Tag Archives: Access to Information

Roundup: Cabinet retreat missives

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We are starting to see the parade of ministers being trotted out to the media from the Cabinet retreat in Charlottetown, PEI, and first up on everyone’s mind is housing and what the federal government should do about it. And they did hear from experts like Mike Moffatt yesterday, which is good, so we’ll see if anything comes of it. But of course, legacy media has glommed onto the issue of international students and whether they will cap them, without also exploring how that has become a necessary revenue stream for universities after provincial cutbacks and freezes, or the fact that there are a plethora of private colleges that the provinces are supposed to be regulating who have been abusing their ability to bring in international students basically to defraud them of hundreds of thousands of dollars while providing them a substandard education. That should be where more attention is being paid, but we all know that legacy media loves to blame the federal government instead of the provinces, so here we are.

We also heard from Dominic LeBlanc who again gave assurances that a public inquiry into foreign interference is in the works, but they are now trying to find a sitting judge who can lead it, because apparently all of the retired ones and other eminent Canadians who could do the job have all told them no—because who wants to subject themselves to partisan character assassination day-in-and-day-out? Of course, I half suspect that they’re going to get some pushback from the chief justices of the provinces about who could be made available considering that the federal government has been slow to make appointments and it’s contributing to delays and backlogs in the system as is, and taking someone out of circulation for another eighteen months doesn’t help the situation any.

Other ministerial soundbites include Chrystia Freeland insisting that they remain focused on the economy.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say they have retaken a strategic south-eastern village as part of the counteroffensive, which continues its southward push. In addition to advanced Western weapons, the Ukrainians have developed a “mini-Grad” rocket launcher made up of old Soviet parts. In Athens, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with Balkan leaders, as well as European Commission president Ursula Von der Leyen. Ukrainian media is reporting that a group of saboteurs coordinated with Ukrainian military intelligence services to carry out drone attacks on air bases deep inside Russia, destroying and damaging aircraft. In Denmark, eight Ukrainian pilots have begun their F-16 fighter training.

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Roundup: Bell Media’s plea to the CRTC

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We’ve been talking a lot about the state of media in Canada lately, and the awfulness hasn’t stopped as Bell Media is now asking the CRTC to let it get out of its local news requirements citing that they are losing money. But this isn’t a surprise—news is generally money-losing for broadcasters, but it’s content with a lot of eyeballs that they can charge a lot of advertising dollars for.

But let’s also be up front—Bell is making money hand over fist because they are part of the telecom oligopoly in this country, and are an extremely profitable company. Their local news obligations are part of the price of admission, and the CRTC is not being shy about this. With the Rogers-Shaw merger, one of the conditions they imposed was the creation of a certain number of hours of new information programming from their stations, which basically amounts to a new one-hour documentary per week, for nearly every week of the year. And this is a condition of their broadcast licence, so they can’t get out of it.

With this in mind, I’m pretty confident that the CRTC is going to tell Bell Media to get stuffed, and possibly even impose more news obligations as part of their licencing requirements because they’re aware of the state of news media. And the fact that the new CRTC Commissioner was a competition lawyer gives me some added confidence in this because she gets the problems associated with centralized news production and how local markets suffer as a result.

Ukraine Dispatch:

At least three people in Ukraine were killed by Russian attacks, two of them on a trolleybus that came under fire in Kherson. There were also reports of heavy Russian missile attacks overnight. Ukraine has also signalled that the main thrust of its counteroffensive has yet to happen, which is obvious from the fact that they haven’t yet committed the bulk of their forces. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also ordered an audit of the heads of military draft offices after allegations of corruption.

https://twitter.com/kyivpost/status/1672148522488016897

Meanwhile, things are blowing up in Russia, quite literally, as the head of the Wagner mercenary group has turned on the Russian military, and has so far seized the military command in Rostov, and allegedly plans to head to Moscow in order to confront the military leadership there. Thus far, it’s hard to say if this is a mutiny or a military coup, and it’s hard to get any accurate information without an independent press in Russia, so everything should be taken with a shaker full of salt, but it’s going to be an interesting few days.

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Roundup: Exit David Johnston

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Around 5.30 PM on a Friday evening, the Rt. Hon. David Johnston tendered his resignation as the special rapporteur on foreign interference, citing that the political firestorm around him has reached a point where his job of trying to restore confidence in our electoral system is now impossible, and while he does not counsel a public inquiry, he did urge consultation on choosing a replacement, for what it’s worth. Of course, what this really means is that instead of doing the work of the actual process part of this issue, sorting out what happened in the senior levels of bureaucracy and how to fix it going forward, we now get to spend the next six months fighting over a name that will be acceptable to all parties, whether it’s to continue the existing process or a public inquiry like everyone thinks they want.

In response, the Conservatives crowed and declared that this “proves” that Johnston was flawed from the start, and that his determination that we don’t need a public inquiry was also wrong, so launch a public inquiry, with a lot of Trudeau Foundation conspiracy theories thrown in for good measure. The Bloc were insisting that the head of an inquiry be chosen by Parliament (which is wrong and insane), while the NDP were declaring victory and patting themselves on the back because Johnston, in their estimation, heeded their motion to resign, never mind that he said nothing about that in his resignation letter, and repudiated their performance while at committee. (Peter Julian insisted that by his action of resigning, he took the NDP’s position, which is the most self-aggrandising bullshit this side of Pierre Poilievre). But the underlying notion that Parliament choose the head of an inquiry is both contrary to the law, which clearly states that the head of an inquiry is a Governor-in-Council appointment, and it also launders accountability going forward, which of course MPs can’t get their heads around because almost none of them understands that their role is about holding government to account.

None of this solves the underlying problem that a public inquiry is not magic. Everyone demanding one seems to think it can be wrapped up in the space of a few months, and that can be broad enough in scope to fully understand how deep Chinese infiltration goes into our country, while also providing concrete recommendations for protecting the next election. That’s not going to happen in a few months—that kind of scoping takes years, and is not going to get to the fundamental issue here, which is that this is ultimately a process story about the machinery of government, dealing with classified information, and that a public inquiry can’t hear most of it. That is, if they can find someone to head it who meets everyone’s satisfaction and who is willing to put themselves through the character assassination that will follow. This is one giant mess, and there’s more than enough blame to go around to absolutely everyone, and it’s not going to get any better.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian authorities claim that they have repelled a Ukrainian advance into Zaporizhzhia, and inflicted heavy casualties, but there is no confirmation of these claims. Meanwhile, more Ukrainians are being evacuated from flooded homes after Russia destroyed the dam on the Dnipro river.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1667133462787047425?s=61&t=OQl-ixPj-I_27b0NFGeMZg

https://twitter.com/kyivpost/status/1667094711994052609?s=61&t=OQl-ixPj-I_27b0NFGeMZg

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Roundup: The optics ouroboros

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So, that big CBC/Radio-Canada “scoop” that dominated the news yesterday about Justin Trudeau’s Christmas vacation. Because this is sometimes a media criticism blog, I figured I would make a few remarks, because there were some very obvious things about it that were just being shrugged off, or actively ignored by some of my fellow journalists. To begin with, there is not a lot of substance to the story. It’s some typical cheap outrage—how dare the prime minister go on a luxury vacation on taxpayer dollars when there are people struggling in Canada—mixed with a specious connection that doesn’t mean anything in substance, but which looks bad when you make it sound sinister in order to fit it in with the current nonsense around the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation. Fit those two in a particular frame that makes it sound salacious, and you have the makings of a story that dominates Question Period. Congratulations! You’ve set the agenda for the day, you can pat yourselves on the back to your heart’s content.

But the whole connection to the Foundation is a construction that implies a relationship that doesn’t exist. Yes, the Trudeau and Green families have been friends for 50 years, but the donation to the Foundation was a bequest after the death of one of the Green family members, and it was done two years ago, which was eight years after Trudeau stepped away from any involvement in the Foundation. Implying that there was something untoward about the donation and then vacationing with Trudeau—who has been family friends his entire life—is simply scandal-mongering. And this gets justified with the pearl-clutching about “optics!” But you’re the one creating the optics with the distorted framing of the situation, so you’re literally inventing a mess that doesn’t actually exist, so that you can report on the invented mess, and then report on the follow-up reactions from other political leaders who will tut about “optics.” Which you created in the first place with your framing, like some kind of ouroboros. Very convenient, that.

None of this is to say that Trudeau shouldn’t know better than to take these kinds of trips, because he knows full well that there is an intrinsic culture of petty and mean cheapness in Canadian media, and that his opponents will take full advantage of it. And lo, the story also quotes unnamed Liberal Sources™ who are once again shocked and dismayed that the prime minister once again did something with poor optics, because that’s who he is. And Trudeau then made it worse, as pointed out in my QP recap, by not answering about the gift of the accommodations, which just perpetuates the story rather than cutting it off at the start. “Yes, I accepted the gift of the accommodations. Yes, the Ethics Commissioner cleared it. Yes, I paid the equivalent commercial rate for the flight.” And it stops their ability to try and stretch this into a scandal. But Trudeau and the people who advise his communications are so tone-deaf that they keep doing this. They keep stepping on every rake in their path, every single gods damned time.

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops in the eastern city of Avdiivka, which is facing an advance like Bakhmut, which itself is facing an increase in Russian shelling and air strikes. Ukraine has reached a deal with Poland about grain and other food products transiting that country, but the future of the Black Sea deal remains in doubt.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1648431809200553985

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Roundup: TikTok tracking journalists

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One of those nightmare data scenarios seems to have occurred, where TikTok was found to have improperly accessed the user data of three journalists in order to try and find who was leaking information to them. It’s important to remember that the app aggressively hoovers up data, even more aggressively than apps like Facebook, and it can even gather data on people who don’t even use the app itself. This is precisely why governments around the world have banned it on their devices, and why the US is considering banning it outright, particularly because its owners are in China and subject to the country’s national security laws that can make all of that personal data vulnerable. While one person quit and three were fired in the investigation that followed this incident of improper access, it’s an important reminder that a lot of these kinds of apps are not as benign as they may seem, and for people to be very careful with what permissions they grant the app when they install it.

https://twitter.com/Dennismolin11/status/1605907809945542666

Programming Note: I’m taking the rest of the year off. Loonie Politics columns will still appear in the interim, but everything else is on pause until the New Year. Thanks again for reading, and I’ll see you in 2023!

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 303:

Ukrainian forces shelled the occupied city of Donetsk, injuring a former Russian deputy prime minister and a pro-Moscow official. Here is a look at how Ukrainian pilots are trying to spot incoming Russian missiles and either shoot them down or alert ground-based defences. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took the opportunity to meet with his Polish counterpart on his way home from Washington DC.

https://twitter.com/AndrzejDuda/status/1605984900275994625

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1605854337397301250

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Roundup: The Auditor General is not infallible

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I have to say that I am both amused and irritated by the number of stories out over the past couple of days about the Conservatives supposedly “defending” the Auditor General, or that there is a “battle brewing” between the AG and the Canada Revenue Agency because they didn’t agree with her calculations around some of the benefits or whom she believed were receiving them on a fraudulent basis. For one, the Conservatives didn’t come to her defence—it was a bit of cheap theatre for them to suddenly start screaming that the government somehow attacked her independence and therefore “democracy itself” (no, seriously, they said that) because the revenue minister said that the CRA didn’t agree with her calculations, and then cheekily added that it wasn’t her fault because the opposition was forcing her to do the audit (which is partially true—it was the compromise that they insisted on to pass the emergency COVID legislation back at the start of the pandemic, so the mandate was legislated, but because they demanded it).

My bigger problem is the fact that this disagreement is somehow scandalising because we have an unhealthy veneration of Officers of Parliament and the Auditor General most especially in this country. A virtual cult has been built around them, particularly by media, who love nothing more than watching the AG go to town on criticising the government of the day, no matter which stripe of government it is, and they will uncritically believe absolutely everything the AG says because they are independent, and therefore must be inherently credible. There are similar problems with this lack of critical engagement with the Parliamentary Budget Officer (and the current one has been a real problem around that, as he picks methodologies out of thin air), and again, his word is gospel. But they’re not infallible. The previous AG ballsed up the Senate audit really badly, and it was an absolute mess, but nobody wanted to talk about it because you can’t badmouth the Auditor General. It’s like a cardinal sin in this city. And departments should be allowed to have disagreements, because the AG isn’t going to get it right every time. That’s just a physical impossibility, and we should acknowledge that fact, but as we see, when it happens, it’s like heresy. People need to grow up, and media needs to be more critical of these Officers, because media is the only check they have.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 288:

Kyiv’s mayor is warning people that while there is no need to evacuate at present, it could become necessary if Russian strikes continue on critical infrastructure over the winter. There are some concerns around movements inside of Belarus, but it is also suspected this may be a decoy and an information operation to keep Ukrainian troops near that border rather than at the front lines. Elsewhere, here is the harrowing tale of a Ukrainian father who was separated from his children by Russians while trying to flee Mariupol, and his ordeal in getting them back from Russian hands.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1600404008463523841

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Roundup: Taking the blame, children’s cold medicine edition

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There has been a concerted effort to try and make the shortage of over-the-counter children’s cold and fever medication the federal government’s problem, even though they have precious few levers at their disposal. The Conservatives are trying to demand that Health Canada lift restrictions on imports that aren’t labelled in English and French, though I’m not sure that would really help if these shortages (which are due to high demand because COVID isn’t over!) are more widespread, and even there, that would require a lot of provincial coordination because pharmacies are also under provincial jurisdiction. But apparently the minister can’t just say that people need to talk to the provinces—that simply won’t do.

I had a bit of a debate over Twitter about this last night, and I will concede that part of this is a problem with the government’s inability to message and get ahead of these kinds of issues, or leverage some righteous anger and direct it to the provinces to do their gods damned jobs for once—but this government doesn’t like to do anger, and it really doesn’t like to blame the provinces for the things that the provinces aren’t doing when they should be, because they want to be “nice,” and “cooperative,” and “not divisive.” But that’s not helping anybody, and so we get more platitudes and feel-good pabulum that doesn’t actually make anyone feel good. I do have real problems with everyone—particularly media—trying to make every problem the federal government’s, but the government need to get better at messaging around this tendency, which they steadfastly refuse to do.

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 224:

As Russia’s president signed papers that purport to annex territory in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces continue to press ahead in their counter-offensive in both the east and the south, collapsing Russian lines even further. And those new troops Russia has been conscripting to send to Ukraine? Much of them come from the country’s ethnic minorities, which is a calculated move. Ukraine, meanwhile, is making a bid for the 2030 FIFA World Cup as a way of survivors of the invasion healing from the war.

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Roundup: Threats only matter when it’s your family

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The chatter yesterday morning was that the Diagolon crew talked on their online show about raping Pierre Poilievre’s wife just to prove that they could, and lo, Poilievre got angry, referred this to the RCMP, and called the Diagolon crew dirt bags and insisted he had never heard of this group before, even though he very clearly had, and had been playing footsie with them like he has with a bunch of other far-right extremists. And yes, it’s horrifying that they would make these kinds of comments—which they insist were just “a joke” and that they meant no harm (far-right extremists are always “just joking” until they’re not), but Poilievre only seemed to care about rape threats when they were directed as his family, and not, say, the female journalists who reported on his connections with Diagolon, for whom Poilievre decried as a “smear” and sent his flying monkeys after them, who were again subjected to all manner of graphic rape and death threats, which he has never denounced. You see where this is going?

https://twitter.com/TedFriendlyGuy/status/1574412812574769152

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 215:

It is apparently the last day of Russia’s sham referendum in occupied regions of Ukraine, while their forces have conducted drone airstrikes on the port of Odessa.

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QP: For love of filibusters

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While the prime minister remains in COVID isolation, he didn’t join QP virtually today, and his deputy was in Toronto to give a big speech on the government’s affordability measures when it comes to dealing with inflation. Most of the other leaders didn’t bother to show up today either, though Candice Bergen did show up for votes after QP, for what it’s worth. Luc Berthold led off, and he declared that everything the Liberals touch “goes south,” and he complained about passports, line-ups at borders, and delays for EI cheques. Karina Gould got up and empathized with the frustration people face, and noted that in the face of high demand, the government was responding by changing processes and hiring more staff. Berthold insisted that the government’s management was “chaotic,” listing a number of alleged ministerial sins, accusing the prime minister of abandoning Canadians. Gould again recited her empathetic talking points, and repeated the answer. Berthold then called Marco Mendicino’s struggles the “Pinocchio Affair,” before demanding his resignation (and the Speaker did not cut him off for doing so, but after he finished warned against name-calling). Pablo Rodriguez took this one, stating the opposition is divided and they can’t agree on anything, and called out the Conservatives for their love of filibusters. Dan Albas took over in English to first raise the cheap outrage story about the GG’s flight, then panned Chrystia Freeland’s speech before demanding that the government adopt their plans to fight inflation. Randy Boissonnault insisted that the Conservatives only had bluster, while the government had a list of affordability measures. Albas raised the escalators in user fees tied to inflation and demanded they be halted, but Boissonnault reiterated his same response. 

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and raised the problems at passport offices before redeploying the talking point that the federal government should mind its own business rather than “meddling” in Quebec’s affairs. Karina Gould assured him that they had hired new staff and were hiring more. Therrien then pivoted to the Information Commissioner’s report on the record number of Access to Information complaints, and Mona Fortier assured him that they were working to increase transparency and proactive disclosures (which is pretty much famous last words from this government).

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he worried that the increase in the GST credit would be $7, which was insufficient. Boissonnault listed the measures in the budget to help people. Singh repeated his question in French, and Boissonnault repeated his same response en français.

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Roundup: A barometer we should pay attention to

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It is now day one hundred-and-one of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Ukraine says that they have reclaimed a large chuck of Severodonetsk, foiling Russia’s attempt to move further into the city. There are concerns that Russia is trying to dig in and stay in those eastern cities for the long haul.

For that one hundredth day of the war, here’s a look back at Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s nightly video addresses, and what they have done for his people. Here is a timeline of the events of the invasion, as well as an attempted accounting of some of costs that this war has taken on the people of Ukraine. As well, a museum in Kyiv is collecting materials left behind by Russian forces and making art out of it.

Closer to home, the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the extremely low turnout from the Ontario election continues, and that has Turnout Nerds and Proportional Representation fanboys out in force, to little avail. Most corrosive were the rounds of people who insisted that because the turnout was so low, that Ford had formed a majority government with something like 20 percent of eligible voters and that this was somehow illegitimate and that they should petition the lieutenant governor to deny him the ability to form government (erm, except that he is already in government, and simply has a new legislature). While you have some people trying to explain this low turnout as frustration and disengagement, where people were told time and again by media polls what the outcome was going to be so they never bothered, I do think there is something to be said about this being a measure of where we’re at, and it’s not good—and that mandatory voting would simply paper over that indicator. Of course, what this should do is prompt parties to get their acts in gear and present something that can actually excite voters and get them out to the polls, but we’re seeing cynical moves by parties who capitalise on low turnout (Ford’s Progressive Conservatives), or who try to game their so-called “vote efficiency” to have just enough turnout (federal Liberals). It’s not healthy, and we should do more about it, but the parties didn’t seem interested this time around.

https://twitter.com/Honickman/status/1532847527975915521

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