Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: A bad case for a dumb idea

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The flirtation with separatist sentiment in Alberta is bringing all the boys to the yard, and suddenly they’re all trying to make a cockamamie case for why this is a real threat. Yesterday it was respected tax economist Jack Mintz who decided to stray way outside of his lane, and insist that Alberta has a better case for this than Great Britain does with Bexit, which is patent nonsense both on its face, and in every single one of his nonsense arguments. And yet, in the rush to pander to the angry sentiment in Alberta and to offer up simplistic solutions and snake oil to what is a series of protracted (and in some cases intractable) problems that require time and patience to resolve. Mintz later went on the CBC to defend his column, and made a bunch of other nonsense arguments that presumes that the US would be a better customer for Alberta oil…despite that the actual pipeline capacity going from Alberta to the US is minimal and don’t think they could easily build more if they can’t even get Keystone XL over the finish line there.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1075414877890502656

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1075415929394102272

Meanwhile, Tyler Dawson makes the case that such a separatist movement not only lacks logic, it also lacks a real leader or the intellectual heft to actually make it something viable. Andrew Leach takes Mintz to task on his assumptions about demand for Alberta oil. Jen Gerson tells Alberta that while they have legitimate grievances, the insistence that Ottawa is simply out to get them risks becoming a pathology, while the separation talk is terrible, and simply burning the system down won’t help anyone. Can I get an amen up in here?

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1075469089450078208

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Roundup: $1.6 Billion instead of a magic wand

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Yesterday, the federal government announced $1.6 billion in help for the Alberta energy sector – but insisted it’s not a subsidy. $1 billion of it was in loans for exporters to invest in technologies and address working capital needs or exploring new markets; $500 million from to help smaller oil and gas businesses weather the uncertainty, $50 million from the Clean Growth Program, and $100 million in economic diversification projects. It wasn’t something like federal funding for companies to remediate orphan wells, for example. And predictably, Rachel Notley and various other Conservatives immediately dismissed this as not asking for money but wanting “the handcuffs removed,” which seems to me to be code for waving a magic wand to get pipelines built immediately, despite the fact that unless they plan to bulldoze through the Indigenous consultation process, is something the government can’t do. And Andrew Scheer? He went full drama queen with a petulant press release that accused Trudeau of trying to destroy Alberta, sounding very much like a jealous suitor wailing “He can’t love you like I will!”

More to the point, the federal government can’t just ram through the approvals for Trans Mountain, given that the last time they tried to cut corners, the Federal Court of Appeal objected and rescinded their approvals and would do so again, hence why they’re going the route of doing what the court laid out, and that takes time. There is no magic wand. Killing Bill C-69 won’t solve anything because the current system isn’t working, and while the bill is flawed and open to amendment at the Senate, Conservative senators have not consented to any committee hearings before the Senate’s slated (late) return in February (and I have heard various reasons for this, both in opposition to the bill, and because they are pushing back against the committee chair, who they accuse of doing the bidding of Senator Peter Harder). The tanker ban on BC’s north coast? That’s demanded by many of the coastal First Nations. Scrapping the carbon tax? Won’t change anything because it has nothing to do with the oil price differential and oil companies have been asking for a carbon price so that they can have predictability when it comes to climate demands. And then there’s the bogeyman about foreign funded “paid protesters” that the Conservatives blame for everything, despite the fact that they don’t control the courts or the economics of projects. That won’t stop Scheer or Jason Kenney from offering the people of Alberta another vial of snake oil, promising quick approval on pipelines that they can’t actually deliver on.

Meanwhile, amidst more lies and grievance narratives around the federal equalisation programme, Trevor Tombe drops a reality bomb about how the system works and why. Because amidst the demands for magic wands and offering snake oil, the Jason Kenneys of this country will continue to lie about how equalisation works to keep people angry in the hopes of getting electoral advantage for it. We need more people to tell the truth about the system if we’re to keep a lid on the anger and try to do something meaningful to address it rather than simply bow to grievance culture and fabrications.

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Roundup: Salaries are not cement

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As the debate over the proposed changes to the Parliament of Canada Act continues to roll along, some of us are struck by the fact that the whole framing of the debate continues to be utterly wrong – that the wrong headline on the Canadian Press piece about prime minister Justin Trudeau looking to “cement” the changes in order to make it harder for a future prime minister to roll them back is completely wrong, given that the PCA has nothing to do with the appointment process. And yet, here we are, once again debating the independent appointments commission, when the actual changes to the Act involve salaries for caucus leaders and some organisational issues. Virtually all of these have been extended to the Independent Senators Group, from committee chairs and assignments, to a role on the Internal Economy Committee, budget allocations for their leadership’s office (aka the “secretariat”), and so on. The only thing they can’t get currently, which they need changes to the PCA for is a higher salary for their leadership team. Fair enough, one might say, but considering that they eschew the label of a caucus, and the roles of both government and opposition, preferring to be neither fish nor fowl, it does make it a bit harder to justify that they should be on equal footing to them. In practice, they are very much a caucus, but this is what the changes they are asking for boil down to – it has nothing to do with “cementing” the changes to the institution, and it would be great if the pundits and journalists talking about this issue could grasp that basic fact.

With that in mind, Colby Cosh penned a fairly (deservedly) harsh piece about the changes to the Upper Chamber, and the fact that Trudeau is creating a Frankenstein’s monster that has more to do with his trying to absolve himself of his responsibility for the Chamber than anything. And Cosh is absolutely right – this has been about Trudeau washing his hands of any whiff of scandal in the Upper Chamber since he became leader, consequences be damned. And there have been real consequences – Trudeau centralised power within his caucus because he got rid of the voices with the most experience who could push back against him without consequences (it’s not like he can threaten not to sign their nomination papers), and got rid of the bulk of his party’s institutional memory in one fell swoop. He’s also losing his ability to get his legislation through the Chamber because he named someone inept as his “representative” (who should be a full-fledged Cabinet minister in order to ensure proper lines of accountability) who refuses to negotiate timelines on bills in the manner in which the Senate operates.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1074845188210622465

This having been said, I will again reiterate that what we should strive for is for the ISG to become like the crossbenchers in the Lords, but that depends on a strong enough Liberal and Conservative contingent to provide balance, and this prime minister has no interest in that, preferring to continue with this experiment in Frankenstein’s Monster until he gets burned by it. And while I’m sure that there will come a reckoning, that the ISG will fracture, and eventually some of its members will drift to an established caucus, it may be some time before that happens and sanity starts to prevail in the Chamber. I just wouldn’t count on this prime minister to provide any of it.

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Roundup: Trudeau’s year-end musings

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It’s that time of year, when the prime minister is starting his rounds of year-end interviews, and thus far, with CTV and The Canadian Press having been done so far. Some of the newsworthy moments have been that he is saying that he is looking for a way to get out of the weapons deal with Saudi Arabia. He also says he’s not planning on an early election (to which I would say of course, because he’s going to have too hard of a time getting everything he needs to get done before the fall, so why would he want to go early?) There was also some very careful language around Energy East, both in that there is not a current proposal on the table so any talk of it is hypothetical, but also that under the current approach, there is no support for the project in Quebec, which could mean that under a different environmental assessment regime (like the one they’re planning in Bill C-69) they may have better luck. Maybe. But I did find the qualifier very interesting. He also pushed back against some of the simplistic notions around the deficit in some of his clearest responses to date (though he still used much of the same pabulum language), so that’s maybe a sign he’s improving on that file. Maybe. He also warned about using populist anger over issues like immigration, which immediately made the Conservatives get huffy and say that he was launching personal attacks, and so on.

Out of all of this, I was most interested in what he had to say about the Senate, and how he plans to make changes to the Parliament of Canada Act, though the headline says this is about trying to make it harder for a future PM to make changes to reverse his reforms – though the Act wouldn’t do that at all, nor does he actually say that in the interview quotes, so I’m not sure where they got that notion from. I am on the record as saying that I think they should hold off on these changes for now, because the Senate has made sessional orders to do everything that they need them to do around the additional caucus funds and so on, and because it’s simply too early to make these kinds of permanent changes to the legislative authority given that the “reforms” have been ham-fisted and ill-considered, and we could very well be creating even more problems for ourselves down the road. But they want to ram this through before the election, and there is going to be a fight on their hands to do it, so we’ll see how that plays out in the New Year.

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Roundup: Duffy v privilege

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As expected, the Ontario Superior Court dismissed Senator Mike Duffy’s attempt to sue the Senate for their disciplining him because the Senate is protected by parliamentary privilege. Privilege is what allows the Senate to be self-governing and as a body that is focused on holding government to account, it has complete institutional independence for very good reason – so that they can speak truth to power without fear of dismissal or reprisal. So imagine the utter gall of Duffy’s response to this ruling.

“The Charter of Rights applies to all Canadians, but the Court decision states that because of the centuries old concept of Parliamentary Privilege, the Charter doesn’t apply to Senators.” Oh dear me. No. You see, the only reason that Duffy still has a job in the Senate is because of parliamentary privilege. If he didn’t have the privilege afforded to him, he couldn’t have made the myriad of accusations about Stephen Harper and his operatives in the Senate Chamber on the eve of his suspension – not without fear of reprisal, particularly a lawsuit. That the Senate is self-governing and has institutional independence saved him from being summarily dismissed by the prime minister of the day when Duffy caused him a great deal of embarrassment. While I don’t dispute that Duffy was subjected to a flawed process that denied him the benefit of due process due to political expediency because, the fact that he received a suspension without pay that was eventually lifted, allowing him to resume his duties with full pay and serving enough time for his pension to kick in, means that he has pretty much escaped consequence for actions that he very likely would have been fired for in any other circumstance. That he then accuses the concept of privilege as stripping him of his Charter rights, when it has in fact protected him in every conceivable way, is utterly boggling.

Meanwhile, it seems clear that between this bit of self-pitying and the decision to pose with Senators Brazeau and Wallin while Brazeau tweeted that they “survived the unjustifiable bs [sic]” (since deleted), that there seems to be an insufficient amount of self-reflection at play, and that perhaps the three should continue to keep their heads down and not draw attention to themselves, because the public has not forgotten them.

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Roundup: Starting the Big Move

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Yesterday was the final day that Centre Block was officially in operation. As of today, the big move starts happening, starting with the House of Commons chamber, and will be followed by the other major offices, like the Speaker, the prime minister and leader of the opposition, with the heritage furniture that will continue to be in use. And once that’s done and the building is empty, they can start to open up walls and ceilings to figure out the state of the building, and determine what needs to be done in terms of renovations and restorations, and from that point determine a price tag and timeline. At present, everything is just a guess, so we’ll have to stay tuned. (Here’s a photo gallery of the current House of Commons and Senate, and the new Commons).

The Senate, however, is a different story. Recent testing of the new chamber brought to light the fact that there are acoustic problems related to sound leakage that were first identified two years ago, and despite assurances from Public Works, it wasn’t addressed. That means they have to install new sound baffles which will delay the move by several weeks, which means that there will be even fewer weeks for the Senate to address its full Order Paper in the New Year. Committees can still meet in the meantime, but it seems the Conservatives have decided to engage in some gamesmanship over Bill C-69, which has the Independent senators are complaining about stall tactics.

Meanwhile, here is a lengthy thread looking at the new Senate building, and six facts about the building, its history, and the new renovations.

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QP: Last shout in the Centre Block

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For the final QP of 2018, neither the prime minister nor the leader of the opposition were present (though Andrew Scheer did hold a press conference just hours before), leaving it up to Candice Bergen demanded urgent action on the opioid crisis, to which Ginette Petitpas-Taylor said that they were taking it seriously, and as a public heath issue and not a criminal one, which was why they were increasing harm reduction measures that Conservatives resisted. Bergen raised comments that she overheard Bardish Chagger say, apparently minimising the scope of the crisis, to which Chagger said that her comments weren’t meant to minimise the scope of the tragedy and she apologised. Bergen, with a script to follow, demanded Chagger to account for her comments again, and Chagger apologised a second time. Jacques Gourde then got up read the same demand for an apology in French, but Petitpas Taylor got up to talk about the measures they are taking. Gourde stuck to his script and demanded again, and got the same response from Petitpas Taylor. Guy Caron got up next for the NDP, and railed about VIA Rail not choosing Bombardier for its new fleet. Marc Garneau, noting that he had answered this repeatedly, said that Siemens did agree to at least twenty percent of Canadian content in their trains. Caron tried again in French, and Garneau more pointedly listed other investments that VIA made in Quebec. Pierre-Luc Dusseault got up next to demand action from the CRA on tax evasion, to which Diane Lebouthillier forcefully pointed out the investments they made and the number of new audits that have been conducted since they came to power. Peter Julian asked the same thing in English, and Lebouthillier repeated the actions they have been taking.

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Roundup: Closer examinations of Canadian populism

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The topic of populism has been coming up a lot lately, in a variety of contexts, and there were a couple of interesting discussions around it in the Canadian context over the past couple of days. One is an examination by Frank Graves and Michael Valpy that looks at some of the demographic factors in Canadian populist sentiment, and digs out some interesting things like broader support among male millennials, and even some immigrant communities (though I would note that it’s not that difficult to get immigrant communities to turn against other newcomers – particularly asylum seekers – a technique that Jason Kenney tried very hard to exploit when he was federal immigration minister. The piece is worth digging into, and I had to read it a good two or three times before I started to appreciate a lot of what was contained within.

Another interesting piece was a look at the construction of Alberta conservatism, which goes beyond fiscal and social conservatism – indeed, when polled on values, much of the province actually skews toward fairly centrist values – and yet they disproportionately gravitate toward conservative parties out of a sense of brand identity, which is particularly curious, though one should note that political parties have been losing their ideological bases in favour of left-and-right flavoured populism over the past number of years. And populism is very much a factor in the Alberta voting populace, as the examination shows, which includes the distinction of populism as something that appeals to the “pure” homogeneity of a “people.”

To that end, here’s a good thread that digs into what sets populism apart from democracy, and why it’s something we need to pay attention to as this becomes an increasingly important part of the Canadian discourse.

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QP: All about Scheer

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For what might be the final QP of the year, the galleries were full — press gallery included — and the benches were full. Andrew Scheer led off, repeating yesterday’s lead around the PBO’s contention that the deficit could be higher than reported. Trudeau got up and recited by rote his well-worn talking points about investing in Canadians and making life better for the Middle Class™. Scheer switched to English to ask again, and Trudeau hit back about “phoney budget balance” the Conservatives delivered that hurt veterans and families. Scheer accused him of offering falsehoods about the Conservative record (which is rich coming from Scheer, whose capacity for mistruth is quickly becoming legendary) before demanding a balanced budget. Trudeau castigated the Conservative record on growth while his government oversaw growth. Scheer insisted that Trudeau inherited a good economy (not true), to which Trudeau found it curious that Scheer wanted to double down on a plan that Canadians rejected in 2015. Scheer retorted that it was Trudeau who was doubling down on a failed plan before calling him a trust fund baby, and Trudeau replied that you can’t grow the economy with cuts to services, and listed the investments they made that led to record-low unemployment. Guy Caron was up next for for the NDP, and he worried that the CRA has not recouped anything from the Panama Papers. Trudeau picked up a script to read about the investments made in CRA to combat tax evasion, and that CRA has risk-assessed over 80 percent of the 3000 identified files and that criminal investigations were ongoing. Caron switched to French to reiterate the question, and Trudeau read the French version of the same script. François Choquette worried about Canada’s climate performance, to which Trudeau, sans script, talked about putting a price on pollution and helping families adapt. Linda Duncan repeated the question in English, and Trudeau grabbed a script to list measures they have made and investments made.

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Roundup: Huawei, Trump, and the rule of law

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The issue around the arrest of Huawei’s CFO in Vancouver last week took a number of turns yesterday, and is proving to be an utter gong show, thanks entirely to Donald Trump. So, to recap, the US ambassador to Canada stated that there was absolutely no political motivation behind the request for the arrest and extradition to the US, but meanwhile in China, a former Canadian diplomat who now works with International Crisis Group was arrested in China for no apparent reason, and there is no confirmation as to whether this is in retaliation for the Huawei arrest. Back in Vancouver, said CFO was granted bail for $10 million with five guarantors while she will await extradition hearings – and she has to surrender her passport, be under 24/7 surveillance and wear an ankle monitor, because she is considered a high flight risk. (Here’s a good backgrounder on all of the issues).

And then, it all went pear-shaped. Why? Because Donald Trump suddenly said that he’d intervene in the case if it helps to get a trade deal with China, which undermines the rule of law that Canada has been operating under and trying to assure Beijing that we’re operating under, and that because we have an independent judiciary with processes to be followed (which they can’t get their heads around because their judicial system is politicised), and all of the evidence around the criminal activities, allegations of fraud and of violating sanctions is apparently all for naught, because the US president has put his foot in it. And lo, Canada is relatively screwed by the whole thing. Hooray.

https://twitter.com/InklessPW/status/1072642206756990978

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