Tag Archives: Emergencies Act

Roundup: The wrong way to humanize politics

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I see that Government House Leader Mark Holland was making the media rounds over the weekend about his call for more “humanity” in politics, as he continues to plead for hybrid sessions to continue indefinitely. The problem, however, is that the two are fundamentally incompatible. Do you know why? Because what humanises politicians to one another is to spend time together, face-to-face. Hybrid sittings will keep MPs in isolated bubbles where they have fewer and fewer interactions with their fellow MPs in person, making it harder to see them and treat them as human beings, and we know this because we have seen the decline in civility in real-time since the 1990s when they ended evening sittings in the House of Commons to be “family friendly.” It used to be that three nights a week, MPs would go upstairs at six PM, and all have dinner together in the Parliamentary Restaurant, and at 8 PM, they’d go back to the Chamber, and debate some more. And lo, there was a lot more civility and treating each other in a friendly manner, Question Period theatrics aside, because they spent time with one another as human beings, doing that basic human thing of bonding over food (and yes, booze, because we cannot deny that it was a big part of the culture up until that point, for better or worse). But when they ended those sittings, and MPs no longer ate together, the acrimony got worse, and disagreements got more personal.

I cannot stress this enough—hybrid makes this worse. I know that there is a school of thought that it lets MPs spend more time at home, which gives them more work-life balance, and so on, but to be perfectly frank, the job is in Ottawa. The job is not to be a social worker for constituents filling out passport forms and doing immigration paperwork—the job is to hold the government to account, and doing so by controlling the public purse, meaning scrutiny of the Estimates and the Public Accounts, and debating their legislative proposals along the way. We are straying far from this path, and taking this hybrid makes the slide worse. The job is also face-to-face, because it relies on building relationships, and that doesn’t happen over Zoom. You have heard me time and again saying that the real work happens on the side-lines of committee rooms, in hallways and lobbies, and when you’re talking to ministers while you’re waiting for a vote to happen. This is all in danger of falling away the more MPs move to hybrid (and “virtual” voting is becoming an absolute disaster for MPs being able to approach ministers), and that is not a “more human” approach to politics. It is in fact the opposite, and people need to wake up and realize that fact.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 250:

Russia pulled out of the deal with the UN to allow Ukrainian grain shipments over the Black Sea, likely because their ships were hit by attacks over the weekend, but the UN and Turkey say they are going to ensure those shipments still happen, essentially daring Russia to attack them, so we’ll see how that goes.

https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1586779214069407745

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Roundup: Sloly’s first day at the inquiry

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It was the first of two days that former Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly took the stand at the Emergencies Act public inquiry, and, well, ooooof. The man did not acquit himself or his actions very well. He blamed the media for the perception that the police weren’t doing anything (erm, they weren’t), he defended the belief that the occupation would end in two or three days, he praised the officer who fed him the widely discredited Rex Murphy-sourced intelligence, and generally insisted that everyone was doing the best job that they could, but wow. Oh, and then he got emotional and teary at the end about how the situation that he allowed to escalate got to be too much. No, seriously.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1586011336987009029

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1586075397212770304

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 248 (because apparently, I lost a day somewhere):

Kyiv is facing increasing blackouts as a result of increased Russian attacks on electrical infrastructure. Russian forces continue to shell Bakhmut, in the hopes that it could open the way to hitting other strongholds in the Donetsk region, and that it could blunt the advance on the southern city of Kherson, which itself is a gateway to Crimea.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau unveiled a new five-year bond-buying programme for Canadians to support Ukraine financially, along with new sanctions on Russians.
  • Chrystia Freeland announced that the Fall Economic Statement will be delivered on November 3rd (just before the constituency week, so they can fan out to sell it).
  • As of August, the federal government was still in a surplus position.
  • The federal government is moving to restrict the involvement of foreign state-own enterprises in the critical minerals sector.
  • Health Canada is looking to hire an external company to process dental claims in a standalone federal insurance programme rather than involving the provinces.
  • In advance of the COP27 meeting in Egypt, developed nations haven’t stepped up to meet climate finance goals, and Canada may be asked to do more.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada struck down elements of the mandatory registration to the federal sex offender registry in all cases, restoring judicial discretion.
  • MPs on the Heritage committee pushed back at Meta’s threat to remove news content from Facebook if they go ahead with the online news bill.
  • Premiers are huffing and puffing at the news that Trudeau is looking to play hard ball with them on future health care transfers.
  • It looks like Doug Ford was happy to participate in the public inquiry back in June, but has now changed his tune and lawyered up to avoid having to testify.
  • Susan Delacourt ruminates on how politicians have dealt with defeat, and whether some rebounds are more of a sign of workaholism.
  • Justin Ling goes through the public inquiry documents to confirm that yes, there were concerns about weapons in the occupation, and firearms charges were laid.
  • My weekend column on the facile inflation narratives coming from the opposition, and the inability of the government to call it out.

Odds and ends:

Governor General Mary May Simon’s Coat of Arms was revealed yesterday.

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Roundup: Lost faith in the Ottawa Police Service

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Once again, a lot of threads to disentangle as the OPP Commissioner, Thomas Carrique, was on the stand at the Emergencies Act public inquiry, and what a lot of the day seemed to focus on (at least, from what I could tell from afar) were the texts he was exchanging with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki. So, what did we learn? That the federal government had pretty much lost all confidence in the Ottawa Police and were discussing taking over the response to the occupation, even though Lucki was particularly reluctant to do so (and worried that the Emergencies Act would be used to make that happen). There was discussion about the OPP in particular taking over, and the Commissioner was ready to have that call before the Ottawa chief resigned. Once Peter Sloly was out of the way, an integrated command was set up. Also interesting was the comment that the Act was used to compensate tow truck drivers more than it was to compel their services (which could be a signal to the provinces about how they may need to update their own emergency legistlation).

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1585629449038577664

Carrique defended his comments that the occupation was a threat to national security, and the way that the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor was handled differently than the Ottawa occupation. Documents provided to the inquiry showed that the FBI provided some support to the Ottawa Police during the occupation, likely around US-based support for it, so that lends some credence to the national security threat analysis.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1585720241979629569

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 246:

Ukrainian forces attacked Russian forces occupying the southern city of Kherson, while fighting also intensified in the country’s east as Russians bombarded the city of Bakhmut. While Putin is denying he plans to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine (isn’t that a sign he will?), another mass grave was discovered in the village of Kopanky.

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Roundup: Contradictions and poor intelligence practices

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There has been a number of competing threads in the ongoing Emergencies Act public inquiry, and a lot of police testimony that is contradictory, and contradicting their own documentary evidence. For example, one senior Ottawa police officer is claiming that they had the tow trucks all lined up and ready to go without the invocation of the Act—erm, except the documents don’t show that at all, and that they needed the Act to secure those services. There has also been a lot of alarming signs about the quality of police intelligence about the make-up of the occupation (which many leaders subsequently ignored anyway). The OPP did see an increasing risk of violence the longer it dragged on, particularly by those in the occupation who felt they were “at war” with the federal government, along with growing anti-police sentiment (presumably because police weren’t doing their bidding to arrest members of the government). The Commission has agreed to hear CSIS’ evidence behind closed doors.

Here’s former CSIS analyst Jessica Davis on the quality of that intelligence, and yikes:

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 245:

Both Russian and NATO forces carried out annual nuclear exercises, while Russia carries on its false narrative that Ukrainians plan to detonate a “dirty bomb” on their own soil in order to blame Russia—information operations entirely. While this was happening, Russian forces targeted 40 towns in Ukraine, killing at least two more people.

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QP: The increasing hyperbole meets the wall of pabulum

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The translation system was haywire in the Chamber, which made for a very awkward and very late start to the day. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he started off with the falsehood that  government spending caused inflation (he didn’t), and railed about increasing interest rates as a result. Justin Trudeau got up and said that he would respond in a second but wanted to mark that this is the 40th day since the murder of Mahsa Amini in Iran, and that he stood with the Iranian-Canadian community. Poilievre switched to English to say that people are now paying $7000 more on mortgage payments and wondered who was going to pay it. Trudeau said that the government made the decision to support people in the pandemic, and are now supporting them with the GST rebate, dental care and rental supports. Poilievre trotted out his misquote of Mark Carney and wanted to know how many people would lose their homes because of higher interest rates, and Trudeau pointed out that inflation is a world-wide problem, which is why they have supported Canadians. Poilievre chanted that the cost of government is increasing the cost of living (not true), trotted out falsehoods about ArriveCan and cited a problem with the disclosure from CBSA. Trudeau said that the appropriate ministers are looking into this discrepancy before patting himself on the back for pandemic supports. Poilievre accused the prime minister of personally handing out ArriveCan contracts and then complained about the cost of the hotel in London for the Queen’s funeral delegation. Trudeau reminded him they had a large delegation that went to the funeral and that they stayed in the same hotel and it was expected for us to have a strong presence as a Realm country.

Yves-François Blanchet worried that seniors between 65 and 75 were being discriminated against because they didn’t get the OAS top-up. Trudeau said it’s great that seniors are living longer but those older seniors can run out of savings, so the government was there in a proportionate way for those with the most needs. Blanchet made a dig about King Charles before demanding more healthcare transfers without strings attached. Trudeau said that the law states equitable treatment and the federal government was happy to talk to provinces about getting Canadians the services they need.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he railed about interest rates and demanded action from the government. Trudeau reminded him they are supporting those who need it most. In English, Singh noted that the prime minster’s own former economic advisor was concerned about the increasing interest rates and wanted help for families, and Trudeau repeated his response.

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Roundup: A hospitalized interpreter should be a wake-up call, but probably won’t be

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The inevitable has happened, and a parliamentary interpreter collapsed during a Senate committee meeting after an acoustic shock and was sent to hospital as a result, when the committee chair decided to go ahead with a meeting despite the fact that two witnesses appearing by video did not have appropriate headsets. And to add to matters, this interpreter was a freelancer and not in the union, so they won’t be getting sick pay for this injury either, given that they were filling in for the full-time, unionised interpreters who are on leave for the injuries they are all facing because of hybrid sessions and meetings, and the fact that the vast majority of MPs and senators simply do not care about their well-being, or the fact that these kinds of acoustic injuries can lead to permanent hearing loss. They don’t care because it would mean giving up the luxury of staying in their ridings rather than coming to Ottawa when they don’t want to, even if it means treating the interpretation staff like furniture. (And as we’ve established, they cannot simply hire more interpreters because there aren’t any more to hire—they’re not even graduating enough to meet the level of attrition from retirements and those quitting from injuries).

To add to this was Government House Leader Mark Holland appearing at the Procedure and House Affairs Committee, where they are debating extending hybrid sittings, possibly permanently, and he spoke about his suicide attempt after his 2011 election loss and used that tale as justification for extending hybrid. And as brave as Holland is to share that story, I find myself deeply disturbed by the fact that he is using it to push for a morally bankrupt proposition around making hybrid sittings permanent when he knows the human cost to them. I am also appalled that the lesson is trying to be “when an MP is struggling, let them work from home” rather than “when an MP is struggling, let them take the time they need to get better and not create an unrealistic and dangerous expectation of presenteeism.” MPs are allowed sick days and leaves of absence. They do not need to be on call 24/7, or to vote on every single issue. There were rules about pairing for absences for decades, and they worked just fine. It’s the same with the groups who keep appearing at PROC, such as Equal Voice, who insist that we need to make hybrid permanent to let more women with children participate in Parliament—it ignores the human toll on the interpreters (and when you raise it, they simply handwave it away with the magic words “we need to find a solution”), and frankly these MPs have the luxury of options when it comes to arrangements they can make. Hybrid or virtual sittings injures interpreters. If there is a technological solution, Parliament has been ignoring it. It is frankly morally reprehensible that they continue to have this debate at the expense of the health of these interpreters. It would be great if this publicised injury and hospitalisation were a wake-up call, but I am frankly too cynical at this point to believe that is going to happen.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 244:

Russia continues to claim that Ukraine is planning to use a “dirty bomb,” which sounds increasingly like pretext for Russia to detonate one, and that they have been using their occupation of the Zaphorizhzhia nuclear plant to build it.

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Roundup: Ford tries to escape testifying

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Some drama is emerging from the Emergencies Act public inquiry, as we find out that Doug Ford and Sylvia Jones, his then-solicitor general, have refused to be interviewed by the Commissioner, and have refused to testify before it. Recall that just last week, Doug Ford said that he hadn’t been asked to testify when asked (because it makes no sense that he and Jones were not on the list). Well, today, we found out that they were asked, they refused, and now the Commissioner plans to summon them, but Ford intends to challenge that summons under the rubric of parliamentary privilege, which would seem to me to be abusing it, but there you have it.

https://twitter.com/SkinnerLyle/status/1584624171598086145

Meanwhile, the acting Ottawa police chief was testifying, and it was a lot more of the same when it comes to police not taking the threat of an occupation seriously, and them essentially ignoring the intelligence that was being forwarded to them, and lo, these “protesters” turned into an illegal occupation. There was also an email filed from RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki who said that they hadn’t exhausted all tools before the Act was invoked, for what that’s worth.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1584574961339203586

https://twitter.com/aballinga/status/1584612932595638275

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 243:

Ukrainian officials are claiming greater success in shooting down drones attacking electrical infrastructure, but worries are now that Russia will try to detonate a “dirty bomb” within their territory as they have essentially announced the intention to do so and blame it on the Ukrainians doing it to frame Russia. If it wasn’t such a terrifying prospect, it would be really, really stupid. Meanwhile, doctors in the country are worried about spending the winter months in the basements of hospitals as electrical systems are under attack.

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Roundup: Singh wants to interfere

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Because things feel the need to keep getting dumber, it appears that Jagmeet Singh wrote a letter to Justin Trudeau to try to get him to interfere with the Bank of Canada’s planned rate hike. This is both dumb and dangerous because you do not interfere with the central bank! We had a political crisis about the independence of the central bank in 1961, and in the end, the Bank’s independence was strengthened because it’s important for a central bank’s credibility that their policy statements can be believed by the markets. If the government of the day undermines their credibility, then they are useless in sending signals, and right now, the signal is that they are going to get inflation under control, come hell or high water, because they don’t want it to get entrenched, and letting a wage spiral happen will help to make it entrenched. Yes, many of the drivers are outside of the Bank’s control, such as food price inflation, but it’s trying to keep those expectations from spreading further into the market, and they can do that, so long as governments don’t undermine them, and don’t come up with monetary policy ideas that fuel inflation so that the Bank needs to rates even higher.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 242:

The Russian-installed authorities of occupied Kherson are advising residents to leave in advance of an expected Ukrainian advance. Meanwhile, Russia is intensifying its attacks on power stations and other critical civilian infrastructure as a means of demoralising the Ukrainians, but that doesn’t seem to be working as planned. Elsewhere, NATO surveillance craft are flying just outside of Ukrainian airspace, and providing a look at Russian movements in the region.

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Roundup: The transcript doesn’t show interference

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It turns out that the recording of that meeting of RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki coming down on her Nova Scotia team in the wake of the mass shooting in Portapique was found after all, and lo, it doesn’t actually show political interference. (Transcript here). She does say that she told the minister’s office the information on the firearms used would be released (we know that she was contacted by Bill Blair’s chief of staff, not Blair himself), and when the information was not released, she said she had to apologise to the minister and the prime minister, but there is no mention of a promise to release that information. In fact, the only time the word “promised” was used was when Lucki said that she was promised a timeline of events and a map, and she didn’t receive those either, and spoke about feeling disrespected because she wasn’t given it. Lucki did at one point bring up “legislation” the government was working on around guns (it was actually an Order in Council), which Lucki said was supposed to help police, but again, there was no mention of pressure from the minister about it. She was politically aware of what was going on, because she would have been consulted in its development (which had been going on for months at this point), and it should be stressed that political awareness is not interference. Commissioners are supposed to be politically aware. That’s part of their job, just like the Chief of Defence Staff.

The Conservatives, however, took that same transcript, cherry picked a couple of lines about feeling the need to apologise, and took this as “proof” of interference, that either Lucki or Blair had lied, and demanded both of their resignations, and launched a point of privilege in the House of Commons to the effect of saying that Blair lied to them. Because this is what they do—take everything in bad faith, and generate a bunch of clips for shitposts, then fundraise off of them. It’s not even truthiness at this point—it’s out and out bad faith, lies, and deception. And you don’t see the media calling bullshit on it and pointing to what is in the transcript, they just both-sides it, and their talking heads will waffle around it. The talking heads also don’t try to follow all of the information and put it together, where they would see that the allegations of interference don’t actually make sense. I won’t recap the column, but suffice to say, there was no need to interfere because they had all of the information, and the people who claim they were are actually arguing for less transparency. It’s bizarre all around.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 240:

Ukrainian forces have bombarded Russian positions in the occupied Kherson region in the country’s south, targeting their resupply routes along a major river. Russians shelled the Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions.

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1583430788468838403

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QP: The King of Canada shouldn’t be a difficult concept

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Both the prime minister and his deputy were away, but every other leader was present, for better or ill today. Pierre Poilievre led off in French as he usually does, and said that the government added $100 billion to the national debt before COVID, and $500 billion before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and that he added more to the national debt than any prime minister in history, which is pretty selective about the circumstances of what happened during that time period, like, oh, a global pandemic. He blamed inflation on this spending, which is not true, then raised the reports that Chrystia Freeland has given orders to reign in spending, and wondered how they can trust the people who caused inflation to fix it, which again, completely misrepresents the facts. Rachel Bendayan reminded him that Canada has the lowest debt and deficit of all G7 countries, and that they have a budget that will cut spending by $9 billion, while maintaining the strongest growth in the G7 while the Conservatives play petty political games, and praised the government for bringing Moderna to Montreal, which was an odd non sequitur. Poilievre repeated the question in English, with a bit of added self-congratulation, before Mark Holland asked what supports the Conservatives would have not offered to Canadians during the pandemic, and called out their amplifying anxieties before demanding they support dental care and rental supports. Poilievre said they would have cut ArriveCan or WE Charity, and not given money to profitable companies, before he recited some nonsense about inflation. Holland disputed that inflation is a problem only facing Canada, which is not true, before again demanding support for affordability measures. Poilievre insisted that countries who printed money all have high inflation, but countries like Switzerland who didn’t don’t have the same issue, which is a pretty selective reading of the facts. Holland noted that we are dealing with unprecedented times, which demands maturity and serious answers, and offered a sanctimonious request for the opposition to let their affordability measures go to a vote. Poilievre was incredulous, saying that only 0.3% of Canada’s trade is with Russia and Ukraine combined, so that they couldn’t possibly be contributing to inflation—which is possibly the dumbest gods damned leaps in logic I have ever heard. Holland accused the Conservatives of not supporting people who need it.

Yves-François Blanchet got up to claim that there is a debate about pledging allegiance to the “King of England,” worried that the federal government would interfere with Quebec’s secularism law, and then demanded to know who the head of state is in Canada. David Lametti noted that the oath of allegiance is part of the constitution and that courts have said that this is not an oath to the person, but the institutions. He did not, however, say that the King of Canada is our sovereign. Blanchet again demanded to know who the head of state is, and Pablo Rodriguez got up to rip that the Bloc don’t care about the issues of the day, but only about their pensions.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, demanded that the government support their plan to help people, to which Rachel Bendayan recited the measures the government has taken and pleaded for support for the other measures. Singh switched to English to decry a possible Rogers-Shaw merger, and demanded that the government oppose it. Andy Fillmore read a statement about ensuring that consumers are protected.

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