Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: Another shooting, another investigation

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The conversation about systemic racism in policing continued over the weekend with news of another fatal shooting by policing of an Indigenous man, again in New Brunswick for the second time in a week. Both incidents seem to involve a mental health crisis situation (and a knife appears to have been involved in both cases), but it continues to point to the fact that the police are not the right people to call in such a situation because they don’t have adequate training to deal with these cases. There is a question as to why the crisis intervention units that are available in the province weren’t called in to deal with the situation – whether there is a lack of training or awareness, or if this becomes a situation where the police culture of trying to seek dominance in a situation kicks in rather than thinking it through (with especially fatal consequences for Black and Indigenous people). Nevertheless, the fact that there were two incidents in a single week should be proof enough for anyone who remains unconvinced by the scope and magnitude of the problem that this is something that needs to be addressed.

Meanwhile, it looks like Bill Blair had a conversation with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki before she changed her tune about systemic racism in the ranks, but that changed tune and the damage control that flowed from it has now angered the association of RCMP veterans, which is falling back on the same lines about good people being tarred, because they apparently haven’t kept up with the pace of the conversation and what everyone has been pointing out to them the whole time. And while AFN National Chief says that we need to move beyond questioning whether systemic racism exists and act on eliminating it, I think we need to recognize that it’s important that we are finally calling it what it is – and this as we have pundits muttering about how we shouldn’t spend so much time on labelling it than on combatting it, but if we can’t call it what it is, then we can’t do what needs to be done to actually fix it.

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Roundup: Damage control and lunatic accusations

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For his Friday presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau was back at Rideau Cottage, and he started off with the news that the Canadian Forces deployments to long-term care facilities in Ontario and Quebec would be extended until June 26th, but that the plan was to start transitioning to more assistance from the Canadian Red Cross. He mentioned the call with the premiers on Thursday night, which by all accounts got pretty testy, but Trudeau stuck to generalities. He raised the arrest video of Chief Allan Adam, saying he was shocked and that there needed to be an independent investigation, and that policing reforms across the country needed to happen soon. Finally, he mentioned that temperature checks would be implemented on flights, which raised all kinds of questions of faux-confusion that we were told that this was ineffective in detecting COVID-19 – which is true, but it was explained about eleventy times that this was simply an added measure of protection to keep people with fevers off of flights. (And lo, the pundits who seem incapable of thinking critically about public health advice have been decrying this as “added confusion,” which it’s not really). During the Q&A, Trudeau was also asked about the blood donation ban for men who have sex with men, given that NDP MP Randall Garrison has been agitating about this recently, and Trudeau reiterated the government’s position that they were funding the science that would ensure it was safe to end the ban, that they reduced it from a permanent ban to a three-month ban, and that he hoped for a positive announcement soon.

Later in the day, we saw a flurry of damage control out of the RCMP, as Commissioner Brenda Lucki clarified that yes, there is systemic racism in the Force and she should have been clearer about that, and that she has to ensure policing free of bias. As well, the Alberta Deputy Commissioner, who previously denied that systemic racism exists in the Force, said that he’s learned a lot in the past few days and he too will now admit that it exists, and promised to help eliminate it – as calls for his resignation have been mounting. Meanwhile, Winnipeg police tried to get ahead of a story with a video that showed four police grappling with, kicking, and Tasering someone during an arrest, which they insisted was someone who was violent and high on meth – but seemed incapable of admitting that it looks like more police brutality.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have been trying to make an Issue of the fact that foreign affairs minister François-Philippe Champagne *gasp* has a $1.2 million mortgage for two London properties from a Chinese bank, that predated his time in politics. The mortgages were fully disclosed, and neither the Ethics Commissioner, CSIS or the RCMP seemed to think this was a big deal when he was either elevated to Cabinet or shuffled to his current portfolio, but now the Conservatives are accusing him of being compromised, and going easy on China – to the point that they have insinuated that he is letting the two Michaels languish in a Chinese prison – because of these mortgages. It’s a position that is ludicrously insulting because the worst thing that this Chinese Bank could do is demand immediate repayment (unlikely given the rules for financial institutions in the UK), and Champagne could have to sell those properties, which, given that property in the UK has appreciated rapidly, he could make a tidy profit. More to the point, that same Chinese bank has been operating in Canada since 1993 and had $3 billion on the books here, and there was nary a peep about it from the Conservatives in the nine years they were in power. But logic and common sense are not in play, and instead they are demanding that the Canada-China special committee be reconstituted and Champagne be hauled before it to answer about this, which is starting to reek of a McCarthy-era witch hunt, because they can’t help but engage in meathead partisanship.

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Roundup: An admission of systemic racism in Canada

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser was held away from Rideau Cottage yesterday, at a local business that benefitted from the wage subsidy, and it was remarked that it looked to be suspiciously like a campaign stop. Trudeau did his best to try and deflect blame for losing at political chicken – err, Wednesday’s inability to get the government’s latest emergency omnibus bill passed, outlining all of the places where items in the bill matched the demands of opposition parties, while dismissing some of the criticisms – primarily that of the Conservatives in their insistence on having full parliamentary sittings restored. The more memorable moment, however, was when he was asked about RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki’s comments that seem to dismiss systemic racism in the RCMP (though she did cop to unconscious bias), where Trudeau said that of course there is systemic racism in the RCMP, just like there is in all of our institutions, and that systems are not broken, but were in fact built that way. He went on to say that part of why it’s difficult to address is because it’s in the building blocks of these institutions, which should serve as a reminder to everyone that there are no quick fixes to any of this. He also went on to say that Canadian exceptionalism isn’t just that we do well, but that we know we need to do better and are willing to address it. This is probably the first time that a head of government has made this kind of an admission, and an acknowledgment of concepts that many Canadians are still coming to terms with – but he also did say that he had faith in Lucki to do the job of reforming the RCMP, so there’s that.

On the subject of the RCMP, Indigenous services minister Marc Miller is not having any of Commissioner Lucki’s excuses about not understanding systemic racism, and is critical that not enough has been done to combat it over the past two years. AFN National Chief Perry Bellegarde says that the federal government’s complacency allows police violence against Black and Indigenous people, and he’s right. And lo and behold, the dashcam footage of Chief Allan Adam’s arrest has been made public, and it is hard to see how senior RCMP officials could have concluded that the actions were “appropriate,” which is a big flashing indicator of a problem in the ranks.

Meanwhile, as the debate on bringing back Parliament properly progresses with Trudeau’s disingenuous excuses, Conservative House leader Candice Bergen has put forward a number of suggestions for how MPs could safely vote in-person in a returned Parliament – some of which I’m not in favour of, but at least it’s a better solution than the Pandora’s Box of remote or electronic votes, which the government favours – and make no mistake, they are an evil that will be unleashed and there will be no going back. (I have more on this in my weekend column, out later today).

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Roundup: Trudeau played chicken, and lost

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There was no presser for the prime minister yesterday, as he was instead at Carleton University delivery commencement addresses in both official languages for university graduates across the country. When the House of Commons did meet first for the usual COVID committee, it was a spectacle of Andrew Scheer making disingenuous attacks about the Auditor General’s budget, and Trudeau responding by trying to shame Scheer into supporting their bill later in the afternoon – a tactic he also tried with the attacks by the other opposition leaders.

And so, when the committee ended for the day and there was a brief pause for the Commons to transition to an actual (abbreviated) sitting, things degenerated. The government tried to pass a motion to do their usual tactic of passing the bill at all stages with a couple of hours for speeches, and that was defeated. They tried again, this time splitting out the disability portions of the bill to pass them swiftly first before going back for the rest, and that failed. Andrew Scheer tried to move a motion to suspend and reconvene a short while later, presumably so that they could engage in further negotiations, and that didn’t pass. And then the Bloc moved their own motion to suspend until such time that the House leaders signalled that they had come to an agreement. And that too failed. Out of options, the Speaker decided that since they couldn’t agree on how to conduct the day’s business, that the House would suspend until the next scheduled sitting day – next Wednesday, when they plan to pass the Estimates in one fell swoop. It was like watching some kind of farce film, but all too real.

The government played political chicken, in their presumption that one of the opposition parties would blink because this was about disability payments (for only about 40 percent of disabled Canadians, if the figures are to be believed, because this was the only real mechanism that the federal government had access to because disability supports are largely an area of provincial jurisdiction). Pablo Rodriguez says they’re still negotiating, but the Conservatives want the House of Commons to have proper sittings (though they are reticent about remote voting – quite rightly); the NDP want more support for people with disabilities and the CERB fraud penalties taken out; the Bloc are demanding a fiscal update, a first ministers’ meeting on health transfers (without strings or conditions of course) – because the weekly teleconference with premiers isn’t enough – and a ban on political parties taking the wage subsidy. I do, however, object to this being dismissed as “partisan sniping” because six months ago everyone was falling all over themselves to rave about how great hung parliaments were because they force parties to work together, and well, this is the result – everyone has priorities they want to advance and everyone thinks they have leverage, and the government tried to play chicken rather than meaningfully engaging at least one of those groups, hoping that the banner of “helping people with disabilities” would be enough to make the opposition roll over like they have been over the course of this pandemic. So no, it’s not sniping – it’s MPs doing their jobs (well, partially anyway), and we shouldn’t be dismissive of it.

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Roundup: Honest mistakes and sticking points

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser was far more lacklustre yesterday in terms of announcements – mostly just an update on how many more shipments of personal protective equipment have arrived, and contracts that have been signed with domestic producers in order to supply more. There was a little more action in the Q&A – on the question of proposals when it comes to punishing fraud for CERB, Trudeau insisted that this was only about people for whom there was demonstrable intent for fraud and not honest mistakes, though that is not reassuring to everyone. On the lack of a fiscal update, he insisted that things were still too much in flux because we have no idea how the economic restart is going to look like, but then went into his song and dance about just how open and transparent they’ve been because they take questions from the media every day and at the special COVID committee in the House of Commons, except that those are more about the performance of asking questions and less so about providing substantive answers (but being performative on transparency is on brand for this government). Part of the fiscal update measures was wrapped up in a “but the deficit!” moans from one reporter, whom Trudeau did rebuke a bit given that we are in an era of historically low interest rates. On MP Marwan Tabbara, he reiterated that he only found out about the arrest on Friday (and while people don’t believe that, we have to remember that the leader’s office doesn’t track every MP like a convict, and they’ve all been somewhat preoccupied with the pandemic – and it was up to Tabbara to disclose to them). On body cameras for the RCMP, Trudeau said that the was only one measure among many they were discussing, which gives him a bit of wiggle room as this becomes an issue of debate.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1270384288601567233

https://twitter.com/twitscotty/status/1270506759153766400

The issue of the penalties for fraud with CERB look like they will be a sticking point with the NDP, no matter Trudeau’s assurances that this is not about people who made good-faith mistakes, and that it aligns the penalty regime with people who defraud EI (but without all of the same accountability measures for defence – and it should also be noted that the EI fraud rate is about two-to-three percent). And funnily enough, it seems like some of his own MPs aren’t keen on this either. This could be the kind of punitive measure that will get the Conservatives on-side, but they will be objecting to the fact that the bill will be attempted to get passed in one fell swoop today rather than with a proper legislative process, and the Bloc don’t appear to want to play ball because they want even more measures for seniors, so this could start getting sticky for the government. I guess we’ll have to see what compromises got made, and what deals were cut.

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Roundup: Bad-faith grievance narratives and faux confusion

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The day started off on something of a petulant tone, as Andrew Scheer complained that people were “upset and confused” by prime minister Justin Trudeau’s decision to attend the Black Lives Matter protest in spite of the pandemic, and furthered the bad faith grievance narrative by pointing to the Ottawa restaurant that was fined $880 for opening its patio. Scheer, and other Conservatives, spent the day obscuring the difference between what the federal government is in charge of and what falls under local public health guidelines, and deliberately playing up this “confusion” where none should actually exist – there were public health guidelines that said that if people were going to protest that they should wear masks and social distance, and then self-isolate afterward, if anyone bothered to pay attention.

Trudeau was up shortly thereafter for his daily presser, and he talked at length about those protesting, and people being afraid of the police, and that he promised to deal with systemic racism and listed actions that his government has taken to thus far to deal with it, including mental health resources for the Black community, an anti-racism secretariat and strategy under the Minister of Diversity, and agreed that it’s not enough. He also said that he has been in discussions with Cabinet, as well as the RCMP commissioner, and that he was also raising the issue of body cameras with premiers this week. Trudeau also mentioned that Bill Blair was following through on their commitment to Indigenous policing, and that this week the government would be undergoing a stock-taking on their reconciliation efforts with Indigenous people. He then pivoted to the wage subsidy and other measures being taken to help people, the $14 billion being offered to help provinces with their economic restarts, and finally announced that they had introduced a number of limited exemptions at the border for immediate family members of Canadians to cross – spouses, children, parents of minor children in Canada – but that they must still self-isolate for 14 days upon arrival. During the Q&A, he defended his attending the protests as balancing competing interests.

On body cameras, it looks like the RCMP has agreed to outfit some members with them, but it remains a controversial move, that may be seen as a band-aid solution to deeper problems. (Here’s a good thread by lawyer Michael Spratt to that effect). It’s also pointed out that if we want to shift resources away from the current model of policing, this is a big expense that makes it even harder to do so.

As the talk of the defunding/abolishing police gains momentum, here is a look at how Camden, New Jersey, has been doing an experiment in scrapping their police force and starting over, and some of the more important things to realize in his are that the incentives changed – not judging performance by the number of arrests or tickets issued, and a focus on making connections in communities. Of course, it also says that they haven’t made enough investments in the other community supports that are supposed to underpin this model, so that’s something to think about.

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Roundup: Defunding the Police

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A lot of the discussion over the weekend has been taken up by the “defund/abolish” police narratives that have been part of the Black Lives Matter protests, both in the US and Canada, and while it’s not literally abolish or defunding police (thread here, also a good op-ed by Calumn Marsh here) – which doesn’t actually help their cause when it simply invites kneejerk reactions – I just wanted to offer a word of caution that a lot of these goals with this movement are things that cannot happen overnight. Building the kind of capacity for other social service agencies to take over the work that we have foisted upon police because we didn’t want to pay for them elsewhere will mean that it will take years before any kind of shift can possibly happen, it also makes other assumptions about the state of the current mental healthcare system (thread here), for example, that may not reflect reality. Another bit of context here is that American police are often poorly educated and trained, which is less often the case in Canada, so calls for reductions in salaries as part of this radically reformed force make me wonder if we may be doing more of a disservice to the ultimate goals, where you would want people more likely to have some critical thinking skills and able to better execute judgment. So while it’s a noble idea, we should be cautious about putting carts before horses.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1269643795286687744

Meanwhile, here’s a look at how the RCMP has not been responding to reports or investigations made by its Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, and how at least one has been waiting for responses since 2013. And yes, this is the same complaints commission that the government wants to add CBSA to its mandate (which I will remind you will only mean that CBSA will continue to investigate itself and simply report to this body).

With this in mind, here is Philippe Lagassé with some thoughts on what “civilian control” of the police could or possibly should look like.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269268004325507073

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269289824869126147

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269292825000148993

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Roundup: Trudeau takes a knee

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The day began with a federal response to the death of an Indigenous woman in New Brunswick at the hands of police during what was described as a “wellness check.” Mark Miller, the Indigenous Services minister, very bluntly stated that he was “pissed” and outraged and wanted answers as to what happened. He also demanded answers on the video of RCMP in Nunavut using a truck door to knock down an intoxicated man, calling it out as “disgraceful” and “dehumanizing.” And while the prime minister later said that he would be speaking to Cabinet and the RCMP Commissioner about these incidents, Miller was correct in pointing out that there continues to be this pattern of behaviour. (Commissioner Lucki put out a statement later in the day that was long on platitudes).

Trudeau was up next with his daily presser, making some fairly vague mention of those police incidents before moving onto the day’s announcement – a $600 disability payment for those who qualify under the federal disability tax credit (because, again, most disability supports fall under provincial jurisdiction), as well as announcing an accessibility stream for employers to tap into. He also announced that he has put $14 billion on the table for provinces as part of their safe restart plans, to assist with more personal protective equipment for front-line workers and businesses, as well as for child care, support for municipalities, and made mention of the attempts to get that sick pay into place using federal dollars. (That isn’t going well either, as premiers like Doug Ford say that they don’t want the sick leave, but want even more money than what’s on offer – with no strings attached, obviously). During the Q&A, he was asked repeatedly about what he would do about police violence and systemic racism, but he would only offer his usual generalities and no specifics. He also again committed to collecting race-based disaggregated data, but put in a few digs about the quality of data that some of the provinces are providing because that’s who we are relying on to collect it. (Ontario’s health minister says she’s working on it).

Later in the day, as a number of Black Lives Matters protest marches took place peacefully all across the country, Trudeau showed up at the Ottawa protest and took a knee on a couple of occasions while holding a Black Lives Matter t-shirt, flanked by minister Ahmed Hussen and MP Anju Dhillon. (Catherine McKenna was also in the crowd but not with Trudeau). While Hussen said the image of the head of government taking a knee and clapping when people say “Black lives matter” is powerful, it does raise questions about just what is being said. Taking a knee was a form of protest about the government (of the United States, granted), but if Trudeau takes a knee, who is he protesting? Himself? I would charitably say that this is Trudeau showing solidarity, but it does open himself up to criticisms about doing this for the sake of appearance over substance.

Senate selection committee

I did want to mention the CBC story about senators getting pay increases for sitting on the Selection Committee when it’s only met twice. It’s yet another story in the vein of never-ending stories about how the Senate is full of grasping drains on the public purse, but as so many of these stories go, it ignores the mechanics of the situation. Selection committee meetings are meant to formalize the work that caucuses do internally to allocate committee seats – they don’t make those determinations in committee meetings. They do the work beforehand in whatever assignment process the caucus uses, and it can be a fair amount of work and one could make the argument that any kind of work like that deserves additional compensation. But it is work done that even if the actual committee meets very infrequently, that is the tip of the iceberg of work. The only thing that is particularly unusual in this circumstance is that ISG leader Senator Yuen Pau Woo named himself to the Selection Committee. Normally, it was the caucus whips who were on the committee because they usually did the bulk of the work of allocation committee assignments (and arranging for alternates if a senator couldn’t be present for their scheduled committee meeting for whatever the reason). Considering that Woo has been agitating for changes to the Parliament of Canada Act because as a caucus leader who is not leader of either the government or the opposition, he doesn’t get an additional stipend, so perhaps this was his way of trying to earn himself some additional compensation. This being said, Senator Pierre Dalphond, who recently defected from the ISG to the Progressives, took the opportunity to unload on Woo for this in a press release, which makes me wonder just what happened between the two that has apparently caused this drama.

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Roundup: Cautious progress in most places

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For his daily presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau led off by teasing that new federal modelling numbers were on the way, before mentioning the global vaccination pledging conference, and then turned to domestic measures to help seniors, announcing that their additional OAS and GIS payment would go out on July 6th. During the Q&A, there were questions on Huawei (as the US is making more clear threats to limit intelligence sharing with Canada if they aren’t banned), the fact that he hasn’t been more equivocal in denouncing Trump, and recent instances of police violence and misconduct in Canada such as one in Nunavut.

As promised, the new federal modelling numbers were released shortly thereafter, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the two biggest problem areas in the country remain Toronto and Montreal. There remain warnings that we could see another outbreak if testing and tracing regimes aren’t increased. This having been said, I think it was the data released by BC yesterday that was even more interesting.

One is the data around contact tracing (which that province can seem to manage, but Ontario can’t in its epic managerial incompetence), and it shows that once lockdown measures were in place, the number of contacts that infected people made dropped from 10.7 per case to 3.6, which is a pretty effective demonstration of why physical or social distancing matters.

The other is this analysis of the genomic epidemiology of the virus – as in, where it’s travelled from, because there are small mutations based on where it’s come from, and lo and behold, the vast majority of them were from European/Eastern Canadian strains and very few from China. But hey, the Conservatives and others keep insisting that if only we’d closed the border to China sooner, this all could have been avoided. This data proves that simply wasn’t the case (despite what people like Dr. Theresa Tam have been saying already) – not that it will stop their revisionist history. Nevertheless, it’s interesting stuff.

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Roundup: The safety of being in fourth place

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Ah, the safety of being the third and fourth parties in the House of Commons, where nothing you say really matters! Case in point with both Yves-François Blanchet and Jagmeet Singh, who spent yesterday lambasting prime minister Justin Trudeau for not badmouthing Donald Trump in public – Blanchet calling Trudeau “spineless,” and Singh condemning Trudeau’s silence. Because there’s nothing like demanding that the leader of our country insult the thin-skinned and erratic leader of our closest neighbour and trading partner, whom we rely on for economic security and military protection. Yeah, poking that bear will have no consequences whatsoever! One expects this kind of thing from Blanchet, who never has to worry about ever being in power, but for Singh, it seems to further prove that he has no interest in even pretending like he has a shot at forming a government, so he’s going to simply grandstand (badly) and look as unserious as he possibly can. And it’s more than just these kinds of declarations – it’s the demands that pretend that massive systemic change can happen with the snap of a finger, or that the federal government can just reach into provincial jurisdiction willy-nilly and using the incantation Canada Health Act as though it’s a justification or a blueprint for a federal role that accidentally forgot the part where you need to negotiate with the provinces first, and assumes that they’ll gladly sign onto whatever programme is being offered to them with all of the strings attached. Real life doesn’t work like that – but apparently you don’t need to worry about real life when you’re the fourth party.

Shameless self-promotion alert:

I’ll be appearing (virtually) before the Procedure and House Affairs committee this morning to talk about “hybrid” sittings and remote voting for MPs. (Spoiler: I’m against them). The fun starts at 11 AM Eastern.

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