Tag Archives: China

QP: Demanding an admission of failure

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As rain threaten outside, Justin Trudeau was back in the House of Commons for another day of Question Period, with one other Liberal behind him, and you would be right if you guessed that it was once again Mark Gerretsen. Erin O’Toole led off by pointing to other American outlets which are concern trolling about the situation in Canada, and blamed the rollout of vaccines for the third wave — which is a huge falsehood — and demanded and admission of failure. Trudeau called this out as disinformation, citing our place in the rankings and that delivery schedules were rolling along even if Moderna is occasionally a day or two behind. O’Toole quoted the head of Toronto’s university health network saying this is the worst place in the pandemic and he blamed the slow rollout of vaccines instead of murderclown premiers, to which Trudeau stated that they were doing what they could to support provinces. O’Toole switched to French to repeated his first question, got the same answer, and then repeated the question on doctors in French, and again got the same answer.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and raised the bailout of Air Canada, accusing the government of trying to break regional airlines, for which Trudeau insisted there will be further assistance for the aerospace industry. Blanchet was not mollified, but Trudeau replied with further assurances that they are supporting the sector. 

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, he decried the current state of the pandemic, and demanded a new plan to fight it, for which Trudeau stated that in some areas of the country it is bad and that they are doing what they can to help affected provinces. Singh switched to English to decry the cancellation of vaccinations appointments in Scarborough, which is a question of provincial jurisdiction, not federal. Trudeau stated that things were bad in Ontario and that they were trying to offer what assistance they can to the Ford government. 

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Roundup: Ending the defence committee study

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Something unexpected happened yesterday, in that the Defence committee voted to end the study on the allegations against General Jonathan Vance – the Liberals moving the motion, and the Bloc supporting it (which was the real surprise). Of course, ending the study comes with a number of different narratives. For the Conservatives and the NDP, this is all about the government trying to “cover up” what happened, because they won’t allow staffers to testify – nor should they. The concept of ministerial responsibility is inviolable in our constitutional framework, and the government should be fighting to maintain it, and yes, they have put the minister forward in this case several times, so that does matter. For the Liberals’ decision to move to end the study, it’s also at the request of some victims’ groups, who have stated that every past government is at fault, and that the committee is simply using the victims in order to score partisan points – and they are 100 percent correct in that assertion.

I do find it disturbing, however, that in most of the reporting on what has gone on, media have followed the opposition narrative that staffers are being “blocked” from appearing, and that the only time that ministerial responsibility is mentioned, it’s in quotes and being both-sidesed in terms of the government’s response. This is a real problem because it is undermining this fundamental principle in our democracy. This is something that should be explained, including why it’s wholly improper for the opposition to be demanding that this important principle be violated, and why when the Conservatives were in government, they repeatedly invoked the same principle as well to keep their staffers away from committee. Constitutional principles matter – they’re not just to be dismissed as a “process story” as so many journalists and editors are wont to do in this city, and it cheapens the discourse when this context is being left out of the stories, and when the government’s correct position is being spun as being improper.

Of course, if the government is going to claim ministerial responsibility, that doesn’t just mean Sajjan has to show up (which, to his credit, he did for six hours) – Sajjan has to actually take responsibility as well, and he hasn’t. And more to the point, Sajjan should fall on his sword for this, because he did drop the ball. He remained way too incurious about the allegations and whether an investigation was being carried out – which is not the same as involving himself in the investigation or meddling in it. It’s basic due diligence for someone who is responsible to Parliament for the armed forces and its leadership, and he failed in that due diligence. Sajjan has no choice but to resign over this, and it will be a giant sign that Justin Trudeau is not taking this seriously if he doesn’t insist on a resignation in short order.

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QP: Blaming the lockdowns on vaccines

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With Ontario back under a “stay-at-home order,” the numbers in the Chamber are again back to bare-bones, with the Liberals once again resorting to only keeping Mark Gerretsen in the Chamber and no one else, with only two NDP MPs present, and four Bloc MPs. Additionally, those Bloc MPs stayed out of the Chamber until after the moment of silence for the death of Prince Philip was over, because they really are that petty about our constitutional monarchy. Candice Bergen off for the Conservatives via video, and she recited the party’s bullshit assertion that the lack of vaccines was responsible for the current round of “lockdowns,” which serious people know was never the way out of the second or third waves. Anita Anand replied by pointing out that Canada surpassed their targets for receiving vaccines by over 3.9 million doses. Bergen then lied and claimed that the Americans issued a travel advisory to Canada last week — that advice had been in place for months and is the same as every other country — for which Patty Hajdu reminded everyone that now is not the time to travel. Bergen complained more about “lockdowns,” to which Hajdu reminded her that even with vaccinations underway that people still need to adhere to public health measures, and that the federal government doesn’t determine local advice. Gérard Deltell then took over in French to proffer the ridiculous complaint that the Americans have fully vaccinated ten times more people than Canada has, and insisted the federal government failed. Anand repeated her response about vaccines delivered, and when Deltell condescended to her about the quality of her French before complaining she didn’t answer the question, Anand repeated that vaccines were ahead of target.

For the Bloc, Alain Therrien complained that the government was practicing “predatory federalism” by attaching strings to future transfers in the budget, which Sean Fraser refuted with listing increased transfers to the provinces. Therrien was not convinced, but Pablo Rodriguez discounted his concerns as rumours, as they were working well with the provinces.

Jagmeet Singh led the NDP, and in French, he complained that the third wave was getting worse, and that the federal government needed to improve paid sick leave — which is provincial jurisdiction in 94 percent of workplaces. Rodriguez again responded by reminding him of federal supports and working with the provinces. In English, Singh declared that Ontario is “on fire” and made a pitch for Green Lantern Theory, including so-called federal support for vaccinations, to which Hajdu reminded him that the field hospitals set up in provinces that need it are from the federal government.

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Roundup: Confusion over AstraZeneca

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The third wave of the pandemic is now out of control in Ontario while the murderclowns in our provincial government continue to stand idly by, as BC goes into a “circuit breaker” lockdown to try and get a hold of their own skyrocketing numbers – because apparently fourteen months into this pandemic, nobody can grasp that exponential growth means that cases grow exponentially. Funny how that happens.

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1376630821717569538

Meanwhile, there was confusion over new advice on the AstraZeneca vaccine as the National Advisory Committee on Immunisation informed provinces on Sunday that they were advising on pausing doses for those under 55, but didn’t make a broader announcement about that until late in the afternoon Monday, leaving a mess of confusion for much of the day. It seems that the blood clotting issue, while still extremely rare, is of a type that can have a forty percent fatality rate, and it’s been seen more prevalently in women under 55 (though it is suspected that it may simply because more women have been vaccinated in the healthcare fields and hence it is showing up more often there). That being said, they have decided to hold off on that age group until they can get more data, which could come in the next few weeks – especially as there have been no reported case of clotting in Canada thus far. It should also be noted that there would be very few AstraZeneca doses given to those under 55, because most provinces are not there yet in terms of their vaccine roll-outs, so those under 55 who have received it are likely some essential workers. (More from Dr. David Fisman in this thread).

While this was going on, there was a little too much made of the (temporary) disunity between Health Canada and NACI, in spite of the fact that they are separate, that NACI is arm’s-length from government, and that they each have different roles to play. Too many people – especially in the media – were just throwing their hands up and proclaiming their confusion, which allowed certain actors like the Conservatives’ health critic to take advantage of the situation and insisting that the minister wasn’t “controlling her bureaucrats” (NACI are not “her bureaucrats), and trying to paint a situation like the government is out of control. Yes, it’s a fluid situation, and there should have been earlier guidance released after the provinces were notified and started pausing their own appointments, but I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to consider the situation as being out of control, or so confusing that nobody knows what was going on. I think there were a lot of dramatics (or possibly histrionics) from people who should know better, but perhaps I’m being too generous.

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Roundup: Moving on China with our allies

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As the secret trials of the two Michaels concluded in China without verdicts, Canada made more moves against China in concert with other international allies. Part of that was Canada warning other countries who do business with China about the risk of arbitrary detention and hostage diplomacy, and we had the support of 28 diplomats from 26 countries at the court houses in China where those trials took place, demonstrating that Canada is not alone in this, and we are also leading over 50 other countries in the declaration against arbitrary detention. In addition, we levied sanctions against four Chinese officials in relation to the human rights abuses taking place against the Uyghurs, in concert with the US, the UK, and the European Union.

This is the point where you get some voices cry out why we haven’t used the “genocide” label yet, as though that doesn’t come without consequences under international law, and if they think that Canada is able to go it alone in trying to prevent it and hold the perpetrators to account, well, they are smoking something particularly potent. What is important to remember about the actions that happened yesterday is that they were done in concert with our allies, which is extremely important because it means that China will be less able to isolate us and try to impose economic retaliation. Most of the time, the Americans are able to say and do anything because they have enough economic heft to withstand the retaliation, but Canada can’t go it alone, and many of the voices in this country, who are deeply unserious about foreign policy, can’t seem to grasp that, preferring instead to thump their chest or virtue signal. Canada needs to deal with China in a multilateral capacity, and that takes time, and the consensus needs to be built behind closed doors so that China can’t try to pick apart participants before agreements are reached. But nobody likes nuance or patience, so we get the caterwauling that we do (especially from media voices, who appear to be even less serious about this, if that is even possible).

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QP: Bludgeoning about belief in climate change

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It was heartening to see a few more bodies in the Chamber, but alas, there remained only a mere two Liberals — Mark Gerretsen and the designated front-bench babysitter, Catherine McKenna. Candice Bergen led off in person, and she spun a very dubious connection between continued lockdowns and federal actions or perceived lack thereof. Jonathan Wilkinson, surprisingly, answered and gave a brief speech about how climate change is real, in the wake of the Conservatives’ policy convention. Bergen then pivoted to the trials of the two Michaels, and demanded the government withdraw their participation in the Asian Infrastructure Bank, which Marc Garneau disputed, citing that these were a top priority, and thanked allies for appearing that the court houses in China in protest. Bergen railed that the government sent $40 million to the Asian Infrastructure Bank, and Garneau gave a stern warning to China about arbitrary detention. Gérard Deltell took over in French, and received pay increases given to General Vance after the allegations against him were raised, for which Harjit Sajjan stated that he doesn’t determine pay raises, but that it was done independently on the advice of the public service. Deltell tried again, and this time Sajjan raised testimony from Harper’s former chief of staff at the defence committee earlier in the day.

Alain Therrien rose for the Bloc, and demanded increased health transfers for the provinces, crocodile tears about the plight of nurses metaphorically streaming down his face, for which Patty Hajdu reminded him they are already giving increased transfers to the provinces. Therrien was not mollified, demanding increases, and in response, Hajdu listed assistance given to the provinces.

Jagmeet Singh then led for the NDP in person, and in French, he also raised Vance’s pay increase and demanded an apology, for which Sajjan repeated that he does not determine pay. Singh then switched to English to demand concrete action to end systemic racism in the RCMP, and Bill Blair gave his condolences to Colton Boushie’s family, and said that the Commissioner of the RCMP agreed to implement the recommendations of the report.

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Roundup: O’Toole’s hand-wavey five-point plan

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Erin O’Toole gave his keynote speech at the Conservative convention, and it was…serviceable. It was no rhetorical or oratory feat, but it wasn’t the stumbling, breathy mess that Andrew Scheer tended to deliver either, so there was that. But while he laid out his “five-point plan” for economic recovery, it was mostly hand-wavey and gave no real indication of just what exactly he planned to do, or how. Or, as one description put it, it was all tell and no show. But for as much as saying that the country has changed and the party needs to doesn’t really say how. Reaching out to private sector unions? Okay, sure, but just telling a bunch of blue-collar workers that you’re not “woke” isn’t going to cut it when you’re arguing against better wages and benefits. Trying to appeal to Quebec by out-Blocing the Bloc? I’m not seeing exactly what kind of broader, more inclusive party he’s trying to build other than his usual lip service about wanting more Canadians to see a Conservative when they look in the mirror.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1373031101963382790

While you can see my thread responding to his speech here, the party put out a backgrounder on their “Canada Recovery Plan” shortly after the speech, it’s still pretty hand-wavey. In short:

  1. Jobs – What government doesn’t promise jobs? O’Toole promises to recover the million jobs lost by the pandemic, just as Trudeau has, and while O’Toole says that includes women and youth, he literally spent the rest of the speech deriding the Liberals’ inclusive growth plan as being “picking and choosing who gets ahead,” and a “re-imagining of the economy.” Pick a lane.
  2. Accountability – Promises for new anti-corruption laws miss the point. Stephen Harper rode in on the white horse of accountability, and all it did was drive away talent from political staff jobs. Trudeau’s “ethics scandals” have largely been penny ante, and stem from a belief that so long as they mean well that the ends justify the means. Even more laws aren’t going to change that, and this is just populist noise, trying to rail against “elites.”
  3. Mental Health – I will give O’Toole props for mentioning that this will require the cooperation of the provinces, but he’s also already promised increased health transfers with no strings attached. So, again, pick a gods damned lane. As for his “incentives for employers to provide mental health coverage,” we all know that means another tax credit. As for the national three-digit suicide prevention hotline, the Liberals already started this process, but it’s going to take up to two years to implement.
  4. Secure the Country – Partner with pharmaceutical companies to increase capacity for medicines and vaccine production? Erm, what are you willing to capitulate to them? Blow up PMPRB? Give them longer timelines for intellectual property to keep out generics? These kinds of measures would increase drug prices, and would hugely impact provinces and health plans. More domestic production of PPE? You’re talking about subsidising industries to do that, which doesn’t sound very Conservative, and it sounds like picking winners and losers.
  5. Economy – Winding down emergency supports and targeting stimulus are pretty much exactly what the Liberals are promising. There is no daylight here. As for promising to “grow the economy again” and claiming there was slow growth under the Liberals is 100 percent fiction – the Liberals needed to provide some kind of economic stimulus because Conservative austerity was dragging economic growth. This claim is complete bullshit.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells is heartened that O’Toole has woken up to the reality that his party can no longer continue being a cargo cult for Stephen Harper – but also notes that his plan is light on calories, for better or worse at this stage.

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Roundup: Agitating for a political document

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Unable to score points on the vaccine procurement in a meaningful way, now that sufficient quantities have arrived, Erin O’Toole has recently tried pivoting to the federal budget, or the fact that there hasn’t been one in some 700 days. Given that the party is losing its lustre in public opinion polls as being “good fiscal managers” – a bit of branding that rarely, if ever, actually proved itself to be true, O’Toole is trying to bolster their street cred. The problem, of course, is that many of his arguments are, well, not actually sound ones.

For starters, no federal budget is like a household – not even close. It’s a bogus populist argument that just refuses to die, but everyone keeps repeating it and buying into it. More to the point, O’Toole is trying to claim that nobody knows how government money is being spent, which is a falsehood. Any money that the government spends has to come through the Estimates process, which gets voted on in Parliament after going through committee study. Afterward, how that those appropriations wound up being allocated get reported in the Public Accounts, which are released every year. All of this spending is being accounted for.

What O’Toole is looking for is a political document that lays out spending plans in broad strokes. It does not on its own showcase how that money gets allocated and spent. In fact, there has been a disconnect between the budget and the Estimates going back a few decades now, because governments and civil servants preferred it that way, and when the Liberals tried to better re-align those processes in the last parliament, it did not go very well thanks in part to institutional inertia pushing back. Suffice to say, it is not true that money is being spent blindly. MPs have ostensibly been in control of the process the whole time – but whether they have paid attention to what they were voting on is another matter entirely.

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Roundup: The importance of our distinctions

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There has been no shortage of columns on the future of the Canadian monarchy over the past few days – I’ve even contributed my own – and they are all over the map between “Our current system works” and “Barbados is going republican so why can’t we?” But one of the fundamental problems with many of these pieces is a fundamental lack of basic civics. Like, the most basic, which then gets even more compounded with wrong-headed expectations about what our other political actors should be doing. A huge example is the importance of keeping the ceremonial head of state functions away from the head of government functions, but this is failing to find as much traction these days, and that’s a problem.

https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1372200793546366976

https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1372202091712819200

https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1372203588466978820

https://twitter.com/LagassePhilippe/status/1372205703843225607

I would dispute with Philippe a bit here in that people would get fussed about honours being handed out by prime ministers or ministers, particularly if it’s a PM that they disagree with. That’s one of the primary reasons why honours should be with the Queen via the Governor Genera/Lieutenant Governors, because it keeps it out of the hands of politicians and the whims of the government of the day. When you start turning honours over to politicians, bad things happen – recall the gong show that was the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee medals, where MPs and senators were given a number to hand out apiece, and some of them went to certain individuals that would never have been eligible for any other honours in this country.

But of course, as Dan Gardner points out, so much of this stems not only from our poor civics education, but the fact that we are so saturated with American pop culture and politics that so many in this country believe that we are analogous in so many ways. Hell, we have political parties in this country who simply swallow the positions of American politicos and just divide by 10, thinking that’s all it takes, like we’re not separate countries or anything. It’s a huge problem and not enough of us are pushing back against it. The Crown is a big part of what keeps us distinct, and we need to better appreciate that. I can say from personal experience that one of the comments I’ve received most about my book is that people read the chapter on the Crown and say that it finally makes sense to them because they’ve never learned it properly before. We have a problem and we need to solve it before more people think that the solution is to become Americans.

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/1372205403782676486

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Roundup: Announcing the process to find the next GG

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Yesterday afternoon, the government finally announced the process by which they will be selecting the next governor general, and it is the return of an advisory panel – but not really the old vice-regal appointment committee process that Stephen Harper initiated. For one, minister Dominic LeBlanc co-chairs the committee along with the interim Clerk of the Privy Council, which is a big change because LeBlanc’s inclusion means it is no longer arm’s length and won’t be able to claim that it can avoid the appearance of considerations being made through a political lens. As well, the Canadian Secretary to the Queen is nowhere to be seen in this process, whereas the previous CSQ chaired the previous committee process. (There has been some disagreement with this over Twitter, which is their prerogative but I would not consider the creation of a short list to be “political advice” any more than any other options presented to a government as compiled by the civil service).

What concerns me is the timeline of this process, which the government claims to want to be “expeditious” because they don’t want to keep the Chief Justice in the Administrator position for long, particularly if we are in a hung parliament that could theoretically fall at any time (if you discount that the only people who actually want an election right now are bored pundits). Nevertheless, it took them a month-and-a-half after Payette’s resignation to just announce the committee. The old committee process took an average of six months to conduct a search and compile a short-list for a vice-regal position, which is really not tenable in the current situation.

If anyone wants to read more about the old process and the role of the Canadian Secretary of the Queen in it, it was part of the focus of my chapter in Royal Progress: Canada’s Monarchy in the Age of Disruption, which was the product of presentations made at the last conference by the Institute for the Study of the Crown in Canada.

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