Tag Archives: First Nations

Roundup: Danielle Smith’s Nice History of Canada

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith took the opportunity to shoot a video on Parliament Hill when she was in town earlier this week, and it’s a doozy. It’s so bad. Some of it is outright revisionist history—Danielle Smith’s Nice History of Canada, where the Indigenous People and settlers got together to “tame an unforgiving frontier.” No, seriously. She actually said that. And there was so much nonsense about the energy industry and market. We know that the people she listens to engage in outright residential school denialism, but this is just galling.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 353:

Kyiv and Kharkiv were among the cities hit by a renewed Russian attack on critical infrastructure, particularly on the country’s power supply. Zaporizhzhia has faced a relentless barrage, as have the front lines in the east, where they are continuing their concerted push toward Bakhmut. Meanwhile, here is a look at the “drone hunters” trying to bring down those Iranian-made drones as best they can.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1624078327664242692

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Roundup: A ten-year health “deal”

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Before the big meeting between Justin Trudeau and the premiers, Trudeau had a one-on-one meeting with Alberta premier Danielle Smith, and it was…awkward. From her limp handshake to her hectoring about the “just transition” term, it was certainly something.

When the big meeting did happen, Trudeau and his ministers kept the attention on the big number: $198 billion over ten years, of which $46.2 billion is new funds, beyond planned increases in the Canada Health Transfer, and other promised funds for things like boosting the pay of long-term care workers and to hire front-line health workers. I am curious about this immediate $2 billion with no strings attached, intended to help meet things like surgical backlogs, but which you know premiers are going to use elsewhere (at least two of them have imminent elections) because they will immediately cry that this is one-time funding and not stable, long-term predictable funding. The increase to the transfer is tied to better data and increased digitization (which, frankly, was supposed to have been completed by now), plus $25 billion for the one-on-one deals with each province to meet specific needs, and finally another $2 billion over ten years for Indigenous health outcomes.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1623077585847726080

Of course, premiers aren’t happy because it wasn’t as much money as they wanted, and there are strings. Some, like Doug Ford, kept trying to spin this as “a down payment” when the federal government was pretty quick to say this money is it. And then you get former premiers like Jean Charest coming out of the woodwork to insist that strings attached is “risky,” while he repeats the straw man arguments that the federal government is trying to “run emergency rooms,” which absolutely nobody has ever stated, while the federal government just wants health dollars to be spent on healthcare. Nevertheless, the message from the federal ministers is that they expect these one-on-one deals with provinces to be signed in weeks, not months, because they want this all done before the federal budget. The Star has a look at how the logjam broke down, a little at a time.

“Losing control”

One of my perpetual pet peeves of mainstream media in this country is this insistence that we want MPs to be more independent, but the moment they show a glimmer of independence, we rend our clothes and wail that the leader is “losing control” of his or her caucus, and lo, it’s happening again. The story is about a group of Liberals, mostly from Montreal, who have taken exception with the preamble of the official languages legislation which recognises Quebec’s provincial language laws, which they object to both because it restricts anglophones in the province, but because a federal bill shouldn’t enshrine a provincial law in federal statute, and it was a dumb move by the federal drafters to put that in the bill. And one of the Liberals’ Franco-Ontarian MPs is pushing back. OH NOES! Trudeau is “losing control” of his caucus, as opposed to “he drafted a sloppy bill,” or “the minister didn’t consult her own gods damned caucus first.” The narrative is “losing control.” Zeus wept.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 350:

Ukrainian forces are claiming to have killed 1,030 Russian troops overnight on the front lines in the eastern part of the country. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has thanked parliament for approving his new cabinet picks as he shuffles up his ministers, including the defence minister.

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QP: Variations of keeping the heat on

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While the prime minister and his deputy were meeting with premiers about future health transfers, most of the other leaders were absent, safe Pierre Poilievre. Poilievre led off in French, then pointed out the increase in the national debt without fixing the system, and demanded the prime minister take responsibility for the problems he caused, never mind that this is the result of generations of provincial premiers cutting their systems to the bone. Randy Boissonnault reminded Poilievre of the additional transfers under the pandemic, and that the PM is meeting with premiers today. Poilievre went another round in English and got the same answer. Poilievre went back to French to accuse the government of causing runaway inflation with overspending, misquoting people left and right along the way, to which François-Philippe Champagne vociferously defended the government’s investments in science and innovation. Poilievre returned to English to mock the investment in Medicago before reciting his “triple, triple, triple” ear worm and his new line about keeping the heat on while cutting the tax. Champagne got back up to defend the investment in Medicago as investing in all vaccines until they found ones that work. Poilievre listed a bunch of non sequiturs he considered misspending, and then modified his talking point to promise that they would keep the heat on until they take off the tax. Karina Gould got up to list the things the government has done to help people while the Conservatives voted against it.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc and he accused the prime minster of dividing people with his appointment of Amira Elghawaby and the Liberal MPs raising concerns about the Charter of the French language. Pablo Rodriguez got up to taunt that the Bloc only exists to divide. Therrien got up to rail some more about those Liberal MPs, to which Ginette Petitpas Taylor recited well-worn talking points about the bill protecting French across the country, after the opposition benches stopped chanting “Pablo! Pablo!” in the hopes he would respond a second time.

Don Davies rose for the NDP, and he railed sanctimoniously about private delivery of healthcare, and Adam van Koeverden read some pabulum about the investments under discussion with the premiers. Daniel Blaikie repeated the question in French, and van Koeverden repeated his script in French.

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Roundup: The big health summit is today

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Today is the day, where the prime minster is meeting with the provincial and territorial premiers to lay out the future of health transfers, and from the sounds if it, it’s not a negotiation. The Senior Liberal Sources™ are pointing to a ten-year deal with an expansion to the main Canada Health Transfer, as well as individual deals with provinces that focus on their priorities, and yes, there will be strings attached to that money. Trudeau is framing this conversation in a way that talks a lot about data, but the more unspoken part of that is the fact that the point of that data is so that there can be outcomes that can be compared across jurisdictions, and not have it in a format where it takes six months or a year for researchers to compile the data in a way that’s usable, because each province reports their data differently. People often don’t realise that it’s one of the reasons why we have such poor statistical data in this country, which is because provinces (who are responsible for vital statistics) don’t report in a way that is consistent, and it takes StatsCan or other agencies like CIHI time to make the data work.

The other reason for strings, of course, is that provinces have a demonstrated history of not using health transfers on their healthcare systems. For the decade that health transfers rose at six percent annually, health spending in most provinces rose by somewhere around 2.2 percent annually, meaning a lot of that money got spent elsewhere. Andrew Coyne tweeted data going back 20 years, and it’s very noticeable the gap between what the federal government sent to provinces for healthcare, and what actually got spent on it. Given how much additional pandemic spending went directly to provinces’ bottom lines during the pandemic, there is no longer an appetite for this to continue, which is why strings are not only important, but need to be in place, and it looks like the premiers have finally run out of room in the court of public opinion to operate otherwise.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1622760959977656321

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 349:

Russian forces have been keeping up the pressure in the eastern part of Ukraine while they prepare for a new offensive, likely around the anniversary of the start of the invasion, and there are worries they could be putting that pressure in Donetsk so that they can launch a surprise attack in the south. As well, there has been shelling around Zaporizhzhia.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau says that Canada is ready to assist allies with aid they need around the earthquake in Türkiye and Syria.
  • François-Philippe Champagne and Pablo Rodriguez gave the new chair of the CRTC her marching orders in a public letter.
  • Marco Mendicino says that any foreign agent registry will need the buy-in from cultural communities in Canada lest it turn into a tool of stigmatisation.
  • As part of the government’s Ocean Protection Plan, there is investment in deep sea research; coastal First Nations chiefs have endorsed the marine protected area plan.
  • Canada is expanding its temporary work permit programme for Hong Kong residents.
  • The deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement says that McKinsey’s global record isn’t enough to disqualify it from Canadian government contracts.
  • The new Indigenous languages commissioner says he hopes to have his office fully operational by summer.
  • A labour tribunal has found that Parliament hasn’t been protecting the health and safety of its translation staff. Gosh, you think?
  • A man has been arrested for making death threats against the Liberal MP for Kichener—Conestoga, Tim Louis.
  • Former Liberal MP Raj Grewal wants the breach of trust charges laid against him during his time in office dismissed for lack of evidence.
  • The Conservatives are calling on the Auditor General to probe the McKinsey contracts, for no reason other than they’re building a conspiracy theory.
  • All opposition parties are peformatively demanding answers from the government about the Chinese “spy balloon.”
  • Quebec’s immigration minister is freaking out after reports that New York City is providing free bus tickets to asylum seekers trying to reach Roxham Road.
  • Matt Gurney explains why the gun control changes were an impossibility and a trap of the Liberals’ own making, which is why they had to walk them back.
  • Colin Horgan notes the Conservatives building conspiracy theories and trying to use the Unreal in order to tap into dark impulses in voters, as QAnon has done.

Odds and ends:

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Roundup: Barton deflates his critics

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I’m sure that in the minds of MPs, yesterday’s meeting of the Government Operations committee was going to be the high point of the calendar. Dominic Barton was coming to testify, and boy, were they going to blow open the case about how McKinsey got so many contracts with the federal government, or about what Barton knew about the Perdue Pharma scandal, and if they were really good, they could draw some kind of line between Perdue, Barton, Justin Trudeau, and the opioid crisis, and then dine out for weeks on the clips.

It really didn’t turn out that way. I mean, sure, opposition MPs were showboating for all they were worth, whether it was Stephanie Kusie being obnoxious, Garnett Genuis trying to pick fights, or Gord Johns’ unctuous sanctimony. Yves-François Blanchet personally turned up to try and get answers about what McKinsey allegedly told the government about immigration levels. But all of it was pretty much for naught.

Barton largely shut down most of their lines of attack. No, he’s not a close personal friend of the prime minister—they don’t go to dinner, he doesn’t have his personal phone number, they don’t hang out. There was no personal relationship so it didn’t win McKinsey any government contracts, and he wasn’t involved in any of those contracts regardless because he had been in Asia since 1996. He also denied knowing what McKinsey was doing with Perdue Pharma, because it wasn’t his area of responsibility, and he asked several times if they understood how a company like McKinsey operates. Really, he was asked to serve his country, and he did because he wanted to give back, is how he tells it. He also made the point that the civil service’s human resources systems are week, and need to be revamped with better training for civil servants if they want to cut down on the reliance on outside consultants, and he’s absolutely right about that (and yes, I have talked to people who study these things about that).

In all, it was just another example of how our Commons committees are largely dysfunctional and are nothing but theatre that we were unfortunate enough to be subjected to for two solid hours of bullshit. Because our Parliament is such a serious institution these days.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 344:

Russian forces shelled Bakhmut and ten towns and villages surrounding it, as they continue their advance on the strategically important city. (There are a couple of accounts of life in Bakhmut currently, here and here). As well, they destroyed an apartment building in Kramatorsk, because you know, they’re totally not targeting civilians. Meanwhile, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s crackdown on graft continues, with a raid carried out at the Tax Office and the home of a former interior minister.

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Roundup: A failure to condemn Carlson

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The increasing unseriousness of our Parliament continues apace. After Question Period yesterday, NDP MP Matthew Green stood up to move a unanimous consent motion to condemn Fox “News” personality Tucker Carlson for his comments calling for an armed invasion of Canada in order to depose Justin Trudeau, apparently before we “become Cuba.” (Carlson also called for a “Bay of Pigs” invasion, apparently not understanding how badly that went for the Americans). And when the Speaker asked if there was consent to move the motion, a few Conservatives said nay (and no, I couldn’t tell which ones did).

https://twitter.com/markgerretsen/status/1620592776697237505?s=61&t=KIxQXaMgTmXV7qHS5V9-FQ

A couple of points. Number one is that Green shouldn’t have bothered because this just gives Carlson the attention he craves, but we know what this is for—social media clips, so that he could plaster it over Twitter and whatever other socials he’s on that he got Parliament to condemn Carlson, and isn’t he a hero for doing so. It’s performative bullshit, and that’s what our Parliament runs on these days to our detriment. Point number two is that the Conservatives could have shut up and not shown support for foreign regime change, but they did not, meaning they a) agree with Carlson, b) want to appease the Carlson fans in their base, or c) didn’t want to give Green the clip he was fishing for. None of those three are good looks, and just shows the continued decline in the state of debate. Everyone should rethink some of their life choices here.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 343:

The villages of Klishchiivka and Kurdyumivka, which are on the southern approach to Bakhmut, came under renewed Russian fire. As well, a new assault against Vuhledar is unlikely to make gains. Meanwhile, a new US aid package to be announced later this week is said to include longer-range rockets, which Ukraine has been asking for.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1620441189710450690

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QP: Field-testing a new talking point

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While Justin Trudeau was in the building, he didn’t show up for Question Period today, nor did his deputy, but all of the other leaders were present. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and decried that the national debt has doubled (ignoring the reason, being the pandemic), and decried that rent and mortgage payments have doubled, worried about seniors, lamented supposed rising crime rates, and then somehow tied this all to McKinsey contracts, because that makes logical sense. Pascale St-Onge got up to agree that it was a difficult period with high inflation, but the government would be there for people who need it. Poilievre wondered if those most in need were McKinsey consultants, and lamented how much the government was spending on consultants (never mind the explosion in such contracts under the Conservative government and in Poilievre’s department in particular when he was a minister). Mark Holland got up to remind the Conservatives that when they were in government, they never talked about poverty or people using food banks, while praising his own government’s record on lifting people out of poverty. Poilievre then accused the government of telling people that they should stop complaining because they’ve never had it so good. Holland called out Poilievre for doing nothing about the situation other than making YouTube videos. Poilievre went on a tear about rental costs—which is provincial responsibility—and red tape preventing housing development—a municipal issue—and blamed the federal government for it. Holland got back up to insist that Poilievre is just amplifying anxiety. Poilievre then accused the government of trying to silence the debate, and demand they fix the problems instead, and Holland reiterated that the government is playing it straight about the problems the country is facing, while Poilievre’s only solution was to tell people to invest in crypto. Poilievre got back up, but had run out of questions. 

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc to wonder what the Notwithstanding Clause was for if not preemptive use—which is hilariously wrong. David Lametti got up to talk about minority rights, the dialogue between legislatures and the courts, and why the last word should not be the first. Blanchet rambled for a moment before quoting Pierre Trudeau on the Charter, and Lametti reminded him that Charters in Canada and Quebec were about protecting minority rights, and he repeated his point about dialogue with the courts.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and recalled the horrors that were in long-term care homes early in the pandemic and accused the government of doing nothing since, demanding legislated standards—never mind this is provincial jurisdiction. Kamal Khera got up to remind Singh that she was a nurse, and that the government appreciated the work of the Canadian Standards Association in developing national standards. Singh switched to French to lament increased privatisation, and Jean-Yves Duclos insisted they were holding up the principles of access and the public system.

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Roundup: Reducing chances of a wage-price spiral

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 338:

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

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

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Roundup: A note of optimism from the Bank of Canada

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The Bank of Canada’s decision to raise rates another quarter point yesterday was not a huge surprise, given that inflation is still running hot, and the labour market remains unsustainably tight, but what was of particular note was that the Bank was much more clear in saying that they are more likely to hold the rate at where it is if things continue in the current trajectory—though they did also provide the caveat that if things continue to run too hot they won’t hesitate to hike rates yet again. (Here is Kevin Carmichael’s great explanation of the decision).

It is also noteworthy that the Monetary Policy Report, which explains the economic landscape and gives some insight into the Bank’s thinking, was really quite optimistic in terms of the possibility of avoiding a recession, but seeing stalled growth in the middle of the year, with a return to slower growth by the end of the year—certainly more of a soft-landing scenario. It’s not guaranteed, mind you, given global economic forces and the mood of the public, but the report was not all doom and gloom, in spite of media narratives.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 337:

Weeks after both Wagner Group mercenaries and Russia forces claim they have taken the town of Soledar, Ukraine only now has started to withdraw its forces from the area, given the heavy toll it is taking as Russians and mercenaries essentially keep feeding lives into the grinder. This puts Russian forces once step closer to the strategically important town of Bakhmut. Meanwhile, Germany has indeed agreed to send its Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, as they were expected to.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1618294048187617283

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Roundup: Fire which gatekeepers?

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It sounds like Pierre Poilievre is back on his bullshit again (do the kids still say that?) with his “gatekeeper” nonsense, as in releasing another one of his cringey videos where he promises to “fire the gatekeepers” in order to build housing. Except I’m not sure exactly which gatekeepers he’s proposing to fire, because the biggest impediments to building housing are NIMBY homeowners and neighbourhood associations that oppose any kind of densification, not to mention the elected city councillors who enable said NIMBYism. How, pray tell, does Poilievre propose to “fire them”? I’m sure he’ll tell you that he’ll threaten to withhold federal transfers to municipalities that don’t comply, but then you’ve got elected councillors beholden to voters in conflict with the dictates of a federal leader, so that’s going to be fun.

Poilievre also held a press event in Vancouver yesterday where he unveiled plans to consult on a proposal that would allow First Nations to keep more federal tax revenue from projects on their lands—which sounds like a great policy! But it’s vague, has no details, and is almost certainly going to be a hell of a lot more complicated than he’s making it out to be, especially if he’s going to insist that provincial royalties and taxes won’t be affected either. Listening to the language he used, it also sounds like he hopes that this will be the kind of thing that will ensure projects get built, as though the money from this tax revenue will make concerns over environmental or social impacts evaporate, and I suspect he’ll be surprised when they don’t.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 336:

While Russian forces increase pressure around Bakhmut and Vuhledar, it is expected that Germany will announce today that it will send Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, and allow other countries to transfer them as well. Meanwhile, more officials have been named and fired in relation to corruption allegations, as Zelenskyy’s government continues their pledge to clean up the graft in government so that they can attain EU membership.

https://twitter.com/cfoperations/status/1617887130625413123

https://twitter.com/uasupport999/status/1618043593285062656

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