Thursday in the new Chamber, and neither the PM nor Andrew Scheer were present. Plus ça change… That left Candice Bergen to lead off with slams against the prime minister’s alleged lavish lifestyle before demanding to know whey they planned to raise taxes. Bill Morneau got up and noted that the first things they did was lower taxes on the Middle Class™. Bergen retorted that the Conservatives delivered a balanced budget (not really), and that today’s deficits were tomorrow’s higher taxes (not with a declining debt-to-GDP ratio), but Morneau noted that the facts didn’t match her rhetoric and that Canadians didn’t want to return to the “bad old days” of Conservative austerity. Bergen read more vitriol about Trudeau, to which Morneau listed off their tax cuts and Canada Child Benefit plans, and decried the Conservative legacy of debt. Gérard Deltell took over in French, and gave his usual demand to know when the budget would be balanced. Morneau state that their plan was clear to invest, and that the approach was working as witnessed by lowest unemployment in 40 years and people with more money in their pockets. Deltell asked a second time, and Morneau repeated his pabulum. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and said that the PBO reported that the government paid too much for the Trans Mountain pipeline. Morneau replied that he had it wrong — that they bought the pipeline because it was good for the economy. Caron wondered why they didn’t invest instead in transitioning to a clean economy, to which Morneau reminded him of the need to get access to international markets, which was why it was necessary to buy the pipeline. Nathan Cullen took over in English to repeat the question with added sanctimony, to which Morneau said that their purchase price of the pipeline was in the middle of the commercial range, which meant it was a good one. Cullen tried again, and got much the same response.
Tag Archives: First Nations
Roundup: Election interference protocols
The federal government unveiled their plans for dealing with election interference in future elections, and tried to create a system that keeps it within the realm of the civil servants and away from Cabinet (who would be in caretaker mode during the writ-period) and politicians in general. The protocol (infographic here) would see that the heads of national security agencies brief the Clerk of the Privy Council, the National Security and Intelligence Advisor, and the deputy ministers of Justice, Public Safety, and Global Affairs, who would then determine if there is a substantial threat to a free and fair election, at which point they inform the PM, party leaders, and Elections Canada before they hold a press conference to inform people of the incident.
In response, the Conservatives say it doesn’t go far enough, because they are on tear about foreign funding and third-party campaign financing, while the NDP say they want the Chief Electoral Officer involved (though I’m not quite sure what he would do in that kind of situation, because he deals with administering the election and not things like strategic “leaks” to media or propaganda). They also want social media companies to do more, and they are apparently reaching out to the government over this, but, well, their records have a lot to be desired in these kinds of situations.
Meanwhile, here’s Stephanie Carvin with what she was looking for beforehand:
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1090623966895587330
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1090623974957039621
And what we saw in the announcement:
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1090643636231028736
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1090649350609473538
QP: China vs Brexit
Wednesday, and most but not all leaders were present, somewhat unusually. Andrew Scheer led off, mini-lectern on desk, and in French, he read some condemnation that the prime minister didn’t fire John McCallum soon enough Trudeau stood up and said that on China, they were working to freeing the imprisoned Canadians, and then took a shot at Scheer’s lack of foreign policy credibility given his support for Brexit. Scheer switched to English to read his litany of foreign policy sins by this government, and Trudeau reiterated that they were working to safeguard Canadians in China before repeating his shot at Scheer on Brexit. Scheer wondered why it took so long for Trudeau to fire McCallum, but Trudeau wouldn’t let up on Scheer’s Brexiteering. Scheer then switched to the carbon tax and said that the government planned to raise the price to $3/tonne before his benches reminded him that the talking point was $300. Trudeau responded that Scheer still hasn’t delivered his own climate plan, and when Scheer gave falsehoods about industrial exemptions and the apparent planned carbon tax hikes, Trudeau shrugged and noted that their rhetoric was empty if they were resorting to personal attacks, before talking about how people would be better off with carbon rebates. Peter Julian led off for the NDP, and in French, predictably raised the issue of housing, but this time name-dropped the riding of Outremont. Trudeau picked up a script to state that it was too bad if the NDP derided the plans to refit existing housing. Julian switched to English to ask the same, and Trudeau had a script in hand but didn’t actually read from it while he listed the investments being made in housing. Charlie Angus stood up to demand personal action on the housing emergency in Cat Lake, and Trudeau read that they were developing a long-term plan of action with its leadership, and noted they lifted the boil-water advisory in that community already. Angus took a couple of shots at Seamus O’Regan and the prime minister, and Trudeau listed the investments they have made with Indigenous communities.
Trudeau is responding to all of Scheer’s questions by reminding everyone that Scheer is a Brexit cheerleader. #QP
— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 30, 2019
QP: Demanding a tax pledge
Another snowy day in Ottawa, and things got back underway in the new Chamber, with numerous statements of remembrance for the Quebec City Mosque shooting two years ago. While Justin Trudeau was present today, Andrew Scheer was not, preferring to tweet instead about Google search results he didn’t like. That left Lisa Raitt to lead off, raising the case of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, and allegations that Scott Brison was withholding personal emails from the courts. Trudeau stood up to read that they were respecting judicial independence and would not comment. Raitt tried again, calling it a “concerning cover-up,” but Trudeau’s response did not change, only he recited the lines from memory. Raitt then moved on to a homily about affordability and wanted assurances that the government wouldn’t raise taxes. Trudeau assured her that they were cutting taxes for the Middle Class™ while they were growing the economy. Alain Rayes took over in French to demand a balanced budget with no tax hikes. Trudeau deployed his lines about growing the economy and helping the Middle Class™. Rayes tried again, and this time Trudeau insisted that they lowered taxes and would not raise them, while the Conservatives preferred tax cuts for the rich, when “trickle down economics doesn’t work.” Peter Julian led off for the NDP, accusing the PM of misleading the House on housing stats. Trudeau delivered some pat lines about their National Housing Strategy that has helped a million Canadians so far. Julian name-dropped the riding of Burnaby to demand new affordable housing, to which Trudeau cautioned him against maligning the refurbishment of existing housing which ensures Canadians have safe and affordable places to live, which is what they were ensuring. Brigitte Sansoucy went into a paean about personal debt and affordable housing, and Trudeau deployed more talking points about the investments they made. Sansoucy then said that he didn’t consider seniors in his response, to which Trudeau deployed his standard talking points about increasing the GIS.
Roundup: We join you now from West Block…
And so, the Big Move is complete, and the House of Commons has settled into its new home for the time being. Many MPs were still trying to find their way around the new building, going through wrong doors, coping with more cramped quarters, but they did make some history with the first instances of simultaneous interpretation of Cree in the Chamber thanks to Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette. The changes were all cosmetic as the partisan rhetoric on both sides largely remained the same dichotomy of pabulum from the Liberals, and lies from the Conservatives.
Just what kinds of falsehoods were being peddled? For one, the Conservatives leaned heavily on the notion that the Liberals had “raised taxes” on most Canadians, which isn’t actually true – it’s torque that comes from a Fraser Institute report that considers increased CPP contribution taxes (they’re not), and similarly calls the cancellation of non-refundable boutique tax credits in favour of the (non-taxable) Canada Child Benefit to be “tax increases.” Scheer lied that the government the government’s “own documents” show that they plan to raise the carbon tax to $300/tonne, which is also false, and as Alex Ballingall debunks here, it’s based on redacted documents that point out that higher prices will be needed to meet emissions targets, but don’t say that they are actually planning to do so. And Michelle Rempel also tried to make partisan hay of the fact that the government’s yearly quota of applications for family reunification immigration spaces was open for the space of eleven minutes before it maxed out and tried to equate this as somehow being the fault of asylum seekers who cross the border irregularly – another complete falsehood that Althia rage debunks here, and more to the point, Rempel is engaged in concern trolling – her own government did not prioritize this immigration stream and limited to 5000 cases per year while the Liberals increased it to 20,000. (They also tried to make the small number of spaces “fairer” by attempting to do it on a lottery system rather than one where high-priced immigration lawyers were able to get their files in faster, but that lottery system was abandoned this year). So yeah, the House was mired in bullshit today, but would the government refute most of this on the record? Not really – we got plenty of bland talking points instead that allowed most of these distortions to remain on the record. Slow clap there, Liberals.
Meanwhile, Chantal Hébert enumerates the government’s many self-inflicted wounds as the new sitting gets underway. John Ivison notes the same old fear and division being peddled by both sides despite the new digs. Paul Wells makes us feel bad for thinking that things might be different in the new locale. I was on Kitchener Today yesterday to talk about John McCallum, China, and the return of the House of Commons.
QP: New Chamber, same talking points
On the first day in the new Chamber, everyone was trying to find their way through the new building, yours truly included. After introducing the newest Conservative by-election winner, Andrew Scheer led off, decrying the government’s foreign policy as a “disaster,” listing a number of dubious points to bolster his case. Trudeau stood up, assured Scheer that he would get to his question in a moment, but wanted to take a moment to applaud the work of the men and women who did the hard work of getting the West Block up and running. Scheer repeated his question in French, and read that the government was hard at work to get those two Canadians released and for clemency for the third, while they stood up for the rule of law. Scheer read a wooden question about Trudeau apparently not being good with money, and Trudeau rotely recited his talking points about lowering taxes for the middle class. Scheer read the same question again in English, and got the same response, with an added Stephen Harper swipe included. Scheer insisted that the richest were paying less in taxes than before (not really true), and raised the spectre that the government planned to raise the carbon tax six times more than they stated — also false. Trudeau noted that people are now getting the Canada Child Benefit, and that Scheer didn’t talk about it probably because he wanted to cut it. Guy Caron was up next for the NDP, and he demanded that the budget include investments in housing. Trudeau responded that their housing strategy was benefiting a million Canadians. Caron demanded more actions like cutting taxes on housing investments, to which Trudeau reiterated that their strategy was making progress. Peter Julian repeated the same question in English, and got much the same response from Trudeau, and when he brought up the big city mayors, Trudeau noted he met with them earlier in the day and that they thanked him for the investments.
My, what a spirited Talking Point Period! #cdnpoli
— Jason Markusoff (@markusoff) January 28, 2019
Roundup: Sixty-nine day countdown
The House of Commons comes back on Monday, in the new chamber in West Block, and with an election on the horizon. That means it will soon be a frantic scramble to get bills passed before June arrives, and there are a lot of constituency weeks between now and then. The count is sixty-nine sitting days officially left on the calendar, but from that you need to remove a prescribed number of opposition-controlled Supply Days, plus the budget. Add to that, more days will need to be subtracted for bills that the Senate will send back to the Commons – and there will be bills they will send back, and that will eat into the calendar – especially in the final days of the sitting in June, when everyone wants to go home.
The agenda still has a number of big items on it, with Bardish Chagger having identified their poverty reduction bill, the reform of the Divorce Act, and the bill to eliminate solitary confinement in federal penitentiaries – and that could prove the most difficult because there have already been judges weighing in on what they’ve read and they’re not impressed. That could set up for more back-and-forth from the Senate if they don’t make enough of the big fixes to that in the Commons sooner than later.
And the Senate really is going to wind up being the spoiler or the wildcard in all of this. They’re already underwater on their Order Paper, and the Chamber will be late in returning from the break because of the construction delays, and there has been very little movement from most of the committees on getting back up and running now, in order to make progress on the bills that are before them. (In one case, where the bill is highly contentious, the Conservatives have not been cooperating because the Independent senator who chairs the committee has basically been doing the bidding of the Government Leader in the Senate – err, “government representative,” Senator Peter Harder, so they wanted to send a message). The national security reform bill, sat at second reading for the entire fall sitting when it should have spent far more time at committee given how extensive and far-reaching the bill is. They need some serious adult supervision to get them back on track, and I’m not sure where that’s going to come from, so we’ll see how this plays out over the next few weeks.
Roundup: McCallum’s gambit
A political firestorm kicked off yesterday when it was revealed that our ambassador to China, John McCallum, held a media availability with Chinese-language media on Tuesday and didn’t inform Canadian media, and then he made comments about how Meng Wanzhou had a “strong case,” and laid out some reasons why, including the fact that Donald Trump politicised her arrest. There seemed to be some genuine confusion among the Canadian foreign affairs community about what exactly was going on here, including whether McCallum was freelancing or going on a limb, but during his own media availability later in the day, Trudeau didn’t distance himself from the comments – though he certainly danced around them a fair bit (though parliamentary secretary Arif Virani later went on Power & Politics to say that the government stood behind McCallum). And then the reaction – Erin O’Toole accusing McCallum of throwing the Americans under the bus, and Andrew Scheer insisting that he would fire McCallum if he was prime minister (for what good that would do).
It’s worth remembering that our extradition system always has the element of political discretion, in that the minister of justice has the final say once the court processes are over and have determined whether the case is viable. (Full explanation of the process here). Also, here’s a video of lawyer Michael Spratt explaining the process.
Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne says that McCallum put doubt into peoples’ minds about the rule of law, and will be seen to indicate a preference for the outcome, before wondering if McCallum was just freelancing or buying time with the Chinese. Given the swift media reaction in China, there may be more of the latter than the former in the calculation, but it’s hard to know at this point.
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1088187071204941827
https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1088095085886140416
Roundup: Recession fear-mongering
At an event at the Economic Club of Canada yesterday, Ontario premier Doug Ford asserted that the federal carbon price backstop – which will affect Ontario – will plunge the country into recession. That Ford wasn’t laughed out of the room is a bit more than curious, because that kind of assertion is beyond ridiculous. BC has had a carbon tax for ten years, and not only is not in recession, but is leading the country in economic growth. Quebec has a carbon price using cap-and-trade, and is also doing quite well in terms of its own economic growth. Alberta’s carbon tax didn’t cripple its economy either, and what fiscal troubles it has are related largely to the low world price of oil that stems from a global supply glut, the temporary price differential issue having pretty much been resolved before the production cut even went into effect, now that the American refineries are back in operation. “Oh, but there’s a report that says it’ll slow the economy!” Ford says – except that report says it’ll be about by 0.02 percent at a time when the economy is growing by two percent.
Ford’s environment minister later took to TV to try and falsely insist that the federal Parliamentary Budget Officer projected a hit to the economy from a carbon tax (he actually said that it would only have an impact if revenues weren’t recycled in an efficient manner), and that BC’s carbon tax didn’t stop its emissions from growing (also false, because the emissions are far lower than they would have been without the price, while their economy continued to grow). So Ford is relying on lies to feed his false narrative that is trying to get the population angry so that they’ll vote out Trudeau. And what was Catherine McKenna’s response? Her same line about Conservatives wanting to make pollution free, and that they have no plan for the environment. So, the lies stand on the official record. Slow clap, everyone.
"When asked if Mr. Ford has any experts to back up his claim, his office pointed to a 2018 report from the Conference Board of Canada that said a federal carbon tax could shrink Canada’s GDP by as much as $3-billion."
That's 0.1% of GDP ($2.2tr). https://t.co/pzBsnxURkL
— Stephen Gordon (@stephenfgordon) January 22, 2019
1) Life always gets more expensive. It’s called inflation. We consider 2% to be a good thing.
2) Data have proven that carbon taxes have not had an adverse effect on inflation.
3) Carbon taxes do mitigate the growth of GHGs. This is proven. Saying otherwise is just lying. https://t.co/z7YW6RCd1t— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) January 22, 2019
Roundup: The data for the debunking
I love a good takedown of some tired talking points, and lo, we have another doozy. You know how Andrew Scheer’s whole schtick and electoral campaign strategy is that carbon pricing makes life unaffordable for people because it drives up costs? This is the narrative he’s pinning his fortunes on, and lo, we find more data that it’s simply not true. Data from Alberta, which implemented its carbon tax two years ago, found that the inflation levels weren’t any different from other provinces, meaning that carbon taxes didn’t drive up prices. Mind you, having data won’t stop Scheer’s carousel of lies, because lying to people to make them angry is what he thinks is going to win him the election (and it might), but it’s still a lie, and we have yet more proof that it’s a lie.
Has Alberta's CTax affected the overall cost of living? Some claimed it would have a large effect (contrary to careful analysis).
With today's inflation data, we now have *two full years* of data to check.
Answer: No. AB inflation similar to elsewhere. #ableg pic.twitter.com/c8z2q2ZxLq
— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe) January 18, 2019
To be sure, this isn't to say there's no effect. But the estimated effect of CTax on aggregate prices in general, and food prices in particular, is on the order of a tenth of a percent. Not something we'll be able to notice or measure in the data (which is why we have models).
— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe) January 18, 2019
Of course, that doesn’t mean that the other side isn’t being sloppy with its own messaging. Rachel Notley is trying to go after Jason Kenney talking about tolls, but she undermines her own arguments for a carbon tax because it’s the logic works the same way. But that’s the attempt at populist messaging for you. Unfortunately.
The argument for either is very similar. There's an externality, and pricing that improves outcomes.
Yes, costs for certain activities goes up with either policy, but other taxes can be lowered or transfers provided.
— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe) January 18, 2019
Meanwhile the Yukon has come up with their carbon pricing system, which involves a certain level of rebates, with higher levels to those in remote areas – something that is of particular concern for those living in any of the Territories.
Details on how Yukon will use CTax revenue: https://t.co/mOkuqiXPit Looks well thought out, given unique challenges in the territories.
And since YG/Visitors/Feds are ~20% of fuel use (paying CTax), returning all rev as a rebate makes this is a net tax cut for Yukoners. https://t.co/cXKbC1Zjlw
— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe) January 18, 2019
Perspective on providing a full refund to placer miners: it means individual rebates have to be $165/yr smaller than they otherwise could be.
— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe) January 18, 2019
And looks like you get rebates for kids at the same rate as adults. Only variation is whether in remote community or not.
For family of four in remote area, rebate = $1,250 by 2023. Much larger than CTax costs are likely to be for a very large majority of families.
— Trevor Tombe (@trevortombe) January 18, 2019