Tag Archives: CBSA

QP: Crowing about the release of a “secret report” that was not secret or a report

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With the prime minister was off at the G7 summit in Italy, and his deputy off in Montreal, most of the other leaders didn’t bother to show up either. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, claiming that the “economic vandalism” and “carbon tax cover-up” have been exposed thanks to his party’s valiant efforts, and that the government finally revealed the data set about the cost impacts of carbon pricing beyond the retail price, and lo, it takes $30 billion out of the economy (which isn’t actually true—the figures only track one particular measure and not the other costs or offsets on the economy), and how the government attacked the PBO to hide the information (again, completely not true). Steven Guilbeault said that they have already established that math is Poilievre’s strong suit, that he can’t count above six, and that the data prove that eight out of ten households get more back, and that 25 million tonnes of GHG reductions are because of the carbon price. Poilievre accused the government of trying to hide the data (not true), raised the cost to Quebeckers, took a swipe at the Bloc, and accused the government again of attacking the reputation of the PBO for telling the truth (which isn’t what happened). Guilbeault reminded him that the carbon levy doesn’t apply in Quebec, and that he can turn to his own MPs who voted for the province’s carbon pricing system when she was in the Charest Cabinet. Poilievre switched to English to repeat the claim that the previous “hidden report” (which is not a report) costs the economy $30 billions and considered it economic vandalism. Guilbeault insisted that this is misreading the data, that most households get more back, and that the carbon pricing is responsible for half of emissions reductions. Poilievre repeated his defence of the PBO, to which Guilbeault repeated his same response. Poilievre again mischaracterised the data, and demanded that Guilbeault resign, and this time Jonathan Wilkinson got up to point to the 300 economists who explained how carbon pricing works, and that there is a cost of inaction on climate change.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc and complained about the Governor General’s budget, and demanded the medal programme be cancelled. Pascale St-Onge gave a tepid defence of the medals and the monarchy. Therrien complained that the same estimate vote contains funds for Indigenous clean drinking water initiatives and demanded the money on the medals be spent elsewhere. St-Onge pointed out that they have constituents who are interested in the medals who should be respected.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and railed about the proposed “third link” project in Quebec City, and demanded that no federal money go toward it. Pablo Rodriguez said that he should direct his ire to the provincial government. Lori Idlout decried the Indigenous infrastructure gap, and Patty Hajdu agreed that the record has been poor, and that the current government has been moving on those priorities.

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QP: Boutique exemptions from capital gains changes

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The prime minister was absent for the second Wednesday in a row, off to the G7 meeting in Italy, but fortunately, his deputy was there today in his stead (not that she was going to answer all of the questions like he would). The PM’s absence meant that certain other leaders weren’t going to bother to show up, but Pierre Poilievre was there, and he led off in French, and he started off by calling out the Bloc for voting for the capital gains changes yesterday, and Chrystia Freeland said that this was about tax fairness for working people, and that this will unlock $3 billion for the province of Quebec in new revenue, while the Conservatives don’t like investments by the government. Poilievre insisted that this takes money away from doctors, forcing them to move elsewhere (not really true, and that’s the province’s responsibility to pay them properly), taking more swipes at the Bloc along the way. Freeland said that Quebeckers understand the importance of fairness, and that it’s important for a nurse not to pay higher taxes than the ultra-rich, and that they understand the government needs revenue to invest in healthcare. Poilievre switched to English to claim that Canada’s growth is the worst in the G7, and that housing costs have doubled, blaming the taxation of the federal government, and accused them of “taxing away” doctors, homebuilders and entrepreneurs. Freeland said that we all learned yesterday that the Conservatives chose a side, and it wasn’t the side of teachers or welders, and that they were always on the side of those at the very top. Poilievre insisted that the welders she mentions start small businesses and incorporate, and that this was going to tax them (not really true), which would also kill housing. Freeland suggested that they get things right, because this is about a two-thirds inclusion rate, not a two-thirds tax rate, and accused him of faking his support for workers. Poilievre insisted they were taxing farmers in a food crises, taxing home builders in a housing crisis, taxing away doctors in a healthcare crisis, and taxing small businesses in an economic growth crisis, and this was all economic vandalism. Freeland noted the average salary in Poilievre’s riding and that most couldn’t dream of making $250,000 per year, and yet he was standing with the ultra-rich.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and claimed that the capital gains increases would hurt Quebeckers, and proposed an amendments around home owners who were not speculators. Freeland thanked the Bloc for their vote, and recited her points about generational fairness. Therrien insisted that their concern was for the savings of self-employed people, and Freeland repeated the lines about fairness and funding investments, which would benefit Quebec to the tune of $3 billion.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and railed about the costs of rent (which is provincial jurisdiction) and demanded the government guarantee housing. Soraya Martinez Ferrada said that they were working with non-profits and municipalities to build more affordable housing. Bonita Zarrillo also accused the government of raising rents, and again Martinez Ferrada repeated her back-patting in English.

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Roundup: Elizabeth May to the rescue (again)

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The House of Commons has once again embarrassed itself in voting to send the NSICOP report to Justice Hogue for her to review, and its documents, to see if she can do or say something about the potentially “disloyal” parliamentarians therein. She can’t, and won’t, because this is a political problem and MPs have just voted to kick this down the road until October because certain of the leaders can’t arse themselves to be adults and take their responsibilities seriously, preferring instead to remain ignorant so that they can shout increasingly lurid and baseless accusations from the rooftops, because that gets them clicks and engagement on social media, and that is the cart that is driving politics in these debased times. Hopefully Justice Hogue will get this request and tell MPs to go drop on their heads because she has enough work to do and not enough time to do it in, thank you very much, and this is their political problem to solve, not hers. But we’ll see.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth May was the adult in the room, who took the opportunity to avail herself of the security clearance she acquired over the course of these months of foreign interference handwringing, and did read the full, classified report, and then took to a microphone in the press theatre in the West Block to discuss what she could about the report, and then went on Power & Politics later and refined those remarks even further. And what did she find? No list of treasonous or disloyal MPs, a handful of cases of MPs who are no longer serving who may have been compromised in some manner, and the one incident of a former MP who should be investigated and charged. And even more to the point, she just proved that reading the report wouldn’t tie Pierre Poilievre’s hands, that he could still talk about the conclusions of the report without any specifics, and that Michael Chong has indeed spouting bullshit when he claimed that he knew more than a former CSIS director about this.

Hopefully this means that the hot air has been drained from this, particularly since Jagmeet Singh will read the classified version today, and Yves-François Blanchet seems to have finally been convinced to get the proper clearance so that he too can read it for himself. That leaves Poilievre as the odd man out, insisting on remaining ignorant, but hopefully with the other leaders offering similar reassurances as May, this could deflate the issue and turn to the real issues about how to better combat this sort of interference, letting parties put in necessary internal reforms to prevent nomination races from being coopted, and so on. That relies on them being grown-ups, and if one party decides to remain off-side and not among the adults in the room, that will be pretty telling. There should also be questions asked of the members of NSICOP for not providing reassurance from the start, and for letting this issue blow up unnecessarily, because that should have an impact on their credibility, or would if the Elder Pundits of this country hadn’t decided on a particular narrative that they are going to relentlessly pursue, regardless of what has transpired.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Kharkiv’s mayor says that the ability to strike missile launch sites across the border in Russia has helped calm the number of attacks his city has been facing. At the recovery conference in Berlin, Ukraine has been attracting pledges to help modernise its air defences to help prevent the need for even further rebuilding.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1800249418949841359

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Roundup: Temporarily abdicating responsibility to Justice Hogue

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The day in the House of Commons started off with the Bloc moving a Supply Day motion to call on the government to send the issue of the implicated parliamentarians from the NSICOP report to the Hogue Commission to have her deal with it, which the Conservatives also spent the weekend demanding, and the Liberals? Immediately rolled over and said sure, let’s do that. Which is stupid, because this is an abdication of responsibility, and it lets Pierre Poilievre off the hook for doing the grown-up, responsible work of getting the classified briefing so he knows what’s going on in his own party and so that he can take action. But he doesn’t want to do that, because knowing the truth could mean he might be forced to behave like a responsible adult rather than an ignorant critic who can lob wild accusations from the rooftops with reckless abandon, and that’s what he loves to do because he also knows that’s what’s going to get him media attention. The NDP, meanwhile, tried to amend the motion to get Justice Hogue to also probe the allegations around interference in Conservative leadership races, and Jagmeet Singh says that if he finds any member of his party is implicated after he reads the full report, he’ll kick them out. (With no due process? And remember, he’s a criminal defence lawyer, for whom due process is their livelihood). Elizabeth May is also going to get her briefing, and is trying to weigh what she can say publicly when she does. Nevertheless, dropping this in Hogue’s lap is not a solution, but Canadian political leaders love to foist their political problems onto judges to solve for them, which can’t work, and we’re just going to wind up where we are today, but several months later. Because certain leaders refuse to be an adult about it.

Philippe Lagassé and Stephanie Carvin lay out the case precisely why it’s a Very Bad Idea to publicly name names, and why party leaders need to get their classified briefings so that they can clean house in an appropriate manner, which is what they refuse to do.

Meanwhile, more people are latching onto the mention in the NSICOP report about compromised media outlets—those on the left are convinced this is talking about Postmedia being on the take, and now Conservative MPs are putting out shitpost videos trying to claim that mainstream media writ-large is on the take so they aren’t to be trusted. The report didn’t actually say anything about mainstream media, and if you have a grasp of the media landscape, the report is likely referring to ethno-cultural media outlets serving diaspora communities, as there is plenty of documented evidence of particularly Chinese interference in some of these outlets in Canada. But the Conservatives don’t care about the truth, or context—they want to flood the zone with bullshit in order to create this dystopian alternate reality for their followers with the explicit aim of reducing their trust in reality, and that’s exactly what they have weaponised the report to do. It’s amazing that nobody actually calls them out for doing so.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian guided bomb strike has hit houses in Kharkiv, injuring at least six. Russian forces have taken control of the village of Staromaiorske in the Donetsk region, but Ukraine denies that Chechen special forces have taken over a village near the northeast border. Ukraine is claiming responsibility for damaging three Russian air defence systems in occupied Crimea, as well as for a June 5th attack on an oil refinery that has cost half a billion dollars in lost production. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has arrived in Germany for a conference on post-war recovery.

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Roundup: Abdicating responsibilities and calling on Justice Hogue instead

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The reverberations from the NSICOP report continued over the weekend, with the rhetoric still as ridiculous as ever. For example, everyone keeps shouting the word “treason” about what these MPs are alleged to have done (with the exception of the one former MP in the report), and lo, it doesn’t actually meet the Criminal Code definition of “treason,” which means that it’s unlikely anyone is going to face charges for what is alleged to have happened (if indeed any of it was in fact foreign interference and not actions undertaken as part of diplomacy, and the jury is still out on that).

And rather than continue to use this opportunity to behave like adults, the Bloc and the Conservatives now want to turn this over to Justice Hogue so that she can make some sort of determination rather than put on their big-boy pants and get their classified briefings. Turning this over to Justice Hogue would be an absolute abdication of responsibility by both the Bloc and Conservative leaders, and soon it could just be the Conservative leader since Yves-François Blanchet is now considering getting a classified briefing. That hasn’t stopped Michael Chong from going on national television to literally claim that he knows better than former CSIS directors about this, and saying that if Poilievre gets briefed, his hands are tied. That’s wrong, that’s bullshit, and that’s fabricating excuses so that he can continue to act as an ignorant critic rather than an informed observer.

This is not new. This is a long-standing problem in Canadian politics that opposition leaders don’t want to be briefed because if they do, then they have to be responsible in their commentary, and they don’t want to do that. They want to be able to stand up and say inflammatory things, and Poilievre is not only no different, but that’s his entire modus operandi. He can’t operate if he has to act like a responsible grown-up, where he would have to get the information and do something with it internally in his party, but he doesn’t want to do that when he can continue screaming that the prime minister is hiding something. But it’s hard to say that the prime minister is hiding something when he is quite literally offering Poilievre the opportunity to read the classified report, so instead he lies about what that would mean, and he gets Michael Chong to debase himself and also lie about it. This is the state of politics, and it’s very, very bad for our democracy.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians appear to be making headway in their attempt to capture the strategically significant town of Chasiv Yar. Ukraine says that it struck an “ultra-modern” Russian aircraft six hundred kilometres from the front lines. The Globe and Mail has a longread about of Ukraine’s most elite special forces units, on the front lines of the war with Russia.

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QP: Trying to be clever about the list of names

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The prime minister was on his way back from Normandy, while his deputy was off making announcements in Toronto, and all of the other leaders were also absent. Andrew Scheer led off with the NSICOP report, worried about Jennifer O’Connell’s outburst at committee, and demanded the names be released. Dominic LeBlanc suggested that his leader get classified briefings. Scheer asked if any implicated parliamentarians are in Cabinet (which is stupid because there is actual vetting of ministers), and LeBlanc gave Scheer credit for trying to do indirectly what he cannot do directly. Scheer tried a second time, and LeBlanc patted himself on the back for the actions the government has taken around foreign interference when the previous government didn’t. Luc Berthold took over in French, and tried to demand the names again, and got the same answer. Berthold then pivoted to a story about a woman who got chased on the streets in Montreal, and blamed this on bail and supervised injection sites. Ya’ara Saks said the safe consumption sites in the province are run by the province.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he too raised the NSICOP report, taking some swipes at Chrystia Freeland for her non-response yesterday. LeBlanc reiterated that the government his points that they have been taking action on foreign interference. Therrien made another complaint about Freeland, and got the same response. 

Heather McPherson rose for the NDP to worry about CBSA pensions per current labour negotiations. Anita Anand recited that they are committed to negotiation and that it’s a process of give-and-take. Alexandre Boulerice raised the UN’s request to raise taxes on oil companies and the government refusing. Pascale St-Onge said that she too believes Canada needs to do more to reduce emissions, and praised the elimination of subsiding and their climate resilience fund.

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QP: Inventing condemnation from the Auditor General

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For likely the only time this week, both the prime minister and his deputy were both present for QP today, as were all of the other leaders. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he raised the Auditor General Report on SDTC, the allegations of improper spending, and demanded a taking of responsibility. Justin Trudeau said that they would look into report carefully, and that they were still focused on the green economy in a responsible manner. Poilievre noted the various contracts intended to focus McKinsey, to which Trudeau said that they have ensured that processes are now more transparent. Poilievre switched to English to praise the Parliamentary Budget Officer, and his allegation of a “gag order” on a federal report. Trudeau said that the PBO admitted to a mistake, and insisted that eight out of ten families get more money back than they spend (which is not the part of the report that was flawed). Poilievre returned to the report on SDTC spending, and demanded personal responsibility for the “costs and corruption.” Trudeau said that the minister has already taken measures to ensure that processes are properly followed while stepping up on the creation of the green economy. Poilievre then repeated his question on McKinsey, and demanded they get no more money, and Trudeau repeated that they have strengthened processes by how civil servants grant contracts to outside consultants,  before taking on a pitch about the carbon rebates. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and raised the NISCOP on the possible witting engagement by some parliamentarians with foreign powers. Trudeau thanked NSICOP for the report, and listed actions they have taken including the public inquiry, but said nothing about the parliamentarians. Blanchet demanded an answer on who was implicated, and Trudeau said it was ironic that Blanchet was asking his because he refused to get security-cleared so that he could see for himself.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, raised foreign interference particularly by India, noted the Conservatives’ refused to denounce Narendra Modi, and demanded more answers on implicated parliamentarians. Trudeau again spoke in generalities about what has been done. Singh repeated his same question in French, and Trudeau repeated his generalities. 

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Roundup: Stop talking about what they’re talking about

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The one thing everyone was talking about this weekend was Conservative MP Arnold Viersen going on Nate Erskine-Smith’s podcast and just blatantly laying out his anti-abortion (and anti-gay) agenda, and then a) claiming he was ambushed, and b) putting out the vaguest statement ever to walk back his comments and defend The Leader’s position (which is less clear than he likes to pretend).

But as this is happening, we see the country’s Elder Pundits sighing and saying “There the Liberals go again, always talking about abortion,” and “wow, they’re really desperate to pull this card again, especially so early,” when the Conservatives are the ones who keep bringing it up, time after time, but the Elder Pundits keep telling everyone to just ignore it, because that will apparently make it go away. It’s not going away, and they are increasingly emboldened about these kinds of issues because the authoritarians and wannabe-authoritarians are using these very issues to oppress, and to create wedges that they can leverage, but calling that out is a little uncouth. While yes, I do think that backbench suck-up questions on abortion every day in Question Period for a week is overkill, but again, the Conservatives are the ones who keep bringing it up and who keep insisting that they’re going to re-open these issues, and if the leader says they won’t, I don’t feel inclined to believe him because he has lied about every single issue under the sun (which again, the Elder Pundits of this land continue to studiously ignore). Maybe we need to stop ignoring what is right in front of us, Elder Pundits be damned.

As a bonus, here’s a story about Viersen and what a homophobic/transphobic person he really is (on top of his continued bullshit about trying to block porn). He’s not alone in the party on this front. We should be paying attention but the Elder Pundits keep telling us not to. It’s really tiresome.

https://twitter.com/HannahHodson28/status/1796928863265521767

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile hit residences in Balakliia near Kharkiv, injuring 13. Russians have also continued pounding energy facilities across Ukraine, prompting a fresh plea for more air defences. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy headed to the Asia security summit in Singapore to drum up support for the upcoming peace conference, and to call out China for pressuring countries not to attend.

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Roundup: A choice to be dickish about pensions

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Over the past few days, the NDP have put on a big song and dance about the bill to update the Elections Act, which they had a hand in drafting with the government as a part of the Supply and Confidence Agreement. They now claim that they were blindsided by the provision to move the “fixed” election date by one week so that it doesn’t clash with Dwivali, because the knock-on effect is that it will qualify a number of MPs for their pensions in that extra week because they’ll have had their six years of service then. So they are now moving an amendment to the bill to return the election date to its original schedule, because who cares about Dwivali, right?

This is actually a new low for the NDP, who are trying to play populist politics but are doing it very, very badly. And if the intention is for this to come off as mean-spirited at the expense of Hindus, Jains and Sikhs who are celebrating and can’t vote of campaign on that day, well, who cares? As I believe Emilie Nicholas pointed out on Power & Politics, if the bill is to eliminate barriers to voting, why would the NDP then put up a new barrier for Hindus, Jains and Sikhs, so that they can try and outdo the astroturf charlatans in the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation? Because that’s the only group not actually is going to derive any joy from this. And media framing this as tAxPaYeR dOlLaRs is complicit in this kind of base thinking.

Frankly, we shouldn’t begrudge MPs their pensions because they put their lives on hold for years to serve the public in this way. (Whether they serve effectively is another story). We underpay them for the work they are doing (well, the work they are supposed to be doing—the current crop is not exactly doing themselves any favours), and to make these MPs lose out on the pensions they’ve earned because they are a few days shy of the cutoff is actually kind of cruel, and is the sort of thing that makes people rethink ever wanting to run for office, and to come out of it at the end with nothing for the time they put into public service when they could have made much more money and gotten a pension in the private sector. Instead of being gracious enough, every opposition party now wants to be dickish about it, which is pretty much fitting for the moment we’re in.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile attack overnight destroyed a power facility in Kyiv and damaged the electricity grid. Ukraine struck an oil terminal in Kavkaz in Russia thanks to missiles fired from their navy. Both Germany and the US have now said that Ukraine can use their weapons to strike inside of Russian territory, so long as it’s for the defence of Kharkiv. A prisoner swap with Russia took place on Friday, exchanging 75 people on each side. Ukraine has had four thousand prisoners apply to join the army in exchange for parole. And the factory in Ukraine that makes Oreo cookies is back online after two years of rebuilding after being damaged by the Russians.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1796518606832017524

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1796445849683419207

 

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Roundup: Hoping to master the algorithm

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As I often rail about terrible government communications and Parliament being reduced to a content studio for social media clips, I was struck by two stories over the weekend. The first was a look into the Liberals’ trying to use social media more effectively to bring back Millennial and Gen Z voters, which means staffers are directing their ministers to tailor content more specifically to these platforms, and ministers using influencers more to get their messages across. While I’m less concerned about the latter because I do think that can be helpful and savvy, it’s the former that concerns me more because we have too many politicians chasing the algorithm as it is, and the algorithm is bad and fickle. If you listen to Aaron Reynolds of Effin’ Birds fame talk about using social media to build his business, he will warn that tailoring your business to specific algorithms is doomed to fail because those algorithms change and can wipe you out, and politicians chasing the algorithm is not only cringe-worthy, it’s frankly bad for media literacy and democracy in general.

The other story was that Conservative MP Branden Leslie produced a Facebook video chock-full of fake news clips that purport to show a future where Trudeau has resigned, but amidst the complaints that using news branding for this kind of deep-fake content is problematic and deeply unethical, Conservatives are defending it as perfectly justified because “nobody could mistake it for reality.” This from the party that is actively building a dystopian alternate reality built on disinformation for their followers to believe in, because they want them to forgo things like critical thinking in order to simply swallow whatever falsehoods the party wants to tell them, and now they’re asserting that people won’t be taken by the very falsehoods this video perpetuates, after they have been training that same audience to swallow falsehoods? Sorry, but you can’t have it both ways. This is nothing good, and a sign that there is no moral compass in the party whatsoever.

Throughout this, I am reminded of something Paul Wells said last week that really struck a chord with me:

I think the social-media revolution has constrained government’s attempts to explain themselves, and radicalized citizens’ responses, more than it’s helped anyone do anything good. And I think most political organizations’ attempts to master these tools end up looking like the tools are, quite thoroughly, mastering the organizations.

This is exactly right, and it’s why I worry that the Liberals trying to push more to social media to reach those Gen-Zers is going to make this actively worse, while the Conservatives are already using the worst features of these platforms to their most unethical extent. This is the state of political communications these days, and it’s very, very scary, and it’s dragging democracy down with it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians bombed a big box store complex in Kharkiv on Saturday, killing 14, wounding 43, with 16 others still unaccounted for, even though Ukrainian forces are pushing them back from areas outside of the city.

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