Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: A desperate Kenney paints yet another false picture

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In the wake of the final report of the Committee on Un-Albertan Activities, Jason Kenney and his band of flying monkeys have been spending their time putting out blatantly false readings of what was in the nothingburger of a report. And more to the point, we’ve had a number of columnists from a certain newspaper chain write more of the kind of propaganda that Kenney has been spinning. To wit:

Of course, Kenney doesn’t have much left going for him. He’s had his bullshit referendum (final results coming Tuesday), his bogus Senate “election,” his inquisition has ended, his “Fair Deal Panel” has reported its load of nonsense, and Kenney’s own numbers, meanwhile, are in the dumps and if an election were held in Alberta right now, the NDP would win by a significant margin of seats. So, of course Kenney is going to retreat to his usual tactic of lying about things to make himself look like the hero in this. But man, it’s getting hard to take any of this seriously, even though we have to because he has a legion of followers who believe all of it and he’s riled them up and made them angry about all kinds of manufactured grievances. Hard to see how any of this will end in a way that won’t be bad for everyone.

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Roundup: Rejections without significance

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Because it’s a story that refuses to die, we now know that both the Bloc and the NDP have rejected the four main votes in the (garbage) Reform Act, and now we await the Liberals, who will in turn doubtlessly reject it as well whenever they finally have their first official caucus meeting, and of course, we have political scientists trying to derive meaning from these refusals, as they have tried with the Conservatives agreeing to the four votes.

The simple truth, however, are that these votes really don’t matter because the legislation is garbage. The power to elect caucus chairs doesn’t require its adoption, as we’ve seen, and the power over the expulsion of caucus members is largely illusory anyway because it tends to depend on what the leader says either way. I would be hugely surprised if the caucus and the leader ever parted ways on whether or not to boot someone out of the club, as that would create a schism and be a sign that the leader was on the way out. As well, the power of the caucus to pressure a leader to resign is actually better off without the Reform Act because what the Act winds up doing is protecting the leader by setting a high threshold and requiring a public declaration to trigger a vote, which can invite retribution. It has been far more effective to push a leader out with one or two public declarations by brave members that signal the writing on the wall rather than demanding a twenty percent threshold.

In the Hill Times piece, the Act’s author, Michael Chong, pats himself on the back for codifying these sorts of caucus decisions, but codifying them is part of the problem. Our Westminster system tends to work best under conventions that aren’t codified because it affords them flexibility and the ability to adapt, whereas codification is inflexible, leads to testing of the system and the pursuit of loopholes and getting around what has been codified. It’s the same with setting that threshold to push out a leader – it winds up insulating the leader more than empowering the caucus, and we’ve seen leaders resign with far less pressure than what this codified system affords, not to mention that by Chong codifying that party leaders must be selected by membership vote in the actual Parliament of Canada Act as a result of this garbage legislation, he has made it even harder for parties to return to the proper system of caucus selection and removal of leaders as we need to return to. Chong has screwed Parliament for a generation, and it would be great if the talking heads would stop encouraging him.

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Roundup: The $3.5 million witch hunt finds no witches

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In Alberta, the Committee on Un-Albertan Activities – err, Allan Inquiry – released its final report, a year late and millions of dollars over-budget, and it concluded that there was no illegality or nefarious activity with regard to environmental groups who may have received some funding from international donors when it comes to opposing the oil sands and other oil and gas activities. Dollars that went toward campaigns against the energy sector were fairly minor, and had little-to-no impact on projects not moving forward (because market forces did the job just fine, thank you very much). In other words, the province spent $3.5 million on this joke of an inquiry, and tried to claim it was money well spent, because the government is nothing more than a total clown show.

And then there were the lies – the minister insisted that the inquiry was never about finding illegality (untrue – there are receipts), and Jason Kenney outright lying about what the numbers in the report stated, because he needs to try and spin it in the worst possible light to both justify the exercise, and to continue trying to point the populists he stoked in a direction other than his.

https://twitter.com/charlesrusnell/status/1451353269708603397

https://twitter.com/charlesrusnell/status/1451353273781293094

Meanwhile, prime minister Justin Trudeau is pouring cold water on Kenney’s referendum rhetoric, reminding him that a provincial referendum is not an amending formula for the constitution – seven provinces representing fifty percent of the population is. More to the point, Kenney sat around the Cabinet table when the current equalisation formula was last amended, so he can’t claim it’s unfair as he’s the one who helped put it into place. Because seriously – claiming it’s unfair because Albertans pay the same federal taxes as everyone else is just political bullshit masquerading as a grievance, even though it’s a grievance that has largely been created for the sole purpose of driving populist anger.

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Roundup: Performative consultations by the PM

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It is performative consultation season, and lo, prime minister Justin Trudeau held meetings with Erin O’Toole, Jagmeet Singh and Elizabeth May yesterday, and the versions of the conversation released by readouts from both the PMO, O’Toole and Singh’s officers were…quite something. (Thread here). O’Toole demanded an end to CRB and an end to the “wedge politics” around vaccines, while Singh demanded CRB continue, and for the government to drop future appeals of litigation around First Nations children. Both were play-acting tough in their readouts, even though Singh is but a paper tiger. Trudeau’s readouts, meanwhile, were similar and bland, listing the already circulated “priority” items he wants to address right away (and yet is delaying recalling parliament), with no indication of what the other parties said, or if any kinds of agreements were reached.

Something that did come out of the readout with Singh was that Trudeau is in favour of continuing hybrid sittings, and Pablo Rodriguez’s office confirmed that, which is really, really disappointing and frankly mind-boggling. We are not in the same phase of the pandemic, and we are in a place where, with mandatory vaccination and masking, MPs can all safely attend parliamentary duties in-person, end of story. Carrying on hybrid sittings – which only the Liberals and NDP favour – are frankly unjustifiable, given the human toll that the injuries take on the interpreters, and the incredible amount of human and technical resources that they consume (and which have starved the Senate of necessary resources because the Commons gets priority). And just imagine telling the interpreters that they have to keep being subjected to injury because MPs are too gods damned selfish or lazy to do the jobs they’ve bene elected to do. Parliament is an in-person job – it depends on building relationships, which happens face-to-face. Hybrid sittings were 100 percent responsible for the last session devolving into complete toxicity, and if you don’t think that congeniality matters, remember that things don’t get accomplished without it. Those five months of procedural warfare didn’t happen in a vacuum. Saying they want hybrid sittings to carry on is both irresponsible and corrosive to parliament as a whole. There can be no justification for carrying them on.

Meanwhile, in case you thought it was just opposition parties making demands of the government before parliament is summoned, we have plenty of civil society groups calling for the paid sick leave for federally-regulated employees to happen immediately (erm, not how the legislative process works, guys), decriminalisation of illicit drugs, and for refugees and undocumented healthcare workers to be allowed access to a programme that would grant them permanent residency status.

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Roundup: The House of Commons’ vaccine mandate

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The expected happened in a way that was a little unexpected – and perhaps a bit improper. The Board of Internal Economy apparently met (possibly virtually), and decided that as of November 22nd, there is a vaccine mandate for the parliamentary precinct, and that includes MPs, staffers, and contractors. It’s a bit of a cute way of imposing a vaccine mandate on MPs themselves, but it may not fly regarding the Chamber itself because of parliamentary privilege.

Mind you, a privilege argument won’t last long. While the decision to go the route of BoIE seems to be a bit of a dare – and Yves-François Blanchet seems to indicate that he’s of the opinion that this is a legitimate use of its powers (I wouldn’t be so sure), this could easily be challenged in the Chamber, but even if the Speaker determines that there is a prima facie case of privileges being infringed, the rest of the House can vote instead to dismiss it rather than send it to committee, or even if they do send it to committee, vote it down afterward. And they likely will, because all of the parties except for the Conservatives are in favour of the vaccine mandate, so it’ll pass one way or the other. Now the government can head off any challenge by introducing a motion in the Chamber on the first or second day to declare that MPs need to be fully vaccinated in order to be in the Chamber, and they can then vote it through and it’ll be fully legit, so if they’re smart, they’ll ensure that happens once there is a Speaker in place. (This will also likely happen in the Senate, but they are still in discussion in that Chamber, but one can likely assume a similar vaccine mandate will be in place with their own precinct areas and Chamber in a similar manner).

This leaves the question of hybrid sittings. The Conservatives and Bloc have been in favour of ending them, while the NDP have supported keeping it going. The Liberals haven’t officially said, but they have been pushing for this since before the pandemic, so you can bet that they’ll be fine with some form of hybrid ability going forward, which shouldn’t be allowed – the human cost of hybrid sittings when it comes to the toll it takes on the interpreters is frankly immoral to continue with. That will nevertheless by an ongoing conversation between the parties before any order to resume said sittings goes ahead in the first few days of the new parliament – but a rule should also be made that unvaccinated MPs shouldn’t be allowed to simply join by hybrid sitting instead. Parliament, whether in the Commons or the Senate, is an in-person job, and it’s an essential function of this country. The hybrid measures should only ever have been temporary and for the duration of that pandemic emergency, and now that we have vaccines, there is no longer a need for them.

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Roundup: The admiral needs to take the hint

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Things are looking pretty dire for Admiral Art McDonald, the former-ish Chief of Defence Staff, whose little tantrum last week in writing a letter to the general and flag officers to demand his job back (not that they could do anything about it) is looking more and more impolitic. Why? Because the military police are now pushing back to say that he wasn’t “exonerated” as McDonald claimed in his letter, but rather that there was insufficient evidence to lay charges, which is not the same thing as the allegation being unfounded. And McDonald’s accuser is speaking out publicly and pointing to witnesses to the incident, which the military won’t say whether they were interviewed or not as part of their investigation. Nevertheless, the incident makes it even clearer that McDonald doesn’t understand civilian control and doesn’t have the character and temperament necessary to guide the Forces through this particular period of culture change, and it’s better for him – and everyone else – that he get the hint and retire before consequences follow from that letter.

Meanwhile, it seems that the former commandant of the Canadian Forces School of Military Intelligence is serving as a staff officer in Ottawa after being relieved of his command following an investigation into allegations of inappropriate conduct, which signals that there aren’t consequences if people simply get moved around.

Interested observers are wondering what is taking the government so long to take more action on what is going on with the senior ranks in the military, or to formally make General Wayne Eyre the permanent Chief of Defence Staff, formally taking McDonald’s reinstatement off the table (though he should have taken the hint when Eyre got promoted to full general). There is speculation that they are waiting for the Cabinet shuffle, but one would think that they’d want to make changes now, so that a fresh minister won’t have to come in and do the cleaning out on his or her first day rather than letting Sajjan do it now, and let his successor come in fresh. But that might require this minister and this government to have a modicum of self-awareness, and which would be your answer as to why they haven’t.

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Roundup: No formal deal to be had

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While we’re still a month away from Parliament being summoned and the first major confidence vote – likely on the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne – there is going to be no end of talk of some kind of formal governing arrangement between the Liberals and either the Bloc or the NDP. Because that’s what always happens, and we’re predictable like that, but really, there isn’t going to be any arrangement, because nobody actually wants one.

As David Reevely has pointed out, the idea of any kind of supply or confidence agreement with the Bloc is political poison, and won’t happen. Period. And any kind of agreement with the NDP is not saleable politically on either side. And oh, you might say – didn’t they rely on the NDP last year during the pandemic? Well, not really. For the early months, they came to all-party agreements on emergency legislation in the backrooms, and all of it was done behind closed doors and we got next to no debate in the House of Commons over it – just a few speeches about the pandemic, and some back-patting about working together, but nobody was actually going to bring down the government over it. Later on, the NDP and the Bloc joined with the Conservatives in their procedural warfare that largely paralysed legislation for the better part of five months, because they love to embarrass the government, no matter the stripe, and it wasn’t until May when both the Bloc and NDP realized they had bills they wanted to get passed (C-10 for the Bloc, the UNDRIP, the conversion therapy ban, and the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation bills for the NDP) and they finally started to play ball. As for the confidence votes in the interim, the NDP pretended like they were forcing the government’s hand into extending benefits that were going to be extended regardless – this is not a government that is averse to spending money when need be – and they patted themselves on the back for doing such a good job of taking credit for work that happening anyway.

The other fact is that the seat math just isn’t there for a need for a formal agreement of any kind. It’s not marginal enough – as in BC and New Brunswick during their respective hung legislatures, where they had a mere seat or two leeway with the support of the minority partner – whereas that’s not the case here. And as much as everyone is going to handwave about “Canadians want a Parliament that works,” the truth is nobody is in the position to go to an election for at least another 18 months, if not longer. And yes, the Bloc and the NDP will huff and puff and performatively make demands, but in the end, the government will carry on with period bouts of empty drama that the press gallery will dutifully type up as though it did carry much weight, and things will carry on, without need for a formal arrangement once again.

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Roundup: A delayed return

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We have a date – well, two of them. Justin Trudeau announced yesterday morning that Cabinet would be shuffled on October 26th, and that the House of Commons would return on November 22nd, which is ridiculous. After an election where Trudeau kept punctuating the “urgency” of a number of files, some of them COVID-related, and with a list of priorities to take care of in his first 100 days of the new parliament (apparently that clock doesn’t start ticking until Cabinet is sworn in), the decision to delay the return of Parliament for two months after the election is egregious – especially because this is a hung parliament where the confidence of the Chamber should be tested at its earliest opportunity, and two months later is not that.

I am generally pretty forgiving of the fact that it can take our government longer to get its act together post-election – as compared to the UK, where they have nearly twice as many MPs – but they can get a new government sworn in and a new Parliament started within three weeks of an election. But it should not have taken Trudeau this long to deal with this shuffle as it has, even if one or two Cabinet contenders had to deal with recounts. And yes, the government dispatched the Governor General on her first state visit abroad this week, but that again was his choice, and he could have either delayed that trip, or announced the Cabinet before she left the country.

More to the point, this reduces the fall sitting of the House of Commons to a maximum of four weeks, but you can bet that in practice, it’ll be less than three. Committees won’t really get up and running, and sure, he may introduce a number of priority bills, but they will see precious little debate in that time. What we will get are the Address in Reply to the Speech From the Throne, and probably the Fall Economic Update, plus a number of Estimates votes, which will be rushed through without any actual scrutiny (they may get some modicum of scrutiny on the Senate side), but I’m not sure we’ll even see the Budget Implementation Bill for said economic update making it past second reading unless it is bullied through at all stages under the threat that emergency rent and wage subsidies will expire without passage. It’s undermining democratic norms for the sake of expediency, and that is the last thing we want to be encouraging any government in engaging in, regardless of stripe.

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Roundup: Not pushing back on referendum disinfo

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Because this is occasionally a media criticism blog, I’m going to call out Power & Politics once again for completely dropping the ball, this time on the bullshit “referendum” happing in Alberta. They hosted Bill Bewick, who heads a group in favour of the referendum, and gave him a pretty uncritical interview, with only the barest hints of pushback. Because both-sidesing.

Host David Common pushed back on a mere couple of points – that the referendum won’t actually do anything because it doesn’t obligate the federal government to negotiate anything; and the fact that without equalisation, PEI would need a 30 percent HST to make up the same funding. He even went so far as to egg on Bewick about how much equalisation Ontario pays, as if it was relevant, because no province actually pays equalisation, which is a pretty big thing that Bewick and his bullshit ever got called on. Equalisation is simply federal taxes that come off everyone’s paycheque – that a fraction of those funds get redistributed to some provinces who need help in offering comparable levels of service when they don’t have adequate fiscal capacity. And the key thing to remember is that Alberta may pay more federal taxes because they have the highest salaries in the country – by far – even during the pandemic. Crying that the province has a deficit has nothing to do with equalisation and everything to do with the fact that the provincial government refuses to raise their own revenues by means of a modest sales tax like other provinces have, and the fact that they chose to rely on resource revenues instead. Their deficit is a choice.

I am forced to wonder whether Bewick didn’t get any pushback because the host and/or the producers simply don’t have a clue about the truth, or because they feel bound by the need to both-sides everything and plan to have someone credible on to refute the points in a separate interview later today – because heaven forbid that the host actually push back lest he or she be called out as being biased or partisan. But calling bullshit and pointing out fact shouldn’t be considered bias or partisanship – it should be simple fact-checking, which they can’t seem to be arsed to do at the best of times, let alone in a referendum that is fuelled by misinformation and disinformation coming from official sources trying to make a political wedge out of this. In a case like this, it’s especially incumbent upon the media to play their role in pushing back against a government that is lying to its citizens, but this timidity to do so is a very real problem for our media.

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Roundup: A surplus thanks to federal funds

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Something jumped out at me yesterday while doomscrolling, which was New Brunswick crowing that they have a bigger-than-expected surplus thanks to all of the additional federal dollars that were sent to the province because of the pandemic. And it stuck in my craw a bit – provinces have been crying poor when it comes to healthcare dollars and around doing things like improving long-term care, and then they turn around and pat themselves on the back for running surpluses as a result of federal dollars. It doesn’t quite add up.

The fact that certain provinces have been using federal pandemic dollars to pad their bottom lines is a problem for Confederation, particularly as these very same provinces are demanding that the federal government turn over even higher healthcare transfers, and justifying it with historically inaccurate talking points about the original share of healthcare spending without also recognizing the other agreements made in the late 1970s. The current federal government is certainly willing to spend the money, but they have also learned that they don’t want to get burned by it like previous governments have. Recall that when the health transfer escalator was at an unsustainable six percent per year, provincial healthcare spending growth was in the low two-percent range, meaning those additional dollars were spent on other things that did not improve the healthcare system. Similarly, when Stephen Harper tried to buy peace with Quebec and sign a huge cheque to correct a fictional “fiscal imbalance,” the provincial government turned around and cut taxes, which wasn’t the intent of said funding, and yet it happened.

It’s with this in mind that Trudeau has promised that there will be strings attached to future health transfers, and he laid out what many of those strings will be in the campaign, whether it’s hiring targets for doctors and nurses, or minimum salaries for long-term care workers. And yes, premiers will bellyache about it, and the opposition parties will take up those cries in the House of Commons, but we have seen repeatedly over this pandemic that the provinces will demand money and then not spend the money they do get. Time for some accountability for dollars – because it’s all coming from the same taxpayer in the end, regardless of which level of government is trying to make their bottom line look better.

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