Tag Archives: Border

QP: Virtual PMQs in an empty chamber

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It was not only a very late start to QP, but there was once again only a single Liberal in the Chamber, and it wasn’t the prime minister, despite it being the designated day he answers all questions. Erin O’Toole led off, and he thundered about the CanSino deal falling apart a week after it was struck. Justin Trudeau, appearing by video, reminded him that they cast a wide net with several possible candidates in case one didn’t pan out, like CanSino. O’Toole wondered about Providence Therapeutics’ made-in-Canada candidate, to which Trudeau assured him they follow the advice of the immunity task force, and that they have given Providence new funds to complete trials. O’Toole then railed about the fact that we are not producing any in Canada, and again, Trudeau reminded him that their “strong and aggressive plan” got us vaccines as soon as possible. O’Toole switched to French to worry about the vaccine protectionist noises coming out of the European Union, to which Trudeau assured him he just spoke to the president of the European Commission, who said that these transparency measures would not affect Canada. O’Toole then accused the government of not telling the truth about vaccine deliveries, and Trudeau took exception to that, insisting that he has been transparent with all of their dates. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and demanded that health transfers would be increased in the budget, to which Trudeau reminded him that they have sent billions to the provinces already (and several provinces continue to sit on those funds). Blanchet repeated the demand, and Trudeau asked him in return why Blanchet was resisting pan-Canadian standards on long-term care. Jagmeet Singh took over for the NDP, and in French, he blamed the lack of vaccines on deaths, before demanding laid sick leave (which is 94 percent provincial jurisdiction), and Trudeau reminded him of the sickness benefit they put into place, but he hoped the provinces would agree to implement them, especially as the federal government has spent eight or nine out of every ten dollars in this pandemic. Singh tried again in English and got much the same response.

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Roundup: Ghoulish misdirection

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I continue to fume about yesterday’s ghoulish questions in Question Period, where the federal government is being blamed for the deaths in long-term care facilities because the vaccine rollout hasn’t been as expeditious as many had hoped, which is not only gross, but it’s about trying to provide cover for the (mostly conservative) premiers who have failed to do their jobs. Vaccines were never supposed to be the way we stop those deaths – actual public health measures like testing, tracing, and isolation were supposed to do the job, but the fact that premiers continued to under-fund these and didn’t invest in expanding capacity even when given billions of federal dollars to do so, were the actual solutions to preventing those deaths. But instead, these premiers and their ideological inability to grasp that in a pandemic, you need to pay people to stay home and cushion the economic shock, absolutely refused to do that and kept insisting that they re-open their economies with “a little bit of COVID” going around. Of course, that “little bit of COVID” turns into a whole lot of COVID because of exponential growth, and new variants mean even greater transmission. But the cover being given to these premiers is obscene.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1354227667713855490

And lo, we have a report that shows that provinces continue to sit on federal pandemic funds, with Ontario clocking in at $6.4 billion unspent, as they struggle to re-open schools (recall that they cut corners from the expert recommendations and then had outbreaks) and have unchecked spread of the virus in yet more long-term care facilities, which now appears to be the so-called UK variant. So what is Doug Ford doing about it? Howling that he wants the federal government to institute even more border measures including testing people when they arrive (they are already tested before they get on the planes), and trying to pretend that Pfizer is simply lying to us about not shipping us more vaccines. And guess what? Reporters are focusing on the vaccines and hounding Justin Trudeau about it rather than demanding accountability from Ford for all of the deaths in long-term care that are because of his inaction.

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QP: Blaming the wrong government for deaths

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It was another day of a nearly-empty chamber, and today there were a mere two Liberals on their benches, rather than just one, which is outrageous. Candice Bergen led off on video, accusing the government of being responsible for deaths in long-term care facilities because of the vaccine delays — with no mention of the culpability of provincial governments in their failures to manage the pandemic. Chrystia Freeland, also by video, insisted that Canada was one of the leading countries for vaccine rollouts. Bergen then blamed the cancellation of surgeries on the lack of vaccines — completely false — and Freeland repeated her assurances that Canada was among the best performers thus far and doing more. Bergen tried one last time to blame the federal government for the failures of the provinces, and Freeland again repeated her same assurances of Canada doing comparatively well on vaccines among allies. Richard Martel took over to lament that the government had not brought forward the bill to close the loopholes on sick benefits for debate but wanted them to pass it in one fell swoop, and Freeland assured him they were trying to correct an error. Martel was not mollified, insisting they needed to study the bill, but Freeland insisted that they wanted to close the loophole immediately and it was unfortunate that the opposition would not let them. Yves-François Blanchet took over on behalf of the Bloc, and wanted debate and amendments to the bill so that it could be retroactive, and Freeland assured him that the bill was not designed to encourage Canadians to ignore the guidelines to avoid travel. Blanchet was not impressed and thundered about closing the borders, but Freeland pivoted and invited Blanchet to apologise for his comments about Omar Alghabra. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he demanded immediate vaccines to protect seniors, for which Freeland calmly read her talking points about vaccine contracts and our record to date. Singh switched to English to demand for-profit long-term care be made public, starting with Revera, whose relationship be deliberately misconstrued. Freeland calmly stated that she shared his anguish and they were looking at best practices for long-term care.

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QP: All the empty benches

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It was eerie that the Liberal benches were completely empty save Paul Lefebvre, and the opposition benches also emptier than usual, though most who were present were wearing masks when not speaking. Erin O’Toole, in person and with his mini-lectern on his desk, read his first question on the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline by the Biden administration. Justin Trudeau, appearing by video, reminded him that when he was first selected as Liberal leader, he took a trip to Washington to impress upon the Democrats that the project was a good one, and he raised it in his first call with Biden after the election. O’Toole derided this as a “mail-it-in approach,” and Trudeau insisted that they got wins with the Americans. O’Toole then switched to the Pfizer vaccine delays and accused the prime minister of not standoff up for Canada, and Trudeau disputed this characterisation, reminding him that this is a temporary delay but it would not affect the overall target. O’Toole repeated the question in French, got the same answer, and then O’Toole insisted that Canada was always behind everyone else — which is verifiably false. Trudeau chided him for giving misinformation, and reiterated his previous response. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and worried about the lack of doses next week, and Trudeau repeated that this was a temporary interruption. Blanchet worried that Pfizer was trying to get tax advantages in Canada and now our deliveries were interrupted, and Trudeau warned that he was veering into conspiracy theory territory. Jagmeet Singh then led for the NDP, and in French, he raised the number of people who died of COVID, and demanded “action” on vaccines — because it can happen overnight? Trudeau reminded him they were working closely with provinces to ensure there was an effective rollout of those vaccines. Singh repeated the question in English, and got the same answer.

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Roundup: The rot in Alberta’s witch hunt

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The Alberta government’s $3.5 million special committee into Un-Albertan Activities “foreign-funded special interest groups” opposed to the energy sector has posted their list of commissioned studies, and they are a collection of climate deniers, and foreign-funded special interest groups – oil companies – who write boosterism for the sector. Oh, and there’s also a bunch of conspiracy theory nonsense in there as well. And yes, they paid thousands of dollars for those reports.

This is what the government spent $3.5 million on, at a time when they are complaining that they are so broke (because they relied too much on a high price of oil) that they are looking to slash and burn public services in the province. The fact that they are funnelling money to hucksters and charlatans, and that they accepted the work of a conspiracy theorist to launch the whole committee in the first place, is par for the course in the province, unfortunately. This whole exercise is a kind of distillation of the absolute rot in Alberta politics that its potency would be fatal if you ingested it. One wonders what the straw that breaks the camel’s back will wind up being (and it may yet be those MLAs’ pandemic vacations), but this particular farce is absolutely galling.

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Roundup: More pandemic theatre

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The horror show of COVID infections continues apace in Ontario, and premier Doug Ford has decided to get really serious and issue a “stay-at-home” order, which amounts to little more than the mockdown that is currently in place already. In spite of his promises of an “iron ring” around long-term care facility, there are now outbreaks at forty percent of facilities. Ford won’t do anything about the sick days that are necessary for people to stop spreading infections at workplaces, and he won’t do anything about evictions from commercial landlords. So he’s totally handling this with aplomb.

So really, what Ford is offering is more pandemic theatre – the close cousin of security theatre. And most of the restrictions and exemptions don’t actually make sense. They’re not going to do enough to curb transmission – especially as newer variants start making their way into the community – because he won’t do the hard work of closing the large workplaces where spread is happening, because that would be harming the economy – as though rising infections and deaths won’t do worse economic damage. Ford continues to shirk his responsibilities and let this pandemic get worse, and more deaths to pile up, as he tries to shift blame and try and to get people to blame one another than acknowledge his own culpability. The “Uncle Doug” schtick isn’t working, and he keeps hoping it will, and here we are, waiting for things to get worse before he institutes more half-measures. Welcome to Ontario – yours to discover.

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Roundup: Ignoring workplace spread

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For the last post of 2020, it seems fitting to take one more kick at Doug Ford, whose incompetence has been responsible for the worsening of the pandemic. While Ford continues to try and blame the federal government for international travel bringing in cases – something which the evidence does not support – his mockdown full of half-measures is doing nothing about workplace spread. Case in point is that Amazon facility where some 400 cases were identified, which is a big-P Problem, and yet nothing from the Ford government about this. That’s kind of a problem – but this is Doug Ford, and when he says he’s looking out for the “little guy,” he’s talking about the business owner, not the workers.

Meanwhile, he’s not taking criticism for his failure well, and well, it shows. His “uncle Doug” schtick is failing him, and he doesn’t know what else to do. This could end very badly for all of us.

Programming Note: I am taking the rest of the year off of blogging, as well as there won’t be a new YouTube episode next week. Loonie Politics columns should remain unaffected. Have a safe, socially-distant holiday and we’ll see you in the New Year.

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Roundup: New mockdowns after Goldilocks failed

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Things in Ontario have reached the point where Doug “I won’t hesitate” Ford has finally enacted a province-wide mockdown…but not before he hesitated even further by not putting it into force until Boxing Day. You know, so that everyone can still flood the malls and box stores, and feel like they’re justified in “cheating” for Christmas gatherings. And by mockdown, it’s not a real lockdown – it’s a few added restrictions but most workplaces are still up and running, in spite of mounting evidence of outbreaks in them, so good job there.

Ford, meanwhile, was more than happy to blame the federal government for not properly closing borders, and insisted that they do more testing at airports…which they are. Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu had to counter that the rapid testing pilot at Pearson is ongoing – but that also doesn’t change the fact that only 1.3 percent of new cases can be traced to travel, which blows a hole in Ford’s narrative. Of course, that narrative is all about blame-shifting so that he doesn’t have to look like the bad guy in the “lockdowns,” never mind that these should have happened in September at the latest to have nipped the second wave in the bud, but they didn’t do that, because they tried the “Goldilocks approach,” and it failed. How many hundreds of people have died unnecessarily since?

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QP: Giving over to yet another conspiracy theory

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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.

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Roundup: Admission that deadlines will be missed

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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.

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.

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