Tag Archives: CRA

QP: Virtual PMQs in an empty chamber

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It was not only a very late start to QP, but there was once again only a single Liberal in the Chamber, and it wasn’t the prime minister, despite it being the designated day he answers all questions. Erin O’Toole led off, and he thundered about the CanSino deal falling apart a week after it was struck. Justin Trudeau, appearing by video, reminded him that they cast a wide net with several possible candidates in case one didn’t pan out, like CanSino. O’Toole wondered about Providence Therapeutics’ made-in-Canada candidate, to which Trudeau assured him they follow the advice of the immunity task force, and that they have given Providence new funds to complete trials. O’Toole then railed about the fact that we are not producing any in Canada, and again, Trudeau reminded him that their “strong and aggressive plan” got us vaccines as soon as possible. O’Toole switched to French to worry about the vaccine protectionist noises coming out of the European Union, to which Trudeau assured him he just spoke to the president of the European Commission, who said that these transparency measures would not affect Canada. O’Toole then accused the government of not telling the truth about vaccine deliveries, and Trudeau took exception to that, insisting that he has been transparent with all of their dates. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and demanded that health transfers would be increased in the budget, to which Trudeau reminded him that they have sent billions to the provinces already (and several provinces continue to sit on those funds). Blanchet repeated the demand, and Trudeau asked him in return why Blanchet was resisting pan-Canadian standards on long-term care. Jagmeet Singh took over for the NDP, and in French, he blamed the lack of vaccines on deaths, before demanding laid sick leave (which is 94 percent provincial jurisdiction), and Trudeau reminded him of the sickness benefit they put into place, but he hoped the provinces would agree to implement them, especially as the federal government has spent eight or nine out of every ten dollars in this pandemic. Singh tried again in English and got much the same response.

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Roundup: O’Toole’s Rebel problem

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Tongues were wagging over the Twitter Machine yesterday as the Rebel boasted that they had an “exclusive interview” with Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, in which they discussed why the China People’s Daily was a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, while the Rebel and other similar outlets were not. Of course, even that premise was false, as the People’s Daily is not a member of the Gallery. Oops. It quickly surfaced that O’Toole didn’t actually give an interview – questions were emailed to his communications team, who responded with answers that could be attributed to O’Toole, but it wasn’t an interview per se.

Nevertheless, there are troubling questions to be raised, such as why they thought to respond to the Rebel in the first place – though afterward they said that they wouldn’t in the future. But that aside, something that O’Toole stated in the piece is also deeply problematic, because he is rooting for the so-called “Independent Press Gallery,” which is a start-up organization founded by True North Initiative’s Candice Malcolm, which is essentially Rebel Lite™, and said organization includes True North and the Rebel. So O’Toole is cheering for the Rebel to get accreditation (which, it needs to be made clear, party leaders have no say over. Accreditation is about access to the building for the purposes of reporting, and while the Press Gallery is self-governing, it goes through the Speaker and Sergeant-at-Arms to gain that accreditation).

What this stance O’Toole is making demonstrates is what I talked about in my weekend column – that his party is still happy to turn a blind eye to racists and white supremacists when they think they can use them to score goals against Trudeau. It also brings to mind Andrew Scheer’s farewell speech as leader, when he told party followers to trust outlets like True North and the Post Millennial for their news rather than mainstream sources, which is alarming because of the fact that much of their “reporting” is not actually that, and has been a driver of misinformation. Also of note is that the Post Millennial is in part controlled by the professional shitposters on O’Toole’s payroll – so that gives you an idea about what they are actually looking to promote and gain accreditation for. That O’Toole says they won’t respond to Rebel inquiries in the future is not comforting, because this demonstrates that they still considered this an audience worth engaging with until they got caught.

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Roundup: Unnecessary, lethal delays

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The pandemic continues to accelerate in certain parts of the country, because that’s what exponential growth is – exponential. To that end, Dr. Theresa Tam is calling for stricter lockdowns, because the longer you delay, the worse it gets. So what is Doug Ford doing? Delaying until Monday to decide on extending lockdown measures in some regions of the province, and signalling that tougher measures won’t go into effect until Boxing Day – you know, so that there can be more holiday super-spreader events and the situation will spiral out of control that much faster. Good job! And no, there haven’t been actual lockdowns, which is why the measures that have been put into place so far haven’t been effective (and there is talk emerging that some of the hot spots are in large industrial workplaces, that the government is insistent on remaining open).

There is some more promising vaccine news, in that it looks like there will be scheduled 125,000 doses of the Pfizer delivered per week in January, while more freezers are being delivered to provinces to store the doses. As well, the Moderna vaccine is nearly ready for approval (apparently Health Canada is waiting on some more manufacturing data), and new guidance is suggesting that it won’t need to be frozen as initially indicated, which makes it even more versatile for delivery in rural and remote communities.

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Roundup: More year-enders, more bland assurances

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The year-ender interviews with the prime minster continue to roll out, so we’ll see how much in there is actually newsworthy. Still from The Canadian Press’ year-ender, Trudeau said that the government is trying to find “balance” with its ability to be transparent while still able to have no-holds-barred closed-door discussions like they do in Cabinet, all in response to questions about why the government is so slow at its promised reforms to the Access to Information system.

From the CBC, Trudeau said that the 500,000 Canadians who got “educational” letters from the CRA about their CERB payments won’t need to repay by the end of the year, as some had feared – never mind that the government created this problem when they weren’t clear about what the eligibility criteria were.

To CTV, Trudeau said that the target date of having Canadians vaccinated by September is something of a conservative estimate – it could happen faster, but it could also happen more slowly, depending on supply chain issues like those that have hit Pfizer already. He also said that he’s less concerned about the comparisons with the US as having plans to inoculate people at a faster per-capita rate, noting that they have much bigger challenges in their healthcare system, hinting that their estimates may be overly optimistic.

Monetary policy

Andrew Scheer is back at shitposting, this time spreading lies about the Bank of Canada and their use of quantitative easing during the pandemic recession. Quantitative easing is not actually just “printing money,” and it’s not going to cause runaway inflation. In fact, we’re running so far below our inflationary targets that the Bank should be running expansionary monetary policy – and yes, the Bank has a helpful primer on quantitative easing for people like Scheer and Pierre Poilievre if they cared to learn. But they don’t, and are jeopardizing the independence of the central bank by keeping up this particular policy of lies and shitposting to try and score points.

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Roundup: CRA changed the rules

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There has been a lot of consternation over the past few days of the “education letters” that CRA has been sending to people to say that they can’t verify their incomes and that they may need to repay their CERB benefits. The big complication, however, is that it appears that the CRA had quietly changed its income criteria from gross income to net income. But reporters have receipts, and CRA did make changes that they aren’t saying.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1338505818090725378

This does seem to be something that the minister should probably look into, because this certainly looks bad for the CRA and like they are acting in bad faith – as the government keeps insisting that they will encourage flexibility and leniency for those who made mistakes “in good faith.” But if the mistake was CRA’s – or that they deliberately changed the criteria for whatever reason – then this is more than just people making errors in good faith, and punishing people for the CRA’s screw-ups is a really bad look in the current context.

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QP: Eight questions to get an answer

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While the prime minister was meeting with the premiers over Zoom to hear their demands for more health transfers, his deputy was in the Chamber for QP. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he demanded to know why the deputy prime minister pushed for a military training exercise with China, to which Chrystia Freeland read a statement about the two stolen years of the two Michaels, who remain in Chinese detention. O’Toole was not mollified, to which Freeland very slowly and measuredly stated that she has experience reporting on authoritarian regimes, and their priority is the release of the two Michaels. O’Toole raised CanSino before he continued to thunder about the joint training exercise, but Freeland stuck to the CanSino point and chided that O’Toole was worked up about vaccines because he has spent weeks trying to create a panic when he should focus on the anti-vaxxers in his own party. O’Toole tried again about the military exercise, and Freeland stuck to repeating about demanding that the Chinese government release the two Michaels. O’Toole gave it one more shot in French, and she repeated that they take authoritarian regimes seriously. Mario Beaulieu led off for the Bloc, and he once again demanded that Quebec’s Bill 101 to federally-regulated industries, and Freeland calmly stated that the government is aware of the “fragility” of the French language in Quebec and Montreal and they will be happy to work on the protection of French. Beaulieu tried again and for the same answer. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he demanded increased health transfers for the provinces, to which Freeland reminded him that they had transferred billions to the provinces. Singh switched to English to decry the CRA’s letters to the self-employed around the CERB, and Freeland stated that the letters are only about verification, not a demand for repayment.

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Roundup: A reasoned amendment

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Something very usual happened in the Senate yesterday, in that Independent Senator Kim Pate decided to move a reasoned amendment to the government’s supply bill. A reasoned amendment is basically a procedural move to decline to give a bill second reading, meaning you don’t even agree with the bill in principle. This is a very rare move, and the fact that this is being used on a supply bill is a sign that this is a senator who is playing with fire.

You don’t mess around with supply bills. This is about money the government needs to operate, and if it fails, they can’t just keep funding government operations with special warrants. It’s going to be a giant headache of having to recreate the bill in a way that isn’t identical to the one that just passed (because you can’t pass two identical bills in the same session), go through the process again as the House is set to rise for the holidays (the Senate usually lags a few days later) is going to be a giant headache that is going to lose this senator any of the support she’s hoping to gain. Now, because the Senate isn’t a confidence chamber, defeating a money bill won’t make the government fall, but this is still a very bad precedent to try and set, or worse, given other newer senators ideas about how they should start operating.

There are plenty of objectionable aspects of this stunt of Pate’s – and yes, it is a stunt – but part of it is misunderstanding what that the supply bill is not about new pandemic aid programmes – it’s about keeping the civil service functioning. Her particular concern that 3.5 million people remain the poverty line is commendable, but Pate has been advocating for the government to implement a basic income for a while now, and a lot of people have been misled by the way in which the CERB was rolled out into thinking that this is a template for a basic income, which it’s not. And implementing a basic income – of which certain designs can be useful, but plenty which are not – is a complex affair if you talk to economists who have been working on the issue for years, not the least of which is that it’s going to require (wait for it…) negotiation with the provinces, because they deliver welfare programmes. And if Pate thinks that this kind of a stunt is going to force the government to suddenly implement one, she’s quite mistaken. I am forced to wonder who is giving her this kind of procedural advice, because she’s operating out of bounds, and asking for a world of procedural trouble. It’s fortunate that the Senate adjourned debate for the day shortly after she moved this motion so that others can regroup, but this is a worrying development for the “new” Senate.

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QP: One last PMQs for 2020

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For Wednesday, every major leader was present in the Chamber, for the last proto-PMQs of 2020. Erin O’Toole led off, worrying that the wage subsidy padded the books of sixty-eight corporations (per the reporting in the Financial Post). Justin Trudeau said he would get to the question in a moment, and wanted to pay tribute to the doctors and regulators who got the Pfizer vaccine approved, but warned there was still going to be a long winter ahead. O’Toole said that was important, but noted that one of the corporation was a long-term care provider who needed help from the Armed Forces. Trudeau noted that they provided aid when it was necessary. O’Toole stated that the government didn’t do their due diligence — which is something of a self-own given that the opposition didn’t apparently do theirs either, and Trudeau noted that they are being criticised for getting money out too quickly and compliance would be on the back end. O’Toole said that people were being told to pay back CERB based on net income and not gross, and Trudeau said that people who made good-faith mistakes would be given leniency. O’Toole then switched to French to bring up the PornHub story again, and Trudeau reminded him that new rules are coming to ensure internet providers take down illegal materials. Yves-François Blanchet was up for the Bloc, and he once again demanded support for a Bloc bill to extend Quebec’s Bill 101 to federally-regulated sectors, to which Trudeau picked up a script to read about how they are committed to protecting both official languages and an updated Official Languages Act is on the way. Blanchet then wondered if the prime minister would meet the premiers in order to give them all the money they want with no strings attached, to which Trudeau chided him that the Bloc only wants to pick a fight when they have been working well with the provinces. Jagmeet Singh was up next, and in French, returned to the story of shareholders getting dividends while taking the wage subsidy, to which Trudeau stated that they helped Canadians throughout the pandemic. Singh repeated the question in English, worrying especially about artists being forced to pay back aid, for which Trudeau reminded him of the additional aid they provided artists.

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QP: Deliberately mischaracterizing the vaccine plans

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While both the prime minister and finance minister were in town and preparing for the fiscal update, neither were present for QP. Gérard Deltell led off, noting that the fiscal update was coming, but that no economic plan would be worth anything without a vaccine plan. Patty Hajdu responded that they have the best vaccine portfolio and that a fourth candidate has begun its regulatory approval process. Deltell then insisted that the government was too invested in the CanSino candidate and was late in other vaccine candidates, to which Navdeep Bains insisted that they supported Canadian vaccine candidates as part of their plan. Deltell then mischaracterised international vaccine plans to insist that Canada was behind, which Hajdu disputed. Peter Kent took over in English and worried about the plan for economic recovery, to which Sean Fraser reminded him that the federal government made the choice to incur the costs of courses rather than putting it on the backs of people. Kent then worried about the deficit — because apparently it’s still 1995 — and Fraser directed him to the statements by the head of the IMF around what Canada has done. Alain Therrien led for the Bloc and he demanded the vaccine plan, to which Hajdu repeated her lines about the portfolio and the fourth candidate seeking approval. On the follow-up, Hajdu read a statement in French about the doses acquired and working with partners. Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he regaled the House with the tale of a woman in Gatineau who works three jobs and needs a vaccine, for which Hajdu repeated her usual lines about the portfolio and the regulatory process. Singh switched to English to make the same demand for the plan, and Hajdu reminded him that provinces have the expertise on this.

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Roundup: The necessary context on vaccines

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Vaccines was once again the talk of the day yesterday, and while there was a whole lot of caterwauling about demanding dates for vaccine arrivals and rollout specifics – something that is impossible to determine at this point considering that a) no vaccine has been approved in any country yet, and b) distribution is a provincial responsibility in Canada, and some of those provinces have not got their plans in place, such as Ontario, which just hired former Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, to help them plan their logistics. So yeah – it’s pretty hard for Justin Trudeau to give any solid timelines with those particular factors in mind.

With this in mind, Maclean’s has a must-read interview with Dr. Supriya Sharma, Health Canada’s chief medical advisor, about the vaccine approval process – because a lot of people have been talking out of their asses about said approval process. And when you’ve finished reading that, here is a deeper dive into the vaccine manufacturing availability in this country – the delays at the planned National Research Council facility because they decided to upgrade it to be a fully-compliant Good Manufacturing Practice-compliant facility that will be more versatile and able to produce more vaccines once it’s up and running (probably later next year). As well, the two early promising vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, are both mRNA technology vaccines, and there are no facilities in this country that can produce them – because not all vaccine production is the same, and different vaccines require different technologies to produce them, and nobody seems to understand this basic fact as they demand to know why we’re not producing it here, or why we haven’t acquired the rights to produce it, given that we have nowhere that can produce it even if we did.

In other pandemic news across the country, Doug Ford’s government got raked over the coals by the province’s Auditor General when she examined the province’s early pandemic response (and while I have some issues with the fact that she seems to be straying outside of her lane, it is nevertheless reassuring to see that she has called out a lot of Ford’s lies about his actions or lack thereof). Ford also started the process of telling Ontarians that Christmas isn’t going to be one with large family gatherings, so at least he’s not trying for the same kind of “social contract” nonsense that Quebec is pushing in spite of the fact that it’s likely to cause more spread of the virus. (Then again, people seem to want to obstinately get together anyway, if Thanksgiving is any indication, so it may not matter). Meanwhile in Alberta, experts are calling out the half-measures of Jason Kenney’s “mockdown,” which is only going to lead to more deaths, and longer and deeper shutdowns to get the virus under control.

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