Tag Archives: CRTC

QP: Saving our forestry sector from the Americans

Posted on by

For a Monday in the shadow of the discovery of that mass grace of Indigenous children in Kamloops, and there was once again but a single Liberal in the Chamber, and yes, it was once again Mark Gerretsen. Candice Bergen led off in person for the Conservatives, and she raised the discovery of the mass graves, and wanted an update on plans to find the identities of those children. Gary Anandasangaree responded after a delay, citing the funding commitments already made and made mention of work done with Indigenous leaders. Gérard Deltell repeated the question in French, and this time Marc Miller responded, saying that they are standing with the communities and will deliver the support they need. Bergen was back up, and she accused the government of being silent on American predations in the forestry sector, for which Seamus O’Regan expressed his disappointment in American actions, and his desire for a negotiated solution. Bergen derided the government’s actions on this as well as pipelines, for which O’Regan assured her they were looking out for all workers, including energy workers. Deltell then repeated the lament about softwood lumber in French, and O’Regan repeated his earlier response.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he demanded that federal workplaces in Quebec make French the language of work — and being very particular about it — and Pablo Rodriguez gave the flattering falsehood about French supposedly declining in Quebec (it hasn’t), and stated their commitment to protecting the French language. Therrien railed that the federal government simply wanted to extend bilingualism, which Rodriguez reassured him that they have worked to strengthen French across the country.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in a somber tone, raised the mass grave in Kamloops and demanded the government drop their lawsuits against Indigenous children and survivors, and Marc Miller assured him they have committed to compensation, and that they are committed to continuing the search for truth and devoting resources for doing so. Singh repeated the question in French, and Miller repeated his response in French.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Some of the misconceptions around C-10

Posted on by

The other day, I made a somewhat snarky comment over Twitter in response to an op-ed in The Line, because people are still making stuff up about Bill C-10. Like, out of whole cloth, complete fiction, because they do not grasp the basic mechanics of regulation in this country.

So, with this in mind, here are a few reminders. Start by re-reading my piece in National Magazine about the bill. Individual content uploaders are not being regulated – only the platforms themselves. The CRTC is not going to takedown YouTube content, and it’s not going to regulate news. If it regulates Facebook, it’s not regulating the algorithm of timelines – it’s only regulating if Facebook is acting like a broadcaster of scripted content, or when they livestream baseball games (which they have done). The reason why YouTube as a platform, for example, is being targeted is because it is the largest music streaming platform in the world, and this is why they want to bring it into the ambit of CanCon regulations, governing both discoverability (so that the algorithm shows more Canadian artists in suggested playlists), and contributing financially to the system that helps provide grants and royalties for Canadian artists. People keep mentioning Instagram and TikTok, but they’re not really broadcasting platforms.

So how does the CRTC determine what counts as CanCon? Well, they have a formula that assigns points to it, and 6/10 or 8/10 points gets particular CanCon status. These are all determined by regulations under the Broadcasting Act. Remember that legislation is the framework and policy direction – the nitty-gritty rules get determined by regulation, and it follows a process of development that involves stakeholder engagement and consultation, and is done at the bureaucratic level. It’s not Cabinet pulling rules out of their asses, nor should it be. You don’t want Cabinet to be putting its thumb on the scale, which is why there is an arm’s length regulatory body, being the CRTC. And it’s not just the cabal of commissioners who are making these regulations either, in spite of what certain people are claiming.

https://twitter.com/G_Gallant/status/1395427604107300867

This brings me to my next point – the very notion that the CRTC is going to police the whole of social media is completely crackers on the face of it. They barely have enough resources to do their existing job (and if you listen to some of the reasoning around this week’s telecom decision, they seem to think they can’t handle doing the work of wholesale internet prices). If you think they’re going to somehow hire an army of bureaucrats to police your tweets, you should be certifiable.

Now, this isn’t to say that C-10 is without problems, because they are there. For one, the Broadcasting Act may be the wrong vehicle for this, as it was about regulating the limited bandwidth for TV and radio. It will be on platforms to adjust their algorithms to make CanCon more discoverable, which is going to be the high-level work, but there are particular concerns around meeting the objectives under the Act, which involve things like “safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada,” and whether these platforms will moderate content to try and fit those objectives, and that moderation will likely involve the use of AI, which is where we have particular concerns. And those are legitimate concerns, but they have nothing to do with the Orwellian picture being painted of moderated tweets, and newsfeeds being monkeyed with, or “takedown notices.” The level of complete hysteria around this bill, rooted in a complete ignorance of how regulatory bodies work – and a great deal of partisan disinformation – is making the debate around this bill utterly loony (at least in English Canada). Yes, it’s complicated, but don’t fall for easy narratives.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A flawed way to fix the CRA’s mistakes

Posted on by

Remember the issue with self-employed Canadians applying for CERB, and being told they were eligible for gross income only to later be told that no, it was really net, and they may have to repay it? And then the government came to the realization that they were going to find themselves in serious trouble (such as a class action lawsuit) if they didn’t change course, and let those CERB payments go ahead? Well, for the people who made repayments, they can get that money back – but they have to apply for it. And that becomes the real trick.

With that in mind, here is Jennifer Robson raising some concerns with the whole thing, because CRA is not doing this very well. And that could be a problem for some of the people this is supposed to have been helping in the first place.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The meltdown over NACI

Posted on by

There was a collective meltdown yesterday as the National Advisory Committee on Immunization delivered its most recent recommendations, saying that they recommended that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine be deployed for those over 30 (even though the current supply in the country is currently on hold pending a review of its quality control), and then cited that mRNA vaccines remained their preferred candidates – and everyone lost their minds.

This is not really unexpected if you have been paying attention, where the chair of the committee in particular has said that because of the “safety signal” attached to AstraZeneca related to the particular blood clots (which are very serious – there is a reasonably high fatality rate related to them) that it would be preferable to get mRNA vaccines, but if someone could not wait for them, then they should get the first available vaccine, even if it’s AstraZeneca. In their minds, it’s about being transparent around the risk factors associated, and they’re right. It’s just that this makes it harder for governments and public health officials to carry on with message that the best vaccine is the first one you are offered. Both are correct, and NACI has a lot of nuance in their guidance that is difficult for people to parse effectively, which is a problem, but it’s a question of whether the problem is NACI’s in how they communicate their guidance, or a problem in particular with media who are supposed to be able to take complex issues and translate them to the public, and yet are not very good at it (often walking away from these releases citing that they are “more confused than before,” which they shouldn’t be if they paid attention). It especially isn’t helped when certain journalists, talking heads, and especially certain MPs conflate the very different roles that NACI and Health Canada have, and try to assert that they should always be “on the same page” when they have different roles. Health Canada determines the safety of the vaccines, NACI offers guidance on the best way to deploy them, factoring in the current local epidemiology and vaccine supplies – guidance which provinces can accept or reject. It’s also why that guidance is always changing – they are reacting to current circumstances rather than just offering a simple recommendation once and being done with it, which most people are not grasping. And they have operated pretty much invisibly for decades, because there hasn’t been the kind of public attention on new vaccines up until now, which is why I really dislike the calls by people to “disband NACI” after yesterday’s press conference.

I get that people want clear binaries, and simple instructions, but that’s not NACI’s job, really, and expecting them to change their way of communicating after decades is a difficult ask. There is a lot of nuance to this conversation, and I will point you to a couple of threads – from professor Philippe Lagassé here and here about this kind of advice and how it’s communicated to the public; as well, here is hematologist Menaka Pai, who talks through NACI’s advice and what it means.

Continue reading →

QP: Believing a phone call could solve it

Posted on by

On a fairly lovely day in the nation’s capital, the prime minister was present in the House of Commons, with the usual Liberal in attendance, Mark Gerretsen, a couple of rows behind him amid otherwise empty benches.  Erin O’Toole led off in person and in French for a change, and he listed the people who knew about the allegations against General Jonathan Vance, and whether he knew. Justin Trudeau said that they knew there was an allegation but were not privy to details. O’Toole tried again in English, and Trudeau repeated the answer before he embellished with the talking point that when O’Toole himself heard a rumour of allegations against Vance, his staff went to Privy Council Office, and the same process had been followed, while the current government had done more about changing the culture in the armed forces. O’Toole tried yet again, insisting that emails showed that the phrase sexual harassment was used, and Trudeau more forcefully insisted that they did try to investigate but could not go further which was why they were putting more measures into place. O’Toole tried yet again, with more bluster, for which Trudeau started sermonising about doing more for women and marginalised people in the military.

Yves-François Blanchet rose for the Bloc, and insisted that the prime minster could have personally picked up the phone and stopped the Port of Montreal strike, for which Trudeau insisted that if the Bloc wanted to take action on behalf of Quebeckers, and pass the bill so that they can set up a neutral mediation process. Blanchet again insisted that the prime minister needed to pick up the phone, and Trudeau stated that they tried negotiating for two-and-a-half years, and it was for naught, and he demanded support for the bill.

Jagmeet Singh was up next for the NDP, and in French, he demanded the government withdraw the back-to-work legislation for the Port of Montreal, and Trudeau insisted that they did try negotiations, and that this bill would not impose a contract but rather neutral mediation. Singh then switched to English to demand the government improve the federal sickness benefit — oblivious to what that entails — and Trudeau reminded him that the best leave is the one from employers and that the NDP voted against them implementing it for federally-regulated sectors.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Launching a laughable climate plan

Posted on by

With much fanfare – and a moving backdrop that was dizzying to watch – Erin O’Toole rolled out his much-ballyhooed climate plan yesterday morning, and it was…underwhelming. And bizarre. Replacing climate rebates with a special “savings account” that can only be used to purchase “green” items like bicycles and high-efficiency furnaces? Yeah, that’s not an improvement, you guys. And lo, it’s not winning O’Toole any plaudits in his own party either, with caucus members telling media that they were essentially blindsided by this, and many feel it’s a betrayal, and a sign that he has no credibility because he’ll say anything to get elected. And they probably have a point.

Here is some reaction to the news, with additional threads from Nic Rivers and Jennifer Robson.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1382694545398317066

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1382716424087605252

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1382722697159925764

Meanwhile, I have a beef with CBC’s coverage of the issue, because they insist on framing the existing Liberal carbon price as a tax – which it’s not because it doesn’t go into general revenue, and the Supreme Court of Canada said this – but they insisted on calling the Conservative plan a “levy,” when it’s the exact same gods damned mechanism as the existing Liberal plan that just recycles the revenues differently. You can’t call one a tax and the other a levy because that is massively misleading. It places a wholly negative frame around the Liberal plan and not the Conservative one when, again, it’s the same mechanism. “Taxes” come with particular preconceived notions around them, in particular the gem about “taxes are theft,” and so on. CBC’s editorial decision to use this framing device biases the conversation and perceptions around the programmes, which is a very big problem.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Final debate on the amendments

Posted on by

While the Commons is not sitting this week, the Senate is, with several bills now on their Order Paper for consideration, most especially the assisted dying bill, which is under a court-imposed deadline (that has already been extended thrice). At issue are the amendments that the government accepted, rejected, and otherwise modified from what the Senate sent back to the Commons a few weeks ago (where the Conservatives then held it up).

The Government Leader in the Senate, Senator Marc Gold, is taking the line that this is a “historic example” of collaboration between the two Chambers that has resulted in better legislation, but I’m not sure just how historic that is, and by “better legislation,” it’s a fairly marginal case because the government reduced the attempt to render this legislation fully compliant with the constitution with one of its famous half-measures that means that people’s suffering will be prolonged as a result, and yet more others will need to embark on yet more court challenges in order to fully access what should be guaranteed rights.

Ultimately it does look like this will pass without sending it back to the Commons again, as most senators are taking the line that the House has had their say, and because they’re democratically elected, it can go ahead now (though there have been instances where the Senate made a second insistence on certain bills in order to make a point – though I’m not sure that will be the case here), and that it could pass and get royal assent before the court deadline. Nevertheless, the amount of time this has taken for something that had court-imposed timelines is a sense of just how vulnerable the parliamentary calendar really is when you had determined opposition to bills, and it’s not over yet because the proposed changes in this legislation will impose a two-year timeline for more consultations on aspects of the law that currently remain prohibited (where that prohibition remains unconstitutional), but that the government is dragging its feet for the sake of politics. Ultimately, nobody comes out of this exercise looking particularly good.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Closure, and false hope

Posted on by

The government followed through on their plans to invoke closure on the assisted dying bill yesterday, and with the support of the Bloc, they had final debate and a vote, which passed, sending the amended bill back to the Senate. (The NDP, incidentally, voted against it simply because they refuse to recognise the legitimacy of the Senate). Because the government only accepted a couple of the Senate amendments, and modified others, it will require another vote in the Other Place, but it is most likely that they will allow the bill to pass in time for the court-imposed deadline.

There have been a lot of disingenuous comments about this bill. Certain disability advocates have insisted that this makes it easy to kill them, which it doesn’t, and these advocates ignore that other people with disabilities have requested assisted dying and won in the courts – which is why this bill exists. Many of those advocates are trying to re-litigate the case they lost at the Supreme Court that allowed for the assisted dying regime to be created in the first place, which isn’t going to happen – that decision was unanimous and the Court is not going to revisit it. As well, one of these amendments puts a two-year time limit on the mental health exclusion so that more guidelines can be developed. That exclusion is almost certainly unconstitutional, and the government knows it – but again, there is a cadre of disingenuous commentary, including from some MPs, that this would allow anyone with depression access to assisted dying, which is unlikely in the extreme, and more to the point, it conflates other mental illnesses with depression, and it stigmatises mental illness by excluding it, effectively undoing years of trying to treat mental illness like any other illness.

When I tweeted about this last night, I got a lot of pushback from a certain segment that coalesced around the narrative that the government would not provide supports for people with mental illness but would let them kill themselves; and furthermore, they tried to further say that the government that voted against pharamcare was doing this. There is a lot to unpack in those statements, but there are a few things to remember. One of them is that most disability supports, as well as treatment for mental health, are both in provincial jurisdiction, so the federal government can’t offer more supports for them. Hell, they can’t even simply send $2000 per month to people with disabilities – as the NDP are demanding – because they don’t exactly have a national database of people with disabilities (and they had a hard-enough time kludging together a special pandemic payment through use of the flawed disability tax credit). They do have jurisdiction over the Criminal Code, which is what this legislation covers.

As for the pharmacare bill, we’ve already covered repeatedly that it was unconstitutional and unworkable, and would not have created pharmacare, as the NDP claimed (while the government is already at work implementing the Hoskins Report). But as we’ve seen here, they sold a bill of goods to these people, and gave them false hope as to what they were doing. They lied to vulnerable Canadians to score cheap political points. The sheer immorality of that choice is utterly shameful, but this appears to be what the party has reduced itself to. I sometimes wonder how their brain trust sleeps at night.

Continue reading →

Roundup: A reasoned amendment

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading →

Roundup: An agreement, and a start to further discussions

Posted on by

On the fourth day of negotiations, federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett, her BC counterpart, and the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have come to an agreement regarding land title rights for Wet’suwet’en territory, which has been an open issue for decades. It will need to be ratified by the Wet’suwet’en nation after a period of consultation, but it is a step. This does not, however, completely solve the issue with the proposed Coastal GasLink pipeline – the vocal group of hereditary chiefs remain opposed (while those in the community who support the project feel they aren’t being heard), but this remains an issue where the community needs to come together and use the feast system under their laws to resolve these disputes, which hasn’t been happening. It will also require further discussions with the RCMP about their operations in their territory, but again, there seems to be some progress made.

Meanwhile, a discussion among legal experts is ongoing regarding the efficacy of using legal injunctions when there are land rights protests going on, because they can be too much of a blunt instrument. Some are suggesting that the injunctions be structured to allow for mediated consultation instead of heavy-handed orders to stop their protests, as has been done in some provinces when it comes to labour disputes. And a prime example of something unhelpful is the bill recently tabled in Alberta to further penalize protesters with heavy fines (which is already likely unconstitutional), but there does seem to be a definite mindset behind that kind of legislation.

Continue reading →