Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: Still nothing to say

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Oh, nothing. Just a few more selected tweets as this situation continues. Don’t mind me.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1573395492259729408

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1573412911065841687

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1573414167989698565

https://twitter.com/Garossino/status/1573514485998161921

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 212:

Russian-occupied regions in Ukraine were subjected to sham “referendums” yesterday, to provide a paper cover that claims these regions want to “overwhelmingly join Russia,” which of course is not true and will not be internationally recognized, because everyone knows it’s a sham. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Ukrainians in these occupied regions to undermine these sham referendums, and to share information about those caught up in said farce. Meanwhile, a UN commission of inquiry on the invasion of Ukraine has found evidence of war crimes committed in Russian-occupied areas, which should surprise no one.

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Roundup: No further comment

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In the event you have been cut off from the news cycle, I became the story yesterday as MP Garnett Genuis raised a point of privilege, and said that I made him feel “unsafe.” While I won’t comment much further until the Speaker makes a ruling on this, I have selected a few tweets from the day about the incident.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1573021640413548545

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1573043603072765952

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1573056388770988032

https://twitter.com/Garossino/status/1573056918389948416

https://twitter.com/Garossino/status/1573058396278099970

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1573063078396190723

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/1573087699262918656

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 211:

While the operational pause on Ukraine’s counterattack continues, they have been engaged in recovering bodies that have been unburied for months from earlier in the invasion. It also looks like a high-profile prisoner swap has been arranged, that will include some of the defenders of Mariupol.

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Roundup: A tale of two rage-farmers

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Yesterday during Question Period, I made an unoriginal joke about Garnett Genuis’ terrible performance. But we live in Extremely Online times, and so Andrew Scheer decided that he was going to do something about my lame joke. He claimed that I called for Genuis to be shot—which I most certainly did not—and began the process of online intimidation through rage-farming. Of note, Scheer tried this previously against Gerald Butts for using the term “defenestrated,” and that whipped up a huge frenzy, because of course it did. While a handful of randos started the process of harassing me, a short time later, the Canada Proud account decided to pick up on it, putting out a wholly unoriginal shitpost declaring me to be a “Liberal journalist” who owes Genuis an apology for advocating he be shot—which again, I did no such thing, and I owe him no apology. If anything, he owes everyone an apology for subjecting us to his attempt to be clever with the lyrics of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” And lo, more of Jeff Ballingall’s winged monkeys tried to harass me online, with one or two Conservative MPs chiming in, insisting that I “crossed a line,” which again, I did no such thing. I fully expect Pierre Poilievre to put out another wounded-sounded fundraising email about me by tomorrow.

The point here is that this is how the intimidation game is played, and why they think that journalists are uniquely vulnerable. If you are critical about anyone on their team, they declare that you are biased, even though you are critical about every team. They howl and moan, in the hopes that you either apologise and retract, and then they know that you’re weak, and that they can silence you through these kinds of tactics. It’s partially why so many journalists have resorted to scrupulously both-sidesing all of their lies—because they screamed and moaned about being treated unfairly, and insisting that they were “insulted” when they were called out for their blatant falsehoods, and yes, this has absolutely happened—until those reporters and their editors stop calling them out, and instead, just both-sides what is said. Both-sidesing in turn allows them to lie with impunity, because they know they won’t be called out for it, lest they begin this cycle again. And now, our political discourse is completely fucked as a result. So no, I’m not going to let Scheer or Ballingall intimidate me, and their winged monkeys don’t scare me.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 210:

Russian president Putin announced a partial mobilisation of Russian reserves to fill positions in the army, if that’s any indication of how well this is going for him. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a video address to the UN General Assembly, assuring victory for Ukraine, but also calling for punishment for Russia, including stripping them of their permanent seat on the Security Council.

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QP: Freeland steps up to call out Poilievre’s false tax claims

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While the prime minister was still at the UN General Assembly, his deputy was present today, so it was hoped we would get a better series of exchanges. Fingers crossed. Poilievre led off with his same talking points about the share of paycheques being devoted to housing, and demanded that “tax hikes” be cancelled. In response, Chrystia Freeland responded by reading a script about the role of the opposition in a Westminster system, but whatever point she was trying to make got lost. Poilievre switched to English to repeat same question, and Freeland noted that since EI premiums were mentioned, she pointed out that when Poilievre was the employment minister, premiums were $1.81, while they will soon be $1.61. Poilievre retorted with combined CPP and EI figures to show that they are higher overall, and Freeland lectured him that EI and CPP are deferred income, they don’t go to general revenue, they are the safety nets for Canadians. Poilievre insisted that the government was trying to raise CPP so its surplus could go to general revenue, and decried inflation and these so-called tax increases. Freeland said that it was irresponsible to talk down the economy, but Canada is better positioned than any country in the world. Poilievre insisted that thirty-year-olds in their parents’ basements would disagree with the rosy assessment of the economic picture, and Freeland pointed out that the government has measures for people in need, while the Conservatives have irresponsible plans, like investing in Bitcoin.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he congratulated Poilievre and gave a shoutout to Alain Rayes before saying that the prime minister should take Roxham Road on his way back to Canada because it is “faster.” Freeland read a response about respecting the rights of asylum seekers, and working with the Americans on border obligations including the Safe Third Country Agreement. Blanchet suggested that when Trudeau returns, he sing his responses before he demanded the Safe Third Country Agreement be suspended and Quebec be given its own immigration powers. Freeland pointed out that Quebec does get to control its immigration levels.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, decrying rising prices, while grocery profits have increased since 2020. Freeland assured him they are ensuring that big businesses pay their fair share, including higher corporate taxes, the pandemic dividend tax for banks and insurance companies, and the new luxury tax. Singh repeated the question in French, trying to introduce the term “greed-flation,” to which Freeland repeated her response.

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Roundup: Kludging together dental care

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Parliament resumed sitting yesterday, and the first thing the government did was tabled two bills related to their recently announced affordability measures. While the GST rebate is a fairly straight-forward mechanism that mostly just needs a royal recommendation to ensure that funds are available for it, they also tabled their bill on dental care, or rather the funds to be used for dental care in lieu of a full-on programme because it’s going to take a while to figure out how best to do it. And thus far, it looks like the kludge is to use the CRA as the delivery mechanism and who would eventually follow-up to see that it was properly administered and not improperly claimed. But that’s going to be a problem. And the worst part of this is the reminder that the NDP want this to be a fully federally-administered programme, when it’s an issue within provincial jurisdiction, and there is no federal system they can realistically build off of. The CRA to transfer funds to families is a kludge, and not a great one, but the NDP have demands and an inane belief that the problem just requires enough political will. This can only end in tears.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 209:

While Ukrainian forces bolster their lines with captured Russian tanks, shelling around the Enerhodar nuclear plant has resulted in damage to the facility, as they target other power plants and dams as though that would make it easier for slaves to do the work.

On the Russian side, it looks like the regime is trying to speed ahead sham referendums to justify formally annex those territories, but nobody should be fooled. As well, the Duma is considering legislation that would crack down on soldiers who disobey orders, as well as deserters, which could be indicate a real problem for Russia when it comes to maintaining their military.

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QP: Demanding to rescind tax increases for things that aren’t taxes

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The first day back, and the prime minister was off at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, while his deputy was in Toronto for the the funeral of former Cabinet minister Bill Graham, leaving the rest of his front bench to deal with Pierre Poilievre’s leadership debut. When he began, Poilievre started in French, complaining that EI and CPP premiums increased, as did the carbon price, and demanded that these “tax increases” be rescinded for “senior and workers.” Randy Boissonnault was chosen to respond, congratulating Poilievre on his victory, before he said that Canadians were about to see two competing visions—the Liberals who care about people and the the Conservatives who tell them that they’re on their own, and raised their affordability package that was just tabled. Poilievre took exception to this, and said the Liberals didn’t care because the share of average Canadians’ paycheques that go to housing going from 32 percent to 50 percent. Boissonnault repeated his points about their affordability measures. Poilievre switched to English to remix both of his previous questions into one, and Karina Gould stood up to assure him they had measures going to families who need them. Poilievre trotted out his talking points about people who can’t leave their parents’ basements, and Ahmed Hussen praised their housing measures, which Poilievre and his party voted against. Poilievre listed the supposed tax increases the government made (which were not actually taxes), and Boissonnault got back up to repeat his lines about the “two competing visions” in English.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he raised the spectre of gun violence in Montreal, demanding federal action. Marco Mendicino have his boilerplate response of his thoughts being with the victims, and said that they have a plan with legislation and more resources for security at the border. Therrien was not mollified and demanded more action, and Mendicino hoped for support for their gun control bill, as it has more resources for police to deal with organised crime.

Jagmeet Singh stood up to pat himself on the back for “forcing” the help more people deal with inflation (as though this government wouldn’t have done most if not all of those measures on their own, with the possible exception of the stopgap measure for dental care to meet the deadline) and rhetorically wondered what took them so long. Boissonnault recited his praise for the government’s affordability measures. Singh switched to French to decry the greed of grocery CEOs and demanded the government force them to “pay their fair share,” to which Boissonnault assured him they were making them pay, and listed the increase to corporate taxes and their “dividends” from the pandemic (which I’m sure is just for banks and insurance companies).

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1572292824028319746

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Roundup: The funeral in London, and the memorial in Ottawa

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The funeral service for the Queen went ahead in Westminster Abbey yesterday, before she was laid to rest at Windsor Castle. Canada had one of the largest contingents there, including horseback Mounties leading the procession (and perhaps that is all the Mounties should be after they are dismantled). I will note that it was amusing how many UK and American outlets were confused by the presence of Sandra Oh at the event as part of the procession of honours recipients, along with Mark Tewksbury to represent Canada. A non-scandal has also been erupting in certain media outlets where the prime minister *gasp!* sang at a piano in his hotel lobby a couple of nights ago. *yawn*

https://twitter.com/Canadian_Crown/status/1571838803945443329

In Ottawa, the national memorial ceremony for the Queen took place in Christ Church Cathedral down the street from Parliament Hill, and as attended by most MPs and senators, with former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and former prime minister Brian Mulroney speaking (and yes, there was a public appearance by the Canadian Secretary to the King). It also featured a couple of musical interludes, including Rufus Wainwright singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, which is probably really appropriate for a memorial for the Queen (seriously, guys, it’s a song about sex), but it was a lovely service nevertheless.

https://twitter.com/Yasir_Naqvi/status/1572039552394575877

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 208:

A Russian missile struck 300 metres away from the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear plant in southern Ukraine, so that’s concerning.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskaUA/status/1571855017816072195

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Roundup: Gatherings in advance of the funeral

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As Canadian officials were in London over the weekend in advance of the Queen’s funeral, a number of meetings took place between the prime minister and King Charles III, and the King also met with the Governors General of the Realms. Trudeau also met with the new UK prime minister, Liz Truss and other world leaders, while back at Canada House, Mary May Simon invested Stephen Harper into the Order of Canada, while former prime ministers and Governors General took some time together.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 207:

While the counter-offensive remains paused to allow supply lines to catch up and the units to recuperate, discoveries continue in cities and villages recently liberated. Beyond the mass grave found in Izyum, torture chambers have been found in Kozacha Lopan near the border. Russian forces continue to target civilian infrastructure, and have stepped up attacks since being forced from recently liberated areas. Meanwhile, Kharkiv is celebrating Pride, which is an accomplishment in a country still largely hostile to LGBTQ+ rights, as they are being invaded by a country that has been weaponising homophobia.

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1570891880178786304

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Roundup: The Convoy Party of Canada

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The CBC did the work of comparing the names on the leaked GiveSendGo data around donations to the occupation of Ottawa from back in February and compared it to the publicly available donor database from the Conservative leadership campaign, and lo, there was a lot of overlap, to the tune of $460,000 from 3,100 donors to both (a likely underestimate as they ignored close names and postal codes), and most of that went to Pierre Poilievre’s campaign. A lot of these names had never donated federally before, which shows that the occupation has galvanised a political movement. Now, this was only 4.2 percent of the donors to the leadership overall, but this gives you a sense of why Poilievre has decided to give up on the political centre and focus his hopes on these fringe elements who had previously been disaffected, hoping that they will be what is able to push him over the edge in the next election.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1570804839663415296

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1570805416250187776

This was something that I discussed with Stephanie Carvin in a previous video we did, and wrote a column about—this kind of political movement is catnip to parties, and they will try and ride this tiger in order to benefit from it, either in votes or donations. But that’s the thing about riding the tiger, is that almost all of the time, you can’t actually do it, and it will turn around eat you, and that’s exactly what Poilievre has risked his entire political party to do. And rest assured, a fringe group who are not rational actors will be very hard to control, and they risk easily turning on him when they find out that he can’t do most of the things he promised them he would, or that his economic theories are based on utter nonsense, and that his entire platform is built on a foundation of sand. We watched this happen when the Republicans in the US embraced the Tea Party, and it drove them further to extremism and to Donald Trump. Justin Ling details that, and other examples, in this op-ed, and the fact that Poilievre and his camp believe they’re cleverer than all of those other parties who tried to embrace the fringe and were consumed by it. That’s probably the most chilling part, because Poilievre is certainly not cleverer, and he has a higher opinion of himself and his abilities than anyone who has watched him for any length of period would see. Jason Kenney also suffers from the same affliction, and look where it got him. We are entering into dangerous territory.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 205:

Attention in the conflict remains on the discovery of the mass graves in Izium, where more have been discovered, and many with hands tied behind their backs and showing signs of mistreatment before they were killed. Meanwhile, it has been decided that president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s wife, Olena Zelenska, will travel to London for the Queen’s funeral.

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Roundup: On the debate on societal decline narratives

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I’ve been thinking a lot about Colin Horgan’s essay about Pierre Poilievre tapping into the meta-language of a society in decline, and how playing into those narratives has the potential to make things worse, particularly as the bad actors who respond to this kind of thing start becoming increasingly drastic in their actions. In response, Matt Gurney wonders that if people do believe we’re in a state of decline, and whether it’s worse that Poilievre is speaking to them on those terms, or that the governing Liberals can’t admit to the problems under their watch. I’m have a lot reservations about the notion that Poilievre is trying to somehow channel these anxieties—there is absolutely no indication that Poilievre can try and do anything positive with them when the discourse is about burning things to the ground (metaphorically at least). But what exactly are we considering to be the decline?

https://twitter.com/Lazin_Ryder/status/1570536744080252928

This tweet from Matthew Lazin-Ryder makes a very good point—that the “rise and fall” narratives are not how societies work, and that the level of pessimism in 1974 was staggering when we read about it in hindsight. I also have to wonder about what is being considered in the decline. Much of what Gurney lists in his piece are areas that are complex—most of it are things that the federal government has little control over, so a figure like Poilievre addressing it has no substance to it, and in the areas that they do, such as the armed forces, it’s hard to consider things in decline when the institution was so horribly broken beforehand, and we are at a place were we are trying to do something about it rather than pretend those problems didn’t exist. Does that make it a symptom of decline, or that we’re actually dealing with the problems? As for the problems at the provincial level, yes they are problems, but they are not new—just reaching a boiling point—and they require political action to deal with, which is caught in a cycle of federal-provincial blame-shifting, enabled by media outlets who simply both-sides the issue rather than call out the responsible parties (meaning the premiers).

My other particular sense of caution around declinist narratives is the fact that a lot of them come from a place of people who have problems with women, queer and trans people, people of colour, all being more prominent, and who are being given a voice and agency for the first time in modern history. They see this as some kind of decline because as white men, they view equality as a diminution of their own privilege, which feeds this false narrative of decline. When you see people declaring themselves “anti-woke,” you have to ask yourself whether it’s the fact that they have a problem with women and minorities being visible or having agency. Hell, in the Quebec leadership debate, there was a segment where the host was demanding that leaders say the n-word to “prove” they weren’t woke, which is appalling, but an indication that those who try to resist so-called wokeism are really trying to make racism okay again. The fact that declinists espouse these kinds of narratives makes me question their entire world view, and brings me back to the problem of those who pander to that viewpoint for the sake of scoring political points, when it can feed it and takes us to a darker place.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 204:

President Volodymr Zelenskyy says that a mass grave with more than 440 bodies has been found in the recently liberated city of Izium in the Kharkiv region, which probably shouldn’t be surprising at this point. In fact, I fear that there will be all kinds of mass graves being uncovered for years to come thanks to Russia’s genocidal campaign. Evidence has also been found of Russian “torture chambers” in cities that have been liberated, so war crimes prosecutors have a big job ahead of them.

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