Tag Archives: CBSA

Roundup: Deficit is coming in lower than expected

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It is on or about day ninety-four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russian forces are claiming that they have captured a rail hub in Donestk, while they continue to pound Severodonetsk, with some 90 percent of the city’s buildings damaged. Ukrainians are calling for Western allies to deliver weapons faster, though there is talk that it looks like this aggressive push by Russia has depleted their arsenal.

The invasion is also not accidental in terms of location or timing—the eastern part of the country are a trove of natural gas and critical minerals, and when Russia invaded, it cut off Ukraine’s exploration of natural gas reserves in the Black Sea, which could have been used to help wean Europe off of Russian oil and gas. Because aren’t all wars really about resources?

Closer to home, the Fiscal Monitor was released, and the deficit figure is coming in much lower than anticipated, because in large part the economy is overheated which is generating a lot of revenue (and inflation does help in terms of collecting higher taxes on higher prices). But as Kevin Milligan points out, this means that the obsession by the Conservatives with the deficit is becoming really misplaced—the massive spending in 2020 to get us through the pandemic is behind us, and we’re not in that situation anymore. Not that facts matter—this is really an exercise in people’s feelings about the deficit, and the perceptions that are not grounded in facts.

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Roundup: Theorizing about Kenney’s slow-motion demise

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It is now on or about day eighty-six of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia claims that some 1700 Ukrainian troops have surrendered from the steel plant in Mariupol, which Kyiv won’t confirm. Kyiv is also hoping to negotiate prisoner exchanges, but Russia sounds like they want to prosecute this troops as part of their “de-nazification,” which is complicated by the fact that this particular battalion does contain some of the far-right troops fighters that have blackened the reputation of Ukrainian forces. It also remains to be seen if Russia will respect their obligations around prisoners of war, and given how much they have broken international law so far in this invasion, that is a very fraught question indeed. Speaking of trials, the Russian soldier who pleaded guilty to killing a civilian is asking the widow for forgiveness. (She said she wants a life sentence, unless he’s part of a prisoner swap for the Ukrainians captured from Mariupol).

Closer to home, it has been decided that Jason Kenney will stay on as premier and party leader on a caretaker-ish basis, until the party choses a new leader (which, apparently, he has not ruled out running in again, either out of arrogance or self-delusion). Either way, he’s not going away anytime soon, and despite his insistence that this is about “uniting” the party, I am left with the recollection of what a bitter Thomas Mulcair did to the NDP once he was pushed out, but stayed on as a caretaker leader while their leadership process took an interminable length of time.

This has nevertheless had some conservatives, federally and provincially, doing a bit of soul-searching as to what it means that Kenney got things wrong. While my own thoughts about this will be in my weekend column, Ontario conservatives are insisting that it’s because Kenney embraced his right flank while Doug Ford kicked his out and is still surviving. (Ford also didn’t need his to the same extent Kenney does). Some federal Conservatives are warning against panicking, while others are warning against polarised politics, and still others see a movement afoot in the party that caters to siege mentality, fuelled by American right-wing media, that causes them to see everything in oppositional terms.

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QP: Gathering outrage clips about gas prices

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The prime minister was away in meetings, but his deputy was present, so that was something, though no other leader was present either. Luc Berthold led off in French, and he proclaimed that masks came off in Quebec, but pivoted this toward a question on gas prices and inflation, demanding a break be given to people. Chrystia Freeland recited that they sympathised with the families, which was why they had measures in the budget like dental care. Berthold railed that the Liberals liked high prices, and invited Freeland to join him at a gas station. Freeland reminded him that Canadians are smart and know this is a global issue, caused by Putin’s war in Ukraine. Berthold then raised Friday’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling and the invitation to bring forward new legislation around extreme intoxication. David Lametti got up to read that they are closely studying the ruling, and specified that Friday’s ruling does not apply to most cases where intoxication is a factor. Karen Vecchio took over in English and read a hugely torqued reading of the decision and demanded action, and Lametti read the English version of the same response. Vecchio carried on building a moral panic around the ruling, and Lametti reiterated that the ruling came out on Friday, so they wanted to examine their options.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he complained that a number of Liberal MPs attended a protest in Quebec against the province’s proposed (draconian) language laws, to which Pablo Rodriguez said that Liberal MPs were not handcuffed, and the government had their own official languages legislation. Therrien was outraged by this, and Rodriguez continued to needle him that Liberal MPs were no less Quebeckers than Bloc MPs. 

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, he railed that gas prices were increasing while the government subsidised the fossil fuel sector, hitting Canadians twice. Freeland replied that they were phasing out those subsidies, and carbon capture was part of the way forward. Rachel Blaney appeared by video to repeat the question in English, and Freeland reiterated her points, with some added emphasis on the efficacy of carbon prices.

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QP: Insisting there is a cover-up on the Emergencies Act

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While the PM and his deputy were in Poland for meetings following their visit to Kyiv yesterday, Candice Bergen was back on the job after her bout of COVID, though as a colleague who has been tracking her absence noted, it had not been five days since her office said that she tested positive and that she was isolating. For what it’s worth. Bergen led off, script on her mini-lectern, and she asked about flood measures are being undertaken in Manitoba, to which Bill Blair read that they are engaged with the province and affected communities, and that they have offered every assistance they could provide, though the province has stated that they are currently within provincial capabilities. Bergen then pivoted to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, going to bat for the occupiers and calling them innocent, and insisted there was a cover-up underway. Marco Mendicino insisted that they have been transparent and that they will cooperate with the inquiry. Bergen ramped up the insistence that there was a cover-up, and Mendicino pointed out that Bergen was trying to shift culpability away from herself and her caucus who we encouraging the occupiers. Luc Berthold took over in French, and he railed about high gas prices, and demanded that people be given “a break,” but did not specify what kind of break. Randy Boissonnault appeared by video and accused the Conservatives of playing petty politics. Berthold was incensed, and assured the government of simply hoarding taxes, and Boissonnault wanted a discussion on facts, pointing out the global situation, while the Conservatives keep voting against their affordability measures.

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Christine Normandin led for the Bloc, and she accused the government of violating the principle of taxation without representation, complaining about the budget implantation bill. Mark Holland pointed out that the Conservatives have been delaying legislation including Bill C-8. Normandin was not mollified and insisted the government was abusing the process, and Holland repeated that they have been trying to have reasonable debate but the Conservatives are obstructing. 

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and in French, he decried the rising cost of housing because of the “financialisation of housing,” to which Ahmed Hussen stood up to recite his well-worn talking points about the programmes the government is deploying for renters. Jenny Kwan took over in English, and made the same points, to which Hussen stated that he agreed with her, and repeated the supports for new rental housing.

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QP: Quoting Joël Lightbound

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It was an unusual morning, where one of the Liberal backbenchers, Joël Lightbound, decided to torpedo his status as rising star and held a press conference to slam the government’s handling of vaccine mandates, and mouthing a bunch of the same talking points about “divisiveness” that Candice Bergen has been spouting of late. Naturally, every one of the opposition parties was bound to pick up on this and hit the government with it as hard as they possibly could. In the Chamber, most of the leaders were present in person, Jagmeet Singh excepted. Candice Bergen led off, script in front of her, and she raised Lightbound’s concerns and selectively quoted Dr. Theresa Tam, and demanded and end to public health measures (never mind that most of them are provincial). Justin Trudeau acknowledged that people are tired of lockdowns, but Canadians were united in doing what needed to be done to beat the pandemic by following the science. Bergen listed countries with fewer restrictions and demanded an end to them in Canada, and Trudeau repeated that they follow science and that there was a less severe impact than in most of those other countries because we did the right thing. Bergen pandemic one final plea for freedom, and Trudeau doubled down on following science and note their work with premiers to bring in the measures that saved lives, before needling the Conservatives about their support for the occupiers outside. Luc Berthold took over in French to again quote Lightbound to decry “divisiveness,” and Trudeau repeated his points about following science and not politicising it. Berthold screamed that Trudeau was not answering the question, and Trudeau made a pitch for vaccination to end the pandemic.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, praised the injunction that silenced the occupation, and praised Quebec City’s handling of their protesters, but seemed to ignore that the Ontario government should have a role here. Trudeau said that he would speak with the mayor later in the day, and that they need to show solidarity in getting through the challenge. Blanchet then raised Lightbound before demanding more health transfers for the provinces, and Trudeau reminded him that summits with premiers are not held with the Bloc, before listing investments over the past two years.

Jagmeet Singh appeared by video to raise the blockades at two other border crossings, and Trudeau insisted that they were in touch and supplying resources, before calling out the Conservatives for their inconsistent messages on the occupation. Singh repeated the question in French, and Trudeau repeated his response. 

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Roundup: Another grifter convoy on the way

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Sucking up much of the oxygen in the news cycle is this so-called “Freedom Convoy” on its way to Ottawa, which looks to be just a lame repeat of the Yellow Vesters convoy from 2019, which turned out to be a big damp squib once it arrived. It’s been organised by the usual network of right-wing organisers using a bunch of trumped-up bullshit (truckers are vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population), and is quickly becoming a catch-all for a bunch of other anti-vax/anti-mask nonsense, and some of their demands, like around vaccine mandates in restaurants, are squarely within provincial jurisdiction, so “blockading” Parliament Hill won’t do anything about it. And an organizer for the Maverick Party in Alberta set up a GoFundMe, which has amassed some $3.7 million in donations, but those funds are being held until the service can determine how the funds will be disbursed—not that it’s stopping said organiser, which is a pretty good signal that this is just more grift.

Of course, Conservative MPs are signing right up to this (and I have a column on this out later today), tweeting nonsense things like that the prime minister is pushing a “vaccine vendetta,” which makes no sense unless you’ve been infected with these kinds of hyper-partisan brain worms. And Erin O’Toole won’t give a straight answer as to whether he supports this convoy (as many of his MPs are tweeting), so one suspects he’s waiting to see which way the wind is blowing before he makes any kind of definitive statement, but it’s all looking very familiar with what his predecessor did in 2019 (who is also tweeting support for this convoy).

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Roundup: Ignoring the broader privacy concerns

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The House of Commons Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics committee met yesterday to discuss the Public Health Agency of Canada’s use of anonymised mobile phone data to assess the efficacy of public health orders. As expected, this was little more than a partisan dog and pony show wrapped up in a bow of concern trolling that ignored the actual privacy issues involved in favour of trying to score points. Which is pretty much how we knew this was going to go down.

There could be actual privacy issues that they could discuss, and summon witnesses from telecom companies that sell this data, or the health companies that use it and track it, but no, they’re going to bring in the minister and Chief Public Health Officer to grill them about the programme, because accountability. And yes, the minister would be accountable politically, but that solves none of the actual issues that might be at fault here, but hey, this is about putting on a show rather than doing something useful, so good job with that, guys.

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Roundup: Unable to read the signs about Freeland

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Just a quick note because a lot of talking heads have been mentioning it over the past few days, which was about that Globe and Mail article from a couple of days ago (which I’m not going to link to) that proclaimed Chrystia Freeland’s leadership ambitions because…she is the subject of an unauthorized biography, and she wrote that letter to the board of Air Canada. No, seriously—that was the sum total of the Globe’s evidence.

And yet, on Power and Politics, The Line and other places, everyone is treating this biography as though it were a) an autobiography, which is what many party leaders will release ahead of an election, not ahead of a leadership vote; or b) a book that she commissioned herself, when in fact someone else is writing it, and Freeland has apparently not even agreed to be interviewed for it, or cooperate with it in any way. Nevertheless, the conflation by all of these outlets continues to paint a picture that is not actually there.

As for the letter to the board of Air Canada, the federal government is one of the largest shareholders with six percent of the company’s stock, which Freeland mentioned in the letter. Add to that, Air Canada is a repeat offender when it comes to violating their obligations under the Official Languages Act, so as finance minister, Freeland has particular obligations to remind the Board of this when their CEO did something as impolitic (and frankly stupid) as the comments he made. This wasn’t something that she did on a whim because she wants to build up her Quebec cred for the (eventual) leadership bid.

I get the desire to stir the pot and create some drama, but come on. Yes, Freeland no doubt has ambitions, and she is likely going to be the next prime minister. But if you’re a serious news outlet, at least get your basic facts and context right before you start making these kinds of proclamations. You don’t look very credible with this kind of nonsense.

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Roundup: Singh has a list of demands

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In the wake of his party’s post-election first caucus meeting, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh held a press conference yesterday to do a bit of chest-thumping and pretend that he holds some kind of balance of power in the forthcoming parliament, or that he can play kingmaker. If anything, he undermined his own position with his list of demands, because he doesn’t have any real leverage. His party is substantially weakened after the election, particularly given that they spent all kinds of money and gained a single seat out of it, and they are likely in debt once again and in no shape to go to another campaign anytime soon – especially if they want to figure out what they did wrong and have time to course-correct.

As for his list of demands, we are back to a lot of the usual nonsense where Singh doesn’t seem to grasp implementation – or jurisdiction. To wit:

  • Paid sick leave – that is being expanded to ten days for federally-regulated workers, but that’s only six percent of the workforce. The rest is provincial.
  • Halting clawbacks from GIS for seniors who accessed CERB – the GIS is means-tested and meant for the poorest of seniors, so it’s not surprising that CERB or other benefits could impact the means test.
  • Clean drinking water in Indigenous communities – this is in progress. Willpower won’t make it go faster.
  • A federal vaccine document for internal travel – this cannot happen unless provinces sign on, and until a couple of weeks ago, there were provinces still hostile to the very notion. The federal government cannot unilaterally create such a document because the provinces control vaccination data.
  • Dropping the appeal of the Human Rights Tribunal decision in the First Nations Child and Family Services case – this may yet happen given how completely the Federal Court decision against them last week was, but there were legitimate issues being litigated regardless that compensation is already being negotiated, irrespective of a further appeal.
  • Demanding higher health transfers – the federal government fully plans to negotiate those, but it won’t be without strings, especially as certain provinces sat on the pandemic-related transfers and put them towards their bottom lines rather than spending them on the pandemic.

As for Singh’s threat to “withhold votes” if he doesn’t get his way, it’s a bit curious what he means. Does he mean he would vote against bills including the budget implementation bill for the fall economic update, which would have plenty of additional pandemic supports or items he supports? Or does he mean he’d simply not vote, which would mean the Liberals wouldn’t need to get Bloc support to pass their measures (which they would likely get as the Bloc also are in no position to go to another election). Because if it’s the latter, then he’s basically made himself irrelevant for the foreseeable future.

Programming note: I am taking the full long weekend off from blogging. See you next week!

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Roundup: The July job numbers

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The Labour Force Survey results for July were released yesterday, and while there was positive job growth, it wasn’t quite as robust as had been expected. The recovery remains uneven, but some of the narratives and commentary aren’t really helping when it comes to adjusting to the reality of this stage of the pandemic (which isn’t even post- yet).

A lot of the narratives are still being driven by the likes of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which continues to rail about CERB and its successor suite of benefits that they claim are providing a “perverse incentive” for people to stay home, but that doesn’t seem to fit the reality, which is that the market is shifting. A lot of people who were in these service-industry jobs either moved on during the pandemic because it (and the government benefits) afforded them the opportunity to do so – which is why you have people complaining that their favoured servers at their local watering holes didn’t come back, and you have nineteen-year-olds who just got their Smart Serve certification replacing them. But another narrative is also bubbling up, where we also have a cohort who aren’t willing to go back to what existed beforehand, with the low wages and mistreatment, and a lot of those business owners haven’t made the cognitive leap yet that they can’t keep operating the way they did before. Of course, this is one reason why the CFIB is so up in arms about these benefits – they have a vested interest in things returning to the old normal where labour can be exploitative without consequence, but the current reality is changing that. This could be change happening that will be better for us all overall, if it’s able to take hold – and chances are, this government more than others are more willing to let it happen.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are insistent that the federal government is “killing job creation,” which is a novel argument considering that they’re not the level of government responsible for the maintenance of public health measures (which has been one of the biggest determinants of economic activity over the course of the pandemic). They’re also keeping up the fiction that a pre-third wave job recovery projection was a “promise” about job creation, again, which was derailed by more public health measures because provinces screwed up their own recoveries by re-opening too soon. All of which is to say that we don’t seem to be capable of having a reasonable conversation about what is happening in the labour market, to the detriment of all of us.

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