Tag Archives: China

Roundup: An economic vision without an economic case

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Andrew Scheer gave the second of his policy keynote speeches yesterday, this one on his economic vision, and as could be expected, it was full of hyperbolic declarations about the size of the deficit (it’s tiny in comparison to our GDP), and the state of Canadian household finances (which have been growing). He promised that any new spending programmes would have to be paid for out of government “savings,” and in his pledge to balance the budget in two years, that would mean cuts. Of course, Conservative mouthpieces say this is easily enough achieved because they did it before (forgetting of course that the previous government had a habit of booking savings that were never going to be achieved for the sake of getting to a paper balance, like Shared Services Canada, or the Phoenix Pay System). The Liberals, incidentally, were quick to put out Bill Morneau to put a price tag on those cuts and warn that they would come out of families, and with the spectre of seeing what Doug Ford is doing to those families in Ontario, well, it’ll make things harder for Scheer.

The part that everyone talked about, however, was his grand vision of an “energy corridor” across the country where pipeline projects would magically cross the country with buy-in from Indigenous communities and everyone would be happy and prosperous, and we would have energy security and would never had to import oil from Saudi Arabia ever again. The problem with this fantasy picture, however, is largely economics. Even if Energy East were to get built, by some miracle, it would not have an economic case given that it wouldn’t be used for domestic oil in the eastern provinces as it would be far more expensive than the oil they’re importing. In fact, Energy East did not make it off the drawing board because there was no economic case – it wasn’t because there was opposition in Quebec (which has already achieved some kind of mythical status), but because there was no economic rationale for the company given that Keystone XL was back on the table. Scheer’s promise (other than the fantasy of it even happening) is that Alberta will either have to take a huge discount per barrel of oil, or oil prices in the eastern provinces start taking a major jump because they’re paying a lot more for it, and upgrade it from heavy petroleum and refine it (in refineries that would have to have been refitted, likely with yet more taxpayer subsidies). But since when should logic or basic economics be part of an “economic vision”? That would be silly.

Chris Selley offers a critique of Scheer’s rhetoric, but finds it more astonishing that it’s the Liberals’ own self-inflicted damage that is putting Scheer in a position where he has a reasonable shot of winning.

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QP: The ascribing of dubious motives

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With Justin Trudeau in Paris, and Andrew Scheer outlining his “vision” for the economy, it was up to Candice Bergen to lead off today, and she led off with the news of the formal arrests of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and called the prime minister a coward — and got censured for it — and demanded he do something for it. Mélanie Joly told her not to play games with their lives, and said that the minister was in touch with her counterparts and Canada’s international allies to secure their release. Bergen then pivoted to the Mark Norman case, compared his treatment to that of Omar Khadr, and demanded a personal apology by the prime minister. Diane Lebouthillier replied in French about the independence of the investigation and prosecution. Bergen said that Norman can’t tell his story because of military guidelines and demanded the government give him an exception, to which Lebouthillier responded that committees are independent, as were the others involved in the case. Pierre Paul-Hus accused Justin Trudeau of not respecting Quebec which was why they didn’t want that contract to go to the Davie Shipyard as it relates to the Norman case. Lebouthillier reminded him of the contracts that Davie has received. Paul-Hus accused the government of wanting to “destroy” Norman, and Lebouthillier reminded him again of the independence of the RCMP and public prosecutor. Peter Julian led off for the NDP, and demanded a public inquiry into money laundering, and Bill Blair noted that there were measures in the budget to combat it that the NDP voted against. Alexandre Boulerice tried again in French, got the same answer from Blair in English, before he railed about the climate emergency. Catherine McKenna stated that the government has a plan which protects jobs. Julian repeated the question in English, and got much the same response from McKenna.

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Roundup: A blow to the tanker ban bill

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The Senate’s transport committee voted last night to not proceed with Bill C-48, which bans tankers on BC’s northwest coast, but before anyone gets too excited, I would caution that it’s not the bill’s end. We just saw the Senate’s national security committee recommend changes to the gun control bill that would gut it, and those got overturned by the Senate as a whole, and I suspect we’ll see a repeat performance of that with this bill – but the Conservatives will put up a fight, and because this was one of the bills that they did not offer a final vote timeline in their agreement with the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Peter Harder, they will dare him to invoke time allocation on this. (I plan to write more about this in column form later).

In the meantime, Independent Senator Paula Simons was one of the deciding votes on this, and she explains it all over Twitter.

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Roundup: Mark Norman and the culture of leaks

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As the Conservatives try to keep the Mark Norman affair in the news – currently demanding committee hearings with a laundry list of witnesses, as though that had any chance of happening this close to an election when Parliament is seized with trying to get as many bills through the process as they can – there are a couple of new bits of information that I have a hard time fitting into the established factual matrix. The one that the CBC published yesterday was that it was revealed that Norman was authorized by the Harper Cabinet to communicate with Davie Shipyard – because they were using Norman to doing an end-run around the then-Chief of Defence Staff, who was opposed to the lease and refit of the supply ship. I’m not sure entirely how this would be the piece of information to exonerate him, given that he’s alleged to have leaked the news of the pause on the process to a lobbyist and a reporter as a way of pressuring the government to restarting it (which they did in short order). You also have to wonder why Peter MacKay would have sat on this bit of information for all of these months only to pull it out now rather than defend Norman in public with it. None of it makes any actual sense, but that’s where we are.

In light of the case, the National Post has a piece about the use of leaks in Ottawa, and the currency around them – how governments use them to manipulate journalists, how bureaucrats use them to even scores, and very occasionally they’re used to hold people to account. The question the piece asks is why, in a city of leaks, Norman was being made an example of, but I’m not sure it’s a question we’ll get an answer to anytime soon. While it’s a good overview, I keep going back to The Thick of It, and the discussion around leaks during the Goolding Inquiry, when Malcolm Tucker described leaks as essential to release the pressure going on in government, lest things get dark if they didn’t. And I do think there’s an element of that, but given the exercise we just went through during the Double-Hyphen Affair, and the competing leaks and denials, I find myself wondering if We The Media need to exercise a bit more self-reflection in our use of them, rather than simply allowing ourselves to be manipulated because we think it’ll be good for our careers. (Or maybe I’m just being naïve).

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QP: Protesters and protestations

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While the prime minister was off meeting the president of Croatia, and Andrew Scheer was elsewhere, Candice Bergen led off QP, and she started off with more angry rhetoric about the Mark Norman case. David Lametti responded with his bland assurances that the RCMP and the Public Prosecution Service were independent, and that all stated there was no interference or contact. Bergen stated that she wasn’t disputing their independence but that the decision to stay the charges was in spite of government interference. Diane Lebouthillier, bizarrely, repeated Lametti’s response in French. Bergen demanded that the government allow the Defence Committee to investigate the matter, and Lebouthillier repeated her response. Alain Rayes got up next to decry that an infrastructure announcement was made in Quebec with no member of the provincial government present. Jean-Yves Duclos got up to recite how their infrastructure programme was making a difference. Rayes accused Duclos of attacking the government of Quebec, and Duclos repeated his praise for the government’s investments in Quebec. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and he read some platitudes about the NDP environment plan and wanted a declaration of a climate emergency. Oddly, Ginette Petitpas Taylor read some praise for the 50 measures that the government was taking to reduce pollution. Singh switched to French to repeat the demand, and Petitpas Taylor read the French version of the script. Singh then raised the report on money laundering in BC, and Lebouthillier noted that CRA is ramping up their audits to combat this. Singh repeated the question in English, and Bill Blair directed Singh to read Budget 2019, which gave greater police funding and new regulations to help investigations and prosecutions. 

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Roundup: Surprising job numbers

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There were surprising economic numbers out yesterday – record job creation, and historic unemployment rate lows in Quebec, and nearing lows for youth unemployment. The government had obviously been preparing for the threshold of a million jobs created since they took office, because once it happened with this morning’s release, they were all over it, and everyone of them was pushing insufferable memes over their social media channels, and trying to wedge it into QP when they got bored of the Mark Norman scripts. And before you ask, no these jobs weren’t all in the public sector, but the majority were in the private sector and were full-time jobs, and were broad across different sectors that tested well, meaning that the data has less chance of being suspect as the month-over-month data can be.

This will set up a few different narratives as we careen toward the election – from the Liberals, it will be seen as proof that their plan for “investing in the middle class” is working, which will be key for their re-election message. While Andrew Scheer has attempted to claim that there was a jobs crisis in this country on several occasions – based in part on deliberately misconstruing StatsCan data – it’s never really stuck. Likewise, this pours a lot of cold water on the claims that the federal carbon price is a job-killer (though they would say that it remains too soon to tell). It also is on the road to completely disproving that said carbon price will drive the country into recession – in fact, it looks like the economy is picking back up steam after the slowdown related to the most recent oil price crash (which the Bank of Canada had always stated was due to temporary factors, though it spread a bit further than initially anticipated). That these job figures had other strong indicators like good wage growth in them, it bolsters the picture of that recovery, which should be back to solid growth by the time of the election. Of course, the Conservatives will try to point to the fact that the Americans are showing bigger job growth than we are, but it also bears reminding that they’ve juiced their economy with a trillion dollars in annual deficit spending, which puts Trudeau’s very small deficits in favourable comparison.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1126925907908808704

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1126929298563244032

I’m not sure that this will undo all of the damage the Liberals have been doing to themselves, and they’re going to inevitably be arrogant in how they communicate this economic good news, but they can at least point to good numbers.

https://twitter.com/SkepticRod/status/1125431876670255104

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Roundup: Beyak suspended

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It was inevitable, but the Senate has voted to suspend Senator Lynn Beyak without pay for the remainder of his Parliament in accordance with the recommendation from the Senate’s ethics committee after the findings of the Ethics Officer that letters Beyak posted to her website were racist and breached the ethics code for senators. Beyak got her chance to defend herself yesterday before the vote, and she insisted that she has done nothing wrong, that there’s nothing racist about the “truth” (as she sees it), and she thinks that her website is a beacon of positivity because she’s trying to assert that residential schools for Indigenous children weren’t all bad.

In terms of next steps, Beyak will likely reappear at the start of the next parliament, following the election, where she will be given another chance to apologise, and prove that she understands why those letters were racist (something she has been completely incapable of comprehending to date – and the Ethics Officer did point out that this was an issue of comprehension, not malice). At that point, if she still refuses to see the error of her ways, the Senate could revisit the matter and vote to suspend her again for that parliamentary session (meaning until there is a prorogation or dissolution), and if that extends past two years, there is the possibility that they could declare the seat vacant at that point. More likely will be pressure to simply vote to expel Beyak for the Senate because she has been unrepentant in exposing the Senate to disrepute for her racist actions – at which point she may get the hint and do the honourable thing and just resign, but she does seem to be sticking to her guns here. Regardless, this suspension is now the first stage in a two-stage process of dealing with the problem. But those who want Beyak to be out immediately will need to be patient, because the power to expel a senator can’t be used casually.

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QP: Impugning the RCMP and public prosecutor

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On a gloomy Thursday, neither Justin Trudeau nor Andrew Scheer were present for the proceedings. Mark Strahl led off, raising the end of the Mark Norman trial, alleging interference by the government, to which Bill Blair assured him that the RCMP and the Public Prosecution Service are independent of government. Strahl railed about the documents that were allegedly withheld in the process, and Blair took umbrage with his characterisation of the RCMP. Strahl amped his rhetoric and his volume, to which Blair asserted that none of that was true, and he reiterated the independence of the process. Alain Rayes picked up on that in French, with some added allegations that the government was apparently trying to “destroy” Davie shipyard (no, seriously), and Blair asserted that people deserved better than slander and innuendo. Rayes trie again, and got Blair reading that all obligations were followed for document disclosure. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and he demanded the government adopt his plan to build half a million new homes, to which Jean-Yves Duclos thanked him for the opportunity to talk about the government’s national housing strategy. Singh asked again in French, and Duclos repeated his response. Singh then pivoted to the Norman trial, and demanded an independent investigation into what happened, and Blair repeated that he found it offensive that someone would rise and impugn the conduct of the RCMP of the Public Prosecution Service. Singh repeated the question in English, and got the same answer.

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Roundup: The Norman trial collapses

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As expected, Crown prosecutors announced yesterday that they were staying the breach of trust charges that had been laid against Vice Admiral Mark Norman regarding the leaks of cabinet confidences related to a shipbuilding project, and people who don’t pay attention to details decided that the timing was suspicious and spun a number of conspiracy theories, many of them around the fact that Andrew Leslie was due to “testify against” the government. (Reality check: Leslie agreed to be a character witness for Norman months ago, and PMO was fully aware and there were no indications that they tried to dissuade him from doing so). With that out of the way, Norman made a statement about bias and presumption of guilt by senior levels of government, and his lawyer, the formidable Marie Henein, threw shade at PMO – stating that while the prosecutors acted independently, she felt PMO was withholding documents for far too long in the process – and the suggestion is that some of the Harper-era documents were what eventually exonerated him (though the Crown attorneys said there was no one piece of evidence that was responsible). As this was happening, Harjit Sajjan announced on his way into caucus that the government would pay Norman’s legal expenses. Norman later met with the Chief of Defence Staff, General Jonathan Vance, who said that with this out of the way, that Norman would be returning to duty soon, though we’ll see if it will be back as vice-chief of defence staff, as the role has since been filled by someone else. There are lingering questions – lots of them – about what happened here, but there aren’t likely to be many answers anytime soon given that the trial for the bureaucrat also charged with leaking information is coming up.

And great Cyllenian Hermes, were there a lot of hot takes on the end of the Norman trial today. Christie Blatchford described Norman’s ordeal, while Andrew Coyne has so many questions. Susan Delacourt and Matt Gurney both point out that this could remove one controversy from Justin Trudeau’s plate before the election, but both point to the lasting reputational damage that this has helped to inflict on Trudeau.

I have a few comments of my own that nobody seems to have brought up – one of them is to point out that the RCMP unit that investigated the leak was apparently the same one who investigated Senator Mike Duffy, and so ballsed up that investigation that we all know how it ended. Perhaps we should question whether this investigative unit is very good at their jobs. The other thing that bothers me in this whole affair was less about the leak than it was about what appears to be a high-ranking military official who balked when Scott Brison, the Treasury Board president, put the process on pause so that they could examine the sole-source contract granted by the previous government (as is the official version of events). Remember that this contract was granted after the House of Commons rose for the summer (and before the election call), and when Senators raised it while they still sat, the government offered no clarity or details, so there was no proper scrutiny at the time. That matters. But whether Brison paused the process to examine it, or to possibly open it for tender, it shouldn’t have been for Norman to work his contacts to try and pressure the government to resume the process (as is the allegation), because that undermines the civilian control of our military. Nobody is talking about his angle, which I think needs a better airing in all of this.

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Roundup: Green wins, and the AG’s report

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After the Green Party won their second seat in Monday night’s by-election in Nanaimo–Ladysmith, it was inevitable that we would be subjected to a litany of hot takes about what this means for the upcoming federal election, most of which I’m not going to bother reading because frankly, I’m not sure it means anything at all. The Greens have been doing well provincially on Vancouver Island, where this riding is, and more than that, this particular candidate was once an NDP candidate who was booted from the party (apparently for views about Israel), and when the Greens picked him up, he won for them, while the NDP vote collapsed. Add to that, Green wins in BC, New Brunswick and PEI were also predicated by incumbent governments who had been in place for a long time (well, in New Brunswick, it was a constant PC/Liberal swap), and that’s not necessarily the case federally. While Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh tried to spin this as “proof” that Canadians care about the environment (for which both will try to tout their party policies on the same) we can’t forget that Canadians want to do something about the environment in the same way that they want a pony – it’s a nice idea that nobody has any intention of following up on because it’s a lot of effort and mess. This has been proven time and again. I would also caution against the notion that this means that “progressive” votes are up for grabs, because the Greens, well, aren’t all that progressive. If you read their platform, it’s really quite socially conservative, and they had whole sections essentially written by “Men’s Rights Activists” because they have little to no adult supervision in their policy development process. So any hot takes you’re going to read about the by-election are probably going to be full of hot air (quite possibly this one as well).

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1125798043905818624

Auditor General’s Report

The big news out of the Auditor General’s report was of course the backlog that the Immigration and Refugee Board faces regarding asylum claimants in Canada. The Conservatives, naturally, have jumped on this to “prove” that the current government has somehow broken the system, but every single expert that was cited over the day yesterday said that the Liberals inherited a system that was already broken (some went so far as to say that the Conservatives deliberately broke it in order to force a crisis that would allow them to adopt more draconian measures – though those backfired in a spectacular way, worsening the backlog), and that they have taken steps to increase the IRB’s resources. I wrote about some of these issues a while ago, and the IRB was starting to streamline some of their processes and start making use of technology like email (no, seriously) that cut down on some of the bureaucracy they were mired in – but as with anything, these kinds of changes take time to implement and have an effect. But expect the narrative of the “broken” system to continue in the run up to the election. Meanwhile, here are the other reports:

  • Half of Canadians who call a government call centre can’t get through, which is blamed on technology that was allowed to go obsolete
  • The RCMP are still not adequately prepared to deal with active shooter situations.
  • Our tax system hasn’t kept up with e-commerce and needs modernization
  • The mechanism to prevent governments from doing partisan advertising has little documentation and rigour.

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