Tag Archives: Corrections

QP: Hypocrisy and expletives

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On a rainy Monday in the nation’s capital, and at the start of a fourth consecutive week of sittings where tempers were getting frayed, there as once again only a single Liberal MP in the Chamber — Mark Gerretsen, of course. Candice Bergen off by video, and she groused that the defence committee meeting was cancelled this morning, alleging a cover-up, then said that the prime minister wouldn’t answer if he would have dismissed General Vance if he knew the nature of the allegations facing him. Harjit Sajjan noted that he appeared at the committee for six hours, and that they also heard from Stephen Harper’s chief of staff about what happened in 2015 when they appointed Vance while he was still under active investigation. Bergen accused the prime minster of not taking the allegations against Vance seriously because of the groping allegations levelled against him around the same time, and Sajjan instead raised that when the investigation against Vance was dropped on 2015, it was because of “pressure” and we wondered who was applying it. Bergen then tried to bring in what the prime minister’s chief of staff knew, for which Sajjan repeated that they knew about rumours against Vance and still appointed him anyway. Gérard Deltell returned to the issue of the defence committee cancelling its meeting this morning, crying that there was a cover up, for which committee chair Karen McCrimmon stated that they were developing recommendations, and there would be another meeting later in the week. Deltell then asked if PMO emails raised the possibility it was an issue of sexual harassment, why they did nothing about it. Sajjan repeated that the leader of the opposition knew of a rumour of misconduct and the Conservatives still appointed Vance while he was under active investigation. 

Alain Therrien led off for the Bloc, staying on the topic of the Vance allegations and accused Sajjan of contributing to the culture of silence in the military, and Sajjan recited this lines about taking the proper steps and alerting PMO. Therrien raised the appointment of Louise Arbour, while Sajjan insisted that politicians should not involve themselves in investigations. 

Rachel Blaney led for the NDP, and she too demanded action on the Arbour appointment over action, to which Sajjan repeated again that they are taking actions, including the appointment of a new officer in charge of culture in the military. Lindsay Mathyssen demanded that the recommendations of the Deschamps Report be implemented immediately, and Sajjan said that changing institutional culture is complex.

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QP: Demanding a “real plan” for small business

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There were three Liberals in the Chamber today, including Catherine McKenna once again as the designated front-bench babysitter, but the opposition benches were sparser and more male today than on Monday. Erin O’Toole led off in person, script on his mini-lectern, and he worried that the government wasn’t doing anything to save Line 5. Chrystia Freeland replied by video, stating that they are fighting for this just as they did with the New NAFTA. O’Toole gave an impassioned plea about the jobs tied to this pipeline, Freeland somewhat patronisingly replied that they are well aware of the jobs and they won’t forget those people. O’Toole then pivoted to small businesses that are suffering from the pandemic, demanding a “real plan” to save them. Freeland told him to pick a lane, between demanding government assistance or complaining about those very spending programmes. O’Toole switched to French to reference their Supply Day motion about specific budget measures for certain sectors, for which Freeland repeated her pick-a-lane line in French. O’Toole then repeated his demand for a plan for small businesses in French, for which Freeland called out the Conservative hypocrisy after they voted against a bill to provide more supports yesterday.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he worried that people were bypassing hotel quarantine rules by landing in the US and crossing at the land border, to which Freeland recited that we have some of the strongest border measures in the world, while they have to protect essential trade. Therrien was not impressed that his question was not answered and he tried a second time, and Freeland repeated her assurances about the strength of the border measures.

For the NDP, Jagmeet Singh appeared by video, and in French, he complained that government gave support for corporations instead of small businesses — a dubious claim at best — for which Freeland agreed that it was important to help small businesses, which is why it was urgent to pass Bill C-14. Singh repeated in English to demand a limit on credit card fees to help small businesses, and Freeland repeated her plea to pass C-14.

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Roundup: Procedural shenanigans in a pandemic

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The state of the government’s legislative agenda remains mired in procedural shenanigans, and the Conservatives are largely to blame. Of course, this is being framed as giving the Liberals ammunition for calling an election to try and win a majority so that they can regain control over their agenda, despite the fact that nobody aside from a few bored pundits actually wants to go to an election in the middle of a global pandemic, especially because we won’t be getting enough people vaccinated until at least summer before this could even be a remotely plausible scenario.

The government has been trying to pass two bills in short order – the latest pandemic support bill, and the assisted dying bill, for which they needed to get yet another extension to the court-imposed deadline because the Conservatives keep denying consent to extend debate on it. The procedural tactics tend to be forcing concurrence debates on committee reports, and because the opposition has enough votes to force them through, the actual orders of the day – mostly government bills – don’t wind up being debated after all. Of course, what has been especially precious is the way that the NDP have been using Question Period to complain that the government isn’t bringing bills up for debate (including the conversion therapy ban bill and the UNDRIP bill), even though they are actively participating in these concurrence debates, and voting with the Conservatives to have the debates. (The NDP also wasted an hour of the Commons’ time the other day when Don Davies complained he couldn’t re-ask his question from QP after his video cut out, never mind that the audio was fine, he was heard, and the question got a response. But he wanted the video so that it could be clipped for his social media, which is what QP had degenerated to).

I find myself particularly bemused by the Conservative House Leader – backed up by the Bloc’s – to claim that the government hasn’t set “clear priorities” and is failing to manage the legislative agenda. This is pretty ridiculous, because they know full well why those two bills are being prioritised, and in the case of the assisted dying bill, the Liberals have several times offered to move a motion that would allow the Commons to sit until midnight and debate the bill uninterrupted, but the Conservatives keep refusing consent for such a motion. And for as much as both the Conservatives and NDP keep saying that it’s the Liberals that want an election and that they don’t want to give it to them, it’s curious how they keep trying to engineer the opportunities for such a call. The fact that this level of gamesmanship is going on while we’re still in the midst of a pandemic just breeds cynicism, but seems tactically stupid if the government can demonstrate that their ability to get help to people (as with the pandemic support bill) keeps getting stymied by these kinds of shenanigans. But most of our parties these days are all tactics and no strategy, so that’s not a surprise in the end.

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Roundup: More alike than unalike

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The NDP decided that the bilateral meeting between Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden was the perfect time to take to shitposting about it, in the form of a juvenile mock-up of the agenda items, and making their remarks on them. Because this is where we’re at in this country – our two main opposition parties have decided that the online tactics of shitposting are definitely the way to win the hearts and minds of Canadian voters.

In the NDP’s case, this is not only about trolling Trudeau, but also Biden, because they have made a concerted effort to appeal to the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez/Bernie Sanders fanbase – consistent with their lifting their policy ideas wholesale, no matter whether or not they have any relevance in the Canadian context. This tends to involve a certain amount of trying to “win the Internet,” whether it’s with Jagmeet Singh adopting TikTok memes, or the culmination of this attempt to co-opt American Democrat cred when Singh and Ocasio-Cortez played Among Us over Twitch as part of a fundraiser. As a more centrist, compromise candidate, Biden is seen as a betrayal of the progressive wing of the Democrats, and you can bet that the Canadian New Democrats trying to appeal to them is going to cash in on that as much as possible.

None of this should be too surprising, however – the NDP have long-since abandoned any real sense of ideology for the sake of being left-flavoured populists, running after flavours of the week and pursuing policies that don’t actually make sense for their own purported principles (like their demand to cut the HST off of home heating, which would only disproportionately reward the wealthy). In this way, they have been more like the Conservatives than unalike for a while now, but with this full-on embrace of shitposting (as opposed to simply the mendacious omission of jurisdictional boundaries in their demands) just drives that point home.

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QP: Blaming the wrong government for deaths

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It was another day of a nearly-empty chamber, and today there were a mere two Liberals on their benches, rather than just one, which is outrageous. Candice Bergen led off on video, accusing the government of being responsible for deaths in long-term care facilities because of the vaccine delays — with no mention of the culpability of provincial governments in their failures to manage the pandemic. Chrystia Freeland, also by video, insisted that Canada was one of the leading countries for vaccine rollouts. Bergen then blamed the cancellation of surgeries on the lack of vaccines — completely false — and Freeland repeated her assurances that Canada was among the best performers thus far and doing more. Bergen tried one last time to blame the federal government for the failures of the provinces, and Freeland again repeated her same assurances of Canada doing comparatively well on vaccines among allies. Richard Martel took over to lament that the government had not brought forward the bill to close the loopholes on sick benefits for debate but wanted them to pass it in one fell swoop, and Freeland assured him they were trying to correct an error. Martel was not mollified, insisting they needed to study the bill, but Freeland insisted that they wanted to close the loophole immediately and it was unfortunate that the opposition would not let them. Yves-François Blanchet took over on behalf of the Bloc, and wanted debate and amendments to the bill so that it could be retroactive, and Freeland assured him that the bill was not designed to encourage Canadians to ignore the guidelines to avoid travel. Blanchet was not impressed and thundered about closing the borders, but Freeland pivoted and invited Blanchet to apologise for his comments about Omar Alghabra. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he demanded immediate vaccines to protect seniors, for which Freeland calmly read her talking points about vaccine contracts and our record to date. Singh switched to English to demand for-profit long-term care be made public, starting with Revera, whose relationship be deliberately misconstrued. Freeland calmly stated that she shared his anguish and they were looking at best practices for long-term care.

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Roundup: The invasion as a culmination

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It was a shocking spectacle that, sadly, was not wholly unexpected as Trump supporters invaded Capitol Hill in Washington DC, halting the process of certifying the election results. This was the culmination of years of incitement, not only by Trump, but by the whole of the right-wing media ecosystem in the US, which has been feeding the kind of anger that builds to this kind of violence. Now, there are some questions about how serious these invaders were – many seemed to be largely play actors who were LARPing the start of the next American civil war (like they’ve been dreaming about), but it does make me wonder about how much this emboldens the real far-right militias in the country, because they watched how easily these Trumpsters overwhelmed security in the building and took it over. The next time, the invaders are likely to be far better armed, and serious about their threats of violence – and that should be alarming. This also puts an end to America’s usual boasts that they’re the “only country in the world” with a peaceful transition of power – a risible statement, but their self-created myth has been shattered. It was enough to spook most Republicans on the Hill into giving up their performative insistence that the election results were fraudulent and to be contested, but the damage is done. (Also, this technically was not a coup attempt, and they don’t quite fit the definition of terrorists, so those are not the best words to employ for what happened, as much as people want to).

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In terms of the response from Canada, Justin Trudeau did first tell a media interview as this started going down that he was watching it “minute by minute,” and hoping for the best, before sending out a tweet denouncing the violence and attack on democracy. Erin O’Toole, meanwhile, tweeted that he was “deeply saddened” by what was happening, but offered no condemnation of the violence – which should be important, because if he had a semblance of self-awareness, he would realize that his own rhetoric is feeding into some of these same sentiments in this country. Recall that his leadership slogan was asking people join his fight to “take back Canada.” It’s not even a stretch to point out that the implicit message in that statement is that the current government is illegitimate and must be replaced, and it feeds into these same dark impulses that we’re seeing play out. This is why it matters when we see O’Toole and company shitposting memes that are coming from these same American tactics – because it’s importing the American culture war into Canada, and it can have similar consequences if we let it fully manifest itself here. Don’t forget that there were pro-Trump rallies happening in this country as this spectacle went down in the States.

One thing that this whole incident does give rise to is a bit of smugness in our own Westminster constitutional monarchy, which prevents much of the kind of chicanery we’re seeing around this election in the US, and I know, we can’t be too smug because we have some of these very same dangerous elements in this country, but there is a bit of comfort in having a superior form of government.

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Meanwhile, Susan Delacourt warns Canadians not to get too smug as these kinds of sentiments don’t stop neatly at the border, and we recently saw someone drive up to Rideau Cottage with a truck full of weapons. Paul Wells offers some necessary snark as to the deafening silences coming out from this country over what has taken place in the American election (though he was a bit premature as statements did come, and it’s almost certain the call with Boris Johnson was much earlier in the day as those readouts tend to be on a six-to-seven-hour delay).

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Roundup: Demanding a de facto death penalty

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It shouldn’t surprise me that Erin O’Toole would stoop to some pretty low places in order to score points with his base, and yet here we are, as he declares that the federal government’s plan to start vaccinating prisoners in federal institutions to be unpalatable.

There is so much wrong with this particular shitpost that one barely knows where to start, but let’s begin with simple logistics. The federal government has their own allocations of vaccine for people under their healthcare delivery jurisdiction, and that includes prisoners in federal penitentiaries. While O’Toole objects to them getting vaccines head of “any vulnerable Canadian,” he is ignoring that prisoners are absolutely a vulnerable population in a congregate living situation where there are currently outbreaks that are ongoing. Withholding vaccines from them is cruel, unusual, and unconstitutional. The Correctional Service of Canada has not handled the pandemic well. They’ve lied about the “extra sanitation” they’re doing, they have not provided adequate PPE for inmates or staff, and people who are exposed to the virus tend to be sent to solitary confinement, which we know has been declared a form of torture and a human rights violation. Not to mention, none of these prisoners were given a death sentence, which is what leaving them exposed in an outbreak could amount to.

This is the part where the usual right-wing commentariat starts trying to distill this into a false binary, that if you think prisoners should start getting vaccines right away, you “hate healthcare workers” and support “rapists, murderers, and paedophiles.” Never mind that for the vast majority of prisoners, their only real crime was being born poor, Black, or Indigenous, or some combination thereof. We know about over-policing and systemic racism, and that’s why a lot of them are in the system. Don’t fall for this kind of inflammatory rhetoric, because it’s designed to provoke – much like O’Toole’s shitpost.

And that’s the other part – vaccinating prisoners helps prevent community spread, from the guards, to the staff, and the surrounding communities. It’s a prison, but nothing is actually contained to the building. I would say it’s unbelievable that O’Toole doesn’t get it, but I’m sure he does – he’d rather provoke and throw some red meat to his “law and order,” “tough on crime” base who will reduce this to a simple binary and call it a day. But who needs facts, context, or nuance when you can shitpost your way to angry voters, right?

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Roundup: New mockdowns after Goldilocks failed

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Things in Ontario have reached the point where Doug “I won’t hesitate” Ford has finally enacted a province-wide mockdown…but not before he hesitated even further by not putting it into force until Boxing Day. You know, so that everyone can still flood the malls and box stores, and feel like they’re justified in “cheating” for Christmas gatherings. And by mockdown, it’s not a real lockdown – it’s a few added restrictions but most workplaces are still up and running, in spite of mounting evidence of outbreaks in them, so good job there.

Ford, meanwhile, was more than happy to blame the federal government for not properly closing borders, and insisted that they do more testing at airports…which they are. Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu had to counter that the rapid testing pilot at Pearson is ongoing – but that also doesn’t change the fact that only 1.3 percent of new cases can be traced to travel, which blows a hole in Ford’s narrative. Of course, that narrative is all about blame-shifting so that he doesn’t have to look like the bad guy in the “lockdowns,” never mind that these should have happened in September at the latest to have nipped the second wave in the bud, but they didn’t do that, because they tried the “Goldilocks approach,” and it failed. How many hundreds of people have died unnecessarily since?

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Roundup: Bracing for bad numbers

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Because COVID numbers continue to climb, and more provinces are moving toward stricter measures to try and control the spread of the virus (but not too strict for most – they still have to think about businesses, natch), the prime minister took the opportunity yesterday to meet with the opposition leaders to brief them on the situation in advance of new federal modelling numbers being released this morning, which paint a dire picture of people don’t stay home and limit the number of people they come into contact with. Of course, Erin O’Toole took the opportunity to immediately come out of the meeting and slam the prime minister for the fact that a global pandemic is bad for the economy, while also apparently ordering Trudeau to step into areas of provincial jurisdiction with a “real plan to test, trace, and isolate those who are infected.” Seriously?

With regard to provincial measures, BC has finally made masks mandatory as part of their new series of restrictions, along with trying to restrict non-essential travel while the Quebec premier put forward a “moral contract” for the coming Christmas holidays, which extends the province’s lockdown measures and tries to build in a kind of buffer around Christmas as a way of trying to avoid telling people not to meet up with family at all. And we’re expecting Doug Ford to also announce more “tough” measures today, which one suspects still won’t actually be tough because his sympathies continue to lay with business owners.

And while infections continue to climb and hospital resources get increasingly stressed, we are going to have to watch out for how doctors and nurses are going to start burning out, presuming they don’t get infected themselves, which will make things even harder going forward (and made even worse in some provinces where the government is going to war with their doctors – looking at you, Alberta). Things are serious, and we need to be even more vigilant about this virus.

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Roundup: Ford ignored advice in favour of uncontrolled spread

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Surprising nobody, we find that Doug Ford rejected advice from his public health officials in releasing his colour-coded guidelines, because it’s all about business over human lives. And while there have been calls for a while to try and determine just who is giving him advice, this reinforces the point that these remain political decisions, and that it is Ford and his Cabinet who are the ones to be held to account for what has been happening with infections in Ontario. The fact that Ford put his “red line” figure so far above public health advice, to a level where you are literally dealing with uncontrolled spread rather than trying to stamp it out early, should tell everyone that he is not taking this seriously.

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We’ve also been finding out things like Ford refusing to spend COVID funds on things like schools and long-term care homes, and have instead been sitting on the funds to pad the books – and we have the province’s Financial Accountability Officer confirming this. This should be no surprise. I mean, look at the autism programme, where Ford promised more money and then spent none of it, and the wait lists continued to grow and parents and families continue to suffer, and the long-term consequences of not getting early intervention therapies are going to balloon for years. But Ford doesn’t care. He cares about looking like he’s fiscally prudent because every gods damned pundit in this country still thinks it’s 1995 and will always be 1995 – and Ford desperately seeks their validation.

https://twitter.com/TheHerleBurly/status/1326619298060754951

And this need for validation has been a big part of why we’re at the state we’re in here in Ontario. Because Ford didn’t go full-Trump early in the pandemic, or throw tantrums at Justin Trudeau, everyone suddenly started giving him praise. He sounded avuncular, and suddenly everyone assumed he was doing a good job when he wasn’t doing anything but sitting on the COVID money and delaying any meaningful action about, say, getting schools back up and running, or increasing lab capacity for testing, or the contact tracing abilities of public health units across the province. None of it. But people still showered him with praise for how well he was behaving, and for striking up an unlikely friendship with Chrystia Freeland. And yet here we are, where he and his Cabinet have repeatedly lied about what is going on with the pandemic, about their response, and even the direction of the case numbers. Hopefully this piece in the Star that clearly demonstrates that Ford rejected the advice in favour of waiting for uncontrolled spread (because gods forbid he close down businesses) will start to open people’s eyes, but my optimism for that is waning because of all of the other scandals and distractions that his government has created only serve to scatter the attention necessary to force his hand.

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