Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

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.

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1486849795515953156

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1486850305757167622

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1486755945292124167

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Roundup: Unpacking the rate decision

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The Bank of Canada released their interest rate decision yesterday morning, and held firm…mostly. More significantly, they removed their extraordinary forward guidance, meaning that they have sent the warning that rates are going to rise. Why they didn’t raise them this time is because they had that guidance in place, which essentially said that they weren’t going to raise rates until later in 2022 as a way to help the economy recover from the pandemic—but it has largely recovered, albeit unevenly. With omicron still having an effect, there is still an abundance of caution being exercised—not to mention the fact that raising interest rates won’t actually have an effect on what is currently driving inflation, so it has the potential to do more harm than good right now.

The Monetary Policy Report was also released yesterday, which highlighted how transportation bottlenecks, labour shortages and the difficulty in sourcing key inputs are having an impact on the Canadian economy. More to the point, there has been good economic momentum heading into 2022, and the “slack” in the economy has been absorbed, meaning that the extraordinary measures that were brought in to stimulate the economy at the start of the pandemic can more readily be wound down now, which is another key indicator of why rates are going to start rising again. They also see inflation winding down later over this year, providing that supply bottlenecks and cost pressures don’t carry on for longer than anticipated.

Meanwhile, here’s Kevin Carmichael with his read of the rate decision, the MPR, and what signals the Bank of Canada is sending.

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Roundup: The extremists weigh in

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As the grifter convoy 2022 gets closer to Ottawa, it is attracting more online attention from some unsavoury circles. Some of them have been calling for this to be Canada’s January 6th insurrection, which one might think would give some Conservative MPs pause, but nope. No denunciations have yet been forthcoming. Another group associated with the convoy, calling itself “Canadian Unity,” seems to think they can force the government to sign some kind of quasi-legalistic “Memorandum of Understanding” that would essentially force the all governments, federal, provincial and municipal, to rescind all public health measures and dissolve the government so that said group can rule by fiat. Erm, yeah, that’s not going to happen.

One of the organizers (who has the GoFundMe in her name) says she won’t tolerate extremist rhetoric associated with said grifter convoy, but yeah, good luck with that. And if things do turn violent, well, that could trigger anti-terrorism financing laws to everyone who donated to those GoFundMe accounts.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1486064285361086469

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1485976603918315525

Oh, and the federal government isn’t budging on the vaccine mandate, and if they think a convoy like this will change the Americans’ minds for their own mandate, well, good luck with that delusion.

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Roundup: Another grifter convoy on the way

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Sucking up much of the oxygen in the news cycle is this so-called “Freedom Convoy” on its way to Ottawa, which looks to be just a lame repeat of the Yellow Vesters convoy from 2019, which turned out to be a big damp squib once it arrived. It’s been organised by the usual network of right-wing organisers using a bunch of trumped-up bullshit (truckers are vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population), and is quickly becoming a catch-all for a bunch of other anti-vax/anti-mask nonsense, and some of their demands, like around vaccine mandates in restaurants, are squarely within provincial jurisdiction, so “blockading” Parliament Hill won’t do anything about it. And an organizer for the Maverick Party in Alberta set up a GoFundMe, which has amassed some $3.7 million in donations, but those funds are being held until the service can determine how the funds will be disbursed—not that it’s stopping said organiser, which is a pretty good signal that this is just more grift.

Of course, Conservative MPs are signing right up to this (and I have a column on this out later today), tweeting nonsense things like that the prime minister is pushing a “vaccine vendetta,” which makes no sense unless you’ve been infected with these kinds of hyper-partisan brain worms. And Erin O’Toole won’t give a straight answer as to whether he supports this convoy (as many of his MPs are tweeting), so one suspects he’s waiting to see which way the wind is blowing before he makes any kind of definitive statement, but it’s all looking very familiar with what his predecessor did in 2019 (who is also tweeting support for this convoy).

https://twitter.com/Garossino/status/1485748899495112707

https://twitter.com/Garossino/status/1485750505431179266

https://twitter.com/Garossino/status/1485752969794523136

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Roundup: Comms fails and hashtag trends

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There was a lot of discussion about government communications this weekend, and a lot to ponder on about it. First of all, there was this thread, which is long but worthwhile to read, because it gives a lot of context and examples of what it is we talk about with regard to these kinds of communications issues.

https://twitter.com/stateofthecity/status/1484928614927896582

Another example of poor government communications were the proliferation of Cabinet ministers, and others from across party lines, and several who weren’t in Canada, posing with signs that said #StandWithUkraine.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1485251476687663109

They all looked ridiculous and like hollow performance, it was a combination of trying to appease the Ukrainian-Canadian lobby here in Canada (which largely advocates for the Conservatives, for what it’s worth), but part of a movement to try and get the hashtag trending over the weekend, because apparently international relations and diplomacy is really turning into a junior high exercise of being mean to one another over Twitter. (Meanwhile, haven’t politicians learned not to pose with signs like that, because they just get photoshopped?)

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1485254090229747713

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Roundup: More of the hot seat for O’Toole?

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So it looks like unrest remains the order of the day in the Conservative caucus, as they prepare for their winter caucus retreat next week (which may very well be virtual). Unhappiness with Erin O’Toole’s leadership is still fomenting below the surface—and to be fair, blackmailing your MPs to say that you’ll expel them from caucus if they challenge you by signing a petition can do that—while at the same time being castigated for not providing any actual leadership, so that’s quite something.

In the midst of this, the resistance to O’Toole’s edicts continue. After Conservative senators didn’t follow O’Toole’s orders and expel Senator Denise Batters from their ranks, it looks like the party’s Saskatchewan regional caucus is also defying O’Toole and letting Batters remain a member. So she can’t attend national caucus, but she’s still participating with her fellow colleagues, in the Senate and regionally, which seems to show that O’Toole’s edicts are starting to feel pretty hollow. After all, if he tries to expel the whole of his Saskatchewan caucus for defying him, well, he might as well turn in his resignation at that point.

Batters, meanwhile, has all the time in the world to carry on her campaign against O’Toole, since they didn’t give her any committee work to do. And to that end, she is insisting that the report on the election loss must include O’Toole’s personal failures and constant flip-flops. It also seems that people have been directing former MP James Cumming, in charge of said report, to talk to her, but he hasn’t done so, which could make a person suspicious that this could be a selective report that just might be going out of its way to avoid criticising O’Toole himself. But the signs aren’t good for O’Toole the more this continues to add up.

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Roundup: New NSICOP line-up, sans Conservatives

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Because the issue of NSICOP/Winnipeg Lab documents refuses to die, yesterday’s iteration was that the prime minister announced the new composition of NSICOP, and it didn’t include any Conservatives, either MPs or senators, because they refused to put any names forward. Erin O’Toole then tweeted that this was because it was somehow hiding documents, which is a complete and utter falsehood.

To recap: those Winnipeg Lab documents were released in an unredacted form to NSICOP to review. The Conservatives withdrew from NSICOP because it didn’t suit their needs to actually review the documents—the whole point was the song and dance about a “cover-up.” If, during the years that NSICOP has been operating, any of its reports were unfairly redacted and information was being hidden from the public that its membership felt was important, they would have resigned in protest. That did not happen because it was working. And even if it were a full parliamentary committee, redactions still happen because it’s still national security.

O’Toole is acting in bad faith so that he can wink and nod to conspiracy theorists and put on a show that doesn’t reflect reality. He knows it, and he should be called out on it.

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Roundup: Those December inflation numbers

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Yesterday was Consumer Price Index day at StatsCan, which means a new round of inflation data, and a new round of ridiculous shitposts from Erin O’Toole and Pierre Poilievre. In an effort to provide some perspective as to what is driving prices this month, let’s delve into the report, shall we?

Key drivers are:

  • Food prices have been rising because of poor weather conditions in food-growing regions, which has impacted prices for things like fresh fruit, and supply chain disruptions impact those imports. Additionally, we had droughts in Canada this summer, and crop yields were down in the area of 35 percent, which is making it more expensive.
  • Durable goods, primarily things like household appliances and vehicles, all of which are impacted by those supply chain disruptions, especially with the ongoing global shortage of semiconductor chips.
  • Construction costs are higher because of higher building materials (demand outstrips supply), and home and mortgage insurance prices have been rising as a result of severe weather-related claims.
  • Gasoline prices have moderated, which is again, a global supply and demand issue.
  • Oh, hey—stronger demand for air travel is increasing the price of fares.

So yeah, I’m not seeing a lot in here that is either Justin Trudeau’s fault, or something that he, or any other future federal government could do anything about. I mean, other than wage and price controls (which didn’t actually work), so if we want to bring back “Zap, you’re frozen!” that remains an option. As well, prices have started to moderate. Month-over-month inflation was actually down 0.1 percent, which could be the signal that things are starting to turn a corner.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1483990594770800643

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Roundup: Holland breaks out the passive-aggressive open letter tactics

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The drama over the Winnipeg Lab documents took another turn yesterday as Government House Leader Mark Holland sent a four-page open letter to the Conservative House Leader, urging him to reconsider rejecting the government’s offer to create a new ad hoc panel to have the documents vetted behind closed doors with a panel of three former judges to adjudicate any disputes. In said letter, Holland name-checks nearly every national security and intelligence expert who has weighed in on the topic of the past few weeks, with a couple of exceptions.

While Holland didn’t name Philippe Lagassé’s piece, it’s fairly irrelevant to the concerns at hand. Whether NSICOP gets turned into a full-blown committee or not, it won’t make a material difference because the Conservatives’ objections are not based on any particular matter of principle or specific objection. As I point out in my column, they are merely acting in bad faith in order to be theatrical and try and score points by winking to conspiracy theories in order to paint the picture that the government is hiding something for the benefit of the Chinese, or some other such nonsense.

I don’t expect Holland’s letter to do anything other than look passive-aggressive and ham-fisted as the issue continues to fester—not that there is an order to produce documents any longer, and the committee that made said order no longer exists either (though O’Toole has been under pressure to restore it, as though it actually did anything meaningful other than be yet another dog and pony show). We’ll see if the other two opposition parties come to some kind of agreement, but so far this issue continues to just make everyone look like our Parliament is amateur hour. Which it kind of is.

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Roundup: Why Canadian MPs resist security clearances

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Talk of reforming NSICOP into a full-fledged parliamentary committee is circulating, and it’s all just as well. While I have a full column on this coming out later today, I wanted to post this thread from professor Saideman to set some of the context for that, and to explain part of why we’re in the state we are in Canada when it comes to these things.

https://twitter.com/smsaideman/status/1483076151417389057

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