Tag Archives: Coast Guard

Roundup: Pledging more action on mass graves

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In the wake of the discovery of the mass grave of Indigenous children at a former residential school in Kamloops, there was a lot of attention directed to the prime minister, particularly on the slow rate of progress on implementing the calls to action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Trudeau, for his part, stated that sure, Cabinet could have swooped down and unilaterally taken actions, but that they would have been the wrong actions because they need to be done in consultation with Indigenous people, and consultation takes time. (Indeed, it seems that every time the government is ready to move forward on something, a number of Indigenous groups declare that it’s all wrong and demand that they start over again with grassroots consultation).

Another recurring narrative throughout the day was the demand for more funding to search other sites, and pointing out that the federal government denied the TRC the $1.5 million they were asking for to do that work in 2009 – but most people failed to follow up and see that the current government did fund that work for up to $10 million in 2016, on top of other ongoing funding for this kind of work to carry on. The minister, Carolyn Bennett, also noted that communities did not want the government to simply hire archaeological firms to do the work, but wanted to do it on their own, which is why the government is providing funds for those who want to do it (though there seems to be some contention about that in the Kamloops case when it comes to who was paying for the ground-penetrating radar).

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A couple of other observations – one is that I find the Conservatives’ sudden insistence that this government move expeditiously to implement all of the Calls to Action to be a bit precious given that they dragged their feet on taking this action when they were in government (including denying the funding to search for such grave sites), generally contenting themselves that they made the official apology and established the TRC. (Similarly, their demands that the MMIW National Action Plan be completed immediately also rings hollow considering they resisted calling such an inquiry). The other observation is that the Catholic Church has yet to acknowledge any culpability or apologise for what happened at residential schools, or to offer any compensation, remains a problem, but I’m not sure just how much pressure the federal government is able to put to bear on them for it. Of course, we have seen similar abuse scandals and mass graves in other countries, where race cannot also be considered a factor, and this will complicate the simplistic narratives being applied to this discovery. There is a lot for us as a society to come to terms with, and there shouldn’t be easy answers to be drawn from it.

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Roundup: An agreement, and a start to further discussions

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On the fourth day of negotiations, federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett, her BC counterpart, and the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have come to an agreement regarding land title rights for Wet’suwet’en territory, which has been an open issue for decades. It will need to be ratified by the Wet’suwet’en nation after a period of consultation, but it is a step. This does not, however, completely solve the issue with the proposed Coastal GasLink pipeline – the vocal group of hereditary chiefs remain opposed (while those in the community who support the project feel they aren’t being heard), but this remains an issue where the community needs to come together and use the feast system under their laws to resolve these disputes, which hasn’t been happening. It will also require further discussions with the RCMP about their operations in their territory, but again, there seems to be some progress made.

Meanwhile, a discussion among legal experts is ongoing regarding the efficacy of using legal injunctions when there are land rights protests going on, because they can be too much of a blunt instrument. Some are suggesting that the injunctions be structured to allow for mediated consultation instead of heavy-handed orders to stop their protests, as has been done in some provinces when it comes to labour disputes. And a prime example of something unhelpful is the bill recently tabled in Alberta to further penalize protesters with heavy fines (which is already likely unconstitutional), but there does seem to be a definite mindset behind that kind of legislation.

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Roundup: See you at the Supreme Court

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In the wake of the Alberta Court of Appeal reference decision on the federal carbon price, both Jason Kenney and his justice minister have been performing a particular song and dance for the media’s consumption, demanding that the federal government immediately remove said “unconstitutional” price, and demanding a rebate for all Albertans under threat of personal lawsuit.
Couple of things:

  1. This was not a court order. It was a reference question, so there is no actual weight to the finding of unconstitutionality. And federal justice minister David Lametti said as much in a letter responding to his Alberta counterpart telling that he would see him at the Supreme Court of Canada.
  2. There is already a rebate. In fact, most people get more back than they pay into it – and they are scheduled to receive the biggest rebates in the country. Demanding refunds is actually a bit gross, because it’s wilfully misrepresenting how the system works.
  3. Suing members of the federal Cabinet is not how the system works. And we actually saw said provincial minister’s old law professor take to Twitter to say that she taught him better than that. So there’s that.

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Meanwhile, Manitoba is threatening to continue with their challenge to the federal carbon price if they don’t get a deal on the very same thing from the federal government. While the federal government says that they haven’t received a new proposal from Manitoba, you can bet that the province wants to continue pitching a price that won’t rise, which isn’t going to be on because it’s about ensuring a level playing field across the country, and not letting premiers undermine one another in a race to the bottom.

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Roundup: The bitumen-soaked petard

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Probably the most important piece you could read from yesterday’s offerings was this analysis from energy economist Andrew Leach, who dismantled much of the logic behind the Conservative environmental “plan” that Andrew Scheer was so proud of. Aside from the fact that it lacks detail, it’s full of contradictions (such as eschewing carbon taxes, and yet does largely the same thing with large emitters), and a lot of things that don’t make sense. Leach not only calls out the fact that the “plan” is full of straw men and distractions (such as the focus on raw sewage), but probably most devastating is that he punches holes in the plan for the Canada Clean Brand™ that Scheer is trying to promote – the notion that Canadian products are “cleaner” and should displace those abroad, thus keeping Canadian jobs and still (ostensibly) lowering emissions. And while that may be true enough with aluminium, it’s certainly not for our oil exports, which kind of blows the whole thing out of the water. Oops.

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Roundup: The source of the complaints

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Carrying on with yesterday’s theme, Bill Morneau decided he would try and be too cute by half and release an open letter of his own, questioning Andrew Scheer’s promise to premiers to maintain the current health and social transfer system, and claimed that he was still advocating a cut. I’m not sure that it was quite right, but it was a novel attempt – and something Morneau rarely does, so there’s that. Scheer, meanwhile, keeps on his affordability message, claiming that he’s the only one worried about it while the Liberals keep raising taxes, etc.

The thing is, Scheer is wrong about that. He is fond of citing that Fraser Institute report that treats the cancellation of boutique tax credits as “raising taxes” – as it also ignores the tax-free Canada Child Benefit offered to most families as a replacement, and a more targeted one that will actually benefit low-income households at that – much like he’s fond of ignoring that the climate rebates will make most households better off in jurisdictions under the federal carbon pricing system. But beyond that, the data clearly shows that the federal taxes as a share of federal revenues also continues to decline under the Liberals. Scheer’s affordability narrative as it comes to taxes is bogus. Well, except for one particular group, who is not better off under the changes that the Liberals have made. And yet, as Kevin Milligan demonstrates with data and receipts below, it’s certainly not the average Canadians that Scheer claims to be fighting for. But then again, illiberal populists claiming to be looking out for average people while benefitting the wealthiest is getting to be a tired game by this point – and yet people still keep falling for it.

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Roundup: Sticking with the date

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You may recall that last week, the Federal Court granted judicial review to the Conservative candidate looking to change the election date because it clashes with a particular orthodox Jewish holiday, and lo, the Chief Electoral Officer set about to review his decision. Yesterday he announced that he’d reviewed it, and he was still confident that there wasn’t sufficient reason to change it – moving it back a week would put it in conflict with a bunch of PD days in schools that they needed to use for polling stations, and it would collide with municipal elections in Nunavut, and there were still plenty of options, be they advance polls or special ballots, for those affected by the orthodox Jewish holidays. That decision goes to Cabinet, who will make the final call later this week.

But then something curious happened – a couple of Liberal MPs tweet their dismay at the CEO’s decision, which is a little odd because, well, it’s not really his call. He’s making a recommendation, and Cabinet makes the final decision because the dissolution of Parliament for an election is a Crown prerogative, meaning that it depends on the Governor-in-Counsel (i.e. Cabinet advising the governor general) that makes the decision, regardless of our garbage fixed election date legislation. So if they’re tweeting dismay, they should direct their pleas to their own government rather than to harass the CEO.

This having been said, I am forced to wonder if this isn’t part of the fallout from the aforementioned garbage fixed election date. One of the justifications for said garbage legislation is that it’s supposed to help Elections Canada plan, rather than scramble in the event of a snap election call – but it’s starting to feel like perhaps those plans are also getting a bit precious, which is a bad sign for an institution that is supposed to be adaptable in order to accommodate the election call, whenever it may be.

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Roundup: The premiers’ pre-meeting

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While a Council of the Federation meeting will be happening this week in Saskatoon, Jason Kenney has been planning a pre-meeting for several premiers at Stampede, last night and today. It’s an interesting bit of dynamic because while Kenney is one of the most junior members of the Council (with only PEI being more junior), he’s trying to act like a bit of a ringleader for the various conservative-led provinces as they wage war against Justin Trudeau and the federal government. We’ll see how well that goes over.

Meanwhile, John Horgan says he’s hoping that they can use this meeting to get something accomplished, and that it won’t be a number of premiers trying to have a stand-off against Trudeau in advance of the election. But given that several of those premiers have been having public tantrums over the carbon price, two of them now having lost their court challenges, I’m quite certain that they’re going to have some kind of theatrical blow-out for the sake of Andrew Scheer to come in and try and look statesmanlike. (Have I mentioned that fixed election dates are garbage?)

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Roundup: Problematic leaked recommendations

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On Monday, the Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women will give its final report, and judging from the leaked copy, there will be some consternation with the conclusions, particularly that it considers the deaths as the victims of a “Canadian genocide.” While previous inquiries and even statements by the former Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice, Beverley McLachlin, have used the term cultural genocide, this report allegedly drops the qualifier. That will likely be a hurdle because there would seem to be an implication that a genocide implies an organised effort – which there was on the cultural side (because it was inconceivable to think that they shouldn’t be converted to Christianity and “civilised” because that was the dominant cultural framework), but I think it will be hard to stretch that to deaths that are more attributable to poverty and intergenerational violence – we can’t forget that the vast majority of perpetrators of these deaths were Indigenous men (and that there are even larger numbers of Indigenous men who have are missing and murdered).

As for recommendations, the headline one also appears to be problematic – that instances of domestic violence against Indigenous women that result in death be regarded as first-degree murder – and that the use of “Gladue principles” be reviewed with cases of deaths of Indigenous women. That again will be problematic because the Supreme Court ruled on those principles as a way of addressing intergenerational violence that leads to higher rates of incarceration for Indigenous people, and again, if the majority of perpetrators of violence against Indigenous women are Indigenous men, does this recommendation then not demand that more Indigenous men be incarcerated? While the recommendation is rooted in the principles of denunciation and deterrence, I’m not sure that’s sufficient given the broader implications. As well, some of the recommendations like making Indigenous languages official and on par with English and French don’t seem to grasp the practical considerations of ensuring that there be federal services provided in 60 different Indigenous languages.

It also sounds like the government isn’t going to readily accept all of these recommendations Carolyn Bennett has been pre-consulting on what she’s been hearing out of the Inquiry, and she’s not in favour of harsher sentences because it goes against evidenced-based policy as to what is effective. She also noted that their bill on changing child welfare systems for Indigenous communities will do more to prevent the intergenerational violence that the current broken system does. We’ll see what the formal report and its apparent 230 recommendations entail, and what the government’s response will be, but this leak and Bennett’s response sounds like they won’t be endorsing the whole thing.

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Roundup: Alberta sends the wrong (price) signals

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It was Throne Speech day in Alberta, and sure enough, it contained an ambitious laundry list of upcoming legislation designed to undo much of what the NDP had put into place as a means of “restoring” the mythical Alberta Advantage. (Full speech here). Shortly thereafter, the promised Bill 1 to repeal the province’s carbon levy was introduced – pretty much guaranteeing that the federal carbon price will be imposed once the bill is enacted. It doesn’t repeal all of the carbon prices in the province, however – it merely shifts them to the largest polluters, which does nothing about the demand side of carbon consumption, and won’t shift consumer behaviours, nor will it do enough for those large emitters, because for all of Kenney’s talk about looking to protect the energy sector, he just shifted the bulk of the burden onto them. (It also won’t really help consumers because poorer households will be worse off now).

Meanwhile, here’s Andrew Leach to explain why Kenney’s repeal of the carbon price is handing a rhetorical victory to Ontario, and why the reliance on magical technology from the future to reduce emissions won’t happen if there aren’t proper price signals to spur its development.

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Roundup: The rot Chong won’t address

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Conservative MP Michael Chong took to Policy Options yesterday to decry that the unilateral expulsions of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott from the Liberal caucus was indicative of a “deeper rot” in our parliamentary culture. His solution? Just make some amendments to his garbage legislation Reform Act to better enforce the called-for votes to implement at the beginning of each parliament, or to do away with the voting entirely (which was a compromise to make the bill palatable), and ensure that the measures in the bill are fully enforceable regardless. And I just can’t even.

Chong keeps insisting that his garbage bill was going to “rebalance” the power between MPs and party leaders, but it does nothing of the sort – much like this omnibus motion that Liberal MP Frank Bayliss is proposing to amend the Standing Orders (which Chong is a co-sponsor of). These kinds of measures don’t actually attack the root of the problems facing our parliament, and in the creation of new rules, they simply create avenues for unintended consequences that make things worse. (For more on the Bayliss motion and why it’s a problem, see my weekend column). The solution is not, and will never be, more rules. The solution is to do away with the rules that have made things progressively worse, and to start rolling back the changes that our MPs keep making in the vain hopes of improving their lot when all they need to do is assert the powers that they already have.

I fear I am getting repetitive about this point, but until people start listening, I will keep saying it – the biggest root cause of the problems in our system, particularly where it concerns the “balancing” of powers of MPs vis-à-vis the party leader, is the party leadership selection system. Unless caucus members can select the leader, any attempt made by them to remove the leader, garbage Reform Act or no, will be seen as illegitimate precisely because the current selection system insulates leaders with a false notion of “democratic legitimacy.” And Chong knows this, but keeps trying to burnish his garbage bill in the hopes that it will somehow shine. It’s not going to happen, and MPs telling themselves that the solution is more rules are simply deluding themselves. More rules got us in this situation. More rules keeps taking power away from MPs under the guise of “rebalancing” or “restoring” that power, and this cycle keeps repeating. It needs to stop, and it means MPs (and the pundit class of this country) need to stop believing this mythology. The only solution is caucus selection of leaders. Anything else is a mirage.

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