Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: The “missing” PM reappears

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While things quieted down with the grifter occupation, a new cry went up on all sides, who were trying to draw Justin Trudeau out and into the fray. A narrative, fed by journalists who clearly still don’t understand what this occupation is all about, was that Trudeau was somehow “in hiding” and needed to engage with these extremists, grifters, and conspiracy theorists to end the current situation. Worse, every opposition party was adding their voice to this nonsense, insisting that “federal leadership” would resolve a situation that is clearly and explicitly that of the city’s civilian police force. Trudeau did show up in the House of Commons in the evening, during the emergency debate on the occupation, and pushed back at the Conservative narratives that the country is “divided” over this, and quite rightly repeated that Canadians stood together in the pandemic and that vaccination remains the way out, not these protests.

Meanwhile, I am growing very disturbed by the fact that my media colleagues are agitating for the prime minister to call in the military to resolve the situation, never mind that a) the power to call on the military to aid in civil powers is up to the provinces to use, not the federal government; b) the Canadian Forces are not a police force and should not be used as such, because we are not a police state, and I swear to gods I will keep posting this Battlestar Galactica clip until people get it through their heads that calling in the military is not a solution to anything. It will only feed the narrative that Trudeau is a mad dictator, which accomplishes these extremists’ goals for them. I also cannot believe that the media keeps normalizing this line of thinking, like their continued insistence that the federal government invoke the Emergencies Act, and the repeated refrain that “people don’t care about jurisdiction in a pandemic.” Jurisdiction is literally part of the rule of law. It matters. People should care. We need to stop treating this like it’s some stupid game, or that Trudeau is the premiers’ father who can just take over at any point. That’s not how laws work, and agitating otherwise because you think it’ll make a better story is really, really dangerous.

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Roundup: Poilievre first out of the gate

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First out of the gate to declare his intention to run for the leadership of the Conservative Party was Pierre Poilievre, who opted not to run the last time citing family concerns. Of course, numerous Conservative MPs and partisans have immediately lined up to support Poilievre, while others over social media have been digging up his long history of petulance, racist comments, and outright fictions, not that this will dissuade those who think that he’s just the guy to “own the Libs,” and move the party even more in a populist direction. Brace yourselves for an onslaught of outright fiction, because that’s the kind of politician Poilievre is.

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Roundup: Bergen plagiarizes “good people on both sides” argument

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The leaks continue to come out about interim Conservative leader Candice Bergen, and it’s another one about the grifter convoy—before it turned into an occupation—where she insisted to Erin O’Toole that they should show support for it because there are “good people on both sides.” Yes, that’s right—the classic Trump line in excusing a rally that included literal neo-Nazis in attendance. I would say that this is unbelievable, but no, it’s completely believable for Bergen. She also shook up her leadership team to get rid of the more reasonable Gérard Deltell as House Leader in favour of the more bombastic John Brassard, and added Lianne Rood to the team as deputy whip. Rood has also been tweeting support for the grifter occupation, so yeah, this is going well.

If there is a silver lining to these leaks it’s that it’s a sign that there are decent people with a conscience in the upper echelons who are willing to fight back against her embrace of Trumpism, for what it’s worth. We have seen a few cracks show—Pierre Paul-Hus tweeted his condemnation of the occupation, and Senator Dennis Patterson quit the caucus and joined the Canadian Senators Group because he’s so disgusted that the party embraced an occupation where hate symbols have been openly displayed.

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Roundup: Bergen hopes to blame Trudeau for a “mood shift” in the occupation

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Day one of Candice Bergen’s tenure as interim Conservative leader, and already the leaks have started. In particular, internal party emails have leaked that show Bergen advising Erin O’Toole not to tell the grifter convoy to leave (before it was a full-blown occupation), saying “I understand the mood may shift soon. So we need to turn this into the PM’s problem. What will he take the first step to working toward ending this?” There is no charitable way of reading this—it is beyond cynical politics, and this has far-reaching consequences.

Also starting to come to light are the behind-the-scenes dramas that led up to O’Toole’s ouster, and surprising nobody was the sense that most of the MPs lost count of the number of times O’Toole deceive them. A serial liar lying to his own caucus? Imagine that! As for Bergen’s elevation to interim leader, The Canadian Press talks to Rona Ambrose about her history with Bergen, and Ambrose’s belief that the caucus chose her because she is a “steady hand” (but apparently not enough have a problem with her courting the extremists).

Meanwhile, Matt Gurney hears from a member of O’Toole’s inner circle about what all went down. Jen Gerson despairsthat the Conservatives seem unwilling or incapable of making reasonable critiques of pandemic policies, and that they are neither as clever or politically savvy as they think they are. Althia Raj takes the optimistic route, that the party can attract social progressives and marginalise the social conservatives if they’re willing to put in the work to do so (which is true!).

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Roundup: O’Toole out, Bergen in

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It wasn’t even a close vote—Erin O’Toole has been deposed as Conservative leader on a vote of 73 to 45, and he is done for. He says he’ll stay on as an MP, but we’ll see how long his appetite for that lasts now that is ambitions have been dashed. But rather than face the media, O’Toole put out a six-minute statement over social media that tried to claim the party was the founding party of Canada (nope—his party was created in 2003), and a bunch of other things to try and burnish his image on the way out the door. “This country needs a Conservative party that is both an intellectual force and a governing force. Ideology without power is vanity. Seeking power with ideology is hubris,” he recited. Erm, except the pandering to populism is not an intellectual or governing force, he couldn’t even identify an ideology given that he kept flopping all over the place, depending on who was in the room with him at the time. And he keeps floating this notion that Canada is “so divided!” but this has been his go-to talking point for a while, trying to intimate that there is a “national unity crisis” because Alberta didn’t get its own way and get a Conservative government (that would take them for granted and ignore their concerns), never mind that it’s not actually a national unity crisis, but mere sore loserism.

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Later in the evening, out of seven potential candidates, the party voted for Candice Bergen to be the interim leader, which is a curious choice given how much she swings to the angry populist side of the party, from her unapologetically sporting a MAGA hat, to her full-throated support for the grifter occupation outside of Parliament Hill currently. It makes one wonder about both the upcoming leadership and what that says about unifying the different factions of the party, or whether the party will splinter because these factions may prove irreconcilable. And perhaps it should be a lesson that hey, maybe you shouldn’t just lie to each faction saying you really belong to them, and hope the other side doesn’t find out.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells enumerates O’Toole’s failures, and worries about the direction the party is headed now that it seems to be tearing down the few firewalls it had to keep the worst of Trumpism out of its playbook.

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Roundup: O’Toole’s day of reckoning

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Regardless of the outcome of today’s caucus vote, Erin O’Toole is finished as leader—the only question is how long he lingers. Thanks to the (garbage) Reform Act, what should have been an exercise in reading the room has come down to weaponization, threats, and now a legalistic battle of wills where anything less than fifty-percent-plus-one will mean O’Toole will try to lord over the caucus until an eventual grassroots leadership review, which may or may not be sooner than the current date scheduled (pretty much acceding to what Senator Denise Batters sidelined for calling for). But the fact that we’ve even reached this point, months in the making, where more than a third of his caucus is alienated, means he’s unable to lead the party no matter what, and frankly, the (garbage) Reform Act is just making this situation worse than it needed to be.

O’Toole apparently spent the day working the phones, and apparently has been saying that he’s willing to change his policies if he survives—but isn’t that part of the problem that got him here? That he keeps changing his positions depending on the audience he’s in front of? I’m not sure how he thinks this promise helps him. Also, “coincidentally” an Astroturf grassroots group calling itself the “Majority Committee” launched itself yesterday morning, conveniently parroting the exact same lines O’Toole used in his challenge letter to his caucus, so that doesn’t look staged at all. Meanwhile, his former allies are lining up against him, a number of former MPs have added their names to an open letter calling for him to step down, so any illusion that continuing on as leader after this is really just delusion.

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Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne argues that it’s not O’Toole that needs to be ousted, but rather the unhinged yahoos in the caucus that are causing the party its biggest headaches. (I don’t disagree, but appealing to the yahoos is part of O’Toole’s problem). Althia Raj correctly notes that whatever the outcome of tomorrow’s vote, it’s untenable for O’Toole to stay. Matt Gurney (by video) wonders if this winds up leading to the break-up of the party.

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Roundup: O’Toole tells challengers to bring it on

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It’s all coming undone. Erin O’Toole’s grip on the leadership of his party is even more tenuous, as a third of the caucus has now signed a letter calling for a vote on a leadership review. While “sources” insisted that Garnett Genuis was one of the ringleaders of this group, in part over anger for the way in which the conversion therapy bill vote was handled, Genuis denies this and says this is an attempt by O’Toole to smear him. Others sources say this is because the party is angry that the Conservatives allowed too many bills to pass unopposed before the end of the year, but we’ll see what other narratives emerge as more MPs start leaking.

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O’Toole responded late in the evening, essentially saying bring on the vote, apparently confident that the other two-thirds of caucus will be with him, but that’s a pretty risky gamble to be making when he’s this weakened, and there is blood in the water. Also, the fact that O’Toole tried to bring up Derek Sloan is very curious considering that he initially protected Sloan when there was a move to expel him from the party after he made racist comments about Dr. Theresa Tam, only to turn against him once O’Toole had secured the leadership thanks to using Sloan’s voters to his advantage. It’s like he doesn’t think anyone can see his blatant opportunism staring them in the face. Oh, and the notion that Andrew Scheer wants to be interim leader is just the chef’s kiss in all of this—one presumes he misses Stornoway and the perquisites that come with it. Scheer is denying it (but it’s not like he’s a paragon of truth either)

Meanwhile, Paul Wells relays more of what he’s hearing from his Conservatives about O’Toole’s likely chances (not good), and fits it into the broader pattern of the party and its predecessor’s leaders going back three-quarters of a century.

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Roundup: Grifters fail to secure Trudeau’s resignation

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While the organisers and the American mouthpieces they fed their PR to claimed that the grifter convoy would see 50,000 trucks and 1.5 million people descending upon Ottawa (a city of a million people over a fairly vast geography), it was a couple of hundred trucks, and a couple of thousand people—nothing even remotely close to a Canada Day in the Before Times. Some are saying it was relatively peaceful in that there were no riots, but its denizens were certainly belligerent and forced the closure of the mall near Parliament Hill, along with many other businesses in the area, most of whom will remain closed today. Liquor stores in the area were also closed because of the same belligerence, and the honking rarely ceased all weekend. (The Ottawa Citizen has a rolling blog of events over the weekend here, while Justin Ling has the definitive account of the event and its lead-up).

The reckoning for certain Conservative MPs will begin soon enough, particularly Michael Cooper, as he was filmed talking to reporters while in front of an up-side down Canadian flag that had a swastika on it. (Not-so-fun fact: swastikas were doing double-duty over the weekend, both sported by extremists like those who organised the event, while others were using them to denounce the government as being Nazis, because nothing says sore loser like calling the prime minister in a hung parliament after a free and fair election a tyrannical dictator). Cooper insists it’s not his fault there were swastikas around, and that he’s the victim here—erm, except he knew damn well that extremists organised this event and that these kinds of symbols and flags always turn up at these events, so it would have been better for him not to show up at all. (Reminder: Cooper is also the guy who read the New Zealand mosque shooter’s manifesto into the record at committee, because reasons). Also, I cannot wait for all of those Conservative MPs to have a meltdown about the grifters who urinated on the Cenotaph at the National War Memorial, the way they did when that rando did it on Canada Day in 2006. Because they’ll have the same reaction, right?

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As for what happens next, we’ll see. It already started to peter out yesterday because there’s a) nothing to do, and b) they’re accomplishing nothing. The extremist organisers insist they’ll stay there until all of the vaccine mandates are rescinded (good luck with that—they’re mostly provincial jurisdiction), and that the government resign, and even more, that the Liberal Party is dismantled. Yeah, that’s not going to happen, buddy. Police became way more visible on Sunday, and the play seems to be that they let these grifters have their fun and make their on Saturday, then made their presence known in a big way on Sunday, so that if they’re not gone by the end of Monday, they’ll start taking action. But we’ll see. Nevertheless, this is a big waste of everyone’s time, and everyone is out of patience.

Meanwhile in Alberta, a smaller convoy headed to the province’s legislature on Saturday, while a separate group of trucks blockaded a southern border crossing. It took a day for Jason Kenney to condemn said blockade, but after all of the noise he made supporting the original grifter convoy only for its same proponents to turn on him and his province is pretty much fitting. Kenney keeps thinking he’s the smartest guy in the room and can outrun the fires he starts to pretend like he’s putting them out, but once again, he’s getting burned.

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Roundup: The grifters make nice for the cameras

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The first part of the grifter convoy arrived in Ottawa yesterday, probably 80 trucks in total, and they largely blocked the street in front of Parliament Hill and made a bunch of noise, but that was it so far. Much of the day appeared to be devoted PR—the organizers swearing up and down that they wanted this to be peaceful, engaging with the police to that effect, who are on the lookout for “lone wolves,” telling reporters on the scene the fiction that they were frustrated with vaccine mandates (until you scratched the surface, and they insist that they are tired of the “tyranny” of the current “dictator” Justin Trudeau, whom you will all recall just won a free and fair election).

It’s all bullshit, however. All of it. This whole thing was organized by extremists, some of whom have ties to the Sons of Odin. If anyone with “genuine concerns” is really along for the ride, it’s because they’re a hapless moron who can’t do their due diligence before they got swept up into the grift. We don’t know where a lot of the money collected by the GoFundMe is coming from, but it’s a good bet it’s not all domestic—especially as this has been picked up by agitators in the American media ecosystem, who are seeing this as some kind of mobilisation effort (while repeating the bizarre falsehood that this is somehow 50,000 trucks and 1.4 million people headed to Ottawa, which defies credulity). They have a stated aim of overturning democracy and eliminating all public health orders (never mind that 99 percent of them are provincial or municipal), and it’s never going to happen because it’s impossible, but nevertheless, there are more and more Conservative MPs who keep giving them legitimacy while trying to play cute and insisting that they denounce extremism, even though the gods damned extremists are behind it. Erin O’Toole went so far as to stage a photo op with a supposed trucker family while in an RCAF jacket, which is a pretty dubious statement to be making considering this convoy’s goal is to overturn democracy, which includes him.

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Meanwhile, Matt Gurney wonders how we deal with the impossible task of marginalizing the extremists, and proposes we actually start fixing the things that can be fixed to show that the system can work. (Not mentioned: Calling out the opportunists who feed the extremists’ irrational anger and the politicians who court them because they think they can use their energy and dollars). Colin Horgan, on the other hand, speaks for all of our weariness, as we are subjected to these conspiracy theorists who are all playing hero in their own minds, and believing their own juvenile bullshit, while even those with “genuine concerns” only make it worse by feeding into it all the same.

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Roundup: The many leaks from the Cumming Report

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The Cumming report on the Conservatives’ election failure was released to caucus behind closed doors yesterday, and lo, leaks appeared in every news outlet in the country, so let’s go through some of them:

  • From Global: O’Toole’s performance got mixed reviews, with a strong finish but was “over-managed” by the end of the campaign. It was determined he needed to spend more time on the road and not in his studio, and they need to completely rebuild their voter-identification database.
  • From The Toronto Star: Party memberships should be free (which is a terrible gods damned idea), and that the party’s reputation is still suffering from the “barbaric cultural practices tip line” promise in 2015.
  • From the National Post: They were hobbled by party infighting, a lack of ethnic outreach, and the soft response to Quebec’s Law 21. As well, it concluded that O’Toole is still the “right person to lead the party.”
  • From CTV: The party needs more diverse candidates.
  • From CBC: The party failed to craft policy on some important issues, and apparently O’Toole didn’t respond well to criticism in the question-and-answer session following Cumming’s presentation. And they went nuts when Global’s leaks hit the wires while Cumming was still speaking.

I did note that while O’Toole told a press conference afterward that he takes responsibility and promises changes, it was remarked upon that O’Toole seemed to change his tune on the use of the studio, which they crowed about through the campaign and insisted it was better than in-person events because they could reach more people through their teleconferences, but changing his tune about something is nothing new (as we all saw during the election, over and over again).

Meanwhile, O’Toole told said press conference that he was going to meet with truckers, but also denounced extremists among them, which is an extremely hard circle to square considering that it’s the extremists who organised the whole bloody grifter convoy, and any legitimate truckers frustrated by vaccine mandates are going to be hapless nitwits in the bunch. The fact that O’Toole remained silent about the fact that the organisers of said grifter convoy are demanding that democracy be overturned in favour of some delusional Jacobin committee comprised of said convoy organisers and senators is also a problem, as is the fact that he wouldn’t address the fact that these same organizers are doxing MPs, and the Sergeant-at-Arms is warning that their Ottawa residences are being targeted. It does show that O’Toole has basically left objective reality behind, as his latest shitpost video essentially demonstrates.

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