Tag Archives: Arctic

QP: Lying about the price of lettuce

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Before things could get underway, a whole batch of new MPs needed to be brought in to take their seats—Liberals Ben Carr and Anna Gainey, and Conservatives Arpam Khanna, Branden Leslie and Shuvaloy Majumdar. When things got underway in earnest, Pierre Poilievre led off in French, blaming the prime minister of causing “housing hell” and demanded action to fix it. Justin Trudeau recited some pat talking points about helping Canadians and calling grocery CEOs. Poilievre quoted John Manley in claiming deficits were driving inflation, and demanded the government end the so-called “inflationary deficits.” Trudeau read the talking points about helping to build more apartments while repeating his boast about the grocery CEOs. Poilievre repeated his first question in English, and this time Trudeau read some good-news talking points about the deal in London, Ontario, which was the first deal but not the last. Poilievre repeated his second question in English with an added factoid about housing starts being down, and Trudeau read some good-news talking points about Calgary agreeing to federal conditions for more dollars. Poilievre again demanded a balanced budget, and Trudeau accused him of empty slogans and cited his record of bungling housing when he was minister, and then recited some points about the policy convention votes.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, he demanded solutions and not “scapegoats,” and accused the government of withholding $900 million from Quebec. Trudeau praised their Accelerator Fund and removing GST on new apartments, but didn’t address the allegation. Therrien repeated the demand, and Trudeau said the Bloc are only there to squabble, and repeated his same pabulum points.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he railed that the government was not punishing grocery CEOs, to which Trudeau insisted that they were making corporations pay their fair share, and Trudeau again raised the meeting with the CEOs and upcoming changes to competition legislation. Singh switched to French to accuse the government of allowing a loss of affordable housing units under their watch, and Trudeau repeated his same points in French.

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Roundup: The sound and fury of a special committee

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NDP MP Niki Ashton sent out a press release yesterday calling on the minister of national revenue to create a special committee to crack down on tax avoidance by billionaires. I have my doubts about just what a parliamentary committee could do on its own. Asking them to recommend solutions seems like a fairly inefficient way to go about it because there are changes put forward every year to close loopholes, and the tax avoidance experts find new ones. 🎶It’s the circle of life! 🎶

My deeper suspicion is that this is mostly just about performing for the cameras, which MPs are increasingly using committees to do rather than doing serious work, and Jagmeet Singh was trying to get in on that in a big way over the past few months, such as his little dog and pony show with the stack of papers that were supposedly all questions he was going to ask Galen Weston, and then promptly did not. Additionally, however, parliamentary resources are constrained because of hybrid sittings, and the injury and burnout rate for interpretation staff, and in the most bitter of ironies, Ashton is one of the worst offenders for abusing hybrid rules, and has pretty much opted to almost never show up in Ottawa. (She may deign to visit once every six to eight weeks, and only if she is required for some kind of media event).

Because economist Lindsay Tedds is one of the foremost tax policy experts in the country, I pointed this out to her, and well, she had thoughts.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1695109929902993636

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1695104974353842372

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian officials say that Russian forces are regrouping in occupied territories in the country’s east, and will likely try another offensive push. Ukraine is also saying they hit a Russian military base deep in occupied Crimea as part of their operation earlier in the week. The Ukrainian government has also dismissed the head of its State Emergency Service after an inspection, but haven’t said what the reason was.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1695094695855116732

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Roundup: It’s “grocery rebate” day

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Today is the day that the federal government’s so-called “grocery rebate” gets deposited in Canadians’ accounts, but it’s not really a grocery rebate, and once again, a defensible policy gets given a dumb and confusing label for marketing purposes, because that’s what this government does. This is just another GST rebate top-up like the one that happened last year to help deal with the rising cost of living for those who are on the lower-end of the income scale, but of course the government gave it a new name this year just to try and be cute about it.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1676243078833926145

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1676243669685506048

You may also have heard complaints that this particular rebate is going to fuel inflation (which is coming down! It’s nearly at the outside band of where the central bank wants it to be!). This is also nonsense, because of how the programme is targeted, and Jennifer Robson has all of the receipts and data to prove it in the thread below.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians attacked a military funeral in Pervomaiskyi in the Kharkiv region, wounding 38 including twelve children.  Ukrainian forces targeted a Russian military formation in occupied Makiivka, which Russian officials say killed a civilian and injured others. Previously over the weekend, Russia launched its first overnight drone strike against Kyiv in twelve days, while a drone attack on the city of Sumy killed two and injured 19. Elsewhere, the reports from the counter-offensive are that it has been “particularly fruitful” over the past several days, with yet more gains around Bakhmut. There have been yet more warnings that the Ukrainians believe that the Russians will detonate something at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, while the Russians are also claiming the Ukrainians will do so in order to blame them (as though that makes any sense whatsoever).

https://twitter.com/kyivpost/status/1676258705422053378

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Roundup: No, it’s not another carbon tax

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Pierre Poilievre is currently on a tour of Atlantic Canada, braying about the increase in the carbon price, and the incoming clean fuel standard regulations, which he has mendaciously dubbed “Carbon Tax 2.” Poilievre claims will be a combined hike of 61 cents per litre of gasoline. He’s wrong—the figure comes from future carbon price increases plus a dubious Parliamentary Budget Officer report on the clean fuel standard pricing effects, which were based on a lot of assumptions that may not happen, and the figure from that report that Poilievre is citing was an estimated price effect from 2030, which again, he falsely implies is coming right away.

While I’m not going to say much more, because I will probably write about this later in the week in a more comprehensive way, it was noted that a columnist at our supposed national paper of record not only fully bought into Poilievre’s bullshit, but he couldn’t even be bothered to check his facts on these prices. Here’s energy economist Andrew Leach setting the record straight:

As a bonus, here is Leach throwing some shade at Michael Chong as he tries his own brand of bullshit about what is happening with Norway.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The counteroffensive moves “slowly but surely,” not only in regaining a cluster of villages in the southeast, but also around Bakhmut, while Russians are bringing in their “best reserves.” Ukrainian forces also have to contend with low-cost suicide drones that are difficult to defend against, as these drones target valuable equipment. Meanwhile, in a speech to parliament, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy ruled out any peace plan that would turn the war into a frozen conflict.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1674074924124631041

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Roundup: Keeping up the blame-shifting

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Another day, another reminder that the premiers are engaging in blame-shifting around rising crime rates, while they pretend that this is all the fault of the federal government allegedly making changes to the bail system a couple of years ago. It’s wrong—the uptick started before that bill passed, and that bill merely codified Supreme Court of Canada rulings while actually increasing conditions and added a reverse onus for domestic violence accusations.

The federal justice minister, who has committed to some targeted changes to bail laws, keeps pointing out that this is a more complex issue, much of it revolving around mental health. And guess whose job that is? The provinces! Not only have they been under-funding it, but they largely didn’t use the last mental health transfer, negotiated by Jane Philpott, on mental health, which is why Carolyn Bennett has seen the promised mental health transfer be part of the bilateral agreements with provinces on increased health spending that will have more strings attached. To add to that, provinces are also under-funding their justice systems, and you have provinces like Manitoba where the Crown prosecutors are grieving with their employers because they’re short-staffed, over-worked and under-paid. That’s not the federal government’s fault.

But premiers don’t like to be reminded that this is their failure. They’re eager to try and cast the blame elsewhere and count on credulous media to both-sides their claims so that they won’t actually be called out on their bullshit, and the federal Conservatives are happy to amplify their blame-shifting because it gives them an issue to fundraise on. We have problems in our system, but we also have solutions, but those responsible for implementing them would rather pretend it’s not their problem. We shouldn’t let them get away with it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles are again being fired at Ukrainian cities early in the morning, and Ukrainian air defences around Kyiv appear to be holding. Over in Bakhmut, Russian forces are claiming four more blocks of territory, but Ukraine still controls the key supply route into the city. Two Ukrainian drones destroyed the fuel depot at Sevastopol in occupied Crimea, giving another sign the counter-offensive is near. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that he carries a pistol with him, and was prepared to fight to the death if Russian forces had taken his headquarters.

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QP: Declarations of guilt versus more flailing and backpatting

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In the wake of MP Han Dong’s exit from the Liberal caucus following anonymous allegations in the media, and in advance of US president Joe Biden’s arrival, Question Period got underway without either the prime minister or his deputy present. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he started immediately with the ordeal of the two Michaels, and raised the allegations made against Dong and his allegedly advising the Chinese government to not release them as doing so would some how benefit the Conservatives (and no, none of these allegations make any actual sense). Poilievre demanded to know when the PMO knew of these allegations, and Mélanie Joly insisted that the release of the Michaels was the priority of the government and everyone in the House. Poilievre repeated the same again in English, and Joly repeated that releasing the Michaels was everyone’s priority, and thinking otherwise was false. Poilievre again demanded to know a third time when the prime minister was made aware of these allegations, and Joly praised the date that the Michaels were returned to Canada, and that their priority was always to stand up against arbitrary detention. Poilievre insisted the non-answer was “troubling,” and re-asked a fourth time. This time, Joly praised the friends and allies who helped to advocate the case of the Michaels. Poilievre insisted that the prime minister must have known that Dong was working to keep the Michaels in China, and Joly again insisted that the prime minster ensured that everyone was standing up to China to get the Michaels home.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and took a swipe at a David Johnston before demanding an public inquiry immediately, and Dominic LeBlanc insisted that Johnston’s appointment was part of the suite of measures to strengthen the response to foreign interference. Therrien took up the concern about the report about Dong, and Joly got back up to praise the efforts to bring the two Michaels home.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he too insisted that the prime minister must have known about the allegations about Dong, and demanded the government vote for their motion on a public inquiry, and LeBlanc said that while he appreciates the concerns about not stigmatising communities, they have been taking foreign interference seriously. Singh repeated the demand in French, and LeBlanc repeated his same response.

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Roundup: Still not finding the right tone

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Justin Trudeau continues to struggle to find the right tone to respond to the allegations of Chinese interference in the previous couple of elections, and still hasn’t managed to find it. Yesterday he made the point that this is serious, and that’s why it shouldn’t be made a partisan issue of, and that doing so is doing the work of these autocratic countries for them because it weakens trust in democratic institutions…but he’s not exactly doing much to engender that trust either, because the response is once again some feel-good bromides that don’t worry, they didn’t actually affect the election outcome. Okay, but you’re asking people to take your word for it, and doing so with the same pabulum that they shovel in everyone’s direction for absolutely everything, so it’s hard to take these assurances seriously. It’s time to drop the feel-good talking points and be utterly frank, as much as can be allowed given the nature of the situation, and that’s what they’re not doing.

And because they’re not being frank, the Conservatives are shrieking “collusion,” and “you turned a blind eye because you benefitted” (as though a hung parliament is the real benefit here). But part of the problem is that the Liberals never think that they’re partisan, even when they are, and while Jennifer O’Connell may not have been wrong in saying that the Conservatives sure sound like they want to build this up as a “big lie”/illegitimate election campaign, it wasn’t the right tone to strike. At all. I did find it interesting that a former Conservative candidate did talk to the Star, and said that he didn’t think that this alleged interference did much with the Chinese-Canadian population because Conservatives themselves were doing their best to alienate that community.

I would also like to note that poll analyst Éric Grenier was on Power & Politics yesterday to provide a bit of a reality check to these ongoing allegations, and how the ridings that the Chinese diplomats allegedly targeted had no bearing on the election. For the Liberals, they didn’t get a majority because of Quebec, thanks to debate moderator Shachi Kurl playing into Yves-François Blanchet’s hands and phrasing her “tough question” to sound like Quebeckers are racists, and it gave Blanchet the ammunition he was looking for. For the Conservatives, the GTA remains elusive to them, and that’s why they couldn’t win. None of the alleged Chinese interference did anything to change that, and the Globe and Mail should have included this kind of analysis in their original story, but they didn’t, because they wanted this to be as sensational as possible. This continued narrative that the Chinese government attempted to engineer a minority parliament remains frustratingly moronic because you can’t do that. It’s as dumb as when the Globe endorsed the Conservatives but not Stephen Harper in 2015. It doesn’t work like that, but hey, why should the so-called newspaper of record understand how our gods damned political system works?

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 365:

Russian shelling of Kherson in the southern part of the country has killed two civilians, with two civilians injured by missile strikes in Kharkiv. Meanwhile, the CBC talks to front-line Ukrainian soldiers about the training they got from Canadians, and the praise is coming particularly for battlefield medicine, as well as leadership for junior officers learning to take the initiative (unlike the old Soviet system).

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1628470688725053440

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1628484262994362370

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Roundup: Concerns divorced from reality in C-11

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The continuing discourse around Bill C-11—the online streaming bill—continues to plumb new depths of utter idiocy, and this weekend, the Globe and Mail dragged Margaret Atwood into it, where she said some things that have absolutely nothing to do with the bill at hand. Why? Because Senator David Richards, a novelist who has been little more than a crank during his time in the Senate, gave a speech last week (around 1530 in the Hansard) that was pretty much complete and utter nonsense in which he accused the government and the CRTC of being Goebbels-like propagandists because of this bill, and people have glommed onto the debate without knowing anything about it.

If anything, the Globe story was complete journalistic malpractice, because it didn’t give sufficient context to the bill or what it actually says, and Atwood admitted she hadn’t read the bill, and they ran the story about her comments regardless.

I have done several stories on this bill and its predecessor in the previous Parliament (here and here). In spite of the Conservative narrative that this was “Orwellian” and that an “Internet czar” was going to censor your tweets, the bill is nothing about that. It’s about ensuring that streaming services like Netflix and Disney+ play by similar rules as other conventional broadcasters, particularly in using part of their revenues to continue to Canadian content media funds. YouTube was included for that reason—as the largest music streaming service, it should also disclose its Canadian revenues and submit the same proportion to media funds for artists that radio does. That’s it. The CRTC has been determining what counts as “Canadian Content” for those purposes, as well as for tax credits, for decades. The current point system has been in place since 1984. None of this is new or novel, and none of this is the Minister of Heritage telling people what to produce, and absolutely none of this is “government censorship,” and if people believe that, then they don’t understand the meaning of the word. And yet, these narratives have been allowed to perpetuate in the mainstream media, either because the journalists in question are too lazy to actually read the bill, or they are content to both-sides the debate, and when one of those sides are outright lying, or are free speech zealots who object to CanCon regulations on principle, and on the other side you get ministerial pabulum, you’re not exactly cutting through any of the bullshit. We have been so let down by the media over the course of this interminable debate, and we are all the worse off for it because people aren’t doing the jobs.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 348:

Russian missiles struck Kharkiv over the weekend, destroying residential buildings, while a fire caused a blackout in Odessa. Russia and Ukraine also traded almost 200 prisoners of war in a prisoner exchange on Saturday. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defence minister is being shuffled to a new portfolio as part of the government shake-up in light of combatting corruption allegations.

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Roundup: A scolding from Xi Jinping

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 267:

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

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

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Roundup: The drivers of food price inflation

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The September inflation numbers were released yesterday morning, and they are still cooling, but not quite by as much as anticipated, in part because food price inflation continues to stay high. While the temptation to conclude that this is entirely the fault of the grocery oligopoly engaged in price gouging, and boy howdy are the NDP trying to make this a Thing, we know from the economic data that it’s not actually the case. And it doesn’t take too much digging to know what some of the drivers of this food price inflation really are:

  • For cereal and bakery products, that’s because the drought on the Prairies destroyed 40 percent of crop yields last year
  • The blight known as “coffee rust” is affecting those crops, and is in large part because of monoculture
  • Drought has also taken out things like the chilis necessary for things like sriracha sauce, or the mustard crops used in condiments
  • Fresh fruit and vegetables are, again, susceptible to droughts in places like California, or the hurricanes that struck Florida
  • Fish and seafood are facing collapsing stocks, which again, drives up prices, and some harvesting seasons have been impacted by hurricanes
  • Dairy and meat has seen higher input costs (again, drought taking out feed crops) and avian flu ravaging poultry flocks is also driving up prices

As you can see, climate change is a big driver for most of these. Our food production is very vulnerable to it, and that is causing a lot of these price increases, and we need to be aware of that and stop couching it euphemisms about “inclement weather” or the like.

Meanwhile, Chrystia Freeland has told her Cabinet colleagues that they need to keep their spending priorities in check, and if they want higher spending, they need to be prepared to find savings in their departments to pay for them. While we have seen that the government’s fiscal stance is already pretty tight, Freeland needs to manage expectations right now—if we do go into a recession, the government can’t keep up the same supports they did during the pandemic, and broad spending programmes could wind up fuelling inflation and undoing the work the Bank of Canada is doing to tame it. It’s unlikely to really blunt any of the attacks from the opposition, and Poilievre in particular because he’ll just make up more nonsense that sounds like economics but is just bullshit, and certain people will spoon it up and legacy media will both-sides it, but regardless, Freeland looks to be steering the Liberals back on a course toward the brand of fiscal prudence and away from trying to capture more of the left, but perhaps that’s because they have put a mark in that territory with things like childcare and know that there are voters at the centre that the Conservatives are abandoning that they would rather pick up instead. Either way, it’s an interesting move.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 238:

As Russians continue to bomb power stations around the country, Ukrainians are facing rolling blackouts. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called out the Iranians for accepting “blood money” for these drone.  Meanwhile, Putin has declared martial law in the four occupied territories in Ukraine, giving his Russian regional governors emergency powers to enact new restrictions.

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