Tag Archives: Bank of Canada

Roundup: No, LNG sales aren’t being blocked

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It seems that Pierre Poilievre, and by extension other members of his caucus like Michael Chong, are trying to sell another false narrative to the Canadian people, and this time, they are claiming that the prime minister is “blocking” LNG sales to Germany. This is patently false, but that’s not surprising considering that this is coming from Poilievre, and he is without any sense of shame when it comes to outright lying at all times. His “proof” is a National Post article with a framing device claiming that Canada “snubbed” Germany on LNG, so they are signing a deal with Qatar.

The federal government has not blocked any LNG projects. We did not “snub” Germany either because they know full well we don’t have the export infrastructure, and by the time we could build it, it would be too late for Europe, hence why they came looking for hydrogen and got it. It wasn’t the government blocking any LNG terminals from being built—it was the market. There is very little supply along the East Coast to try and tap into for supply for export (indeed, there is one import terminal in New Brunswick), so unless you’re piping it all the way from Alberta or the United States, at an increased cost, there has been little sense in constructing it (and no, fracking is not going to happen in New Brunswick). There are terminals being constructed on the West Coast, where there is supply, but they are still being built, because it took a long time for them to secure the export contracts to make construction viable. If Trudeau was really “blocking the sale” then why would these projects still be allowed to proceed? It makes no sense.

There is also the consideration that Canadian LNG is more expensive than that coming from Qatar, which is a large part of why it has been unattractive to the European market (especially when it was coming pretty cheaply from Russia). It’s why most of the proposals aren’t getting off the ground–these projects won’t make their money back for thirty or forty years, by which time we will be deep in decarbonizing and reaching Net Zero targets. Even if we could somehow build an export terminal and a pipeline to supply it, the market for the product is likely to rapidly decrease, which means we’d be stranding those assets and have billions of dollars in these terminals going nowhere. The market doesn’t want to invest for a reason, and it’s not the Canadian government.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 283:

In a rare admission, a top aide to president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that between 10,000 to 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since Russia’s invasion began in February. (The Russian losses have been much higher). The International Atomic Energy Agency says a deal aimed at safeguarding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is almost completed. Here is a look at how school children in Kyiv are faring between Russian bombardments and blackouts. Meanwhile, here’s a look at a Canadian-funded work doing de-mining work in Ukraine.

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Roundup: The Sovereignty Act is an attack on democracy itself

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith tabled her “Alberta Sovereignty in a United Canada Act” yesterday, and it was worse than anyone had previously imagined.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1597736239960297473

For starters, the “in a united Canada” part is an attempt to be clever in trying to insist that this isn’t about separatism, but that’s mere window dressing. (I also suspect that it’s not much of a coincidence that just days ago, conservative luminary Ken Boessenkool declared Stephen Harper’s “The Québécois are a nation within a united Canada” motion to be a genius unifying move, never mind the fact that just who “the Québécois” were was never defined and created rifts with Anglo-Quebeckers). The substance of this bill is a wholesale power grab using the most extreme form of a Henry VIII clause known as enabling legislation. In this case, it allows Cabinet to amend any legislation they see fit to after being given a mandate by way of a resolution passed by the legislature (where they have a comfortable majority). Smith and her justice minister, Tyler Shandro, kept insisting that this resolution process was democratic and transparent, but this kind of enabling legislation is anything but, particularly because it allows Cabinet to define the terms of what they deem “injurious to Alberta’s interests,” or whatever the excuse they’re giving themselves to take these powers. It violates the separation of powers by declaring federal legislation to be null and void in the province, and directs police not to enforce federal laws, which is an attack on the rule of law.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1597732003411267584

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1597761564257701888

Smith justified the need for such powers as saying that Alberta has been “ignored” by the federal government for the past ten years, which is a) complete bullshit, and b) that’s not a justifiable reason to give yourself the power to ignore the legislative process. She insisted this was just defending rights like Quebec does, but Quebec doesn’t do this. Her list of grievances was largely all strawmen—the incoming emission cap on the oil and gas sector, the plan to reduce fertilizer emissions, environmental assessment legislation, and the worst affront of all—that the federal government would dare to try to attach strings to federal dollars. How very dare they! But this kind of mendacious grievance-mongering is how politics has been practice in the province for years now, so it’s not unexpected that this is what she would fall back to.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1597733033754386434

Smith’s apologists immediately came out to defend the bill saying that it’s “symbolic” and Smith herself was insisting she doesn’t want it to be used. That’s all horseshit. You don’t give yourself very real enabling legislation powers for “symbolic” reasons if you don’t intend to use it. The federal government has largely been signalling that they won’t be engaging, though I wouldn’t be surprised if, now that we’ve seen the text and the huge overreach, that they would refer this to the Supreme Court of Canada so fast that it will give you whiplash. While this could be Smith imagining that it’s a fight she wants, I have severe doubts that it would give her the legitimacy in a fight that she so desperately wants.

As this was all going down, Jason Kenney announced that he had resigned his seat, with a letter attached that bemoaned how polarized politics had become—after he spent 25 years actively engaging in that very polarizing behaviour and driving it to partisan effect. The kicker here is that Kenney was vehemently opposed to the proposed Sovereignty Act, and planned to oppose it in the legislature, but as soon as the bill is tabled, whoops, there he goes. I can’t quite decide if this is weaselly behaviour, or Kenney being a chicken shit. Either way, it was a choice.

https://twitter.com/jkenney/status/1597741099971641344

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 280:

NATO foreign ministers met in Bucharest, Romania, and have pledged additional non-lethal support with things like more blankets and generators to help Ukrainians to get through the winter, but also to send them Patriot missiles. The Americans announced $53 million to buy parts to help repair the electrical grid. Inside Ukraine, “Points of Invincibility” have bene set up which are stations to get food, drinks, and warmth as the shelling of critical infrastructure continues.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1597661671560024067

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Roundup: More Macklem misquotes

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I’m going to revisit more of Tiff Macklem’s appearance at the Commons finance committee, because things he said were being taken wildly out of context in Question Period yesterday, and we all have an obligation to call out egregious bullshit when we hear it. For example, when Macklem admits that stimulus may have been applied for too long, nobody knew if it was safe to withdraw it yet and they were operating on best guesses and advice from observers, and more to the point, the Bank was also engaged in forward guidance, and they needed  a cycle to wind that back before raising rates, otherwise they risked damaging their reputation as doing what they way they’re going to. This is a very important consideration for a central bank. As well, the questions about the level of spending during the height of the pandemic and whether that led to more inflationary stimulus ignores that it was impossible to better target supports like CERB because the government and its IT structure had no real ability to do that. That’s why the used the CRA’s system to kludge together CERB as quickly as they did—there wasn’t an ability to be more targeted (even though it was temporary). Trying to elicit quotes to blame the government for inflation is both cheap and intellectually dishonest, but that’s pretty much par for the course these days.

Meanwhile, former governor Stephen Poloz told an audience at Western that the economy is much more sensitive to interest rate hikes than it was ten years ago, so we should start seeing inflation start to fall shortly, but he also stated that it will only get part of the job done, so other policy action will be needed to get inflation back to its target zone. This said, Poloz also says that it’s impossible to say if rates were hiked too much over a short period, because as we should know by now, inflation can move about 18 months later than the rate changes happens, so stay tuned.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 275:

As Russian bombing of critical infrastructure continue, people in Kyiv are collecting rainwater to survive, while Kherson is facing renewed attacks. Russia is openly admitting to these attacks now, claiming it’s about disrupting military command and control and stopping the flow of ammunition, never mind that they’re openly admitting to war crimes as they do.

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QP: Directly quoting selectively from the PBO

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The prime minister was present once again, while his deputy was busy testifying at the public inquiry. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he worried about deficits causing inflation (which they’re not), and demanded a course correction. Justin Trudeau reminded him that they were there for Canadians during the pandemic in order to ensure it was less severe than other places on the world, and that our economy bounced back faster, and insisted that the Conservatives only want to cut. Poilievre switched to English to denounce alleged comments from Seamus O’Regan, and demanded they cut the carbon price. Trudeau dismissed the concern as twisting the words of minister, and pointed to the PBO report on the carbon price and how it helps eight out of ten families. Poilievre picked up that report and cited several numbers out of context to “prove” his talking points. Trudeau, looking rather pleased, insisted that Poilievre did not look at the section about the rebates, and called him out about not caring about climate change. Poilievre insisted that the rebates were “tiny” and didn’t cover costs—and was called out by the Speaker for using the report as a prop—and Poilievre went on a tear about how the price is ineffective and hurts people. Trudeau disputed that the rebates were tiny, and noted the other benefits they have delivered, noting that Poilievre is only playing rhetorical games. Poilievre tried to bring up the cost of the hotel for the Queen’s funeral and insisted that the report proved that people are being hit hard. Trudeau countered that the report shows that the rebates compensate most families more than they pay, because fighting climate change is important while Poilievre only wants to nickel-and-dime them.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he returned to the alleged contradictions in the reports about the Xi Jinping confrontation and demanded a return to the per-vote subsidy to prevent foreign funding. Trudeau clapped back that the Bloc only want the subsidy because they can’t raise money on their own. Therrien was incensed, and insisted that China was exploiting this vulnerability, and Trudeau countered that political financing is robust and transparent, and pointed out that the media are invited to his fundraising events, and encouraged other parties to do the same.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and decried the crisis in emergency rooms and demanded the federal government show up. Trudeau took exception to the insinuation he doesn’t care about children, and pointed out that they have transferred billions to provinces and are sitting down with provinces. Singh switched to French to repeat the question and got the same response.

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Roundup: The gong show of Macklem at committee

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Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem and his senior deputy governor, Carolyn Rogers, appeared at the Commons finance committee last night, and as you might expect, it was a complete gong show, because most MPs can’t be grown-ups in the face of serous business or policy questions. And once again, the Bloc were the adults in the room, which is a sad indictment. Without further ado, here’s the Wall Street Journal’s Paul Vieira on what went down:

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1595556537912758272

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 274:

Russia sent another 70 or so missiles into Ukraine to continue targeting power and water systems, and president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Russia is doing to is to try and weaponize the winter weather. And it’s not just critical infrastructure targeted—it’s also civilian targets including maternity hospitals, where a newborn was killed. Here’s a look at some of the personal stories of those who are affected by these blackouts bas a result of the attacks. Meanwhile, more evidence is being accumulated regarding Russia’s use of rape as a weapon of war.

https://twitter.com/Podolyak_M/status/1595462972536676359

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Roundup: A nightclub shooting and sportwashing

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There was another shooting at an LGBTQ+ nightclub over the weekend, this time in Colorado Springs. It comes after a marked increase of far-right groups targeting drag queens and trans people, and make no mistake that such rhetoric is very much leaking into Canada, and was present in the election through the People’s Party, and featured in some of the discourse coming out of the occupation in Ottawa back in February. It is having an impact here—I’ve spoken to out gay MPs who say they haven’t faced these kinds of threats in years, but now they’ve made a comeback, and this is going to mean a concerted effort to take this seriously in our politics. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how much I trust that it’ll happen, given that our current government talks a better game than they do in following through, and the Conservatives are hoovering up the far-right tactics and propaganda as a way of trying to use the far right to win votes rather than playing to the centre, and Poilievre has insulated himself from criticism on this by putting his two out MPs in his leadership team, including making Melissa Lantsman one of his deputy leaders.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1594362156547547145

https://twitter.com/carl_s_charles/status/1594358215226990598

With this in mind, and Trudeau’s words especially, I am curious why he and his government then chose to send a delegation, led by Harjit Sajjan, to the FIFA World Cup in Qatar, a country that criminalises LGBTQ+ people, and which is essentially a modern slave state where hundreds of migrant workers died in order to build the facilities for these games. By choosing to send the delegation (as opposed to letting Team Canada participate), they are actively participating in the sportswashing happening. Not to say that Canada hasn’t done its share of sportswashing (thinking especially of the Vancouver winter Olympics), but this is egregious, and incredibly disappointing that they made this choice.

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QP: Disney+ versus crypto outrage

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While the PM had landed in Bali for the G20 meeting, his deputy was present for Question Period back in Ottawa. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he worried about children not getting medication, and the report that only Canada is lacking these medications out of 19 countries that one company distributes to. Jean-Yves Duclos noted that the supply has increased, and that hours ago, they announced that they signed a deal with a company to import several months’ supply of children analgesics. Poilievre repeated the question in English, and Duclos repeated his answer in English. Poilievre then misquoted the governor of the Bank of Canada on the supposed “domestic” source of inflation (which is not what he said—the inflationary pressures are largely domestic now because they have metastasised through the economy, not because they were caused by local factors) and then wholly made up him saying that they need to cut wages and increase unemployment (which is entirely false), and demanded to know if the government agrees. Chrystia Freeland praised their “compassionate” and “fiscally responsible” plan, and quoted the Globe and Mail to bolster her cause. Poilievre raised the cost of diesel and blamed that on food-price inflation (it’s not the cause), and decried that families in “oil-heated communities” couldn’t cut their subscriptions to Disney+ to heat their homes, again raising the fake outrage that dominated the country last week, before demanding they cut the carbon price. Freeland noted that everyone in this Chamber is privileged, and that she recognises how privileged her family is, which is why they focused the government’s finite resources on those who need it. Poilievre demanded that the Liberals end their plan to “triple, triple, triple” their carbon price, and this time Fraser got up to take exception to the line about oil-heated communities because his province has seen the cost of climate inaction and worse is yet to come, and after the Speaker had to quiet the Chamber down, Fraser said that perhaps they should turn on the microphones of the backbenches to showcase their climate denialism.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he decried the notion that the conversation on health transfers was futile as provinces we “rolling in money,” and demanded they talk to emergency room doctors. Duclos insisted that they should be discussing actions that should be taken. Therrien decried that the “pontificators” in government were unable to do things like get passports out, so how could they manage healthcare (which no one is asking). Pablo Rodriguez got up and chirped about the Bloc’s recent convention and how their only priority was independence and not helping people. 

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, decried the overloaded emergency rooms and demanded that the federal do something about it, as though it were their jurisdiction. Duclos listed the stressors on the system and called on people to mask and vaccinate. Don Davies took over in English, raised drug shortages and demanded a plan, to which Duclos reminded him that they did announce an emergency importation of analgesics as domestic production ramps up. 

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Roundup: National Remembrance ceremonies in Canada as Kherson is liberated in Ukraine

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National Remembrance Day ceremonies were held in Ottawa, with some particular attention paid to it being the 80thanniversary of the raid on Dieppe, as well as some particular attention to the memory of the Queen, who was herself a veteran of the Second World War.

Of course, someone had to be churlish and parochial today, so the Conservatives put out a press release denouncing the fact that Justin Trudeau was absent, because he’s on his way to an important summit in Asia. And he met with troops in New Brunswick yesterday, and during his refuelling stop in Alaska. And yes, Stephen Harper also missed several Remembrance Day events because of foreign travel, so the complaints about Trudeau are not only weird and hypocritical, but they’re indicative of the fact that the Pierre Poilievre has just hired an avowed shitposter as his director of communications, and this level of juvenile partisan sniping is what we can expect more of in the coming days because this is exactly what he thinks is going to speak to Canadians.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 262:

Ukrainian special forces arrived in Kherson to a hero’s welcome, but the real work begins now of trying to deal with the landmines the Russians left behind in the city. There are also concerns about “sabotage operations” by Russian troops in civilian clothes. Kherson is strategic because it allows Ukraine to control fresh water flowing to occupied Crimea, and keeps Russian control out of the southern part of the country in an attempt to keep the land bridge to Crimea.

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1591099528736051205

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Roundup: Play stupid procedural games, win stupid procedural consequences

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My patience for the stupid procedural games being played in the House of Commons is wearing incredibly thin as Liberal House Leader Mark Holland is moving a motion to extend sitting hours to midnight. Now, this would be fairly normal for the last four sitting weeks of the year, but Holland is moving the motion to extend until June. *sighs, pinches bridge of nose* Holland claims it’s because the Conservatives are being obstructionist, and putting up long speaking lists for every bill, so he’s going to accommodate them, and the Conservatives are saying that it’s their job to have vigorous debate on every bill, but this is beyond excessive. (The NDP are also in favour of this, because they too have essentially had a policy of talking every bill to death for the past decade or so). But that should make everyone happy, no?

Of course not. Andrew Scheer is, not incorrectly, pointing out that midnight sittings take resources (read: interpreters) away from committees, and calls this the Liberals trying to kill accountability by stealth. That’s one interpretation, but one could also say that it’s the consequences of the Conservatives decision to fill up the speaking lists like they are. And it’s all so unnecessary. This insistence of filling up speaking lists and having MPs read canned speeches into the record for hours on end is a particularly Canadian phenomenon, and it’s a symptom of our politics being treated un-seriously. It’s stupid gamesmanship that started years ago, and it gets worse with each passing parliament, and we need to stop it. The fact that Holland and Scheer are now exacerbating it even more as a kind of brinksmanship is killing our democracy, and MPs need to grow the hell up, on all sides of the Chamber.

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QP: Getting shouty to build their narratives

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It being Wednesday, the benches were largely full, and the prime minister was present for his designated day to answer everything. Pierre Poilievre led off partly in French, and worried about the shortage of children’s Tylenol, and switched to English halfway through to reiterate. Justin Trudeau started talking about Health Canada taking action and there were challenges to supply chains around the world, but was shouted down and needed to reiterate his answer when it quieted down. Poilievre then moved onto his bog standard inflationary nonsense and “triple, triple, triple” ear worm, and demanded that tomorrow’s fiscal update have a spending freeze. Trudeau noted that they have supports for Canadians as the GST rebate comes out on days, and other supports are on the way. Poilievre repeated his question in French, and Trudeau noted that the Conservatives only want austerity and cuts. Poilievre returned to English to claim only he was protecting pensions from inflation, and repeated his demand to cap spending and taxes. Trudeau called Conservatives cold-hearted if they considered dental care for children to be pouring fuel on the inflationary fire. Poilievre tried to turn over the “cold-hearted” accusation with his tripling nonsense, to which Trudeau reiterated that in spite of Conservative misinformation and disinformation, the climate rebates give more back to most Canadians than they pay.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he accused the federal government of starving the healthcare system (which is utter bunkum), and wanted more funding without conditions. Trudeau reminded him that Quebeckers and Canadians expect results from the system, but if systems don’t work as expected, they want to work with provinces to ensure that more money gets better results. Blanchet accused the federal government of micromanaging, and Trudeau reiterate that the systems are not working, which is why they are trying to get provinces onside to improve things for that money.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he attacked Doug Ford’s preemptive use of the Notwithstanding Clause, and demanded the prime minster do something about it. Trudeau denounced Ford’s actions, and called out Poilievre for not denouncing it. Singh repeated the question in French, and got the same answer.

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