Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: Freeland’s first big budget

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The budget was released yesterday, and lo, the commitment to child care was huge – $30 billion over five years in order to build a national system of $10/day early learning and child care, which is huge money – money that will make it very, very hard for provinces to refuse. It’s not going to be immediate, but a process to build to that system, which they have already put work into over the past five years, but it’s a much more robust commitment than we have seen in the past. It means more negotiations with provinces, however, as well as an asymmetrical agreement with Quebec so that they can still get funding to augment their existing subsidised child care system.

While there is a good overview here, other items in the budget include:

  • Some $17.6 billion in new spending for GHG reductions.
  • New taxes on foreign investors in housing, with more commitments to the national housing strategy.
  • $18 billion over five years has been earmarked for Indigenous communities to close the socio-economic gaps.
  • There is a commitment for $400 million to combat sexual misconduct in the military, plus funds to revitalise NORAD and to cover our NATO operations
  • They plan to make it easier and cheaper to obtain a criminal pardon.
  • There will be new taxes on big global tech companies.
  • Here are twenty new or expanded benefits and taxes.
  • There is the usual pearl-clutching that the budget predicts some $686 billion in accumulated deficits over the next five years.
  • Here are ten smaller items in the budget that are of interest.

Something that did come up over the talking heads discussing the budget was pharmacare, and how there wasn’t a big song and dance about it, as that was largely reserved for childcare. I did read the section on pharacare in the document, and it notes continued investment in things like the catastrophic drug plan to help those who need it most, but we have to remember that they have been trying to negotiate this with the provinces, and the provinces have said no. There’s only so much the federal government can push them on this, so it may require waiting until a few provincial governments change hands before more progress can be made. That’s the thing about these kinds of programmes in provincial jurisdiction – you need to have willing partners at the table, or it can’t go anywhere.

Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield grouses that there is too much conventional thinking in the budget to deal with the problems exacerbated by the pandemic. Susan Delacourt looks to all of the promises that rely on federal-provincial negotiations to make them happen. Paul Wells offers a fairly sober assessment of what’s in the budget, and whether the enthusiasm for this child care spending will last the next couple of years.

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Roundup: Federal damage control while Ford playacts

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While Ontario continues to be on fire, Doug Ford spent much of the weekend walking back his ridiculous pronouncements on Friday, re-opening parks and playgrounds, followed by walking back the increased police powers (which was not helped by the fact that most police forces declared publicly that they would not use them – though stories of arbitrary accosting of people of colour did resonate over social media. This was then followed by news that Ford plans to shutter the legislature this week – apparently it’s the one workplace he doesn’t consider “essential” – while there is also talk about a Cabinet shuffle, because gods know this band of murderclowns needs to rearrange the deckchairs on their own personal Titanic one more time. (Speculation here is also that he is facing a very restive caucus, and closing Queen’s Park would make it easier to avoid them). And then, to make it look like he was doing something, Ford engaged in some performance art to phone up consulates and try to secure vaccines from international allies, as though they wouldn’t all laugh in his face. But he’s committed to the narrative that all he needs is more doses to vaccinate his way out of the burning building rather than doing the public health measures he needs to in order to stop the spread of the virus.

Meanwhile, prime minister Justin Trudeau announced some additional help for Ontario, some of which will wind up bypassing the provincial government and go directly to municipalities and businesses with things like additional testing and tracing capacity. Even these measures, however, are little more than damage control because they can’t do the things that need to happen, like stopping the spread in industrial workplaces, because they don’t have the requisite jurisdictional authority.

As for the doctors in this province, they’re at a breaking point. Thank the murderclowns for that.

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Roundup: Ontario is on fire, and Ford offers performance art

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I will admit that I am currently vacillating between rage and despair right now, as Doug Ford and his band of murderclowns looked at the new modelling data that shows us still on a course for disaster, and decide to do the barest minimum effort to merely prolong the state of affairs, rather than to take meaningful action.

It’s not just half-measures – it’s theatre. Closing parks and playgrounds will do nothing to halt the spread of the virus, but workplaces deemed “essential” continue to operate with few protections for workers – which is where much of the new infections are happening, and then spreading when those “essential” workers return home, often to crowded, inter-generational households – and most of all, Ford is still not budging on paid sick leave. On top of that, he’s giving police the power to randomly stop people to ask why they’re not at home, and essentially reintroduced carding (which is unconstitutional), and will inevitably target Black, Indigenous and other minorities because that’s what police do. (Several police forces have pledged not to use these powers, but we’ll see if that holds). And then Ford lies and says that Ontario has had the toughest measures anywhere, and pats himself on the back while he blames ordinary people for not following rules – rules which change on a daily basis and are never clear to begin with – and blames the federal government for not magically providing vaccines fast enough when it is mathematically impossible to vaccinate our way out of this.

None of this needed to happen. That’s what is just so gods damned enraging about this whole thing. They were warned repeatedly back in February not to re-open until the reproduction rate of the virus was lower, and they didn’t listen. They rushed to re-open just as variants were starting to spread in the community, confident that they could let a little bit of COVID circulate and everything would be find (when it grows exponentially), because they needed to “protect the economy,” and lo, things got worse like everyone knew that they would, and we had to restrict again, and it will keep happening like this until they can finally squash the curve of transmission.

If there is one silver lining, it’s that we know that Doug Ford can be swayed, because Uncle Doug doesn’t like being the bad guy. He wants to be the fun uncle. And maybe now, people in Ontario will finally be outraged enough to stop being guiled by his folksy bullshit, and finally start demanding action in a consistent and coherent manner. That may be what finally spurs action, months and thousands of unnecessary later, assuming the anger is directed in the right way. That may, however, be easier said than done, but the possibility exists, and perhaps we as a province should seize it.

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Roundup: Launching a laughable climate plan

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With much fanfare – and a moving backdrop that was dizzying to watch – Erin O’Toole rolled out his much-ballyhooed climate plan yesterday morning, and it was…underwhelming. And bizarre. Replacing climate rebates with a special “savings account” that can only be used to purchase “green” items like bicycles and high-efficiency furnaces? Yeah, that’s not an improvement, you guys. And lo, it’s not winning O’Toole any plaudits in his own party either, with caucus members telling media that they were essentially blindsided by this, and many feel it’s a betrayal, and a sign that he has no credibility because he’ll say anything to get elected. And they probably have a point.

Here is some reaction to the news, with additional threads from Nic Rivers and Jennifer Robson.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1382694545398317066

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1382716424087605252

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1382722697159925764

Meanwhile, I have a beef with CBC’s coverage of the issue, because they insist on framing the existing Liberal carbon price as a tax – which it’s not because it doesn’t go into general revenue, and the Supreme Court of Canada said this – but they insisted on calling the Conservative plan a “levy,” when it’s the exact same gods damned mechanism as the existing Liberal plan that just recycles the revenues differently. You can’t call one a tax and the other a levy because that is massively misleading. It places a wholly negative frame around the Liberal plan and not the Conservative one when, again, it’s the same mechanism. “Taxes” come with particular preconceived notions around them, in particular the gem about “taxes are theft,” and so on. CBC’s editorial decision to use this framing device biases the conversation and perceptions around the programmes, which is a very big problem.

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Roundup: The curious case of Will Amos

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It was the end of Question Period when Bloc MP Claude DeBellefeuille raised a point of order, asking the Speaker to remind MPs that there is a dress code, citing that she had seen a male MP in a state of undress – which came across through the interpretation as “shirtless,” but as it turns out was much more – and she managed to do this without naming who it was, or offering too much description other than he apparently has a very good physique, and all with a straight face. The Speaker thanked her for the intervention and gave his usual gentle chiding. Because said MP’s mic was not activated, no one public-facing saw who it was, especially not in the Chamber. MPs who are on Zoom, however, have a different view than the rest of us get, and they could see it.

Not long after, someone leaked a minimally censored screenshot to Brian Lilley, who put it out over Twitter, and in short order it was determined that this was Liberal MP Will Amos, and he was more than shirtless. Amos made an apology, citing that he had just come from “jogging,” and didn’t realize his camera was on – but I know this has raised more questions because MPs need special log-ins and passwords in order to even log into their special Zoom, so why he would have done so before he had changed is…dubious. (It has also been questioned why he would have gone jogging mid-day when there are no showers in his Precinct office building). In any case, Amos has learned a very valuable lesson.

A bigger issue here, however, is the screenshot itself. MPs aren’t allowed to take photos in the Chamber, and it has been determined that screenshots of their Zoom screens follow under the same rules. It would have almost certainly been an MP who took the screenshot in order to leak to Lilley, which is a violation of House rules, and arguably, Amos’ privileges. It’s also likely that it was a Conservative MP who leaked said photo, given that they leaked it to Lilley. (There are additional issues around the non-consensual sharing of such images, and whether they would have been so quick to do so if it was a woman). I suspect that if Amos were to pursue the matter as a breach of his privileges, this could turn into a Thing that the Procedure and House Affairs Committee will likely have to deal with. It should also be yet another wake-up call for MPs about their collective behaviour over the course of this whole Hybrid Parliament, and why they are letting their standards slide. It probably wouldn’t hurt for the Speaker to actually lay down the law for a change rather than the constant gentle chidings that do absolutely nothing to change behaviour, but here we are.

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Roundup: A broken system thwarting foreign agents

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Something in the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) annual report, made public this week caught my eye, which talked about how the “critical election incident protocol panel” – the body set up in order to have some sort of way to help deal with any detected foreign interference during an election (given the whole Russian interference thing south of the border in previous of their elections) – needs to include more traditional espionage as part of their warning triggers. Why? Because, as NSICOP says, foreign agents could try to infiltrate political parties to exert influence, whether it’s in nomination meetings, or volunteering in campaign offices.

I will admit that I laughed.

Not because foreign interference isn’t serious – because it is – but because the joke would be on them, given that grassroots members no longer have any influence in our political system since we have made the system entirely leader-driven. Nomination meetings are being gamed by leaders’ offices to the point where it’s difficult to determine just how free and fair any of them are these days – that is, when leaders aren’t outright appointing candidates (as Justin Trudeau did with Marci Ien and Ya’ara Saks for the by-elections late last year). Trying to hijack nomination contests at the best of times is exceedingly difficult because of the requirement for the leader’s signature (or their proxies, thanks to the garbage Reform Act), which was part of why that requirement was created back in 1970 – officially to keep the Chief Electoral Officer from needing to adjudicate nomination disputes, but anecdotally about heading off pro-life groups trying to hijack Liberal nominations. Foreign agents trying to use the same tactics would have fairly marginal chances of success once their involvement became known.

This is less of an indictment of the use of party infiltration as a tactic of foreign agents, but rather of how our system has degenerated. Because we insisted on moving to leadership contests that became quasi-presidential primaries, we have upended the entire grassroots nature of our parties, and now everything is top-down, leader driven. It shouldn’t be this way, and yet this is where we are.

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Roundup: Ending the defence committee study

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Something unexpected happened yesterday, in that the Defence committee voted to end the study on the allegations against General Jonathan Vance – the Liberals moving the motion, and the Bloc supporting it (which was the real surprise). Of course, ending the study comes with a number of different narratives. For the Conservatives and the NDP, this is all about the government trying to “cover up” what happened, because they won’t allow staffers to testify – nor should they. The concept of ministerial responsibility is inviolable in our constitutional framework, and the government should be fighting to maintain it, and yes, they have put the minister forward in this case several times, so that does matter. For the Liberals’ decision to move to end the study, it’s also at the request of some victims’ groups, who have stated that every past government is at fault, and that the committee is simply using the victims in order to score partisan points – and they are 100 percent correct in that assertion.

I do find it disturbing, however, that in most of the reporting on what has gone on, media have followed the opposition narrative that staffers are being “blocked” from appearing, and that the only time that ministerial responsibility is mentioned, it’s in quotes and being both-sidesed in terms of the government’s response. This is a real problem because it is undermining this fundamental principle in our democracy. This is something that should be explained, including why it’s wholly improper for the opposition to be demanding that this important principle be violated, and why when the Conservatives were in government, they repeatedly invoked the same principle as well to keep their staffers away from committee. Constitutional principles matter – they’re not just to be dismissed as a “process story” as so many journalists and editors are wont to do in this city, and it cheapens the discourse when this context is being left out of the stories, and when the government’s correct position is being spun as being improper.

Of course, if the government is going to claim ministerial responsibility, that doesn’t just mean Sajjan has to show up (which, to his credit, he did for six hours) – Sajjan has to actually take responsibility as well, and he hasn’t. And more to the point, Sajjan should fall on his sword for this, because he did drop the ball. He remained way too incurious about the allegations and whether an investigation was being carried out – which is not the same as involving himself in the investigation or meddling in it. It’s basic due diligence for someone who is responsible to Parliament for the armed forces and its leadership, and he failed in that due diligence. Sajjan has no choice but to resign over this, and it will be a giant sign that Justin Trudeau is not taking this seriously if he doesn’t insist on a resignation in short order.

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Roundup: Contrasting convention speeches

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The Liberal and NDP conventions went ahead “virtually” over the weekend, and from the sounds of it, the Liberals’ went smoothly, while the NDP’s was derided as glitchy, and delegates complained there was little opportunity for actual debate. For his convention speech, Justin Trudeau went hard at Erin O’Toole – befitting the partisan nature of the event – calling the Conservatives “disconnected,” going after their use of disinformation to score points, and pointing out that they would not have been willing to use government resources to help people get through the pandemic through mechanisms like CERB. He also encouraged people to reach out to neighbours, and tell them the Good Word of their lord and saviour Justin Trudeau about the plan the Liberals are building. As for policy resolutions, the party voted for several propositions around Basic Income, but also rejected policy planks to raise certain taxes, so that says a lot about where the party is at in their thought process.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1380926399725371398

For the NDP, after their policy resolutions (including $20 federal minimum wage) were dealt with – with much grumbling from the membership – Jagmeet Singh gave his speech, wherein he claimed that the only reason that the Liberals helped people in the pandemic was because the NDP forced them to (which would only be believable if you paid no attention at all to the Liberals’ willingness to spend any amount of money), and then made a bunch of false claims about pharmacare, and imported some American Democrat talking points about the ultra-wealthy. So, pretty standard for Singh.

Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert tries to tamp down some of the leadership speculation around Mark Carney by pointing out some realities of what that contest could look like. Susan Delacourt noticed that Justin Trudeau’s speech at their convention was much more embracing of Liberal history than he has been in the past. Delacourt also tried to divine what kinds of electoral priorities were to come out of the convention speeches by the two leaders. Paul Wells remarks on the lack of discussion about actual choices at the Liberal convention – which is a very important point, because parliamentary time is finite, as are money and resources, and if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority, and it seems to be the case that Liberals are not getting that message.

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Roundup: Mark Carney undermines his Bank of Canada successors

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When it was announced that former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney was going to be speaking at this weekend’s Liberal convention, we got the usual amount of tongue-wagging from journalists and pundits who assumed that this would be the time when he announced he was running for the party. The Conservatives put out a nasty press release that considered him the “future leader of the Liberals,” as though this was a replay of the Michael Ignatieff trajectory. Carney didn’t make any announcements of future plans, but he did the next worst thing – he stated that he planned to support the Liberal Party in any way he could.

This is bad. This is very, very bad. I have written about this before, but the Bank of Canada is an institution that needs to be scrupulously independent, much like the Supreme Court of Canada. Monetary policy is not to be trifled with, and the separation between fiscal policy (government and the Department of Finance) from monetary policy (Bank of Canada) is sacrosanct in our system. We had a bona fide political scandal about maintaining this separation decades ago, which was the Coyne Affair, and it led to changes that guaranteed the central bank’s independence. This is why, much like Supreme Court justices, former Bank of Canada governors need to maintain their scrupulous independence after office, because the danger of tainting the institution is too great. Because what are we going to see now? All monetary policy decisions will be viewed through the lens of partisan politics and opportunism – which is toxic to the institution. Opposition MPs will start badgering and hectoring the current Governor when he appears before committee and assuming partisanship in his advice and policy direction – something that we are already getting dangerously close to, as Pierre Poilievre tried to go after the Governor over the decision to buy bonds through the current fiscal crisis (which is perfectly sound expansionary policy at a time when we were seeing deflation instead of the kinds of inflation that the Bank is trying to target). This matters, no matter how many Liberal partisans seem to think that this is something they can just handwave away because he said nice things about them.

If Liberals had a modicum of respect for institutions that they claim they have when those institutions are under attack by the Other Guys, then they wouldn’t keep doing this, and yet it happens time and again. They undermined the Senate, the Governor General, and now the Bank of Canada. They have become an absolute menace to the systems and institutions that are at the heart of how our country operates. This is a problem.

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Roundup: Waiting for the modelling to show up

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If you weren’t convinced up until now that Ontario is being run by a group of incompetent murderclowns, there was a tacit admission yesterday from Solicitor General Sylvia Jones that the government held off on increasing restrictions because they wanted to see the modelling show up in hospitals first.

Let that sink in. Fourteen gods damned months into this pandemic, they still don’t understand that the modelling is a warning, not a prediction. They decided to wait until the lagging indicators – hospitalisation – was prevalent before “locking down” (but not really), which means that by this point, the spread of the virus is out of control. How they could not understand this fourteen gods damned months later is a sign that they are either wilfully ignorant, or they just don’t care. They were content to let people die because they couldn’t be arsed to stop the spread of the infection that they knew was coming for some wrong-headed notion about trying to “balance” the economy rather than ensuring people wouldn’t die – never mind that the economy would come back faster if they squashed the spread of the virus and it we wouldn’t any more lockdowns.

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1380194055112511490

I’m still mad about this. I was mad about it all day since the interview hit social media. I would say it’s unbelievable, but given this particular posse of murderclowns and everything they’ve done in this pandemic, it’s unfortunately all too believable.

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