While both the prime minister and deputy prime minister stated they would be at QP today, only the latter was present in the Chamber. Erin O’Toole led off, script on mini-lectern, and he led off worrying about the CanSino deal, and news reports that some scientists objected to it. Justin Trudeau, appearing from home, said that they had looked at every option and didn’t close any doors. O’Toole was not mollified, and Trudeau reiterated that CanSino had success on the Ebola vaccine, and they had hopes they could help with COVID. O’Toole then insisted that the government wasted five months and didn’t attempt a made-in-Canada vaccine solution — which doesn’t match the timeline — and Trudeau reiterated that they got a broad portfolio of vaccine candidates so that they didn’t rely on a single source. O’Toole switched to French to raise the PornHub story, insisting that the government had done nothing about it, to which Trudeau insisted that they were moving regulations that would help tackle illegal online content. O’Toole insisted that the alarm was raised months ago, and Trudeau repeated his response. Yves-François Blanchet was up for the Bloc, worrying that not enough vaccines had been procured, to which Trudeau reminded him that they have contracts for more doses than any other country. Blanchet was not impressed, but moved onto his usual demand for increased health transfers, to which Trudeau reminded him that vaccine rollout depends on their production, and that he has given the provinces have everything they need from the federal government. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he was concerned that the Pfizer vaccine had too many transportation problems and wondered when the Moderna vaccine was coming, and Trudeau reminded him that it was one of four candidates under regulatory approval, and that it would take different kinds of vaccines to protect everyone. Singh repeated the question in English, and got the same response.
Tag Archives: Border
Roundup: Admission that deadlines will be missed
The federal government announced yesterday that they weren’t going to be able to meet their deadline for fixing all of the boil-water advisories on First Nations reserves, in part because of delays caused by the pandemic. And while they should get some points for at least owning this rather than sending it down the memory hole like their predecessors did, this is yet one more file where they need to do a much better job of communicating what is going on with the file. And Marc Miller is better than many of his fellow ministers, but there needs to be a hell of a lot more candour that about these boil-water advisories, such as each case is unique so you can’t fit the same solution to all of them; it is a huge challenge to build major infrastructure in remote and fly-in communities, and that takes a lot more time to complete a project as a result; that in some communities, the bigger problem is capacity to maintain systems – and in some communities, the problem is that as soon as they train someone to maintain the system, they get a better offer and get poached. Miller did note that in some cases, the state of decay in some of these systems was not adequately appreciated, and that climate change and shorter winters make getting materials up to some communities on ice roads more difficult. The other aspect of note is that there is yet more funding attached to finish the job, as well as better ongoing maintenance and prevention of future advisories, which is all good, but again, they need to communicate what the challenges are, lest we get another round of people who live in cities not being able to appreciate that you can’t throw money at a problem like this and hope it gets fixed overnight.
Evergreen tweet:
Opposition puts forward the notion that throwing money at problems fixes them overnight.
This government sticks to happy-clappy talking points rather than explains why things take time.
Media quotes both sides and lets people decide (19 times out of 20).— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) December 2, 2020
This being said, there is already talk about broken promises, and the dangers of setting deadlines, and so on. I would note that there should be nothing wrong with setting ambitious targets, and there should also be nothing wrong with adjusting them, but that should be accompanied by candour that lays out why plans need to be adjusted. I think this government underestimates how much goodwill can be gained by frank and honest discussions of projects rather than just sticking to the happy-clappy talking points and other pabulum that they spout, but what do I know?
In pandemic news, the Alberta government has requested field hospitals from the federal government and the Red Cross, but they claim that this is just about contingency planning, and that they haven’t requested personnel for them. Given that infections are out of control in the province, and its hospitals are already at the point of being overwhelmed, you can be pretty sure that this line about it being for a “contingency” is bogus, that they know they need to do this because they refuse to lockdown, and this is just softening the ground.
You can still head to the bar with your buddies for a drink tonight, or maybe try your luck at the casino, and Alberta is requesting field hospitals from the Red Cross to deal with the coming COVID surge.
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) December 2, 2020
Alberta's response to the pandemic:
-labour war with doctors
-labour war with nurses
– weakening public health legislationWhat did I miss?
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) December 2, 2020
Here's what the Red Cross says about their ERUs/field hospitals. They're not something you set up as a hedge. pic.twitter.com/gdG8hwTvtb
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) December 2, 2020
QP: Calling out O’Toole’s vaccine misinformation
The Speaker accidentally called out “quarrel questions” instead of oral questions, and that set the stage for the day. Erin O’Toole led off, script in hand, and tried to poke holes in differing statements that different ministers have made on vaccines. Justin Trudeau, appearing by video from home, reminded him that nothing has been approved to date, and that Canada has the most comprehensive portfolio of vaccines. O’Toole then tried to proffer his theory that the government was relying on the CanSino vaccine candidate, and Trudeau told him that he shouldn’t make stuff up. O’Toole pressed on the CanSino theory, and Trudeau repeated that this was not true. O’Toole switched to French to demand a vaccine plan, to which Trudeau stated that they were working with the provinces and experts. O’Toole then raised the CNN reports on China hiding early COVID data before returning to his CanSino theory, and Trudeau repeated that nobody has an approved vaccine to date. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and he demanded increased health transfers for provinces, to which Trudeau reminded that they have been working with provinces throughout the pandemic and have transferred billions of dollars to them because of it, but he would be speaking with premiers and not the leaders of other parties. Blanchet raised the Quebec government’s objections to new federal programmes, for which Trudeau gave the well-worn line that there is no jurisdiction for the dignity and security of seniors. Jagmeet Singh then led off for the NDP, and he demanded to know which seniors would get the vaccine first, for which Trudeau said they were working with experts to determine who is prioritised on the rollout, with healthcare workers and the most vulnerable. Singh then raised a Manitoba First Nation dealing with a COVID outbreak, and that the Chief has asked for military assistance, to which Trudeau reminded him that they have been working with Indigenous leadership, and that they would continue to do so — but did not really answer the question.
QP: Deliberately mischaracterizing the vaccine plans
While both the prime minister and finance minister were in town and preparing for the fiscal update, neither were present for QP. Gérard Deltell led off, noting that the fiscal update was coming, but that no economic plan would be worth anything without a vaccine plan. Patty Hajdu responded that they have the best vaccine portfolio and that a fourth candidate has begun its regulatory approval process. Deltell then insisted that the government was too invested in the CanSino candidate and was late in other vaccine candidates, to which Navdeep Bains insisted that they supported Canadian vaccine candidates as part of their plan. Deltell then mischaracterised international vaccine plans to insist that Canada was behind, which Hajdu disputed. Peter Kent took over in English and worried about the plan for economic recovery, to which Sean Fraser reminded him that the federal government made the choice to incur the costs of courses rather than putting it on the backs of people. Kent then worried about the deficit — because apparently it’s still 1995 — and Fraser directed him to the statements by the head of the IMF around what Canada has done. Alain Therrien led for the Bloc and he demanded the vaccine plan, to which Hajdu repeated her lines about the portfolio and the fourth candidate seeking approval. On the follow-up, Hajdu read a statement in French about the doses acquired and working with partners. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he regaled the House with the tale of a woman in Gatineau who works three jobs and needs a vaccine, for which Hajdu repeated her usual lines about the portfolio and the regulatory process. Singh switched to English to make the same demand for the plan, and Hajdu reminded him that provinces have the expertise on this.
Peter Kent seems to think it’s 1995 again. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 30, 2020
Roundup: Setting up the failure narrative
The Conservatives spent Sunday trying to pre-position the narratives for today’s fiscal update by setting it up to fail, saying it needs a testing and vaccine roll-out plan to be effective – which are both areas of provincial jurisdiction and he knows it. The provinces have been given millions of rapid tests, and it’s up to them to roll them out (which most haven’t been, preferring to sit on them and wait instead) – and no, rapid at-home testing is still pretty much a figment of the imagination because the technology to make them like a pregnancy test still doesn’t exist. Likewise, we are still at a point where there are too many unknown variables with vaccines to make any definitive plans, which again, O’Toole knows but is pretending otherwise. O’Toole also tried to make the case that the government put “all their eggs” in the CanSino vaccine candidate basket, which was never able to leave China for testing, but absolutely nothing bears that out, given the massive investments in other local vaccine candidates, and ensuring that Canada would be positioned for access for other vaccine candidates that we couldn’t produce domestically.
To that end, the chairman of Moderna says that Canada is actually near the front of the line with their vaccine – which doesn’t require the same cold-storage chain that the Pfizer drug does – because we pre-ordered early. Of course, they can only produce so many vaccines so fast, so of course early doses are going to be lower than everyone would like, but they’re getting there (once they get approval). But then comes along Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe, who demands that the federal government get more doses faster – somehow. Apparently, they can wave a magic wand, or send bribes, or something. In reality, this is just Moe’s rather transparent attempt at making the federal government’s efforts look insufficient, so that it can distract from his own poor attempt to control the spread of the virus in his own province (and expect to see more of this from other premiers, particularly conservative ones).
In other pandemic news, the Alberta government has started listed co-morbidities with their death counts, as a rhetorical way of trying to lessen the actual impact of COVID deaths, trying instead to show that the people died of other complications and not COVID itself – which is bullshit, and a way for Jason Kenney to absolve himself of responsibility for his lack of action. And make no mistake, this is classic Kenney behaviour – and there is no small amount of irony that the man who keeps preaching “personal responsibility” in this pandemic is the one who refuses to take any measure of responsibility for his decisions.
Here are the 9 new lives lost to COVID-19 in Alberta. #yeg #yyc #ableg #covid19ab pic.twitter.com/aSA3VzMBHn
— Courtney Theriault (@cspotweet) November 27, 2020
Roundup: Our loss of vaccine manufacturing capacity
The talk of the day was vaccines, and when Canada might see them – which might be later than some other countries because we lack domestic manufacturing capacity in this country – and this made everyone go crazy. That, and the fact that they are howling that the Americans may start getting vaccinations immediately after the FDA is set to decide on vaccine trials on December 10th – which is a pretty big assumption that they will get approval on that day. (We’ll see about how much longer it takes Health Canada to complete their own authorisation process, though they are currently engaged in a “rolling authorisation” process on the three main candidates). And they are still negotiating final rollout with the provinces, who also don’t seem to have their distribution plans finalised either.
And to be a bit more clear, we have some vaccine manufacturing capability in this country, but not the kind for the kind of vaccines that Pfizer and Moderna are set to produce – and yes, this government has invested in boosting that capacity in Canada, including building a new facility at the University of Saskatchewan, but those take time to get built and up to speed. But as this was being discussed, I was reminded that well over a decade ago, Canada had proposed to build a new vaccine pilot lot production facility as part of the Canadian HIV Vaccine Initiative, in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. And then there was political interference in the Harper Cabinet, in particular from Vic Toews, who wanted a Level-5 Lab built in Winnipeg instead, and then neither happened, and all of the Gates Foundation money got pissed away funding small projects here and there that didn’t amount to any meaningful contribution overall. (My reporting on Toews’ interference here, as well as the refusal by Toews and two other ministers to appear at committee to answer questions on what happened with the killing the CHVI, while officials gave contradictory evidence here). And this kind of facility would definitely have been of use for the kind of situation that we find ourselves in, but lo, the Conservatives killed it (and the Gates Foundation covered for them after they did). And here we are, building this capacity over a decade too late.
In other COVID news around the country, after sitting on their new rapid testing kits for weeks, the Ford government in Ontario has finally decided how they’re going to roll them out, which you would think they should have thought of beforehand. Over in Alberta, Jason Kenney announced – after a long preamble about how hard it was to make this decision – a state of public health emergency and some tougher restrictions in the province which are not a full lockdown, and which doctors are already saying won’t do enough to curb the exponential growth of new infections. In other words, Lockdown Lite™ or Mockdown (credit to Lindsay Tedds for that one). Because Kenney insists the consequences of a lockdown are worse than all of the deaths that are happening, and a bogus reading of the Charter implications (which clearly allow for these kinds of restrictions in a time like this). That means that Alberta’s infections will keep rising because Kenney refused to take appropriate action, and he’ll blame Ottawa, and everyone else for his inaction, because that’s what Jason Kenney does.
https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1331385270529269762
Smart thoughts here from Eric. Get to the last tweet. For context, here's the SCC decision from R v Oakes that forms the test for section 1 of the Charter. https://t.co/Jfm0o9FfB2 pic.twitter.com/sLHpHBjlZ8
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) November 25, 2020
Roundup: Pretending there’s a shortcut
The NDP spent the day yesterday trying to make hay of their private members’ bill, which purports to create a national pharmacare programme. Unless the party has been secretly negotiating with the provinces, it will do no such thing, and it’s pretty much guaranteed that the bill is unconstitutional, both on the grounds that it delves into areas of provincial jurisdiction and the fact that it is inherently a money bill, which would require a Royal Recommendation – which they’re not going to get. Beyond that, this is performative grandstanding that seeks to short-circuit the actual work of implementing a national pharmacare programme that the government is already doing.
Because seriously – I was inundated with replies over Twitter about how the Liberals also promised pharmacare, so how was this different? It’s different because the Liberals a) promised negotiations with the provinces, and b) already have a roadmap to implementation through the Hoskins report, whose steps they are following and have invested money toward. I was also reminded constantly that this bill was modelled after the Canada Health Act, so everything should be fine – err, except that the CHA was the end-product of federal-provincial negotiations, not the starting point to be lorded over the provinces, nor does this address the fact that it is inherently a money bill, which Private Members’ Bills are forbidden from being.
I am also somewhat tickled by the fact that the NDP are considering this bill to be some kind of fait accompli, and in a press release, they claimed that this bill would “guarantee” coverage for Canadians. But that’s a lie, because none of it can happen if provinces don’t come to the table, and several of them are balking at it because it’s expensive (and the expected savings over the longer term won’t be realised right away), and we are already going through the usual hoops of Quebec saying their provincial plan is good enough and if the federal government wants to go ahead with a national plan then they should be able to opt out with full compensation – and you can bet that Alberta will make the same demand if Quebec is. This bill will not be a shortcut to those negotiations, as much as they might like it to be. The government is moving ahead with the Hoskins Report, which may be slower, but that’s how things get done. Trying to claim they’re not living up to their commitments is one more falsehood that the NDP have become adept in promulgating in order to score political points.
QP: Imagining a diplomatic snub
It being Wednesday, the prime minister was present and ready to respond to all of the questions being posed. Erin O’Toole led off, and lied about what David Lametti said about judicial appointments, and Trudeau said he would answer in a moment, but wanted to first assure Canadians that they were monitoring what is happening in the United States. O’Toole accused him of a cover-up and of politicising appointments, to which Trudeau read a script about major reforms to the process to make it independent after Conservative mismanagement. O’Toole tried in French, and got the same answer. O’Toole then worried that federal guidance on masks was stricter than in Quebec, and wondered who Quebeckers should listen to, and Trudeau said that they respect the advice of local public health authorities but they are trying to provide guidance. O’Toole tried again in English, and got much the same response. Yves-François Legault got up for the Bloc and accused the prime minister of preferring Biden and weakening the relationship with Americans, then wondered if he had spoke to the president of France. Trudeau reminded him that regardless of the outcome of the election, they would stand up for Canadian interests and those of allies including France. Blanchet tried to pivot this to freedom of expression, and Trudeau listed things that Canada stands with France on, and that he would be speaking with Macron in the near future. Jagmeet Singh was up for the NDP, and in French, demanded to know when the federal standards on long-term care was coming — because you can wrangle the provinces overnight. Trudeau reminded him that they are working with the provinces. Singh then lied about federal ownership over certain long-term care homes and demanded an end to for-profit care, to which Trudeau reminded him that they respect provincial jurisdiction on long-term care but are there to support provinces.
O’Toole just led off with a complete mischaracterisation of what David Lametti said about judicial appointments. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 4, 2020
O’Toole is now complaining that federal guidance is more strict about masks than Quebec is, and seems confused that guidelines can change with science. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) November 4, 2020
Roundup: Preparations at the border?
Everyone is going to spend the day obsessing about the US election, and while I just can’t, I figured that I should at least make the point that I’m hoping that in this government’s preparations, there includes some for the border because if there is a Trump victory (or violence that breaks out if the result is unclear or a narrow enough Trump defeat), I would expect a rush of would-be asylum seekers heading for our borders, particularly vulnerable minorities who are already in precarious situations in the US and are likely to become targets of violence if things degenerate. That means that this government is going to need to have proper quarantine protocols in place, as well as hopefully a plan that involves more than simply turning them back as they have been since the border closure in March, because a deteriorating situation in the US would mean that sending them back would almost certainly be unconstitutional – this as the government is already fighting with a Federal Court decision that says that the US is not a safe third country and that the agreement to turn these claimants back violates the constitution. This may all be for naught, but the US is on the verge of becoming a failed state, and we need to be ready for how that will affect us, in the short and long term.
QP: A minister for divination?
Justin Trudeau was in town and on another “virtual” tour while his deputy was in the Commons in his stead. Erin O’Toole led off with his script on a mini-lectern, and he tried to tease out a contradiction in the status of the pandemic early warning system, to which Chrystia Freeland slowly and calmly stated that it was the time to focus on the second wave, but post-mortems should come later as one should not change the plane’s engine after taking off. O’Toole was not mollified, and tried again, but Freeland was not dissuaded in her calm dismissal. O’Toole tried to delve into news reporting about Freeland disagreeing on closing borders earlier in the pandemic, and Freeland calmly walked through the history of the Canada-US border closure. O’Toole switched to French to decry the terrorist attack in France earlier this morning and accused the prime minister of not taking it seriously, to which Freeland corrected him and said that all Canadians are horrified by the attack and they show solidarity with France. O’Toole wondered what happened to the promised de-radicalisation centres, to which Freeland calmly stated that they never failed to step up and show leadership, and that Canada stands with France. Stéphane Bergeron led for the Bloc, even though Yves-François Blanchet was present, and he demanded an official apology for the October Crisis, to which Freeland reminded him of the period in question and of the family of the Quebec politician who was killed by extremists. Andréanne Larouche tried again, and Freeland gave a paean to democracy and the space for disagreements. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he decried the situation in long-term care facilities but wondered where the national standards were, and Freeland slowly explained that they need to work with provinces and territories as the second wave has hit. Singh switched to English to decry that the worst problems were in for-profit homes, and made an allusion to the falsehood that the federal government owns some of these facilities. Freeland agreed that they can’t turn a blind eye to the conditions in long-term care facilities, and that the country needs to do better.