Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

QP: Not reading the Johnston Report

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While the prime minister was elsewhere in the building entertaining the president of Iceland, most of the other leaders were present today, as was the prime minister’s deputy. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and accused the government of using China to help them win two elections, and demanded they fire David Johnston and call a public inquiry. Dominic LeBlanc responded by pointing out that Poilievre refused a briefing in order to make outrageous comments rather than be serious. Poilievre insisted that he refused to be “silenced,” and repeated his demand. Marco Mendicino repeated the point that Poilievre refused briefings for partisan reasons. Poilievre moved onto the Chinese “police stations” in Montreal that got government funds, and were still active. Mendicino carried on with the retorts that Poilievre was closing his own eyes. Poilievre repeated the question in French, and Mendicino gave his same response. Poilievre then said that he can ask question of any member of the government, and tried to ask Jagmeet Singh demand a public inquiry or end his “coalition.” Mark Holland gave a sanctimonious speech about the Conservatives attacking Johnston, who Harper appointed as GG, for the sake of partisan games.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he called Johnston’s inquiry a farce, and demanded a public inquiry. LeBlanc got back up to tell them that they should let NSICOP do their work rather than casting aspersions prematurely. Therrien repeated his demand for an inquiry, and LeBlanc urged him to speak to his leader and take the briefing on the evidence, along with NSICOP.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he worried about the failing negotiations with Stellantis over their blackmail. Chrystia Freeland assured him they will ensure the deal goes forward and that the jobs stay in Canada, but also that Ontario pay its fair share. Singh switched to French to worry about rising rents in Montreal. Soraya Martinez Ferrada reminded him that they sent $5 billion to Quebec for housing.

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Roundup: A rare Harper appearance

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Former prime minister Stephen Harper was recently at a Fraser Institute event in Vancouver, where he said that Chinese foreign interference is probably “far worse than we think,” and is calling for an end to what he calls “naïve globalism,” which is a pretty loaded term. On the former, one has to ask just what exactly Harper did about said foreign interference when he was prime minister, because all indications are that it was probably close to zero, as he weakened oversight over national security and intelligence agencies and put no electoral safeguards in place (as he was trying to make it harder for groups like students to vote), while he went over to Beijing to grovel before Xi Jinping for the sake of opening up trade after his earlier tough-guy stance on China wasn’t getting him anywhere. And hey, he got a panda out of it (for a little while, anyway).

On the latter, this whole “globalism” thing is pretty cringey because that’s frequently code-word for “the Jews,” and falls into a number of antisemitic conspiracy theories. Harper was a big fan of the whole “somewheres” versus “rootless cosmopolitans” view of the world, but again, the “rootless cosmopolitans” also falls into those same antisemitic tropes. This fear over “globalism” or “globalists” is pretty big in far-right circles, and Harper is using those same dog whistles.

I would also point out that in the same speech, he mentioned that his activist investment fund is located in Florida because “Florida is booming,” citing its “low taxes, low regulation, lots of spending on police and falling rates of crime.” Again, red flags because Florida is also engaging in fascistic behaviour, targeting minorities and most especially the LGBTQ+ communities, and it’s particularly alarming that he’s glossing over this while offering praise to Pierre Poilievre and Danielle Smith, who has also been praising Ron DeSantis as part of her campaign. (And no, the IDU is not a fascist organization, and Harper is not some Bond villain, so don’t even think about commenting on that, because I have zero patience for it).

Ukraine Dispatch:

On the anniversary of Kyiv’s founding, Russia launched its largest air assault yet on the city, with 58 out of 59 drones being shot down, the debris causing some damage including to an institute for the blind. Meanwhile, Russian attacks have eased in and around Bakhmut, possibly because of the Wagner Group handover.

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1662337489334419458

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Roundup: Claims O’Toole also was a target

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It is being alleged that Erin O’Toole has been briefed by CSIS that Chinese agents had been targeting him during his time as party leader because of his bellicose language about the regime. While there is no indication his family was also being targeted, his sister did live in Hong Kong for a number of years. Of course, I am taking the language in the article with a few grains of salt because the Johnston report pointed out that threats weren’t actually made to Michael Chong’s family, but that there was an indication that the agent in Canada was trying to gather information, so what exactly this “targeting” of O’Toole consists of I am keeping my powder dry on.

This has, of course, given rise to another round of cries for a public inquiry. Not one of them has articulated just how such an inquiry would make any iota of difference from the current process being undertaken by Johnston (aside from taking three years and costing a few hundred million dollars). How exactly does this situation require additional subpoena powers when the government has willingly turned over all of their documentation? If most of it will need to be behind closed doors because of the nature of the information, how exactly does this build trust? Nobody has yet articulated this, and “it just will” is not an answer—especially when the media and the opposition have been undermining trust in how these matters are being reported and discussed, and I fail to see how a public inquiry will change any of this.

Meanwhile, David Johnston took to the op-ed pages of the Globe and Mail to defend his decision to carry on with the review in light of the criticisms of his involvement, which has been pointed out seems to misunderstand the nature of how the political game is played these days. Of course, Johnston is hoping that he can get MPs and party leaders to be grown-ups and work together on this problem, but that’s unlikely to happen in the current climate and especially with the current players, and in that same token, writing an op-ed in the Globe seems a bit like that same kind of naïve hope that people will treat this as they did a couple of decades ago.

On a related note, the CBC has one of the worst examples of both-sidesing the supposed controversy around Johnston’s alleged conflict of interest—two professors who say it’s probably not a conflict, all things considered, but Democracy Watch (which has no actual credibility other than they are a reliable quote generator for lazy journalists) says it is, so it’s up to Canadians to decide. Seriously? This is exactly the kind of thing that has allowed misinformation and disinformation to flourish, because they refuse to call out bullshit when they see it. This is killing democracy, and they absolutely refuse to engage in any self-reflection about it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck a clinic in the city of Dnipro, killing two and wounding 30, after Ukrainian forces shot down ten missiles and twenty drones targeting Dnipro and Kyiv overnight. Meanwhile, the disaffected Russian group has allegedly shelled more targets in Belgorod region in Russia. Ukraine’s defence ministry is warning that Russia plans to simulate a major accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in order to thwart the coming counter-offensive.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1662024887731474432?s=61&t=P3QULyv63iAc0o1A98RiWQ

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1661975921455161344?s=61&t=P3QULyv63iAc0o1A98RiWQ

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Roundup: Arguing over an appearance already scheduled

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It’s not even a sitting week, and yet we were treated to another instalment of the parliamentary clown show that has infected our House of Commons. The Procedure and House Affairs committee held an emergency meeting to demand that David Johnston appear before them to explain his reasons for not recommending a public inquiry. But the moment they got there, the chair said that Johnston was already scheduled to appear at the committee on June 6th, and that this had been arranged previously, and it just confirmed that this insistence he appear right away was just really, really bad theatre.

And then it went downhill from there, as MPs spent the next four hours debating a motion for Johnston to appear even sooner than the 6th, for no less than three hours, alone, because remember, they need to put on a bit song and dance about how they’re so serious! about all of these allegations. As I said, bad theatre. And then, the Liberals and NDP decided to try and be clever about this, and include a recommendation in the motion that all party leaders go through the security clearance process in order to read the full report and all of its classified evidence used to compile it. Well, that didn’t go over very well, and in the end, the Conservatives voted against their own motion because they didn’t want to be called out for refusing to actually read the full documents.

Spending four hours to try and sound tougher about a pre-scheduled meeting, to give themselves the last word, is just one more reason why our Parliament is no longer a serious institution. It’s appalling that they have wasted everyone’s time and resource like this, because Michael Cooper needed to make himself look like a tough guy. Inexcusable.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Wagner Group mercenaries are preparing to turn over control of their positions in Bakhmut to Russian soldiers, while Ukraine says that Wagner is only turning over positions on the outskirts of the city, and that they have drawn Russian forces into the city, where they are inflicting high casualties and weakening Russian defensive lines elsewhere. A prisoner swap took place for 106 Ukrainian soldiers, some of them captured in the fighting in Bakhmut. Russian control of one of the dams along the Dnipro river is causing flooding because they haven’t been working to level the water flow with the other dams in the network.

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Roundup: Why read when you can have a dog and pony show?

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The morning after the David Johnston report and his recommendation not to hold a public inquiry, and the day was largely just more people demanding one anyway. Yves-François Blanchet decided to team up with Pierre Poilievre to declare that any ability to give them classified briefings was a “trap” to shut them up, which is a) patently ridiculous, b) a test of being adults that they both failed, and c) an admission that they would rather make hay than actually do the work of accountability that their job requires of them, which again, goes to the fact that ours is no longer a serious Parliament.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1661329685546975232

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1661383973488975872

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1661372432676954118

As if to prove that Parliament is not serious, opposition members on the Procedure and House Affairs committee are now demanding that Johnston appear before them to explain his decision not to recommend a public inquiry. I mean, those reasons are all in his report if they bothered to read it, but that’s not what this is about. Rather, they want a dog and pony show, a chance to mug for the cameras while they hurl either invective or sanctimony toward him (depending which opposition party we’re discussing here) so that they can take those clips for their social media.

Meanwhile, two of the journalists reporting on the leaked documents were on Power & Politics last night, an as expected, there was zero self-reflection or acknowledgement that they might be getting played, particularly after Johnston debunked things they have written about. Instead, we got self-justification and rationalization, and trying to insist that Johnston wasn’t the expert while their leaker was—never mind that we can see that what was leaked was done in a way to craft a particular narrative that appears to have partisan ends. And lo, the same pair produced one of the laziest stories I’ve seen in weeks, where they got two former commission counsel to insist that a public inquiry would “restore confidence” without actually saying how.

Ukraine Dispatch:

All the news appears to be about those Russian dissent groups crossing into Belgorod region in Russian, denying reports that they were “crushed” by Russian forces ad saying that they’ll keep up the incursions, which is likely to stretch Russia’s forces even more than they are already over-extended maintaining their invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, Norway will also help train Ukrainian pilots on F-16 fighter jets (but I haven’t heard who will be donating the aircraft just yet).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1661405030388310018

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1661249400281202688

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Roundup: Johnston says no public inquiry

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It was David Johnston Day, as his first report was delivered, and he did not recommend a public inquiry for very good reasons—particularly that it could not be necessarily public given the nature of the information, and that it would be window dressing at this stage of the game, considering he had already done a lot of the heavy lifting, and planned to do public hearings as part of his final report. You can read the full report here, but here are the five key takeaways. There was plenty of scathing material in there, particularly to the system of information dissemination within government, but also to the way media stories torqued partial information into falsehoods (the Han Dong allegations were discredited in the report). There is a problem with information culture within government, and while this government has done a lot to fix some things, they are not adapting fast enough to the changing environment, and that is on them. (Check out some of the threads linked below as well).

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1661045080705187842

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1661080153122848781

https://twitter.com/stephaniecarvin/status/1661211717924188161

Johnston’s decision was necessarily a no-win scenario, and everyone is unhappy, but nobody has exactly explained how a public inquiry was going to restore trust in the democratic system—particularly as it comes under attack by bad faith actors who spent the day trying to discredit Johnston and his report (never mind that he did address the alleged conflicts and consulted with a former Supreme Court of Canada justice before accepting the job), and that no matter who would lead either the Special Rapporteur process or a theoretical public inquiry, there would be the same bad faith attacks because they don’t actually want to restore faith in the process. They want people to distrust because they cynically hope to leverage that in the next election. Pierre Poilievre in particular has refused to strike any kind of statesmanlike tone and refuses to be briefed because he knows that the moment he actually knows the intelligence and can’t talk about it, he can’t outright lie and make accusations with wild abandon, and that’s his entire shtick. But this is a fairly classic Canadian problem, where MPs don’t want to know the actual secret information, because then they’d have to stop talking, which they don’t want to do. Remember, ours is no longer a serious Parliament.

There is a conversation to be had about the role media is playing in undermining the faith in democracy, but you can rest assured there will be no self-reflection around it. Rather, there will be self-justification and rationalization, and sniping that Johnston expects us to take the intelligence he’s seen at face value, which is ironic considering that the media outlets reporting on these leaks are expecting us to do the very same thing, even though there are agendas at play within that reporting.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1661050997936996356

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1661051520018706432

In pundit reaction, Justin Ling gives a fairly balanced summation of the report with some insightful commentary. Susan Delacourt is sceptical of Johnston’s assertion that politicians and media can play their parts in restoring faith in democracy. Andrew Coyne is unhappy with the notion that we are expected to just trust Johnston (ignoring the contradiction made above), and while he credits Johnston with inviting NSICOP and NSIRA to review his findings, the same secrecy problem remains. Matt Gurney despairs at the picture of incompetence the report paints.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Following his return to Ukraine after meetings at the G7 in Hiroshima, Japan, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visted marines on the front lines in the country’s east. Over the weekend, the Russians claimed they overran Bakhmut over the weekend, which Ukraine denies, particularly as they have been reclaiming territory surrounding it. Russians are also claiming Ukrainian “sabotage groups” are crossing the border into the Belgorod region, but it sounds like these may be disaffected Russians, as Ukrainans deny involvement. Russians later claim to have “crushed” these groups.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1660291196030271490

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1660884230174560256

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Roundup: A bad report and a bad debate

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The Parliamentary Budget Officer released another one of his highly dubious reports yesterday, this time on the incoming clean fuel regulations. Why is it dubious? Because it’s entirely one-sided and assumes no costs to climate change, and no adaptation on the part of industry in order to bring costs down to meet their obligations under the regulations, which is the whole gods damned point of these kinds of mechanisms. Oh, and this isn’t fiscal policy, so it’s not clear why he’s even doing this kind of report in the first place.

As you may have noticed during Question Period, the Conservatives jumped all over this report and its findings, and when they were questioned, their media staff were over social media accusing people of calling the PBO a liar. Well, it’s not that he’s a liar—it’s bad data, a bad report, and the numbers taken from it were used dishonestly and entirely in bad faith. And the PBO gets the attention he’s looking for, and around and around we go.

Rachel Notley vs Danielle Smith

For the purposes of researching my column last night, I subjected myself to the leaders’ debate in the Alberta election and it was…not great. Yes, lots of people gushed at how nice it was just to have two leaders going head-to-head and not four or five, but we don’t have a two-party system federally (and it’s a bad sign that Alberta has a de facto one provincially).

My not-too-original observations were that Notley was weirdly on the defensive most of the night, while Smith was pretending to be the upstart challenger rather than the incumbent, attacking Notley on her record at every turn when Notley wasn’t effectively throwing many punches herself. Yes, she did well on the healthcare and education portions, but was not effectively countering Smith’s confident bullshit throughout, and that’s a real problem in a lower voter-information environment, where that confidence plays well regardless of the fact that Smith lied constantly with a straight face. On the very day that Smith was found to have broken the province’s Conflict of Interest Act, Notley had a hard time effectively making this point, while Smith claimed vindication because it showed she didn’t directly call Crown prosecutors, while it full-out warned that Smith’s behaviour was a threat to democracy, and Notley could barely say the words.

Programming Note: I am taking the full long weekend off, so expect the next post to be on Wednesday.

Ukraine Dispatch:

There are reports of more air raids in Ukraine early Friday morning. Russians fired 30 cruise missiles against Ukrainian targets in the early morning hours on Thursday, and Ukraine shot down 29 of them, with the one that got through striking an industrial building in Odessa, killing one and wounding two. There were also further gains made around Bakhmut, and even the Wagner Group’s leader says that they have bene in retreat. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy set up a reintegration council in order to provide advice for the restoration of Ukrainian rule when they liberate Crimean.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1659213321927794693

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QP: Misquoting a bad report on fuel standards

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The prime minister was in Japan for the G7, and his deputy was off in Brampton. Most of the other leaders were also absent, save the leader of the opposition, and Elizabeth May. Pierre Poilievre led off, and in French, he tried spin the upcoming fuel standard as a second carbon “tax” that will punish Quebeckers. Steven Guilbeault said that Quebeckers believe in climate change while the Conservatives don’t. Poilievre said that the federal government was preventing Quebec from building more green hydro, and demanded they scrap this “tax.” Guilbeault said that this wasn’t true, and that refineries who made record profits need to do their fair share. Poilievre switched to English to insist this was all according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer (it’s not), to which Guilbeault quoted from a separate section of the PBO report where he said that he was not looking at the environmental costs, which were real. Poilievre insisted that those costs would not be reduced with a tax, and repeated his overwrought math. Guilbeault said that emissions went down beyond the pandemic lockdowns. Poilievre then switched to his bullshit concern trolling on safe supply and demanded it be ended in favour of treatment. Carolyn Bennett said that the deaths are from poisoned supply, and the BC coroner has said there is no evidence that safe supply had led to any deaths.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and insisted that the government was hiding Chinese interference and demanded a public inquiry. Dominic LeBlanc said said that it was hard to consider a public CSIS report to be “hiding something,” and that they have taken measures to counter it. Therrien demanded an inquiry immediately, to which LeBlanc said that Johnston would make his recommendations around an inquiry next week.

Gord Johns rose for the NDP, and he railed about McKinsey and Company and tried to tie it to the opioid epidemic. Helena Jaczek said there are open fair and transparent procurement processes, and there is an integrity regime. Jenny Kwan railed about corporate landlords and demanded the federal government do something that as clearly in provincial jurisdiction, to which Ahmed Hussen recited his usual talking points on rental assistance.

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Roundup: Ad hoc panel assembled to review documents NSICOP should have handled

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After months and months of delay, the government has finally unveiled the ad hoc panel that will examine the Winnipeg Lab documents, and that panel will comprise of four MPs and three former judges—two former Supreme Court of Canada justices, and one from the Federal Court of Appeal. Allegedly it took so long to set up because they needed to convince the judges, and then it took forever to get the Bloc and finally the Conservatives on board.

Of course, this whole exercise is completely unnecessary because this should have all been done by NSICOP. This is exactly the kind of thing that it was created for, but the Conservatives have been bad actors about this entire affair (and Michael Chong being among the worst of said bad actors), turning this whole thing into a needlessly drawn-out affair that has involved the government suing the House of Commons over a production order, and years of absolutely unhinged conspiracy theories as to what happened (again, with Chong being among the worst offenders).

I can pretty much guarantee you that this committee is going to find nothing to write home about. There has been plenty of reporting as to what happened. It wasn’t Chinese espionage. It was almost certainly a policy breach related to intellectual property, but this being a highly secured facility, you can imagine that has complicated matters. In any case, this whole thing is going to wind up being one giant waste of everyone’s time and resources because they decided to make a dog and pony show out of it for the sake of trying to embarrass the government rather than being responsible and just letting NSICOP read the unredacted documents that were provided to them in the first place.

Ukraine Dispatch:

There have been more early-morning missiles fired at Kyiv, and falling debris has set fire to one non-residential building, while at least one person was killed in a missile strike on Odessa. While Ukrainian forces continue to make gains around Bakhmut, the Russians are still sending people into the fighting, and there doesn’t appear to be any ammunition shortage, in spite of those Wagner Group videos.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1658751950165356544

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1658800755946528774

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QP: The “sneaky” fuel standard the Conservatives also promised

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The prime minister was still in South Korea, but his deputy was once again present for the debate. (It’s been a while since we’ve had three in a row), and all of the other leaders were present as well. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and spouts some nonsense about deficits before insisting that Chrystia Freeland was incompetent for not answering at committee the size of debt payments. Freeland insisted that the person who won’t answer questions is Poilievre and what he plans to cut (which is not her job to ask questions). Following an incident of a shouter in the Gallery bellowing out a manifesto as he was removed, Poilievre tried again in English, and Freeland this time straight up asserted that Poilievre plans to cut. Poilievre said he would cut the carbon price, and worried about a “sneaky” second carbon price known as the fuel standard. Freeland said that she was glad to hear the Conservatives talking about climate, because building a clean economy was where jobs are. Poilievre repeated the question, and Freeland said that he doesn’t understand that the need to plan for the green future, and regaled a meeting with an electrician who was excited about electrification. Poilievre tried to riff that this electrician would have to pay more because of the “taxes” of the government, and demanded again how much this second tax (which is not a tax) would cost. Freeland noted this electrician’s wife is an emergency room nurse who is benefitting from this government’s investments, because of course she is.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and raised an issue around contamination on Indigenous land in Quebec, and Freeland noted that Patty Hajdu responded yesterday that she is working with the local Indigenous leaders. Blanchet said that these people were living in fear, and Freeland agreed it was a serious situation that the government was engaged on.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and worried about skyrocketing rental prices, and Freeland praised the child care investments benefitting the single mother raised in the question. Singh switched to French to worry about rising grocery prices, and demanded the government fight it by taxing excessive profits. Freeland agreed that the wealthiest pay their fair share, which is why they raised their taxes and set up the grocery rebate.

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