Tag Archives: First Nations

Roundup: Defunding the Police

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A lot of the discussion over the weekend has been taken up by the “defund/abolish” police narratives that have been part of the Black Lives Matter protests, both in the US and Canada, and while it’s not literally abolish or defunding police (thread here, also a good op-ed by Calumn Marsh here) – which doesn’t actually help their cause when it simply invites kneejerk reactions – I just wanted to offer a word of caution that a lot of these goals with this movement are things that cannot happen overnight. Building the kind of capacity for other social service agencies to take over the work that we have foisted upon police because we didn’t want to pay for them elsewhere will mean that it will take years before any kind of shift can possibly happen, it also makes other assumptions about the state of the current mental healthcare system (thread here), for example, that may not reflect reality. Another bit of context here is that American police are often poorly educated and trained, which is less often the case in Canada, so calls for reductions in salaries as part of this radically reformed force make me wonder if we may be doing more of a disservice to the ultimate goals, where you would want people more likely to have some critical thinking skills and able to better execute judgment. So while it’s a noble idea, we should be cautious about putting carts before horses.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1269643795286687744

Meanwhile, here’s a look at how the RCMP has not been responding to reports or investigations made by its Civilian Review and Complaints Commission, and how at least one has been waiting for responses since 2013. And yes, this is the same complaints commission that the government wants to add CBSA to its mandate (which I will remind you will only mean that CBSA will continue to investigate itself and simply report to this body).

With this in mind, here is Philippe Lagassé with some thoughts on what “civilian control” of the police could or possibly should look like.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269268004325507073

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269289824869126147

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1269292825000148993

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Roundup: The safety of being in fourth place

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Ah, the safety of being the third and fourth parties in the House of Commons, where nothing you say really matters! Case in point with both Yves-François Blanchet and Jagmeet Singh, who spent yesterday lambasting prime minister Justin Trudeau for not badmouthing Donald Trump in public – Blanchet calling Trudeau “spineless,” and Singh condemning Trudeau’s silence. Because there’s nothing like demanding that the leader of our country insult the thin-skinned and erratic leader of our closest neighbour and trading partner, whom we rely on for economic security and military protection. Yeah, poking that bear will have no consequences whatsoever! One expects this kind of thing from Blanchet, who never has to worry about ever being in power, but for Singh, it seems to further prove that he has no interest in even pretending like he has a shot at forming a government, so he’s going to simply grandstand (badly) and look as unserious as he possibly can. And it’s more than just these kinds of declarations – it’s the demands that pretend that massive systemic change can happen with the snap of a finger, or that the federal government can just reach into provincial jurisdiction willy-nilly and using the incantation Canada Health Act as though it’s a justification or a blueprint for a federal role that accidentally forgot the part where you need to negotiate with the provinces first, and assumes that they’ll gladly sign onto whatever programme is being offered to them with all of the strings attached. Real life doesn’t work like that – but apparently you don’t need to worry about real life when you’re the fourth party.

Shameless self-promotion alert:

I’ll be appearing (virtually) before the Procedure and House Affairs committee this morning to talk about “hybrid” sittings and remote voting for MPs. (Spoiler: I’m against them). The fun starts at 11 AM Eastern.

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Roundup: That 21-second pause

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Sometimes the news out of prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily pressers is unexpected, and yesterday was no exception. After first acknowledging that he would be speaking more on the situation with anti-Black racism in the House of Commons later, Trudeau turned to the subject of the government’s efforts to procure more personal protective equipment and the industry retooling to supply it domestically in Canada. But none of this was the actual news. It was during the Q&A that, after a question on Hong Kong (Trudeau: We are very concerned because there are 300,000 Canadian citizens there), he was put on the spot about what Donald Trump is doing in the US, and what Trudeau’s silence in not denouncing it says. And then Trudeau paused. Gathering his thoughts, for twenty-one seconds, there was uncertainty as to what was going on in his mind, when he finally spoke about the “horror and consternation” of what was going on in the US – but he was very diplomatic and not calling out Trump on anything specifically. There is a relationship to manage there, especially during this global pandemic. When asked about Israel, Trudeau reiterated the support for a two-state solution and that he is “concerned” about annexation plans into Palestinian territory and that he told both prime ministers of that country (because there are now two) about it personally. He was also was asked about the MMIW Inquiry report and its finding of “genocide,” and Trudeau prevaricated somewhat, using the term “cultural genocide” before talking about the need to do better and work on the road to reconciliation, but wasn’t going to allow himself to be drawn into using other language.

A short while later in the Commons, Trudeau stood to give his speech on racism, and made sure that he had MP Greg Fergus and minister Ahmed Hussen in the frame behind him – because it’s always about optics. Nevertheless, he stated that he didn’t want to be another white politician lecturing about racism, and said that not being perfect is not an excuse for not doing anything, before he listed actions his government had taken in engaging the Black community, for what it’s worth.

Andrew Scheer gave a far more predictably milquetoast denunciation of racism, name-checking convenient names for his narrative along the way, like Lincoln Alexander and John Ware. But in his denunciation of racism – including anti-Asian racism and anti-Semitism along the way in light of a recently vandalized synagogue, he kept going on about peaceful protests over riots, and the importance of freedom, singling out economic and religious freedom. There was zero awareness from Scheer about structural racism, or self-awareness in how his party’s “tough-on-crime” fetishism contributes to over-policing at the heart of these protests.

Yves-François Blanchet was less equivocal than Scheer, going on about the anthropology of there being no such thing as race and that racism was about othering – but then stated that the Canadian and Quebec governments “weren’t racist” (erm, you do know what Bill 21 in Quebec was all about, right?) before saying that there may be “traces” that create systemic barriers. And then this shifted to a demand to process the claims of certain asylum seekers (because there’s nothing like the reliance on low-wage and untrained labour that is a direct beacon to the systemic barriers that these very minorities face) before citing that peaceful protests were legitimate and violent ones were not.

Jagmeet Singh kept saying that the government needs to make concrete action instead of making “pretty speeches,” and that the prime minister has the power to do things beyond words, demanding things like ending racial profiling, ending the over-policing of Black and Indigenous bodies, subsequent over-incarceration of Black and Indigenous people, and the need for race-based data. But as Singh can’t even grandstand properly, when he was up to question Trudeau several minutes later in the special committee, he seemed to indicate that things like ending racial profiling could be done with the snap of a finger, and when he demanded that boil water advisories be lifted in First Nations communities, Trudeau reminded him that they are on schedule for doing just that.

Elizabeth May closed out the speeches by naming as many Black and Indigenous deaths at the hands of police that she could recall, before talking about the cyclical nature of these kinds of denunciations every few months, acknowledging her white privilege, denounced Trump, and called on the government to root out white supremacist groups as a terrorist threat, particularly within police forces in Canada.

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Roundup: Not the provinces’ cash cow

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Everything got off to an earlier start yesterday, beginning with the ministerial presser, during which Marc Miller announced another $650 million being allocated to Indigenous communities for healthcare, which would also include added income supports for those living on-reserve, as well as some $85 million to build new shelters for women on reserves. Marc Garneau also announced that the ban on cruise ship docking in Canadian waters was going to be extended to October 31st, which will impact the economies of these communities, but also limits potential vectors for the pandemic. When pressed about the issue of airline ticket refunds, Garneau reiterated the warning that the sector could fail if they were forced to refund all of the tickets, though later on, prime minister Justin Trudeau indicated that there were talks ongoing.

For his presser, Trudeau started off by talking about his teleconference with the premiers and spoke about sick leave being one of the items on the agenda, and it was later in the Q&A that he said that he was offering for the federal government to assume most of the responsibility for the costs, rather than putting it on business owners, but it sounds like some premiers remain rather cool to the idea. After reiterating the earlier Miller/Garneau announcement, Trudeau took questions, which included mention that he was trying to get premiers to agree to some modified orders at the Canada-US border that would allow family reunification, such as cases like the Canadian woman who was trying to get the American father of her unborn child into the country before she gave birth – but again, there are premiers who are not keen. After the questions, Trudeau then gave an unprompted statement on anti-Black racism as a result of what’s going on in the US – that there is a need to stand up as a society, that there needs to be more respect, and that we have work to do as well in Canada. He called on all Canadians to stand together in solidarity, as they know how deeply people are being affected by what we are seeing on the news.

Something else raised in Trudeau’s Q&A was a letter sent to him by five of his Toronto-area backbenchers, calling on him to lead the country in national standards on long-term care, and to press Ontario for a full public inquiry into what happened with the breakdown in care (which I maintain won’t tell us anything we don’t already know). Trudeau praised them for their efforts, and talked about the ongoing talks with provinces, but two of those MPs were on Power & Politics later in the day, and something that I was also glad to hear was Judy Sgro saying that while they wanted federal leadership, they both were respecting that this is provincial jurisdiction and they also didn’t want the provinces treating the federal government like a “cash cow” when you have premiers like Ford demanding more federal funds to fix their own long-term care mess. My own patience for provinces crying out for federal funds to fix the problems in their own jurisdiction is wearing mighty thin, particularly as most of those provinces have broad taxation powers at their disposal (though some of those provinces have less tax room available to them – Ontario, however, is not one of them). Premiers don’t want to have anything on their books and would rather it come from Ottawa’s, so that they don’t have to look like the bad guy when it comes to paying for their own programmes – never mind that there’s really only one taxpayer in the end.

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Roundup: A horrific report

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The theme of the day was set from the start of prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser – that the military deployed to long-term care in Ontario had found troubling cases of abuse and neglect, and that Trudeau immediately forwarded on those concerns to premier Doug Ford. Trudeau then went on to talk about their contract with GM in Oshawa for more face masks, and spoke about the other partnerships for things like more ventilators and other equipment. Trudeau also spoke about funding up to 700 youth jobs in the agriculture sector, and that he was convening a meeting with the UN Secretary General and the prime minister of Jamaica as part of an international push to ensure poverty reduction as a result of the pandemic. During the Q&A, Trudeau was asked repeatedly about the request to fast-track the claims of asylum seekers who were working in long-term care facilities, and he spoke about trying to find flexibility (but apparently not about the fact that it’s hugely problematic that facilities are hiring these extremely low-wage and largely untrained workers). When asked about the pending Meng Wanzhou extradition verdict, he said that the great thing about our justice system is that governments don’t have to apologise for it. And when asked further about the report on those long-term care facilities, Trudeau reiterated that this was a provincial matter, but that the federal government needed to be “part of the conversation” going forward.

A short while later, Doug Ford released the report, then wrung his hands about how terrible it was, and how he vowed he was going to take action – kind of like he promised that they would ensure there was an “iron ring” around these facilities, and well, that didn’t exactly happen either. And he talked tough, saying that the people who ran these facilities could face charges, but his government did cut back on inspections, so he has to wear that one too. And while he mouthed the words about taking responsibility for the situation, in the same breath Ford blamed his predecessors, and then said he was going to need “federal help,” which translates to “I don’t want to have to pay to fix this,” and he wants to put this on the federal books instead of his own. Because that’s what always happens. The NDP opposition in Ontario was also making itself useless by demanding a full public inquiry, which won’t tell us anything we don’t already know, especially as we’ve just had another public inquiry on long-term care home deaths in this province, and it will simply be a justification to delay action, possibly permanently.

Meanwhile, the NDP and Greens voted in the House of Commons to prop up the Liberals’ motion to carry on with the useless “special committee” hearings rather than proper sittings of the Commons, which also included provisions that means that they will rubber-stamp some $150 billion in spending on June 17th without a proper legislative or committee process, essentially abandoning their fundamental duties as MPs. Slow clap, guys. Slow clap.

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QP: Calling out a fake parliament

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It was a skeletal Chamber, as was to be expected during these pandemic times, not to mention a bit hot and stuffy. After some pent-up members’ statements, things got underway. Andrew Scheer led off, with his mini-lectern in front of him, and he immediately mocked the agriculture minister for saying that farmers don’t understand the programmes on offer to them. Trudeau responded by reading a list of actions that the government has taken. Scheer then shifted to the actions of the government of China toward Hong Kong, and demanded an unequivocal denouncement and a plan of action. Trudeau responded without notes that they support the people of Hong Kong, and that they would continue to work with allies to uphold human rights. Scheer suggested that wasn’t an unequivocal condemnation, and Trudeau responded that they have stated in no uncertain terms their “deep concern,” which got some chirping from the Conservative ranks. Scheer tried again, bringing up the plight of the two Michaels being held in China, and Trudeau repeated his response. Scheer again demanded action on China, and Trudeau reminded him of the statement with allies in defence of Hong Kong. Yves-François Blanchet was up next for the Bloc, and he gave a paean to Quebec’s “special” economy and praised its small businesses before condemning that political parties have received the wage subsidy. Trudeau reminded him that they need people to be taken care of so that the economy can come back strong after the pandemic. Blanchet demanded that money go to small businesses in Quebec, and Trudeau responded by listing measures available to small businesses. Jagmeet Singh then got his turn, demanding paid sick leave “immediately,” to which Trudeau read that they were continuing discussions with the provinces on the issue. Singh then demanded more help for people with disabilities, to which Trudeau said that they have set up an advisory committee to work on the ways to assist them.

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Roundup: A campaign of lies to demand Parliament’s return

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For his daily presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau opened with an announcement of some $75 million in additional support for off-reserve First Nations people, Métis and Inuit, primarily those in urban situations that require additional supports. He also said that provinces – most especially Ontario and Quebec – were being offered additional federal supports for testing and contact tracing as they open up their economies, which was later confirmed in the readout of the first ministers’ teleconference that took place later in the day. During the Q&A, Trudeau also referred to China not understanding the notion of what a rule of law country is after certain comments about the detention and determination of the extradition of Meng Wanzhou (and the BC court will make its determination next Wednesday).

Meanwhile, in the special COVID-19 committee, Conservative MPs engineered outrage by demanding the government answer questions on the Harrington Lake renovations, and when they were called out for the fact that the agreement between all parties was that the special committee’s ambit was on the pandemic, they tried to justify the question by saying that if the government was granted extraordinary spending powers, they needed to ensure that it wasn’t going to these renovations – which is disingenuous bullshit because the spending for those would have been approved of years ago. Nevertheless, they bundled their outrage clips and started putting shitposts around social media to claim that because we don’t have proper parliamentary sittings right now that they weren’t allowed to ask questions that the “government doesn’t approve of” – again, which is disingenuous bullshit. Those questions weren’t in the ambit of the committee, which is why they were objected to. I’m also incredibly pissed off that they are trying to make an issue out of these renovations, calling them “secret renovations” to “mansions for the prime minister’s enjoyment,” which is out of bounds. These are official residences, and every time they get weaponised like this in order to score political points, it means that we can’t maintain them properly. That’s the reason why 24 Sussex was allowed to turn into a crumbling shitpile, and yet here they are, carrying on the same kinds of accusations that led to this situation. They refuse to learn, and we all pay the price for it.

At the same time, I am exasperated by the fact that the Conservatives are now trying to use yet more lies and disingenuous bullshit to bolster their case to bring back regular sittings of a skeletal parliament. Nobody wants these sittings more than me, but the fact that they are trying to drum up fake outrage against Trudeau, claiming he is trying to permanently sideline parliament in favour of daily press conferences (where they falsely claim that he hand-picks the journalists asking questions), is really beyond the pale. But this is what the party has become under Andrew Scheer – a haven of liars who will say anything, no matter how outrageous, in order to try and score points. The fact that people saw through this and kept him from forming government should be a lesson, but no. They are barrelling ahead with this tactic, and it boggles the mind why they think this a winner for them. Poisoning the well hurts everyone in the end – most especially Parliament as an institution, which they suddenly claim they cherish and are trying to defend.

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Roundup: Pearl-clutching over fraud

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While he didn’t show up at the “virtual” special committee yesterday, prime minister Justin Trudeau nevertheless held his daily presser, during which he announced that they were creating a $470 million programme to support fish harvesters, which would include grants for those businesses who needed a bridge, and EI application rules for those who would have to miss the season because it wasn’t safe. As well, there was another $100 million for an agriculture and food solutions programme through Farm Credit Canada. Trudeau also noted the upcoming long weekend, and said that as of June 1st, some national parks and historical sites would be re-opened to the public – provided the province they are in would allow it – and that there were new restrictions for pleasure craft, with the intention that they not be allowed to head to places where they could infect local populations, particularly in the North.

Meanwhile, the breathless pearl-clutching fraudulent CERB claimants continues unabated, as the National Post procured yet another government documents that allegedly says to grant it even to people who have quit their jobs or been fired with cause, which shouldn’t be allowed. But as Trudeau stated under questions after his presser, the goal was to ensure rapid delivery for the 99 percent of people who were claiming this benefit for legitimate reasons, and that if they had insisted on more robust checks at the beginning of the process, the money still wouldn’t be flowing. This of course hasn’t stopped some of the usual suspects from tweeting bullshit about how the programme is being abused, with zero evidence and using examples that could not actually work. But let’s create a moral panic about it.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1260960640480407552

We also had some observers fanning themselves and reaching for their fainting couches when Liberal MP Wayne Easter, who chairs the finance committee, remarked to Bill Morneau at yesterday’s finance committee meeting, that he wanted a stronger statement from the government that they were going to deal with fraudulent cases. Imagine – an experienced backbencher taking a tough tone with his own party in government! Suffice to say, the message from this government has consistently been that if there is misconduct, it will be caught and dealt with at the appropriate time (and now is not that time). I’m not sure how much more explicit they can actually get, but maybe that’s just me.

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Roundup: Dairy commissions and questions of jurisdiction

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There were a couple of announcements for prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser yesterday – that Health Canada had approved a serological test that was critical to the work of the immunity task force; that some $1 billion in additional funds was being allocated to regional development agencies to help struggling businesses; and that the student benefits would be open for applications as of Friday. There were a lot of things that came up during the Q&A – demands from reporters for a budget or a fiscal update, for which Trudeau said that they couldn’t predict what was going to happen in a few weeks, so it didn’t make much sense to try to lay out a plan for the next twelve months. On the Canada-US border, it was strongly hinted that the current closure would continue for another month, but he wasn’t going to speculate past then. He talked about the need to work with provinces and municipalities as transit operators face a huge revenue shortfall. Regarding Norway’s sovereign wealth fund pulling its investments out of the oilsands, he remarked that it was clear that climate considerations were becoming a bigger feature in the investment landscape. He also promised to look into the issue of health researchers in the country facing layoffs because funding sources evaporated and they aren’t eligible for the federal wage subsidy because of a technicality.

And then it was off to the House of Commons, first for the in-person meeting of the Special Committee, which descended into farce fairly quickly and stayed there – Andrew Scheer railing about the revelations that potential fraud of the CERB isn’t being caught up-front, while his MPs both demand easier access to small business supports while clutching their pearls about the potential size of the deficit, apparently blind to the contradiction in their position. Meanwhile, Jagmeet Singh was demanding that the federal government swoop in and offer some kind of national guarantee around long-term care, giving Trudeau the chance to chide him about his disregard for provincial jurisdiction (and Trudeau was a little sharper on this than he often is).

The special committee eventually gave way to a proper emergency sitting of the Commons to pass the latest emergency bill, this time on increasing the borrowing limit of the dairy commission, while many a journalist mischaracterized this as “debating” said bill. There was no debate – it was pre-agreed to, and each party would give a couple of speeches that may or may not be related to the bill before they passed it at all stages for the Senate to adopt on Friday. At the beginning of this, however, Singh was back up with yet another motion, this time to call on the government to ensure that there was universal two-week paid sick leave – which is, once again, provincial jurisdiction. (The motion did not pass). I’m torn between trying to decide if Singh is genuinely clueless about what is and is not federal jurisdiction (a position bolstered by his promises in the election around things like local hospital decisions), or if he’s cynically trying to make it look like the federal government doesn’t care about these issues when they have no actual levers at their disposal to make any of these demands happen. Either way, federalism is a real thing, and trying to play it like it’s not is a real problem for the leader of a federal party.

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Roundup: A bridge loan, not a bailout

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It was a bit of a staggered rollout of the message of the day, starting with Bill Morneau and Navdeep Bains in Toronto to announce the creation of the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility (LEEFF), which is designed to give large employers temporary bridge financing if they can’t get it by other means, but that comes with a great many strings attached, such as ensuring that jobs and collective agreements are maintained, that climate change plans are not affected, and that there are limits to executive compensation, share buybacks, dividends, and on top of that, these companies will need to disclose their financial structures to ensure that they’re not avoiding taxes with offshore banks or shelters.

Justin Trudeau was up shortly thereafter for his daily presser, noting the start of National Nursing Week, before he spoke about enhanced measures for medium-sized businesses, and then reiterated the messages around the LEEFF, citing that these were bridge loans and not bail-outs, and that the government was only to be a lender of last resort. When asked whether this was some kind of attack on oil companies with the focus on environmental plans, Trudeau insisted that many of them had net-zero-by-2050 plans, so this condition should not have been more onerous on them – but that didn’t stop the usual suspects from complaining that this wasn’t the kind of help that the energy sector was looking for.

During the ministerial presser, Chrystia Freeland said that they working with the US to deal with the inevitable increase in cross-border traffic as economies started re-opening, as premiers express reservations around the possibility of visitors once again coming to Canada.

Meanwhile, here’s economist Kevin Milligan on the path of the labour market and the economy, that’s worth thinking about.

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259641163989970945

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259641908436930560

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259642852260278272

https://twitter.com/kevinmilligan/status/1259644740460404736

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