Tag Archives: Andrew Scheer

Roundup: A “positive vision” full of falsehoods

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Andrew Scheer gave his first major speech to the party faithful at the Conservative convention in Halifax on Friday, and it was, in a word, meh. After telling the tale of his grandparents and parents struggling to get by, and establishing his “regular guy” credentials (despite the fact that his career suggests he’s been anything but), but from there, it was his usual litany of lies and nonsense talking points. “Conservatives would never leave a credit card bill to our children and grandchildren,” says the party that racked up hundreds of billions in debt during their term; vague assurances about the environment that would actually do nothing to address emissions while also maligning carbon taxes while claiming to understand them and yet demonstrating he doesn’t – or that if he does, he’ll simply lie about them. He went on a whole tangent about Sir John A Macdonald, and this whole bit about how activists were only targeting him because he’s a Conservative and not Liberal prime ministers who arguably did worse (and another lie was about how they weren’t going after Mackenzie King on the $50 banknote – he is being phased out in the next series, as Viola Desmond on the $10 banknote pushes the established prime ministers to higher denominations). He claimed he got to work with UK prime minister Theresa May on a post-Brexit trade deal – something that Trudeau actually did, given that he has no standing to do anything, and claimed that he would be the “adult in the room” in his planned trip to India (which, again, he has no diplomatic standing to do anything on, and that there is no “damage” for him to “repair.”) And his “positive vision” for Conservatives? That he won’t look back at history with shame, and he would have space for debate with viewpoints he disagreed with (this after being astonished that Trudeau would call an avowed racist a racist, characterizing it as a “smear.”) So…yeah. If your positive vision is to simply keep lying about issues, I’m having a hard time squaring that circle.

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Also at the convention, the party will send the resolution around abortion regulation to the full membership, while they voted down the attempt to make repealing gender identity legislation part of the policy book. Not debated was the resolution around ending supply management, which infuriated a number of delegates – some saying they felt that the debate was deliberately stifled, others that it’s emblematic of a party that doesn’t actually care about free market conservative ideas – and that this may drive them to Bernier’s camp.

Meanwhile, the Bernier fallout continues apace at the convention. While he appears to have zero caucus support, there is talk that he can theoretically get the bare minimum he needs to register a party with Elections Canada, and good news, Kevin O’Leary is thinking of supporting him, and he’s got an ally in Stephen Fletcher, whose nomination Scheer blocked. So there’s that. In the interim, Conservatives at the convention continue to mean girl him (to which Bernier says that’s typical of losers), and the anonymous sources with the behind-the-scenes drama have started spilling the tea, for what it’s worth.

In yet more reaction to events, Andrew Coyne notes that while Bernier’s criticism of the Conservative Party under Scheer rings true, Bernier’s planned party nevertheless still smacks of a vanity project. Colby Cosh notes that Bernier’s lack of intellectual hygiene in his veering into talk of diversity and immigration has corrupted his chance to attract concerned with economic issues to his nascent party. Chantal Hébert looks at the history of the Reform Party and it doesn’t compare favourably to Bernier’s record. Former Reform MP Monte Solberg has been there and done that, and he evaluates Bernier’s behaviour and performance in light of it. Terry Glavin thinks that Bernier did Scheer a favour, assuming he takes some of the swivel-eyed loons with him away from the Conservatives. Also, I was on Canada 2020’s /Thread podcast, talking Bernier and his ability to pull it off.

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Roundup: Maxime Bernier, drama queen

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Like a high school drama queen, Maxime Bernier made his move yesterday, removing himself from the Conservative caucus just as the party was about to begin their convention in Halifax. And not a moment too soon, apparently, as apparently the caucus was prepared to “belittle” him regarding his recent shitposting over Twitter, in an apparent attempt to Mean Girl him into falling in line. Well, that didn’t apparently work, and Bernier went out with a bang, calling the Conservatives a party that was “too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed,” and which only speaks in platitudes, and that he plans to launch his own party within the coming weeks. Good luck with that.

Minutes later, Andrew Scheer held his own press conference in Halifax and said good riddance, that Bernier was only in it for himself, but, curiously, stuck to platitudes. And notably, he didn’t refute anything that Bernier has been saying over the past couple of weeks, and in particular his winking to white nationalists. (Note to Conservatives: simply listing how many ethnocultural firsts your party has had is not refuting the aforementioned winking to white nationalists). And then Scheer said that Bernier evidently decided to help Trudeau, and then immediately started backpedalling to insist that no, this wasn’t going to split the party, and they’re united, and Bernier is a nobody, and you get the drift. So score one for Scheer there.

And then started up the tweets, many of them angry or belittling from fellow MPs, and a bunch of bizarre rumours started being floated to journalists like that Bernier used to sleep through Cabinet meetings under Harper (seriously? You actually expect us to believe that?) while other party stalwarts rallied around Scheer (and Bernier currently seems to have zero supporters, for what it’s worth). The Liberals, justifiably, are remaining cautious and are not openly popping any champagne bottles because who knows where this will go.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells has grave doubts that Bernier has what it takes to lead a new political movement, while Jen Gerson angrily writes about Bernier’s supposed defence of “Canadian values” and that he doesn’t seem to have a clue what he’s tweeting about. Scott Gilmore seems to think that Bernier’s fundraising record shows he may have the momentum to pull this off – but Stephen Maher has his doubts. John Ivison casts aspersions on all sides of the split, Martin Patriquin wonders about the effect that it will have with the ground ripe for messages of populist xenophobia like Bernier has been employing. Don Martin suspects this departure will rally the party around Scheer, while Robyn Urback takes Bernier to task in the most scathing, sarcastic way possible. (My own column on Bernier’s future will be up later today).

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Roundup: Scheer plans another ego trip

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Andrew Scheer has declared that in October, he and a group of MPs will head to India. While it’s not uncommon for opposition MPs to do a bit of foreign travel, particularly if they’re on some kind of committee or parliamentary friendship group, it’s a little more uncommon for them to go as the Official Opposition in any capacity (Washington DC excepted). But Scheer? He’s decided that his trip to India will be to “repair” the relationship with that country after the “disastrous” trip that Justin Trudeau made earlier this year.

Let’s unpack this a bit more. Scheer has zero diplomatic standing to do absolutely anything on behalf of the government of Canada. Add to that, I’m trying to figure out just what “damage” Scheer hopes to repair, because the only real “disaster” from Trudeau’s visit was related to Jaspal Atwal showing up at that event, which wound up being hugely overblown considering that India had allowed him back into the country and considered him rehabilitated from his former extremist views. The fact that Trudeau wore some expensive Indian clothes? The thing that people continue to underestimate/forget/ignore is that he was doing it to speak to a certain demographic in India which responds to these kinds of gestures – even if the upper-class voices that dominate their international press don’t. Trudeau didn’t lose points with that middle-class voter base in India (or the Indo-Canadian diaspora) – but that message was lost on the white press covering the trip, and given how the Conservatives reacted back in Canada (going so far as to use the insulting term of “costume,” which earned them a stinging rebuke from Liberal backbencher Ruby Sahota), they were tone-deaf to the whole thing. Was Trudeau snubbed my Modi? Not at all, and just because Modi didn’t greet him at the airport is not a snub considering that a) Canada doesn’t rank that high on his list of priorities, and b) we were greeted by an agriculture minister, who does have dealings with Canada. And on that subject, the fact that Trudeau wasn’t able to make progress on the tariffs that India imposed on pulse imports was not a “failure,” given that those tariffs were imposed for domestic political reasons (low prices due to a global supply glut, pandering to rural voters, and the fact that there has been a suicide crisis among Indian farmers for years now), and those tariffs hurt Australia more than they do Canada. But please, tell us again how those were done in retaliation for the trip. Meanwhile, Trudeau made several investment announcements and did have successful meetings with civil society groups in India. So again, I ask – what “damage” is there for Scheer to supposedly repair (for which he has zero authority to do anything about)?

We’ve seen this kind of self-aggrandisement from Scheer before with his trip to the UK to supposedly have talks about post-Brexit trade agreements, never mind that a) he’s not the government and can’t commit to anything, b) Trudeau and Theresa May already agreed to those talks once Brexit happens – because the UK legally can’t hold any talks until then, and c) he totally sold the trip with that photo of him at a red phone booth. So you’ll forgive my scepticism about this planned India trip, because it sounds dubious at best.

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Roundup: Giving succour to racists to own the libs

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That heckler the PM had an encounter with late last week turned into a big Thing today as it was revealed that she was a member of far-right and anti-Islamic and anti-immigrant groups in Quebec, and that her heckles were a set-up that Trudeau walked into. Trudeau himself offered no apologies for his response, but wouldn’t you know it – the Conservatives have decided to go to bat for this woman.

No, seriously. “Asking a question about the budget.” That was not “asking a question about the budget.” The translation of her (shouted) question was “I want to know when you are going to refund the $146 million we paid for your illegal immigrants.” That’s not a polite policy difference about interprovincial politics, as so many other conservatives have tried to intimate, that her question was the same one asked by three different provincial governments. It was followed up by her asking if Trudeau was tolerant of “Québécois de souche,” which some people translate as “old stock Quebeckers,” but that lacks the racially-charged nuance of the phrase, which some have likened to the “Quebec-speak variant of Master Race.” Add her “question about the budget” to this racially-charged phrase shows that she’s not concerned about the budget – she believes that these asylum seekers are stealing from Quebec. But, you know, it was “a question about the budget.” But wait – it gets better.

Andrew Scheer decided to weigh in and, ignoring all of what happened and the context, and the woman’s racially-charged language, Scheer attacked Trudeau for “name-calling” and “demonizing” people who are critical of him. Trudeau calling an avowed racist, with a history of public racism, a racist, is apparently “a vile [personal] insult” because he’s afraid of “legitimate criticism.” So yeah – way to go for offering succor to racists and white nationalists to “own the libs.” And while this woman’s apologists go on about how Trudeau “inflamed the situation” rather than answering her question – as though it was asked in good faith (it wasn’t) and wasn’t going to be immediately followed up with her racist remarks (which it was inevitably, given that this was demonstrably a set-up), you have to wonder just how wilfully blind Scheer and company will be in order to try and make Trudeau out to be the real monster.

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Meanwhile, John Ivison says that confrontations like these are political gold for Trudeau because he can run against the image of a xenophobic Conservative party, which plays well to a certain segment of the population, while Chris Selley says that Trudeau needs to be careful when calling out intolerance because of his party’s own obnoxious tendencies.

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Roundup: A dearth of innovative policy ideas

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While Maxime Bernier’s social media committee continues to demand attention (yesterday’s missive was to declare “political correctness” dead in Canada – in both official languages), all eyes will turn to Andrew Scheer as the party’s policy convention gets underway this week in Halifax. There is all kinds of talk that they’ll come away from this more united than ever – one of those kinds of meaningless phrases that parties seem to trot out whenever they face the slightest bit of internal criticism or difficulty, and usually before and after there’s some kind of rift or someone gets tossed. But depending on what Bernier tries to do with his acolytes at the convention, we’ll see if his tone or messaging changes after the convention is over, or if this becomes some new problem for Scheer to contend with – eventually.

As for the policy resolutions, most of the ones we’re seeing discussed are…not very innovative. In fact, most of them seem to be either the usual pushing back against restrictions on their well-worn bugaboos and hobbyhorses (looking to make anti-abortion policies more accepted in the party officially, for example), but so few of them seem to be actually coming from a free market conservative point of view. In fact, a lot of what’s on the list is pretty reactionary, and definitely signals a shift from a party that used to be all about the rule of law, and now seems to think they’re above it (witness resolutions against any payments or court settlements with convicted terrorists – a dig at Omar Khadr).

One could go on – a policy about building Energy East, despite the fact that there is no economic case to do so. Repealing gender identity legislation because they are under the illusion that it compels people to use unconventional pronouns (because apparently the Jordan Peterson crowd is well represented here), Andrew Scheer’s problematic policy of withholding funds to universities who don’t defend speech (but no context there, because you know they’ll rail about Israel Apartheid Week), closing the “loopholes” in the Safe Third Country agreement (no mention of how exactly, or the unintended consequences of doing so), maybe developing a climate policy that won’t involve a carbon tax or cap-and-trade (so you’re in favour of heavy-handed and expensive regulation? Really?), prioritizing CANZUK trade agreements (a rose-coloured view of our colonial past that didn’t really exist economically), treating pornography like a public health issue (Seriously, guys – didn’t you embarrass yourselves with this already at the Commons health committee when you couldn’t articulate a policy out of this fraud) – nothing innovating in here in the slightest. So one has to wonder just what vision there is within the party if this is the best that they can come up with for policy resolutions.

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Roundup: Those pesky gasoline prices

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While avoiding condemning Maxime Bernier’s choice of language and engagement (moving from just winking at white nationalists to now trying to delegitimize the media), Andrew Scheer has resumed his practice of shitposting misleading statistics memes over Twitter, and yesterday it was in relation to gasoline prices. Yes, Statistics Canada reported that the inflation rate in June was 3.0 percent, which is the Bank of Canada’s upper bound for their target, and yes, it was fuelled in part by gasoline prices. (Core inflation, stripped of volatile factors like gasoline, remains closer to the 2.0 percent target, so it’s not really anything to worry about). But why would those gasoline prices be higher? Hmm…

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1030574821543829504

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That’s right – the world price of oil has increased over the past year after its recovery from the price collapse nearly two years ago, and that’s an unambiguous good thing for provinces like Alberta, who rely on oil prices being on the higher side for their economies. Trying to cast this as a carbon tax issue – and that oh noes, carbon taxes will make this even worse – is a bit disingenuous considering how small of a fraction of the price that entails.

Meanwhile, with a number of voices (Jason Kenney and Scheer among them) calling for the revival of Energy East in light of the Saudi Arabia spat, energy economist Andrew Leach crunched the numbers on the economic case for that pipeline. Short version: there is no economic case. Stop trying to pretend there is one or blaming Justin Trudeau for its demise.

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Roundup: Bernier still hanging on

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Apparently we’re going to talk about Maxime Bernier again, because of course we are. Yesterday’s developments included a couple of new Twitter missives, and Andrew Scheer finally, finally, held a press availability to discuss the situation, in which he basically said nothing. While not condemning Bernier’s remarks yet again (thus tacitly endorsing them), Scheer said that Bernier doesn’t speak for the party, that they value diversity, and no, he won’t talk about “caucus dynamics” when it comes to whether her plans to turf Bernier from the party. But that particular dynamic may be slightly more complicated.

There are a couple of reasons why Scheer is gun-shy when it comes to flexing his leadership muscles when it comes to Bernier’s constant stream of eruptions. One of them is that Bernier has a base within the party that Scheer can’t afford to alienate. Or at least that’s the theory – Éric Grenier teases out the numbers of Bernier’s support a bit more, and he’s not really a top fundraiser, nor may his base be as big as it’s made out to be. Part of this is because a number of supporters flocked to him in the leadership because he looked like a winner, and he got frontrunner momentum. Remember that many of these people also supported Kevin O’Leary, because he looked like a winner. So there’s that. There’s also the theory that because the Conservatives have bound themselves to Michael Chong’s greatly flawed Reform Act that the leader can’t expel a caucus member, that they must do it in a vote. That’s of course more of a theoretical consideration than a realistic one, given that the Act is largely a paper tiger – there is nothing binding in it, there is no enforcement, and it was so watered down in the process of passing it that it’s less than useless (and indeed is actively harmful to how leadership politics works in this country). Not to mention, Scheer has the option of threatening not to sign Bernier’s nomination papers for the next election (something the Reform Act promised to solve then didn’t), so it’s not like Scheer is without actual levers to push Bernier out if he so chose, even if he was bound by the useless Act.

Meanwhile, I will turn your attention to something else that Paul Wells noticed over the past few days when these tweets started.

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Roundup: Scheer’s milquetoast response

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While Maxime Bernier’s Twitter missives continue to roll along, accusing Indigenous communities of playing the victim card and making some pointed remarks about the dedication of a Winnipeg park to the founder of Pakistan (on the date of Pakistan’s national independence), the calls for his ouster have started to mount, particularly from the Liberal side of the aisle – which won’t do much. Within the Conservative ranks, Senator Salma Ataullahjan is calling Bernier out for his divisive rhetoric, and said she planned to talk to Andrew Scheer about how poorly this is playing within the Pakistani-Canadian community that she has been reaching out to for the party. Scheer finally did issue a statement on Wednesday evening, and it was about as milquetoast as you can imagine.

The fact that Scheer didn’t actually condemn Bernier’s statement, and the fact that he immediately engaged in both-sidesism to condemn identity politics “on the left and the right” seems to fit with the fact that this particular kind of shitposting by members of his party is not only tolerated, but is the modus operandi of their current communications strategy. The fact that Scheer is using the same language about identity politics that Bernier is using certainly makes it sound like he’s more than just winking to them about the kind of dog-whistling that they’re engaging in. Whether this is because Scheer is afraid of alienating Bernier’s base within the party, or because Scheer himself sees this kind of footsie with xenophobes as a way of trying to keep the more intolerant section of the base mollified remains to be seen. Still – his choice of language, and his refusal to actually deal with the substance of Bernier’s comments is deliberate and simply raises far more questions than it answers.

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Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert wonders why Bernier is bringing up this fight when it’s even gone dormant in the Quebec provincial election, and wonders if it’s a dare to Scheer to discipline him when he may be the more popular figure in the party. It’s a good question, and Bernier certainly seems to be aiming for a fight at the upcoming convention.

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Roundup: A summer stunt

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With the new Cabinet in place and a new trade minister now in the portfolio, Andrew Scheer decided that yesterday was the day to engage in a political stunt and demand that Parliament be recalled in the middle of summer in order to pass the enabling legislation for the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Astute observers may recall that the Conservatives made a couple of attempts before the Commons rose for the summer to pass the bill at all stages with zero debate or committee study, but were rebuffed both times. Now they want Parliament to sit over the summer in order to pass it expeditiously.

There are, of course, a few problems with this demand. First of all, Ottawa is a virtual ghost town at this time of year, as a sizeable portion of the population (and most especially the civil service) is off at some cottage somewhere, and very little is getting done. You want to ensure there’s a revolt, then cancel everyone’s vacations. A number of workers on Parliament Hill, such as those who work in the Parliamentary Restaurant, get laid off over the summer, so rehiring them for a few days or a week would be a giant logistical nightmare. Not to mention, you’re going to have a tonne of cranky MPs who are hot and sticky in humid Ottawa, who are will spend the time grousing that they have work to do in their consitutencies (especially with an election a little over a year away). This especially includes Scheer’s own MPs. Add to that, Scheer says that the Commons needs to move now because there’s no guarantee how long the Senate will take with this – err, except if his own senators offer to play ball with the other senators and come to an agreement on a timeline for the bill, then it’s more of an empty threat.

The government, mind you, shot down this proposal because it’s a blatant stunt, but that left the Conservatives the day to start tweeting sanctimoniously over Twitter about how they’re willing to get to work but the Liberals aren’t. (Seriously guys, this game will bite you in the ass before you know it). And then there’s the kicker – Scheer made this demand, then rebuffed the media requests and said he’s off for holidays for the next two weeks, thus cementing the fact that this was all a stunt. Slow clap, guys. But I guess it’s a way to try and capture the news cycle for the day.

Meanwhile, here’s Philippe Lagassé to school you on how most people don’t it right when they talk about treaty ratification in our parliamentary system.

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Roundup: Performative obeisance

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Brave anonymous Conservatives have gone to the media to describe how they asked Andrew Scheer to let them vote to remove Maxime Bernier from caucus. Scheer, smartly, said no, but the whole affair is sordid and more than a little gross. The reasons these brave anonymous Conservatives gave for looking to oust Bernier was because he apparently lied to caucus when he said he was going to shelve his book project and then reposted the chapter that had already been made public on his website. But it’s not really about Bernier’s supposed sins, but rather it’s another instance of MPs being performative in their demonstrations of obeisance to Scheer as the leader, which is antithetical to how a Westminster system should operate.

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Scheer knows that booting Bernier would cause a rift in the party, where all of the Ayn Rand-reading wannabe-libertarians in the party would storm off after him in a huff, possibly forming a libertarian splinter party in their wake (never mind the fact that Bernier isn’t actually that smart as a politician, as charismatic as he may be, and it would likely all end in tears). But Scheer has to preserve the big tent – or at least the illusion thereof, because gods know that he’s already alienated Red Tories and free-market conservatives with his pursuit of boneheaded populism – and so he’s going to keep Bernier around. Not in his shadow cabinet, apparently, because Bernier has become a liability in his attempt to portray himself as a greater defender of Supply Management than thou, but Bernier will at least be there in the room, tolerated. For what that’s worth.

More importantly, this is but one more sign about how venal and degenerate political parties in this country have become as they’ve been hollowed out and serve as little more than personality cults thanks to the bastardized leadership contest rules that each has adopted. Because leaders are chosen in such a broken manner, it has given them the appearance of “democratic legitimacy” that is antithetical to how our system operates, and rather than hold them to account, the caucuses now twist themselves into pretzels to show loyalty to the brand of the leader rather than the ideals of the party. And until we’re willing to stand up and say no, this is a bastardization of our system, it will only continue to get worse (and yes, the Liberals are among the worst culprits for this). This is not how parties are supposed to work. This is not how the Westminster system is supposed to work. And yet we have brave anonymous MPs tattling on each other for thought crimes against their leaders. It’s revolting.

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