Tag Archives: CSE

Roundup: Threats against MPs becoming routine

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Every now and again we get reminders that these are not normal political times, and that older political norms are starting to slip away as the memification of politics takes over, and polarization has been made worse. Threats against MPs are far more prevalent than they ever were, and lo, Liberal MP George Chahal posted some of the threats his office received last week.

It’s grotesque, and even more the point are those in the comments who defend these kinds of messages and actions as somehow being justifiable or justified. Nothing can justify it, and unfortunately, this state of affairs is being worsened by the fact that our norms continue to be eroded, because they drive clicks and get fundraising dollars. This is the kind of thing that everyone should be standing against, but I fear that at best, we’ll get a tepid denunciation of this from political leaders across the board, even though some should be most emphatically making the point that this kind of thing isn’t okay.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces have been advancing in two directions toward Bakhmut, but are not ready to take the city centre yet, apparently. This while there was a massive overnight barrage of drones from Russia, damaging an energy facility in Khmelnytskyi region, killing two civilians in Kostyantynivka, and shelling in the Kharkiv region. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with the Pope at the Vatican and sought support for Ukraine’s peace plan (for what good that does). Zelenskyy also made stops in Paris and Berlin, where he said that a counter-offensive will not strike into Russian territory because their sole aim is to reclaim their own territory from Russian occupation.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1657501338719199233

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1657875550361272321

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1657643236989517825

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Roundup: The scope of the transition

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As Alberta heads into an election, one can be certain that Danielle Smith is going to wield the threat of the supposed “just transition” as a cudgel to attack Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley. Nevertheless, there are issues around the future of work in the province as the oil and gas extraction industry changes—a process that began years ago, and is currently far more automated than it used to be.

As Andrew Leach points out, the scale of the issue is something that the province will need to grapple with.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The death toll from the overnight strike in Uman has risen to 23, with another two deaths from a separate strike in Dnipro. Ukrainian leadership say that they are “to a high percentage ready” to launch their spring counter-offensive, and that modern weapons will serve as an “iron first.” Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy hosted the presidents of Slovakia and the Czech Republic, while seven foreign ministers met with Ukraine’s foreign minister in Odessa, all of whom were expressing support for Ukraine as Ukraine pushes for more modern aircraft.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1651966751268278272

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Roundup: Reducing chances of a wage-price spiral

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There have been a lot of misleading things said about the Bank of Canada’s concerns around a potential wage-price spiral, most of them from left-wing economists or union leaders (as well as Jagmeet Singh and Pierre Poilievre), who have wrongly said that either governor Tiff Macklem was blaming wages for inflation (false), or that he told business leaders not to raise wages (also false). What Macklem said was that when negotiating contracts, to remember that they were determined to get inflation back to two percent as quickly as possible, so don’t keep high raises out for too long, because that is what could drive a wage-price spiral. What that means is that because wages would be above the rate of inflation, it means that prices—particularly for services—would need to be raised to pay for those wages, which then keeps inflation higher for longer. It’s also why it’s not just price controls that have happened in the past, but wage and price controls, to try and keep that impetus in check.

Payroll data has been released, which demonstrates why the concerns about a wage-price spiral are abating. Kevin Milligan explains:

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1618678055396081665

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1618679010099359744

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1618680872106086402

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1618691478653644800

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 338:

Russians fired more missiles at Kyiv and places like Zaporizhzhia, killing eleven civilians in the process.

https://twitter.com/defencehq/status/1618859295851921409

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Roundup: The freezing salary dog-and-pony show

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It’s now day one-hundred-and-fifty-four of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine, and Russia has targeted Odessa and Mykolaiv with air strikes, damaging private buildings and port infrastructure, because of course they were very serious about that deal to let grain shipments resume through those ports. Shelling also continues in the Donetsk region, as well as Kharkiv.

Closer to home, the Nova Scotia legislature was recalled yesterday to pass “emergency legislation” to freeze salaries, and cut the premier’s salary, as part of a dog and pony show about showing that they’re serious in the face of a cost-of-living crisis, and I cannot even. I absolutely hate this kind of politics, because the inherent message is that public life isn’t valuable, that the work elected officials do is worthless, and that they don’t deserve compensation for something that becomes a twenty-four/seven job, particularly at a time when it’s increasingly difficult to attract people to public life. It’s the kind of thinking that winds up ensuring that only people who are independently wealthy start seeking office, because they’re the only ones for whom it isn’t a loss for them to take the positions and give up their career paths (and in some cases pensions, as some provinces have disbanded theirs) to do so. This kind of attitude needs to be called out more, rather than fed into for populist reasons, and this goes for all parties.

I will also note that the premier, Tim Houston, is also trying to make the hybrid sitting option permanent for “things such as health reasons,” which again is a big no for me. While the province doesn’t have the issue of simultaneous translation that Ottawa does, it is nevertheless a bad idea because it normalizes the idea that elected office is some kind of middle-management position that can be done from home when it’s not. It’s a face-to-face job, and these things always start out with making it exceptional, for “health reasons” and such, but that quickly turns into parental leave, then work-life-balance, and then “I have so much work in my constituency I just couldn’t possibly,” and ends with populists taking it as a badge of honour to stay away from the “bubble” at the legislature or Parliament. It also creates an unrealistic and unsustainable expectation of presenteeism, rather than just letting MPs or MLAs have sick days and be done with it. It’s not a good thing, and people need to stop pretending that hybrid sittings are at all appropriate in a legislative context, because they are not.

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Roundup: CSE posts a threat bulletin about Russia

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We’re on day one-hundred-and-forty-two of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russians fired missiles at the central city of Vinnytsia, hitting civilian locations including a medical clinic. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his statement that the Russian regime is a terrorist threat. Meanwhile, the leadership at the International Criminal Court in the Hauge is calling for an “overarching strategy” to bring perpetrators of war crimes in Ukraine to justice, so that other countries contributing to the investigations can cooperate with their efforts.

Closer to home, CSE released a threat bulletin on Russia’s cyber-activities in Ukraine, and it was a doozy, saying that the scope and severity has almost certainly been more sophisticated and widespread than has been previously reported, and yes, that has repercussions for Canada as well. Stephanie Carvin has more in this thread:

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1547663710700728320

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1547664718721994753

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1547666383428718594

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1547666393423757315

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1547669128076374017

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1547669143700131840

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Roundup: On oaths to the Queen

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We’re in day one-hundred-and-twenty-six of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and much of the attention has been on the reverberations of the attack on the shopping centre in Kremenchuk, where the death toll is up to 18, with more than 20 missing, and many more wounded. French president Emmanuel Macron denounced the attack, and said that because of it, Russia “cannot and should not win” the war (but then again, Macron’s attempts to get Ukraine to give territorial concessions to end the conflict is not exactly reflecting well on him either). As well, CBC interviews a Ukrainian marine who survived the battle of Mariupol with severe injuries before spending two weeks as a Russian prisoner of war before he was able to be sent back to Ukraine for treatment.

https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine/status/1541839370747011072

Meanwhile, Turkey has dropped their objections to Finland and Sweden joining NATO, which means that their membership can move ahead. This while NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is talking about an eight-fold increase in Western troops being placed at an increased state of readiness, and more troops headed to the Baltic states, to make Russia very aware that they really, really shouldn’t cross their borders.

https://twitter.com/AnnLinde/status/1541877388937728005

https://twitter.com/ChristinsQueens/status/1541845991225278474

Closer to home, I spent way too much time yesterday being angry at a garbage piece of Canadian Press wire copy that was bad PR masquerading as a news story. I mean, we’re not even a week into Parliament’s summer recess, and this is what CP is using as void fill for the news hole? The piece claims that 56 percent of Canadians oppose the oath of allegiance to the Queen, then cites a “poll,” but it wasn’t actually a poll, it was online panels that are not actually random samples, but that fact isn’t mentioned until six paragraphs down. The only person quoted in the piece is the guy who runs the think tank who commissioned the panels, and he says that most Canadians are unaware that newcomers have to swear an oath to be “faithful to the Royal Family,” which is a wilful distortion of the truth. The oath is to the Queen and her “heirs and successors,” because heredity is kind of the point of monarchy. It’s not the whole Royal Family. Nobody is swearing fealty to Prince Andrew, or even Princess Anne for that matter. And for a think tank that claims to be devoted to increasing Canadians’ knowledge of their country, that kind of distortion is malpractice at best, but I suspect it’s more about trying to build a case that the monarchy is not a unifying force, particularly for immigrants. As for the CP journalist, this was simply retyping a press release with no added context. There were no basic civics in there about how we’re a constitutional monarchy, that the Queen of Canada is different from the Queen of the UK, or that the oath to the Queen is not to her natural person, but to the Crown as the central organizing principle of our constitution (which is why we would need to rewrite the entire thing if we ever were insane enough to ditch the monarchy—not that we would ever get the unanimous agreement of the provinces to do so). It’s really disappointing that CP has descended to this kind of stenography when they used to be one of the most enviable bureaux on the Hill.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1541409039330021380

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Roundup: Undermining the central bank to score points

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It is now approximately day sixty-one of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and after saying that they would blockade the remaining Ukrainians trapped in Mariupol, the Russians have instead tried to storm the steel plant where they are holed up. As well, over Orthodox Easter weekend, they have shelled residential areas of Kharkiv, and fired missiles at Odessa, so that’s concerning. As well, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a meeting with two US cabinet members, where Zelenskyy is expecting more arms and security guarantees.

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1518192560816201728

Closer to home, as the narratives around inflation get more ridiculous the longer they go unchallenged, remember that this both undermines the ability of the Central Bank to do its work, and ultimately it undermines its independence because they have to fight political narratives about them without actually fighting them, which is a hell of a thing to try to do.

And the longer the nonsense goes unchallenged, and my media colleagues try to be cute about “heehee, everyone is a little bit right!” as they both-sides the nonsense, the closer I’m getting to this particular Effin’ bird:

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Roundup: A more modest budget than feared

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We are now somewhere around day forty-four of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Russia’s retreat from Chernihiv has shown much more destruction in its wake. Given that Russia is re-positioning to the Donbas region, Ukraine is trying to maintain humanitarian corridors from the area, while pleading with NATO and other countries for yet more weapons to fight the Russian invaders. Meanwhile, RCMP officers in Canada are reaching out to Ukrainians who have made it here to gather evidence of Russian war crimes, so that it can be forwarded to The Hauge.

As for the budget, it was not the orgy of NDP-led spending that Candice Bergen and others had been hinting at, though it did increase spending somewhat, but that was largely offset by higher revenues thanks to the booming economy. The deficit is reducing rapidly, as is the debt-to-GDP ratio, which is the “fiscal anchor.” In fact, Bergen’s reaction speech was pretty much drafted with a very different budget in mind, and when called on this, she prevaricated. Jagmeet Singh, predictably, said there was enough in there for him to support (checklist here), but he still put on a show about criticising things he didn’t like, and the environmental provisions in particular.

https://twitter.com/AdamScotti/status/1512237421513125897

Some specifics:

  • Here are the $10 billion in housing measures the government is proposing, though some of those measures will do nothing for affordability.
  • The corporate tax rate is going up, and there is a special surcharge being levied against banks and insurance companies, as promised.
  • There is money allocated for dental care, but no details on the implementation mechanism, which is very important to have.
  • The $8 billion over five years in new defence spending won’t get us to the NATO two-percent goal, but a needed defence review is included.
  • There is some $500 million earmarked for more military aid for Ukraine, plus another $1 billion in loans to prop up their economy.
  • There is new money for cyber-security, much of it going to CSE.
  • Some $15 billion is earmarked for the creation of two new arms-length bodies to help with medium-and-long term growth.
  • There is $4.3 billion over seven years for Indigenous housing.
  • As expected, the tax credit for carbon capture and storage projects is drawing heat from environmental groups.
  • There is $3.7 million being earmarked for mental health services for Black civil servants (as they have a class action lawsuit underway).
  • There is some more money for arts organizations including the National Arts Centre.
  • Both the National Post and The Canadian Press have lists of smaller items in the budget that may have escape notice.

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Roundup: Reaction to Russia’s further invasion of Ukraine

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Russian forces have been advancing in Ukraine, but not without opposition. Shelling continues against several Ukrainian cities and into Kyiv itself, as people are taking shelter in the metro. Closer to home, prime minister Justin Trudeau announced another round of tougher sanctions against Russian oligarchs and other key leaders, and there is talk that yet more sanctions are on the way, but it also sounds like there is some difficulty in getting all of our allies on-side, and the thing about these kinds of sanctions is that everyone needs to do them so that there aren’t loopholes that Russia can slip through. (Trudeau also announced measures to help Canadians in Ukraine get safe passage to neighbouring countries, as well as expeditated immigration processing for Ukrainians).

But one of the biggest measures—cutting Russia out of the SWIFT global financial transaction system—has not yet been implemented because Europeans are balking (though Canada has reportedly been pushing for this, along with the UK). Canada is somewhat fortunate because we are less exposed to Russian trade and money than other allies, but it’s that exposure which will make sanctions harder on Western allies the tougher they are on Russia—and that’s something that a lot of the talking heads can’t seem to get their heads around. If you look at what European countries are trying to get carve-outs for, it’s because they don’t want to lose the Russian money in their economies. And that’s a tough pill to swallow, especially as all of our economies are still recovering from the pandemic recession.

https://twitter.com/LillyResearch/status/1496964138962386945

https://twitter.com/MatinaStevis/status/1496758467943866374

Where this will hurt us especially is higher world oil prices, as cutting Russia out of the market will further restrict supply at a time where energy shortages in certain countries have turned to oil to fill that gap, creating demand and limiting supply. That will mean higher gasoline prices in Canada, and while these higher prices will be good for the Alberta economy (oh, look—one more boom for them to piss away), it’s going to be felt in the inflation data, which will have more people lighting their hair on fire, demanding Something Must Be Done, but they won’t come out and spell out that they mean wage and price controls, or a new NEP. Jason Kenney, unable to read the room, is trying to make this about a new pitch for Alberta’s so-called Ethical Oil™, and we have federal Conservatives demanding a fast-tracked LNG infrastructure to export to Europe, but seriously, that’s a multi-year and multi-billion-dollar investment that is going to be short-lived the fast were decarbonise our economies.

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Roundup: Exit McKenna

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It’s now official – Catherine McKenna is bowing out of federal politics, citing that she wants to spend more time with her kids while she can (the oldest is off to university next year), but insisting that she still wants to do her part to fight climate change in other arenas. This was immediately met with questions about whether this is a signal that it can’t get done in government, which she flat-out denied, but we should remember that the federal government is limited in what it can do, because it only has so many policy levers at its disposal (which we should all realise after living through those limitations in this pandemic).

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1409621322649440256

McKenna, who also stated flat-out that she’s not going to run for mayor, dismissed the attacks against her as “noise,” and that they weren’t successful because she did the work of getting the carbon price in place, and made more tangible progress on the environment file than we’ve had since the Mulroney era. But we can’t forget that the abuse was real, it was horrific, and she needed police protection because the threats were so bad. This should be one of those moments of reflection about where we are as a society that these kinds of misogynistic are able to keep happening with little to no recourse for the victims, and few consequences if any for the perpetrators. McKenna did note that she does still want to work with social media companies to address this, but we’ll see if anything actually happens.

https://twitter.com/cathmckenna/status/1409522139380785157

Of course, this has entirely been overshadowed by the spectre of Mark Carney entering the political arena, which he categorically should not, because even if he’s been out of the Bank of Canada for seven or eight years, it still has the possibility to taint the institution by association, and him declaring himself to be sympathetic to the Liberal cause is not helping either – especially given that Pierre Poilievre is currently attacking the institutional independence of the Bank by positing that they are somehow in cahoots with the government, and that they are simply “printing money” to finance the government’s deficits which will drive up inflation – entirely ridiculous notions given that quantitative easing is not actually “printing money” and that their whole mandate is to control inflation at around two percent, which they have been very good at. Nevertheless, people are believing Poilievre’s bullshit (especially as other media won’t actually call it out as such), and this will only get worse if Carney actually enters the political arena. And because the media and the pundit class have decided that they like this narrative of Carney being some kind of heir apparent and saviour, they are trying to make it happen, damn the consequences. It’s not a good look, and yet here we are.

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