With the First Ministers’ meeting now out of the way, attention is turning to Justin Trudeau’s trip to Washington DC next week, and what will happen there, and naturally, what it all means. At least five ministers will accompany him on the trip – though not necessarily to the state dinner, which is going to apparently be quite the event. Obama is apparently looking to Trudeau to be a partner for green initiatives, and indeed Trudeau will be hosted by an environmental group with a known anti-oilsands agenda (to the protests of Conservative MPs). Trudeau, for his part, is being introduced to the Americans first by appearing on 60 Minutes where he will be seen in a more serious light than his appearance in Vogue, and part of his message is that he wants Americans to be a little more outward looking and pay attention to other countries. Of course, the one topic that must not be spoken of is the presidential nomination process, for which Trudeau cannot (and indeed must not) make any kind of pronouncements on other than that he won’t comment on the internal politics of another country. Not that it won’t stop everyone from asking while he’s down there (because you know they all will, Canadian and American media alike), but he’s savvy enough of a politician not to say anything. Instead it’ll likely be a litany of platitudes about trade, trying to thin the border, and thanks for Canada’s renewed contribution in the conflict with ISIS in Iraq and Syria. And the requisite celebrity questions and requests for selfies, of course.
Tag Archives: Environment
Roundup: Points for process
From all accounts, the First Ministers meeting in Vancouver got off to a terse start. Premiers were unhappy over the regional bickering over Energy East and discussions of carbon pricing, while Indigenous groups were grousing that they should also have been at that table when it comes to coming up with a plan on combating climate change. By lunch, word around the place was that Trudeau was digging in his heels and was ready to impose a national carbon price on the provinces if they continued to balk and not work together to come to some kind of framework. And, by those same accounts, something changed after lunch and they struck a more conciliatory tone, and even though the meeting ran overtime, they came up with the Vancouver Declaration on Clean Growth and Climate Change, which was essentially an agreement on process. They have six months now to form four working groups and when they meet again in September, the expectation is that there will be more concrete plans, but carbon pricing mechanisms will be part of it – though there seems to be some indication that somehow carbon capture and storage will be seen as some kind of mechanism related to climate mitigation, despite the fact that thus far it’s been an expensive failure of a concept (but hey, Brad Wall is fully committed to it). And then even more grousing happened from the opposition, where the Conservatives complained that there was too much uncertainty for market investment (though not really if you consider that carbon pricing is coming, which the energy sector has actually been demanding and building into their projections), and the NDP moaning that there are still no targets or timelines (to which one wonders if they would have simply imposed them and told the provinces to deal with it if they were in charge, as with their vaunted plans for a cap-and-trade system despite the fact that BC has a successful carbon tax). So if nobody goes away happy, does that mean it was some measure of success? Perhaps, but one shouldn’t diminish the fact that there was a victory for process, because (and it can’t be stated enough) process matters. Democracy is process. So if you have a process laid out, it means that you can move ahead in a coordinated fashion with a plan and a road map and go from there. That may be an understated ending to the conference, but we’ll have to see what the next six months bring.
Roundup: Mindless PR propaganda
There are times when will indulge my masochistic streak. Yesterday was one of those days, when I took a deep breath, girded my loins, and read that Broadbent Institute “report” on Proportional Representation. And then proceeded to roll my eyes and sigh the whole way through it. To say that it’s an intellectual exercise would be an insult to critical thinking or, well, actual intelligence. No, it was but a mere collection of platitudes masquerading as serious argument (and it should not surprise me considering the source). If you too want an exercise in masochism, or you desperately want to hate-read it, it’s here, but I wouldn’t waste my time. The highlights consist of “OMG First-Past-the-Post is old!” and a bunch of charts that show how terrible “false majorities” are, except that there is no such thing as a “false majority” because the popular vote figure is a logical fallacy that neither reflects how the system is constructed, nor how elections are run. In fact, nowhere in the document does it actually give a proper recounting of how our system works, where you have 338 separate-but-simultaneous elections that each decide on who occupies a single seat to form a parliament, and that parliament determines who forms government based on who can command the confidence of the Commons. Instead, it calls FPTP elections “horse races” while proportional representation is “sharing the pie” (not how the system works – at all), and then talks at length about “fairness.” It talks about “wasted votes” as if they were a Thing as opposed to an expression by sore losers for whom votes only count if the person they voted for wins. It makes a bunch of bullshit platitudes about how PR will magically increase voter turnout (not true) and ignores that declining voter turnout is a widespread problem across all democracies regardless of electoral system. Accountability? Apparently not an issue because you have all kinds of parties to vote for! And any criticisms of PR? Brushed off and not actually explored. The worse sin of all, however, is the way in which it treats the political process, as though the vote were the end-all-and-be-all of engagement. False. Completely and utterly false, and that’s part of the problem that the magical thinking of PR advocates in general. You see, our system starts with joining a party, where you then participate in policy discussion leading up to resolutions at biennial policy conventions, and in participating in nomination races for candidates. Riding associations act as liaisons with caucus members to relay concerns, even if your riding is not represented by your party of choice, and one actively participates in the system. The ballot box is but one small facet of that process. But most people don’t know this because they aren’t taught it in schools, and PR advocates prey on this ignorance to push for their own magical solutions to perceived problems without a proper understanding of the ecosystem or the mechanics. So no, unless you’re going to represent the actual system, then no, you’re not having an honest discussion about PR, and that’s exactly what this report was – dishonest, jejune, and a sad waste of everyone’s time.
Oh, FFS. Just because you didn’t win doesn’t mean that your vote was wasted. It just means you’re a sore loser. pic.twitter.com/5OYZHt1KYd
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) March 2, 2016
https://twitter.com/fatbertt/status/705081823639031808
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Roundup: Pipeline drama queens
It really doesn’t take much to set Brad Wall off these days, and in ways that are both a bit unseemly and frankly nonsensical, and really, really unhelpful in the long run. Yesterday is was Quebec’s environment minister filing a court injunction related to Energy East, but unlike what everyone was up in arms about, it wasn’t to block the pipeline – he made several assurances that he had no opinion on it. Rather, he wanted TransCanada to submit paperwork with the Quebec government for their own environmental process, and TransCanada has thus far said no. It remains to be seen if Quebec’s position holds legal water (there was a precedent in BC that may or may not apply), but from the apoplexy coming from the likes of Brad Wall or Brian Jean in Alberta, you’d think Quebec had declared the project dead on arrival. Except they didn’t. Rachel Notley kept a level head saying she knows it’s not a veto, so she’s keeping her guns holstered. Justin Trudeau said he understands the province’s desire to get social license for the project, but listening to conservatives, both federal and provincial, you would have thought that those terrible lefties had put a stake in the heart of the oil industry. In fact, it’s the opposite of helpful when they are quick to declare a crisis of national unity when really, it’s Brad Wall fighting an election, and the Federal Conservatives and Wildrose party in Alberta trying to assert themselves into the debate in the most divisive way possible (and seriously, guys – that’s not how equalization works, so stop using it as a talking point). Suffice to say, everyone is acting like a bunch of petulant drama queens, demanding approvals to pipeline projects without actually going through the proper process, claiming that Trudeau politicized the process (err, except it was the Conservatives who changed the law so that Cabinet was given final sign-off on these projects, completely politicizing the process), and that if he doesn’t do things their way that he’s destroying the country. That’s a mature way to handle things, guys. Slow clap.
Well, we gave responsible devm't a shot for 3 mths…I guess we should go back to "no brainers", fights w ENGOs, threats of exploding trains
— Andrew Leach (@andrew_leach) March 1, 2016
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Roundup: Go knock doors
While I’ve pretty much said my piece on the Manning Conference, one last headline caught my eye yesterday, which was the “Traditional campaigns dead! It’s a digital world now!” variety, which made me roll my eyes a bit, but here it is. The “experts” – all American – talk about how Facebook and digital ads are where it’s at instead of TV advertising, but it seems to me like they missed entirely what happened during the last federal election – you know, something that the Conservatives might have a vested interest in actually learning from their mistakes in, rather than what is going on south of the border, with their utterly insane primary season and unlimited corporate and private money. Because seriously, if they paid attention to what the Liberals did here, it was actually a lot of traditional campaigning, which was door-knocking. Yes, they flooded social media with their “days of action,” which featured candidates and their teams – wait for it – door-knocking. There wasn’t a series of YouTube or Facebook ads that won the election for the Liberals – in fact, the only commercial that anyone remembers is the one with Trudeau on the escalator, and mostly because everyone tried to mock it (not all of it effectively). How often in the last decade did we hear about the Conservatives’ fearsome electoral machine with their CIMS database, and how that was helping them cut swaths though campaigns based on the smiley and frowney faces of voter identification? It didn’t win them the election. Yes, the Liberals rebuilt their own voter identification database (“Liberalist”), but again, what was it used for? Door-knocking, and canvassing donations, but it also bears noting that the Liberals did not spend the most money, disproving that money is what wins elections. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take the words of these American “experts” that the Conservatives enlisted with a grain of salt, while the traditional shoe-leather method of direct voter engagement and going from door-to-door is putting in the hard work that won a majority of seats.
Roundup: Looking beyond mediocrity
It’s Manning Networking Conference time again, and with a leadership contest in the offing, you can bet that some possible leadership hopefuls are starting to lay out a few markers (even if Nigel Wright wants them to focus more on policy). Jason Kenney is again “contemplating” a run after apparently recovering from burnout after the election (and it does bear noting that he’s only just started showing up to QP again). Peter MacKay thinks that the Conservatives can beat Trudeau of they’re smart about it, while others like Michael Chong and Diane Watts think the party needs to do better on issues like the environment. But all eyes, of course, were on Kevin O’Leary, who said a few outrageous things as he is wont to – that he wants a national referendum on pipelines, that he thinks it should be the law that a prime minister has to have run a business before they can lead the country, or that he thinks the party system is becoming doomed in the wake of a mass populist movement where people wants politicians to solve their problems regardless of political brand or label. Of the many things he did say, one that I thought merited a little more attention was his calling out the Conservatives for having become a party of mediocrity, and I do think that’s true, as it built itself around the personal brand of Stephen Harper post merger. Despite the NDP using phrases like “Bay Street buddies” in their references to the Conservatives over the past decade, there was really very little of that kind of branding to the party. It wasn’t about wealth (despite their policies actually benefitting the wealthy) or aspiration, or even markets once you really broke it down, but rather about this attempt to appeal to the suburban nuclear family in all of its messaging and the way it built programmes (but again, while they appeared to be for these suburban masses, the benefits disproportionately went to the top). Harper himself cultivated the image of being some minivan driving hockey dad, despite the fact that he was both a career politician, and it soon became clear that his kids weren’t much into hockey either (though his son was apparently quite the volleyball player, for what it’s worth). For O’Leary, whose brand is about greed being good, and a certain conspicuousness to his wealth, it’s pretty much anathema to the suburban image that Harper was crafting, and that his ministers followed suit in embodying. The closest they got to any Bay Street types was Joe Oliver, but he again was less about materialism or consumerism than he was about parroting approved Harper talking points. It is interesting that this is something that O’Leary has picked up on and would certainly be pushing back on should he decide to go ahead and pursue a leadership bid, because that would certainly be a radical shake-up for the party.
From my @nationalpost archives: "Achievements in the private sector ≠ success in politics"https://t.co/3GPudq6UYm https://t.co/slbTtC298s
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) February 26, 2016
QP: Haze and incoherence
A slushy and wet day in Ottawa, and the PM was headed off to Montreal instead of being in QP. Rona Ambrose led off, mini-lectern again on Andrew Scheer’s desk instead of her own, and complained about the incoherence of the current government’s messaging. Navdeep Bains got up to respond, pointing out that the previous government turned a surplus into a deficit and touted their own plan for creating jobs. Ambrose complained about the size of the deficit, to which Bains insisted that they have a plan to grow the economy and make it more productive. Ambrose then insisted that Trudeau was imposing a national carbon tax, and this time Catherine McKenna got up and quoted Suncor’s CEO and Preston Manning as fans of carbon pricing. Maxime Bernier was up next, and he complained of the broken promise around the size of the deficit. Marc Garneau responded to this question, stating that Conservative cuts in the current economic situation could push the country into recession. Bernier insisted that deeper debt would not create wealth, and Garneau read some talking points about the importance of their own plan. Charlie Angus led off for the NDP, who noted a suicide in Moose Factory in his riding, and wanted a plan to end the discrimination in funding. Jean-Yves Duclos responded to this one, and he said that federal and provincial partners were working together on the complex issues. Angus listed the health problems on reserves, demanding action yesterday, for which Duclos reiterate that they were working with First Nations on a nation-to-nation basis to provide inclusive and sustainable circumstances. Marjolaine Boutin-Sweet asked the same again in French, got the same answer from Duclos in French, and for her final question, demanded action on proportional representation. Maryam Monsef stated that she looked forward to meaningful consultations.
Roundup: Mindless populism leading the way
As Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall has made his voice heard in recent weeks in the lead-up to his re-election campaign, and the Conservatives in Ottawa have taken up his banner on all manner of topics, it is the issue of carbon pricing that is driving home a few truths about both Wall and the Conservative Party. While there is talk about setting a baseline $15/tonne carbon price nationally, which can be implemented either by carbon tax (per BC) or cap-and-trade (per Ontario and Quebec), Wall is adamant that he doesn’t want it imposed on his province, and is going so far as to suggest that any “national carbon tax” (which, let’s be clear, it is not what is being discussed) would be exempt from SaskPower because it’s a provincial Crown corporation. And in the House of Commons, former Speaker Andrew Scheer gave a ridiculous and gobsmackingly boneheaded Members’ Statement on Monday which mocked the notion of a “carbon tax” (which, again, not on the table) as a market mechanism, and tried to apply it to other forms of taxation, generally making a fool out of himself in the process. But if you listen to what both Wall and Conservatives like Scheer are saying, it becomes obvious that intelligent, principled conservatism in this country has pretty much gone the way of the Dodo, and that we are left with right-flavoured populism in its wake. Because seriously, an actual conservative thinker would look at a carbon price, and using whichever mechanism (but likely an actual carbon tax), use that in order to encourage the market to find their own ways to reduce their carbon emissions. In fact, it’s what the oil sector has been demanding for years now, and they’ve even built carbon pricing into their books while they waited for some kind of direction as to just how much it would be and by what mechanism it would be applied. But rather than having an actual conservative government that would take this tool to and use the market to innovate and achieve the desired end (being lower carbon emissions), you have a bunch of populists in both Saskatchewan and Ottawa who howled instead about a fictional “job-killing carbon tax” and who held their breath and stamped their feet rather than dealing with the problem of carbon emissions for an entire decade. So while the Conservative Party starts to re-examine itself in advance of its leadership contest, perhaps this is something that they should consider – a return to actual conservative principles rather than this populist noise, which resulted in a decade of poor economic decisions (like lowering the GST), incoherent policy decisions, and as we can see here, childish tantrums to what should be an actual conservative approach to solving problems.
QP: Scattering instead of pressing
Bill Morneau’s fiscal update a couple of hours previous before touched off a partisan storm over social media, which was bound to carry over into QP. Rona Ambrose, mini-lectern on desk, led off by reading a question about the size of the deficit. Justin Trudeau reminded her that they ran a campaign on investing to promote growth. Ambrose demanded to know who would pay for it all, at which Trudeau retorted that that they were already paying for the previous ten years of poor growth. Ambrose tried to burnish the previous government’s record, but Trudeau accused them of creative accounting. Gerard Deltell demanded controlled public spending, for which Trudeau reiterated his response about fudged numbers. Deltell gave it one last kick, and got the same answer. Thomas Mulcair was up next, and demanded the government respect the rights of Aveos workers rather than amend Air Canada’s legislation. Trudeau responded that they were proud that the agreement with Bombardier would encourage investment in aerospace. Mulcair asked again in English, got largely the same answer, and then demanded reforms to the EI system. Trudeau reminded him that they promised to strengthen the system, and they were going to. Mulcair demanded a universal eligibility threshold as part of that reform, and Trudeau reiterated that they were making needed changes.
The Liberal retort today is that the Conservatives and NDP would make massive cuts to keep the budget balanced. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) February 22, 2016
Roundup: Cullen pens a hot mess
NDP MP Nathan Cullen penned an op-ed for National Newswatch over the weekend, and it’s a total hot mess. Hot. Mess. Where to begin, where to begin? Let’s start with the opening paragraph:
One of the recurring conversations I’ve had over the years, with folks of all political leanings, is the condition of our democracy and how our voting system doesn’t reflect their voices at the national level.
Demonstrably false, since what we vote for are who to fill individual seats. People who are elected to those seats are the reflection of the wishes of that riding. Ergo, our voting system actually is reflective of voices at the national level. The entire second paragraph is a gong show:
It’s not a new charge that the first-past-the-post (FPTP) voting system too often produces false majorities. Our current voting system is broken. Too many Canadians simply feel their vote does not count. Something is deeply wrong if our very voting system encourages people to tune out of our democratic process.
Nope, nope, nope, and nope. There is no such thing as a “false majority” because the popular vote is a logical fallacy. You can’t extend 338 separate and simultaneous elections, mash them together and come up with a figure when you don’t have the same number of parties running in all ridings, nor does it reflect the fact that we elect individual seats, not parties. The voting system is not broken – it accurately reflects that we elect individual seats in individual ridings. Canadians feel their vote doesn’t count because of sore loserism, and apparently votes only count when the person you voted for wins, which is childish and wrong. Our voting system does not encourage people to tune out of our democratic process – our appalling lack of civic literacy does. From there, Cullen goes on to defend his idea of a “proportional” Commons committee to consult on electoral reform, except it’s a) not proportional, b) it’s designed to play up his desire for proportional representation (if the committee can be proportional…) and c) it’s designed to game the process, while he professes new ways of doing things. From there, Cullen meanders into a defence of the NDP as “progressive opposition,” which sounds more defensive by the day as the Liberals continue to outflank the party on the left, and finally, the piece moves into a defence of Thomas Mulcair as party leader, with Cullen professing support – you know, to look like he’s not angling to replace him should Mulcair happen to fall well short of expectations at the upcoming leadership review vote. After all, the federal NDP have a culture of it being unseemly to not be in complete and total lockstep at all times when the cameras are on. So there you have it – a complete hot mess. What is that old journalistic expression? Get me rewrite.
https://twitter.com/jameslhsprague/status/699297692837666816