Author Archives: Dale

About Dale

Journalist in the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery

Roundup: A couple of notes on Campbell’s record

Posted on by

The weekend was full of conservatives and other right-leaning commenters chirping about Kim Campbell’s record after her (verifiably true) assessment that Pierre Poilievre is a “liar and a hate-monger” who doesn’t believe in the urgency of climate change. Some of them—such as a certain self-aggrandising independent MP—have been utterly dismissive of Campbell and her record, but most people don’t really understand what happened in 1993, and why the fact that the PCs went from a majority to two seats was hardly her doing.

The thing to remember about Brian Mulroney’s massive majorities was that he had managed to build a particular coalition of conservatives in the Prairies, and that he was won over Quebec, which is incredibly difficult for any conservative to do, and no doubt a lot of this was premised on the (somewhat hubristic) promise that he was going to finish the constitutional project that Pierre Trudeau wasn’t able to complete and bring Quebec “into the fold” (which is mostly hyperbolic nonsense anyway). By 1993, that coalition has collapsed, in part because of the failure of Mulroney’s constitutional projects, being Meech Lake and Charlottetown, the latter referendum failing.

Conservatives in Quebec has largely fallen away to the Bloc, which was formed in part by Mulroney’s old friend and confidante, Lucien Bouchard. To this day, the Dean of the House, Bloc MP Louis Plamondon, was first elected in 1984 as part of Mulroney’s PC landslide, and in 1990, crossed to the nascent Bloc. Meanwhile, the prairie conservatives had defected to the nascent Reform Party under the banner of so-called “Western alienation,” in part because of decisions that Mulroney had made, not only in areas of the constitutional reforms that failed, but also because of things like CF-18 maintenance contracts that were supposed to go to a Winnipeg firm were instead given to those in Montreal, and it exacerbated the existing grievances that the Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Programme had inflamed (though he was largely blamed for things that were not his fault, like the collapse in world oil prices that the NEP didn’t cause, but were blamed for regardless).

Campbell inherited a PC party that had lost its voter coalition, thanks to Mulroney’s actions. The election went from three parties to five, with two very different regional parties at play. Trying to pin the blame for that collapse on Campbell is classic glass-cliff logic, where she was handed a bag of dogshit and when she didn’t perform a miracle, was given the blame for it. Did she make mistakes in that campaign? Indeed she did. Could she have resurrected the party’s fortunes with the voter coalition disbanded? Certainly not in the time allotted. For modern conservatives to say that her “record speaks for itself” don’t seem to understand what actually happened in the early 1990s, and instead are showing a particularly misogynistic streak in how they are choosing to attack her and her record.

Ukraine Dispatch:

One woman was killed in Russian shelling in the Kursk region on Sunday. Two people were killed, including a teenager, in Russian artillery attacks on the Dnipropetrovosk region on Saturday, and Russia claimed to have shot down a Ukrainian fighter jet. Here is a horrifying look at the rapes and torture that Russians have subjected Ukrainian prisoners to, particularly in occupied areas.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Running interference for Scott Moe

Posted on by

There is no shortage of terrible opinion pieces in Canadian media, but I believe that the prize for utterly missing the point comes from the Globe and Mail yesterday, where John Ibbitson tried to lay the blame for Saskatchewan’s flirtation with lawlessness on Justin Trudeau, with the headline accusing him of “botching” national unity. It’s a…curious accusation, because the implication therein is that if the federal government doesn’t accede to every demand or tantrum of the provinces that they can be accused of damaging national unity. I take that back. It’s not curious, it’s utterly absurd and wrong.

Ibbitson goes to great pains to both point out how unprecedented it is that Saskatchewan is going to break federal law, but then turns around to run interference for Scott Moe and tries to insist that this is really Trudeau’s fault because he used federal spending powers to “bend provinces” to his will rather than negotiate, and in imposing the federal carbon price on provinces who failed to meet national standards. Both of those are half-truths at best—there is nothing illegitimate about using federal spending powers to get provinces on board to ensure that there are equitable services across the country, particularly for programmes with greater economic good such as early learning and child care. As for the carbon price, provinces had an opportunity to come up with their own system that met minimum standards, and most provinces refused. He also didn’t explain that when the system was enacted, most provinces already had carbon pricing in place (Alberta and Ontario both changed governments who dismantled their systems and were subsequently subjected to the federal system), and he doesn’t spell out that BC and Quebec have their own systems that meet the standards.

Yes, the federal government should have found a different solution to the problem of heating oil than the “pause,” and doomed themselves when they announced it with all of their Atlantic MPs behind them. I’m not disputing that. But while Ibbitson insists that this doesn’t justify Saskatchewan’s lawlessness, he thinks that the best solution is to “reach some sort of compromise.” Like what? He won’t say. He just laments that “Canada doesn’t work like that right now.” Did it ever? What compromise can there be when one province breaks the law and tries to justify it with a fig leaf of “fairness” but obscures the facts and truth of the situation? This kind of white bread, milquetoast “Why can’t we find a compromise?” handwringing is a hallmark of a certain generation of punditry, and it serves absolutely no one.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces downed 33 out of 37 Russian drones fired at Odesa, the remainder of which damaged infrastructure, though there were other attacks in the north in Sumy and Kharkiv that cost civilian lives. There are concerns that safety is deteriorating at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as the international community keeps trying to convince Russians to leave the site. India says they have encountered a human trafficking racket which promises young men jobs in Russia, and then forces them to fight in Ukraine on their behalf.

Continue reading →

Roundup: An investment in more artillery

Posted on by

Bill Blair made an announcement yesterday related to Canada’s ability to produce more artillery, both for our domestic stockpiles and to be able to send more to Ukraine, to the tune of $4.4 million to go to two defence contractors to come up with plans to increase their production. Our inability to produce enough artillery domestically at a fast enough pace has been a problem for a while, but there has been this resistance within those same contractors to scaling up production without guaranteed, long-term plans signed with governments (as though the need and market for said artillery wasn’t obvious enough).

There are problems with some of this, however—a new production facility would need to be built, to the tune of $400 million, and you can bet that they’re going to demand that the government subsidise invest in such a facility, and it could take as long as three years to come online, which means it won’t be much help to Ukraine in the meantime. But it also makes one wonder why the company didn’t start investing on its own two years ago when the writing was on the wall, and why they have been so insistent on needing deals and funding from the government when there has clearly been a demonstrated need that they should be addressing.

It’s great that Bill Blair finally announced this kind of investment, but it feels too little and too late, but also like he’s caving into industry pressure to have the government pick up costs that they should be absorbing for their own growth and future profits, because they’re pretty much guaranteed.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian attack in Kharkiv region killed two civilians, and another in the Chernihiv region. There seems to be consensus that the Russian strike on Odesa on Wednesday was aimed at port infrastructure and not president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, but it reiterates how very real the stakes are. Zelenskyy has named the former top general, whom he recently dismissed, to be the next ambassador to the UK. Zelenskyy also issued a decree allowing for conscripts currently fighting to be discharged into the reserves in the next two months, in order to give them some respite. The Czech president says that their multilateral plan to buy 800,000 rounds of ammunition for Ukraine has secured enough funding.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Another NDP budget demand

Posted on by

The NDP’s latest budget demand is a national school food programme, which is a) provincial jurisdiction, and b) something already under negotiation with provinces. This was a Liberal campaign promise, and as with many a file like this, they’ve been doing the heavy lifting in the background. For Jagmeet Singh, however, this isn’t happening fast enough, because in his conception of how governing works, the prime minister simply needs to put on his Green Lantern Ring and use enough willpower to make whatever he wants happen, and in the NDP’s conception, that generally means something that obliterates the federal and provincial jurisdictional boundaries.

I suspect a couple of things are at work—one of them is that if the federal government does come to an agreement with the provinces, Singh can try and claim victory for it, as he does with most things that he has done absolutely no work towards other than throwing a public tantrum. If this is a matter of the provinces looking for more federal money, then it will take time to ensure that the agreements are drawn up in a manner that has strings attached because we know that we absolutely cannot trust provinces to take the money and put it entirely where it is supposed to go (bitter experience with health transfers and pandemic supports), because as we’ve seen in child care, where there are agreements with strings, that some provinces have not been spending the federal funds where they are supposed to go, which remains a very big problem.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A man was killed in a Russian missile strike in the Kharkiv region, while five people were killed when a bus struck a mine in Luhansk region. One of Ukraine’s top commanders says they will stabilize their defensive position shortly, with the aim of returning to counter-offensive actions later in the year. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Odesa with the prime minister of Greece when a Russian strike exploded nearby the pair. Here is a look at Europe’s attempt to get more ammunition to Ukraine, including a Czech initiative to deliver stockpiles until production can ramp up.

Continue reading →

Roundup: More lying to cover up for the lies

Posted on by

Earlier in the week, Conservative MP and justice critic Frank Caputo put out one of the party’s signature shitpost videos where he spent seven minutes talking about how he took a trip to the medium-security prison that houses notorious serial killers Paul Bernardo and Luka Magnotta, and it was replete with this theatrical outrage that the facility has a hockey rink and a tennis court. How dare they! Such “luxury”! Caputo also says he got to tour Bernardo’s cell while Bernardo was away, but that he came face-to-face with him after, and that Bernardo ask him something.

Well, it turns out that encounter didn’t actually happen. Correctional Services says that they were at opposite ends of a corridor and may have seen one another but didn’t interact. They also said that the hockey rink that Caputo was complaining about hasn’t been in service for the past couple of years, so as to dispute the notion that Bernardo is spending his days playing pick-up hockey.

Well, the Conservatives didn’t like that. Andrew Scheer accused The Canadian Press of bias for quoting the Correctional Services. Caputo claims that they denied the existence of the hockey rink, which they didn’t. And Pierre Poilievre’s press secretary accused CP of lying to cover for the government, except he was the one lying.

It’s galling just how egregious the Conservatives have lied throughout this affair—both Caputo lying on his shitpost video, and then all of the other Conservatives trying to run interference and lying about CP’s reporting. CP, the most egregious of both-sidesers in order to maintain strict neutrality in all things. But they will say and do anything to discredit the media, both to build their dystopian alternate reality, but to also condition their followers to believe absolutely anything, and to just ignore all of the cognitive dissonance. And of course, their apologists will either keep lying or keep trying to distract from the lies in order to try and whitewash the whole affair. This is the kind of thing that kills democracies, and they’re gleefully going along with it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that they have sunk another Russian warship using unmanned sea drones.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A stunt at committee everyone fell for

Posted on by

The Conservatives, and Michael Chong in particular, pulled a stunt yesterday where they tried to call for an emergency meeting at the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics committee to study the Winnipeg Lab documents. Liberal and NDP members on the committee said that this isn’t the right committee and this isn’t an emergency, and shut it down. This was the Conservatives’ plan, so that they could take to social media and scream and caterwaul about the “cover-up coalition,” and just like they planned, virtually every single pundit and media outlet did their bidding for them.

To wit, this is that particular committee’s mandate:

“Under Standing Order 108(3)(h), the Committee’s mandate is to study matters related to reports of the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada, and the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner pursuant to the Conflict of Interest Act (matters related to the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons are studied by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs). The Committee can also study any legislation or regulation or propose initiatives that relate to access to information and privacy and to ethical standards relating to public office holders.”

This study has absolutely nothing to do with it, and while there should be some kind of parliamentary scrutiny, it belongs most likely at the Health Committee, as PHAC would fall within their remit, and possibly Public Safety and National Security, but not Ethics. The NDP think this should go to the Canada-China Relations committee, but I also find that one to be a bit of a stretch (because I also think that committee is little more than a sideshow). But again, it was wholly appropriate for the Ethics committee to shut this down, because it was only meant to be a stunt.

It’s absolutely maddening to see how many media outlets and pundits walked right into this trap and let themselves get played. The CBC, for example, both-sided it, with the headline of “Conservatives accuse,” and the Liberals pointing out this was the wrong committee halfway down the piece. The Canadian Press both-sidesed it more concisely, and didn’t provide any context about the committee. The Globe and Mail, somewhat predictably, downplayed the Liberals and NDP pointing out that this was the wrong committee, gave over plenty of space to the Conservative argument that it should be without actually checking it against the statutory remit of the committee, and privileged Michael Chong’s comments, when he is not on the committee and was 100 percent pulling a stunt.

The thing is that this keeps happening—Conservatives have been regularly proposing studies on issues that committees have no remit over (such as trying to get the Public Accounts committee to go after the Trudeau Foundation), and then crying foul when they don’t play along, and then drive social media engagement off of the faked outrage. Rules matter. Parliamentary procedure matters. It’s not a “process story” you can dismiss, it’s bad faith actors playing the media, and the media going along with it when they should know better.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say they stopped a Russian advance near Avdiivka, but that Russian troops appear to be regrouping further south.

Continue reading →

Roundup: No, East Coast LNG isn’t going to happen

Posted on by

With the news out of Ukraine becoming more pressing, we’re once again seeing some bad faith takes in Canada about how we should be displacing Russian gas with our LNG, which is never going to happen. Ever. And people should know this, but they keep clinging to this fantasy because it sells to a particular base, but lying is lying, whether it’s to yourself or to your voters.

As always:

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian drone attack hit an apartment building in Odesa over the weekend, and the final tally shows twelve people were killed, including a baby. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling on Western allies to summon the political will to get them the aid they need (speaking mostly to the Americans for that one). Veterans across Ukraine have been disavowing medals in support of a gay soldier whose medal was rescinded by the church.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The uncertain final direction of pharmacare

Posted on by

The political reality of the pharmacare legislation is sinking in with one party, but not another, and you can probably guess which. Both Justin Trudeau and Mark Holland have been fairly circumspect in talking about where the system is going, and how coverage of the two classes of drugs will wind up looking like and costing because that’s entirely up to negotiations with the provinces, and nobody wants to wake up to that fact. This programme has been oversold from the beginning, and the NDP keep doing this victory lap while sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting “LALALALALA!” whenever anyone mentions the provinces, because they don’t want to hear it, and don’t even get me started on legacy media ignoring the provinces in this either.

One of the key details as to the future of pharmacare is that the Canadian Drug Agency will be doing work on a list of essential medicines within a year of royal assent, which could be the basis of a national formulary, but this again needs to be negotiated with the provinces—yet another one of those things that the NDP keep loudly ignoring whenever it gets raise. If this is to be a cost-shared programme—and it needs to be because there is no way the federal government can pick up the whole tab on this—then provinces need a say in that formulary. The Agency can also help coordinate the bulk purchasing that is what makes national pharmacare economically viable, and is going to necessarily be the cudgel that gets the provinces on board—there is more purchasing power if the whole country does it in one fell swoop rather than each provinces or a group of them banding together, and we need to remember that this is not just over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, but those used by hospitals and in clinical settings, which is why the provinces should have a vested interest in making this happen, because they pay for those out of their healthcare budgets.

I would also point out that the federal government has been doing the actual work of making this happen for years, because they got the Agency up and running quietly over the course of several years, while the NDP were alternately screaming and preening about this framework legislation that remains a case of putting the cart before the horse. So while the NDP take turns patting themselves on the back for this bill, the Liberals have been pretty quiet about doing the actual hard work, which again, baffles me entirely because they have a good story to tell if they actually bothered to try.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians appear to be massing a large force near the city of Chasiv Yar in the eastern part of the country, hoping to make a breakthrough in the Donetsk region, as they now have the advantage in ammunition and personnel. The Netherlands has signed a security agreement with Ukraine, and is promising more artillery funding.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Brian Mulroney passes away

Posted on by

News came down last evening that former prime minister Brian Mulroney had passed away after some health challenges.

The Star has a pretty good obituary here, as well as some of the reactions to his passing, and the CBC has a series of photos over the course of his life.

https://twitter.com/yfblanchet/status/1763346642294411713

Bloc MP Louis Plamondon, who was first elected as a PC MP in 1984 along with Mulroney, reflects on Mulroney.

In reaction, Susan Delacourt notes that it’s hard to imagine a Canada without the larger-than-life Mulroney given his lasting legacy, and also reflects on the political lessons that she learned in covering him during his time in office. Ian Brodie praises Mulroney for his strategic sense in global affairs at a time of great upheaval.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces are pushing hard against the front lines in the east and southeastern parts of Ukraine, which Ukraine has repelled, and they do keep shooting down Russian warplanes, downing another three on Thursday alone. Ukraine is using more domestically-manufactured military equipment, as they strive to move more toward self-sufficiency and away from faltering Western aid.

Continue reading →

QP: Escalating histrionics about the two fired scientists

Posted on by

The prime minister was off in Thunder Bay, and his deputy otherwise absent as well, leaving only one other party leader present. Michael Chong led off in French, and he went on a tear about the Winnipeg Lab documents, and the lack of responsibility for it. Mark Holland said that the health agency is independent, and the government created a process to release the information, and that there was an RCMP investigation. Chong switched to English to insist that the Canada-China committee could have done the work of the ad hoc process (erm, not really), and demanded an end to any collaboration between the Lab and China. Holland said that any foreign interference was unacceptable, and that this was about two Canadian citizens who lied, and they faced the consequences. Chong went on a tear about sensitive information being sent to China and biological weapons, and Holland disputed this characterisation of this, and that this was an example of the government going beyond usual transparency requirements. Stephen Ellis repeated the biological weapons accusation and gave a swipe about the prime minster admiring China. Holland said that there was plenty of legitimate collaboration around Ebola at the time, and that they shouldn’t weaponise national security for partisan purposes. Ellis read an even more fictional version of cover-ups, to which Holland reminded him that the government shouldn’t be redacting the documents of an independent health agency. 

Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and demanded that the federal government stay out of any Supreme Court of Canada appeal of Quebec’s “secularism” law. Arif Virani said that he is still reading the decision, but the federal government will stand up for Charter rights before the courts. Normandin repeated her demand, and Virani repeated that they will defend the Charter.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and tried to needle the government about how one of the ArriveCan consultants was actually a civil servant. Bill Blair said that as soon as they found out the contractor was a DND employee, they suspended the employee and the contracts. Singh switched to French to raise the plight of a family who lost their housing in Montreal, and Soraya Martinez Ferrada noted that they doubled funding for communities to fight against homelessness.

Continue reading →