Tag Archives: CRA

Roundup: Singh’s sad display of performative toughness

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In a Parliament that is mired in some of the worst theatrics imaginable, it’s hard to think about something that could possibly take the cake, and yet, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh certainly tried with his sad, pathetic performance over the weekend. To wit: The government started debate on the pharmacare legislation at the end of last week, and Conservative MP Stephen Ellis put forward a “reasoned amendment” at the bill be killed at second reading for *handwaves* reasons. Singh would not stand for this, so he…wrote a strongly worded letter, and threatened the Conservatives that he would not stand for delays. And then put out some press releases to show how tough he was in sending that strongly-worded letter. And lo, the deadline he gave the Conservatives to withdraw their amendment came to pass, and wouldn’t you just know it—nothing happened.

The thing with these “reasoned amendments” is that the Conservatives are now moving them on every piece of legislation because it essentially adds time to the clock, which they can use to then run out the clock, again and again, blocking the ability for the government to get more legislation through the process. It’s a tactic that is supposed to be used as a last resort for very serious matters, but it’s being used routinely now, because this is who the Conservatives are, and they will do absolutely anything to keep the government from moving on its agenda. There is a lot that could be written about the absolute degrees of procedural warfare that has taken place over the last few years that have bogged the government and its agenda down entirely, but I’ll get around to it at a later date.

Suffice to say, this is just one more example of Singh making himself (and his party) irrelevant. He keeps pretending he’s going to be tough on the government for their budgets, and then goes along with them (per the Supply and Confidence Agreement). After each song and dance, he swallows himself whole, and then pats himself on the back for how much he accomplished in that budget (never mind that the NDP did absolutely none of the work, but still take full credit for everything). This attempt to “threaten” the Conservatives is just yet more sad spectacle, and it showcases just ineffective he really is.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The Russian drone attack on the power facilities in Sumy region wound up cutting power to 400,000 consumers. Russian forces claim to have taken control of two more villages—Soloviove, and Kotliarivka, and Ukrainian bloggers appear to corroborate this claim.

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Roundup: A genteel time that never was

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I saw a post yesterday that took a page from Hansard on that day in 1978, and well, it was full of the first prime minister Trudeau and several honourable members accusing one another of being animals, or parts thereof. And while hilarious, I think it’s a bit of a corrective when people keep insisting that Parliament used to be a much more genteel place (and we got a lot of that during the Ed Broadbent and Brian Mulroney memorials).

It really wasn’t that genteel. It never has been—there are infamous reports in Hansard about early debates in the 1860s where MPs were setting off firecrackers in the Chamber and playing musical instruments to disrupt people speaking. And I can also say that Question Period was a hell of a lot more raucous when I started covering it fifteen years ago compared to what it is today, which has a lot to do with the Liberals clamping down on applause (for the most part) for their members, which has led to there being less heckling from the Liberal benches (not saying it doesn’t happen—it absolutely does—just not as much, and certainly not in the quantities it used to be).

Question Period is worse in other ways, however—nowadays it’s all reciting slogans and everyone on the same script so that they can each get a clip for their socials, while the government gives increasingly disconnected talking points in lieu of responses, and there’s almost no actual debate (though every now and again, Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre will get into an actual exchange with one another). And the repetition of slogans or the reading of canned lines each give rise to heckling because of its ridiculousness, and yes, there is louder heckling when women ministers are answering questions (but this is not a recent phenomenon either). But there was never a golden age of gentility in our Parliament, and we need to stop pretending there was as we lament the state of things. Instead, we should be lamenting the quality of the debate, which has been dead and buried since about the time that Bob Rae retired from politics.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Russian missile struck an educational facility in Odesa, killing four. Russian forces are advancing in the eastern Donetsk region after the withdrawal from Avdiivka, while Ukraine waits for new arms from the west. UN experts say that a missile that landed in Kharkiv on January 2nd was indeed of North Korean manufacture. Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, visited Kyiv—the first member of the royal family to do so since the war began—and continued her work championing those affected by conflict-related sexual violence.

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Roundup: Soft-pedalling the extremist camp

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It has been very interesting to watch how legacy media outlets have been covering Pierre Poilievre’s appearance at a “tax revolt” encampment on the Nova Scotia border, but also very, very predictable. For example, they take at face value that this is some kind of “anti-carbon tax” protest, much as they did during the Occupation of downtown Ottawa, but don’t actually who all of the participants are. While they may note that there are Diagolon signs, none of the outlets mentioned that much of this encampment is made up of adherents to the “sovereign citizens” movement, which is a dangerous movement that believes that with some special incantations, they can opt themselves out of laws or obligations like paying taxes. That’s kind of a big deal to be overlooked.

Somewhat hilariously, they all got the vapours over the fact that Poilievre said of Justin Trudeau “People believed his lies. Everything he said was bullshit, from top to bottom.” *gasp!* No mention of course that this was projection, that everything that Poilievre says is lies and bullshit, because they couldn’t possibly. And then it veered off to Trudeau’s response that this is a sign that Poilievre will do “anything to win,” and the whole stupid thing about not disavowing Alex Jones, which seems to be the wrong thing to try and hang this whole thing on. The matter is not that Poilievre is getting the endorsement of the biggest conspiracy theory charlatan in the United States, but rather that he is courting far-right extremists and making false promises to them that he can never keep, and that will have consequences down the road.

This being said, I also find it somewhat predictable that all of the conservatives who had a field day with the head of Hamas thanking Canada for a UN vote—which was a clear information operation—are now whinging and crying about the Alex Jones attention, and saying that Poilievre doesn’t follow him so he shouldn’t need to denounce him. I mean, good for the goose and the gander here, but if you think one is legitimate to make hay with, the other should be fair game as well by your own rules of engagement. Neither of you should make hay over these things, but consistency would be nice.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles struck residential buildings in Kharkiv, injuring six people. Ukraine launched its own drone attack against a major Russian steel factory in Lipetsk region, and partially destroyed an “oxygen station” that should do long-term damage wo their work. Ukraine’s government has also clamped down on military-aged men applying for passports as they try to deal with their mobilisation woes.

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Roundup: Economists endorse carbon pricing, not the Liberal plan

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Yesterday, a group of leading Canadian economists published an open letter about the facts about carbon pricing and the rebates, and debunked several claims that conservatives around the country have been making. It was a good and necessary corrective, but of course, legacy media headlined it as them defending the Liberal plan, which they weren’t doing, particularly because while the Liberal plan includes the carbon levy and rebates, it also is full of regulation and subsidies, which these economics are explicitly not in favour of. But legacy media loves to make this a partisan fight where they have to be on one side or the other. Liberal Party comms didn’t do themselves any favours either on this one.

To that end, here is energy economist Andrew Leach on carbon pricing, and throwing some shade at the PBO’s rather shite report once more.

Meanwhile, a number of premiers demanded to be heard at the House of Commons’ finance committee about the carbon levy, because they think that’ll do them any good, but instead, the Conservative chair of the Government Operations Committee invited them to testify today. The Government Operations Committee has fuck all to do with this file, but apparently, we no longer care about things like committee mandates anymore, so long as you can put on a dog and pony show, and gather clips for social media shitpost videos, that’s all that matters. This shouldn’t be allowed, but this is the state to which our Parliament has now debased itself. Ours is no longer a serious institution for doing serious work. It’s only about content creation, and I cannot stress enough about how absolutely terrifying this is for the future of democracy.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Ukrainian missile attack struck a Russian naval reconnaissance vessel as well as a large landing warship. Ukraine’s navy says that they have destroyed or disabled a third of the Russian Black Sea fleet over the past two years. Here’s a look at how Ukraine’s burgeoning domestic defence industry is ramping up to provide necessary ammunition for the war. Here’s a great explanation of Ukraine’s use of drone warfare with some excellent infographics.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1772541600591147503

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Roundup: Trying to allay diaspora concerns

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After two diaspora groups pulled out of the foreign interference inquiry, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue released a statement yesterday outlining precautions that are being taken to protect witnesses and sensitive information, which is hoped will allay their concerns (though some of those concerns have to do with the three politicians being given standing and the ability to cross-examine other witnesses).

It should probably be noted that this was probably inevitable. David Johnston warned as much of this in recommending against a public inquiry, but hey, politics took over and here we are.

Ukraine Dispatch:

There has been a drone strike in Odessa, killing three. It is hoped that examining the debris of the North Korean missiles that the Russians have acquired and are using against Ukraine will offer clues as to how they are avoiding sanctions. Here’s a look at two years of conflict through the eyes of one Ukrainian soldier who has seen it all. Here is a look at those whose relatives have gone missing in combat and their bodies not yet found. Reuters has a photo library from the first two years of the war.

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Roundup: NSIRA spanks Global Affair’s intelligence program

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A long-delayed public release of NSIRA’s report into the activities of the Global Security Reporting Program—the “intelligence” arm of Global Affairs, which has diplomats openly engaging with persons of interest abroad—was finally released, and it’s making some waves. In particular, for a programme that isn’t actual covert intelligence gathering has some governance problems, with a lack of coherent policies or training that has led to some lines being blurred, which can make some countries believe this is an actual foreign intelligence service (it’s not, and we don’t have one).

So, with this in mind, here are four threads from some very reputable sources. Stephanie Carvin walks through the report, and breaks down its components, as well as the government’s responses.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1737569161042096138

Jessica Davis has a shorter walkthrough (with paragraph numbers!) about her own concerns about what she reads in it.

Leah West has a few legal observations about the report.

And Thomas Juneau gives a much more generous read, and places some of the GSRP’s work into better context.

Ukraine Dispatch:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed journalists’ questions about whether Ukraine is losing the war, but acknowledges challenges of being in a country under siege. Ukraine’s forces appear to be moving to a more defensive posture, likely because of the artillery shortage.

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Roundup: Government land isn’t a slam dunk

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You have probably heard a lot of talk from both Pierre Poilievre and Jagmeet Singh about the federal government not doing enough about housing with the lands that they own. Poilievre is making grandiose promises about all the houses they’ll build on it, and all of the office towers they’ll convert, never mind that conversions are difficult and in many cases impossible because of how those buildings are structured, while Singh is demanding that any government-built housing on public land be “affordable,” never mind that there is still a need for market-priced housing, because otherwise wealthier households are competing for the same “affordable” spaces as low-income households if your supply is constrained. (Singh also believes that the federal government can build all of this housing on their own, as if they’ll hire the planners, architects and contractors on their own—not really feasible).

Meanwhile, just building on government-owned land is actually easier said than done. Why? Mike Moffatt lays out a lot of those reasons here:

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces have been focused on containing attempted Russian advances near Bakhmut, while two people were killed in Russian shelling on Kherson. There was also a grenade blast that killed two in Kyiv, the cause of which remains unclear. Ukraine’s two top cyber defence officials have been sacked as an investigation into alleged embezzlement is ongoing in the cybersecurity agency.

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QP: A bizarre false version of reality with a draconian coalition in place

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The prime minister was present today, which has become unusual for a Thursday, but since he wasn’t here yesterday it was good that we at least got a second appearance in the week. Not every leader was present today, and neither was the deputy PM, for what it’s worth. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and name-checked Catherine McKenna, Mark Carney, and Senator Percy Downe in pointing out people disappointed with Trudeau, and pounced on Downe’s call on Trudeau to resign, as if Downe’s opinion carries any weight at all. Justin Trudeau stood up and recited prepared lines that they are focused on helping Canadians while tackling climate change, and that the team is togetherness. Poilievre noted that he didn’t answer the question, and accused the government of not caring about Canadians who need heating. Trudeau listed things that the Conservatives would cut if they got into power. Poilievre switched to English to say that Trudeau hadn’t denounced the things Gudie Hutchings said about people voting Lineral, and demanded a yes of no answer to whether they would support his supply day motion whether his MPs would have a free vote. Trudeau rambled about phasing out heating oil and called on provinces to sign up to the heat pump programme. Poilievre noted he didn’t answer the question and wondered if the NDP would also get a free vote, which should have been out of bounds. Trudeau instead talked about how many people in Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC use heating oil and called on those provinces to partner about heat pumps. Poilievre asked if they would make his Supply Day motion a confidence vote, but Trudeau again rambled about heat pumps and said that Poilievre was making a mistake if he thought Canadians didn’t care about the environment. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and raised the issue of immigration levels, and consulting Quebec on them. Trudeau read that Quebec has their own targets and that the federal government provides resources to the province for integration. Blanchet again demanded proper consultations before firm targets were set, but Trudeau repeated his response.

Peter Julian rose for the NDP, and in French, he called on support for their call to take the GST off of home heating (which, again, is unworkable administratively and disproportionately benefits the wealthy). Trudeau responded that the thousand of people in BC who rely on heating oil should take advantage of the heat pump programme. Taylor Bachrach took over to relay a constituent’s problems with the heat pump rebate and wanted the same programme for Atlantic Canadians extended to the whole country. Trudeau said they wanted to, but provinces need to partner with them.

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Roundup: An unearned victory lap amidst the Court’s repudiation

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Yesterday morning, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the federal Impact Assessment Act is partly unconstitutional, and that the federal government was over-broad in the criteria they used to trigger a federal environmental assessment. Ironically, while Jason Kenney and the federal Conservatives liked to call the legislation the “No More Pipelines Bill,” the section that governs pipelines was found to be entirely constitutional, so it was fairly laughable as they started crowing over social media about their supposed victory. It might have helped if they had actually read it and not just the headlines.

The more important part of the decision, however, was the fact that while it did find part of the federal legislation ultra vires Parliament, it also explicitly repudiated the arguments that the Alberta government and the Alberta Court of Appeal were making, in claiming that the province somehow has interjurisdictional immunity for so-called “provincial” projects. That’s not true, and the Court said so, which means that when Danielle Smith and Pierre Poilievre were claiming that the Supreme Court “affirmed” that provinces have the exclusive right to develop their own resources, that’s wrong. It’s not what the Court said, and in fact they said the opposite of that. Alberta’s “victory” was a pretty hollow one because the Court affirmed the federal role in environmental assessments and that they can assess whatever they want once their ability to make said assessment is triggered—the only real issue was the criteria for the trigger, which needs to be narrowed. The federal government has pledged to do just that, and because this was a reference opinion by the Court and not a decision on legislation, it has not been struck down. In fact, because there don’t seem to be any projects under assessment that would be affected by the decision, it seems to show that the law is carrying on just fine, and that the amendment will be a fairly surgical tweak (and yes, I spoke to several legal experts to that effect yesterday).

Meanwhile, the reporting on the decision largely ignored this repudiation of the provincial argument. The Canadian Press, the National Post, and the Star all missed that point entirely in their reporting. Only the CBC caught it—in the main story it was given a brief mention amidst the egregious both-sidesing, but Jason Markusoff’s more nuanced analysis piece did get a little more into it, but again, it did not really point out that Kenney’s crowing over social media was for naught, and that Smith’s victory lap was not really deserved. (Smith later went on Power & Politics and lied about what projects that the Act supposedly impacted, such as the Teck Frontier mine—that project was assessed under the Harper-era regime, and was shelved because the price of oil couldn’t justify the project’s viability). It would be nice if we had more journalists actually talking to more experts than just one while they both-sides the ministers and Smith, because they would find that they missed a pretty significant part of the decision. (My own story that does precisely this analysis was delayed in publication, so it should be up on Monday).

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces pounded Avdiivka in the Donbas region for a fourth day in a row as they try to make gains in that area. Ukrainian authorities say that Russians have destroyed 300,000 tons of grain since they started attacking Ukrainian port cities in July (because they’re trying to weaponise hunger).

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Roundup: Some long-awaited policy announcements

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The Liberals finally came out yesterday with a suite of policy announcements at the end of their caucus retreat, with a bunch of measures that some have been calling on for a while. Removing the GST on purpose-built rentals was actually an idea they ran on in 2015 then didn’t implement after further study (credit to Rachel Aiello for finding that), but have now gone ahead with in light of all of the calls to do so. As well, a number of people were treating the warnings to municipalities about not getting Housing Accelerator Fund dollars if they continued exclusionary zoning as though it were new, when it was part of the policy design in the 2021 platform all along.

One of the more interesting announcements was around upcoming changes to the Competition Act, but while Jagmeet Singh will take credit for it, the government has been consulting on this for over a year. The big news is the proposed elimination of the “efficiencies defence,” which would be a sea change in Canadian competition law.

There were also warnings to the grocery oligopolies that they have until Thanksgiving to stabilise prices (meaning return them to the headline rate of inflation), but I have a hard time seeing how this is going to work considering that the bulk of price increases are because of supply issue, such as yields being reduced for climate-related droughts or floods. Margins have been consistent throughout, so this policy is going to need a lot more finessing, and the price issues related to a lack of competition in the sector is going to be as difficult to fix as the supply issues. They also said they would extend the loan repayment period for CEBA loans after an outcry, btu extending the deadline for most means forgoing the partial forgiveness portion, meaning they will have more to repay.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian shelling killed a six-year-old boy in the village of Novodmytrivka in the southern Kherson region. Ukrainian forces have retaken the village of Andriivka in the east, as they continue to press on toward Bakhmut.

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