Tag Archives: CRA

QP: In the shadow of the Emergencies Act

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While talk of the imminent imposition of the Emergencies Act swirled, the prime minister was in his office but not in the Chamber for QP. Candice Bergen led off, script in front of her, and quoted Section 16 of the Emergencies Act to ask if he considers the blockades a threat to national security, to which Marco Mendicino quoted the arrests on Coutts this morning for weapons before listing supports the federal government provided to end the blockades. Bergen demanded the government agree with their Supply Day motion to capitulate to the occupiers, and Bill Blair railed about the illegal occupations. Bergen called capitulation “not unreasonable,” and demanded “hope and optimism” for Canadians. Mark Holland said that the Conservatives squandered all attempts at de-escalation, citing their various MPs who have supported it. Luc Berthold took over in French, and repeated the “division and stigmatisation” line before wondering how the government could possibly consider emergency measures. Mendicino repeated his previous answer. Berthold said that nobody wanted to see the army in the streets before demanding capitulation, and Holland repeated his condemnation of irresponsible Conservative statements in support of the occupations.

For the Bloc, Alain Therrien wanted to know how the prime minister planned to use emergency powers, and demanded a detailed plan today. Mendicino read about the support the federal government has offered. Therrien was not satisfied, but Mendicino simply repeated his response.

Peter Julian led for the NDP, and wondered why the prime minister didn’t “show leadership” 18 days ago—as though there were federal powers he could deploy (there weren’t). Bill Blair denounced the occupations and blockades, and stated that they did provide support where requested. Alexandre Boulerice took over in French to lament the same, and Mendicino repeated the script about supports given.

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QP: Quoting Joël Lightbound

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It was an unusual morning, where one of the Liberal backbenchers, Joël Lightbound, decided to torpedo his status as rising star and held a press conference to slam the government’s handling of vaccine mandates, and mouthing a bunch of the same talking points about “divisiveness” that Candice Bergen has been spouting of late. Naturally, every one of the opposition parties was bound to pick up on this and hit the government with it as hard as they possibly could. In the Chamber, most of the leaders were present in person, Jagmeet Singh excepted. Candice Bergen led off, script in front of her, and she raised Lightbound’s concerns and selectively quoted Dr. Theresa Tam, and demanded and end to public health measures (never mind that most of them are provincial). Justin Trudeau acknowledged that people are tired of lockdowns, but Canadians were united in doing what needed to be done to beat the pandemic by following the science. Bergen listed countries with fewer restrictions and demanded an end to them in Canada, and Trudeau repeated that they follow science and that there was a less severe impact than in most of those other countries because we did the right thing. Bergen pandemic one final plea for freedom, and Trudeau doubled down on following science and note their work with premiers to bring in the measures that saved lives, before needling the Conservatives about their support for the occupiers outside. Luc Berthold took over in French to again quote Lightbound to decry “divisiveness,” and Trudeau repeated his points about following science and not politicising it. Berthold screamed that Trudeau was not answering the question, and Trudeau made a pitch for vaccination to end the pandemic.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, praised the injunction that silenced the occupation, and praised Quebec City’s handling of their protesters, but seemed to ignore that the Ontario government should have a role here. Trudeau said that he would speak with the mayor later in the day, and that they need to show solidarity in getting through the challenge. Blanchet then raised Lightbound before demanding more health transfers for the provinces, and Trudeau reminded him that summits with premiers are not held with the Bloc, before listing investments over the past two years.

Jagmeet Singh appeared by video to raise the blockades at two other border crossings, and Trudeau insisted that they were in touch and supplying resources, before calling out the Conservatives for their inconsistent messages on the occupation. Singh repeated the question in French, and Trudeau repeated his response. 

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Roundup: More of the hot seat for O’Toole?

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So it looks like unrest remains the order of the day in the Conservative caucus, as they prepare for their winter caucus retreat next week (which may very well be virtual). Unhappiness with Erin O’Toole’s leadership is still fomenting below the surface—and to be fair, blackmailing your MPs to say that you’ll expel them from caucus if they challenge you by signing a petition can do that—while at the same time being castigated for not providing any actual leadership, so that’s quite something.

In the midst of this, the resistance to O’Toole’s edicts continue. After Conservative senators didn’t follow O’Toole’s orders and expel Senator Denise Batters from their ranks, it looks like the party’s Saskatchewan regional caucus is also defying O’Toole and letting Batters remain a member. So she can’t attend national caucus, but she’s still participating with her fellow colleagues, in the Senate and regionally, which seems to show that O’Toole’s edicts are starting to feel pretty hollow. After all, if he tries to expel the whole of his Saskatchewan caucus for defying him, well, he might as well turn in his resignation at that point.

Batters, meanwhile, has all the time in the world to carry on her campaign against O’Toole, since they didn’t give her any committee work to do. And to that end, she is insisting that the report on the election loss must include O’Toole’s personal failures and constant flip-flops. It also seems that people have been directing former MP James Cumming, in charge of said report, to talk to her, but he hasn’t done so, which could make a person suspicious that this could be a selective report that just might be going out of its way to avoid criticising O’Toole himself. But the signs aren’t good for O’Toole the more this continues to add up.

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Roundup: Boycotting NSICOP for theatre

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Because we cannot trust our current political parties to do their jobs of accountability, Erin O’Toole has announced that he won’t name any MPs to the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians, citing the Winnipeg Lab documents and completely false insinuations that the committee is a tool of the prime minister’s office to obscure information. It’s bullshit, but it’s bullshit that the party has committed itself to for the sake of political theatre over serious work.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1473261482624397319

To throw a strop over these documents when a) the committee that ordered them no longer exists and won’t be reconstituted; b) the order the committee gave to produce those documents does not exist; and c) the government has offered other compromises to release those documents, both in releasing the unredacted documents to NSICOP, and in proposing an ad hoc committee duplicating the process from the Harper-era Afghan detainee documents, which the Conservatives also rejected for handwavey reasons. Do you see how none of this is adding up to anything coherent, and why the government’s many attempts to release the documents in an unredacted form that will still satisfy national security requirements keep getting rejected for performative reasons?

If NSICOP were really a tool of the PMO to hide information, then its members from both the opposition parties in the Commons and in the Senate would have resigned in protest long ago, and lo, that has never happened, because it’s not a tool of the PMO. O’Toole’s objections are theatre, and nothing more. It would be great if more people would call this theatre out for what it is, rather than just tut-tutting about secrecy. Our MPs have proven time and again that they’re not serious about accountability over national security and intelligence matters, and that they can’t be trusted with the information, and they have proven that the concerns of our national security and intelligence agencies are right, time and again.

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Roundup: At long last, the mandate letters

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On what turned out to be the final sitting day of 2021 for the House of Commons, the prime minister finally released the mandate letters for his ministers, nearly three months after the election, and two after they were sworn in to their new jobs. I’m not sure how well I can articulate the utter absurdity of the situation, because there is really no excuse why it took this long (let along why it took him as long as it did to swear in his Cabinet or to summon Parliament). The fact that they were released after the House agreed to rise at the end of the sitting day means that there can be no interrogation of these letters by the opposition until January 31st, which is way too long.

As for the letters themselves, there is a theme among them about building a more inclusive and fair country, and for tangible results to be better communicated to Canadians (you think?). Some of the highlights include:

  • Ordering several ministers to take a harder line on trade tensions with the US
  • Resurrecting legislation on CanCon requirements for the internet and having web giants pay news outlets, as well as modernising the CBC
  • Renewed action to fighting systemic racism, along with a number of initiatives directed toward the Black community
  • Implementing UNDRIP in all decisions
  • Developing a new cyber-security strategy

No doubt more attention will be paid to these letters over the coming days, and we’ll see how much misunderstanding comes from them (recall the line about not creating new permanent spending programmes from Chrystia Freeland’s previous letter which people took to mean all rather than in the context of COVID supports). It also looks like we’re getting talking heads grousing about inclusivity as though it were somehow a distraction from economic growth when inclusive growth is where the country needs to be headed to head off economic challenges plaguing us since before the pandemic.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1471544703212404736

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Roundup: A big economic week ahead

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It’s going to be a very big week in Canadian economics: Today is the day the Bank of Canada has their mandate to target inflation between one and three percent at an average of two percent gets renewed, with some additional language around employment in there (but not a dual mandate). Then Tuesday will be the government’s fiscal update, which isn’t expected to announce too many new things because there simply isn’t time for a budget implementation bill to accompany it. And then Wednesday, Statistics Canada will release the inflation figures for November, and it there remains a possibility it could go higher still before being expected to cool down by mid-next year. Because it’s largely about supply chains, and as the former governor of the Bank of Canada keeps reminding us, it’s not about the political situation or fiscal policy. The counterfactual is that if the government didn’t spend on pandemic supports and the Bank didn’t engage in quantitative easing, we would be in a deflationary depression cycle, and that would have left us all worse off.

With this in mind, here is economist Kevin Milligan with some added context:

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1470099272632733696

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Roundup: Senator Batters blindsides O’Toole

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There is much intrigue within the Conservative ranks, and it just got a lot more interesting. First thing yesterday morning was the story that Bert Chen, the member of the party’s national council who was suspended for circulating a petition to call for an early leadership review would be suspended indefinitely, rather than for just sixty days. But a short while later, another petition started circulating to call for a leadership review, and this one was one they couldn’t ignore – from Senator Denise Batters.

Batters laid out a fairly devastating line of attack in her video – noting that O’Toole is the one that is growing the “rift” in the party, and that he is responsible for the election loss because of what voters perceive to be his character flaw – that he is not trustworthy. “You can’t come back from that,” Batters stated. And as a senator, Batters has latitude to lead this petition drive on behalf of grassroots members that others don’t, given that she doesn’t have nomination papers that need the leader’s signature, and if O’Toole boots her from caucus, she will only get even more vocal from outside, and she has a parliamentary platform. There have been some talking heads who are insinuating that she is perhaps a catspaw for Peter MacKay, given that she supported him in the leadership, but I sincerely doubt that’s the case – as partisan as she can be, Batters isn’t a fool, and she’s not a puppet for anyone. The party president tried to dismiss her petition, saying it goes against the party’s constitution, but the section he cited was only in relation to the leadership process, whereas she is initiating a party-wide referendum, which is different. (And again, Batters isn’t a fool, and she’s a lawyer who was once chief of staff to Saskatchewan’s minister of justice). Some talking heads have also stated that this goes against the process from the (garbage) Reform Act, but as a senator, Batters is excluded from the Act, and she is leading a grassroots movement, not one from caucus. It’s also being stated that this is just one part of a multi-stage movement within the party to call for this leadership review, so we’ll see where this develops, but O’Toole’s problems are not going away anytime soon.

Meanwhile, a parallel drama is playing out in Alberta, where more than a quarter of UCP constituency associations passed a special motion that will force an early leadership review of Jason Kenney than the April date he had managed to negotiate with his caucus earlier – and they also want an outside auditing firm to ensure the security of the voting system for this review, so that there isn’t a repeat of the alleged shenanigans that coloured the initial leadership vote that got Kenney into power in the first place (which are still part of an ongoing investigation last I checked). Things are not looking up for Kenney either, and he and O’Toole suddenly have a lot in common.

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Roundup: Handwaving about tax loopholes

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The narratives about “closing tax loopholes” never really die, and lo, they have come back yet again on the campaign, as Jagmeet Singh hopes to use this as a campaign plank, and to basically start extracting a dollar figure from them. The problem? Well, that’s basically misunderstanding the problem with these “loopholes” – they’re a game of whack-a-mole. It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t tackle them, because you should, and successive governments have been doing that for decades, but as soon as you close one, the well-funded tax preparation industry finds another that they can exploit, and all of that money that a government may have been hoping to recoup doesn’t appear.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1432361687361933312

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1432362354314993667

Additionally, Singh alleged that Justin Trudeau was somehow directing the CRA to not go after large corporations, and that he isn’t charging the “super rich” tax evaders. But again, this distorts reality – the CRA is an arm’s length agency from government, and free from political direction, and don’t direct audits or collection activities. Yes, the current government has provided more funds for CRA to undertake those activities, but they can’t tell them who to audit. Additionally, when CRA finds a file that they deem suspicious, they forward it to the RCMP, and if they feel that there is criminality, they forward it to the Public Prosecution Service – which, again, is arm’s length and not subject to political direction – and they decide whether or not to lay charges. Thus far, they have not with some of the high profile investigations into the Panama Papers, or other such leaks, likely because they know their chances of a successful prosecution are slim because these particular practices wind up being legal in the long run, no matter how often governments try to crack down on them. Regardless, Singh trying to portray this as either cronyism or a lack of political will is not reflective of reality.

Also not reflective of reality – some of the hand-waving he’s been doing in other interviews, such as this one where he says he’ll “get it done” on ending the deferral period for blood donations for men who have sex with men – never mind that Canadian Blood Services is arm’s length from government and not subject to their orders. You can’t Green Lantern your way through government. Implementation of your ideas matters – a lot.

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Roundup: The July job numbers

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The Labour Force Survey results for July were released yesterday, and while there was positive job growth, it wasn’t quite as robust as had been expected. The recovery remains uneven, but some of the narratives and commentary aren’t really helping when it comes to adjusting to the reality of this stage of the pandemic (which isn’t even post- yet).

A lot of the narratives are still being driven by the likes of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, which continues to rail about CERB and its successor suite of benefits that they claim are providing a “perverse incentive” for people to stay home, but that doesn’t seem to fit the reality, which is that the market is shifting. A lot of people who were in these service-industry jobs either moved on during the pandemic because it (and the government benefits) afforded them the opportunity to do so – which is why you have people complaining that their favoured servers at their local watering holes didn’t come back, and you have nineteen-year-olds who just got their Smart Serve certification replacing them. But another narrative is also bubbling up, where we also have a cohort who aren’t willing to go back to what existed beforehand, with the low wages and mistreatment, and a lot of those business owners haven’t made the cognitive leap yet that they can’t keep operating the way they did before. Of course, this is one reason why the CFIB is so up in arms about these benefits – they have a vested interest in things returning to the old normal where labour can be exploitative without consequence, but the current reality is changing that. This could be change happening that will be better for us all overall, if it’s able to take hold – and chances are, this government more than others are more willing to let it happen.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, are insistent that the federal government is “killing job creation,” which is a novel argument considering that they’re not the level of government responsible for the maintenance of public health measures (which has been one of the biggest determinants of economic activity over the course of the pandemic). They’re also keeping up the fiction that a pre-third wave job recovery projection was a “promise” about job creation, again, which was derailed by more public health measures because provinces screwed up their own recoveries by re-opening too soon. All of which is to say that we don’t seem to be capable of having a reasonable conversation about what is happening in the labour market, to the detriment of all of us.

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Roundup: Just the Speaker doing his job

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We got our first glimpse at the court documents related to the challenge of the House of Commons’ order demanding the production of secret documents related to the firing of the two scientists from the National Microbiology Lab. The Speaker, Anthony Rota, put in his submission that the case should be tossed because of Parliamentary privilege, and there was no explicit waiving of parliamentary privilege under the Canada Evidence Act, which is what the Public Health Agency is following in refusing to turn over unsecured documents. As a reminder, they have turned over the documents, both in redacted form to the committee that requested them, and in unredacted form to NSICOP, which has appropriate security clearances and safeguards, so it’s not like this is a blanket refusal to defy Parliament – it’s that they have their own obligations to follow. It’s also somewhat problematic that the committee wants the Commons’ Law Clerk to then redact the documents on his own, without appropriate training or context, so they ultimately claim they’re not looking for unredacted documents – only for someone else to do the redacting, at which point this is just becoming absurd.

The way this is being spun is also somewhat irritating – because this was a Canadian Press wire story, outlets who ran the piece sometimes did so with altered headlines that stated that it was the Liberals interfering with the “exclusive jurisdiction” of the Commons rather than the government, which is not really true. This isn’t a partisan issue – it’s different parts of the government acting according to the laws that Parliament passed. When the demands were made, PHAC was bound in legislation to inform the Attorney General, and while it is the same physical person as the minister of justice, under his Attorney General hat, he had obligations to follow the law and test these demands in Court.

The other commentary that is somewhat maddening is people pointing out that the Speaker is somehow going against his party in doing his job as Speaker in defending the Commons’ privileges. Again, this isn’t actually a partisan issue on either side (well, the Conservatives making these demands for the documents, with the support of the other opposition parties, are behaving in an extremely partisan manner and trying to embarrass the government, but that’s neither here nor there for the purpose of what we’re discussing). Trying to make it a partisan issue when everyone is doing their jobs is just degrading the discourse and muddying the understanding of what is going on (which is what certain parties would like to happen because it makes it easier for them to lie about the state of play). We shouldn’t be doing their dirty work for them.

Programming Note: I’m taking the next week off (as much as I am able), because it’s probably my only opportunity in advance of the possible election, and I really don’t want to have to deal with election coverage while battling burnout. Take care, and I’ll see you on the far side of the long weekend.

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