Tag Archives: China

QP: Trudeau attacks Poilievre’s incel connection

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The prime minister was present on a Thursday, which is rare, but I’ll take what I can get. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and worried about families who can’t afford Thanksgiving dinner this year, blaming carbon prices even though that’s not the driver of food price inflation. Justin Trudeau responded that they knew Canadians were struggling with the global inflation crisis, which is why the proposed measures like the GST rebate, and demanded support for rental supports and dental care for kids. They went another round of the same in English, and Poilievre listed increasing food prices, and insisted this was about the carbon price, and Trudeau tried to shame him about not supporting “kids’ smiles” before he launched into an attack on the news report that Poilievre had been tagging his YouTube videos to appeal to incels. Poilievre stated that he “condemns this organisation” (they’re not an organisation) and insisted that he condemns all misogyny and hit back about Jody Wilson-Raybould and Blackface, because of course he did. Trudeau pressed on about Poilievre appealing to incels, to which Poilievre again insisted that he corrected the problem and repeated the accusations about the prime minister. Trudeau noted that a lot of admiration was given for Poilievre’s videos during the leadership campaign, and he once again pushed on Poilievre playing too closely to extremists.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and he demanded to know the prime minister’s intentions at Roxham Road, accusing him of increasing migrants in Quebec against their consent and of endangering French. Trudeau picked up a script to deliver some talking points about working with the French government around immigration and the protection of French. Blanchet denounced the policies that favour cheap labour (erm, you know the reliance of your province on temporary foreign workers), and demanded the unredacted contracts for Roxham Road facilities. Trudeau, extemporaneously, reminded him that Quebec already has all of the immigration powers they need and can increase francophone immigration if they want to.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he listed grocery oligopoly CEO salaries before demanding the government stop the “greed-flation” of grocery chains. Trudeau listed the actions they have taken to help low-income people, and stated that they are strengthening the Competition Act. Peter Julian took over in English to repeat the question, and Trudeau repeated his same points.

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Roundup: No further comment

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In the event you have been cut off from the news cycle, I became the story yesterday as MP Garnett Genuis raised a point of privilege, and said that I made him feel “unsafe.” While I won’t comment much further until the Speaker makes a ruling on this, I have selected a few tweets from the day about the incident.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1573021640413548545

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1573043603072765952

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1573056388770988032

https://twitter.com/Garossino/status/1573056918389948416

https://twitter.com/Garossino/status/1573058396278099970

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1573063078396190723

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/1573087699262918656

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 211:

While the operational pause on Ukraine’s counterattack continues, they have been engaged in recovering bodies that have been unburied for months from earlier in the invasion. It also looks like a high-profile prisoner swap has been arranged, that will include some of the defenders of Mariupol.

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Roundup: Home for the summer

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It is day one-hundred-and-twenty-one of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and still no news out of Severodonetsk, but there is additional bombardment of the area including air strikes. The big news, however, was that the EU has granted the request to make Ukraine a candidate for membership—itself a years-long process that will require great reforms, most especially Ukraine cracking down on its problem of government corruption—but more than anything, this is a symbolic victory. It signals that Ukraine is moving more to the west, and away from Russia, and that further undermines Putin’s aims.

Closer to home, both the House of Commons and the Senate have risen for the summer, the latter being a problem because it was supposed to sit next week and they rammed through a bunch of legislation with little or no debate or scrutiny in order to make it happen. Below is a speech by Senator Paula Simons about one of those bills being expedited, and why that’s a problem (and you’d better believe I have an angry column about this coming out over the weekend).

Meanwhile, Aaron Wherry had an interview with the Commons’ Speaker, Anthony Rota, and frankly I wonder if we’re living in the same reality. Rota seems to think that his method of gentle chiding of MPs gets results, and that they change their behaviours when he hints that he knows who’s being disruptive (but won’t actually name and shame them). Except he doesn’t get results, and they continue to openly flout the rules, because they know that he’ll belatedly make some gentle comment that won’t actually do anything to enforce the rules that they broke, so it keeps happening again and again. But he thinks this is a good way, because things aren’t as bad as they were in the pre-2015 days before the Liberals largely stopped applauding and being as vociferous in their heckles. He’s not doing his job, plain and simple.

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Roundup: Caucus confidence and garbage legislation

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It is now day one-hundred-and-four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has turned over several of the bodies of Russian fighters from that steel mill in Mariupol where they were holed up for weeks. Missiles continue to fall over other parts of the country, and president Volodymyr Zelensky warns that Russians are targeting the city of Zaporizhzhia in the south, as a means of advancing further into the centre of the country. As well, here is a thread about Russia’s cyberwar in Ukraine, and how they route Ukrainian internet through Russian servers when they take over territory as a means of controlling information.

Meanwhile, a lot of attention has been paid to the confidence vote that UK prime minister Boris Johnson was subjected to within his own party, which he barely survived, and at a much lower margin than other UK prime ministers survived theirs before they made their political exits. With 42 percent of your caucus against you, you cannot survive more than a few more months. It’s simply untenable. Of course, Michael Chong had to pipe up to make yet another pitch for his (garbage) Reform Act and trying to goad the Liberals into signing onto it, which is wrong, and tiresome. Like the Liberals did when Chong first proposed the bill, there was this assertion that this would be what would do in Stephen Harper because his caucus must hate him, erm, except they didn’t. And Chong is making the very same assertion here, which seems to be yet one more Conservative falling into the trap of believing that people hate Trudeau as much as they do. Additionally, as I have stated time and time again, MPs did not need Chong’s garbage legislation to be able to oust leaders—they already had that power if they chose to use it. Putting a legislative framework around those powers only curtails them by stealth, while pretending to “give” MPs powers they already have, it absolutely limited senators’ powers within their caucuses, and it gave leaders even more insulation by putting up thresholds to levels beyond what would ordinarily have been considered fatal to a leader. It doesn’t need to spread further.

https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1533902493322776576

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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: The “soft on crime” square dance

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The prime minister was away in Newfoundland to meet Prince Charles and Camilla for the start of their royal tour, and most other leaders stayed away as well. Somewhat unusually, Blaine Calkins led off, and he accused the government of being soft on crime, and that crime was getting worse in Liberal-held ridings, to which Gary Anandasangaree read a script about the bill getting rid of sentences that disproportionately target Black and Indigenous people and don’t make anyone safer. Calkins complained that the government was just trying to bring back a gun registry that only targets law-abiding gun owners. Marco Mendicino reminded him that they were banning military-style rifles like AR-15s, but the Conservatives were trying to make then legal again. Calkins insisted it was just a new gun registry, but Mendicino listed new measures that they announced this week to tighten restrictions. Luc Berthold took over in French, and accused the Liberals of wanting armed criminals on the streets, to which Anandasangaree read the French intro to his script, before switching back to English to read the rest of it. Berthold insisted that Bill C-5 would leave criminals on the streets, and Mendicino listed the measures that the Conservatives opposed.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he railed that the federal government was subsidising oil companies while refinery margins keep increasing, and Randy Boissonnault recited a list of affordability measures that were somewhat of a non sequitur. Therrien repeated this accusations both oil companies, to which Steven Guilbeault recited that they have been cutting subsidies and are moving faster than other G7 partners.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, repeated the same accusations, and wanted the government to support their plan to double the GST credit to help people who need it. Boissonnault listed economic engines for the country and railed that the real problem was Putin and his war on Ukraine. Singh repeated the question in French, and Guilbeault repeated his previous response.

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Roundup: Sanctions take time to really bite

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It’s now around day forty-nine of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it’s carrying on as Putin insists that they will continue until they meet their goals. This as there are unconfirmed reports that chemical weapons were used in an attack in Mariupol, while Russian spokespeople from Donbas were discussing the possibility. That could lead to another escalation in sanctions, and talk of “red lines,” though that didn’t seem to do much good when it happened in Syria. The mayor of Mariupol says that more than 10,000 civilians have been killed as the strategic port city continues being flattened by Russian forces. Ukrainian government officials also say that they have thwarted an attempt by Russian hackers to knock out power to parts of the country, and it’s worth noting that Canada has been providing cyber-security assistance to Ukraine.

On the subject of sanctions, there are lots of questions circulating about how effective they really are if the invasion continues, and it’s one of those things for which it’s not an easy answer. Yes, they’re hurting Russia, but Putin and his inner circle seem fairly insulated from some of the worst of it, in part because they managed to stop the ruble from collapsing entirely. That makes it even more imperative to provide military support to Ukraine so that they can defeat Russia on the battlefield, which will hurt Putin more. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t carry on with sanctions, because we should, but they’re at the point where they are hurting us as well, and we had Conservatives demanding exemptions for farmers last week who bought fertilizer from Russia before the conflict began and now don’t want to pay the tariffs associated. But for sanctions to be effective, they will hurt us as well, and people seem to forget that.

As well, this conflict is now going to have an effect on inflation globally, because of the effect of diverting from Russian oil and gas, and from the effect this war has on Ukraine’s ability to produce and export food, as the breadbasket of Europe. Of course, it’s going to continue to be blamed on government spending (never mind that it actually isn’t, and this is a global problem), and the Bank of Canada is going to hike rates this week if only because they need to be seen to be doing something about the problem even if it won’t actually address the root causes of these price increases. Things are messy, and it’s going to take time for everything to work itself out, but what will really help is for Russia to get out of Ukraine.

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Roundup: Joly on a charm offensive?

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We are now in day twenty-four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and things continue to be in the same holding pattern—though there are continued air strikes, some now hitting Kyiv, one hitting an aircraft repair facility outside of Lviv. Some 6.5 million Ukrainians are internally displaced, and considering how many have headed to Lviv, the air strikes there are all the more concerning. In the meantime, negotiations with Russia continue, and there seems to be a bit of a shift in some of the tone. Meanwhile, President Biden had a two-hour video call with Chinese president Xi Jinping to sound out where China stands on this conflict, and to essentially warn the Chinese that there will be consequences if they side with Russia in this. As well, Russian and NATO commanders appear to be in constant communication to ensure that any mistakes made don’t wind up touching off a larger conflict by accident.

Elsewhere, in the wake of her comments about Canada being a middle power who was good at convening others, Mélanie Joly had a conversation with Janice Stein of the Munk School of Global Affairs yesterday that generated a number of pieces. In it, Joly acknowledged that the Canadian Forces need to be better-equipped, which tends to spiral into the trap of taking the NATO two-percent goal seriously (when it’s a terrible measure). But she’s not wrong about the equipment, as the pivot from Cold War tactics to fighting the Taliban has left the Canadian Forces largely under-equipped for the kind of situation facing Ukraine right now. As well, she praised the role American intelligence has played in helping Ukraine to thwart the Russian advance, and in uniting the West. Joly also says that she wants to position Canada as a leader in combatting propaganda and disinformation starting with social media, which is going to be a very big fight if the way that the conversations around amending the Broadcasting Act last year were any indication.

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Roundup: A strategic turning point?

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We are in day seventeen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and the bombardment and shelling has intensified not only in Mariupol, but some other cities that have thus far been unaffected. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that they have achieved a strategic turning point, that they have lasted four times longer than Russia planned for them to, and asked his people for strength and patience. There are also concerns that Russians are targeting ports and grain silos, which could have a major impact on food supplies in the region as the crisis grows. In the meantime, the BBC has a chilling report out of Kharkiv, and it’s a bit grisly because of the number of Russian corpses just lying there.

https://twitter.com/sommervilletv/status/1502000265490227206

Justin Trudeau concluded his European trip, and announced yet more sanctions against Russian oligarchs including Roman Abramovich, who has interests in a steel company that has operations in Canada, so these sanctions could affect its operations.

Closer to home, Anita Anand addressed the Ottawa Conference on Security and Defence yesterday, and spoke about a “robust package” to modernise NORAD, and said that they have not forgotten about the threats posed by China while the world is focused on Ukraine. At the same conference, a senior CSIS official spoke about the vulnerability posed by cyberspace, which is why they are focusing on protecting critical infrastructure from cyber-attacks.

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Roundup: Occupation over, emergency orders confirmed

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The occupation of Ottawa’s downtown core by far-right extremists, grifters, and conspiracy theorists is at an end. The police action kept up all day Saturday, and by Sunday, they were into mop-up operations. In total, there were 191 arrests, some 400 charges, and 79 vehicles towed, but it will still be some time before barricades start coming down in downtown Ottawa, because they want to ensure that the same group don’t move right back in once the barricades come down. And indeed, while the occupation may be ended, the emergency measures will likely stick around a little longer in order to prevent a resurgence or similar attempts in other locations, particularly given that many of the participants are lying in wait just outside of the city in makeshift encampments on private property. Trudeau said the emergency orders will likely be lifted in a few days, but they’re awaiting advice from law enforcement.

In the meantime, the debate on the emergency measures carried on through the weekend and into Monday, and while I have a column coming out later today on just how bad it was, there is special mention to Conservative MP Mark Strahl for fabricating a constituent named “Briane” who apparently had her accounts frozen for donating to the occupation before it was illegal. Andrew Scheer went ballistic about how this kind of retroactive application of the orders was unconscionable, erm, except that it didn’t happen because Briane doesn’t exist, and if she does, then it’s someone catfishing Strahl, who is too gullible to check into a clearly bogus tale. To date, 76 accounts have been frozen, either from organisers of the occupations, or those who owned trucks on the streets. That’s it. But the Conservatives are trying to push a narrative that Trudeau is authoritarian and punishing dissent, even though none of this actually bears out in the facts or the political reality of someone in a hung parliament. They’re just so cartoonishly bad and transparent in their lies that it’s hard to actually believe they are that inept. And yet they’ll get away with it, because there are credulous media outlets taking it at face value, and even more that are both-sidesing, and trying to get confirmation no matter that the falsehood is obvious on the face of it.

The vote itself was not particularly close, given that the NDP had already signalled that they would support the motion, though that didn’t stop the Conservatives from trying to deride them for supposedly turning their backs on how Tommy Douglas voted against the War Measures Act, even though the Emergencies Act is not the same thing and does not suspend civil liberties. There was later some consternation that Trudeau indicated that this would essentially be a confidence vote, which frankly it should be. If you don’t think the government can handle emergency powers, that’s a pretty solid indication you don’t think they should be in power. After the vote, Candice Bergen was already read with procedural mischief to use the portion of the Act that can call for a motion to lift the orders with the support of 20 MPs, so that will go ahead once the sitting resumes in a week. The Senate still has to vote on the emergency order motion, probably later today, so the government is not in the clear just yet.

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