Tag Archives: CRA

Roundup: The confidence vote that wasn’t

Posted on by

Debate on the Address in Reply to the Speech From the Throne was due to wrap up, meaning a final vote. Media outlets insisted that this would be the first major confidence vote of the new Parliament, and that if the Liberals lost it, we could go back to an election, and there was all this building drama because of how they lost the vote on the Conservatives’ amendment (to “urge” the government to table a spring budget). And my headache started.

The vote on the Address in Reply is not automatically a confidence vote. It is if the opposition amendments explicitly state that they have no confidence in the government, and sometimes that happens because this is the first opportunity to test the confidence of the Chamber, especially in a minority parliament or legislature, but again, that was not the case here. But along the way, the NDP decided that they were going to play tough and declare that they would vote against it for specious reasons (and because Don Davies is an idiot, and has a long track record of being an idiot and a blowhard), while the Government House Leader, Steve MacKinnon, told reporters that this would be a confidence vote. So, if the government says it’s a confidence vote, it’s a confidence vote, and it was likely intended to be something of a bit a put-up-or-shut-up dare, which can be risky in a minority parliament, but sometimes you also need to play hardball with the opposition. This was likely going to mean that the Bloc would either vote in support or abstain (because they did say they would give the government a year before they started to seriously oppose anything, given the Trump situation), but the government was never in any serious danger of falling. If, by some fluke, they did lose a vote they declared to be confidence, they could simply hold another vote and basically say “Did you mean it?” and chances are they would win that vote, and all would go back to normal.

And in the end, there wasn’t even a vote. News of Marc Garneau’s death reached the Chamber just before the vote was to be taken, and it seems like the appetite for drama was gone, and it passed on division, meaning that they agreed to disagree, that they were going to let it pass, but not bother with a recorded vote. And thus, the least exciting outcome happened.

I must advise the beings of Bluesky that, in a truly only-in-this-particular-Canadian-parliament twist, the much-anticipated will-they-or-won't-they-trigger-an-election over it motion on the Throne speech as amended — has been adopted on division.

— Kady O'Malley (@kadyo.bsky.social) 2025-06-04T22:25:39.121Z

— Effin' Birds (@effinbirds.com) 2025-06-04T22:02:26.904Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian drones struck an apartment building in Kharkiv, injuring at least seventeen. Russian forces have also pushed further into Sumy region. Here’s a look at how Operation Spiderweb was carried out.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Delay to delivery?

Posted on by

The new natural resource minister, Tim Hodgson, gave a speech in Calgary yesterday and everyone in the energy sector was all hot and bothered because he insisted that they were moving to a culture of delivery instead of delay. And you’ll have to forgive my cynicism, but that seems to completely ignore what the actual issues of delay have been, and if you say “Liberal regulation!” you’re going to get a smack. The premise of saying they need “one project, one review” ignores that that’s been the case for ages now—there are no duplicative reviews, because federal and provincial reviews look at different things, and on projects where they had shared jurisdiction, they set up a joint review panel so that it was *gasp!* one review. Anyone who says they were mired in duplication is frankly not being that honest.

The real issue has been proper consultation, which is what leads projects to wind up in litigation, particularly from Indigenous groups. Harper’s attempt to reform assessments to “streamline” them meant that most of those projects wound up in litigation because, well, they ignored their obligations. In some cases, like Northern Gateway, the Conservatives ignored the process that they put into place for meaningful consultation, and well, the project died on the vine as a result. And with BC and Ontario both pushing legislation to “streamline” projects which basically means bulldozing over environmental and Indigenous obligations, well, that’s all going to wind up in litigation too. This was the whole point of the Impact Assessment Act that Jason Kenney in particularly successfully villainized—it was to ensure proper consultation up-front, at the design phase of a project, so that the rest of the process would go faster because you did the hard work at the beginning. But it became the subject of lies and disinformation, and yes, the federal government’s attempt to exert jurisdiction over certain projects because the polluting effects cross borders didn’t convince the Supreme Court of Canada, but that didn’t render the entire statute or the issues of up-front consultation obsolete or moot, and nobody seems to want to explain that part.

One more thing about Hodgson’s speech was the he singled out Pathways Alliance as a project he wants to see move forward. I’m really hoping that this means he’s telling them to put up or shut up, because we know that they basically went dark because their claims about building a massive carbon capture and storage hub were overblown and they were about to face legal consequences for greenwashing thanks to new powers for the Competition Bureau. And frankly, the whole point of the emissions cap was to tell the energy sector to put up or shut up—that they have been boasting about how they’re going to reduce their emissions, so when the government basically told them to prove it, suddenly they started crying about how this as a “production cap” and it was unfair to them. Girl, please. You insisted you could do this, so prove it.

Meanwhile, we’ve had our first glimpse into Mark Carney’s PMO, and while he’s insistent on punctuality, business attire, and UK spellings (hooray!), and decision paralysis is not setting in (so far), he’s also starting to micromanage all kinds of things that he shouldn’t be, which sounds an awful lot like a Harper trait. Part of the problem so far is a lack of a proper chief of staff, and that ministers haven’t staffed up yet either, and yet he wants to operate at a breakneck pace. But there are other warning signs—because he doesn’t understand politics, he really hasn’t given thought to how to navigate a minority House of Commons, to say nothing of the Senate (ahem), and not knowing how to deal with Parliament could lead to a situation where the Conservatives can team up with the Bloc and the NDP yet again to start frustrating anything passing once again—and for all of their talk about working together and getting things done, don’t think for a second that they’re actually not more interested in scoring points and embarrassing the Liberals. Trudeau lost the ability to manage these things, in part because of disinterest, and we’ll see if Carney doesn’t make the same mistake.

Ukraine Dispatch

There was a massive missile and drone attack against Kyiv overnight, which has injured at least eight people (Photos). Ukraine and Russia exchanged 390 prisoners each on Friday, marking one of the largest swaps since the war began.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Moving onto the dairy front

Posted on by

The trade war seemed slightly more stable yesterday as the reprieve on most goods seemed to be holding, but it took no time at all for Trump to start musing about new, invented grievances and irritants. The latest is the dairy sector, for which there are limits as to how much the US can export to Canada tariff-free, but again, Trump has blown this out of proportion in his own mind. And as a result, he threatened 250 percent tariffs on Canadian dairy…but we don’t really export to them, certainly not liquid milk in large part because of the Supply Management system, so that would have very little impact on our industry.

The thing that did have people worried was fresh news out of the New York Times that Trump’s annexation talk has moved into threats about tearing up boundary treaties, particularly around things like the Great Lakes and cross-border river systems, and moving into things like shared military operations and NORAD, and after the floated threats about the Five Eyes a couple of weeks ago, it’s hard to ignore any of these threats, and why there needs to be a very concerted effort by the government to make plans for how we’re going to deal with this once it happens, because we know that nothing is off the table with Trump any longer.

I’m generally not into White House drama, but following it becomes more necessary than I’d like to admit these days. To that end, here is a look at an explosive meeting in the Cabinet room where several cabinet secretaries unloaded on Elon Musk, which wound up reining him in (somewhat, for now). But oh, man, the absolute stupidity of what is happening in that administration is boggling. As well, here’s a look at how framing the Trump presidency through the lens of reality television helps to make some of the chaos make a little more sense.

https://twitter.com/josheakle/status/1898212255604568305

Ukraine Dispatch

After the US cut off military aid, including access to satellite imagery for Ukraine, Russia launched a major missile attack, which targeted energy infrastructure, killed four in the eastern town of Dobropillia, while another five died in attacks in the Donetsk region. The Ukrainian forces within Kursk region appear to be nearly surrounded by Russians, though there have been counteroffensives in the past few days. Ukrainian drones did attack the Kirishi refinery.

Continue reading →

Roundup: First ministers meet about the Trump threats

Posted on by

Justin Trudeau will be meeting with (most of) the premiers today, to talk about the border plans in advance of Trump’s inauguration. Some premiers will be virtual, however, such as PEI premier Dennis King, who is currently on a bus trip to the northeastern states with a number of officials from the province. And it has already been noted that there are separate media availabilities after the meeting is over—the federal government in one location, the premiers moving to a hotel to have theirs.

In advance of the meeting, we’re hearing more pledges for “border officers” from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Quebec, and Doug Ford was once again chirping about the supposed absence of federal leadership until he had a meeting with Dominic LeBlanc yesterday at Queen’s Park, after which he suddenly changed his tune. At that point, he praised the federal plan as “phenomenal,” which pretty much goes to show that the federal government has been working on it, and that in not responding and lighting their hair on fire with every Trump utterance that they are keeping their powder dry.

I get why Trudeau and the government have been keeping their heads down, but they have also created a problem for themselves. They should probably have been sending stronger signals to the provinces that they are working on said plan and to shut up in public rather than undermine the country’s position, but it’s not like they’ll all listen—particularly those premiers who are keen to suck up to Trump. Nevertheless, if this PMO’s persistent problem is their inability to communicate, they appear to be making no effort to change that on their way out the door. Cripes.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian air defences shot down 58 out of 80 drones in an overnight attack on Tuesday, while Russian forces claim to have taken control of two more settlements in the Donetsk region. Ukraine launched a major missile and drone attack into Russian territory, destroying a storage facility holding guided bombs and struck a chemical plant making ammunition. Ukrainian soldiers are also being forced to deal with suicide attacks by North Korean troops.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1879180179613872494

Continue reading →

Roundup: More threats about annexation

Posted on by

It was yet another day that we have to become used to once again, where Donald Trump said something that was all at once boneheaded, insulting, and vaguely disturbing, as he talked about using economic forces to annex Canada (while also threatening Denmark/Greenland and Panama), and of course, that made every two-bit pundit and wannabe in this country light their hair on fire, yet again, because of course they did. And our political leaders were forced to respond, and I’m not sure what’s worse—Trump’s chaotic insanity, or the fact that our political leaders have to come up with something in response.

While threats to our sovereignty are one thing, it also goes to show that all of the obsequious scrambling to strengthen border measures—to say nothing of the boot-licking and obeying in advance of certain premiers—are pretty much for naught because Trump is not about to be mollified by any of this. He doesn’t have any tangible demands, because he wants a win, and today, he’s fixated on annexation as that win, but in a week’s time, he’ll likely move onto something else, because he is likely to lose interest, especially if something is difficult (and you’d better believe that annexation is incredibly difficult, particularly because it involves some near-impossible constitutional wrangling). It’s one of the reasons why we should probably be keeping our powder dry rather than freaking the fuck out every time he says something stupid and insane, but certainly be preparing retaliatory measures, and that’s going to likely mean the big guns like broad-based retaliatory counter-tariffs rather than selective ones like the last time, or export taxes on things like energy products, even if Scott Moe starts to throw a tantrum about it.

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2025-01-08T03:42:32.469Z

Amidst this, there was no end to people who should know better throwing a tantrum that the prorogation should be “rescinded” (no, it doesn’t work like that) and that Parliament needs to be recalled over these threats. Which would do what, exactly? The government continues to function, and no, it’s not a “caretaker” government. What would MPs actually do about this situation? There is no legislation that requires passage to counter any of this. The most that we would get are a unanimous consent motion condemning Trump’s words (maybe, if certain parties don’t balk and say we shouldn’t antagonise Trump), or a take-note debate where MPs spend six hours reading prepared speeches into the record. Oooooh! That’ll show Trump!

Canada MUST recall our Ryans (Reynolds and Gosling respectively) during tariff negotiations & annexation threats by President-Elect & Former POTUS, Donald J. Trump.The risk is too high for some of our greatest national exports.

— Jon Liedtke (@jonliedtke.bsky.social) 2025-01-08T01:09:10.162Z

Ukraine Dispatch

Continue reading →

QP: Attempting to be clever about a poor policy decision

Posted on by

The prime minister was in Toronto for the ill-considered GST “holiday” announcement along with his deputy, and most of the other leaders made themselves absent as well. Pierre Poilievre had just given a press conference but was not present, leaving it up to Frank Caputo to lead off instead, asking a ghoulish about sexual killers getting reduced security in prison, falsely blaming the former Bill C-83 (which was about solitary confinement reform). Dominic LeBlanc castigated the Conservatives for constantly repeating the names of heinous killers who are behind bars. Caputo then switched to denouncing the announced “affordability package” and demanded an election. Arif Virani declared that today was a great day for affordability and hoped the Conservatives wouldn’t be muzzled from voting for it. Caputo dismissed the measures and again demanded the carbon levy be cut instead. Virani gave a paean about how great the measures were for Xmas. Luc Berthold took over in French to say the best course was to cut the carbon levy, but the framing was odd because it doesn’t apply in Quebec, and François-Philippe Champagne praised the proposed measures. Berthold insisted the measures would raise inflation and demanded an election, and Champagne said that they don’t need an election, and the Conservatives need to support it.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and complained about the state of official languages and the decline of French. Ginette Petitpas Taylor, newly in the portfolio, said she looked forward to working with the Quebec government. Therrien quoted Quebec’s French Language Commissioner in saying that the federal government is “anglicising” Gatineau and Quebec, and Petitpas Taylor said she was offended by this as a New Brunswicker.

Alexandre Bourlerice rose for the NDP, and took credit for the government temporarily cutting the GST on certain items, and demanded this be made permanent. Champagne said that the NDP is just waking up and that the government has long understood the affordability needs and giving people a hand at Xmas. Don Davies made the same demand in English, and Anita Anand yelled that it was tax-free on essential goods for the holidays and how great this was, ending with a swipe at the Conservatives about “How can they claim to speak for Canadians when they can’t even speak for themselves?”

Continue reading →

Roundup: Ignoring the abuse and the banana republic tactics

Posted on by

While on the one hand, it’s nice that legacy media is once again paying attention to the fact that there is an ongoing filibuster in the House of Commons that has largely paralyzed any work for six weeks now, but it would be great if they could actually make a gods damned effort at it. Pretty much every story, and the CBC’s turn was yesterday, just types of the quotes from Karina Gould and Andrew Scheer blaming one another for the filibuster. The current fascination to this story, however, is that the Supplementary Estimates votes are coming up, and every gods damned Hill reporter is dying to use the phrase “American-style government shutdown” to go along with it that they continue to gloss over the actual issues at hand.

There is a legitimate issue about the abuse of the parliamentary privilege to demand documents, because the power is only in relation to Parliament summoning those documents for their own purposes, not to turn them over to a third party. The Speaker and the clerks who advise him should never have allowed this to be considered a matter of privilege because the powers are being abused, but this is too much of a “process story” for them, so they don’t like that angle. There is also the even more pressing issue that these powers are being abused in a manner befitting a banana republic, where the powers of the state are being weaponized against those that the legislature doesn’t like, and that should be absolutely alarming to anyone paying attention.

This kind of abuse sets precedents, and if it’s allowed to happen now, it’ll be allowed to happen the next time someone wants to abuses these powers. The most that media outlets can muster up is “The RCMP says they don’t want these documents, so why are you so insistent?” but never “Why do you think it’s appropriate to behave like this is a banana republic where you are using the state to go after your perceived enemies?” We are in a particular moment in western democracies where autocrats are threatening to take over, and Viktor Orbán in Hungary has provided them a template to dismantle the guardrails of the state to delegitimize opposition and stay in power as long as possible. This is creeping into Canada, and legacy media in this country needs to be alive to the issue and call out these kinds of tactics and behaviours, rather than just both-sidesing it and using words like “polarized” or “divisive,” because that just plays into their hands.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine fired eight US-supplied longer-range missiles into Russia, two of them being intercepted, the rest hitting an ammunition supply location. President Zelenskyy addressed Ukraine’s parliament with a speech to mark the 1,000th day of the invasion.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1858871441032155385

Continue reading →

QP: Speaker Fergus walks into the trap set for him

Posted on by

The PM was wrapping up at the G20, while his deputy was also elsewhere, as were most of the other leaders. Andrew Scheer was there to lead off, and he listed a bunch of specious allegations around Randy Boissonnault, and Boissonnault responded that he had nothing to do with the person in question. Scheer tried again, listing more salacious allegations, and this time Jean-Yves Duclos responded with the usual lines about Pierre Poilievre not getting his security clearance. Scheer then cited a tweet from Jody Wilson-Raybould that took a swipe at Boissonnault and then got into a back-and-forth with Speaker Fergus about which words he used weren’t parliamentary. Karina Gould got up to to decry the disrespect the Conservatives have been showing the Chamber, and had to start over after a lengthy intervention by the Speaker, who was pretty much exasperated by this point. Fergus then threatened to start taking questions away, before Luc Berthold got up to give the same talking points about Boissonnault in French, and Gould again got up to say that Boissonnault has answered, and it was time to stop the partisan games. Berthold tried one more time, got warned about the use of a first name, and Gould again got up to moralise about how the Conservatives are making a joke of this place.

Fergus has pretty much lost the entire Chamber. This is utterly ridiculous. #QP

— Dale Smith (@journodale.bsky.social) 2024-11-19T19:32:20.904Z

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and railed about their fraud perpetrated against the CRA and the hunt for the whistleblowers. Marie-Claude Bibeau insisted that this was false and that they took it seriously, and that the Privacy Commissioner was involved. Therrien went on a tear about CRA trying to protect their own backsides, and Bibeau replied that they have not hidden anything and that that they have taken action.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and demand the government adopt the NDP’s economically illiterate GST cut plan. François-Philippe Champagne agreed with the framing device that the Conservatives would only cut, while the government is investing in Canadians. Leila Dance made the same demand in English, and Jenna Sudds also agreed that the Conservatives will cut before praising the school food programme.

Continue reading →

QP: The character assassination of Boissonnault continues

Posted on by

While the prime minister was still in Rio for the G20 summit, his deputy was present, but most other leaders didn’t bother. Pierre Poilievre was present, however, and he led off in French by equating the prime minister to a firefighter setting fires, who blamed “bad actors” for the immigration problems, and that he needed to look in the mirror. Marc Miller spoke about the decision to lower targets as being the responsible thing to do. Poilievre repeated this in English, and Miller said they wouldn’t take any lessons from someone who has spent twenty years lighting fires in the House of Commons. Poilievre switched to the various allegations about Randy Boissonnault and demanded his resignation. Boissonnault said that despite the innuendo, he had not met and has no dealings with the person referred to in the article today. Poilievre tried again, with a couple of added swipes, and Boissonnault repeated that the same denial, and the article stated that fact. Poilievre then took a swipe at Trudeau saying people are confused by misinformation about the carbon levy, repeated lies about it, and demanded an election. Jonathan Wilkinson called out the disinformation and chanted that eight out of ten households get more money back. 

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he decried the amendments to their Supply Management bill in the Senate, and demanded the prime minister order senators to defeat the amendment. Karina Gould reminded him that senators are independent. Therrien railed about that independence and didn’t believe it, and repeated his demand. This time Marie-Claude Bibeau suggested that the Conservatives tell their own senators to pass the bill. 

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, complained about prices “not making sense” and more, and demanded the government adopt their economically stupid plan to cut the GST on certain items. Jean-Yves Duclos responded with a swipe about the Conservatives not supporting dental care. Don Davies repeated the same demand in English, and François-Philipppe Champagne repeated that the Conservatives will cut, and patted himself on the back for creating economic opportunities. 

Continue reading →

Roundup: Clapping back at the provinces and their JPs

Posted on by

Justice Minister Arif Virani has been honing his responses to the cries for bail reform lately, both in pointing out that the provinces are not living up to their responsibilities—whether that’s with properly resourcing the court system so that trials are conducted in a timely manner, or in dealing with overcrowded remand centres where people are locked up awaiting trial, and because of the overcrowding and poor conditions, many accused are being given bail rather than subjected to those conditions. Even more recently, he has started pointing to how certain provinces, and Ontario especially, have been appointing Justices of the Peace, to decide on most bail hearings.

Ontario in particular had this whole song and dance about how great it was that they were appointing JPs who weren’t all lawyers, because it gave them greater breadth of experience or whatever, but if it’s true that they’re not actually applying the law of bail properly, that’s a problem. It could simply be that their training is inadequate, which again is a provincial responsibility, because if they are being expected to read, understand and apply case law that the Supreme Court of Canada has laid out when it comes to the law of bail, then again, that is a problem that the provinces need to solve.

And yes, there are going to continue to be voices chirping that the law is the problem, and that the Liberals created an “open door” through two pieces of legislation, but this has been an orchestrated disinformation campaign. The one law that the Conservatives refer to codified Supreme Court jurisprudence, and actually toughened bail in certain respects, especially around domestic violence; the other law they refer to had to do with doing away with solitary confinement in federal penitentiaries, which has nothing to do with bail in the slightest, but repeated lying that has not been pushed back against by both-sidesing media has led a whole lot of credulous people to believe the bullshit. The law of bail is not the problem—it’s everything else that is, and the provinces are once again being allowed to get away with not doing their jobs.

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukrainian security services have detained a special forces unit commander accused of being Russian mole. Russian air defences claim to have downed a series of Ukrainian drones in a number of different regions. There could be another mass displacement of Ukrainians if energy systems continue to be damaged over the winter. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had a call with Putin, asking him to withdraw his troops and negotiate, which of course Putin won’t, and now Zelenskyy is angry with Scholz because these kinds of calls decrease Putin’s isolation.

Continue reading →