Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: One great backbencher

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Following his unsuccessful run to lead the Ontario Liberal Party, Liberal backbencher Nathaniel Erskine-Smith has confirmed he’s not running in the next election, which is a very big shame. Erskine-Smith has been the kind of backbencher that we need a lot more of in this country, which is to say someone who’s not afraid to rock the boat a little, and to vote against his own party from time to time on matters of principle. That’s exceedingly rare in Canadian politics, and mostly happens only among the Liberals in recent parliaments—Conservatives have a desire to show they’re in lockstep, and the NDP will quietly punish MPs who don’t show continued “solidarity” (and you’d better believe they have an internal bullying culture).

This being said, I’m was not sure that Erskine-Smith would have made a great party leader provincially. While he brought great ideas to the campaign, my concern would be whether someone like that, who wasn’t afraid of rocking the boat from a backbench position, could maintain that energy sustainably in a leadership role, particularly because of the number of compromises that leadership in politics entails. It makes it harder to maintain the kinds of principled positions that he has been able to take, particularly on areas where sitting governments can find themselves getting uncomfortable.

Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps he could have made it work in leadership and brought a fresh energy to provincial politics the way he’s managed to make a particularly necessary contribution federally. Regardless, I hope he has inspired other backbenchers to take more changes and go against the party line from time to time, because we desperately need it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces shot down 22 out of 33 Russian drones launched overnight Thursday, which hit residential neighbourhoods in the southern city of Kherson, and the nearby community of Beryslav. Ukrainian forces also claim to have hit targets in St. Petersburg, which travelled 1250 km to get there. Russian forces claim to have taken over a settlement called Vesele in Ukraine’s east. Meanwhile, six settlements are being rebuilt under the rubric that economies win wars, but they are only building essentials like housing and hospitals, and not libraries or museums.

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Roundup: MPP pay freezes serve no one

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There was a piece in the Star yesterday about how MPPs in Ontario have had their salaries frozen since 2008, with no plans to lift it anytime soon. This is the kind of thing that populist rhetoric engenders, and it’s terrible for the state of our politics. While nobody is in politics to get rich, particularly in Canada, we are pretty miserly about what we want to pay our elected officials, and every time there is some kind of economic downturn, we immediately demand that they either freeze or cut their salaries to “set an example” (which is ridiculous because I have yet to see any senior executives in the private sector freeze or cut their pay in response to bad economic times—they get further bonuses, especially if they manage to reduce payroll during said tough times).

It cannot be understated that we underpay our elected officials, particularly at the provincial and federal levels, for jobs that are fairly 24/7 in most instances—especially in the era of social media where they are expected to perform at all hours of the day and night, and where they can’t go to the store without being expected to be “on” and engaging with their constituents. And in a lot of cases, people take a pay cut to become an elected official, particularly if they are doctors or lawyers. We say we want to attract the best, but the longer this kind of thing goes on, the more it will only attract those who are already wealthy and can live with the pay cut. Oh, and Ontario killed their pensions for MPPs decades ago, so on top of being underpaid, they don’t get a pension out of it either, which just makes it all the worse proposition for someone.

Nevertheless, we already have the astroturfers at the so-called “Canadian Taxpayers Federation” griping that Toronto City Council and the mayor are getting a modest pay rise this year, and because legacy media laps up everything they put out, this feeds the hairshirt parsimony and cheap outrage that makes us look as petty and parochial as our worst instincts tend to be. (Tall poppy syndrome is absolutely one of our national neuroses). This isn’t good for democracy, but nobody wants to make that case, which is why we’re in the situation we’re in.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles hit an apartment building and a medical centre in Kharkiv early Wednesday; Russia claims it was precision-targeting a building housing “foreign fighters” that included French mercenaries. Ukrainian forces also downed19 out of 20 drones targeting Odesa. The fighting has intensified near Bakhmut, as Russian forces are making more offensive assaults.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1747574419994648962

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Roundup: Rachel Notley announces her departure

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In a move that has been expected for over a month now, Alberta NDP leader and former premier Rachel Notley announced that she’ll step down as soon as her replacement is chosen, and no, she has absolutely ambition to run federally. It’s probably a good thing that Notley has decided enough is enough, thus avoiding becoming another Andrea Horwath, and frankly, considering how she managed to lose the debate against Danielle Smith, and from there the election, well, it was probably time to call it a day and let a fresher face take over.

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Notley’s time in Alberta politics was transformational—even though her rise to government was largely accidental (voters looking to punish Jim Prentice’s PC government for having the temerity to tell them to “look in the mirror” about demanding high services and low taxes had no other options as the provincial Liberals’ leader just bailed and the Wildrose were decimated after Danielle Smith crossed the floor with most of their MLAs), she managed to run a government that was reasonably competent in a province where one-party rule had left them corrupt and unable to do things like come up with realistic budgets that didn’t involve throwing money at problems. She did what every NDP organisation dreams of and decimated the provincial Liberal party, forcing the centrist voters in the province to her banner by running more to the centre herself, and essentially turning the province into a two-party race. But it’s also notable how her success also had a lot to do with moving away from standard NDP dogma.

Here are some reactions to her announcement (and I thought Jagmeet Singh’s was especially hilarious considering how she spent most of her time in office distancing herself from him), a few biographical details, and a look at her legacy.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Unsurprisingly, the higher intensity of Russian attacks led to a sharp increase in civilian deaths over December. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos to drum up more support from partners, and met with Antony Blinken while he was there. (No doubt Conservatives in Canada are going to hold this attendance at Davos against him, because conspiracy theories).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1747261931164192849

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Roundup: Blaming Trudeau for rent hikes

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The Conservatives put out a press release yesterday decrying just how much rent has increased across the country. The problem? Landlord-tenant legislation is a provincial issue, and most of the premiers have resisted rent controls or price caps, mostly for ideological reasons. If indeed rent controls stifle new construction, well, removing them hasn’t spurred it either.

If this is about the market, the federal government hasn’t been in the business of building rental housing since the eighties, and I have seen zero indication that Poilievre would want to get back into that particular line of work. Worse, his release falsely calls the CMHC “Trudeau’s own,” which is a gross mischaracterisation of an arm’s-length Crown corporation that the federal government doesn’t dictate operations to. (This is a rhetorical device Poilievre has been employing a lot, which nobody ever calls him out on either, and that’s a problem). In fact, the government’s decision to remove the GST on purpose-built rentals has given more indications that this will spur development more than any other action so far, but of course, those will take time, which Poilievre is also dismissing with his shtick about people not being able to live in photo-ops.

There has also been the line that this goes back to government spending allegedly raising inflation (false), and that that has raised interest rates, which is what is driving up rental prices, but again, that’s not actually Trudeau’s doing given the global issues with inflation and raising rates to tame it. But Poilievre and his minions would prefer to lie about everything in order to make people angry, because that’s the goal. Facts don’t matter, and that’s a problem for everyone.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Recent Russian air strikes have been focused on Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, however the threat to attacks on energy infrastructure remains high. Ukraine is taking credit for destroying a Russian surveillance plane and an airborne command post. Ukraine’s ground forces commander confirms they are now engaged in “active defence,” but doesn’t rule out further counter-offensive operations. Switzerland has agreed to host a global peace summit at the request of president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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Roundup: Frozen Alberta’s electricity woes

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Amidst the frigid cold-snap on the prairies over the weekend, Alberta started facing a crisis of its power grid, with emergency alerts going out to ask people to reduce consumption lest rolling blackouts start happening. People complied, and crisis was averted.

Nevertheless, this gave the opportunity for certain premiers to try and blame this on clean energy rules, or to misconstrue those rules in the face of what took place over the weekend in order to tout how great coal is in order to score points, none of which helps anyone. But when your only calculus is to score points, well, that’s what politics has become.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia fired 37 missiles and three drones at Ukraine early Saturday, and only eight of those missiles were shot down, likely because of a deficit of air defence ammunition, and as a result, Dnipro and Chernihiv were struck. Meanwhile, Russians have been spending big on infrastructure projects in occupied territories to both draw closer links to Russian territory, but to convince people that they can better rebuild the territories.

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Roundup: No need to consult and launder accountability

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NDP foreign affairs critic Heather McPherson tweeted her outrage at the US/UK air strikes against the Houthis yesterday, and Canada’s participation therein (solely in a planning capacity and not contributing any assets), but in her outrage, she decried that Parliament was not consulted before Canadian participation.

This is wrong. Parliament shouldn’t be consulted because it’s not Parliament’s decision.

This kind of decision is a Crown prerogative, and that’s actually a good thing for accountability, because that is the role that the House of Commons should be playing on these decisions—holding the government to account. That’s the whole point of Parliament. MPs don’t govern—they hold to account those who do. And it’s important that we don’t have MPs voting on these kinds of decisions because that launders the accountability. In other words, if the House of Commons votes on military actions, then if things go wrong, they can’t hold the government to account for them because the government can turn around and say “You voted for this, it’s your responsibility, not ours.” That’s how our Parliament is structured, and why it works the way it does.

Oh, but you’ll say. There have been votes in the past! There have been, and they have largely been done for crass political calculations, particularly to divide opposition parties. Case in point was the extension of the Afghanistan mission, which Stephen Harper put to a vote specifically for the purpose of dividing the Liberals in opposition. It’s not how things are supposed to work. The government may announce a deployment or a mission in the House of Commons, and there might be a take-note debate on it, but there shouldn’t be a vote. If the opposition tries to force on as part of a Supply Day motion, as is their right, then it’s non-binding and is explicitly a political ploy, which makes it more transparent than a government’s attempt to launder accountability. And in this particular case, the fact that two or three Canadians are assisting in planning is hardly something that requires debate in the Commons.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine’s ground forces commander says they need more aircraft to make a difference in pushing back Russian forces. UK prime minister Rishi Sunak was in Kyiv to announce a new tranche of aid, and to address Ukraine’s parliament. A Ukrainian presidential aide says that the amended mobilization bill is expected to pass within days.

https://twitter.com/thestudyofwar/status/1745622690759606541

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Roundup: Ed Broadbent passes

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Early afternoon Thursday, the Broadbent Institute put out a statement that their founder, former long-time NDP leader Ed Broadbent, had passed away at 87.

With this in mind, The Canadian Press has a few stats about his life, as well as quotes from prominent Canadians reacting to his passing, while CBC has some photos of his career from their archives.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Speaking in Estonia, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated the point that any ceasefire will only benefit Russia and not Ukraine. Ukraine’s defence minister said that the hotly contested mobilisation bill has been withdrawn and that a new one is ready to be tabled in their parliament.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1745537331270930924

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Roundup: Chow chooses blackmail

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Toronto mayor Olivia Chow woke up and chose violence, as the kids say, when it comes to her budget proposals for Toronto. While the 10.5 percent property tax increase is long-overdue for a city whose property taxes remain well below the national average after years of austerity governments who have allowed the city to crumble so they can keep from increasing said property taxes (and this is not unique to Toronto either), she is also calling for an additional measure—federal blackmail. The proposal is called a “federal impacts levy,” or an additional six percent increase ostensibly to cover the costs of providing services for asylum seekers, and is basically holding the federal government at knifepoint, saying pay up or all your safe seats in this city are going to be in jeopardy.

The asylum seeker issue is rife with other levels of government falsely claiming that this is solely a federal responsibility, so they should foot the whole cost. It’s not actually true—the federal government is responsible for refugees once their claims have been approved, but before that point, they generally fall under the social services provided by provinces and municipalities, and the federal government will reimburse a portion of those costs. Of course, premiers like to wash their hands of this because of course they do (and there is a constant rhetorical battle happening in Question Period where the Bloc keep demanding that the federal government owes Quebec some $450 million for the provision of services, again falsely claiming sole federal responsibility), which leaves cities often bearing the burden, and Toronto and Montreal most especially as they get the lion’s share of asylum claimants. There remain questions around Toronto, if they have followed the proper channels to request federal funds for this (I believe there is a need for a certain provincial action to accompany it which may not have been undertaken), but again, they have been given millions of dollars this year for assistance with this.

My bigger concern is the Pandora’s Box that this kind of federal blackmail opens up. While some pundits will declare it to be genius, and on a strategic level, it is a clever way to back the federal government into a corner, but at the same time, this invites other cities or provinces to start adopting this kind of tactic, and even more to the point, it once again leaves the province—whose constitutional responsibility the city is—off the hook for their own underfunding and downloading of services to try and make their own bottom lines look good. We already have provinces who think they can just declare themselves exempt from federal laws, and others who are openly breaking those laws (or at least threatening to under the cover of legal fictions), while the pundit class says it’s the prime minister’s fault, that he made them break the law and behave this way. Chow is now pushing this envelope even further, and I worry about the long-term consequences for this country so that she can solve her short-term problem of being an adult around her city’s fiscal crisis.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Two Russian missiles struck a hotel in Kharkiv, injuring eleven people, many of them journalists. Ukrainian forces have been shifting toward building fortifications and a more defensive posture in recent months. Speaking in Vilnius, Lithuania, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that they have shown that Russia can be stopped, but that Ukraine still needs more air defence systems and ammunition. Zelenskyy added that there are “clear signs” of a slowdown in Russia’s defence industry as he called on allied nations to tighten sanctions.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1745019147065721141

https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1745348642100109636

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Roundup: Not a free press issue, but a trap

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Because everything is stupid, we are being drawn into a dumb fight that is trying to de-legitimise legacy media, and legacy media is once again walking into the trap. To wit: On Tuesday, a Rebel “News” personality accosted Chrystia Freeland on the sidewalk outside of the PS752 memorial, and in the end was detained by police for an altercation. We can’t see exactly what happened because as soon as he was intercepted by the protective detail, his camera conveniently panned away, and returned to him as the police were arresting him for assaulting an officer. (He was later released without charge). There are legitimate questions if the police overreacted, and again, we can’t see what he did to them when the camera panned away, but this is not a free press issue.

To be clear: He is not a journalist. Ezra Levant and Rebel “News” keep testifying under oath in court that they are not journalists and not a news organization. And this particular performer, David Menzies, does this a lot—accost people, get arrested, and then Levant puts out a fundraising plea to their viewers, who dutifully shell out. This stunt was practiced, and the camera work seems to indicate just that. They’re already fundraising and claiming they’re going to sue Freeland and the police, because that’s their grift. And because everything is stupid and awful, Pierre Poilievre has decided to step in and claim that this is a freedom of the press issue.

Bullshit.

This isn’t about freedom of the press because Menzies is not a journalist, and Rebel is not a news outlet—by their own admission. But they pretend to be, and Poilievre is happy to go along with that fiction because this way he can try to de-legitimise reputable media outlets by saying that they are on the take from Justin Trudeau, and therefore suspect. It’s not really true, but Poilievre and his caucus have been engaged in this dystopian world-building to paint the picture that Trudeau is a despotic tyrant stripping away their freedoms who is telling the media what to write, and if they don’t, he censors and now arrests them (all of which is an absurd fabrication). And of course, Poilievre is data-mining and fundraising off of this, because again, he wants to get in on the grift.

He doesn’t care about the free press. He abuses legitimate journalists on the regular, and I have been at the receiving end of that. There was no concern about Menzies’ freedoms when he was arrested at previous Conservative events, having accosted both Melissa Lantsman and Andrew Scheer. But by trying to call out the Parliamentary Press Gallery for not condemning Menzies’ detention, and a bunch of mainstream outlets cluelessly not getting that this is grift and playing along, treating Rebel and Menzies as though they were legitimate, is doing the work of letting Poilievre de-legitimise them. It feeds his dystopian narrative, and creates the bifurcated reality where facts no longer apply. And this has the potential to get worse as Marilyn Gladu is trying to get the Commons’ heritage committee to take this up, meaning a full-on dog and pony show for the cameras that legitimate media won’t know how to handle themselves in, because they refuse to believe that they are the targets in this all-out offensive. This is actively damaging democracy, and by not being self-aware, legacy media are causing themselves more harm. This can’t end well.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The massive air assault Russia has launched against Ukraine is stretching their air defences, and they need more systems and ammunition, particularly of anti-aircraft guided missiles, some of which is being held up by the fighting in the US Congress. More than a thousand towns and villages have lost power because of winter storms affecting power systems that have been weakened by Russia’s assaults. Drone manufacturers in Ukraine are producing them faster than the country’s current budget can buy them.

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Roundup: Both-sidesing Moe’s legal fictions

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The playacting around Scott Moe’s threat about not remitting the carbon levy continues to play out in the media, and once again I will point to University of Alberta’s Andrew Leach calling out the media for how they are framing this, which is poorly.

Today’s example is the CBC, once again egregiously both-sidesing this in the construction of their reporting. On a plain reading of the law, the Saskatchewan government can’t engage in the legal fiction of registering as the distributor of natural gas in the province, and a competent journalist should be able to say as much, but they won’t. The demands of both-sidesing means that they have to get someone else—“some experts”—to couch it so that they can’t possibly be accused of bias or an agenda, even when it’s the plain reading of the law. And this is exactly why parties, particularly on the right in North America, have learned that they can get away with outright lying about absolutely everything—because they won’t be called out on it, and when your reporters couch the language in “some experts” saying it’s a lie, and your populist schtick is to denounce experts as being the enemy of the “common people,” then that expert commentary is immediately dismissed, and the lie carries on without consequence. You would have thought that the past few years, particularly given how the American media entirely shat the bed with trying to cover Trump, that they might have learned something, but nope. CBC and The Canadian Press in particular will continue to egregiously both-sides Poilievre and his myriad of lies, much as they are with Danielle Smith and Scott Moe, and those same leaders will continue to lie with abandon because they will continue to get away with it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia has launched more heavy waves of missiles at Ukraine, killing four civilians early Monday.

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