Tag Archives: Environment

QP: Insufficiently tough about softwood lumber

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A single day after the prime minister took all of the questions, he was too busy with “private meetings” to return for a second day in a row, but his deputy was present, so hopefully it would be okay after all. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he moaned about the higher softwood lumber tariffs and called the prime ministers a “pushover.” Chrystia a Freeland read that she was extremely disappointed by the unfair and unwarranted decision by the US, that Trudeau did raise it in Washington last week, as did she, and that it was fuelling America’s inflation. O’Toole accused the Liberals of selling out workers, for which Freeland reminded the Commons that O’Toole publicly called on the government to drop retaliatory measures against other American tariffs, which Canada won. O’Toole then raised the threats over PEI potato exports, and Freeland said she would leave it up to Canadians to judge their successes with the New NAFTA and the 232 tariffs, before she pivoted to addressing PEI farmers, reminding them that she grew up on a farm too, and she was working to resolve the situation. O’Toole then switched to French, and said the government was racking up failures, for which Freeland reiterated that they have been trying to resolve the softwood lumber situation. O’Toole raised the issue of inflation, and Freeland reminded him that this is a global phenomenon as a result of economies restarting, and the government was working to help Canadians.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded that all health transfers be given to provinces without strings, and Freeland assured him that they wanted to work with Quebec. Therrien demanded a public summit with premiers, for which Freeland reminded him of the support they sent to Quebec during the pandemic.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he demanded immediate action on the climate crisis and an end to fossil fuel subsidies, and Freeland stated that she agreed that climate action as urgent and essential and that those subsidies would be phased out next year, and that a raft of independent experts judged the Liberal plan the best. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same response. 

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QP: Inflation vs child care, ad nauseam

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And we’re back, after some nearly five months away, and to a full Chamber at that. Let’s hope it stays that way. Erin O’Toole led off, mini-lectern in front of him, and he raised the floods in BC, recognising that the minster has been in contact with province, and asked for an update on the situation. Justin Trudeau read a statement about what the Canadian Forces members on the ground have been up to. O’Toole then moved to the Coastal GasLink situation, raising concerns about the “dog whistling” about blowing up pipelines and insisting that this project was somehow about “economic reconciliation.” Trudeau insisted that they are working toward economic reconciliation, but it needs to be done in partnership with the communities. O’Toole shifted to the issue of inflation and noted that it only got a single mention in the Speech from the Throne, and Trudeau said it was being driven by supply chain challenges, before touting how their child care plans will help families. O’Toole repeated the same question in French and got the same answer, with a bit more punch that the Conservatives promised to tear up those agreements. O’Toole raised the labour shortage in Quebec, saying the PM has not acknowledged it, but a Trudeau disputed this, insisting that building back better includes new jobs, raising immigration levels and training, as that shortage existed before the pandemic.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and true to form, demanded more health transfers and a “public summit” on health funding that he has been pushing for. Trudeau read that the government has a plan to eliminate delays, build better long-term care and hire more doctors in partnership with the provinces, and that they would continue to invest while respecting jurisdictions. Blanchet dismissed the idea that the federal government could have done better than provinces during the pandemic, and Trudeau said he wasn’t interested in finger-pointing, and wanted to partner with provinces in the best interests of seniors.

Jagmeet Singh then rose for the NDP, and after declaring a climate crisis, claimed there was no plan for workers in the Speech from the Throne. Trudeau reminded him that all experts gave the Liberal plan top marks in the election. In French, Singh groused about fossil fuel subsidies, and Trudeau, without script, reminded him that they are phasing them out ahead of schedule, along with their emissions cap for the oil and gas sector.

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Roundup: Nothing unexpected in the Speech from the Throne

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In amidst all of the pomp and ceremony, there was very little that was unexpected out of yesterday’s Speech from the Throne, where Governor General Mary May Simon read the government’s planned agenda, talking about the fact that the pandemic is not yet over, and making high-level promises around climate action, reconciliation, and a nod to the rising cost of living. In a little over half an hour, it was over, and MPs returned to the House of Commons.

Two media narratives largely dominated the coverage the rest of the day: 1) this is basically the election platform, which erm, hello, is pretty much the point, and putting something shiny and new in there while in a hung parliament would be difficult and asking for trouble; and 2) daring the opposition parties to bring down the government, which they won’t do, but reporters will ask leading – if not goading – questions all the same. And because of the requisite chest-thumping that goes along with a hung parliament, we saw both the Conservatives and NDP talking tough about not supporting it (well, the NDP said that the Liberals shouldn’t take their votes for granted even though they pretty much can because the NDP are in no shape to back up their words), and the Bloc essentially acknowledging that they would support it because of course they will. Nobody is going to bring the government down over this and go to another election (because no, there is no other possible government formation possible with the current composition of the Chamber), so the Liberals will pass this, and their fall fiscal update, and one or two of the bills on their priority wish list before they rise for the holidays, and the Conservatives and the NDP will huff and puff about it, but that’s about as much as will happen.

Once the speech was over, the Conservatives immediately launched into a renewed round of procedural shenanigans once they got back to the House of Commons, and before Erin O’Toole read his response to the Address in Reply to the Speech from the Throne. First it was a point of privilege on the unresolved issue from the previous parliament on the Winnipeg Lab documents, in spite of the fact that the committee that wanted them doesn’t exist and the order they made also no longer exists. Then they went after the Clerk and the scurrilous allegations of partisanship (which, according to everyone I’ve spoken to – including Senate Conservatives – is ridiculous and office politics run amok in the House of Commons’ administration). The Speaker tried to cut that off, insisting that it should be dealt with at BoIE, especially as the Clerk cannot defend himself in the Commons, but they kept going after it, which is poor form and a signal that they want blood and they don’t care if they hurt the Clerk in the process. And after that, it was the vaccine mandate and the use of the Board of Internal Economy, demanding a vote on it – erm, which would just expose those who object to said mandate and tar those who object to the procedural use of the BoIE with the same brush, which seems politically foolish to me, but what do I know? (Affirming the vaccine mandate is part of the Liberals’ omnibus motion that would also restore hybrid sittings, for what it’s worth).

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Roundup: Demands to take action on transitory inflation

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Inflation was the word of the day again yesterday, as it was the monthly release of Statistics Canada’s Consumer Price Index, and lo, it was once again high – 4.7 percent, which it hasn’t been since February of 2003. But the factors behind it are largely global – energy demand versus supply on the market, the shortage of semiconductor chips that is driving up the cost of vehicles, and locally, labour shortages (much of it because of COVID) is driving up meat prices. Not that these factors matter much to Erin O’Toole.

Here’s the thing – there’s not a lot that the federal government can do about the causes of this current bout of inflation, which, let’s be clear, the Bank of Canada and the majority of analysts still believes is transitory given what’s driving it, so the last thing you want to do is overreact and create more problems in the economy. When it comes to food items, the rising costs of dairy are from supply management reflecting an increase in input costs; meat is being driven up by labour costs; other foods are impacted by droughts and supply chain issues. There’s very little that the federal government can actually do about this, not that it’s stopped O’Toole from demanding that something – anything – be done. But what is that anything? Price controls? Do we need to start practicing “Zap, you’re frozen!” again? Because it feels a lot like we’re heading back to that territory.

In the meantime, Kevin Carmichael puts the figures into context for what the Bank of Canada is likely to do about upcoming interest rate decisions. Mike Moffatt and Ken Boessenkool call on the Bank of Canada to give a clear explanation of what is happening with inflation, because otherwise the Bank will lose its credibility for allowing inflation to run hot when using their tools could do further economic damage if employed at this point. Heather Scoffield worries that the floods and washed-out roads and railways in BC will further drive inflation – though that fear may be somewhat misplaced, as the macroeconomic damage may be limited to a few days.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1461179942880694281

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1461181382302973954

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Roundup: Repurposed talking points with an inflation bow on top

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The Conservatives’ finance critic, Pierre Poilievre, was up to his usual bullshit over the weekend and held a press conference to demand that the government maintain the Bank of Canada’s inflation targeting regime – which was almost certain to happen anyway – but along the way, his line of reasoning became utterly absurd.

For one, Poilievre refuses to acknowledge the facts on the ground about what is driving the current bout of inflationary pressure – instead, it’s a lot of talk about the Bank printing money to finance government debt, which isn’t quite true. Quantitative easing isn’t actually “printing money” – and the Bank has an explainer on their website – and by buying government bonds when they did, they were able to keep interest rates low, rather than requiring them to drive up at a time when there were a lot of governments issuing bonds, as those higher rates could have hurt the economy (or by not issuing the bonds, the government wouldn’t be able to pay for the pandemic benefits people needed, and we would have had other problems instead). Meanwhile, his proposed solutions won’t actually deal with the current bout of transitory inflationary pressures – approving more energy projects will take years to come online, cutting taxes and “red tape” won’t necessarily improve productivity, and his “payroll taxes” are things like CPP and EI, which aren’t taxes, and again, won’t actually do anything about world energy prices or supply chain bottlenecks. Most of his demands are just the same Conservative talking points, repurposed with an inflation bow on top.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1459645990076653572

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1459670088970391559

And this is the thing – all of the signs are pointing to the fact that while the 4.4 percent headline number sounds scary at first, if we look at where we are trend-wise, we’re not over the target range by much, and we also have to remember that interest rates can be a pretty blunt instrument, and raising them too quickly to tackle inflation that is transitory in nature could have bigger consequences in the economy, and weaken the recovery. Not that these guys pay attention to the counter-factuals, or the facts at all. No, it’s a bunch of talking points that are at least twenty years out of date, if not more, but the problem is that people believe it. (The inflation truthers in my reply column are the worst). And I’m not sure that this government has the rhetorical ability to counter any of it with their happy-clappy pabulum talking points, and that is a problem.

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Roundup: No undoing these elections

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In Alberta, the province’s municipal affairs minister has declared that he can’t vacate a seat on Calgary’s city council given the revelations that surfaced against one councillor from a time before his election, when he was a police officer. And this is actually a good thing – you do not want to give provincial governments the power to suddenly start vacating seats on municipal councils in their province, because that can very, very easily be weaponised to settle scores, particularly when there is friction between the municipal and provincial governments. (Seriously, given the rank incompetence of several provincial governments, you do not want them to have this power, no matter that it may sound nice for this particular circumstance).

There is a certain amount of resonance in this with the situation around ousted Liberal candidate and now independent MP Kevin Vuong, While there is some social media backlash over his visit to a local business that needed their MP’s help on a CRA issue, there are plenty of people who are demanding that something be done about his election, be it having the Speaker declare his seat vacant or the like, but I worry about that because of the implications for what it means as a precedent (especially given the fact that charges were not pursued in the allegations against him, which a gulf from the kind of conviction that would ordinarily be used as an excuse to declare such a vacancy). There needs to be a very high bar because this is democracy, and one of the things that happens in a democracy is that sometimes the people get it wrong for whatever the reason, and in this case, there is the added issue that the party did a closed-door acclamation process rather than an open nomination, so they have to wear this as well.

In both of these cases, there is something of an object lesson about why it’s important to get things right when you’re considering who you’re voting for (and why local journalism matters). There is nobody who can swoop down and save you from your bad choices, so it’s very, very important that you choose wisely.

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Roundup: Another of Kenney’s talking points blows up on him

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The Alberta government is facing yet another situation where reality butts up against their preferred victimhood narratives – this time around equalisation. You see, for the first time since the 1960s, they have received more in federal transfers than they paid in federal taxes, and we can thank Justin Trudeau’s benediction, not only in pandemic transfers, but in things like money that they sent to the province to remediate orphan wells as a job-creation (and environmental) programme – never mind that they never should have because it meant that private companies and the province were able to successful offload their environmental liabilities to the federal government after the Supreme Court of Canada specifically ruled that they couldn’t under existing bankruptcy laws.

Of course, this isn’t stopping Kenney or his government from trying to spin this to carry on their narrative. For example, the province’s finance minister is claiming that they are still being unfairly impacted because of their contributions on a per capita basis continue to outstrip their share of the population. Because they have the highest incomes in the country by far and we have a progressive federal income tax. This is yet more of the province’s outright disinformation on how equalisation works because they are trying to make people angry rather than properly telling them how the system works, because if people understood, they might not be able to summon some performative outrage about it, and that wouldn’t help Kenney and his agenda.

Because really, so much of how the province is spinning this is yet more distraction sauce from Kenney’s continued failures, and the thousands of unnecessary deaths on his watch, and as I have pointed out elsewhere, Kenney has only one tool in his toolbox, and that is anger. He’s losing yet one more argument that Alberta is being treated “unfairly,” so you can expect a lot more gaslighting and deception in the near future as Kenney and company will try to push back against reality.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1458600346398478337

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Roundup: Time to change the dress code?

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NDP MP Randall Garrison is pushing for the House of Commons to update is dress code, in particular around the gendered rules that men need to wear a jacket and tie in the Chamber in order to speak and vote. Part of Garrison’s stated motivation is to make it easier for future trans and non-binary MPs, even though accommodations are already routinely made, such as allowing Indigenous MPs to wear beaded necklaces or other symbols in place of a tie. I don’t see why it would be any different to accommodate a trans or non-binary MP in a similar manner without any fuss – a mere notice to the Speaker would suffice.

On the one hand, there is a certain amount of archaic assumption in the “contemporary business attire” around jackets and ties for men, and only men – there is no dress code for women in the Chamber (and these rules apply to those of us who sit in the Press Gallery in the Chamber, incidentally). Business attire in the current context is starting to slide down the scale – particularly in this era of work-from-home – so I’m leery of loosening the restrictions too much, particularly as it is not beyond the realm of possibility that you would have a bunch of MPs in track suits, yoga or sweat pants, hoodies, and mom jeans (and I have seen male MPs in mom jeans with jacket and tie in the Chamber, which was not a pleasant sight). Printed t-shirts are also a very real concern, because we will immediately slip into them being used as props, particularly during Members’ Statements, and we do not want that to happen. On the same token, I wouldn’t have minded imposing a few more rules for women in the Chamber, such as mandating jackets as part of “business attire,” because sometimes the definitions of what constitutes “business attire” for some female MPs has been particularly…challenging. (Flashback to the old Megan Leslie Outfit Watch on my former blog).

I get that ties suck. I really do. I used to really hate them, but I’ve somewhat reluctantly grown to accept them and now I have no issue with it. And once we’re into late May and early June and the humidity starts to climb, wearing suits is not fun (and whereas I have threatened to show up to the Gallery in shorts and sandals – but with jacket and tie – one reporter has actually done so and was my hero for the day). But at the same time, I think there should be some kinds of standards, for both men and women, because frankly there can be a demonstrated lack of both maturity and good taste among MPs and there need to be some guidelines. Can they be loosened a little? Sure, that should be okay, and maybe we won’t require a tie at all times – within reason. It does merit a discussion in any case.

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Roundup: Glover says she’s the premier

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It was quite a day in Manitoba yesterday as Heather Stefanson was sworn-in as the province’s first female premier, but the leadership drama isn’t over. Her challenger, former federal Cabinet minister Shelly Glover has not conceded defeat, and plans to challenge the leadership election in court, citing irregularities and reports that Stefanson’s scrutineers looked defeated at one point of the counting and then something allegedly mysterious happened to a ballot box…or something. I’m having a hard time keeping track of it. Regardless, Glover insists that she’s really the premier, not Stefanson.

One could be very pedantic here and note that Stefanson has been sworn in, so she’s premier regardless. Her immediate predecessor, Kelvin Goertzen, was not chosen in a leadership election by caucus as interim leader, and he was fully and legitimately premier, even if it was only for a few weeks (and yes, he’s going to get a portrait in the legislature to reflect that status). So no, Glover is not premier, and even if by some miracle she were declared party leader (which won’t happen – the courts won’t get involved in the inner workings of a political party), Stefanson is still premier and will be until she resigns or is dismissed.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1455671852647559168

But on a broader point, Glover has always been a very problematic politician, stridently repeating talking points in the face of logic and evidence, and getting combative when challenged on her bullshit, particularly as she seemed to lack the critical reasoning skills to think through her positions. And this attempted court challenge is her combativeness and willingness to believe illogical or contrary things playing out in the very way she demonstrated during her nine years in federal politics (two of which were as a minister). And Glover had her own run-ins with Elections Canada, and at one point Elections Canada asked the Speaker to suspend her because of financial irregularities during an election (which were later resolved with revised filings that Elections Canada accepted, Glover terming them an “honest mistake.”) One has to question her fitness to lead given her history and temperament, but I’m not a member of the party.

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Roundup: Mark Holland is optimistic

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New Government House Leader Mark Holland is brimming with optimism that the things that paralyzed the previous session of Parliament will be behind them post-election. It’s a nice idea, but I wonder just how it will actually play out. Yes, the Liberals have broken some of the deadlocks that plagued them (a fact that they didn’t articulate during the election, even when pressed on the subject), and they have a bit of leverage now in that none of the other parties can even contemplate another election anytime soon – the Conservatives are consumed with internal disputes over vaccine mandates and just when they plan to put Erin O’Toole to a leadership review, and the NDP are very broke having spent record amounts of money to gain themselves a single new seat, and the Bloc have no desire to go back to the polls, particularly since their play to be François Legault’s voice in Ottawa didn’t play well for them in the election. This will allow the Liberals to play some hardball and use confidence to their advantage for the time being.

But in spite of this, I would not put it past any of the opposition parties to engage in some of the other shenanigans that got us the election, whether that is tying up the committees in interminable attempts at witch hunts, or drowning in document production requests – and that may yet still happen. The election did end some of that, but much of it could very easily be revived once the committees are back up and running (likely in the New Year).

“There was a very clear message sent to all parties that there’s an expectation that we work together, and I’m operating on the presumption that we will have all heard that message and that we all come ready to work and to collaborate in a constructive and positive way,” Holland told The Canadian Press.

I’m not sure that such a presumption is a good one to make. There was an expectation that all parties should work together during the pandemic, and while they did a bunch of backroom negotiations around emergency legislation – and kept any of the debates off-the-record – they stalled all other bills until the very end, when the NDP and Bloc realized they needed to start playing ball again. I’m not sure what the appetite for playing ball will be on most bills, or whether the political calculus will be to try and stymie the Liberals once again (which could lead to showdowns over confidence). I wish Holland all the luck in the world on this, but I suspect he may start losing the hair he has left because the current state of our parliamentary discourse is pretty toxic, and things like the Liberals’ desire to keep hybrid sittings going will only exacerbate that problem.

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