Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

QP: Ignoring the threats of a trade war

Posted on by

In advance of the fall fiscal update, neither the PM nor the finance minister were absent, but so were all of the other leaders. Michell Rempel Garner led off for the Conservatives, and grumbled that the Americans want Saudi and Iranian oil over Canadian imports, for which Steven Guilbeault reminded her that the world of energy is changing, and that the future was in renewables, and that the record investments were happening in Alberta. Garner needled that she wanted Mary Ng to answer instead of a man to answer for her, for which Ng stood up and took exception to how the question was framed, before asserting that she always stands up for Canadian workers. Rempel Garner accused the government of being happy to offshore jobs to climate destroying countries, and this time François-Philippe Champagne stood up to praise their leadership in clean energy sectors. Gérard Deltell took over in French, and he worried about the American EV tax credit and stated that the government was doing nothing about it, to which Ng reminded him of their threat of retaliatory tariffs that they delivered to the US. Deltell again accused the government of doing nothing, and Ng listed how they have engaged with the US administration.

Alain Therrien rose for the Bloc, and complained that Trudeau was not currently interfering in the fight against Bill 21, and then demanded no interference in court challenges, for which David Lametti recited that nobody should lose their job for how they dress or their religion, and noted the were protests in Chelsea, Quebec, about the removal of a teacher. Therrien then railed that UN Ambassador Bob Rae said that Bill 21 defies the UN Declaration of Human Rights and wanted him recalled, for which Lametti simply asserted that they were monitoring the situation.

Jagmeet Singh suddenly appeared and complained about inflation and the GIS clawbacks, for which Kamal Khera read her talking points about supporting senior and working toward a solution on the clawbacks. Singh then to French to repeat the question, and this time Randy Boissonnault recited a litany of their support programmes.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Freeland is setting her policy own agenda—oh noes!

Posted on by

The Globe and Mail had a strange hit piece out yesterday that was largely targeted at Chrystia Freeland, but it was kind of all over the place and seemed to be missing the mark on a few different tangents. It was framed around Michael Sabia, the new-ish deputy minister of finance, and the fact that he hasn’t made any headway in reining in spending or coming out with a “growth agenda,” as though we aren’t still in a global pandemic that has required extraordinary government fiscal measures in order to keep the economy from spiralling into a depression, or the fact that the last budget was a growth agenda, but it was focused on inclusive growth rather than tax cuts, which a particular generation cannot wrap their heads around (and the fact that the piece singles out the childcare plan is evidence of this fact).

What was particularly troubling about the piece was the fact that it couldn’t quite decide how it was attacking Freeland. On the one hand, it worried that she was too hands-off in the department, leaving Sabia to manage it while she dealt with big policy items (for which she was attacked in absentia during Question Period yesterday), while at the same time, it is overly concerned that Department of Finance officials aren’t driving policy, but the government is. Which, erm, is kind of how things work in our system. The civil service is supposed to provide fearless advice but also do the work of implementing the policies and directives of their political bosses. That’s the whole point of a democracy—this is not a technocracy where the bureaucrats run the show, and if these sore Finance officials have a problem with that, perhaps they either need a refresher on how this works, or they need to find themselves out of the civil service.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1470409184076185600

None of this is particularly surprising, mind you—there are still too many pundits and journalists who still think it’s 1995 and will always be 1995, because that is the established media narrative by which they must always obey (and this hit piece also touches on the Cult of the Insider narrative as well with all of the anonymous inside sources). And the fact that Freeland is a woman holding the job, and is focusing on things like inclusive growth and not the usual “tax cuts=jobs” agenda frankly makes it too easy for the 1995 narrative to keep being circulated. But it’s not 1995, and perhaps it’s time that We The Media stop pretending otherwise, because this kind of hit piece was frankly something that should not have seen the light of day.

Continue reading →

QP: A scattershot of unfocused sound and fury

Posted on by

While both Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland were in town and had press events earlier in the morning, neither were present for QP, but neither were any other leader. Candice Bergen led off, script on her mini-lectern, and she demanded a personal apology from Harjit Sajjan for not dealing with sexual misconduct in the Canadian Forces, and Anita Anand, fresh from giving the official apology, stated that said apology was one example of the steps they were taking to work toward a place where there was a safe workplace in the Forces. Bergen then pivoted to the planned CPP premium increase, declaring that it would kill small businesses. Randy Boissonnault shrugged that the Conservatives don’t like the CPP, and he praised it. Bergen accused the government of hating small businesses, and Boissonnault praised the strong economic recovery. Gérard Deltell took over in French to also worry about the CPP increases, and Boisonnault repeated praise for the CPP in French. Deltell specifically raised tourism and hospitality sectors, and demanded the government split Bill C-2 to immediately pass those supports, and Boissonault didn’t bite, and wanted support for the whole bill.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and declared that Bill 21 was democratically passed, and declared that it doesn’t target anyone, to which David Lametti said that nobody should lose their job for wearing a hijab. Therrien demanded that the government declare it would not support court challenges, and Lametti said that there are currently court cases being fought in the province.

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, demanded an immediate solution to the clawbacks of GIS payments. Kamal Khera declared that they were working on it. Rachel Blaney took over in English to declare that seniors were homeless because of these clawbacks, and Khera read some good news talking points about supports for seniors before repeating that they were working on the clawback issue.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A big economic week ahead

Posted on by

It’s going to be a very big week in Canadian economics: Today is the day the Bank of Canada has their mandate to target inflation between one and three percent at an average of two percent gets renewed, with some additional language around employment in there (but not a dual mandate). Then Tuesday will be the government’s fiscal update, which isn’t expected to announce too many new things because there simply isn’t time for a budget implementation bill to accompany it. And then Wednesday, Statistics Canada will release the inflation figures for November, and it there remains a possibility it could go higher still before being expected to cool down by mid-next year. Because it’s largely about supply chains, and as the former governor of the Bank of Canada keeps reminding us, it’s not about the political situation or fiscal policy. The counterfactual is that if the government didn’t spend on pandemic supports and the Bank didn’t engage in quantitative easing, we would be in a deflationary depression cycle, and that would have left us all worse off.

With this in mind, here is economist Kevin Milligan with some added context:

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1470099272632733696

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1470100800261132288

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1470102174076006401

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1470103387714637827

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1470104572261638146

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1470105479288262657

Continue reading →

Roundup: Limited federal options on Bill 21

Posted on by

So, the fight over Bill 21 in Quebec is gaining some traction now that there have been real-world consequences, and a bunch of MPs (mostly Conservatives) who previously said nothing about it—and who previously supported odious things like “barbaric cultural practices tip lines” and “Canadian values tests”—are now speaking up and recanting previous positions. Which is good, but while everyone is hoping for some kind of federal response or action on the legislation, I’m not sure there is an actual avenue. Consider this from constitutional law professor Carissima Mathen:

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1469013986142298114

This is essentially what Justin Trudeau has been saying—he’s opposed to it, but this isn’t the time for the federal government to step in. That time will be when the fight reaches the Supreme Court of Canada, because then they have a legitimate avenue to be an intervenor in the case. Until then, they can say they oppose it—and they have much more so than other parties—but they’re also not making wild symbolic actions that won’t mean anything. And while both Erin O’Toole and Jagmeet Singh say they are personally opposed (and Singh has a legitimate dog in this fight), Singh has been somewhat blank on actions a federal government could take, while O’Toole made it clear he wouldn’t interfere in any way because a) provincial jurisdiction, and b) he’s spent his entire leadership trying to suck up to François Legault and out-Bloc the Bloc, for all of the good it did him in the election. And there are demographic considerations that play into the political calculations as well:

Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert, lays out the political calculations and options for Trudeau and O’Toole when it comes to challenging Bill 21. Paul Wells adds a boatload of more context to the situation both federally and in Quebec, and gives some sharper thoughts as to why the federal government has vanishingly few levers but nevertheless has options.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Theatre of the absurd, housing motion edition

Posted on by

The closer the House of Commons gets to rising for the winter break, the more absurd theatre we see. Yesterday was case in point, with the Conservatives’ second and final Supply Day of the calendar year. The topic was housing, but their motion was a complete dog’s breakfast of nonsense, contradiction and outright unconstitutional demands. Because of course it was.

The point was made that the inclusion of the outright lie about capital gains taxes was a ploy for the Conservatives to say that the Liberals were not ruling it out when this motion as inevitably defeated (as indeed it was). But Liberal Mark Gerretsen though he was being crafty and tried to move a motion after QP to head off those talking points, trying to call for unanimous consent to reaffirm that they wouldn’t tax capital gains. But the motion didn’t pass, so Gerretsen tried to spin that too, and it’s just utterly stupid that I can’t even.

Continue reading →

QP: Demanding the inflation target

Posted on by

With the prime minister virtually attending Biden’s “democracy summit,” and Chrystia Freeland absent, it was promising to be a rockier day in the Commons. Erin O’Toole led off, his script on his mini-lectern, and he brayed about inflation, housing prices, and coming interest rate hikes. Ahmed Hussen reminded him that they were the federal party that restored leadership to the housing file and he praised the National Housing Strategy. O’Toole raised the prospect of predicted food price hikes, and then pretended that Trudeau and Freeland were in the Chamber and not answer, and Randy Boissonnault, in his role as associate finance minster, reminded O’Toole about the Bank of Canada’s inflation target. O’Toole pretended that the prime minster ignored his responses about the Bank’s mandate and worried it would be changed, to which Boissonnault reminded him that the Bank is independent. O’Toole switched to French to misleadingly say that the Liberals planned to abandon the inflation targeting mandate, and Hussen repeated his first response, and called out the nonsense in the Conservatives’ supply day motion. O’Toole returned to braying about inflation in French, and Boissonnault repeated in French about the Bank’s mandate, before reciting some good news talking points.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he worried that the Auditor General showed that thirty percent of COVID tests were lost or mislabelled, for which Duclos said that he thanked the AG for her work, and said they would examine the results. Therrien worried about the stat that fourteen percent of those tested were never notified, but Duclos gave a bromide about working to prevent omicron.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and after citing a report on growing inequality (I would be dubious of that given that the Canadian trajectory has not been the same as the US), and he demanded a tax on the super-wealthy, for which Boissonnault listed measures to help those in need. Singh repeated the question in French, and Boissonnault read measures in the Liberal platform about taxing banks and insurance companies.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Rejecting the compromise for more theatre

Posted on by

In spite of the Liberals proposing a compromise on the release of the Winnipeg Lab documents last week, the Conservatives have rejected the offer, citing that it was “months late,” and that the “will of parliament has not changed.” But this is wholly disingenuous—they did offer another compromise in June before Parliament rose for the summer, and Parliament dissolved before the challenge to the order could reach Federal Court, which may have settled the outstanding question of whether the Security of Information Act fettered parliamentary privilege or not.

This rejection makes it clear that this is not about the information—it’s about political theatre. If it was about the information, they would have let NSICOP review the documents and report back. But no—they first came up with the fiction that they didn’t trust security-trained public servants to properly redact the documents, and then they came up with the fiction that the prime minister redacts NSICOP reports, which he does not and never did, and handwaved about only trusting the Commons’ Law Clerk—who doesn’t have the training or context around national security to know what is a necessary redaction or not—to do redactions. (They also piled onto the same law clerk the redactions from pandemic documents for the health committee in the previous parliament, overloading his office and ensuring that they would never see all of the requested documents). The government provided avenues for the documents to be released, but the Conservatives have consistently decided that theatre was more important (particularly as they fed the “mystery” of these documents into conspiracy theories).

We’ll see how much patience the other parties have for this nonsense—and at this point, it is most definitely nonsense. They were happy enough to embarrass the government pre-election, so we’ll see if they still have the appetite to do so now. But at this point, this no longer has any bearing on accountability or being serious about national security. This is one hundred percent about political theatre, and it would be great if the pundit class of this country could call it out for what it is.

Continue reading →

QP: Shouting about the Bank of Canada’s mandate

Posted on by

Less than two hours after the prime minister announced that Canada would be engaging in a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Olympics, he was present along with his deputy for QP. Erin O’Toole led off, script in front of him, and he lamented that there was no decision on Huawei and that Canada was the “last one” to announce the diplomatic boycott of the Olympics. Justin Trudeau have a paean about standing up for human rights and doing what is right. O’Toole then pivoted to uninsured mortgages and worried that interest rates would soon be rising and blamed the government for letting inflation run rampant—which doesn’t make any sense because rates were going to go up anyway and they are unnaturally low and them rising toward a neutral range would be a good thing. Trudeau reminded him that they had a plan around housing while the Conservatives only promised a tax break for landlords. O’Toole railed about inflation and demanded the government mandate the Bank of Canada maintain the Bank of Canada’s two percent inflation target, and Trudeau said they would renew it and then pointed that the Conservatives plans did nothing for affordability. O’Toole started yelling about inflation, and Trudeau shrugged this off as flailing. O’Toole switched to French to ask again that they renew the Bank’s inflation target, and this time Trudeau said that an announcement was forthcoming. 

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and he complained that border measures were too confusing, and Trudeau said that he understood that the new rules could be confusing but they were doing everything they could to keep Canadians safe. Blanchet gave a hypothetical travel plan and wondered to know what tests or constraints they would be subjected to, and Trudeau said that anyone travelling should consult with public health authorities, but they needed to protect Canadians. 

Jagmeet Singh led for the NDP, and he complained about housing and claimed the government has to tools to solve it — erm, except nothing immediately short of a Green Lantern ring. Trudeau praised the efforts that the government has been taken and are expanding. Singh complained in French that the government wasn’t building housing on federal lands in Montreal and accused Trudeau of giving it to a member of the Bronfman family. Trudeau lamented that he expected personal attacks from the Conservatives but not the NDP, before talking about partnering with Montreal.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Swift passage, but not for the better

Posted on by

In another surprising move, the Senate passed the bill to ban conversion therapy at all stages yesterday, with no committee study, meaning that it only needs royal assent now, which can happen at any time. But while this is a relief to many, it’s also a tad irresponsible.

The lack of study of the current bill in the House of Commons was a political gambit designed to keep the Conservatives from being trapped by their own social conservative members, and to avoid giving any more media clips about people supposedly overcoming “lesbian activity” and so on. The fact that this version of the bill is different from the one that passed the Commons in the previous parliament is relevant, and there are changes that deserved some actual scrutiny because there were live constitutional questions around them (and yes, I asked the minister about it during the press conference, and I asked other questions about the bill during the not-for-attribution technical briefing, but those are not on the parliamentary record). And yes, this matters because the Senate should have done the work that MPs opted not to do out of political expediency. That’s one of the reasons why the Senate is the chamber of “sober second though”—because they don’t have to deal with the political repercussions and ramifications when the politics wins out in the Commons.

Unfortunately, politics also won out in the Senate (which should be an indictment of its supposed more “independent” existence these days). Acting Conservative leader in the Senate, Senator Leo Housakos, in his speech to give the bill swift passage, said that this issue shouldn’t be made into a political wedge like the Liberals were doing. Which is ironic because it wasn’t the Liberals who were holding up the bill previously by slow-walking it, refusing to let debate collapse, and by putting up speaker after speaker to offer the same concern trolling. That wasn’t the Liberals being political—it was 100 percent on the Conservatives for that, and now they’re trying to shift that blame. Yes, passing this bill at all stages was the expedient thing to do, but from a process and a parliamentary perspective, it was not the right thing to do, and it’s going to make the courts’ jobs that much harder when this inevitably gets challenged and they have little on the record to go by.

Continue reading →