interpreter were made public. [APTN]
Aurora
Elsewhere
Russia Fires Over 500 Missiles And Drones At Ukraine In Biggest Air Attack Since War Began, Kyiv Says
Russian forces have launched more than 500 aerial weapons at Ukraine overnight, Kyiv said on June 29, describing the attack as the biggest air strike on the country since the war began. [Radio Free Europe]

Russia has resorted to using untrained spies after its diplomats and operatives were expelled from Europe in response to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The case against a Canadian teenager now jailed in Poland reveals how Moscow conducts the operations, and how cryptocurrency funds them. [Reuters]

In 2024, Trump benefited from higher turnout among those who voted for him in 2020. He also held an edge over Harris among voters who did not vote four years earlier – a group that was considerably more diverse than those who voted in both elections. [Pew Research Center]
Note to Readers
A reminder that the headlines and excerpts here are, for the most part, written by the publishers of the item to which I’ve linked. If I’ve written the headline and excerpt, I’ll take authorship by finishing the note with a bold - DA. If I’ve inserted my own comment in an excerpt written by the publisher, I’ll put that in italics. You can always find my disclosure statement and biography at www.davidakin.com

And a reminder as well that you can help defray the costs of sending this 7-day-a-week free newsletter to over 2,200 subscribers by with a monthly pledge -- Just $5 would do it -- via Patreon or, if you want to make a one-time donation, send an e-transfer to jda@davidakin.com. 
Media
Fox’s 6 P.M. broadcast, anchored by Bret Baier, is essential to the conservative-media complex. Baier draws more than three million viewers a night, at times surpassing legacy brands like “CBS Evening News,” despite being available in half as many homes. Baier insists on his impartiality, but his network’s reputation as an outlet for the right and its connection to President Trump himself can make his job representing the news arm of the network more challenging. And, when it comes to Trump and his relationship to the media, Baier tells David Remnick, “I think it is this cat-and-mouse game. You know, for all of the things he says about the media . . . he’s reaching out and doing interviews with the same people he says are nasty.” [New Yorker Radio Hour]
Science and Technology
As warnings mount about AI’s potential to displace millions of jobs, Anthropic on Friday launched a its Economic Futures Program, new initiative to support research and policy development that addresses AI’s economic impacts. [TechCrunch]
in this tutorial, I will illustrate how to draw a Financial Times plot with ggplot2 in R step by step. We know ggthemes package includes a theme related to Financial Times, but the theme is depreciated now. [Ozancan Ozdemir]
The Calendar
  • 1400 : Toronto, - GPC MP Elizabeth May marches in the Toronto Pride Parade.
Issued this day ...
… in 1929. Sc 142. 60th Anniversary of Confederation: Fathers of Confederation. Design: Herman Herbert Schwarz.
This one was part of a five-stamp series issued to mark Canada’s 60th birthday and it features an all-green (four-colour printing would not be invented for a few more decades) version of the iconic “Fathers of Confederation” painting done by Robert Harris (1849-1919) in 1883. Harris’ work shows the attendees at the 1864 Charlottetown Conference, one of the key conferences that set the state for Confederation in 1867.  The original though was destroyed in the great Parliamentary fire of 1916. Harris was asked to reproduce his most famous work but declined.  A photograph of the painting had been taken, however, before the fire and it was that photograph that was used for this stamp. 

Related: In 1964, the Confederation Life Assurance Co. hired the artist Rex Woods (1903-1987) to paint a fascimile of Harris’ famous painting which he did, increasing the width of the original a bit and adding three more figures into the scene, one of which was Harris! That reproduction could be seen hanging in Centre Block’s Railway Committee room but with Centre Block under reconstruction I’m afraid I have no idea where — or if — it’s displayed anywhere these days. It’s certainly not to be seen anywhere in the West Block, the current and temporary home of the House of Commons and caucus meeting rooms.

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