Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: Image, data-mining, and conspiracy theories

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Everyone wanted to talk about Pierre Poilievre this weekend—about his quest to “soften” his image, particularly for women voters, which is why he has plenty of new ads featuring his wife and children; the way in which he’s data-mining and populating his voter identification database using online petitions on sites that he personally owns (and therefore all of the data as well); and the fact that he continues to mainstream certain conspiracy theories (which is a problem for a democracy).

This last one had the Conservatives outraged over the weekend, railing that the piece could not be “professional journalism” because one of the sources had previously donated to the Liberal Party (which is a bullshit purity test and any Conservative talking head who brings it up should be told to where exactly to stick that test), while Poilievre himself tried to call this a hit job and tried to somehow insinuate that The Canadian Press, the national wire service, is somehow an arm of the CBC (again, creating a straw man and a dangerous attack on CP’s integrity when it’s so neutral that it’s biggest problem is that it egregiously both-sides things that should not be). But this pushback is because it hits a nerve—Poilievre and his talking heads know that paying lip service to these conspiracy theories undermines democratic processes, corrodes fact-based reality and drives social divisions, but that’s exactly why they want to use them—to attract a particular voter base who often doesn’t vote, and they think they can cash in on this polarization.

It goes back to what I’ve been writing about before—that they have this mistaken belief that there is some kind of “good parts only” version of right-wing populism that they can get all of the good things (fundraising, volunteers, energy, votes) from without the bad parts (racism, misogyny, homophobia/transphobia, white supremacy, fascism), but it doesn’t work like that. They need to stop deluding themselves because they have poured kerosene all over the floor and are now playing with matches. There is no future in which this can end well.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Seven people including a baby were killed during Russian shelling of Kherson in the south. There was also another attack on Russia’s Crimean bridge over the weekend, and Russia is again vowing revenge for it (as though they are the victims). The Ukrainian military is making some unspecified claims about progress reclaiming territory in the south of the country. Meanwhile, a Russian warship fired warning shots at a cargo ship on the Black Sea in violation of international law.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1690386659878240256

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Roundup: What our diverse Cabinet isn’t thinking enough about

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It’s one of those mid-August “let’s quote a random academic” stories, but this piece on the added diversity in the Cabinet shuffle did get me thinking about a slightly more serious topic than perceived tokenism and need to ensure that these new ministers are adequately supported. Part of my thinking was simply the fact that I have interviewed some of the previously-new Cabinet ministers from after the previous election, and a recurring theme was that having more diverse voices around the Cabinet table is a net benefit, and that they have a lot of really enriching conversations as a result. Which is fair!

But the other thing I got to thinking about was intersectionality, and how such a diverse Cabinet should be getting better at it—but this is still a PMO with a strong central impulse (because the PM’s circle of trust is so small and too many things funnel through his chief of staff, Katie Telford). This is something that they should be better at, and should be more aware of, but perhaps this is one more of Trudeau’s blind spots, where he believes that simply paying lip service to the existence of intersectionality is enough, rather than actually doing the work.

And with that in mind, here’s economist Lindsay Tedds, who is actually doing the work of intersectionality, and is calling on the government to get their act together.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1689841585746579456

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1689841590423224321

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1689841594617434112

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1689841599197671426

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1689843815614664705

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck a house not far from the Polish border, killing an year-year-old boy. Meanwhile, all of the heads of regional army recruitment centres have been fired as part of ongoing battling of corruption within the country, after audits found abuses within those centres.

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Roundup: Draft clean electricity regulations released

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The federal government unveiled their draft clean electricity regulations yesterday, which would be the expectation they are setting for a 2035 clean energy grid—meaning there are twelve years for industry to work toward these targets and goals. And yes, there is still some provision for natural gas generation under certain circumstances for those who were worried. These are draft regulations, so there is now a consultation process for how they can be refined to address the concerns of provinces and territories, or industry players, so that hopefully things can be the best for all involved.

Of course, immediately Scott Moe declared this was impossible and that he’s not going to play, and Danielle Smith sulked and played the defiance card. None of this is impossible, and yes, there are unique challenges in both provinces, but immediately declaring defeat and that you’re going to sit this one out is petulant, never mind the wildfires and the droughts affecting both provinces (Saskatchewan especially on the latter). Remember that “entrepreneurial spirit” they have built an entire self-congratulatory myth around? Apparently, that only applies to the accident of geology of sitting on oil reserves, rather than the opportunity for developing an industry and job creation from the green transition. Funny that.

Meanwhile, Andrew Leach and Blake Shaffer have some threads on the announcement and what’s in them, the top post of each are below, so click through them.

https://twitter.com/bcshaffer/status/1689802816423186432

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck a hotel in Zaporizhzhia that is frequently used by UN officials when they are in the area. Russians also destroyed a fuel depot in the Rivne region. Ukrainian officials have ordered the mandatory evacuation of some 12,000 civilians from the eastern Kharkiv region, where Russians are trying to punch through the front line.

https://twitter.com/oleksiireznikov/status/1689661033374203906

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Roundup: Ford’s Greenbelt corruption

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The long-awaited Auditor General’s report into the Greenbelt scandal was released yesterday, and it outlined some utterly bald-faced corruption as Ford’s sudden desire to develop the Greenbelt saw the chief-of-staff for the housing minister meeting with developers who had just bought these un-developable tracts of land and persuaded him to make those tracts developable, to the tune of an $8.3 billion benefit to them. That’s billion with a b. The process was flawed and contravened pretty much every rule. (The ten take-aways are here). But this all having been said, the Auditor General seemed to also credulously believe that Ford and the minister had no idea that this was going on—which…is hard to believe, considering how many of these developers were at events related to Ford’s daughter’s wedding. And while I can see Ford not knowing the details, because he’s a retail politician and doesn’t care about details, he’s nevertheless responsible for this as premier, and that responsibility absolutely extends to chiefs of staff when they “go rogue.” The report makes fifteen recommendations, which Ford says they’ll follow—except the one about stopping the process of developing the Greenbelt, because apparently his mind is made up.

But in spite of the outright corruption that happened, don’t expect any particular consequences—at least not in the near future. While the OPP’s anti-racket division is looking into this, the “rogue” chief of staff is keeping his job, and so is the minister, because we no longer care about ministerial responsibility when you have corruption to the tune of $8.3 billion. Ford says the buck stops with him, but he spent the afternoon rationalizing and insisting that this is necessary for housing (it’s not), and then blamed the federal government for high immigration numbers (which Ontario has been crying out for), never mind that Ford and company have been ignoring the recommendations of the very task force that they set up to look at the housing situation. And Ford will skate, because he’s not only Teflon-coated, but possesses the Baby Spice Effect™, except instead of her cute smile, he just says “aw, shucks, folks,” and everyone’s brain melts and he gets away with murder. (Well, negligent homicide as the pandemic showed).

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1689294359441604608

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1689323838343979031

In pundit reaction, David Moscrop demands resignations, firings and further investigations for this blatant corruption. Martin Regg Cohn points to the bitter irony of Ford riding into office alleging corruption everywhere only to be engaging in it much more blatantly here.

Ukraine Dispatch:

There was a Russian missile attack against Zaporizhzhia that hit a residential area, killing at least two. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that they have reached an agreement to get more Patriot systems from Germany.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1689329656481103872

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Roundup: The temporary, temporary House of Commons

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Something that caught my eye over the long weekend was a look at the “just in case” temporary, temporary House of Commons Chamber that has been assembled inside the Parliamentary ballroom in the Sir John A Macdonald Building. It seems that while maintenance is happening in the actual temporary Chamber in the West Block, and the threat of a possible recall over the BC ports issue, they decided to do some contingency planning and assemble this contingency Commons. This being said, I wouldn’t expect all MPs to attend it—a good many of them would avail themselves of the hybrid sitting rules (because they have so many things happening in their ridings *jazz hands* that they couldn’t possibly attend), with the exception of the Conservatives, because they would attend in person to prove a point. My biggest complaint is that the configuration shown in the CBC piece would have two lecterns at the end of the Chamber, rather than be arranged as despatch boxes like they do in Westminster, which would certainly be how I would have preferred it.

Meanwhile, new Government House Leader Karina Gould is taking on the perennial promise to make Question Period better, which…isn’t really her call. And, frankly, the one thing that the government could do to make it a serious exercise would be to ban talking points, pat lines and happy-clappy pabulum in favour of making ministers answer questions properly…but they won’t do that, because PMO would never allow it because it goes against the whole ethos of message control that has rotted politics but they insist on following.

So, with the greatest of respect, all of the platitudes in the world about making Question Period something Canadians can be “proud” of is empty rhetoric unless the government is committed to doing the hard work and communicating like human beings, which they absolutely won’t do. And so, our Parliament will continue to slide into a place of irredeemable unseriousness, because that’s apparently the way they like it by adhering to that ethos.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Following missiles strikes on the city of Pokrovsk, Ukrainian authorities are accusing Russians of deliberately targeting emergency workers by drawing them to the scene of a missile strike, and then targeting that scene with a second strike a short while later. Russians launched a massive air attack, largely on western Ukraine, on Sunday, purported in retaliation for a Ukrainian drone strike against a Russian tanker delivering fuel to its forces. Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities say they prevented a Russian hack on their armed forces’ combat information system. Ukraine’s commander-in-chief says that they are putting in place the conditions to advance on the battlefield.

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Roundup: Caught out for trying to be too clever

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There has been another ridiculous slap-and-hairpull fight happening between Liberals and Conservatives over Twitter over an article in the Guardian which cites a rights watchdog saying that there are no pro-choice Conservatives left. It’s not actually true, because there are, but the problem is that the Conservatives were trying to be too clever by half when it came to MP Cathay Wagantall’s latest anti-abortion bill. It was structured ostensibly to give legal weight to a foetus when a pregnant person was attacked or assaulted, and it was 100 percent a backdoor attempt to give a foetus rights, which was intended to start the process of enshrining those rights on the road to banning abortion. It was not very well hidden, and every anti-abortion group in the country was counting on this bill. A smart Conservative leader would have either nipped this in the bud entirely, knowing that it was a trap, or marginalised Wagantall and any of her supporters, to demonstrate that they are a very small minority in the party. But no—instead, Poilievre had every single member of his caucus vote for it under the rubric that it was about protecting pregnant people. And it is that vote that this Guardian article cites as the basis for saying there are no pro-choice Conservatives.

But of course, political hay has been made of this, and Liberals across the board are sharing the piece, because this works to their advantage and plays to their base, and Conservatives are howling that they’re sharing misinformation. Never mind that the Conservatives spread all manner of mendacious messages on the daily, most of it outright lies and disinformation, and they don’t even blink, but as soon as something comes along that catches the Conservatives out on something they through they were being clever about, well, suddenly that’s beyond the pale.

https://twitter.com/maxfawcett/status/1687586294262808581

Everyone needs to grow up, but seriously, this is your own fault, Conservatives. You should have known this was going to happen, so acting all wounded when it did is really disingenuous.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Drones purporting to come from Ukraine struck a Russian warship and caused what could in fact be severe damage to fit. Ukrainian forces have working to retake more land around Bakhmut. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian security service says that Russia is planning a false-flag operation against an oil refinery in Belarus in order to blame it on Ukrainians in order to draw Belarus into the conflict.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1687503986008498188

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Roundup: The reason we don’t have a “First Lady”

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In a bid to find an angle on the Trudeau separation story, the CBC gave us a look at how in Canada, the position of prime minister’s spouse is untitled and unofficial—which is true. But nowhere in the piece does it mention the reason why, which is because we’re a constitutional monarchy. That’s pretty much the whole reason why the spouse of the prime minister has no official title or role, because as head of government, the prime minister doesn’t merit the same symbolic weight of a president in a republic, who is their head of state. Hence, their spouse because the “First” lady/gentleman, because they occupy that symbolic position. And there is good reason for why we organise our government like this, because in our system, it keeps prime ministers in check by not assigning them the symbolism or honours, and prevents them from creating cults of personality around it. The arrangement is that our head of state—or more properly, our sovereign—has the power, and the prime minister “borrows” or exercises it on their behalf, and that helps to keep them in check.

To that end, our sovereign is King Charles III, so if we had a “First Lady,” it would be Queen Camila. And could this CBC piece actually point this out or acknowledge it? Of course not. The piece did note that spouses of the Governor General are also granted the use of the title of “Your Excellency,” but it also omitted that there was a practice where we gave the spouse of the Governor General the title of “Chatelaine of Rideau Hall” when it was only women in the role, but it has fallen into disuse. I think we should absolutely revive it, and employ something like Châtelain or Castellan for a male spouse, particularly because they tend to play a fairly active role, unlike the spouse of a prime minister.

One of the good things about the fact that the role of a prime minister’s spouse is that it gives them the flexibility to be as involved or uninvolved as they choose to be. Laureen Harper preferred to remain out of the spotlight and kept her advocacy to things like fostering homeless cats. Sophie Grégoire Trudeau had a public profile of her own before her high-profile marriage and his becoming prime minister, so she could use that profile to pursue her own projects around mental health and wellness that didn’t have to be tied to the government. She did complain that she needed more staff to deal with the volume of requests being asked of her, but I would hesitate before we put some kind of formal mechanisms into place to make this a more official role because we’re not Americans, and these are roles that the Queen and the Governor General and their spouse should be doing more than the spouse of a prime minister.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine is investigating the attacks on grain port infrastructure as possible war crimes. Here is a look at the de-mining work that Ukrainian forces need to undertake on the front lines as Russians have booby-trapped everything, including the bodies of their own dead. And audits have uncovered corruption at Ukrainian military recruitment centres, which president Volodymyr Zelenskyy calls “revolting.”

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1687124892951408641

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Roundup: The big separation news

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The big news, meriting a tonne of international headlines, was that prime minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, have entered into a legal separation, and that they have gone through all of the legal and ethics processes involved. Trudeau will remain at Rideau Cottage, being the de facto official residence, while Grégoire Trudeau has found a place of her own nearby, and will still be heavily involved because of shared custody.

And while we typically don’t make a habit on reporting on the personal lives of political leaders (unless they cross particular ethical lines, like accepting the lavish gifts from certain companies because they want the promotion on Instagram, as though they were celebrity influencers), there is nevertheless a whole lot of seeking of reaction, the comparisons to his father’s public divorce, questions about what this means for his image and political future (really?), hand-wringing, and some snide comments from certain pundits that if the Trudeaus want privacy they should return to being private citizens, not to mention homophobic remarks from the far-right commenters pretending to be news media. Totally normal stuff.

In reaction, Susan Delacourt notes both the history of the relationship and the constant presence of gossip around prime ministerial marriages and how they are always claimed to be on the rocks. Althia Raj remarks on how this kind of a thing does get politicised, particularly because so much political stock is put in the images of happy families.

https://twitter.com/CristinaStasia/status/1686856298279940096

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian drones damaged grain infrastructure in the port city of Odessa, which has been an organised campaign on Russia’s part since they pulled out of the Black Sea grain deal. Likewise, Russians struck the inland port of Izmail, near the Romanian border, where Ukrainian grain heads down the Danube River, for the same reason, and the result is that world grain prices continue to rise. (This is a major driver of food price inflation). As for the counter-offensive, Ukrainian forces say that they have stopped any Russian advances, but the Russians are dug in, making them harder to dislodge.

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Roundup: A stupid fight over housing jurisdiction

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There is a really, really stupid fight brewing around whose jurisdiction housing is, and I am very nearly at the end of my patience for this. On Monday while in Hamilton, the prime minister said—correctly—that housing is primarily not a federal jurisdiction, but that they are trying to do what they can to support municipalities. And so yesterday, Pierre Poilievre held a press conference to insist that it must be a federal responsibility because immigration, infrastructure and taxes affect housing, and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation is federal (erm, except it’s an arm’s-length Crown corporation). But while there are federal policies that can affect housing, that’s not actually a federal responsibility. He knows this, but is trying to muddy the waters in order to blame Trudeau for the problems that provinces and municipalities have created for themselves.

And to put a cherry on this particular sundae, the gods damned CBC comes along and simply both-sides this stupid fight without actually pointing out that under the constitution, housing is a gods damned provincial responsibility. And there is a certain other outlet that shall not be named running a piece about how Trudeau says that housing’s not a federal responsibility while standing behind a lectern with a sign about building houses faster as though that’s some kind of smoking gun and not simply the federal government patting itself on the back for dispersing money—which is not actually an indication of constitutional responsibility. This shouldn’t be rocket science, and yet they also do this with healthcare. Nor is this new—provinces have been shrugging off this responsibility since at least the 1950s, because they know they can get away with it because credulous media outlets in particular let them.

This being said, I am also rapidly losing patience with the whole thing about people angry that Trudeau has correctly pointed out that he is not primarily responsible, and that he should somehow “show leadership” through handwavey means. This makes as much difference as people getting angry that Trudeau hasn’t fixed healthcare. Yes, there are things the federal government can do around the margins to affecting housing, but again, they cannot force municipalities to zone for density. There are stories about how hundreds of millions of federal dollars for affordable housing are languishing in cities like Vancouver because the municipalities can’t get their permitting through. Trudeau doesn’t have the constitutional levers to change that, or a Green Lantern ring to willpower more housing construction. Meanwhile, the premiers sit back and let Trudeau take that blame while they continue to do nothing about the problems, and the media won’t hold them to account. Isn’t federalism just grand?

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1686292418344239104

Ukraine Dispatch:

In the early morning hours, drone debris has hit Kyiv as attacks were thwarted. There were also more attacks on the port city of Odessa and the grain storage there. Russians also shelled a hospital in Kherson, which killed one doctor. Meanwhile, that same office tower in Moscow’s financial centre got hit by another drone attack (and again, Ukraine is not claiming responsibility).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1686410208338464768

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Roundup: Plans to half-ass maternity leave

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A piece that caught my eye over the weekend was an interview with new Government House Leader Karina Gould about how she plans to deal with her maternity leave on the second time around, and how it’ll be different from the first time (when she was the first Cabinet minister to give birth while in office). Significantly, she doesn’t want to come back as quickly as she did the last time, where she only took ten weeks off, and then returned with her husband in tow to help with child care duties while she did her job.

What Gould says she wants to do differently this time is to not travel to Ottawa, but attend virtually from her constituency office, while the government whip assumers her duties during her absence. But this gets back to what I have been repeatedly warning about when it comes to remote and hybrid sittings, which is that this is going to create an expectation of presenteeism that is unrealistic, particularly for new parents. And while they absolutely should take the time they need off, it should actually be time off in a proper leave of absence, rather than constantly hovering by their computers to follow proceedings along over Zoom, and being ready to vote using their remote app at a moment’s notice. That, frankly, not only doesn’t help anyone, but creates even more stress on the MP or minister while they’re on leave.

More to the point, it will be exceedingly difficult to do House Leader duties remotely, because part of the job is stage-managing answers in Question Period, and directing who should be responding (though not always effectively as we have seen). That can’t be done remotely, and indeed, Mark Holland got into trouble a couple of times for trying to do it over hybrid format at the height of the pandemic, because he was trying to do so with a phone, and that was forbidden. The best thing is for her to simply take the time she needs, and resume her duties from Ottawa when she’s ready, because she won’t be doing anyone any favours trying to half-ass it from her constituency office when she should be spending time with her newborn.

In case you missed them:

  • My column on the Conservatives preparing a “stolen election” narrative by deliberately confusing basic Westminster parliamentary dynamics
  • My Xtra column on why conservatives posing with “Straight Pride” and “Leave Our Kids Alone” t-shirts are no accident—and a sign of their moral cowardice.
  • My column on the signal that Chrystia Freeland has sent to premiers and mayors when it comes to their plans to beg Ottawa to bail them out.
  • My piece for National Magazine about how competition law has failed the media sector in Canada, and why Bill C-18 was a flawed attempt to deal with it.
  • My column on why a public inquiry into Canada’s COVID response may actually prove impossible, because federalism.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles slammed into an apartment complex and a university building in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, killing six and wounding 75. Russian drones also hit Kharkiv, partially destroying a college dormitory. Ukrainian forces say they have reclaimed 15 square kilometres of occupied territory in the past week, while describing that the fight has been tougher than expected because the Russians have fortified themselves. Meanwhile, a drone struck an office building in Moscow’s financial centre, which Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for, and Russians claim that they destroyed three Ukrainian drones headed for their ships in the Black Sea.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1685580157254307840

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