Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: A scolding from Xi Jinping

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Much of the conversation yesterday was about a piece of video was captured at the G20 meeting in Bali, where on the sidelines, we saw Xi Jinping scolding Trudeau for “leaking” their conversation to the press, except there was no “leak.” It was a bog-standard readout like is sent out after any conversation with a foreign leader, with its vague wording and fairly inscrutable pabulum. And Trudeau told him as much about Canada believing in “free and open and frank dialogue.” Xi, however, put on a show of scolding, which some have said was more about saving face than anything. Nevertheless, this became something of a Rorschach test, based on your feelings about Trudeau—if you like him, he’s standing firm in the face of Xi, but if you don’t, he’s either looking chastened, or weak, or that Xi is taking Trudeau down a peg. It’s both fascinating and crashingly dull that these same narratives keep getting trotted out time and again.

https://twitter.com/Dennismolin11/status/1592905231427592193

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1593073811481853952

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 267:

Russian attacks in the east of Ukraine intensified as they were reinforced with troops fleeing from Kherson, as Ukrainian cities were working to restore power after the missile attacks earlier in the week. It also looks more likely that the missiles that struck Poland were Ukrainian anti-missile missiles, which still leaves Russia culpable, given that they fired some 100 cruise missiles at civilian targets in the first place. Meanwhile, two Canadian companies that produce electrical transmission towers are looking to assist Ukraine by offering their emergency replacement pylons to local companies.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1592980519997751297

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Roundup: Auditor General day passes with little notice

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The Auditor General released a series of reports yesterday, but you almost wouldn’t know it from the dearth of coverage. Yes, The Canadian Press did cover them, and CBC did somewhat, but most of those stories were not headline news, and barely made a splash. The reports didn’t come up in QP save for two NDP questions near the back third of the exercise, and Power & Politics gave it seconds worth of mention in their “five things” segment (while they also spent three blocks on their Power Panel, a block on their ridiculous “Quote of the Day,” and ran the segment on Donald Trump’s pending announcement twice). Power Play did slightly better by actually having the Auditor General on to discuss the reports, but gave her a mere 3 minutes and 42 seconds of airtime, and only a couple of the items actually got mention.

The reports:

  • We don’t know if the federal government’s plan to reduce chronic homeless by 50 percent by 2028 is working because they don’t have enough actual data.
  • Indigenous Services’ handling disasters like fires and floods remains reactive rather than proactive, even though this has been highlighted for a decade now.
  • Federal departments need to do more to ensure secure storage on cloud servers given the rising threat of cyberattacks (which is pretty alarming, really).
  • Our aging aircraft and icebreakers mean we can’t effectively monitor Arctic waters, and there are no plans to replace RADARSAT capabilities by 2026.

Is any of this earth-shattering? Maybe not, but it’s still important and a big part of the way we’re supposed to be holding the government to account, which should be important. There was once upon a time, not that long ago, when Auditor General Day was a big deal in the spring and the fall, and it was a media circus. And now? It barely makes a dent in the news cycle. It’s a pretty sad indictment of where we’re at in terms of our national political media, and how little we’re paying attention to the things that are supposed to matter.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 266:

Russia fired a large number of cruise missiles at civilian infrastructure throughout Ukraine, and throughout this, a pair of missiles appear to have crossed into Poland and struck a farm near the border, killing two people. While everything is being verified that these were in fact Russian missiles (and not, for example, Ukrainian missiles that missed intercepting the Russian missiles), NATO leaders are thus far keeping cool and trying to keep the situation cool, but this is almost entirely unlikely to trigger Article 5. Instead, it’s likely to trigger Article 4, and ramping up their investment into giving more equipment to Ukraine faster, including the plan from Poland to deliver its old MiG fighters to Ukraine.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1592647150504407042

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Roundup: Counting votes is not a measure of the Senate’s health

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The National Post did an analysis of the “new, independent” Senate to see just what has changed since the prime minister Justin Trudeau began his bid to reform the Upper Chamber through the appointment process, and lo, the analysis misses the whole gods damned point. You don’t judge the effectiveness of the Senate by counting votes. It has never operated in such a way, and (quantitative) political scientists and journalists can’t get that through their heads. The Senate is not going to vote down government legislation unless it’s a dire circumstance, and usually they will only insist on an amendment once before they will let a bill pass. How many times they vote against the government is not a measure of independence either, because the objective of most senators is to let a bill get to committee where the real work happens, and they will try to amend any flaws (and even then, we’ve had a problem of this particular government needing to sponsor amendments to fix their flaws that they bullied through the Commons, until the more recent and destructive trend of telling them to pass it anyway and that they would fix the flaw in a future piece of legislation).

There are plenty of other measures by which we could talk about why the “new” Senate isn’t working from the fact that they can barely organise a picnic anymore because most of the Independent senators can’t stick to agreements on procedural matters, or the fact that the pandemic has gutted their ability to be useful aside from adding a few speeches to the record because legislation is being bullied through without time for scrutiny, or the fact that they no longer have the interpretation capacity to run many of their committees like they used to thanks to hybrid sittings burning out the interpreters. Those are all very real problems that are hurting the Senate, but it requires journalists (and academics) who know the place and what is going on, and what questions to ask, and those are almost non-existent. But hey, we counted votes, so that means something, right? Nope.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 265:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the recently liberated city of Kherson to declare it the beginning of the end of Russia’s invasion, but also notes that the city is laced with boobytraps and mines, and that they have a significant challenge ahead in repairing critical infrastructure so that people can get electricity and water.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1592179845311635463

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Roundup: No, it’s not a mini-midterm

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Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I am taking the opportunity to call out some of the absolute worst practices in Canadian political journalism, one of which was on display this weekend courtesy of CBC, where a preview of the forthcoming byelection in Mississauga-Lakeshore was termed a “miniature midterm election,” and my eyes rolled back so far in my head I almost did a full-body flip.

No. Stop that.

It is nothing like an American midterm election, which is a general election for the entire House of Representatives and a third of their Senate. Even Americans have special elections equivalent to byelections, so in every single way the comparison is flawed, and no, you can’t excuse it by trying to claim you’re piggybacking on an American story to tell a Canadian one, because it just perpetuates the false notion that our systems are at all equivalent, and that their politics are more interesting or exciting than ours are (which they are not—theirs are simply more insane, and we should not be looking to mimic or envy that in any way whatsoever). Furthermore, the story goes into the history of the riding and of certain byelections in order to try and carry on the tortured framing device to try and use it as a way of trying to divine messages about the current government, but with a boatload of caveats to say that it might not mean anything at all, in which case, what was the point of this whole exercise? It could have been a profile of the riding, the candidates, the fact that the Liberals once again ignored their own promise of open nominations to appoint a provincial has-been, or about the ground-game the different parties have in the riding as compared to the messages their parties are putting out. There is so much more you could do with this piece that would be useful political journalism than try to put this into some bastardised American context. Honestly, what is the gods damned point otherwise?

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 264:

Much of the news remains the liberation of Kherson, with police officers returning, along with things like television, though the city remains largely without power or water, and Ukrainian forces are trying to stabilise the situation there, which some are calling a humanitarian catastrophe. As well, some seventy percent of that province remains in Russian control, so there is still work to do. Some 2000 explosives have been removed from Kherson and the surrounding region in the past few days, and to the east, Russian forces continue their grinding offensive at Bakhmut.

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1591525567698194432

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Roundup: National Remembrance ceremonies in Canada as Kherson is liberated in Ukraine

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National Remembrance Day ceremonies were held in Ottawa, with some particular attention paid to it being the 80thanniversary of the raid on Dieppe, as well as some particular attention to the memory of the Queen, who was herself a veteran of the Second World War.

Of course, someone had to be churlish and parochial today, so the Conservatives put out a press release denouncing the fact that Justin Trudeau was absent, because he’s on his way to an important summit in Asia. And he met with troops in New Brunswick yesterday, and during his refuelling stop in Alaska. And yes, Stephen Harper also missed several Remembrance Day events because of foreign travel, so the complaints about Trudeau are not only weird and hypocritical, but they’re indicative of the fact that the Pierre Poilievre has just hired an avowed shitposter as his director of communications, and this level of juvenile partisan sniping is what we can expect more of in the coming days because this is exactly what he thinks is going to speak to Canadians.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 262:

Ukrainian special forces arrived in Kherson to a hero’s welcome, but the real work begins now of trying to deal with the landmines the Russians left behind in the city. There are also concerns about “sabotage operations” by Russian troops in civilian clothes. Kherson is strategic because it allows Ukraine to control fresh water flowing to occupied Crimea, and keeps Russian control out of the southern part of the country in an attempt to keep the land bridge to Crimea.

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1591099528736051205

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Roundup: Play stupid procedural games, win stupid procedural consequences

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My patience for the stupid procedural games being played in the House of Commons is wearing incredibly thin as Liberal House Leader Mark Holland is moving a motion to extend sitting hours to midnight. Now, this would be fairly normal for the last four sitting weeks of the year, but Holland is moving the motion to extend until June. *sighs, pinches bridge of nose* Holland claims it’s because the Conservatives are being obstructionist, and putting up long speaking lists for every bill, so he’s going to accommodate them, and the Conservatives are saying that it’s their job to have vigorous debate on every bill, but this is beyond excessive. (The NDP are also in favour of this, because they too have essentially had a policy of talking every bill to death for the past decade or so). But that should make everyone happy, no?

Of course not. Andrew Scheer is, not incorrectly, pointing out that midnight sittings take resources (read: interpreters) away from committees, and calls this the Liberals trying to kill accountability by stealth. That’s one interpretation, but one could also say that it’s the consequences of the Conservatives decision to fill up the speaking lists like they are. And it’s all so unnecessary. This insistence of filling up speaking lists and having MPs read canned speeches into the record for hours on end is a particularly Canadian phenomenon, and it’s a symptom of our politics being treated un-seriously. It’s stupid gamesmanship that started years ago, and it gets worse with each passing parliament, and we need to stop it. The fact that Holland and Scheer are now exacerbating it even more as a kind of brinksmanship is killing our democracy, and MPs need to grow the hell up, on all sides of the Chamber.

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Roundup: Protecting nominations is corrosive to democracy

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Remember back when Justin Trudeau promised that the Liberals were going to be the party of “open nominations,” because this was good for democracy and all of that? Well, it seems like once again, his party is firming up their rules to protect incumbents from nominations, which is not open nominations, and is very bad for democracy. Very, very bad. Nomination races are one of the only tools that grassroots party members have to hold incumbents to account without voting against the party in a general election. It’s how the party is supposed to hold its own to account, and if they can fundraise enough and keep their memberships above a certain level, they’re being given a free pass rather than the accountability the system is supposed to provide. This is a very bad thing for our democratic system. It’s bad enough that under Trudeau, the Liberals tore up their party constitution and centralized power in his office. Now they are short-circuiting one more accountability measure and keeping tight control over the nomination process, which focuses even more power on the leader (for whom the party constitution states doesn’t have to face a leadership review unless they lose an election). This is not how a party is supposed to be run.

The practice of democracy in this country is backsliding, as much as our parties like to pat themselves on the back. They have been undermining the rules at every turn, and have hollowed out the safeguards and the grassroots participation. And yes, I know that sitting MPs insist that they need protected nominations because they’re not in the riding to fend off any nomination challenges, but a) you’re in the riding an awful lot, because the number of sitting days has been in decline, and b) you have incumbency advantage already, and if you keep up the door-knocking and activities that you’re required to for these protections, you might as well do it for real stakes. Because yes, grassroots democracy matters, and we desperately need to rebuild it in this country before it’s too late. Protecting nominations just corrodes the system even more than it already has been, and the Liberals cannot pat themselves on the back and talk about how good they are for democracy if they can’t even be bothered with the fundamental basics.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 260:

Russian Forces made a big song and dance about pulling out of Kherson, saying they can’t supply it, but Ukraine is sceptical because it looks like Russia is setting a trap, because they tend to do the opposite of what they say they’re going to. And indeed, they say that they haven’t actually seen signs that Russians are completely leaving the city. Meanwhile, here’s a look at the task ahead of rebuilding Kharkiv after Russian occupation.

https://twitter.com/StratCom_AFU/status/1589649656338067464

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Roundup: The federal walkout in the face of the premiers’ games

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The federal-provincial health ministers’ meeting broke down with federal ministers Jean-Yves Duclos and Carolyn Bennett walking out after a communiqué from the premiers was leaked, decrying a failure of the talks, drafted five days ago, indicating that there was no intent to listen to the federal government’s position on tying increased funding to accountability measures like outcomes and pan-Canadian data. Duclos said in his press scrum after walking out that just increasing the transfer to provinces is not a plan, which is one hundred percent correct, because we know that provinces have a demonstrated history of spending additional federal dollars on other things that are not healthcare. (Duclos’ statement here). The provincial spokes-minister, Adrian Dix, carried on with his disingenuous talking points about not being able to fix the system without more money, or demanding a first ministers’ meeting about this, the only purpose of which would be for the premiers to gang up on the prime minister for the cameras. Dix also painted this false picture of lamenting that the federal government couldn’t come together with them like they did over COVID, completely ignoring that the federal government sent billions of additional dollars to provinces for COVID and most of those provinces simply put that money directly onto their bottom lines to end their fiscal year with a surplus, which is not the point of sending money to them for healthcare.

Justin Trudeau, earlier in the day, was already calling the premiers out on this bullshit by pointing out that they are crying poor while they are offering tax breaks for their wealthier citizens, which is not a sign that their budgets are hurting for federal dollars. And this is exactly the point—premiers have largely decided to make this the federal government’s problem, because they can get away with this particular lie. Legacy media will continue to take the line that so long as a single federal dollar is involved, this becomes a federal responsibility, which is not how this works. The crumbling healthcare system is not the federal government’s problem. They have done nothing but increase funding year over year. The provinces have created this mess, and in all likelihood exacerbated it deliberately in order to force the federal government’s hand in giving them a lot more money with no strings attached, but the federal government isn’t blinking, and is finally starting to call bullshit. Let’s see if legacy media actually catches on (but I have serious doubts they will).

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 259:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he’s willing to negotiate peace—on his terms, and not Russia’s, but forestalled criticism Russia was levelling against him. Otherwise, there was more shelling in Bakhmut, and two civilians were seriously wounded by unexploded mines around Kharkiv.

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Roundup: Pretending the promise of money was new

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Provincial health ministers met in Vancouver yesterday in advance of their federal counterpart joining them, and boy did the bullshit ever flow, particularly in their characterisation of what has transpired. The federal minister, Jean-Yves Duclos, put out a statement before the provincial minsters had a press conference that basically reiterated what the federal government has been saying for months now—that yes, they are willing to spend more money, but they want outcomes attached. What was different was specific language about common metrics for health data, cooperation on health workforces, and that the federal government was willing to also engaged in specially tailored one-off agreements with provinces on specific investments.

To hear BC’s health minister, Adrian Dix, tell the tale, the federal government has been “radio silent” for over a year, which is not true, or that this is the first time they’ve raised money issues, which is again, not true, and the message has been consistent. But some of his counterparts are already rejecting the federal strings, and insisting that this is some kind of centralization or micromanaging (it’s not). Dix also pretended that the progress he has made around some reforms in BC are being done elsewhere around the country (they’re not) as “proof” that the provinces are getting their acts together on healthcare, which is, again, not true, and nobody wants to call out the provinces for letting things get to a crisis through chronic underfunding, in large part because they spent federal dollars on other things, and because certain premiers appear to be wilfully breaking their systems in order to try and privatise as much as they can without penalty under the Canada Health Act. If the starting point for these negotiations is the truth, well, that appears to be in short supply, which could be a big problem for everyone going forward.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 258:

Ukrainian officials are accusing Russian forces of looting empty homes in Kherson after they ordered civilians out of the city (likely a forced deportation, which is a war crime) in advance of the Ukrainian advance on the city, and then the Russians cut the power to the city and blamed Ukrainian “sabotage.” The epicentre of the fighting remains Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, where Ukrainians say that hundreds of Russians are being killed every day.

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Roundup: Bored with the discourse?

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Over the weekend, I was forwarded this particular diatribe from the Globe and Mail’s generally awful television columnist, John Doyle, about how boring Canadian political shows are. And he’s right about that—they’re generally pretty terrible (even if their hosts are wonderful people), but Doyle largely misdiagnoses why.

“This boredom-with-the-government narrative is very much the story that pundits like to peddle in Canada and part of a broad-brush assumption that only furthers the dangerous idea that Canadian politics are tedious and unworthy of engaged attention,” Doyle asserts, not incorrectly, but this needs a bit more delving into where the issues are. Doyle is again not incorrect when he points out that the repetition of the same small group of talking heads across different shows is a sign that “Ottawa is a small place with a small set of people jawing on about the same topic, often using the same phrases, over and over,” but it’s getting closer to one of the problems.

“What’s missing from these political conversations on TV is the sense that Canada is socially, politically and economically dynamic,” Doyle says. “What we see is a media power structure that is entrenched and sometimes literally bored by the discourse.”

This is part of it, and while he talks about how he doesn’t want us to devolve into American-style political coverage of partisan shouting matches (which was de rigeur when Evan Solomon was hosting Power & Politics because he believed it was what led to “good TV”) and that he wants Canadian TV to make better use of the medium, part of the problem is the shrinking media environment. These shows are made on a shoestring budget with a very small group of producers, and have to fill a defined news hole every day, and in order to do that, they have established rolodexes of reliable commentators who they know will drop everything to show up on TV, even if they have little of use to say (actual experts not always being reliably available which is why they are harder to book), and talking heads to fill that airtime. To add to that, there is pressure to diversify who those talking heads are, so they wind up using the same few across all channels because they’re all trying to tick the same boxes with the limited number of bodies available.

For the rest of the airtime that isn’t devoted to the talking head panels, much of that is devoted to things like MP panels, in an age of iron-clad message discipline, so you don’t get actual insight or debate, you get recited talking points and hosts simply both-sidesing everything rather than calling bullshit on any of it. Not every host—some are better than others (particularly some that are filling in for main hosts), but when the main tactic is to play Devil’s advocate and simply recite the other party’s talking points and getting them to respond, it doesn’t make for illuminating television, and it lets the politicians get away with murder, because they’re not being challenged. I only wish we had Rosemary Barton back doing the accountability interviews on a daily basis, because she was good at it and did call the MPs on their bullshit because she knew how. But this isn’t because the media power structure being bored with the discourse—it’s because it’s under-resourced and afraid to challenge that discourse, which is a very different problem than what Doyle imagines it to be.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 257:

More Russian strikes over the weekend continued to attack electrical generation in Kyiv and other regions in Ukraine, causing more blackouts as winter approaches. In all, some 35 towns and villages in nine regions were hit, while Russians continue to dig in at Kherson in the south in advance of a Ukrainian counter-offensive, while the front line in Donetsk is now at the outskirts of Bakhmut. The good news is that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been re-connected to the power grid, so it doesn’t have to rely on emergency diesel generators to cool the reactors (which are currently all shut down).

https://twitter.com/PatronDsns/status/1589023166542024705

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