Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: Blaming the wrong government for the shortage of doctors—again

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Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I turn to the big piece on the weekend the CBC ran about family doctors, and which its author, JP Tasker, pursued while in the fill-in host’s chair on Power & Politics yesterday. This is something Tasker has been on for a while now, and he seems to think he’s on a righteous crusade about the shortage of doctors in Canada, and yet his article misses almost all of the important parts of the discussion, while he kept trying to set up this dichotomy on P&P between more doctors and pharmacare, getting that wrong as well, as it too will rely on provincial governments.

Reading the story, you wouldn’t know that healthcare is a provincial responsibility. There are mentions of the deals that the federal government has been making with provinces, but the focus remains on this somehow being a federal issue when its not. And the main cause of the shortage of doctors traces back to the cuts in the 1990s, when provinces cut the number of medical school and residency spaces as part of their cost-saving measures after the federal transfer cuts. While this isn’t mentioned, what is also not mentioned is that when the Martin government re-invested in health transfers, the provinces didn’t similarly reinvest. They didn’t significantly re-open training or residency spaces like before. And as the health transfers were rising at six percent per year, health spending by the provinces were certainly not, and a lot of that money that was supposed to go to healthcare went to other things (often lowering taxes or reducing provincial deficits). And now here we are reaping what has been sown, but are the provinces being blamed for the problems they created? Of course not.

These were their choices. It’s their jurisdiction. They should be the ones who shoulder the blame here, but in this country, legacy media is allergic to holding premiers accountable for pretty much anything (except maybe education), and once again, they get to skate after shitting the bed, while the federal government is being given all the blame. If there’s a chef’s kiss of just how terrible Tasker’s article is, he got a quote from someone who said the ArriveCan money should have been spent on hiring doctors, as though that was something the federal government could do. Slow clap.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces say that they have crushed the last pockets of resistance in Avdiivka now that the Ukrainians have pulled back. Those Ukrainian forces are now digging in to new positions just outside of Avdiivka to repel further advances. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the front lines in the north-eastern part of the country.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1759625711353053426

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Roundup: Falsely framing carbon prices and inflation

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Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I want to point your direction to a CTV piece from the weekend, taken from an interview with Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon on CTV’s Question Period. The headline and substance of the piece, taken from the interview, is “Feds won’t pause carbon price despite inflation.” Now, if you were a casual reader who didn’t know what was going on, you might think that the carbon price is driving inflation and the government is being obstinate in refusing to deal with that driver of inflation.

That would, however, be completely wrong. We know that the carbon price contributes only negligibly to inflation because inflation is measured on a year-over-year basis, and with the carbon price increasing at the same rate every year, the impact on year-over-year prices remains negligible. The Bank of Canada figures that it works out to 0.15 percent of inflation. Is this mentioned anywhere in the story? Nope. Instead, it’s both-sides as pointing to Poilievre’s promise to “axe the tax” (which is not a tax, but a levy, and yes, there is a difference), contrasted with MacKinnon pointing out that at committee last week, food economists pointed to the fact that there’s no evidence the carbon price has had a meaningful impact on the price of food, because, again, if you pay attention, you would know that the bigger drivers of food price inflation are droughts or floods in food-producing regions, including Canada’s, which is related to climate change. (That poing is also absent from the story).

Why does this matter? Because of how the story has been framed. It frames itself that carbon prices are driving inflation, which is false and misleading. It sets up a false scenario about what is driving inflation (which has fallen over the last year and is now in a sticker place just above target), and sets about positing a false solution, while trying to look like it’s concerned about cost-of-living concerns while looking at absolutely none of the driving factors of what has caused an increase in the cost of living. This, my friends, is shoddy journalism. I get that they were trying to get a headline out of that interviews, but great Cyllenian Hermes, that was not the way to do it, and it’s a little embarrassing that this was the result.

Ukraine Dispatch:

At least three Ukrainians have been killed in Russian attacks on cities in the country’s east, near the front lines. Ukrainian forces repelled an attempted Russian advance on the southern front, as Russians move their forces forward following the withdrawal from Avdiivka. The withdrawal from Avdiivka was preceded by a change in Russian tactics designed to take advantage of the shortage of ammunition. Ukrainian forces say that Russians executed six unarmed Ukrainian soldiers taken prisoner in Avdiivka as they were fleeing, and two more in the nearby village of Vesele. Here is a look at the significance of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and other infrastructure within Russian borders.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1759195559272108467

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Roundup: A choice of passive voice

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The reported death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny triggered reactions around the globe, and especially at the security conference underway in Munich, where Navalny’s wife spoke shortly after the news. Reaction from Canadian figures was pretty swift. Justin Trudeau was on CBC radio and was quite blunt: “It’s something that has the entire world being reminded of exactly what a monster Putin is.”

And then there was Pierre Poilievre, who passive-voiced the whole thing.

Between this and his votes regarding the Ukraine trade agreement, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that he is winking and nodding to a certain online audience. And while certain pundits have been “We think the initial vote was a mistake and he can’t take the L so he doubles down,” I suspect it’s more like “Sure, some Ukrainian diaspora communities are going to be pissed off, but what are they going to do? Vote Liberal? Hahaha.” They have hitched their wagon to the far-right PPC-voting crowd because they think that’ll get them the votes they need to win, and this is a crowd, that is mainlining Russian disinformation online, and believe that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a money-launderer buying yachts, that Putin is just trying to shut down “biolabs,” and throw in some antisemitic conspiracy theories about “globalists,” and it’s all stuff that Poilievre is willing to wink and nod to. Passive-voicing this statement was a choice.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1758543572578484364

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Roundup: Leaking an MP’s private conversation

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There were plenty of tongues wagging yesterday as a private phone conversation that parliamentary secretary for foreign affairs Rob Oliphant had with a constituent about the situation in the Middle East was leaked to the media, showing how he disagreed with some of the positions the government has taken for political reasons, and how they have badly communicated on some of the particulars. It’s a little bit grubby to have leaked the conversation, because it makes it harder for more MPs to be frank in their interactions for fear of this exact thing happening, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the leaders of other caucuses in particular used this as an object lesson in message discipline and never straying from it. (And before anyone says anything, the NDP tend to be worse than the Conservatives about this sort of thing).

When asked about the leaked comments, prime minister Justin Trudeau didn’t go off, and talked about how it’s great how much diversity of opinion there is in the Liberal caucus, so it sounds like Oliphant’s job is safe, but then again it’s also possible Trudeau was saying this and that Oliphant will be dropped in a week or two, once the spotlight isn’t directly on him, because he broke message discipline, even if this was supposed to be a private conversation.

Regardless, Oliphant says he sticks by his words and says there’s nothing he wouldn’t say publicly, and if anything, he’s probably conveying the delicate tightrope that the government is being forced to walk on this better than the government is doing, in particular because he has a deep knowledge of the region, and can express it better. If Trudeau and his inner circle have any brains, they would get him to do a better job of crafting their messaging for them, but we all know that the communications geniuses in this PMO are allergic to taking any lessons, so I have my doubts that they’ll turn to Oliphant to up their game.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia launched new missile and drone attacks against several Ukrainian cities, air defences taking out half of them. At least three civilians were killed in an airstrike on the Kharkiv region; in spite of the constant attacks, the people of Kharkiv keep on. Ukraine is withdrawing some of its forces from Avdiivka in order to get them to more defensible positions while one of their special forces heading to the region. France will be signing a security assurances agreement with Ukraine in Paris today.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1758143268313870473

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QP: Demands to turn over documents

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The prime minister was off in Winnipeg for a healthcare announcement with premier Wab Kinew, and his deputy was away in Toronto, while most of the other leaders were also absent. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and after deploying a half-dozen slogans, he broached the ArriveCan issue and said that he was told that a court order would be required to get a court order for the production of documents, and wanted the government to turn them all over. Jean-Yves Duclos said that the Auditor General did good work in her damning report, and that they have taken steps and more would follow soon, and that they were being transparent and turning over all requested documents to the RCMP and elsewhere. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the allegation that the RCMP needs a production order for records and again demanded that the government simply turn over the documents to the RCMP and committees. Duclos cautioned that Poilievre sounded like he was calling into question the capabilities of the Auditor General. Poilievre repeated his claim and again demanded that all documents related to ArriveCan or GC Strategies be turned over. Dominic LeBlanc insisted that they have been cooperative. Poilievre then quoted Thomas Mulcair on the situation, Poilievre wondered why the NDP were keeping the government in power, but that wasn’t a question to government. LeBlanc got up anyway to insist that they have taken this situation seriously. Poilievre then quoted Sean Fraser, claiming he was attacking himself, and demanded the government start building homes. Soraya Martinez Ferrada got up to pat the government on the back for working with mayors, and said that unlike when Poilievre was minister, they were getting housing built.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he wanted an expanded investigation into GC Strategies. Duclos reminded him of the scope of urgency in the pandemic, but said it wasn’t an excuse for civil servants not to do their jobs properly. Therrien demanded a “clean sweep” at CBSA, to which Duclos agreed that there needed to be an investigation, several of which are ongoing.

Heather McPherson rose for the NDP, and raised the number of casualties in Gaza, but insisted that the government is keeping up with arms sales (which they haven’t), and called out Rob Oliphant’s leaked comments. Ahmed Hussen insisted that Canada was the first to start offering humanitarian aid. Daniel Blaikie wanted support for the party’s bill on amending EI benefits, and Randy Boissonnault said that the work to modernise the system is ongoing, and this particular issue of women on mat leave being laid off was before the courts.

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Roundup: Another day of Guilbeault-baiting

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It’s becoming a little too predictable, and yet here we are again. Steven Guilbeault said something not even that controversial—that we have enough roads to suit our needs so the government isn’t going to spend more infrastructure dollars on major projects to grow them, while they focus on other things like transit and active transport. He’s not even terribly wrong for the most part—there is reams of evidence to show that expanding roads and highways doesn’t cure congestion but merely causes more, so the focus should be on other priorities.

Predictably, everyone freaked out—Conservatives went into full meltdown, and the premiers all lined up to howl about this, when again, they know he’s not wrong, and oh, by the way, there isn’t any money left in the infrastructure fund anyway, so why does it matter? Guilbeault was trotted out to say that he should have been more specific in his comments, and he was mostly referring to the Third Link proposal in Quebec City, which they have no intention of funding, but of course, by that point, the narrative is set as chuds across the Internet have been memeing this for all it’s worth.

Dunking on Guilbeault has become something of a national preoccupation, and news media likes nothing more than to both-sides this sort of thing, taking the bait to continue to give uncharitable readings and framing this as he and the government being “out of touch.” If there’s one thing that makes everyone angry, it’s the whole “war on the car” bullshit that keeps incredibly bad city councillors and mayors in power across this country. And we wonder why we are incapable of serious discourse in this country?

https://twitter.com/s_guilbeault/status/1757961974137168362

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that they used naval drones to sink a Russian landing ship in the Black Sea. Here is an explainer of the security assurances that Ukraine is signing with a number of countries including Canada.

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QP: Protesters and stunts for clips

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The prime minister was present today, while his deputy was not, and all of the other leaders were present, and ready to take full advantage of proto-PMQ day. Pierre Poilievre led off in French and worried that one of the companies involved in the ArriveCan debacle has won $250 million in government contracts since 2015. Justin Trudeau noted that in spite of the pandemic, rules needed to be followed, which is why he welcomes the Auditor General’s report. Poilievre quoted from that company’s website, and wondered what was up. Trudeau said that it as up to authorities to investigation any misconduct. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his first question with a “W. T. F?” at the end. After being warned by the Speaker, Poilievre clarified he meant “Where’s the Funds,” and the Speaker warned him again. As Trudeau gave his same response, there a disruption in the gallery of “Free Palestine” protesters, and then some shouting on the floor between MPs, at which point the Speaker called for a two minute break.

When things resumed, Poilievre got back up and wondered about this company further, calling them “suspicious.” Trudeau repeated that relevant authorities are investigating what went on. Poilievre got back up one more time, and recited his slogans before casting aspersions on this company for a fifth time. Trudeau repeated his answer yet again, before pointing out what they are doing to help Canadians.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he took his own kick at the ArriveCan question, and Trudeau repeated his same lines about needing to investigate. Blanchet wondered what is happening with this company’s other contracts, to which Trudeau went on about internal processes in the civil service that were triggered and that the RCMP are involved, and he awaited the results.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and lo, asked the very same question, asserting that that $60 million could have done things like hire nurses…which the federal government doesn’t do. Trudeau repeated his response again. Singh repeated the question in French, and got the same answer. Again.

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Roundup: A dubious Federal Court decision, but right about judicial appointments

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The Federal Court ruled yesterday that the federal government must start filling judicial vacancies faster because, which is true, but the judgment itself is something of a mess. It’s hard to see how the Court has jurisdiction here, and the judge seems to have invented a bunch of justification and has handwaved around constitutional conventions, and in the end, declared that the government must fill most of those vacancies “in a reasonable period of time,” which is vague and of little value other than the declaration. Emmett Macfarlane has promised a post on this soon, and Leonid Sirota has a thread here taking issue with the reasoning (though not the underlying issue of not making sufficient appointments—everyone is agreed on that point).

I have been writing on this government’s problems with appointments since probably their second year in office, possibly even sooner than that. While you can look up the myriad of columns I have written, the short version is this: The government wants to make diverse appointments (which is good! This is a good thing!) but they insisted on a system of self-nominations rather than going out and nominating people. We know that women, people of colour, and LGBTQ+ people routinely don’t apply for positions like this because society has drilled into them the message that only straight, old white men get positions like this. Even the Liberal Party itself gets this in their candidate selection process, where they set up systems to be persistent in getting women and diverse people to seek nominations. And even with that, the federal government has utterly dropped that ball and thinks that they can simply say “We’re accepting diverse applications!” and expecting those applications to flood in. They seem to act like the Sesame Street sketch where Ernie simply goes “Here, fishy, fishy, fishy!” and the fish leap into the boat. That’s not how this works, and when they don’t get enough applications, it slows down the process tremendously. And after seven years, they have absolutely refused to learn this lesson. Refused! It’s some kind of giant ideological blinder that they cannot get their collective heads around, no matter how many times the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court warns them, or the Auditor General sounds the alarm about vacancies on port authorities or the boards of Crown corporations, or even their process for appointing senators. They absolutely refuse to learn the lessons of their failures.

It does bear mentioning that there has been an uptick in the pace of appointments in the past few months, and filling vacancies for provincial chief justices and associate chief justices has also picked up speed (and yes, I have been keeping an eye out for this). That said, making federal judicial appointments faster won’t solve the problems with our justice system because a lot more of them involve provinces not properly resourcing provincial courts or superior courts, where you have a lot of cases where there are no court rooms or court staff available, and that causes as many if not more problems. The issue of federal appointments, however, is low-hanging fruit so it’s taking a lot more attention than it should, and once again, premiers are being allowed to skate because of it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians have struck a hospital and apartments in Selydove in eastern Ukraine, killing three people. Here’s a look at how Ukrainians are decoding Russian battle communications to save lives on the front lines. Russia is pulling old tanks out of storage and refurbishing them after having lost more than 3000 in the fighting in Ukraine over the past two years. Ukraine’s military intelligence is now saying that Russia has been buying Starlink terminals by way of “Arab countries.”

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QP: Call in the RCMP…that we don’t direct

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Both the prime minister and his deputy were present today, as were all of the other leaders, so that was nice to see. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and after reciting some slogans, he mischaracterized the Auditor General’s report into ArriveCan and boasted that he wrote to the RCMP to call on them to expand their investigation into wrongdoing and demanded that the prime minister not block their efforts. Justin Trudeau stated that the pandemic was a once-in-a-century event and that they expected rules to be followed in spite of this, and that the RCMP will do their job, but that this government is for border security, which the Conservatives vote against. Poilievre listed some revelations in the report and demanded that the prime minister respect the independence of a criminal investigation. Trudeau assured him that they would, and that there would be consequences for any civil servants that broke rules. Poilievre switched to English to repeat his boast that he wrote the RCMP to expand their investigation, and Trudeau repeated that the pandemic was once-in-a-generation event, and that they expected civil servants to follow the rules, but they don’t need to tell the RCMP to do their jobs. Poilievre howled that Trudeau keeps blocking investigations and accused him of filling the pockets of friends, all of which is specious on its face. Trudeau said that this was an example of Poilievre reverting to type and playing partisan games. Poilievre tried to spin this as Trudeau calling the Auditor General the conspiracy theorist, which was bizarre. Trudeau said that Poilievre needs to work on his listening skills, and that they await the results of the investigation so that those who broke the rules will be held to account.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and wanted the government to adopt the motion to allow for advanced directives on assisted dying. Trudeau recited that this is a very personal decision, and that they responsible for ensuring that vulnerable people are protected. Blanchet insisted that they move ahead with their motion, and Trudeau insisted that these are the kinds of conversations they need to be having.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP and quoted the National Housing Advocate and demanded that he follow her recommendations. Trudeau said that he welcomed the NDP’s support in their housing measures. Singh repeated his demand in French, and Trudeau said that they will continue to listen to community organisations and municipal partners. 

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Roundup: The AG’s report into ArriveCan

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The Auditor General released her report into ArriveCan yesterday, and it was suitably scathing, but in spite of Pierre Poilievre throwing arounds words like “corruption” and blaming the prime minister directly, the AG’s criticisms were squarely directed to the CBSA. It bears mentioning that CBSA is a federal agency, not a department, which means that it operates at arm’s length of government. Unlike a department, they don’t have direct political oversight, and while the president of CBSA reports to the public safety minister, and will accept broad political direction, the government does not direct operations (much like the CRA or RCMP).

So just what did she find? A complete lack of paperwork, of checks and balances, or of proper management or contracting practices, right up to the point of the outside contractor taking senior CBSA officials out to dinners and helping write the terms for when the contract would be put out to tender in a way that benefitted them. Once again, it’s hard to pin this on the government or Cabinet because they’re not involved in this level of decision-making. The Conservatives like to characterise this as “Liberal insiders” or “cronies” getting rich, but again, the report draws none of these conclusions. Meanwhile, those senor officials are now suspended, and there is an ongoing RCMP investigation, which is appropriate, while CBSA’s internal audit is ongoing.

There is an open question as to the reliance on outside contractors, which may be appropriate considering that CBSA wouldn’t have required the presence of app developers on their IT staff as a matter of course, and I’m not sure if this could have been contracted out to Shared Services Canada either (though given SSC’s history, I’m not sure I’d be confident in the quality of that product). And that’s fair enough. The problem becomes that they cut every corner and disregarded the rules in the process, whereas transparent contracting and proper paper trails and records of approval processes could have shown this to be a viable exercise, but we can’t know that because of how they ultimately behaved. So, while Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh insist that civil servants could have done the work, I’m not convinced, but that doesn’t mean that this still wasn’t handled in the worst way possible.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces attacked a power plant in Dnipro with missiles and drones, cutting off power and water supplies to some residents. Analysis shows that Russia used Zircon hypersonic missiles against targets in Kyiv on February 7th. Ukraine is looking to produce thousands of long-range drones this year. Ukrainian military intelligence suggests that Russia has been obtaining Starlink terminals through third countries.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1757040939929944128

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