Tag Archives: Competition Bureau

Roundup: The mounting spending on McKinsey consultants

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There is a report out from Radio-Canada about the current government’s increasing reliance on consulting reports from McKinsey, with an explosion of contract spending on them. And it’s not good—it’s expensive, it’s corrosive to the capabilities of the civil service, and it undermines the ability for there to be transparency in these kinds of consultations. There is an attitude that anything coming from outside government is better, and the civil service (rightly) feels put out by it without also recognising that some of their own dysfunction has contributed to these attitudes.

I would note, however, that the story does leave out some of the context around the increasing use of external consultants and the history, particularly under the previous government. While the focus of this story was on McKinsey and how this government seems to be relying on them more, we have to also remember that a lot of this outsourcing of work that should be done by the civil service sharply increased under the previous government, particularly as they cut capacity and capability in the civil service, and then found it from external sources, where it was easier to be told what they wanted to hear. (That, and it was a tactic in their outright war on the civil service). This isn’t to say that the civil service is still a bastion of telling truth to power, because it hasn’t been for a while now, and the dysfunction of the relationship between government and the professional civil-service is a real problem that has no easy solutions. But it’s getting worse and not better, even under this government that promised to restore that relationship (though interviews I’ve done for other stories suggests that they didn’t have any idea about how bad things were in the civil service when they made that promise). It would be great if ministers could actually listen to their departments rather than hiring these outside consultants, but it’s not like this government is a fount of political courage in doing things all that differently when it comes down to it.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 316:

As Russian missiles have struck civilian targets in Kramatorsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Russia is planning a new mobilization in order to delay their inevitable defeat. Meanwhile, Canadian-made LAVs are now reaching the battlefield in Ukraine.

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Roundup: Summoning Sunwing and VIA to committee

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The chair of the Commons transport committee says he is looking to call a meeting shortly in order to summon the heads of airlines like Sunwing and of VIA Rail to get them to explain how they handled the travel chaos over the holidays. Which is all well and good, even if it’s more about a public expression of anger and accountability. The wrinkle here is that the Conservatives also want the minister to be summoned to explain why he didn’t “fix the system.”

Sigh.

Aside from the risible press release that the Conservative transport critic, Mark Strahl, put out over the holidays that essentially blamed Justin Trudeau for the weather, we have to remember that the government has very few levers at their disposal here. They don’t run the airlines, and while VIA Rail is a Crown Corporation, it is operated at arm’s length from the government specifically so that they can’t tell them what to do. (The minister can select the board of directors and give general policy directives, like they are doing with the pursuit of high-frequency rail, but he cannot direct operations). We all watched over the summer as airport operators conveniently blamed the ArriveCan app for their failures to do things like hire enough ground crews, or airlines blaming the app for their decisions to schedule flights that didn’t have flight crews, and that credulous media organisations lapped it up without calling them on their bullshit, and lo, nothing actually got fixed (which, again, the minister cannot direct because those are private companies), so when these problems persisted and were amplified by the inclement weather over the holidays, they can no longer blame ArriveCan or anything the federal government has or has not done. They should face some actual accountability for their failures, rather than just have the opposition parties repeat their bullshit to try and pin the problems on the government.

Of course, the government could and should do something about the Canadian Transportation Agency, like shaking up its membership so that it’s no longer subject to capture by the industry, or giving it additional resources to deal with the backlog of complaints, or strengthening its governing structure, or any number of other things that could hold industry to account. That would be a better use of their time than having Strahl give a performance for the cameras at committee, where he can invent new constituents like “Briane” to give fictitious sob stories about, but this government has shown little interest in doing that work. Perhaps the committee could expend some of their time and resources to provide that pressure?

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 315:

Russia says that 89 service members were killed in the Ukrainian attack on a position in occupied Donetsk region, and cited the unauthorised use of mobile phones from their soldiers that allowed their location to be determined. (They also claim they retaliated and killed 200 Ukrainian soldiers and four HIMARS launchers, to which Ukraine says two people were injured in an attack on a hockey arena in the area attacked). There is also talk that the increasing use of drones in this conflict could bring about the dawn of the “killer robot” as they become more autonomous.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1610371348874031104

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Roundup: The disinfo is coming from inside the house

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Happy New Year!

I’m going to ease us back in with a reminder that yes, the far-right extremists, grifters, conspiracy theorists and grievance tourists who occupied Ottawa last winter were not an imported phenomenon, but have firm roots in Canada and the discourse here. Yes, some of it does get imported, where it finds fertile soil, but we do export our share of it too, which is one of those fundamental things that our policy-makers are going to have to grapple with in the coming year.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1609902285156646913

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1609902289443229698

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1609906080389423110

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1609908494853103623

In case you missed it:

  • My column on the problems with the federal ethics regime and why the Liberals have such a problem with it.
  • My column on the government being very slow to pass bills over the past session, as their ambitious agenda stalls.
  • My column on why decades of austerity is one of the reasons for why people are complaining that Canada is supposedly “broken.”
  • My Loonie Politics Quick Take on why Bill C-22 is one to watch over the New Year.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 314:

Russian forces did not slow their attacks on Ukraine over the Christmas and New Year period, and president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Russia is planning a protracted drone strike campaign to “exhaust” Ukraine. Ukrainian forces struck Russian positions in Donetsk, which Russians claim killed 63 soldiers, one of the deadliest attacks since the invasion began, as ammunition stored at the area of the strike exploded.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1609268349447331840

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Roundup: Lost faith in the Ottawa Police Service

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Once again, a lot of threads to disentangle as the OPP Commissioner, Thomas Carrique, was on the stand at the Emergencies Act public inquiry, and what a lot of the day seemed to focus on (at least, from what I could tell from afar) were the texts he was exchanging with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki. So, what did we learn? That the federal government had pretty much lost all confidence in the Ottawa Police and were discussing taking over the response to the occupation, even though Lucki was particularly reluctant to do so (and worried that the Emergencies Act would be used to make that happen). There was discussion about the OPP in particular taking over, and the Commissioner was ready to have that call before the Ottawa chief resigned. Once Peter Sloly was out of the way, an integrated command was set up. Also interesting was the comment that the Act was used to compensate tow truck drivers more than it was to compel their services (which could be a signal to the provinces about how they may need to update their own emergency legistlation).

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1585629449038577664

Carrique defended his comments that the occupation was a threat to national security, and the way that the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor was handled differently than the Ottawa occupation. Documents provided to the inquiry showed that the FBI provided some support to the Ottawa Police during the occupation, likely around US-based support for it, so that lends some credence to the national security threat analysis.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1585720241979629569

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 246:

Ukrainian forces attacked Russian forces occupying the southern city of Kherson, while fighting also intensified in the country’s east as Russians bombarded the city of Bakhmut. While Putin is denying he plans to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine (isn’t that a sign he will?), another mass grave was discovered in the village of Kopanky.

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QP: Framing food bank stats for their own ends

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Neither the prime minister nor his deputy were present today, nor were most other leaders, save Pierre Poilievre, who is nearly always present. Poilievre led off in French, worrying that 1.5 million visits to food banks and that this was Canada, but he blamed taxes for this. Randy Boissonnault noted that people are having a tough time, but this government had supports available while the Conservatives would rather see them on their own. Poilievre repeated the statistic in English, adding in a “triple, triple, triple” talking point to that, and this time Karina Gould delivered the same response. Poilievre called the $6000 hotel room in London as a (tortured) analogy about this government and that the party was over, but Gould got back up to point out that the Conservatives would have abandoned Canadians in their darkest hour in the pandemic. Poilievre tried to bring in WE and ArriveCan as examples of waste, and Boissonnault repeated Gould’s point more excitedly. Poilievre raised a media story of a family who over-leveraged themselves on their mortgage and their payments have gone up $2000 and wonders what the hell they do now. (The Speaker cautioned him against this). Ahmed Hussen rose to accuse Poilievre of “gatekeeping” rental supports for those who need it and dental care.

Alain Therrien rose for the Bloc, railed that the dental support was not adequate for Quebec families and wondered why the government just didn’t approach the Quebec government (because federal-provincial agreements are that easy). Pablo Rodriguez chided the Bloc for not caring enough about children. Therrien got even more exercise about this, to which Adam van Koeverden read a statement about the benefit being available to those who need it.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he too raised the food bank usage figure, but blamed the government for not tackling corporate greed. Gould reminded him that this government has raised more children out of poverty than ever before. Alastair MacGregor repeated the same question in English (Champagne: I called on grocery CEOs to task them with taking action, and I demanded the Competition Bureau investigate the sector).

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Roundup: Contradictions and poor intelligence practices

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There has been a number of competing threads in the ongoing Emergencies Act public inquiry, and a lot of police testimony that is contradictory, and contradicting their own documentary evidence. For example, one senior Ottawa police officer is claiming that they had the tow trucks all lined up and ready to go without the invocation of the Act—erm, except the documents don’t show that at all, and that they needed the Act to secure those services. There has also been a lot of alarming signs about the quality of police intelligence about the make-up of the occupation (which many leaders subsequently ignored anyway). The OPP did see an increasing risk of violence the longer it dragged on, particularly by those in the occupation who felt they were “at war” with the federal government, along with growing anti-police sentiment (presumably because police weren’t doing their bidding to arrest members of the government). The Commission has agreed to hear CSIS’ evidence behind closed doors.

Here’s former CSIS analyst Jessica Davis on the quality of that intelligence, and yikes:

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 245:

Both Russian and NATO forces carried out annual nuclear exercises, while Russia carries on its false narrative that Ukrainians plan to detonate a “dirty bomb” on their own soil in order to blame Russia—information operations entirely. While this was happening, Russian forces targeted 40 towns in Ukraine, killing at least two more people.

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Roundup: Ford tries to escape testifying

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Some drama is emerging from the Emergencies Act public inquiry, as we find out that Doug Ford and Sylvia Jones, his then-solicitor general, have refused to be interviewed by the Commissioner, and have refused to testify before it. Recall that just last week, Doug Ford said that he hadn’t been asked to testify when asked (because it makes no sense that he and Jones were not on the list). Well, today, we found out that they were asked, they refused, and now the Commissioner plans to summon them, but Ford intends to challenge that summons under the rubric of parliamentary privilege, which would seem to me to be abusing it, but there you have it.

https://twitter.com/SkinnerLyle/status/1584624171598086145

Meanwhile, the acting Ottawa police chief was testifying, and it was a lot more of the same when it comes to police not taking the threat of an occupation seriously, and them essentially ignoring the intelligence that was being forwarded to them, and lo, these “protesters” turned into an illegal occupation. There was also an email filed from RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki who said that they hadn’t exhausted all tools before the Act was invoked, for what that’s worth.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1584574961339203586

https://twitter.com/aballinga/status/1584612932595638275

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 243:

Ukrainian officials are claiming greater success in shooting down drones attacking electrical infrastructure, but worries are now that Russia will try to detonate a “dirty bomb” within their territory as they have essentially announced the intention to do so and blame it on the Ukrainians doing it to frame Russia. If it wasn’t such a terrifying prospect, it would be really, really stupid. Meanwhile, doctors in the country are worried about spending the winter months in the basements of hospitals as electrical systems are under attack.

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Roundup: Brown tries to defend himself

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It’s day one-hundred-and-thirty-four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it sounds like Ukrainian forces have held off any Russian advances in the north of Donetsk province, as Russians shell the city of Sloviansk and other nearby populated areas. Russians are also trying to seize control of the highway linking the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces. Meanwhile, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev is warning against trying to punish Russia for the invasion, with thinly-veiled threats about nuclear conflict, so that’s some nightmare fuel for you.

Closer to home, the day was largely consumed with Patrick Brown trying to refute the allegations against him, insisting that he wasn’t given any details he could substantively repudiate to the party brass, and that this was all the work of Poilievre loyalists on the leadership committee who were afraid that he wanted to take the party in a different direction with the help of members signed up from ethno-cultural communities (with some unspoken allegations of racism there). But beyond this, he was also contending with allegations from mismanagement from his own city council, and the memories of questionable conduct when he was Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leader around certain loans (and this is without even bringing up the even older sexual assault allegations that ended said leadership). Brown, incidentally, dismissed those city council allegations as well, citing that they are from the faction of council that opposes him, and that everything has already been cleared up.

For the party’s part, they didn’t do themselves any favours by rushing the meeting and then putting out the disqualification release close to midnight, and it really just gave ammunition to Brown to claim that this was all a conspiracy of Poilievre-loyalists against him, and the fact that it was a reputed 11-6 decision also gave him fodder to work with. But the party president was doing media rounds as well, and insisted that the allegations didn’t come from the Poilievre camp, but from inside Brown’s own tent—the call is coming from inside the house. And while the party president also said there was no route to appeal, Brown has hired a very good law firm to try and overturn this decision, so we’ll see where this goes. Nevertheless, if he remains disqualified, this could have the effect of unmotivating the members Brown signed up, and giving Poilievre a better chance of taking the race on the first ballot, which he would need, otherwise the ranked ballot starts doing unexpected things (and no, they aren’t reprinting the ballots, so Brown will still be on it, but his votes not counted and the down ballot support redistributed).

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Roundup: On oaths to the Queen

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We’re in day one-hundred-and-twenty-six of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and much of the attention has been on the reverberations of the attack on the shopping centre in Kremenchuk, where the death toll is up to 18, with more than 20 missing, and many more wounded. French president Emmanuel Macron denounced the attack, and said that because of it, Russia “cannot and should not win” the war (but then again, Macron’s attempts to get Ukraine to give territorial concessions to end the conflict is not exactly reflecting well on him either). As well, CBC interviews a Ukrainian marine who survived the battle of Mariupol with severe injuries before spending two weeks as a Russian prisoner of war before he was able to be sent back to Ukraine for treatment.

https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine/status/1541839370747011072

Meanwhile, Turkey has dropped their objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, which means that their membership can move ahead. This while NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is talking about an eight-fold increase in Western troops being placed at an increased state of readiness, and more troops headed to the Baltic states, to make Russia very aware that they really, really shouldn’t cross their borders.

https://twitter.com/AnnLinde/status/1541877388937728005

https://twitter.com/ChristinsQueens/status/1541845991225278474

Closer to home, I spent way too much time yesterday being angry at a garbage piece of Canadian Press wire copy that was bad PR masquerading as a news story. I mean, we’re not even a week into Parliament’s summer recess, and this is what CP is using as void fill for the news hole? The piece claims that 56 percent of Canadians oppose the oath of allegiance to the Queen, then cites a “poll,” but it wasn’t actually a poll, it was online panels that are not actually random samples, but that fact isn’t mentioned until six paragraphs down. The only person quoted in the piece is the guy who runs the think tank who commissioned the panels, and he says that most Canadians are unaware that newcomers have to swear an oath to be “faithful to the Royal Family,” which is a wilful distortion of the truth. The oath is to the Queen and her “heirs and successors,” because heredity is kind of the point of monarchy. It’s not the whole Royal Family. Nobody is swearing fealty to Prince Andrew, or even Princess Anne for that matter. And for a think tank that claims to be devoted to increasing Canadians’ knowledge of their country, that kind of distortion is malpractice at best, but I suspect it’s more about trying to build a case that the monarchy is not a unifying force, particularly for immigrants. As for the CP journalist, this was simply retyping a press release with no added context. There were no basic civics in there about how we’re a constitutional monarchy, that the Queen of Canada is different from the Queen of the UK, or that the oath to the Queen is not to her natural person, but to the Crown as the central organizing principle of our constitution (which is why we would need to rewrite the entire thing if we ever were insane enough to ditch the monarchy—not that we would ever get the unanimous agreement of the provinces to do so). It’s really disappointing that CP has descended to this kind of stenography when they used to be one of the most enviable bureaux on the Hill.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1541409039330021380

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Roundup: A bill to swiftly pass?

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We’re at day one-hundred-and-fifteen of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it sounds like Severodonestk is still contested territory, under constant Russian shelling making it impossible for civilians trapped under a chemical plant to escape. UK prime minister Boris Johnson visited Kyiv for a second time, promising more arms as well as training for soldiers on a rotating basis. At the same time, the European Commission is recommending Ukraine for consideration for EU Membership. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian soldier who recorded the atrocities at Mariupol has been freed from Russian custody, while the Ukrainian Cabinet approved a resolution to bar Russian citizens from entering Ukraine without a visa.

Closer to home, the federal government tabled a new bill aimed at responding to the Supreme Court of Canada decision five weeks ago that allowed automatism as a defence in very narrow circumstances. The bill eliminates “self-induced extreme intoxication” as a defence, while leaving automatism out in those very rare cases where it would be unknowable that one might enter into this state, which points to the fact that in at least one of the cases before the Supreme Court that led to the provisions being struck down was that it was simply a bad trip that they didn’t know would happen as he had never done mushrooms before. David Lametti also indicated that he’s been in discussion with the other parties, and it sounds like this could be a bill that gets passed at all stages next week before the House of Commons rises for the summer (and likely leaving any actual scrutiny up to the Senate, if they have the appetite to do so before they also rise, way too early).

I also did note that during the press conference announcing the bill, minister Marci Ien had some fairly critical words for her former media colleagues in how the Supreme Court of Canada decision had been reported, where the headlines were that “extreme intoxication is a defence,” which isn’t what the judgment said, and the judgment very clearly differentiated between extreme intoxication and a state of automatism. Nevertheless, bad headlines led to disinformation that was making people afraid (and Ien cited her own daughter’s experiences reading social media about this decision, and she listed some of the figures that these disinformation posts got in terms of likes and shares). And I remember reading those headlines, and listening to the outraged questions in QP in the days that followed, and having to sigh and point out that no, that’s not what the Supreme Court ruled, and it would help if they actually read the gods damned decision because it was all right there. But sadly this seems to be the state of the media discourse these days, so good on Ien for calling it out, especially given the fact that she was herself a journalist.

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