Category Archives: Political Roundup

What’s going on in Canadian politics

Roundup: Spyware or mass surveillance?

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As summer showboat season rolls along, the Commons’ access to information, privacy and ethics committee continued their hearings on the RCMP’s use of spyware. And it was…odd. A senior RCMP member said that the RCMP has been using said spyware to break encryption since 2002 (while advocating for legislation to allow them to evade encryption). The former privacy commissioner said he was surprised to learn that the RCMP had been using this “intrusive” technology for years, and didn’t seek authorisation from his office, while the RCMP denied that they were using the “Pegasus” spyware system. And a former CSIS officer testified that they have monitored politicians at all three levels of government because they had concerns they were being paid by foreign governments. But Liberal MPs kept going on to questions about mass surveillance, which is not what this is about, nor within the capabilities of this spyware, and it makes me wonder if they were trying to put a neat bow on this to say “See, there’s no mass surveillance” without really engaging with the topic. And they tried to pass the motion to say “All wrapped up,” but that didn’t happen either. So I’m not really sure what’s going on other than more showboating from all sides, which is the given at this time of year.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 168:

There was much speculation about an explosion at a military airfield in Russian-occupied Crimea, creating much buzz over social media about whether this was a long-range missile strike from Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian officials denied this, but it could mean that Russians may have to fortify their own positions behind the lines on that peninsula, further stretching their resources. Meanwhile, Russian forces shelled the town of Nikopol, near the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as Russians continue to shell the power lines leading from the plant in order to disconnect it from the Ukrainian grid so that they can begin the process to link it to Russia’s grid instead.

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Roundup: Threats and compromises over dental care

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After spending the weekend talking tough on healthcare, Jagmeet Singh made some threats and shook his fist in the direction of Althia Raj yesterday, insisting that if the promised dental care programme doesn’t happen by the end of the year, that he was walking away from the supply-and-confidence agreement with the federal government. As this was hitting the wires, so was a leak that said the government was looking at a temporary cash transfer for eligible households in lieu of dental care this year, because it’s taking longer to implement (even though they insist they are on track). But the federal government hasn’t even decided on a delivery model yet, which is a problem, and premiers haven’t signalled any willingness to work with them on this either, and that’s a problem for all involved. Singh was naïve to believe this could happen in a few months, and the Liberals were stupid to promise that it could, knowing that this was going to be tricky because of the jurisdictional hurdles. And I suspect this is just going to drive cynicism on all sides, because new national social programmes can’t be done on the back of a napkin and rolled out in a few weeks, and everyone has set up expectations that will be nigh-impossible to meet. So good job, everyone. You’ve really helped.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 167:

There are international concerns after Russians shelled the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station, in what is believed to be an attempt to cut power to Ukrainian-held cities in the southern part of the country. We also got word that a Ukrainian grain ship has reached Turkey, but it seems there has been a dispute with the cargo’s buyers in Lebanon, so they may be looking for a new buyer for the corn haul. Because of course. Over the weekend, Russians targeted the eastern cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka, in the Donetsk region.

In case you missed it:

  • My column on Michael Chong’s latest round of reform ideas, and some of them are actually good, while others may not be practical given current limitations.
  • For National Magazine, I wrote about the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision around condom refusal and how that can lead to a sexual assault trial.
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take on the (then-forthcoming) leadership debate and how you shouldn’t count anything out when there’s a ranked ballot in the mix.
  • My column on why we can’t keep ignoring the link between climate change and what it’s done to crops, and by extension, rising food inflation.
  • My Xtra column on this government’s poor record on HIV funding, while they were busy patting themselves on the back at the International AIDS Conference.
  • My column calling out Senator Dasko’s morally bankrupt poll trying to drum up support for the continuation of hybrid sittings, with no mention of the human toll.

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Roundup: Fiscally sustainable, in spite of the narratives

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It’s now day one-hundred-and-fifty-six of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and they have started shelling the Kyiv area once again for the first time in weeks. Russians are also pounding the northern Chernihiv region, which observers are linking to the Day of Statehood celebrations—something that president Volodymyr Zelenskyy instituted last year to remind the country of their history as an independent state, and was celebrated for the first time earlier this week. Meanwhile, Ukrainian counter-attacks in the south have virtually cut-off the Russian forces in Kherson and have left their forces near the Dnipro River “highly vulnerable,” as Russians shift forces from the east to the south, putting them from an attack posture to a defensive one.

Closer to home, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has declared that Canada’s fiscal outlook is sustainable in the long term, even if some of the provinces’ outlooks are not. This amidst weeks and months of wailing and gnashing of teeth that the current government has spent us into oblivion (they haven’t) and that they have saddled future generations with so much debt (again, they haven’t, and that’s not how government debt works), and that this is fuelling inflation (it’s not). Anyway, here is economist Kevin Milligan to walk us through the report:

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1552671459797090306

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1552672685326491649

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1552674017588510727

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1552693987399667713

Programming Note: I am taking the next week-ish off while I have the chance. Loonie Politics columns will continue in the interim, but otherwise expect to see me back in the second week of August. Thanks everyone!

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Roundup: A choice to keep injuring interpreters

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We’re in day one-hundred-and-fifty-five of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has captured the country’s second-largest power plant, as they are redeploying their forces to three southern regions in advance of an expected Ukrainian counter-offensive in the area. Ukrainian forces have used American-supplied rockets to take out a strategic bridge being used by Russians to supply their forces occupying the Kherson region, which Ukraine has stated they intend to re-take. It’s these weapons that have allowed Ukrainian forces to turn the corner on their counter-offensive, and they have pointed out that the sooner they can get more of them, the sooner they will be able to end this war. Meanwhile, ship owners are assessing whether the risk is worth it to travel through mined sea corridors to ship grain out of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports (and it could take weeks or months to clear the mines from these ports).

Closer to home, translators in Parliament are continuing to sound the alarm about the plan to hire unaccredited and off-site interpreters to do parliamentary work, no matter that this could impair the quality of the translations. This is very important, because it’s Parliament. To make this worse, the Government House Leader, Mark Holland, is downplaying the effect that hybrid sittings have had in injuring the existing interpreters, claiming that this is because they were already facing shortfalls before COVID because of the “expanded work” of Parliament. The problem with this statement is that they simply made the situation worse with hybrid sittings and the fact that it injures the interpreters, and they keep making excuses to keep them going. This is not helping with the shortfall in interpreters, it’s actively making it worse, and they don’t care. And while the Conservatives are opposing this move, they have not helped their case by insisting on resisting COVID measures including masking. And while I had a Liberal staffer chirping at me on Twitter about this, the fact is that MPs have been aware of the problems for over two years now, and have chosen to do nothing about it. They chose to keep hybrid sittings going, knowing full well that it injures the interpreters and can lead to permanent hearing loss. Their refusal to take measures is a choice, and a deeply unethical one. There is no defending it.

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Roundup: The freezing salary dog-and-pony show

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It’s now day one-hundred-and-fifty-four of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has targeted Odessa and Mykolaiv with air strikes, damaging private buildings and port infrastructure, because of course they were very serious about that deal to let grain shipments resume through those ports. Shelling also continues in the Donetsk region, as well as Kharkiv.

Closer to home, the Nova Scotia legislature was recalled yesterday to pass “emergency legislation” to freeze salaries, and cut the premier’s salary, as part of a dog and pony show about showing that they’re serious in the face of a cost-of-living crisis, and I cannot even. I absolutely hate this kind of politics, because the inherent message is that public life isn’t valuable, that the work elected officials do is worthless, and that they don’t deserve compensation for something that becomes a twenty-four/seven job, particularly at a time when it’s increasingly difficult to attract people to public life. It’s the kind of thinking that winds up ensuring that only people who are independently wealthy start seeking office, because they’re the only ones for whom it isn’t a loss for them to take the positions and give up their career paths (and in some cases pensions, as some provinces have disbanded theirs) to do so. This kind of attitude needs to be called out more, rather than fed into for populist reasons, and this goes for all parties.

I will also note that the premier, Tim Houston, is also trying to make the hybrid sitting option permanent for “things such as health reasons,” which again is a big no for me. While the province doesn’t have the issue of simultaneous translation that Ottawa does, it is nevertheless a bad idea because it normalizes the idea that elected office is some kind of middle-management position that can be done from home when it’s not. It’s a face-to-face job, and these things always start out with making it exceptional, for “health reasons” and such, but that quickly turns into parental leave, then work-life-balance, and then “I have so much work in my constituency I just couldn’t possibly,” and ends with populists taking it as a badge of honour to stay away from the “bubble” at the legislature or Parliament. It also creates an unrealistic and unsustainable expectation of presenteeism, rather than just letting MPs or MLAs have sick days and be done with it. It’s not a good thing, and people need to stop pretending that hybrid sittings are at all appropriate in a legislative context, because they are not.

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Roundup: Harper gives his predictable endorsement

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It’s day one-hundred-and-fifty-three of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and Russia’s foreign minister openly admits that they want to topple president Volodymyr Zelenskyy because they consider his government “unacceptable” or some such nonsense. Russian forces continue to shell Ukrainan cities in the east and south of the country, as well as in the Kharkiv region. This while a lot of people who initially fled from the Donetsk region have returned home after either feeling alienated further west in Ukraine as Russian speakers, or because they ran out of money, only to be killed by Russian shelling once they’re back. Meanwhile, the push to prosecute Russian war crimes continues in Kyiv even while the fighting rages on, while Slovakia is considering giving Ukraine their fleet of Soviet-era MiG warplanes.

Closer to home, Stephen Harper came out with his endorsement of Pierre Poilievre yesterday, and no, this is not a sign that he’s worried about Charest. Quite the opposite—it’s a sign of his absolute enmity for Charest. Harper has bad blood with Charest, dating back to when Charest was Quebec premier. He had sold Harper on the fantastical notion that Quebec was suffering from some kind of “fiscal imbalance” with Ottawa, which was all bullshit, but it made a good talking point for Charest, and lo, Harper decided to be different from Jean Chrétien and buy peace with Quebec, so he gave Charest the money he was demanding to fix said fictional “fiscal imbalance.” And lo, Charest immediately turned around and turned that payment into a tax cut in the province, and Harper was furious. I mean, it shouldn’t be a surprise, and it’s exhibit eleventy-six for instances of provinces taking federal dollars and not doing what they’re supposed to with it (which is why Justin Trudeau is so insistent upon strings being attached to future healthcare transfers), but Harper has nursed a grudge ever since. His endorsement of Poilievre is just more of him nursing said grudge—he’s not actually worried about Charest winning.

And while we’re here, no, Harper is not still pulling all of the strings in the party. He’s a micro-manager. If he were, they wouldn’t be in as much disarray as they are now. Also, the IDU is not some kind of fascist plot—it’s a gods damned social club that Harper is the convener of. Yes, it’s comprised of small-c conservative parties (including Angela Merkel and her party), and yes, Harper has made some very, very questionable statements from it, but it’s a social club. It has no power, and it’s not pulling any strings. He’s not a Bond villain. He was a mediocre prime minister who now spends his time swanning around the globe pretending he used to be important. That’s it. Stop giving him any more credit than that.

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Roundup: The Pope arrives, and snubs Indigenous women

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We’re on or about day one-hundred-and-fifty-two of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and wouldn’t you just know it, the day after Russia signed a deal to allow grain shipments out of Black Sea ports, they attacked Odessa, killing civilians. Because that’s who Russia is. They don’t respect their own cease-fires, and they act with impunity at every opportunity. (One might note that Justin Trudeau stated immediately that he didn’t trust Russia to uphold their end of the deal, and lo, was proven right). Elsewhere, Russian forces are blocking people trying to flee the Zaporizhzhia region, and they struck an apartment building in the port city of Mykolaiv.

Closer to home, the Pope’s visit to Canada has begun as part of the apology for residential schools, and both the Governor General and prime minister were in Edmonton to greet him. There are a lot of questions about how substantive this apology is really going to be, and whether he’s willing to do substantive things, like rescinding the Doctrine of Discovery that justified colonial behaviours. AFN national chief RoseAnne Archibald has been told she won’t be part of the welcoming ceremony at Maskwacis today, and she notes there are no women in leadership positions in the event (but this is the Catholic Church we’re talking about—they’re not exactly in favour of women in any leadership positions, or really of women in general). There has also been some irony noted that these events are being translated into Indigenous languages that were forbidden in residential schools, for what it’s worth.

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Roundup: A deal to ship grain?

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We’re now in day one-hundred-and-fifty of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and an agreement has been signed that will allegedly allow Ukrainian grain to flow again from their Black Sea ports. Allegedly. No one really trusts Russia to actually live up to their end of the bargain, but we’ll see. Apparently one of the conditions to this agreement is that Ukraine doesn’t raise the issue of the grain that Russia stole from them, so we’ll see what happens from here. Meanwhile, CBC has a video package of the past week in the war.

https://twitter.com/Podolyak_M/status/1550434643094249472

https://twitter.com/AlexGabuev/status/1550537176592822272

https://twitter.com/ThreshedThought/status/1550450333545123841

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Roundup: Trying for a left-wing populist narrative

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It’s day one-hundred-and-forty-nine of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces have been pounding Kharkiv, mostly by randomly shelling residential areas to inflict civilian casualties. But as this shelling takes place, the head of MI6 in the UK says that their analysis shows that Russia’s army is nearly exhausted, and that this will open up opportunities for Ukrainian forces to counter-attack in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, Turkey says that Russia and Ukraine are about to sign a deal that will re-open Black Sea ports and allow grain shipments to pass through again, and hopefully avert the threat of famines (and likely lower world grain prices). There are still a lot of questions—including whether Russia can actually be trusted—but we’ll see what happens in the coming days.

https://twitter.com/AnitaAnandMP/status/1550193058809090054

Closer to home, Jagmeet Singh is trying to play the populist card, and it’s just laughable. It’s like the satire of a populist’s talking points (not that the NDP hasn’t morphed itself from a principled left-wing party to a left-flavoured populist one more than a decade ago). Like Singh and his inner circle looked at Pierre Poilievre’s traction and said “get me a piece of that action,” so they tried to ape his talking points. It’s risible, and it’s a sign of the intellectual vacuum at the centre of our political parties (and no, Liberals, you don’t get to be smug about this one either as your party can’t communicate their way out of a wet paper bag).

https://twitter.com/theJagmeetSingh/status/1550180051152404482

There are no “Ottawa elites” who are “enraged” by your suggestion. Yes, it got a bunch of scorn from, well, everyone because the last thing you want to do when you’re facing high inflation is to just give everyone even more money. Targeted help, sure, but social assistance and disability are provincial programmes, whereas the Canada Child Benefit is too broad a programme that it has been considered stimulus by the government and every credible economist, which is the last thing you want right now. The GST credit can maybe be a vehicle as it’s more targeted, but you need to be specific about that. As for the notion that corporate price gouging has caused inflation is flat-out wrong (even if it has contributed in a small way). Taxing oil companies won’t solve inflation, and an “excess profit tax” is a fraught move because it gets very tricky to come up with a workable definition of “excess,” particularly given the fact that a) the economy is overheated so of course businesses are going to be making more profit, and b) the world price of oil has more to do with supply constraints and capacity constraints for refining, so just taxing it more doesn’t actually solve any problems. But this kind of ham-fisted economic illiteracy does nothing for Singh’s credibility, and just drags the discourse even further down.

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Roundup: Jockeying for first-place ballot support

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We’re in day one-hundred-and-forty-eight of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Ukrainian forces damaged a bridge that is critical to supplying Russian troops in southern Ukraine, where Russia is trying to consolidates its territorial gains, making it clear that their supposed aim of “liberating” the predominantly-speaking Donbas region was always a lie. Russians, meanwhile, bombarded the north-eastern city of Kharkiv, and killed more civilians there. On that note, here is a look at Ukrainian refugees being forcibly relocated into Russia.

Meanwhile, Russia has started up a sham tribunal to document “war crimes” from Ukrainians to justify the invasion, and they are using Westerners living in Russia, who are often promoters of conspiracy theories or who are known for being purveyors of disinformation, as their star witnesses. The whole thing is a thinly-veiled propaganda exercise to bolster support for the invasion in Russia, and to provide a counter narrative to the International Criminal Court proceedings against Russians who are involved in actual war crimes in Ukraine, but

Closer to home, the Conservative leadership race is reaching a critical juncture as ballots are being mailed out and candidates are asking for top billing on their ranked ballot. Jean Charest wants another debate, particularly now that Patrick Brown is out of the race, while Roman Baber is trying to make a plea for people to give him a second look and not simply rank him further down-ballot (though the policies he outlined simply remind everyone that yes, this guy is a moron). Speaking of, the National Post has compiled the various policy positions of the leaders, at which point I am force do once again remind everyone that this remains an abomination in our system—leaders are not supposed to be deciding policy and putting it forward in a leadership contest. That is supposed to be the job of the grassroots membership, who have biennial conventions to do just that, but we have so bastardised our system in order to create a faux-presidential primary that we’ve reached this debased state.

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