Tag Archives: CRA

QP: StatsCan surveillance?

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Justin Trudeau was again in Question Period today, while Andrew Scheer was off to Queen’s Park to meet with Doug Ford, sans media availability. That left Lisa Raitt to lead off, worrying about the Statistics Canada plan to access financial information for their purposes. Trudeau took up a script to read that the data was anonymised and that it was for statistical purposes only, and that they were working with the Privacy Commissioner. Raitt equated this to another issue related to a credit monitoring agency being asked to turn over data. Trudeau took up a second script to read about the sins of the Conservatives when it comes to StatsCan, and assured her that privacy was being protected. Raitt pressed, and Trudeau snarked that the Conservatives remained the party of Stephen Harper. Alain Rayes took over in French, got the same scripted reply, and on a follow-up, Trudeau dropped the script to make the Harper digs. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and he asked about the lack of CRA’s progress in going after anyone from the Panama Papers. Trudeau read a script about CRA doing a great job. Caron raised the court case regarding charities before doubling back to lack of progress, and Trudeau dropped the script this time to praise the investment his government made in CRA to recover evaded taxes. Peter Julian took over in English, with added invective, and Trudeau read the English version of his script, and for his final question, Julian demanded by-elections be called, and Trudeau picked up another script to read more about the CRA.

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Roundup: Stuck on the Norman questions

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Yesterday’s somewhat bizarre Question Period, with the Conservatives focusing on a single question around Vice Admiral Mark Norman, certainly got the attention of media outlets, but it wasn’t all positive news, given how they it was also pointed out how they were lacking in any kind of prosecutorial style or killer instinct around it. It was just repetitive. Many of the points they made also didn’t seem to land – such as saying the PM had already “tried and convicted” Norman when he remarked that the courts would sort it out before Norman had even been charged – something that they are trying to use to insinuate that the whole affair is politically motivated.

As a reminder, Norman’s lawyers are looking for records from PMO, PCP, DND, the Department of Public Services and Procurement Canada, the Department of Justice, the Treasury Board, and the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, and that the documents being demanded include cabinet minutes, briefing materials and memos, and some ask for all forms of communication including emails and Blackberry messages. Those have all been deemed Cabinet confidence, which the Canada Evidence Actallows government to keep secret – the danger there, however, being that the court could decide that if the government doesn’t turn them over that the trial isn’t a fair one, and they could dismiss the case. As I remarked in my QP recap, I think the possibilities exist that some form of access could be negotiated that could mean a court-appointed officer could examine them to determine what is relevant as they do in cases of national security-related secrecy (like terrorism trials or people being held on security certificates), because the laundry list being demanded by Norman’s defence could very well be a fishing expedition and they want as broad a swath as possible to try and find something, anything, of use. (It’s also likely that the information is not only Cabinet confidence, but also commercially sensitive, which adds new layers of complication).

The other interesting fact that is still playing out is the fact that another public servant has been named as an alleged leaker, but he has yet to be charged, and this fact is making the Conservative suspicious that this is making Norman out to be a political scapegoat. Or rather, that’s the claim they’re making as they put on their dog and pony show about trying to make this into some kind of a cover-up, but we have nothing to point to this one way or another – just innuendo, which is enough to make political hay out of.

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QP: Getting better terms – really!

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While Justin Trudeau was off in Toronto meeting business leaders, Andrew Scheer was present in QP, fresh off the plane from his trip to India. Sheer led off, reading his concerns about Canadian ISIS fighters being caught by Kurdish forces, and demanded that they be brought to justice. Bill Blair responded saying that they were taking the issue seriously, and were gathering evidence to ensure that they can be prosecuted. Scheer got up and lied about the government offering poetry classes to returning foreign fighters, to which Blair retorted that the previous government brought no returning fighters to justice either. Scheer switched to French to rail about the terms of the New NAFTA, to which Chrystia Freeland assured him that they got a good deal for Canada and listed people who praised the deal. Scheer insisted that the government capitulated on a number of fronts but didn’t get movement on steel and aluminium tariffs, and Freeland replied that this was Monday morning courage, and that they said she was being too tough in negotiations. Scheer retorted that they had a case of Sunday night panic and capitulated, to which Freeland said that the party opposite now wanted to capitulate on steel and aluminium tariffs, which they would not do. Guy Caron was up next and demanded faster action on climate change and to stop using half-measures, to which Dominic LeBlanc said that they had a coherent plan to fight climate change and to grow the economy. After another round of the same, before Rachel Blaney reiterated the question in English, and LeBlanc repeated his assurances in English. Blaney tried one more time, and LeBlanc gave his assurances with a little more punctuation.

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Roundup: Shifting the blame upstream

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Have you seen that Internet meme going around about 100 corporations being responsible for 71 percent of the world’s GHG emissions? Congratulations, you’re fooling yourself as to what this really means! There’s an interesting piece in the National Postright now that breaks down what that study actually shows, and it’s not what you may think. The problem with the report that shows this statistic is that it shifts the blame for the emissions upstream to producers rather than downstream to consumers – so Exxon is being blamed for emissions from cars, when it’s consumers who are driving demand for their gasoline by, well, driving. And when you sort out upstream and downstream emissions, it turns out that those 100 corporations are really only responsible for about seven percent of those emissions – the rest are really the responsibility of consumers.

Why is this important? Because by presenting the problem as being driven by those 100 companies, it gives the impression that they can be dealt with as corporate bad apples who can be regulated into reducing that tremendous chunk of emissions. More importantly, it tells consumers that they’re not the ones responsible, it’s the fault of evil corporations – never mind that they’re responding to consumer demand. And this takes us back to the conversation around carbon pricing. When hucksters like Jason Kenney and Andrew Scheer insist that they can meaningfully reduce carbon emissions without carbon taxes (note: Kenney’s carbon tax plans only target large emitters that pay into a “technology fund”), it once again leaves consumers off the hook, which defeats the purpose.

Consumers drive demand, which drive emissions. If you target consumer behaviour by putting a price on the emissions they’re causing, you’re working to change demand, whether it’s through better fuel economy, insulation in housing, or making different choices about what it is they’re consuming and how carbon intensive their consumption is, you’re dealing with the problem where it starts. Carbon taxes are a transparent way for consumers to see what it is they’re using, and allows them to make choices. When you target companies instead, you’re simply passing along the costs to them in the form of higher prices in a non-transparent way, and in a costlier way because regulation is a far less cost-effective way of driving emissions reductions. So indeed, rather than trying to ensure that consumers aren’t being hit by the costs of carbon pricing, you’re actually ensuring that they’re hit even more (particularly because the costs of doing nothing will be even greater still). You can’t pretend that this problem can’t be solved without a focus on consumers, and that starts with recognizing that consumers are the problem, not corporations.

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QP: Turning Canada to a vassal state

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It being the Thursday before a constituency week, the benches were getting a bit thinner, and none of the leaders (save Elizabeth May) were present. That left Alain Rayes to lead off, reading concerns about the Americans being able to weigh in on a potential trade deal with China, and wondered what Canada got in response. Marc Garneau got up to read that the ability to withdraw from an agreement was normal. Rayes railed about all of the various concessions made, and Garneau was “mystified” that the Conservatives didn’t applaud them for getting a deal. Michael Chong was up next, and raised our sacrifices in World War I before complaining that the Article 32 in the new NAFTA makes Canada a vassal state. Garneau insisted there was no loss of sovereignty, and that any party could leave the agreement with six months’ notice. Candice Bergen was up next, and she whinged that Trudeau acted like a bully and called them names on the issue of Tori Stafford’s killer. Jean-Yves Duclos got up to read that politicians can’t make determinations about the sentencing of individual prisoners. Bergen proposed a broad policy of preventing child killers from going to healing lodges, but Duclos repeated his script. Karine Trudel led off for the NDP, worrying about the steel and aluminium tariffs still being in place. Garneau got up to read that the tariffs weren’t justified, which was Canada was retaliating. On a second go-around, Garneau gave the same response, this time without script, before Tracey Ramsey repeated the question in English, with a bit of added condemnation. Garneau reiterated the response in English, and for her final question, Ramsey demanded a task force to help small businesses affected by the tariffs, and this time, Garneau took a few shots a the NDP’s dislike of trade agreements.

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Roundup: Mandate letter madness

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Yesterday was the big day that the mandate letters for the new cabinet minister were finally released, and the Cabinet committees got a bit shake-up. You can get an overview of the letters here, and some deeper analysis on what’s being asked of Jim Carr in international trade, Dominic LeBlanc in intergovernmental affairs, and Jonathan Wilkinson in fisheries. Reading through the letters, however, I found that almost all of the new letters – either with established ministries or with the new ones that they are establishing – were all giving them specific direction on which other ministers they should be working with to achieve specific goals. Very few of them were goals that they were to pursue on their own, which I find to be very curious from a governance perspective.

The big question mark remains around Bill Blair and just what he’s supposed to do as Minister of Looking Tough on Stuff – err, “border security and organized crime reduction.” We got no insight as to whether he has any actual operational control over a department or an agency like CBSA. Rather, his list of goals included looking at a ban on handguns and assault rifles as part of the existing Bill C-71, and that as part of his duties in relation to the border, he should have discussions with the Americans about the Safe Third Country agreement, but it was all rather vague. (There was also some talk about opioid smuggling as part of his border security duties, for what it’s worth). Nevertheless, it was another one of those letters that was focused on which other ministers he’s supposed to be working with as opposed to providing oversight of a ministry, which I find weird and a bit unsettling as to what this means for how the machinery of government works under Trudeau.

Meanwhile, the number of Cabinet committees was reduced, and some of the files that certain of these committees were overseeing got shuffled around. We’ll see how this affects governance, but it’s all a peek into the sausage-making of governance (which, it bears reminding, that the Ford government in Ontario refuses to give any insight into as he refuses to release his own ministers’ mandate letters).

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Roundup: A sudden focus on birth tourism

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So that was the Conservative policy convention. There wasn’t a lot of drama, post-Bernier, and most of the reactionary and social conservative policy resolutions got voted down in the end, including those related to abortion. What did wind up being contentious was a resolution around stopping automatic birth citizenship, which was supposedly aimed at stopping “birth tourism” but would have the alternate effect of creating stateless individuals, which is contrary to international law. Mind you, the Liberals didn’t help any when they started talking about how this meant revoking existing citizenships (which it wasn’t), and then certain Conservative partisans started complaining that this was being unfairly cast as xenophobic (I’m not sure that’s really an unfair assessment), but there you have it. Incidentally, MP Deepak Obhrai came out against this. There was a bit of other drama when opponents of supply management stole the briefing binder for dairy lobbyists and found proof therein that regardless of what was decided, Scheer would use his prerogative as leader to ensure the policy was untouched. When this hit social media, his people insisted that no, that’s erroneous information, they had it wrong, but remember that leaders’ prerogative is pretty much how every party operates since we’ve started privileging leadership over the grassroots, but people seem to keep forgetting that.

https://twitter.com/cforcese/status/1033749144689684480

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Here’s a sit-down interview with Scheer to get his thoughts on policy positions that the convention was debating over the weekend, and another where he refuses to say if the Bernier split worries him. Scheer does complain that it’s hard for ordinary people to learn his name because he’s not suave and photogenic like Trudeau (never mind that a lot of what people in other countries remark about Trudeau is regarding his stances and policies, not just his looks). That said, it’s his party now, and it remains to be seen what his mark will inevitably be on it.

Meanwhile, the first poll about how people would vote with a theoretical Bernier-led party in the mix is out, and it would take enough votes away from the Conservatives and NDP to give the Liberals a bigger margin of victory. But remember, it’s early days and it’s pretty much the equivalent of putting “a pony” as the choice in the polls and people will immediately respond to it based on what they’re projecting rather than the reality, but that’s not unexpected.

Good reads:

  • Trilateral NAFTA might resume this week, but without Chrystia Freeland as she is on a diplomatic tour in Europe until Friday.
  • There are concerns that Shared Service Canada is gearing its procurements to favour multi-nationals over home-grown companies for contracts.
  • Families of fallen soldiers want public access to the rebuilt Afghanistan war cenotaph.
  • CRA’s tax evasion tip line netted some 32,000 leads last year.
  • Kevin Carmichael doesn’t think that there will be another interest rate hike in September.
  • Susan Delacourt sees problems with the conservative coalition that Andrew Scheer should be cementing at this point in his leadership.

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Roundup: Maxime Bernier, drama queen

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Like a high school drama queen, Maxime Bernier made his move yesterday, removing himself from the Conservative caucus just as the party was about to begin their convention in Halifax. And not a moment too soon, apparently, as apparently the caucus was prepared to “belittle” him regarding his recent shitposting over Twitter, in an apparent attempt to Mean Girl him into falling in line. Well, that didn’t apparently work, and Bernier went out with a bang, calling the Conservatives a party that was “too intellectually and morally corrupt to be reformed,” and which only speaks in platitudes, and that he plans to launch his own party within the coming weeks. Good luck with that.

Minutes later, Andrew Scheer held his own press conference in Halifax and said good riddance, that Bernier was only in it for himself, but, curiously, stuck to platitudes. And notably, he didn’t refute anything that Bernier has been saying over the past couple of weeks, and in particular his winking to white nationalists. (Note to Conservatives: simply listing how many ethnocultural firsts your party has had is not refuting the aforementioned winking to white nationalists). And then Scheer said that Bernier evidently decided to help Trudeau, and then immediately started backpedalling to insist that no, this wasn’t going to split the party, and they’re united, and Bernier is a nobody, and you get the drift. So score one for Scheer there.

And then started up the tweets, many of them angry or belittling from fellow MPs, and a bunch of bizarre rumours started being floated to journalists like that Bernier used to sleep through Cabinet meetings under Harper (seriously? You actually expect us to believe that?) while other party stalwarts rallied around Scheer (and Bernier currently seems to have zero supporters, for what it’s worth). The Liberals, justifiably, are remaining cautious and are not openly popping any champagne bottles because who knows where this will go.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells has grave doubts that Bernier has what it takes to lead a new political movement, while Jen Gerson angrily writes about Bernier’s supposed defence of “Canadian values” and that he doesn’t seem to have a clue what he’s tweeting about. Scott Gilmore seems to think that Bernier’s fundraising record shows he may have the momentum to pull this off – but Stephen Maher has his doubts. John Ivison casts aspersions on all sides of the split, Martin Patriquin wonders about the effect that it will have with the ground ripe for messages of populist xenophobia like Bernier has been employing. Don Martin suspects this departure will rally the party around Scheer, while Robyn Urback takes Bernier to task in the most scathing, sarcastic way possible. (My own column on Bernier’s future will be up later today).

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Roundup: A dearth of innovative policy ideas

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While Maxime Bernier’s social media committee continues to demand attention (yesterday’s missive was to declare “political correctness” dead in Canada – in both official languages), all eyes will turn to Andrew Scheer as the party’s policy convention gets underway this week in Halifax. There is all kinds of talk that they’ll come away from this more united than ever – one of those kinds of meaningless phrases that parties seem to trot out whenever they face the slightest bit of internal criticism or difficulty, and usually before and after there’s some kind of rift or someone gets tossed. But depending on what Bernier tries to do with his acolytes at the convention, we’ll see if his tone or messaging changes after the convention is over, or if this becomes some new problem for Scheer to contend with – eventually.

As for the policy resolutions, most of the ones we’re seeing discussed are…not very innovative. In fact, most of them seem to be either the usual pushing back against restrictions on their well-worn bugaboos and hobbyhorses (looking to make anti-abortion policies more accepted in the party officially, for example), but so few of them seem to be actually coming from a free market conservative point of view. In fact, a lot of what’s on the list is pretty reactionary, and definitely signals a shift from a party that used to be all about the rule of law, and now seems to think they’re above it (witness resolutions against any payments or court settlements with convicted terrorists – a dig at Omar Khadr).

One could go on – a policy about building Energy East, despite the fact that there is no economic case to do so. Repealing gender identity legislation because they are under the illusion that it compels people to use unconventional pronouns (because apparently the Jordan Peterson crowd is well represented here), Andrew Scheer’s problematic policy of withholding funds to universities who don’t defend speech (but no context there, because you know they’ll rail about Israel Apartheid Week), closing the “loopholes” in the Safe Third Country agreement (no mention of how exactly, or the unintended consequences of doing so), maybe developing a climate policy that won’t involve a carbon tax or cap-and-trade (so you’re in favour of heavy-handed and expensive regulation? Really?), prioritizing CANZUK trade agreements (a rose-coloured view of our colonial past that didn’t really exist economically), treating pornography like a public health issue (Seriously, guys – didn’t you embarrass yourselves with this already at the Commons health committee when you couldn’t articulate a policy out of this fraud) – nothing innovating in here in the slightest. So one has to wonder just what vision there is within the party if this is the best that they can come up with for policy resolutions.

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Roundup: Those pesky gasoline prices

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While avoiding condemning Maxime Bernier’s choice of language and engagement (moving from just winking at white nationalists to now trying to delegitimize the media), Andrew Scheer has resumed his practice of shitposting misleading statistics memes over Twitter, and yesterday it was in relation to gasoline prices. Yes, Statistics Canada reported that the inflation rate in June was 3.0 percent, which is the Bank of Canada’s upper bound for their target, and yes, it was fuelled in part by gasoline prices. (Core inflation, stripped of volatile factors like gasoline, remains closer to the 2.0 percent target, so it’s not really anything to worry about). But why would those gasoline prices be higher? Hmm…

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1030574821543829504

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1030574941060517888

That’s right – the world price of oil has increased over the past year after its recovery from the price collapse nearly two years ago, and that’s an unambiguous good thing for provinces like Alberta, who rely on oil prices being on the higher side for their economies. Trying to cast this as a carbon tax issue – and that oh noes, carbon taxes will make this even worse – is a bit disingenuous considering how small of a fraction of the price that entails.

Meanwhile, with a number of voices (Jason Kenney and Scheer among them) calling for the revival of Energy East in light of the Saudi Arabia spat, energy economist Andrew Leach crunched the numbers on the economic case for that pipeline. Short version: there is no economic case. Stop trying to pretend there is one or blaming Justin Trudeau for its demise.

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