Tag Archives: Abortion

Roundup: That Video and worst instincts

Posted on by

For well over the past two days, the news cycle has been consumed with That Video, and the interpretations of what was said on it. And because so many members of our media act feel the need to be tattletales, narcs, and scolds, what was an interesting tableau turned into an international attempt to get someone – particularly Justin Trudeau – in trouble.

First, despite the fact that the scene was spotted by a CBC producer from the NATO pool feed, people started circulating that this was some kind of illegally obtained footage from Russian spies and circulated as disinformation on their Sputnik network. (Nope). Then came everyone interpreting it as some kind of mockery or high school gossip, when it turned out to simply be an animated recounting of the unscheduled press conference, and the surprise announcement that the G7 meeting was to be held at Camp David. And because everyone is a tattletale and a narc, they brought it up at Trump’s press conference with Angela Merkel, he responded by calling Trudeau “two-faced” and that he was just sore because he got called out for not spending enough on defence (that’s not how NATO works), and then he cancelled his closing press conference and went home – but not before remarking before reporters that the whole “two-faced” thing was a big joke to him. Meanwhile, all of the Canadian commentariat is having a meltdown, and all of them went on the air with fantasy versions of just what the conversation was in That Video, and everyone describing it as “disparaging” or “gossip,” when they simply didn’t have the context that Trudeau provided to them the next day when he was pressed about it in his own media availability. So, any serious conversation about the future of NATO was basically overshadowed because a bunch of excitable journalists watched a video, jumped to conclusions, and let their narc instincts get the better of them – and then wouldn’t shut up about it.

And then come the scolding pundits, as night follows day. Like Matt Gurney, who characterized Trudeau as “mocking” and “gossip” and who said that Trump was right about our not spending enough. (Reminder: DND can’t actually get all of the current spending out the door because they don’t have the capacity or manpower, and it will take years to get enough people trained up). Or Heather Scoffield, who is concerned that this could mean Trump will tear up the New NAFTA or start imposing new tariffs – as though he needed excuses anytime in the past. Much more sensible was Susan Delacourt who said that it was about time that world leaders didn’t walk on eggshells around Trump, and that world leaders should stop simply looking on silently as his constant rule-breaking goes on around them.

On top of this incident was the complete mischaracterization of a video of Princess Anne, the Queen, and the Trumps. While there was a longer video where Anne escorts the Trumps to the Queen’s receiving line, and at one point the Queen looks over to her and she shrugs – no one left in the line but me – and everyone carries on. But a shortened clip started circulating and certain journalists falsely characterised it as the Queen chastising Anne for not greeting the Trumps and Anne didn’t care. And yet the false version went viral.

We don’t need Russian disinformation bots. We’re perfectly capable of distributing all manner of breathless disinformation without them. Cripes.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A fresh obvious lie

Posted on by

As the messages start to sharpen as the election gets ever closer, boy howdy did Andrew Scheer decided to go all in on lying to Canadians. From a campaign stop in Fredericton, Scheer claimed that a Liberal-NDP coalition would hike the GST to seven percent, and then put out a press release claiming all kinds of other tax increases and cuts to social transfers to pay for their platform – a ridiculous figure he reached by adding the two total costs together, never mind that a) it doesn’t work like that, and b) IT WAS A COMPLETE AND TOTAL LIE. And sure, reporters called out that it was a lie, but Scheer shrugged and said it wasn’t misinformation because he didn’t trust Justin Trudeau. Erm, it doesn’t work like that. Meanwhile, the premier of New Brunswick was also at the rally, grousing that Quebec is the “favoured child” of Confederation because he wants an imaginary pipeline to flow to his province despite there being no actual economic case for it, and the inconvenient fact that his province gets far more equalization per capita than Quebec does. (Good luck with Scheer keeping most of his Quebec seats with rhetoric like this, by the way). Scheer’s tour later stopped in Beauce, where he chugged milk to troll Maxime Bernier, and Drummondville.

Justin Trudeau started his day in Whitby, where he had to refute Scheer’s latest lie, and then mumbled some stuff about maybe expanding abortion services in New Brunswick. He then made stops in Orillia, Barrie, and Vaughan. He’ll head to Calgary later tonight, so that could be interesting.

Jagmeet Singh held rallies on Vancouver Island – hoping to keep the Greens from gaining ground there – and started playing coy again about how he’d be in a hung parliament, and hand waved about the Trans Mountain Pipeline as a possible condition for support.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Warnings, theatre, and lunacy

Posted on by

Justin Trudeau began his day in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and after the usual warnings to those who are thinking of voting NDP and Green about a Conservative government, promised that if re-elected he would ensure that the province’s sole private abortion clinic would remain open by way of applying the Canada Health Act (though he didn’t specify how), before spending the day stopping in various communities on the way to Halifax, where he ended the day.

Andrew Scheer began his day in Quebec City where he promised to hold a first ministers’ meeting on January 6thwhere he would totally solve the intractable problem of interprovincial trade barriers…apparently through sheer force of his personality. (I previously wrote about this sort of cheap theatre here). He then toured a few other Quebec communities, finishing his day in La Prairie.

Jagmeet Singh began his day in Toronto, where he claimed that abolishing the Senate would somehow better represent Canadians, which is so much horseshit that I can barely breathe. Aside from the fact that it would require a constitutional amendment with the unanimous support of the provinces – something PEI and the rest of Atlantic Canada would not countenance as the Senate was one of the conditions by which they joined Confederation, but it would cut their representation in half, and the whole counter-balancing effect that the Senate’s structure has against the representation-by-population nature of the Commons would be out the window. It’s the most ignorant statement Singh could possibly make, but hey, applause lines.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Pre-negotiation and a better debate

Posted on by

In advance of the debate, Justin Trudeau held a photo-op with one of his sons in a pumpkin patch in nearby Manotick, while Jagmeet Singh was at a bistro near Parliament Hill to outline his party’s priorities were they in need of negotiating in a hung parliament, and conveniently, they were all planks of his party platform. Of those six enumerated, four were wholly or in part provincial jurisdiction, one involves building an entirely new tax system, and the final would drive out competition in the mobile phone sector, and then they also decided that electoral reform should be in there as well. (Look for my column on this coming later today). So there’s that. Andrew Scheer had no events, but his party did say that their full platform will be released today, now that the debates are over.

And then the final French debate, which was a far cry better than the hot, hot mess that was the English debate. Possibly learning from the experience, the format changed up considerably, so that there were better questions, more direct engagement, and far less cross-talk (though that did start to creep in during the second hour, when Scheer was trying to go after Yves-François Blanchet). Scheer and May were noticeably weaker in French, while Scheer and Singh in particular kept up their focus on getting their canned one-liners delivered, even if it was tortured to get them in. Nevertheless, while we once again didn’t learn too many new things, it was a far and above better performance for all involved than the English disaster. (Here’s Paul Wells’ take on the night).

Continue reading →

Roundup: Get away from that hot, hot mess of a debate

Posted on by

The morning wasn’t quite as uneventful as one might have hoped – Justin Trudeau want to a school in Ottawa to talk about provincial cuts and how teachers feared federal ones, while Andrew Scheer announced that the Conservatives would make national museum admission free (which doesn’t really help with affordability, especially as most of these museums are in Ottawa), and that the RCMP Heritage site in Regina would be turned into another national museum. That said, he also took swipes about “political correctness” supposedly “erasing history,” which is false when there is a move to expand the historical record to include effaced minorities like Indigenous people. A few hours later, the Liberals held a press conference to point out that the Conservatives were planning a stunt during the debate to point to a website that would again recirculate the lie about a supposed “capital gains tax” on selling houses, which I will reiterate, is a lie. There is no such plan. That didn’t stop the Conservatives from sounding all-hands-on-deck over social media to circulate this lie over the remainder of the afternoon, and they even had a doctored version of the original recovered Liberal discussion document on their site to eliminate context (which they later had to remove to put the original up once they were called out on it).

And then came the Leaders Debate (not “Leaders’”), at a time slot too early for anyone west of Ontario to really get to watch it (likely so that the private networks didn’t have to unduly inconvenience their American programming). It was a gong show, where in order to accommodate six leaders, all of the exchanges were too short and the questions inconsistent, so most of the time the leaders focused on getting their canned lines out, to hell with the substance of it. And they all said misleading things. Maxime Bernier sucked up too much oxygen for someone who shouldn’t have been on the stage at all but was simply there to act as a spoiler. The whole way this was done, trying to please everyone, pleased absolutely no one, and we are all the poorer for it.

 

Continue reading →

Roundup: Concern trolling and dual citizenship

Posted on by

It was a quieter day on the campaign, and Justin Trudeau remained in Montreal to just hold a media availability rather than make any new announcements, and he reiterated the point from the debate on Wednesday that if his government would look to improve the medical assistance in dying legislation per the Quebec court decision. He also again defended using two campaign planes by pointing to the use of carbon offsets (never mind that this is a clear case of concern trolling by those who don’t actually care about climate change).

Andrew Scheer was in Kingsclear, New Brunswick, to promise an expansion of the volunteer firefighters tax credit (or “volunteer heroes,” as their press release stated because it was apparently written by a nine-year-old). He also finally stopped dancing around the abortion question to state – again – that he is personally “pro-life” but wouldn’t re-open the debate. Shortly thereafter, the story broke that Scheer holds dual-citizenship with the US, and within an hour stated that he had already started the process of revocation, but it remains exceedingly curious given that Scheer personally questioned Michëlle Jean’s dual-citizenship before she became Governor General, and the Conservative attacks on Stéphane Dion and Thomas Mulcair about their own dual-citizenships. Scheer also stated that he had never been asked about it which was why he never talked about it, which is unconvincing at best.

Jagmeet Singh headed to Toronto to hold another media availability to reiterate his same platform proposals.

And just to put another giant bomb in the election, a potential strike by school support workers could shutter schools in major school districts in Ontario by Monday, which could send the Ford government scrambling, and further cause blowback against Scheer as the lines between federal and provincial governments continue to blur.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Childcare and competing mistruths

Posted on by

It was a crazy-pants day on the campaign, so here we go. Justin Trudeau was out the door first today in Kitchener–Waterloo, with a pledge to create more before-and-after school care spaces for children, which will also involve the creation of a secretariat to do the negotiating with the provinces and lay the groundwork for a pan-Canadian childcare system (which won’t need to include Quebec, given that they already have their system). The pledge was also to reduce the fees parents are currently paying for before-and-after school care by ten percent, so we’ll see how that works out logistically and procedurally. There is an argument to be made here that ensuring this kind of care means more parents – and especially women (and Trudeau made this point in his announcement, showcasing that gender-based analysis was part of it) can re-enter and remain in the workforce. Given the state of our labour pool in this country – essentially at full employment – it is incumbent to ensure that we have the maximum rate of participation by women and minorities so that they can fill those labour shortages. (More thoughts on the announcement in this thread from Lindsay Tedds).

Jagmeet Singh’s big announcement in Longueuil, Quebec, was a “star candidate” – very loosely defined – who was a one-time provincial Green leader in Quebec who is now running for the NDP, against Pierre Nantel, the NDP MP who crossed to the Greens (and the riding is that the “star” very badly lost in many years ago). Apparently, there is now a tit-for-tat battle with the Greens as to who crossed the floor to whom, because that’s helpful.

Elizabeth May launched her party’s full platform, which they claim is “fully costed” – err, except that costing won’t be released for several days. Economists are already picking holes in the promises, particularly the promise for a guaranteed livable income (thread here).

Andrew Scheer was in Kelowna, BC, framing the election as the life you want being in reach or getting further out of reach, and after his tirades about Justin Trudeau and his laundry list of mistruths about the state of the deficit and the carbon price and he announced his plan to restore yet more tax credits, this time for children’s sports and arts programmes, and unlike under Harper, these tax credits would be refundable, so that even low-income families who don’t pay taxes will be able to benefit. When asked about how he could afford these plans, he said that his path to balance was over a five-year time period, and then he proffered a fantasy version of Energy East (who cares about economics), and claimed his climate plan was the only “real” one (verifiably untrue). Most unbelievable was that, when pressed about false statements that he and his candidates were making about Liberal plans, he went on a tirade about how Justin Trudeau lied, so it was fair for him to keep promulgating these false statements.

And then, suddenly, Scheer drops an allegation that Justin Trudeau had drinks with Faith Goldy and he wanted answers on that. The Liberals responded shortly thereafter with a blanket denial, but if this election is going to be fought over who was in the same room as Faith Goldy, it’s going to be a long five weeks.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Cheap outrage over MPs’ spouses

Posted on by

Long-time readers will know that one of my pet peeves is the propensity for my media colleagues to push cheap outrage stories, to trigger the hairshirt parsimony and tall poppy syndrome of the Canadian public, and lo, they did it again with the screaming headline that taxpayers footed the bill for $4.5 million in MP spousal travel over four years. Which is actually not a lot, particularly when you consider that we’re a big country, and that airfare is expensive here because of our duopolistic air carriers and lack of population density.

Of course, when I tweeted this out, I had all kinds of people yelling at me that Bill Morneau’s millionaire wife shouldn’t be eligible for sponsored spousal travel. The problem with this kind of qualifier is that it when you start qualifying who is and isn’t eligible for the benefits based on personal circumstances, you start running into the mentality that plagued the UK for centuries – that MPs were poorly compensated and essentially needed to be independently wealthy before they stood for office. We’ve seen enough people suggest that the Canadian Senate be run this way, with the ludicrous suggestion that it be a volunteer position. I would also add that the divorce rate for MPs is several times above the national average – if we start begrudging their ability to travel with their spouses to Ottawa and back, particularly if the distances are fairly large ones – we’d see even more divorces, or a pervasive belief that people with families shouldn’t run for office. I’m not sure who that would benefit.

Throughout this bit of cheap outrage, Jody Wilson-Raybould’s spousal flights were singled out in a separate piece about cabinet ministers and their spouses’ travel costs. That a Vancouver MP’s costs would be higher should be no surprise, and it could very well be that they are higher because they may have been booked last-minute rather than in advance (given that they are simply treated by the MP and their spouse as points rather than being given a dollar figure as their expenses limit). Suffice to say, these kinds of stories are pretty gross when you stop and think about it, and the performative outrage over taxpayer dollars that are packaged in a way to look big and without sufficient context is one of the biggest problems we have in Canadian politics, and why we make the lives of our MPs so miserable.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Kenney’s McCarthy-esque quest

Posted on by

Over in Alberta, Jason Kenney’s McCarthy-esque Committee on un-Albertan Activities received its terms of reference and will begin taking submissions, and just like the MacKinnon Report, it was gamed to specifically look at anything that was being mean to the oil and gas sector while studiously avoiding any falsehoods used by the oil and gas lobby to state their own case. And it’s all going into feeding their “war room” to “fight back” against those un-Albertan activities. Because this is totally normal for a democratic government in the western world.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Underlying concerns amidst good numbers

Posted on by

It was hard to miss all of the talk about the job numbers yesterday – particularly as pretty much every Liberal minister, MP and candidate started sharing pre-generated memes about how great the economy is doing under this government (with the caveat that there’s still more work to do). This, like news of much higher than expected GDP growth, are good headlines with some underlying weakness being masked, and as economist Trevor Tombe explains, those good numbers are masking some very real problems in Alberta.

The issue of young men in that province is one that I’m not sure enough levels of government are paying sufficient attention to, as the Alberta government seems to think that all that’s needed is for the oil patch to revive and it’s problem solved, but with world oil prices depressed and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future, that means the prospect for these young men – many of whom are under-educated because of the lure of high-paying oil patch jobs – are not going to be good in the shorter term. That’s additionally a problem when you have a government that feeds the people a diet of lies and snake oil to keep them angry at imaginary reasons why they’re being kept down (currently Justin Trudeau), because angry young men can be a dangerous thing if allowed to fester. And for the federal government’s part, I wonder just how much their retraining programming is penetrating given that jobs they could be retraining for couldn’t necessarily match the promised paydays of oil jobs in a boom – but that becomes a problem of waiting for the next boom (where the money will get pissed away, like it does every time no matter how often they promise that this time it will be different – really!).

Some of this will come up in the election – not just the lies that Kenney and company are pushing, but the NDP and Greens are trying to make some hay here, as both want to retrain these workers for the “green economy” in some vague way, while the Greens in particular think they could put them to work capping old orphan wells as both an environmental and job-creation measure, but it’s also one that is both expensive, and if the government just starts doing this on its own, it essentially lets the industry off the hook and demonstrates that the “polluter pays” principle is for naught. Add to that, the promises of green jobs retraining falls back to the issue of some of them waiting on the promises of the bigger paydays in a future oil boom, so there is no guarantee that green jobs will be attractive to this cohort. Nevertheless, it’s good that there are at least some ideas, and we should ensure that it’s something that does get discussed during the election.

Continue reading →