Tag Archives: First Nations

Roundup: A plea for better data

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s Saturday presser made no big announcements – a review of a couple of their emergency measures for small businesses in particular – and calling on the children of the nation to help out their mothers for Mother’s Day, but that was about it. During the Q&A, Trudeau stated that the government had no plans to pay for masks that were deemed unusable that came from a Montreal distributor, and made the case that the system was working because they identified these masks as being defective before they went out to front line workers. He was also goaded by reporters into saying that he was worried about the situation in Montreal, given that it’s where his riding is, as the province continues to move ahead with their plans to reopen their economy.

The more interesting piece of news came from the ministerial presser that followed Trudeau, wherein Indigenous services minister Marc Miller put out the call for provinces and local public health units to collect data on First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people affected by COVID-19, because that data wasn’t being collected off reserves or Inuit territories. The quality of data collection in this country is an issue because provinces are not consistent or timely about it, which is making us a laggard with comparator countries as we try to get good data on this pandemic. More to the point, not having this kind of data means that we’re not getting good information on how it’s spreading, particularly if you look at some of the communities affected, like La Loche in northern Saskatchewan.

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Roundup: Eliminating the staffer excuse

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The day got off to a slightly different start – the prime minster didn’t have a daily presser because he was off to CFB Trenton for the repatriation ceremony for the crew of the downed Canadian Forces Cyclone helicopter (which is a whole issue I plan to write more on in another place), and there were no announcements in the ministerial presser before the special COVID-19 committee met in the House of Commons chamber for more ministerial questions, followed by a take-note debate.

While the “virtual” special committee reconvenes today, I wanted to draw attention to this piece in the Hill Timesthat shows the impact these meetings are having on the support staff, and in particular the interpreters, who are burning out and suffering cognitive injuries as a result because these meetings are harder on them, when they’re already at a reduced capacity because many are stuck at home without childcare. Why this is particularly important is because leading up to these meetings, we were inundated with a bunch of chuckleheads and tech bros with a superiority complex who were going around shouting “Teach MPs how to Zoom!” and “Okay, Boomer,” and so on. Turns out that it’s more complex than that, and the people we can’t see are paying the price for it.

It’s also a sign of just how disingenuous the government was when they kept insisting that in-person sittings were going to expose all of these staffers in the West Block to potential exposure to COVID-19. But the problem is that even when the MPs aren’t there to meet, these staffers still need to be there to run the daily press conferences, and to run the virtual meetings, and no, they can’t do it from home. And if the workload is more difficult for some of them, like the interpreters, if the MPs are doing this “virtually” instead of having a smaller number of MPs sitting on a regular basis, then their justification is completely blown out of the water. There is no reason why they shouldn’t have proper skeletal sittings three days a week, and we now see that it would be better for these staffers than these “virtual” meetings are.

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Roundup: Virtual aggression at committee

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau began his daily presser a little earlier than usual, owing to the fact that the Commons’ Special Committee on COVID-19 was meeting at noon, and today, the announcement was for $252 million in aid for food producers and the agri-food sector – which he assured us was a “first step,” as the industry representatives have been asking for some $2.6 billion in aid. Some of this aid was for beef and hog producers to keep their animals longer, given that meat processing plants have faced outbreaks and been shut down; other funds were for the government to buy stocks of produce that is facing the risk of expiring, in the hopes that it can be distributed elsewhere. During the Q&A, when asked about news that there were eyewitnesses to the crash of the Canadian Forces Cyclone helicopter off the coast of Greece, Trudeau responded that the military has their protocols for notification that he respected.

And then there was the “virtual” Special Committee meeting, which was a decidedly less friendly tone than it had been last week. MPs asking questions were constantly interrupting ministers because they felt they were going too long (because talking points need to be recited), some MPs had signs up in their backgrounds which they wouldn’t have been able to get away with in a regular Commons sitting or committee meeting, and some MPs felt the need to lob personal insults as part of their questions – and the Chair said nothing of it. In fact, had they done so during QP, the other MPs in the chamber would have raised hell, and the Speaker would have been obliged to say something, if only a warning about inflammatory language. But because it’s “virtual” and there can be no heckling, some MPs are feeling emboldened. I suspect it’s also the kind of emboldened attitude that people have when they abuse customer service people over the phone because they don’t have to look them in the eye, and this goes directly to my warnings about the social contagion that will accompany any attempts to solidify “virtual sittings” of Parliament.

The other thing of note was that MPs were asking questions about things that were outside the ambit of the committee, which is supposed to be about the pandemic response. Questions about the assault rifle ban are not about pandemic response, and those should have been ruled out of order. As well, the thing that kept getting asked repeatedly during the hearing was the notion that the government should deny aid to companies who use legal tax havens, because they are “immoral.” It’s a bit galling for MPs to be calling on the government to deny aid to people who work for those companies, particularly since they are not engaging in illegal behaviour. The minister, Diane Lebouthillier, kept repeating that the CRA was investigating anyone using illegal tax avoidance, but wouldn’t call out that what was being demanded was problematic. The other reason why those demands are problematic is they keep saying “Demark did it!” without offering any kind of analysis of how Denmark’s tax system compares to Canada’s, particularly where tax havens are concerned. When Denmark introduced their 75 percent wage subsidy and people kept pointing to it, they ignored the list of caveats that accompanied it, which was vital context. But hey, parties need soundbites and clips for their social media, even now.

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Roundup: Bringing in the assault-rifle ban

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For the second day in a row, prime minister Justin Trudeau held his daily presser in the West Block instead of outside of Rideau Cottage, and once again, he was flanked by Cabinet ministers for an announcement – this time it was to declare that he had signed an Order-in-Council that relegated some 1500 “assault-style” rifles to be illegal, effective immediately, with a two-year amnesty period while they sorted out the legislation around the buy-back programme that was going to accompany it, which would be tabled as soon as we got back to regular parliamentary operations, along with a budget. They took great care to say that legitimate hunters and sport-shooters were not being targeted, and Chrystia Freeland spun a homily about her father the farmer taking his hunting rifle to scare off bears and to shoot prairie chickens that would become dinner – but also made the point that part of what they were doing was targeting the fetishization of particular weapons as part of gun culture.

The reaction was fast and furious – the Conservatives considered it to be pure politics and that they were taking advantage of the tragedy in Nova Scotia to score points (because they never did that). Jason Kenney was predictably apoplectic and declared that he was looking at replacing the federal firearms officer with a provincial chief firearms officer for all the good it would do, considering that these changes are under the Criminal Code, which is federal jurisdiction. Many gun control advocates said that these measures didn’t go far enough, and that they didn’t live up to the promises that the Liberals made during the election. There is also the very legitimate criticism that these kinds of measures are useless unless more attention and resources are poured into security the border against illegal gun smuggling, which is how a great many illegal firearms wind up in this country.

Add to that was a great deal of hue and cry about the way in which this government went about doing this, which is by Order-in-Council, and many a voice over social media including some reporters who should know better that this was all very unseemly in a “minority government.” (Reminder that there is no such thing as a “minority government” – we have a hung parliament but a government is a government regardless of whether they hold a majority of seats in the legislature or not, because government is Cabinet). So, to break it down, it’s not unseemly because this kind of ban happens through regulation – the legislative framework is already in the Criminal Code. And you want this kind of ban list in regulation because you’re not going to amend the Criminal Code every time you need to add or subtract a particular make of weapon from the prohibited list. That’s why regulation exists, and has its own consultative processes and review by the Scrutiny of Regulations committee in Parliament. The government will still need legislation for their buy-back programme and any other assorted measures to mitigate and compensate current owners, and even though it’s a hung parliament, the Bloc and NDP are almost certainly going to be in support of these measures, so that’s less of a concern for them.

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1256259714234679301

https://twitter.com/PhilippeLagasse/status/1256266671083454465

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Roundup: Bullying through a motion on a false promise

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau once again began his daily presser talking about the tragedy in Nova Scotia, and recounted some of his conversations with RCMP members and Senator Stan Kutcher (who not only represents the province but has a background in mental health). He then turned back to the global pandemic, noting that it has made inequalities more pronounced, and with charities spread thin trying to provide support, he announced that $350 million was being set aside as part of an emergency community support fund. He then announced that the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy would be available as of Monday, and starting today, a calculator would be available on the CRA website for employers to calculate what they would be able to apply for. He also talked about the kinds of contributions that the innovation superclusters have been making to the current situation, for a bit of good news. During the Q&A, Trudeau had more information about the reports of the two planes that returned from China empty that he wasn’t able to answer during QP on Monday, this time noting that because of the severe restrictions in China as for how long they were able to remain on the ground, while supply lines to the airports have been frustrated with checkpoints and delays, it forced them to take off empty for the time being. Trudeau also said that the promised gun control bill was nearly ready to be tabled before Parliament was suspended for the pandemic, but wouldn’t promise that it would be tabled before regular sittings resumed. As well, regarding that meat plant shut down because of an outbreak, Trudeau said they were trying to ensure domestic supply though it could affect prices.

Meanwhile, the Procedure and House Affairs committee was meeting (remotely), and we found out that the Clerk of the House of Commons says that there’s no way they’ll be able to facilitate any kind of “remote” sittings until mid-May at the earliest, and that he told the Government House Leader this before the government bullied through their motion on Monday about one in-person sitting a week and two-virtual ones. In other words, they knew that the virtual ones couldn’t happen, but they acted as though they were, so they can say “Oh dear, looks like we can’t hold those sessions,” and stick to the one in-person sitting per week at a giant waste of resources to keep flying MPs in and out for a single day, rather than at least having the three in-person sittings per week which was perfectly reasonable. And no, this isn’t saving any of the staff exposure, because they would need to be in the West Block whether the MPs were there in person or “virtually” (which will include some MPs in the Chamber). Add to that, they only have the capacity to run at maximum ten “virtual” committee meetings between the Commons and Senate in a week, as the government also likes to pretend that they’ve been trying to ensure that as much of Parliament is functional under the circumstances. That’s not true, and even their planned “accountability sessions” for the next month are not actual sittings, but “special committee” sessions, even though some MPs have tried to paint them otherwise. It’s been one big exercise in preening that only makes the Conservatives look like they were right.

The Queen

Just a quick note to add that yesterday was the Queen’s birthday in her natural capacity. The Queen of Canada’s official birthday isn’t until Victoria Day, for the record. But the Queen and Prince Charles did send condolences to Canada for the tragic deaths in Nova Scotia.

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Roundup: Which party will blink first?

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Because it was Saturday, prime minister Justin Trudeau returned to a more casual demeanour for his daily presser – unbuttoned shirt, no tie, sweater, and blazer. There weren’t quite as many announcements today either – that they had reached an agreement with the Americans to extend the partial border shutdown for another 30 days; that there were new ads coming with famous Canadians in order to remind people to stay inside (and notably, the list was different in English than it was in French, because we have different famous people who don’t necessarily cross over); and that some $306 million was being allocated to help more Indigenous businesses who don’t normally get funding through traditional banks, so these funds would be coming through Indigenous financial institutions and administered through the National Aboriginal Capital Corporations Association (and it sounds like this had been asked for weeks prior).  As well, two more plane-loads of N95 masks had arrived, and more were on the way.

The lingering question, however, remains what sort of return to Parliament will be happening on Monday, as the Conservatives continue to press for more in-person hearings with a reduced complement of MPs, while there has been no word whether the Speaker has been able to get any kind of virtual hearings set up (which we don’t actually want, because it will be very, very bad for Parliament in the long-run, and no “surely it’s 2020” is not a good response when I say this). It seems the Conservatives want three or four in-person sittings, while the Liberals’ last known offer was one in-person sitting per week, plus a virtual one for a longer quasi-Question Period, while the NDP want a second virtual one (again, with the reminder that the Speaker hasn’t even said it’s possible, nor do we want them). And then Elizabeth May declared that she didn’t want any in-person sittings and would withhold unanimous consent on any motion that included them (but as the Greens don’t hold official party status, her consent is not required for any negotiation between parties). We’ll see what kind of deal gets struck at the last minute, and which party will blink first, but this is all a bit ridiculous.

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Roundup: Long-term care and quarantine

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Andrew Scheer was out first this morning, saying that he was trying to get some kind of a deal with the government on how to bring parliament back next week as they are scheduled to, and that he wants in-person sittings of some variety to ensure ongoing accountability (and he’s right). But when asked about bringing his family on that flight when they weren’t planning on them being there (and apparently Senator Don Plett had to get a different flight because it was suddenly full with Scheer’s family), he brushed off said questions. He then spent the rest of the day raising “serious concerns” about the WHO and its recommendations (recall that Jason Kenney on Monday accused Dr. Theresa Tam of repeating talking points from the People’s Republic of China), because what the world needs right now is to hew to the Trumpian instincts to undermine international institutions.

Next up was prime minister Justin Trudeau for his daily presser, in which he announced that four planes full of N95 masks have arrived and are in the process of being validated and distributed, before he brought up $130 million of new funding for the northern territories, including more money for healthcare, for Nutrition North, for northern air carriers, and money for the CanNor development agency. He also noted that they were working to enhance the Canada Emergency Business Account programme and were looking into something about commercial rent (though that’s provincial jurisdiction, so not sure what the federal government could do). As if that weren’t enough, he also raised that they were strengthening some of the measures under the Quarantine Act, as well as boosting the capacity of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, particularly when it comes to ensuring there are more inspectors on the line. Oh, and he didn’t offer any apologies for his trip to Harrington Lake on the weekend, so there was also that. When asked about the issue of long-term care facilities (which is provincial jurisdiction), Trudeau did say they were working with the provinces to see about sending some additional funds to bolster salaries, so there’s also that.

Meanwhile, Vancouver’s city council tried to meet “virtually,” and here’s how that went down, in case anyone thinks it would actually go any better with 338 MPs in parliament.

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Roundup: Dire stats as Parliament is recalled

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It was a very busy morning – first, Statistics Canada released the March job figures, which were dismal – 1.01 million jobs lost, massive reductions in hours worked, but also (which everyone didn’t really report) that most of these jobs will likely come back once the pandemic measures are over with, which is significant. Following that, the federal Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, released some of the federal modelling on the course of the pandemic, which put everyone into a hot and bothered state.

When prime minister Justin Trudeau held his daily presser, he largely played the role of empathiser in chief – yes, these are all grim numbers, but we’ll get through them together. More to the point, we could be in this until summer, so it’s time to get used to our new normal, particularly if there are subsequent waves that follow this one (though those ones would likely not be as severe and wouldn’t require the same measures like the current lockdown – hopefully). He did also say that he respected parliament but then started making excuses for why he wanted a virtual one, and nope. Not going to fly, sorry.

It was announced later in the day that Parliament will be back on Saturday – 12:15 for the Commons, 4 for the Senate, which likely means Royal Assent by the time the day is over. That means that we’ll have yet more emergency legislation that gets maybe three hours of “debate” in the House of Commons, and that once again all of the negotiations have been done behind closed doors, and there will be no public record about what kind of amendments were requested and agreed to, which serves no one’s interests, particularly those of Canadians.

[Maclean’s has a new Q&A with Dr. Isaac Bogoch on questions people have about the pandemic]

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Roundup: Data-sharing and demanding models

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For his morning presser, prime minister Justin Trudeau noted that he was planning a teleconference with the premiers that evening to talk about coordinating their efforts, and better data sharing. He also stated that they had received 1 million new N95 masks the night before, and that they were working to validate the 10 million other masts they got over the past several days and were distributing those to the provinces as well. He got more questions on modelling the pandemic, saying that it was still coming because the data wasn’t there yet, and said that those returning to Canada from abroad posted a “real risk” to the entire country if they didn’t follow the rules and immediately self-isolate.

During the ministerial briefing that followed, Patty Hajdu wouldn’t entertain questions on whether or not she trusted the data coming out of China, saying that they relied on WHO data, and dismissing some of those concerns as conspiracy theories, which had the pundit sphere in a tizzy the rest of the day. Mark Miller also said that they were considering requests from a couple of different First Nations about military field hospitals being set up in their regions, while more money for pandemic preparedness was flowing. Bill Morneau had a separate appearance before a teleconference of the Commons finance committee (which was a bit of a gong show), where he stated that they went with hard-and-fast rules for compensation that could mean that there are gaps in coverage because that was the fastest way to get compensation out the door. (Of course, he didn’t spell out the capacity challenges, which just leaves him vulnerable to more baseless criticism).

[Maclean’s has updated their Q&A on symptoms and where to get testing]

As for the debate over producing the modelling, we’re seeing some provinces promising to roll theirs out – Doug Ford promising it’ll be today – but I’m having a hard time trying to see what it’s going to do at this point that will be of any real help. I am very convinced that we don’t have enough good and consistent data right now (and there are several experts who say we don’t have enough to do proper modelling just yet), and if people want to see how bad it can get, just look at Italy or Spain. I also don’t trust in the capacity of the majority of my fellow journalists to interpret any of this modelling data anywhere near correctly, given that they have proven to be proudly innumerate already during this pandemic (and a good many of them can’t handle basic civic literacy when they cover politics), so I am largely convinced that they are demanding the models for the sake of easy narratives, such as a screaming headline about worst-case scenario death counts. (Seriously – I have been in this industry long enough to know that’s exactly what’s coming). And I also fail to see how it would offer any kind of reassurance to the public, especially as they can see the death counts in other countries as well as they could a headline about worst-case scenario modelling in Canada – add to that the additional confusion of the disputes over methodology that would follow. Models aren’t data, and according to one data analyst I know, no one will read the technical quotes associated with any released modelling, and it will serve as disaster porn – and she’s right. I mean, certain outlets who shall not be named relied on dial-a-quote outrage from certain familiar sources to bolster their case for demanding the numbers be released, in the face other outlets getting opinions from specialists who are saying it’s too soon to have good data on this. But maybe I’m just pessimistic.

https://twitter.com/moebius_strip/status/1245825513072951297

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Roundup: Supplies, spin, and rent

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau’s daily presser was on the theme of medical supplies – signing agreements with three major medical suppliers in the country, MOUs signed with five other companies, and some 3000 other companies who have volunteered to help the government with those supplies in whatever way they can. Trudeau also noted that they have allocated an additional $2 billion for new personal protective equipment, largely by way of bulk-purchasing, and that more supplies would be arriving within days. As well, the government is tasking its next-generation manufacturing supercluster with scaling-up these kinds of producers to meet the domestic and global demand. Why this became a somewhat fraught issue is because there are places in the country where PPEs are being rationed, and Quebec stating that they were days away from running out – though Trudeau said that in some cases, it may be the medical providers who were rationing because they were trying to preserve supplies for an anticipated surge of cases.

[Here is another Q&A with infectious diseases specialist, Dr. Isaac Bogoch, and a discussion on the current debate about masks.]

Meanwhile, the National Post hears from a bunch of government insiders who claim that the attempt to get the power of taxation without parliamentary approval was about trying to hold leverage of the big banks who have been reluctant to loosen lending requirements, which is an explanation that makes absolutely no sense, and makes me again repeat that there appears to be a cadre of jackasses in Morneau’s office who have been responsible for many of this government’s missteps and woes, and we shouldn’t trust them.

And while I’m on the subject of jackasses, I spent much of yesterday on the Twitter Machine trying to remind people that rent is provincial jurisdiction, so constantly hounding the federal government is a waste of time. This was met with numerous people who insisted that the federal government could invoke the Emergencies Act to claim that power. The mind boggles. Why in the hell would the federal government invoke the tool of last resort to intrude into landlord/tenant legislation when the provinces are perfectly capable of doing so on their own. It makes zero sense. Add to that the people crying out that the federal government should immediately give money to renters, as though there were a mechanism to do so. It’s taking the CRA three weeks to retool their systems to deliver the CERB, which is a pretty breakneck speed to ensure that the system can do what’s being asked of it and hopefully not fail doing it (because their computers are not magic, and you can’t just type “give everyone $2000” and expect it to happen. It’s impossible). And no, there is no analogous funding arrangement to healthcare or post-secondary, as others were trying to claim – those are funding envelopes to provincial governments that come with agreements. They don’t go to individuals, and they are not spending in provincial jurisdiction over the objection of any province. The number of people who seem to think otherwise is astounding.

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