Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: Exit one arm of WE

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The big news yesterday was that WE Charity is folding their Canadian operations – and putting a hefty share of the blame on the political situation around the whole WE Imbroglio. Never mind their pre-existing problems, convoluted structure, reported financial problems with some of their properties, problems with their board of directors and the resignations therein, and the fact that their whole modus operandi of voluntourism and White Saviour complexes turned into an existential problem for the organization – no, it’s so much easier to blame the slow-motion scandal around them that laid bare many of those pre-existing problems. (For a history of the organization, Maclean’s has a great longread here).

In response, the NDP are crowing that this means that the pre-existing problems that WE faced, exacerbated by the pandemic and the Imbroglio, just proves that the Liberals were trying to help them out all along – erm, which is a bit of a leap. The Conservatives, meanwhile, have demanded that WE still turn over all of the documents that the committee has requested (which WE’s lawyers laughed at given that the committee does not currently exist). And Liberal partisans all over social media are wailing and gnashing their teeth that this organization that did so much good was being killed by the petty partisan games of the opposition. (And, erm, they didn’t actually do that much good, and they are still carrying on their US and UK operations, as well as their for-profit arm – only the Canadian charity arm is being folded).

Meanwhile, Matt Gurney makes the very salient point that this whole situation happened because the Liberals were inept enough not to ensure that Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau do the simplest of steps and recuse themselves from any decisions involving WE because of their personal investment in the organization and its causes. It’s possible Morneau would still have his job as he wouldn’t have made his continuation in the role untenable (thought I have previously contended that even before this all blew up, he was probably overdue to be shuffled because he wasn’t terribly suited for it), and Trudeau wouldn’t be in as precarious a situation as he is (though the cultural problem of not caring about the rules and letting the ends justify the means because they mean well would still be there) if they had simply been a little more aware of what they were doing. Alas, they weren’t, and here we are.

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Roundup: O’Toole hears the siren song of cheap outrage

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He’s barely a week into the job as Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, and Erin O’Toole is already starting to beak off about official residences, and my head is on the verge of exploding. When asked about the CBC story that Stornoway – the official residence of the Leader of the Opposition – is due to get $170,000 in needed repairs before O’Toole and family move in, O’Toole started going off about how he only wanted the very minimum of work done and that he doesn’t even want furniture in his kids’ bedrooms because he wants to use the furniture that their grandfather built in Nova Scotia, and I was both outraged and exasperated.

Let me be clear – the National Capital Commission needs to put work into upkeep of these heritage residences or else they will start to degrade. Everyone was so afraid of necessary upkeep at 24 Sussex for so long that it has literally become a crumbling shitpile, and nobody can decide what to do with it now. Stornoway managed to avoid that fate because when Preston Manning refused to move in, the NCC was able to do the heavy-duty renovations that the residence needed to bring it back up to spec, but 24 Sussex has never had that opportunity, and look where it got us. Nevertheless, this persistent politicization of official residences and casting them as “personal benefits” for political leaders is outrageous to the point of being offensive. These are not personal benefits – they are official residences who belong to the Queen in Right of Canada. And you can bet that a lot of journalists and Liberal partisans on Twitter dug up everything O’Toole said about 24 Sussex and the renovations to Harrington Lake to paint him a hypocrite, but dear sweet Rhea, mother of Zeus, this is such self-defeating behaviour. Stop it.

I will also add lay a certain amount of blame for this on the media, because the impulse is always to write these stories as cheap outrage. The CBC headline is quintessential cheap outrage: “Stornoway getting $170K in taxpayer-funded repairs before Erin O’Toole moves in.” This is the kind of thing that gets Canadians’ hairshirt parsimony and tall poppy syndrome riled up, and suddenly it’s a scandal – no matter how reasonable the costs, or necessary the work. And that’s exactly why 24 Sussex is a crumbling shitpile, and why our government aircraft are so old that they have to constantly refuel, and why the avionics on some of them are so old that they are banned from several major airports. It’s embarrassing, but cheap outrage is like crack to so many journalists’ brains that they can’t help themselves, and we collectively set ourselves back another decade on doing what needs to be done. We need to do better, and stop going for the cheap dopamine hits that these stories give because it’s self-destructive.

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Roundup: PBO on thin ice

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Comments made the Parliamentary Budget Officer over the weekend should have him very nervous for his future, as he is straying far beyond his mandate. The PBO, Yves Giroux, was in the media saying that current deficit levels are “unsustainable” within one or two years, which both misreads the current situation, and is venturing into opining on policy choices, which is not his job.

As an Independent Officer of Parliament, he has a certain degree of latitude for doing the job he is tasked with doing, which is to provide costing for proposals on demand by parliamentarians – something which can be a very creative exercise at times – and to provide independent fiscal forecasts of federal budget numbers – also something which has been made redundant because the Department of Finance doesn’t publish their forecasts any longer as the current practice is to take the average of the top twenty private sector forecasts and use those in budget documents. But he’s not invulnerable – Independent Officers can still be fired for cause, and Giroux seems to be flirting with that line.

It’s possible that Giroux doesn’t understand just what he’s doing when he’s answering these media requests, but it’s not the first time that he’s said dumb things in the media, such as a few weeks ago when Bill Morneau resigned that it was akin to “changing pilots mid-flight” (apparently unaware that this is actually standard practice on long-haul flights). He’s supposed to be a lot more circumspect, by virtue of his position, and not offer up any kind of opinion on policy choices. He is not there to second-guess the government and its actions – this is not a technocracy. He is supposed to provide cost estimates when asked, and provide independent forecasts (and as we saw in the election, sometimes he has trouble with the former when he simply put certain parties’ promises on his letterhead without actually doing any analysis of them). Offering opinions on policy choices impacts his ability to be independent, which he should know if he had any particular sense about him. I suspect that someone – perhaps a former PBO who is feeling particularly charitable – needs to pull him aside and to tell him to stop answering all of these media requests, and if he does accept them, to stick to the very narrow contents of his reports. His predecessors largely did not have this problem. Other Officers of Parliament do not have this problem. He needs to undertake to rectify it.

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Roundup: More deficit vapours

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The deficit pearl-clutchers have continued their parade through the op-ed pages of the nation, and some of them worry that the government’s planned green and inclusive recovery package could cost *Dr. Evil finger* ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS! Some of the usual suspects are getting the vapours over this, so here are a couple of reality checks to start your long weekend off with. Enjoy.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1301931200152567809

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1301933193436819456

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1301933884750401536

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1301944987043627012

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Roundup: Getting the deficit vapours

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau was back making the media rounds yesterday, and one of the things he spoke about was the “ambitious green agenda” to be laid out in the Throne Speech, which has every pundit in the country clutching their pearls about the state of the deficit. Why? Because in Canadian punditry – and many government departments, finance especially – it is 1995 and will always be 1995. And some of that comes with the usual ridiculous assertions about comparing the nation’s finances to a household’s, or that of a business.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1301527104383848449

And then there was one column in particular which doubled down on not only the usual deficit vapours, but the notions that somehow inclusive growth isn’t a real strategy, which credible economists – and not just those on speed dial for certain media outlets who have one answer for every problem – will tell you is a bogus argument. But hey, it’s 1995 and will always be 1995.

https://twitter.com/twitscotty/status/1301505825366773762

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1301496695814004736

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1301500044315693058

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Roundup: Trudeau backs Payette

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While making his media rounds, mostly on Vancouver stations yesterday, prime minister Justin Trudeau was asked about the situation in Rideau Hall, and whether there would be any chance he’ll replace Her Excellency Julie Payette anytime soon, especially given that there is currently a workplace investigation after more than twenty current and former employees have come forward with claims of bullying and harassment, not to mention the revelations about how her habits – especially her attempts to evade her own police protection – have cost additional millions of dollars unnecessarily. Trudeau responded that we currently have an “excellent” Governor General, and that the country is currently dealing with a health crisis and didn’t need a constitutional crisis to go with it.

It was a bit of a slow boil, but rest assured, dear reader, my head did explode.

Payette has not been an “excellent” GG. Far from it. She is a brilliant and accomplished woman, but is wholly unsuited for the role that is largely ceremonial, and where the exercise of her powers is 99.95% automatic. A big part of her job is to act as patron to a number of Canadian organizations – something she balked at (and for which I have argued we should start getting actual members of the royal family involved instead), in some cases causing problems for those organizations. She has tried to take an active hand in things like Order of Canada nominations, where she is supposed to act, again, in a ceremonial capacity. Her insertion of her own talk about the “space-time continuum” in the last Speech from the Throne was a problem. And this is on top of the problems having the dubious honour of overseeing the most toxic workplace in official Ottawa.

The notion that there would be a “constitutional crisis” is also completely insane. It is literally a matter of advising the Queen to name a new GG to replace Payette – that’s it. Trudeau is not in the midst of a confidence crisis in his government. There is no question as to the legitimacy of his advice to the Queen for such a replacement. There would be no crisis. Trying to pretend otherwise is disingenuous, plain and simple.

But Trudeau can’t acknowledge any of this, because that would mean owning the fact that he once again screwed up in not doing the actual work of due diligence required with the appointment – having disbanded the vice-regal appointments committee – and that it was a bad appointment. Beyond that, there is some speculation in certain circles here that Trudeau is not put out by the fact that Payette won’t do her job, because it allows him to step in and do more of the ceremonial stuff, which he’s not supposed to do as head of government, but something he has nevertheless tried to do more of. That’s a problem, and one that I suspect we can’t solve so long as Trudeau remains in office. (Chrystia Freeland, on the other hand, seems far less taken with Payette, and has moved to distance herself, so there’s that).

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Roundup: Consulting the caucus

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Yesterday the Star reported that Justin Trudeau has been so weakened by the WE Imbroglio that he is *gasp!* asking his Cabinet ministers and caucus for ideas about the upcoming Speech from the Throne. I find the fact that this is a news story to be pretty distressing because this is supposed to be how governments work in this country – it’s not supposed to be a one-man-show with the leader and his or her office running the whole party’s platform and policies.

This criticism certainly extends to what we just saw out of the Conservative leadership race, where each candidate had a policy book that they were running on – something that should never happen because it’s not leaders who are supposed to come up with policy, but the party’s grassroots members, and the Conservatives especially like to crow that they are a “grassroots party” that respects its members, and so on. If that was the case, why would your leadership candidates be trying to run on different policy platforms? And you can’t say that this is about what the leader believes in – policy platforms are not beliefs, and the party shouldn’t be contorting itself to fit the leader because it’s not supposed to be a personality cult, but sadly we’ve missed that boat, and that’s exactly what parties have become in this country.

As for the notion that Trudeau should be consulting with the Conservatives on his Throne Speech, as raised in the Star piece, he really has no obligation to – it’s not O’Toole’s job to prop up the government, even if Trudeau wants to project some kind of “all in this together” message about the economic recovery. That’s not how our system works – we need opposition to hold the government to account, and trying to co-opt the opposition with promises in exchange for co-operation weakens that accountability. There are two other dance partners that the government can tap to maintain confidence, but subverting the official opposition is not a viable course of action.

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Roundup: Warning signs ignored by the RCMP

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Monday morning was kicked off by a very good story over on Global about a lawsuit launched by former employees in the RCMP’s intelligence unit regarding the bullying of alleged spy Cameron Ortis, who awaits trial for allegedly stealing state secrets with the intent to sell them. The suit alleges that Ortis was bullying out anyone from his office that he didn’t like in order to install friends and people who would be pliant. While the government says they are going “look into” the matter – the fact that this was raised long before Ortis’ arrest and apparently ignored by the RCMP’s management is concerning.

Meanwhile, here’s former CSIS analyst Jessica Davis putting these allegations into perspective – and painting a worrying picture of our national security institutions in the process.

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1300398113430085636

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1300398115690811393

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1300398117515296770

https://twitter.com/JessMarinDavis/status/1300399739284881408

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Roundup: Trading in NWO conspiracies

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On Saturday, Conservative MP and former minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay retweeted a shitpost put up by a QAnon follower that contained a video of a pre-politics Chrystia Freeland interviewing George Soros, and worried that Soros was trying to get China on board with the New World Order – a particularly pervasive conspiracy theory which goes back to the anti-Semitic tropes of the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” Findlay’s quote-tweet – since deleted – had her proclaiming that Freeland was “listening carefully to him like a student to teacher. The closeness of these two should alarm every Canadian.” When called out, Findlay insisted that it was “about economics,” before she finally deleted her tweet, apparently after Liberal MP Anthony Housefather (who is Jewish) reached out to her to explain why the Soros/NWO conspiracy theories are inherently anti-Semitic. Findlay then made a qualified apology, claiming she “thoughtlessly shared content” and that she doesn’t endorse hateful rhetoric, but didn’t explain her won statement about why Freeland interviewing Soros should be “alarming.”

Why does this matter? Because other Conservatives including Pierre Poilievre were retweeting Findlay uncritically, which means that this kind of conspiracy theorism and anti-Semitism is getting more normalized. And then there’s the fact that Andrew Scheer spent his farewell speech promoting sites like True North and The Post Millennial which also trade in these kinds of narratives, and was touting them as credible and “objective,” when they are not. What this is saying about where the Conservative party is at in terms of what kind of narratives they trade in should be alarming, especially when you think of the fact that fourteen percent of the party voted for Derek Sloan’s outright parroting of Trump talking points, which includes the racism, misogyny and homophobia.

Over the rest of the weekend, Erin O’Toole was silent on the tweet, as were the other Conservatives who retweeted Findlay. That should also be concerning, especially because it means they are either ignorant of the anti-Semitic tropes they were trading in, or they were complicit in them. That’s not a direction that we want Canadian politics to be heading down, and Findlay owed an explanation of why it was “alarming” that Freeland interviewed Soros as a journalist, and O’Toole owes an explanation for his silence in not shutting this down when it happened.

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Roundup: The inertia around solitary

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The story of what happened with the panel the government assembled to oversee its supposed elimination of solitary confinement in federal penitentiaries has been a slow-burning story this week, but indicative of some of the incomprehensible ways in which this government operates. The practice of solitary confinement has been declared inhumane and contrary to the Charter by courts across the country, and the government promised to reform it with these “structured intervention units,” but that was already dubious, and unlikely to satisfy the courts – and they knew that, but went ahead with it anyway. A year later, the panel that was supposed to oversee it quit in frustration because they couldn’t get any information they needed to do their work (and the Correctional Investigator gave Correctional Services a pass on this because apparently, they’ve been implementing new software and this has been a problem). But it was only when this story leaked thanks to Senator Kim Pate that Bill Blair sprang into action, promising to reappoint the panel and implement a “work plan” to get them the information.

Well, turns out members of that panel aren’t exactly keen to be reappointed because they’ve been jerked around for a year, and were doing this on a volunteer basis, which cost them a lot of time and money for nothing but headaches. But this all feels like another case of this government meaning well, and talking a good game without doing the actual work involved and then hoping that everything will be forgiven because they have good intentions. That’s not good enough, and yet they keep behaving like that’s all well and good. It’s not.

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