Tag Archives: Bank of Canada

Roundup: It’s auto theft summit day

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It’s the big auto theft summit happening in Ottawa today, and it’s more than just federal and provincial governments and police who are meeting—it’s also insurance companies and auto manufacturers, because part of the problem are the ways in which auto companies have made unsecured RFID technology with key fobs and so on part of the recent lines, which means thieves can capture the frequency of your fobs and steal your card by cloning said fobs. Insurance companies could wield their might in insisting on these changes, which could make a measurable impact. As a down-payment of sorts, Dominic LeBlanc announced a $28 million boost to CBSA’s ability to detect stolen vehicles with more detection tools and analytics.

Meanwhile, as Pierre Poilievre tries to insist that this problem can solely be attributed to Justin Trudeau because of certain legal changes around conditional sentencing and bail (which were in response to Supreme Court of Canada decisions, it must be stated), he’s also made a bunch of specious correlations about how car thefts were lower in the Harper era in order to back up this claim. Except, that’s mostly not true either. But then again, facts, logic or honesty are never really in play when Poilievre is speaking, and this is no different.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces downed 11 out of 17 drones in the early morning hours of Thursday. Russia launched massive attacks on Kyiv and other cities over the day yesterday, which killed five and wounded more than thirty. The mobilisation bill has now passed first reading. Here’s a look at the corps of retired Colombian soldiers fighting for Ukraine

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Roundup: The muted federal response to Danielle Smith’s latest policy

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As expected, there was a federal response to Danielle Smith’s draconian anti-queer/trans policy video, but it was mostly just words of condemnation. Marci Ien and Randy Boissonnault had a scrum about it, but basically said that because they don’t have any document from Smith—the legislature isn’t sitting, and Smith herself said later in the day that nothing would be formally in writing until autumn—they don’t know how best to respond to this, so in the meantime, they’re going to consult and come up with ideas at the Cabinet table as to what the federal government can do, but one supposes that something like a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada of this policy, along with those of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, may be in the works. We’ll have to see, but it’ll take time, so for the moment, it’s a lot of words of affirmation.

Smith did hold a press conference, nearly twenty-four hours after her video was released, and in it, she kept repeating that she was trying to protect youth from “irreversible medical decisions,” which both conflates the purpose of any social transitioning that they may do beforehand, and buys holus-bolus into the moral panic that kids are being indoctrinated into being trans and then “mutilating and sterilizing” themselves, even though there are vanishingly few “top” surgeries for minors, and no “bottom” surgeries at all. But dubious and discredited reporting that echoes through the right-wing media ecosystem has convinced parents that it’s happening (thus the outsized concern for their “right” to know), along with the pre-existing notion that if they’re told, they can stop their kids from being queer or trans (in other words, de facto conversion therapy). But nobody wants to talk about this moral panic. (More analysis about Smith’s move here).

Meanwhile, Pierre Poilievre’s office has instructed his MPs to say nothing, especially to the media, and to report all requests to his office, and if they are to say something, it’s to emphasise “parental rights over decisions related to their children,” which a) is not actually a legal right in Canada, and b) has been the dog whistle for anti-queer and anti-trans rhetoric for a long time now. And of course, he wants them to stay quiet, but not because he’s worried about another homophobic eruption from someone like Cheryl Gallant, but rather he doesn’t want anyone coming across as too sympathetic because he needs to keep demonstrating to the far-right, reactionary crowd that he thinks is going to win him the election that he’s not too “woke” or small-l liberal, because that would doom their support. It’s little different than Smith keeping this up because she doesn’t want the leopards in her party (like the “Take Back Alberta” crowd) to eat her face like they did Jason Kenney. When you let your party get taken over or be entirely beholden to the crazies, you lose control, and that’s exactly what is happening here.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say that seas drones were used to sink a small Russian warship in the Black Sea, while Russia claims that Patriot missiles fired from Ukraine brought down the plane that was totally carrying POWs and wasn’t a psy op (really). Ukraine’s army chief published a series of priorities and challenges are rumours of his rift with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy continue to circulate.

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QP: Calling out Poilievre’s chief advisor

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The prime minister and his deputy were both in Toronto and surroundings, while most of the other leaders were also absent. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and worried about the number of Mexicans claiming asylum with a low acceptance rate, and demanded the government do something about it. Marc Miller said that there were diplomatic discussions happening, and he wouldn’t pre-empt those with a statement in the House. Poilievre then pivoted to auto thefts, and blamed the federal government for the rise. Dominic LeBlanc said that while Poilievre likes to invent blame, they are working with provincial partners and there is a summit next week on the subject. Poilievre repeated the accusation in English, and LeBlanc repeated that they did strengthen bail conditions to close the “loophole” he was concerned about. Poilievre again insisted that this was all about “catch-and-release” bail, and this time, Arif Virani said that the Conservatives are voting against measures to combat organised crime. Poilievre then went on a misleading tear about the Bank of Canada, and Anita Anand gave a canned line about the lowest debt in the G7 and the programmes they rolled out to help Canadians.

Christine Normdin led for the Bloc, and she cited a CMHC report about housing in Quebec because the population is growing too fast, and blamed the government for letting in too many immigrants. Marc Miller found it curious that they say they didn’t want to blame immigrants but still were anyway. Normandin repeated her same question, and Miller said that they can’t treat asylum seekers like cattle and just ship them around at whim.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he blamed the government for high grocery prices because he alleges they are too close to grocery giants. Sean Fraser listed measures the government has taken to increase competition in the marketplace. Don Davies asked about the Manulife deal with Loblaws, which is not federal jurisdiction. Mark Holland patted himself on the back for helping to achieve savings with prescriptions through things like bulk purchasing.

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Roundup: More of a stage than an institution

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The House of Commons is back today after the Christmas break, and you can pretty much guarantee that there will be a level of awfulness to the discourse, because that’s where things are right now. In fact, when asked over the weekend, former prime minister Joe Clark correctly noted that the House of Commons is “more a stage than an institution” these days. You’ve heard me bang on about this more times than I can count, but it bears repeating—MPs are no longer debating ideas. They are reciting prepared talking points into the record, because those are being used to generate clips for social media. It’s not even for the benefit of news media anymore, like it used to be (which caused its own particular problems with how QP works), because they all think they can just bypass legacy media and speak directly to their own audiences over their socials.

It’s no longer politics—it’s theatre. Bad theatre. The kind where people can’t even memorise their lines, but are full-on reading the script in front of them during the performance, not even on cue-cards that are far enough in the distance, and most of them can’t even be ashamed of their own amateurishness as they adhere to their party’s message, do what is expected of them, and continue to pretend that this is all normal.

And that’s why our democracy is in trouble.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Security officials in Ukraine say that defence ministry officials conspired with employees from an arms firm to embezzle nearly $40 million that was earmarked to buy mortar shells. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has disclosed his own income as part of a drive for transparency and combatting corruption.

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Roundup: The crybully edit

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Because yes, everything is that stupid, the Conservatives are crying that Justin Trudeau is racist because in his speech to caucus, he referred to Conservative candidate Jamil Jivani as a “twofer,” and then immediately says that it’s because Jivani is an “insider and an ideologue,” and went on to talk about how he’s a parachute candidate in the Durham by-election. Not sure why this was a topic in said speech to caucus, but it was.

Jivani then edited the video and just used the part where Trudeau referred to him as the “twofer,” said he didn’t know what that was supposed to mean—even though he deliberately edited out the part where Trudeau spelled it out—and then recited the Pierre Poilievre slogan checklist. Partisans posted a purported definition of “twofer” as a person from an underprivileged background who can fulfil two quotas or appeal to two political constituencies—a definition I have never heard in my life—and started screaming racism, and revived the whole Blackface thing, because of course they did.

The point here is that this is yet another example of the very same Conservatives who mock the “snowflakes” on the left who need their trigger warnings, and trying to play crybully at the very same time. They did it to me when I said that a joke was lame, and tried to insist that I threatened to shoot one of their MPs (which they know full well is not what I said). They are so quick to play the victim because they think that it works for “the left,” and so therefore it should work for them equally, which is dumb, and completely doesn’t get the point that people on the left make about oppressive language, or structural racism, or what have you. They make this big song and dance about how censorious the “left” is (and yeah, some of them are), but then immediately try to replicate it while at the same time try and insist that they’re the ones who are all about free speech and so on. It’s childish, it’s dishonest, and when they have to edit video and lie to try and make their crybully point, it’s even more obnoxious.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians continue to insist that Ukraine shot down that plane that allegedly contained POWs, but won’t provide evidence or access to the crash site (making it even more likely that this is an info op). There is also word that president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has invited Xi Jinping to the forthcoming peace talks in Switzerland.

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Roundup: A singular call for a leadership review

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As the Liberals’ caucus retreat got underway in Ottawa (immediately after the Cabinet retreat), things got off to another rocky start as Liberal backbencher Ken McDonald told Radio-Canada that he thinks there should be a leadership review in the party ahead of the next election, and lo, the media leapt all over that story, and the rest of caucus spent the day insisting that no, they’re happy with Trudeau (though one anonymous Liberal praised McDonald’s bravery in bringing this up). The problem with this proposal? The party’s constitution has no mechanism for this.

The new constitution, which was adopted after the Liberals formed government, only has one avenue for a leadership review, which is that one is to be held if they lose an election. And fair enough—that’s really the only time they could hold one, because it essentially means running an entire leadership contest but with only the leader canvassing sign-ups and votes (because they no longer have paid memberships), and his or her opponents trying to organise a no vote. There is no way a sitting prime minister has the time or capacity to do this while running the country, and it’s one more reason why the way we run leadership contests is made to obscure accountability. It also guarantees that bellyachers like McDonald can’t get their wish because frankly there is no capacity for this to happen while they are governing.

This all points to reasons why we need get back to the system of caucus appointing and disposing of leaders. It restores accountability because the leaders are once again afraid of their own members, and must be more responsive to their concerns rather than doing things like threatening to withhold the signature from their nomination papers if they don’t toe the line. It also precludes these mini-leadership contests as a “leadership review” (where past examples such as Jeremy Corbyn and Greg Selinger were not great examples of the membership being able to get rid of problematic leaders). It would make for one quick vote and being able to put the matter to bed rather than this interminable grousing that we’re seeing now, and an immediate replacement of a leader rather than a months-long leadership race that includes egomaniacs who have never won a seat, let alone have any idea how politics works. But people who don’t know how the system works insists that this is somehow “anti-democratic” (which is bullshit), and so this bastardised status quo continues to make our system worse.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine shot down 11 out of 14 Russian drones targeting the southern part of the country in the early hours of Thursday morning. A Russian military plane crashed, and they claimed it contained 65 prisoners of war headed for a swap and that Ukrainian forces downed the plane, but couldn’t produce proof; Ukraine didn’t confirm or deny this, but made it clear that if Russia was transporting POWs this way without notice it was unacceptable.

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Roundup: A ridiculous court appeal

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There is a court case in Ontario, now being appealed to the Ontario Court of Appeal, filed by election reform advocates claiming that the existing single-member plurality voting system is unconstitutional because it violates Charter rights. It was rightfully dismissed by the Superior Court judge, because obviously, but there is something I did want to remark on. No, I’m not going to go into another rant about why I’m not a fan of proportional representation systems, or how most of their arguments deliberately misconstrue how single-member plurality works, but rather about how this is yet another attempt to use the courts when you lose at politics.

Beyond this kind of challenge being just on this side of lawfare, what gets me is how these kinds of groups seem to have zero conception of just what they want the courts to order in terms of a remedy, because that’s a pretty big deal. You want the courts to declare that the current system violates the Charter? Ignoring for the moment that their arguments are specious and jejune, what exactly do they think the courts are going to do? Order the federal government to implement a PR system? Which one? Because that’s kind of a giant sticking point. One of the main reasons why the electoral reform committee in Trudeau’s first parliament failed is because the recommendations in that report were hot garbage—design a bespoke system with a bunch of factors that rendered it virtually impossible to achieve without some major constitutional changes. PR is not one system you can just plug-and-play—there are so many variations of it that can wildly affect outcomes that it’s not inconceivable that it would degenerate into a major fight for years, while the court’s declaration of invalidity hangs over them. How does that work, exactly?

There are similar problems with other court challenges, such as the ones purportedly launched by youth over climate change. What exactly do they think the courts are going to propose as a remedy in that kind of a situation—and if you say “follow the science,” you deserve a smack upside the head, because science is a process, not a declaration. Science is not policy. The courts cannot impose policy, which is why it’s a really dumb idea to resort to the courts when you lose at politics. But that’s what we’re getting a lot of, and it means using the wrong tools and wasting a lot of time and energy to attack the problem in entirely the wrong way.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian drones attacked an oil storage depot in western Russia, causing a massive blaze, as a way of unsettling voters ahead of their presidential election.

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Roundup: NSIRA spanks Global Affair’s intelligence program

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A long-delayed public release of NSIRA’s report into the activities of the Global Security Reporting Program—the “intelligence” arm of Global Affairs, which has diplomats openly engaging with persons of interest abroad—was finally released, and it’s making some waves. In particular, for a programme that isn’t actual covert intelligence gathering has some governance problems, with a lack of coherent policies or training that has led to some lines being blurred, which can make some countries believe this is an actual foreign intelligence service (it’s not, and we don’t have one).

So, with this in mind, here are four threads from some very reputable sources. Stephanie Carvin walks through the report, and breaks down its components, as well as the government’s responses.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1737569161042096138

Jessica Davis has a shorter walkthrough (with paragraph numbers!) about her own concerns about what she reads in it.

Leah West has a few legal observations about the report.

And Thomas Juneau gives a much more generous read, and places some of the GSRP’s work into better context.

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed journalists’ questions about whether Ukraine is losing the war, but acknowledges challenges of being in a country under siege. Ukraine’s forces appear to be moving to a more defensive posture, likely because of the artillery shortage.

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Roundup: End of the parliamentary year 2023

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With a flurry of more nonsense motions, another apology from Speaker Greg Fergus, and a few more hours of sterile speechifying, followed by a royal assent ceremony, Parliament—both chambers—has gone home for the holidays.

This has been one of the most toxic, rancorous sittings I’ve lived through in my fifteen years on the Hill full-time, and I’ve watched it devolve in realtime to something where the clip-gathering was more selective to it being every single interaction on camera, and because they want to boost the engagement on those clips, they torque things and are now outright lying about absolutely everything, and now the place is a toxic swamp. The incident with Anthony Rota’s ouster just made everything worse, because the partisan rancour around that dialled up to eleven, and there was an actual attempt by the Conservatives to let Rota to escape responsibility by trying to falsely pin the blame on Trudeau and making false insinuations about the PMO essentially running the Speaker’s office, which is both wrong and dangerous. And it just gets progressively worse, the more that Greg Fergus keeps doing things that get pounced upon (no matter that provincial parties are not federal ones, particularly in Quebec).

And because the Andrew Scheer vs Greg Fergus fight keeps getting dumber, the NDP want to summon Scheer to the ethics committee over the use of his office for a partisan video. Meanwhile, people keep digging up more instances of Scheer going to fundraisers when he was Speaker, and lo, they were fundraisers for his own party, not events for provincial parties, which are the accusations being levelled against Fergus. Which do we think is the actual partisan activity here?

Ukraine Dispatch:

There is a strange story out of Keretsky in western Ukraine, where a village council member showed up at a meeting and detonated three grenades, injuring 26 including the person responsible, whose motive is unclear. Ukraine has signed “dozens” of contracts for joint production or technology exchanges with Western defence firms. As the EU struggles to get aid to Ukraine in spite of Hungary blocking it, here’s a look at what Ukraine needs to do in order to continue on its course for membership.

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Roundup: The empty threat to sit over the holidays

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Yesterday began with Pierre Poilievre announcing at the start of his caucus meeting that the Conservatives would keep the government from going on their Christmas holidays—because they had allegedly ruined the Christmases of Canadians—unless the government lifts the carbon price from “farmers, First Nations, and families,” which is pretty nebulous, and would seem to mean the consumer carbon price and not the industrial one. Their method of warfare? Thousands of amendments that would force round-the-clock votes on things like their budget implementation bill or the bill to amend competition laws.

The problem is that, despite the threats that Conservatives like Melissa Lantsman are making, is that they can’t actually force the House to sit past December 15th. MPs long ago put the fixed calendar into the Standing Orders, and it would take a unanimous consent motion to change that date, which they’re not going to get. And if they think they’re going to exploit the loophole of keep voting going for days on end (which would technically be one sitting day that lasts beyond twenty-four hours), well, Poilievre is going to find his own MPs are going to start getting pretty upset with him because they have families, and constituency business to attend to, and this kind of thing gets pretty tiresome really quickly.

It’s an empty threat, and it’s the same kind of thing that happens every June, and every December without fail. The opposition parties start thumping their chests because it’s their last chance to flex their muscles and look like they’re being tough on the government, and without fail, they go home on time, if not a day or two early, because everyone is tired, cranky, and just wants to get the hell out of there. I would be incredibly surprised if the House didn’t rise for the holidays by the end of the 14th. Of course, this will be a different matter for the Senate, who will once again complain bitterly that these amendment vote-a-thons will delay their getting the bills, which will mean rushed passage, and that same song and dance will play out yet again, as it does at the end of every session.

In short, everyone needs to grow the hell up, and frankly, MPs need to go home sooner than later and think about their atrocious behaviour.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces shot down 41 out of 48 Russian drones in a major overnight attack. Russian forces pressed again on Avdiivka, with both sides each claiming they made gains. It was Armed Forces Day in Ukraine yesterday, with president Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisting they would win a fair peace “against all odds,” while his defence minister was in Washington to try and secure more aid from the Americans, who are holding it up to try and force concessions around their border. A former Ukrainian MP who was regarded as a traitor was shot dead outside of Moscow, and sources say that Ukraine’s security service was responsible.

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