Tag Archives: CBSA

Roundup: Trudeau slows to a summer pace

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau was back at Rideau Cottage yesterday morning, for what he promised would be the last “daily” briefing, though they haven’t been daily for a few weeks now. And there really wasn’t anything new to announce – yet another reminder that the Canadian Emergency Business Account and commercial rent subsidies were good things, that there were still hotspots of pandemic around the country, but that we are making progress – but are not out of the woods yet – and oh, yeah, the New NAFTA comes into force on Wednesday. During the Q&A, Trudeau stated that American chest-thumping over tariffs only hurts them because they need Canadian aluminium as they can’t produce enough of their own. When asked about the Human Rights Watch report on Canadian foreign fighters being held prisoner in Syria, Trudeau insisted that they are preoccupied with the safety of diplomatic personnel in the region, and we don’t have any in Syria, which makes the complicated situation even more complex because most of these prisoners are facing charges. (Not everyone buys this argument). And when asked yet again about We Charities being given that contract, Trudeau again insisted that the advice of the public service was that only they could deliver on the scale that was required, and that some 25,000 students hand applied over the past few days, to prove the point.

A short while later, Dr. Theresa Tam gave her last regular update as well, as those pressers also take on a less daily pace, as well as unveiled new federal modelling numbers, which show that the pandemic is largely under control, but with the warning that people need to keep up good habits around distancing and hygiene, lest flare-ups start happening.

Meanwhile, in Alberta, Jason Kenney and his finance minister unveiled their economic recovery plan, and it was complete with mistruths, and tired magical thinking that tax cuts will automatically create jobs (when these rapid cuts will only benefit existing players rather than attract future ones), or that hectoring tech firms for not upping sticks to relocate to the “cheap rents” of Calgary and lower taxes as being “irresponsible.” So yeah, good luck with that. Meanwhile, here’s Andrew Leach with a bit of a fact check.

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Roundup: Defunding the Police

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A lot of the discussion over the weekend has been taken up by the “defund/abolish” police narratives that have been part of the Black Lives Matter protests, both in the US and Canada, and while it’s not literally abolish or defunding police (thread here, also a good op-ed by Calumn Marsh here) – which doesn’t actually help their cause when it simply invites kneejerk reactions – I just wanted to offer a word of caution that a lot of these goals with this movement are things that cannot happen overnight. Building the kind of capacity for other social service agencies to take over the work that we have foisted upon police because we didn’t want to pay for them elsewhere will mean that it will take years before any kind of shift can possibly happen, it also makes other assumptions about the state of the current mental healthcare system (thread here), for example, that may not reflect reality. Another bit of context here is that American police are often poorly educated and trained, which is less often the case in Canada, so calls for reductions in salaries as part of this radically reformed force make me wonder if we may be doing more of a disservice to the ultimate goals, where you would want people more likely to have some critical thinking skills and able to better execute judgment. So while it’s a noble idea, we should be cautious about putting carts before horses.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1269643795286687744

Meanwhile, here’s a look at how the RCMP has not been responding to reports or investigations made by its Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, and how at least one has been waiting for responses since 2013. And yes, this is the same complaints commission that the government wants to add CBSA to its mandate (which I will remind you will only mean that CBSA will continue to investigate itself and simply report to this body).

With this in mind, here is Philippe Lagassé with some thoughts on what “civilian control” of the police could or possibly should look like.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269268004325507073

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269289824869126147

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269292825000148993

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Roundup: Cautious progress in most places

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For his daily presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau led off by teasing that new federal modelling numbers were on the way, before mentioning the global vaccination pledging conference, and then turned to domestic measures to help seniors, announcing that their additional OAS and GIS payment would go out on July 6th. During the Q&A, there were questions on Huawei (as the US is making more clear threats to limit intelligence sharing with Canada if they aren’t banned), the fact that he hasn’t been more equivocal in denouncing Trump, and recent instances of police violence and misconduct in Canada such as one in Nunavut.

As promised, the new federal modelling numbers were released shortly thereafter, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the two biggest problem areas in the country remain Toronto and Montreal. There remain warnings that we could see another outbreak if testing and tracing regimes aren’t increased. This having been said, I think it was the data released by BC yesterday that was even more interesting.

One is the data around contact tracing (which that province can seem to manage, but Ontario can’t in its epic managerial incompetence), and it shows that once lockdown measures were in place, the number of contacts that infected people made dropped from 10.7 per case to 3.6, which is a pretty effective demonstration of why physical or social distancing matters.

The other is this analysis of the genomic epidemiology of the virus – as in, where it’s travelled from, because there are small mutations based on where it’s come from, and lo and behold, the vast majority of them were from European/Eastern Canadian strains and very few from China. But hey, the Conservatives and others keep insisting that if only we’d closed the border to China sooner, this all could have been avoided. This data proves that simply wasn’t the case (despite what people like Dr. Theresa Tam have been saying already) – not that it will stop their revisionist history. Nevertheless, it’s interesting stuff.

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Roundup: One-time benefits for seniors

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The day began much as Monday did, with a ministerial presser in Toronto, where Bill Morneau and Deb Schulte announced a one-time additional benefit for seniors who earn low-income supports. People may ask why this was necessary given that they haven’t lost incomes (like others have), and the theoretical justification is that they may be facing some increased costs around things like deliveries, taxis, or prescription fees. There is also a particular political justification in that this is a bit of a sop to the Bloc, who have been howling about this for weeks, and we all know that it’s because seniors vote.

Shortly thereafter, Justin Trudeau held his daily presser at a slightly earlier time because of the impending sitting of the Commons “virtual” special committee, and he reiterated much of what had been announced earlier, but somewhat more unusually, stated that this pandemic has revealed uncomfortable truths about how we treat seniors in this country, and that there are serious underlying challenges that they will help the provinces with in finding lasting solutions. This particular construction is pretty key, because this is explicitly a provincial issue, and the federal government can’t just write in long-term care to the Canada Health Act as certain people have been demanding. The Act doesn’t work like that, as they should very well know. During the Q&A, Trudeau stated that the government planned to be very careful when it comes to easing border restrictions, and that he wasn’t going to ask for Carolyn Bennett’s resignation over the dispute over the Wet’suwet’en MOU.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1259819355866632192

During the special committee meeting that followed, the Conservatives were hung up on the reporting that civil servants were instructed to ignore any potential cheating on CERB applications and process them anyway, with the goal to investigate and pursue repayment after this is all over. We’ll see if this concern over the government “ignoring fraud” carries over the next few days, or if this is an instance of the opposition chasing headlines.

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Roundup: Big border closure, big aid package

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As the impact of the pandemic starts to be really felt in Canada, there is a new kind of rhythm starting to take shape in Ottawa, which is essentially that we get our daily press conference with Justin Trudeau, followed by ministerial press conferences, one after the other, and along the way, the daily briefings and pressers from the different provinces creep up in there as well. Today’s Trudeau press conference outlined the agreement to close the Canada-US border to non-essential traffic, and to outline the broad strokes of the $82 billion in economic measures (when you include tax deferrals) designed to help the country cope with the pandemic. He also said that measures specific to the airline industry and oil and gas sector were coming later in the week, including significant measures to remediate orphan wells in Alberta, which means that the federal government has now assumed a chunk of the province’s environmental liabilities, and both the companies that left them and the province that didn’t properly regulate their remediation are going to be let off the hook, so slow clap for that one.

Other measures included in the package were a suspension of federal student loan repayments (made interest-free), and distinctions-based funds for Indigenous communities, along with additional funds for shelters and the homeless. Not everyone is happy with those measures – the small-business lobby says that the measures aren’t enough to stop layoffs because the wage subsidy is only ten percent, which they say isn’t big enough. And in case this weren’t all bad enough, the price that Canadian oil is going for fell to its lowest level ever. So that’s fun.

We also learned that negotiations are ongoing between the parties – and Chambers – to temporarily recall Parliament in order to pass spending measures that were announced yesterday, and that could happen as early as next week, because there is a forty-eight-hour window after the Speaker agrees to the request. Part of the issue is the negotiation around how many MPs to recall – quorum for the Commons is twenty, and fifteen for the Senate – because they want to ensure proportionality. Pablo Rodriguez stated that he also wants to ensure that it’s MPs who don’t have to travel by plane to get here, but Jagmeet Singh was on TV yesterday saying he’s ready to come back, which kind of defeats the purpose, especially if we’re trying to encourage Canadians not to travel.

[Maclean’s has updated their Q&A on symptoms and contacts on where to get help.]

Meanwhile, Heather Scoffield gets a personal perspective on the aid package announced today, while Kevin Carmichael weighs in on the debate around the package – whether it is preferable to favour speed and not precision – by finding that the details are a bit too finnicky, but also notes the “elasticity” of the aid, which can expand or contract as need be as it progresses. In this thread, the Parliamentary Budget Officer finds it not targeted enough (though I’m not sure that it’s his job to weigh in on policy decisions like this). Economist Lindsay Tedds also has some suggestions on how provincial governments can step up given that the federal aid package only goes so far.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1240331137517367298

Good reads:

  • Here’s a look behind-the-scenes of the discussions around closing the Canada-US border.
  • Two new test kits for COVID-19 have been approved for use in Canada, to hopefully speed up testing in provincial labs.
  • The IRB has suspended in-person refugee hearings for the time being, and CBSA has halted deportation orders.
  • Here’s a look into emergency federal procurement rules that can be activated to rapidly source things like medical equipment.
  • The Hill Times got a look into the deals made between parties and caucuses in both chambers to pass those four bills and to suspend Parliament.
  • CBC is suspending their local evening news broadcasts for a central CBC News Network broadcast (in place of Power & Politics), which may breach CRTC rules.
  • It looks like MPs have agreed on a subcommittee of MPs to help guide the Centre Block renovations, including a list of “do not touch” heritage spaces.
  • Jason Kenney introduced an aid package for Alberta given that the province is being hit not only with COVID-19, but also plummeting oil prices.
  • Colby Cosh offers a meditation on the nature of liberal democracy in times of crisis like the one we’re facing.
  • Susan Delacourt notes that the current pandemic means that the government has stopped talking about citizens as “taxpayers” and framing politics as transactions.

Odds and ends:

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Roundup: Airports and capacity issues

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As the country heads further toward some kind of state of lockdown – school closure announcements went out in Alberta (but not Saskatchewan) – there is a great deal of garment-rending over what is happening at airports in particular, especially since it appears that there were only a handful of CBSA officers staffing the Toronto airport on Saturday night for hundreds of arrivals. There isn’t a lot of visible screening at airports because that’s proven to be largely ineffective (and most places are screening people before they get on planes), and the bigger message is communication around self-isolation, and some of that may depend on where travellers are coming from – it’s being stated that people arriving from countries with few infections aren’t being given as strenuous of warnings. There are complaints that this wasn’t being effectively communicated by CBSA officials over the weekend, or that some of their pamphlets contained dated information, which is possible, especially given that more measures were announced late Friday afternoon, and weekend capacity for many of these agencies is reduced. (Also it’s been recorded that one CBSA officer from the Toronto airport has been diagnosed with COVID-19, and I’m sure this will be the first of many). A lot of this should be about local public health officials’ communications efforts, rather than expecting CBSA to simply do it all, but I’m not sure that everyone who is freaking out online about this is necessarily understanding areas of jurisdiction and responsibility.

Justin Trudeau is set to announce further measures this afternoon following a Cabinet meeting on Sunday evening, which unfortunately saw a group of Cabinet ministers leaving the meeting being fairly inept at communicating that decisions were taken and that they need time to prepare their implementation (as self-righteous journalists and pundits melted down over Twitter). Apparently nobody understands that these is such a thing as capacity issues and that not everything can happen immediately, even in an extraordinary crisis situation as we appear to find ourselves in.

Meanwhile, here’s another Q&A with infectious disease specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch on what people should and should not be doing for social distancing. As well, here’s a look through some of the pandemic preparedness guides to show what things could look like if we reach a crisis point. Two infectious disease specialists wonder about the efficacy of draconian measures, particularly if they will spark “containment fatigue.”

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Roundup: Urging calm, patience, and police action

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Yesterday was a long and very busy day, as everyone scrambled to get their say on the ongoing protest and blockade situation across the country, with a mounting economic cost to them. First thing in the morning, the AFN National Chief, Perry Bellegarde, and several First Nations leaders held a press conference to ask the Mohawk protesters to dismantle the barricades – not as surrender, but as compassion for those who would soon be affected by shortages – but one of those Mohawk leaders also noted that his band office has been locked out and protesters among his own people say they want him out. A short while later, Justin Trudeau gave a speech in the House of Commons to counsel patience and to reiterate that dialogue remained the best way to resolve the situation – something Andrew Scheer denounced as weak, and he continued to insist that the police end the protests, insisting that this was but a group of “professional protesters” and “radicals” and that the “real” position of the Wet’suwet’en people was for jobs and resource development (even though he later said he hadn’t actually spoken to any of them) – something that both Peter MacKay and Erin O’Toole also echoed, because police action has never gone badly before. Oh, wait. (Marilyn Gladu, for the record, wants the military to step in). Shortly after Trudeau’s speech, he had a meeting with Yves-François Blanchet, Jagmeet Singh, and Elizabeth May, and made a pointed remark that Scheer had not been invited because his remarks were “disqualifying” – which led to Scheer’s agitated breathy and high-pitched performance during QP. Oh, and while all of this was going on, some activists in Victoria tried to perform a “citizen’s arrest” on BC premier John Horgan (and they got arrested instead).

By the time the five o’clock politics shows rolled around, Carolyn Bennett had concluded a meeting with some of the hereditary chiefs – who stated on one of the shows that they wouldn’t actually negotiate until the RCMP were off of their territory – and Marc Miller refused to discuss whether that was on or off the table when asked, leading the pundits to make hay of that. (“He didn’t say no!” is the worst impulse in journalism, guys). Oh, and hilariously, Jody Wilson-Raybould offered her services as a mediator, as though anyone in the government would be willing to trust her. As the day wound down, Saskatchewan premier Scott Moe said he was holding a meeting of premiers today because Trudeau “refused to act” – though I’m not sure what exactly he proposes, unless it’s to try to direct provincial police forces to start cracking skulls, both violating the rule of law and making the situation worse. And that’s where we are.

Meanwhile, here is a good primer written by a lawyer and a law professor about what “rule of law” means and why it’s important – as Scheer and company keep misusing the term. Heather Scoffield sees the business impacts of the blockades and deduces that it will be impossible to resolve them both quickly and peacefully – it would have to be one or the other. Andrew Coyne counsels patience in threating the needle that the protests can both be illegal while still noting that using force will only create martyrs. Matt Gurney worries that if the blockades go on much longer, they could fuel populist anger and damage the cause of reconciliation. Paul Wells attempts to make sense of the day that was, and the Liberals’ high-wire act in the middle of it all.

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QP: Putting the heat on Blair

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While Justin Trudeau fled the capital to go sell auto workers the merits of the New NAFTA over in Brampton, Andrew Scheer was elsewhere. Candice Bergen led off with the story of the murder of a sex worker of a person on parole, and demanded a denunciation of the Board’s actions. Bill Blair reminded her that an investigation has been launched into the matter. Bergen asked about MasterCard getting $50 million from the government, to which Mélanie Joly said that the government was investing into a cyber-security centre. Bergen said that MasterCard can afford to pay for their own cyber-security, and bashed the investment again, and Joly responded about the importance of job creation. Luc Berthold was up next to ask about the Auditor General’s budget, to which Jean-Yves Duclos effused about the Middle Class before citing that they would work with the Auditor General. Berthold asked again in French, and Duclos responded with the record on growth and job creation. Yves-François Blanchet was up next to worry about Teck Frontier Mine destroying the Paris Agreement, and Jonathan Wilkinson responded that they were still making their determination on the environmental assessment. Blanchet also worried that said mine would require new pipelines and wondered if they were afraid of saying no to Jason Kenney, to which Wilkinson repeated that they were still considering it. Jagmeet Singh was up for the NDP, to once again demand limiting the tax break in order to fund dental care, and Bill Morneau reminded Singh that their tax cuts have benefited 20 million Canadians. Singh asked again in French, and got much the same response. 

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QP: What about infrastructure?

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Tuesday, and all of the leaders were back once again. Andrew Scheer was up first, and he claimed there were “sky high” deficits and taxes and no infrastructure spending to show for it — assertions that were all false. The deficits are actually tiny in comparison to the size of the federal budget, and the tax burden on Canadians is hovering near its lowest point in the post-war period, not to mention the fact that many of the promised infrastructure projects were held up by provinces trying to play politics in advance of the election, and that the hoped-for productivity gains were blunted when provinces didn’t keep up their planned infrastructure spending, and instead rolled it back as the federal government spent more. Justin Trudeau stood up and used a script to list projects that they were approving. Scheer then raised their Supply Day motion about calling in the Auditor General about the infrastructure programme. Trudeau reminded him that the Conservative record was spending on billboards, door knobs and gazebos, while their government was getting things done. Scheer asked again in French, got much the same answer, and Scheer raised the coronavirus and wanted support for Taiwan to get observer status at the WHO. Trudeau avoided the direct question and gave assurances about the coronavirus and collaboration with China. Scheer tried again, and Trudeau reminded them that they shouldn’t play politics with public health crises. Yves-François Blanchet was up for the Bloc, and he once again raised the possibility of aluminium impacting the Quebec market under the New NAFTA, to which Trudeau reminded him there were guarantees in the new agreement that do not exist currently. Blanchet tried again, and Trudeau quoted the aluminium producer association as saying it was a good deal. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and he railed about the Volkswagen settlement agreement, calling it a “sweetheart deal.” Trudeau, without script, stated that they are paying a penalty and it was great for the fight against climate change. Singh then railed about a supposed tripling of outsourcing of public service functions, and Trudeau spoke to the balance around procurement. 

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Roundup: “True Blue” O’Toole

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Erin O’Toole made his official entry into the leadership race yesterday by way of a video that takes swipes at “cancel culture” and celebrity activists – the kinds of keyboard warrior buzzwords that are pretty much the domains of O’Toole’s new campaign staffer, Jeff Ballingall, of those “Canada Proud” etc. sites.

At a rally in Calgary later in the evening, O’Toole said that Peter MacKay would turn the party into Liberal-lite, which I have yet to see any actual evidence of (MacKay is not really a Red Tory, guys – he’s not. Stop pretending he is). It also struck me that he kept reiterating the kinds of comforting lies that the party likes to tell itself about issues like the plight of the energy sector, where the woes are blamed on the Trudeau government and not changing market forces (seriously, the shale revolution in the US is a pretty big driver of these changes). He did say that he would march in a Pride parade, and justified it with his military background, which is a bit funny given that he hasn’t marched in one to date, which makes his sudden conviction around it mighty suspect. His opposition to carbon pricing continues to dig the party into its current environmental rut, and his talk of deficits remains completely economically illiterate – all doubling down on the party’s current positions, because that’s apparently what will make him a “true blue” Conservative. I’m not sure how this grows the party’s base, but what do I know?

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