Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: Refusing to aid so-called “illegal refugees”

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MPs from the Liberals, NDP and even the Bloc are condemning the actions of Conservative MP Richard Martel as he refused to assist asylum seekers in his riding who face possible deportation to El Salvador, where they are threatened by gang violence. More than that, Martel called them “illegal refugees,” which is not a Thing, but is certainly drawing from American and far-right rhetoric.

What I find most interesting in this, however, are the people who think that Pierre Poilievre should intervene if he wants to show that he’s sincere about his outreach to newcomer communities, and should send the message to “treat all refugees equally.” But this ignores that Poilievre has been following the Jason Kenney “curry-in-a-hurry” method of ethnocultural outreach, which was predicated on using these communities in wedging others, whether it was going to socially conservative communities and saying things like “You hate the gays? Us too! You should vote for us!” Even more to the point, Kenney constantly turned different newcomer communities against one another, creating an artificial division between the “good” economic immigrants who “went through the queue,” versus the asylum seekers whom he termed “queue-jumpers,” never mind that there is no queue for asylum seekers or refugees, but that it is a separate process entirely (and no, refugees are not economic migrants. Refugee resettlement is a humanitarian project, and people need to get that through their heads). Getting one group of immigrants to resent asylum seekers was what Kenney was constantly trying to do.

Mind you, he wasn’t all that successful—his efforts never really netted much of a result when you looked at the election data, but the myth of his so-called success has been cemented in the imaginations of conservatives (and a not-inconsiderable portion of the media), so of course Poilievre is going to take inspiration from it. So I don’t expect he’ll take too much exception to the “illegal refugee” line, because it’s right out of the Jason Kenney playbook.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 301:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the front lines in Bakhmut and met with soldiers there. Zelenskyy is expected to head to Washington today, his first trip since the invasion began, to address Congress as it debates further aid for Ukraine. Meanwhile, Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine are removing signs of Russian influence form public spaces now that the Russian-speaking lobby in the country has largely evaporated.

https://twitter.com/maria_avdv/status/1605101789677867009

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Roundup: The first Sovereignty Act lawsuit

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The first legal challenge to Danielle Smith’s risible “Sovereignty Act” has been filed, and it’s from the Onion Lake Cree Nation, citing that the Act tramples on their treaty rights, that it’s ultra vires the province’s authorities, and that they were not consulted on it when it impacts their rights. This shouldn’t be a surprise—they warned her that she didn’t consult them and that this was going to be a problem, and she not only didn’t listen, she made the utterly offensive comparisons, claiming that the federal government oppresses Alberta like it did First Nations. This is who she is. I can’t wait for the courts to smack this legislation down for the unconstitutional mess that it is.

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 300:

Russian drones struck Kyiv’s power grid for the third time in a week, as 18 out of 23 drones were shot down over the city, and those successful drones are said to have caused fairly serious damage. There were also reports of kamikaze drones flying over a nuclear power plant in the Mykolaiv region.

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Roundup: Are the rising Senate costs that alarming?

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Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I have to say that the CBC story on the rise in bureaucratic expenses in the Senate is…textbook alarmism. Look at the framing. The front third of the story are quotes from senators lighting their hair on fire at the seventy percent rise in costs!, divorced from any actual facts or context. And by the time you get more than halfway down, you have a spokesperson for Senate administration explaining some of those costs, and not necessarily even noting that seven years ago, the Senate was operating at a greatly reduced capacity because Stephen Harper had avoided making any appointments in a fit of pique in the wake of the ClusterDuff scandal, and senators were keeping their heads down lest more hellfire rain down on them. But none of this is mentioned by way of comparison, and only some mention is paid to the fact that because the Senate is now broadcasting its proceedings, it takes a lot more staff to do that work, which is partly why the costs have gone up.

The other thing that nobody is really discussing among all of the alarmist rhetoric and the wailing and gnashing of teeth—obligatory in any story that mentions costs, because Canadian journalism and the CBC in particular absolutely love cheap outrage—is the fact that turning the Senate into a more “independent” chamber is going to make things more costly, because senators can no longer rely on party infrastructure to do some of that work for them on the cheap. It shouldn’t be that big of a mystery as to why displacing that will make other costs rise, but nobody wants to talk about that—only the supposed good that “independent” senators bring. (And some of them do bring good! But the Liberals in particular lost a whole lot of institutional memory and state capacity because Trudeau rather gutlessly cut his party’s senators loose rather than face what was coming with the Auditor General’s report, and pretended it was for the sake of altruism and principle).

While I have a lot of strong opinions about what is happening in the Senate these days, the so-called rise in costs is not one of them. The story here is largely a lot of nothing, dressed up in a frightening costume for clicks, but that’s the current media modus operandi, unfortunately.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 299:

There have been renewed attacks on Kyiv in the early hours, while there is a watchful eye on the Belarusian Border as Putin heads to visit his ally there. Here’s a look at the significance around Hanukkah for Ukraine’s Jewish community, while in Kherson, there are questions as to how Russian forces were able to overtake the city so easily in the first place.

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Roundup: That’s not what the Canada Health Act means

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As much as I have some residual shreds of optimism that some people are starting to wake up to what is going on with the collapse of our healthcare system and are finally starting to apportion blame where it belongs—namely the provincial premiers—that doesn’t extend to everyone. And lo, there are still far too many members of the pundit class in this country, including its newest inductee, who refuse to get the memo, and who misconstrue the system in order to pin the problems on Justin Trudeau. To add to that, my reply feed is inundated with people who believe the disinformation that Trudeau has either cut or withheld half of the funding for provinces, which bears absolutely no resemblance to what is happening in reality.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1603795671760486411

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1603796262276550657

And do not start handwaving about the Canada Health Act, because you can pretty much guarantee that it doesn’t mean what you think it means.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1603804047282151424

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1603805458699259904

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1603805932995182592

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1603806417819168768

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 297:

Russia launched a major missile offensive against Ukraine, whose forces intercepted some 60 of the 76 missiles fired at them. That further damaged critical infrastructure in places like Kyiv, Kharkiv, Kryvhi Rih, and Zaporhizhzhia. This of course strained electrical grids even further, as each subsequent attack strains the system even further, making it harder to recover from each attack.

https://twitter.com/AnitaAnandMP/status/1603898290747080704

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Roundup: Delaying the expansion of MAiD?

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The day after the House of Commons rose for the winter break, David Lametti and Carolyn Bennett announced that they would be moving to delay the implementation of the expansion of medical assistance in dying for those who suffer solely from a mental disorder, or for mature minors with terminal conditions. The problem? The expansion date is already legislated, so they will need to pass legislation when they return at the end of January in order to make that happen, and they haven’t released any details to opposition parties about what kind of delay they’re talking about.

There are a lot of problems with this announcement. While I won’t repeat most of what I wrote in this column last week, part of the problem is that this perpetuates an unfairness for those who have an untreatable mental disorder but also have another comorbidity who can apply for MAiD while those who don’t have the comorbidity can’t, and in the process, it continues to stigmatise mental illness. That’s why the delay also goes against the Supreme Court of Canada’s finding of unconstitutionality. Meanwhile, everyone who says “mental health is health” but is pulling for this delay is making a hypocrite of themselves because you’re proving that it’s something separate. Additionally, you can’t just say the federal government shouldn’t go ahead with the expansion until more supports are offered because they cannot legislate those supports. Those have to come from the provinces, who are not bound to any federal timetable, and while yes, the federal government is negotiating a dedicated mental health transfer to the provinces, we are back to the problem of negotiating outcomes into that agreement and provinces balking at strings. We can’t divorce the fact that most of the objections to this are either socially conservatives in nature that oppose all forms of MAiD in principle, or it’s from people squeamish about mental illness and who are further perpetuating stigmatisation. I have little doubt that this is going to turn into a meltdown in February once MPs are back, and it’s going to be extremely hard on the system.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 296:

Russian forces are pounding the Donetsk region. Russia has been threatening “consequences” if the US does deliver a Patriot anti-missile system to Ukraine, without spelling out what those are, but part of the problem with America transferring the systems is that they take some 90 personnel to operate and training which they can’t provide on the ground.

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Roundup: End of the 2022 fall sitting

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Yesterday was the last sitting day of 2022 for the House of Commons, and as is common at this time of year, everyone is cranky and ready to go home and have a nap, and this year is no different. This being said, Question Period has been pretty sedate overall the past few weeks, and there have been pre-Xmas QPs in years past that were rancorous, and we haven’t had that. Nevertheless, the government is in definite need of time to go regroup after the way they utterly ballsed-up their own gun control legislation, as well as some of the other problems with bills like their broadcasting and online news legislation. Hopefully some time away will help them get their priorities straight, and to fix the mistakes they made by either being too clever by half, or by sheer incompetence (and sometimes it’s a tossup as to what the problem was indeed).

I will note that there was an outcry over Twitter from members of the disability community that the Canada Disability Benefit legislation didn’t pass before they rose, and an NDP MP tried to pass a motion to give emergency funds in the interim, as though that were remotely feasibly and wouldn’t result in provinces clawing back their own meagre benefits. (Seriously, CERB was not magic.) The thing that needs to be remembered is that the CDB bill is just a framework—even if it passed yesterday, it wouldn’t pass the Senate in time, and when it does pass, it needs to go through a massive regulatory process to fill in the benefits, which also needs to be done with provincial negotiations so that we don’t wind up in a situation where provinces either claw-back benefits or funding so that these people are worse off than they were before, or where things wind up in a situation where other supports are withdrawn because they were means-tested and the federal benefit moves them out of reach of those thresholds, which again, will disadvantage those who need it. None of this is happening overnight, and it’s a process. So frankly, the fact that the bill didn’t pass before Xmas this year is not surprising, and wouldn’t have an immediate impact in any case.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 295:

Ukrainian authorities say that they intercepted and destroyed thirteen explosive-laden drones headed for Kyiv yesterday, but the wreckage still damaged five buildings. Meanwhile, Russia has said there will be no Christmas ceasefire in Ukraine, which isn’t surprising (though the only thing even less surprising would be them agreeing to it and then reneging). In the meantime, they have shelled the regional administrative centre in Kherson, because.

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QP: One last kick at the can for 2022

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It was the final Question Period of 2022, and not a moment too soon. After we got the traditional recitation of the Xmas Poem as read by Anthony Housefather (some of whose rhymes were a bit more tortured than in years previous), things got underway.

Pierre Poilievre led off in French, raising a statistic about the rising cost of Christmas dinners, and wedged in a lurid tale of people threatening to access MAiD rather than living in grinding poverty (which ignores that that is not a criteria). Justin Trudeau said that he would like to join in and wish people happy holidays, but knows that it can be difficult because of global inflation, which is why they have created support programmes for those who need it, including with dental care and childcare. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his same points, but trying to tie poverty to government waste. Trudeau noted that Canadians step up for each other, and listed his government’s actions again. Poilievre again tried to tie supposed government waste to inflation, and Trudeau deployed his well-worn talking points about the government making the decision to help Canadians when they needed it and it resulted in the economy roaring back faster than our comparator countries. Poilievre demanded to know when the “waste” identified by the Auditor General would be paid back, but Trudeau mentioned this week’s by-election in his paean about his government supporting Canadians. Poilievre could not end the year without deploying a “triple, triple, triple” ear worm in worrying about heating bills, and Trudeau noted that the federal carbon price doesn’t kick in over in Atlantic Canada until the spring, so Poilievre was trafficking in misinformation. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and tried to intimate that the premiers wanted to meet with him “like a family dinner,” and Trudeau noted that he has met with premiers more than any of his predecessors, noted that he was meeting with François Legault in a few days, but he was there to work with provinces to solve the healthcare crisis. Blanchet torture the family dinner even more, and Trudeau noted that the system as it exists isn’t working, which is why he was there to invest more, but it would take more than just throwing money. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and asked a very selective reading of the health-related promises from the election, and wondered where the action was. Trudeau noted that they were working toward rewards and outcomes with provinces. Singh declared that when he as prime minster, he would keep his promises (to much laughter), and demanded to know what happened to the promised $25/hour wage for long-term care workers, and Trudeau repeated that the federal government is there to step up, and that they would work with provinces to raise those wages.

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Roundup: Trudeau holding the line on health transfers

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While NDP leader Jagmeet Singh makes empty threats about ending their confidence agreement with the government if they don’t *handwave* do something about the current crisis in paediatric hospitals, prime minister Justin Trudeau seems to be staking a pretty firm position that he’s not giving the provinces a blank cheque and that he’s going to only give money when there is an agreement to reform the system, starting with data on outcomes so that they can measure what the new funding is doing. In his year-end interview with The Canadian Press, Trudeau elaborated on this particular position, with the backing of some national doctors and nurses groups, that just throwing money at a broken system won’t solve anything, so he’s going to just keep kicking this problem down the road.

Of course, the provinces think they have the upper hand here and have spent all kinds of money trying to convince Canadians that this is all the federal government’s fault, because they have been given a free hand with blame-shifting for decades now, because they could get away with it. There is ever-so-slowly a coming around to the fact that no, this is pretty much entirely the provinces’ mess, and the fact that they think we’re all idiots who can’t see that they’re crying poor while running surpluses, handing out vote-buying cheques and giving tax cuts to upper income brackets. They can’t keep up this act forever, and they are looking increasingly desperate in their attempts to keep shouting “look over there!”

Meanwhile, let me note that PEI remains the only province still moving ahead (slowly) with national pharmacare, as they are slowly identifying gaps and adding them to the formulary.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 294:

Ukrainians fleeing from Bakhmut describe constant shelling as Russians have pounded the city into nothing. In Kyiv, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy dissolved the District Administrative Court, which was rife with corruption and likened to a criminal organisation, saying that Ukraine can fight corruption and Russian invaders at the same time. The US has also been finalizing plans to send Patriot missile defence systems to Ukraine, which could help with the incoming Russian bombardment. Meanwhile, doctors and nurses from Mariupol have reassembled in Kyiv to help displaced Ukrainians in need of care. Elsewhere, here is the tale of Ukrainian women building drones in Latvia to send back to aid the war effort in Ukraine.

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QP: Mary Ng will only apologise twice

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The prime minister was present today, while his deputy was off in Paris. Shortly before things got underway, the Ethics Commissioner released his report on a contract Mary Ng’s office awarded to a friend of hers, so that was also going to come up. All of the other leaders were present today, save Elizabeth May, for what it’s worth. After a statement about the passing of Jim Carr, Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he first offered condolences to Carr’s family and to the Liberal caucus for their loss. With that out of the way, he asked about the list of soon-to-be banned hunting rifles and wanted more work on fighting criminals instead. Justin Trudeau thanked Poilievre for his thoughts about Carr, and said a few nice words about Carr’s legacy in both French and in English. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the question about “Grandpa Joe’s hunting rifle in Cape Breton” versus criminals, and this time, Trudeau insisted that Canadians are united about keeping communities safer from assault weapons, but they needed to ensure the ban stays in place, which is why they were moving ahead with their legislation but they would continue to consult to ensure they are capturing the right weapons. Poilievre raised the concerns of his backbench MPs about those weapons, and tried to insist this was a big plot against hunters. Trudeau dismissed this as misinformation and said they were going to continue to consult on the list because they were not interested in hunters, but the Conservatives only wanted to make assault weapons legal again. Poilievre then changed topics to story about immigration case files assigned to employees who are no longer there, to which Trudeau read some pabulum lines about modernising the system and resolving the “technical issues.” Poilievre changed topics again to the Ethics Commissioner’s finding that Mary Ng violated the rules in giving a contract to a friend, which he tried to tie to other previous scandals. Trudeau instead countered with some crowing about last night’s by-election victory in Mississauga—Lakeshore and how Canadians rejected Poilievre instead.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and after giving condolence about Jim  he concern trolled about immigration levels in Quebec before raising the story about the case files going to phantom employees before demanding that Quebec be given full control over its immigration system. Trudeau said that Quebec has the capacity to take more immigrants and they are there to help them with it. Blanchet insisted that Roxham Road-arriving asylum claimants were difficult to integrate and demanded more control over the system. Trudeau reiterated that they did not set a target for Quebec and they were there to work with the province.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, demanded the government do something about the paediatric health crisis in the country. Trudeau said that they realise there is a crisis, but they are not going to send a blank cheque like the NDP wants and will ensure they get outcomes. Singh repeated his demand to “find solutions” in English, and Trudeau repeated his response.

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Roundup: The passing of Jim Carr

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Just before Question Period was about to start yesterday, the news broke that Liberal MP Jim Carr, who had been dealing with cancer for the past three years, had died. Proceedings were cancelled for the day, and tributes have been pouring in.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 293:

It appears that Russia has burned through so much ammunition that they are now using decade-old stockpiles with high failure rates. Ukrainian forces say they have repelled Russian advances against four settlements in eastern Donetsk, and on eight settlements in Luhansk. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met virtually with G7 leaders about the need for modern tanks, artillery, shells, and natural gas to help their situation.

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