Tag Archives: Fiscal Austerity

Roundup: Openly pursuing creeping illiberalism

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You may have heard mention of a lavish trip that Conservative MPs took to London courtesy of a Hungarian think tank, but as you might expect from Canadian legacy media, the focus remains on the costs of the trip, and the stupid little partisan games in trying to get the ethics committee to look into it. What isn’t being mentioned is the fact that the think tank, the Danube Institute, is closely tied to the Orbán regime, and that is a worrying problem because of what it signals about right-wing parties in North America cosying up to Orbán.

Why this matters is because Orbán is undermining the rule of law and public institutions in Hungary, and is praising greater illiberalism. By cosying up to Orbán while has-beens like Stephen Harper try to sanitise his image through his IDU social club is because it creates a permission structure for right-wing parties like the Conservatives to start normalising the same illiberalism, pretending that this is all standard stuff for small-c conservative parties these days. The “don’t say gay” legislation in the US all came from Orbán’s playbook, and that is crossing over into Canada as well, with Conservatives openly winking and nodding to it, while you have conservative premiers invoking the notwithstanding clause to take away the rights of gender-diverse youth. This is the canary in the coal mine.

On the subject of creeping illiberalism, Conservatives (and MP Rachael Harder in particular) tried to get the public accounts committee to haul the CBC executives before them to “explain” why they don’t use the term “terrorist” when referring to Hamas, never mind that this is a practice shared by other news organisations like the BBC and The Associated Press. This kind of attempted intimidation is absolutely out of order, and represents political interference in the public broadcaster, which would be bad enough it Harder wasn’t the one always screaming about so-called “government censorship” with the Online Streaming Act and the Online News Act, as though that were a credible problem. It’s not, but it also seems to be both projection and an admission, that they want to control the news and programming, while accusing the Liberals of doing so (even though they absolutely are not). This is extremely dangerous for our democracy, and we should absolutely beware what they are trying to get away with.

Ukraine Dispatch:

While the attacks on Avdiivka continue, Russians struck an apartment building in Zaporizhzhia and killed two people. Ukraine has claimed responsibility for an attack on two Russian airfield in occupied areas using longer-range ballistic missiles quietly provided by the Americans, which is an unusual admission for them, but also signals that they can now hit Russian supply lines in more protected areas.

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Roundup: More apologies for past honours

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In the wake of the black eye that Canada collectively received after former Speaker Anthony Rota’s embarrassing blunder in recognising the Nazi-aligned veteran in the House of Commons, there has been some more soul-searching institutions around similar figures that that particular veteran. The University of Alberta returned a donation from said veteran to be used for their Ukrainian Studies programme, but more problematic for the institution was their former chancellor, Peter Savaryn, who was in the same Waffen-SS Galacia Division unit, and now Rideau Hall has apologised because Savaryn had also been granted the Order of Canada back in 1987, citing limited information sources at the time.

This has led Jewish groups in particular to call for the government to open up the archives related to the Deschene Commission, which looked at potential war criminals who resettled in Canada after the war, but a great many of their findings were redacted and kept secret. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says that senior bureaucrats are reviewing the Commission report, and considering making more of it public. But this is also being used as a political wedge. Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman is demanding the government take action on this, but meanwhile, one of her own MPs, Gérard Deltell, was saying in the media that he doesn’t think they need to revisit this history, that the past should remain the past.

But this isn’t necessarily a black-and-white issue, particularly for some Ukrainian communities in this country because they saw those people as nationalists who were using any means necessary to fight the Russians, who had already invaded and subjected them to a genocide—the Holodomor—and one suspects that Cold War considerations meant that it was in our interests to focus on the anti-Soviet aspect of their records during that period. But there are also a number of monuments to those Waffen-SS Galacia Division units across this country, particularly in private Ukrainian cemeteries, because of that complicated history, and it’s something we should have a national conversation and perhaps reckoning about sooner rather than later. But we need to be aware that this is fraught territory, and will be difficult for some.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine has carried out a drone strike on a Russian defence complex over the border in the Belgorod region, which is a rare admission of such an attack. This as Russians are claiming that they shot down a major Ukrainian drone offensive on their border regions. Meanwhile, the IMF says that Ukraine’s economy is expected to keep growing next year.

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Roundup: A cut or not a cut of the defence budget?

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Yesterday morning, the CBC had a story about the department of national defence looking to cut $1 billion from its books as part of the government’s ongoing spending review, and people lost their gods damned minds, both in Canada and in some international venues. The story was based on comments that were made at committee by the chief of defence staff and the deputy minister, and they talked about how it was going to be challenging to meet these reductions while worrying about capabilities. This was a bit of a surprise, because Anita Anand had previous said that defence was going to be exempt from her cost-cutting demands, but the comments from General Eyre and the deputy minister sounded like DND volunteered to do their share (which I always treat with suspicion—the previous Auditor General made his own pledge to do his part to make cuts as part of the Deficit Reduction Action Plan™, and lo, wound up delaying badly overdue IT upgrades that his successor needed to beg Parliament for more resources to deal with). And because this is not my first rodeo, I immediately presumed that what this likely means is the accounting game of shifting certain spending into future years or re-profiling some committed dollars that they can’t spend (because they simply don’t have the capacity to spend their current allocation), but a whole lot of people who should know better freaked all the way out.

This came up in Question Period, and Bill Blair was present, but he didn’t really answer the question—he took a swipe at the Conservatives for their record of cutting defence spending to below 1 percent of GDP (indeed, here’s a look back in history of Harper complaining to Peter MacKay that he didn’t cut the military enough) and then read some bland pabulum that didn’t even approach answering the question—because that’s what this government does. It wasn’t until nearly 4 PM that Blair posted a thread to Twitter about how they were still increasing the defence budget, and these $1 billion in savings were internal measures like cutting back on travel and consultants, but noted the spending commitments they’ve made like NORAD modernisation, and ships and planes, and so on.

It absolutely mystifies me as to how this message-obsessed government took almost eight hours to craft a response to this news story that when they could have shut down the hysterical reaction to it in mere minutes had they simply sent out a similar tweet first thing in the morning. There is nothing in there to demonstrate why it took eight hours. They could also have had Blair give a reasonable response during QP that would have simply said “This reporting is exaggerated, we are looking for some efficiencies, but overall defence spending is still increasing,” and it would have defused everything. But they didn’t, either because they’re inept, or it takes them that many hours to get sign-off from Katie Telford’s office, which is a sad sign about where this government is at. But nearly eight hours for this kind of response to the story is unacceptable, and it’s a real-time demonstration in why things need to change at the top with this government.

Ukraine Dispatch:

The first American Abrams tanks are being delivered in the eastern front, in the hopes they will make a difference. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy marked the 82nd anniversary of the Babyn Yar massacre by Nazi forces.

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QP: Return of the carbon price mendacity

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While the prime minister was away at an EV battery plan announcement in Quebec, his deputy off in Toronto, and other leaders were also absent. Chris d’Entrement was again in the big chair for the day, even though one would think they would rotate Alexandra Mendès in there as well. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, accused the prime minister of looking like “a clown” around the world, called Rota a “Liberal Speaker,” railed that it took him five days to say anything, and then repeated it in English in the same question. Karina Gould said that everyone agreed it was the Speaker who was responsible and he resigned. Poilievre then accused the prime minister of creating “the middle-class hungry” and demanded they cut the carbon price. Anita Anand stood up to wonder if the Conservatives would support their bill on cutting the GST on rentals and increasing competition. Poilievre then called out Atlantic Liberal MPs who say that they have concerns about the carbon price while at home but not while in Ottawa. Randy Boissonnault accused the Conservatives of looking to cut programmes and let the planet burn. Poilievre rambled about the supposed “NDP coalition” before demanding they vote for their Supply Day motion to cut the carbon price. Boissonnault repeated his same response about the Conservatives only looking to slash and burn. Poilievre then returned to French to call out the Bloc leader for voting to increase the carbon price (which is not entirely true). Pascale St-Onge insisted that what doesn’t make sense is a party that doesn’t have a climate plan.

Yves-François Blanchet got up and wondered why the Conservatives wouldn’t axe subsidies, before wondering why the prime minister still hasn’t called president Zelenskyy or Jewish leaders. Gould said that calls were made, and that the prime minister apologised to everyone harmed. Blanchet insisted that the headlines would have been different if the prime minister had apologised immediately (which would have given Rota cover), and Gould repeated that calls were made and apologies were made through diplomatic channels from the beginning.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he demanded that the government end all new fossil fuel projects and move the net-zero date up to 2045. St-Onge insisted that they have brought emissions down since 2018, and that they would do more. Boulerice the worried the chaos caused by changing insurers for civil servants, and Anita Anand insisted that they were working with the leadership and Canada Life to ensure the situation was rectified.

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QP: Complaining that the PM is in New York

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While the prime minister and his deputy were off to New York—the PM to the United Nations General Assembly, his deputy to meetings with the US treasury secretary—all of the other leaders were present. The anti-trans demonstrations outside the Hill were largely a failure, drowned out by counter-protesters, which was going to come up later on. Pierre Poilievre led off in French and stated that the prime minister said this was a difficult time for politicians, that the government declared victory over inflation prematurely and it rose again last month, before he demanded the government bring down taxes and so-called “inflationary deficits” (which is not a thing we’re dealing with). François-Philippe Champagne rose to much applause, before he said that he heard three things from Canadians—to help with the cost of groceries, the cost of housing, (the third thing didn’t come through), and they know that the government is there for them. Poielivre got up to needle the Liberals for their enthusiastic response to Champagne and suggested maybe they want him as leader instead, before deploying his usuals slogans. Champagne patted himself on the back for calling in the grocery CEOs before saying that people were tired of Poilievre’s slogans. Poilievre switched to English to complain about Trudeau going to New York before demanding they balance the budget and cut the carbon price. Jonathan Wilkinson got up to recite some lines about affordability before listing actions taken to address affordability while dealing with the existential threat of climate change. Poilievre again repeated that Trudeau went to New York while people have to pay carbon prices and demanded the cut it. Anita Anand pointed out that they have a plan to help Canadians unlike the Conservatives, and patted herself on the actions taken. Poilievre spouted a bunch of utter nonsense about inflation, and this time Sean Fraser for up to complaint that Poilievre only attacks the vulnerable and doesn’t have any plans to help families.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and complained about housing prices, and the supposed $900 million he claimed the federal government is withholding from Quebec. Fraser said he is working with the province. Blanchet insisted this was interference, and said that Ottawa should build housing (which he just said was Quebec’s jurisdiction) and then demanded the government stop subsidising the oil and gas sector and use that money for old age security. Wilkinson said that they have already ended subsidies.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and demanded federal action against renovictions and “demovictions” (which is not really federal jurisdiction). Fraser praised the National Housing Plan, and that the government was going to build more houses. Singh switched to French to complain there were no affordable units to rent, and wanted guarantees they would be built. Fraser again praised the National Housing Plan, and switched back to English halfway through to complete his same talking points.

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Roundup: Losing faith in the justice system because of provincial choices

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The CBC has a story out about how a retired corporal from the military has lost faith in the justice system because court delays stayed the trial of her alleged attacker, and you can bet that pretty much everyone is going to take absolutely the wrong lessons from this, most especially legacy media.

The administration of justice—courts, Crown prosecutors, support staff—are all firmly within provincial jurisdiction. And for decades, provinces have been under-funding their systems while whinging that the federal government isn’t doing things like making bail harder to get (which is, frankly, unconstitutional). There is a story out of Toronto on the very same day about how staffing shortages—because of the province—have caused closures in courtrooms which led to a different sexual assault trial being tossed because they can’t get a trial within a reasonable time for the rights of the accused. And in the case of the corporal, it was because the Crown prosecutors (again, provincial responsibility) couldn’t get their shit together to push the case forward. And no, this has nothing to do with the federal government not filling judicial vacancies fast enough (which I have condemned this government for). These are all problems that are squarely within the provinces’ responsibilities.

And you can bet that people are going to try to both-sides this military issue because the provinces have been whinging that the military turning over cases to the civilian system is leaving them under-resources, even though it’s a handful of cases and the provinces have consistently made the policy choice over decades to under-fund their system. Trying to shift the blame to the federal government or whine that they’re not getting enough money is a well-worn pattern that we shouldn’t let them get away with. Unfortunately, that’s not in legacy media’s playbook, and you can bet that we’ll get more rounds of angry accusations that the federal government “let this happen” when clearly the failure was provincial the whole time.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say they have reclaimed even more territory in the east and south parts of the country, as well as off-shore drilling platforms near occupied Crimea. Ukrainian forces have also been collecting Russian bodies along the “road of death” that they retook in June, so that they can exchange them for their own comrades, living and dead. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling on his country to remain focused on the war, with warnings that a “wartime budget” is coming, meaning this could go on for longer than many have hoped.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1701223223440928994

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Roundup: Morneau’s sore hindsight bias

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As he tries to rehabilitate his reputation after his book was largely ridiculed and lambasted, Bill Morneau is back out there asserting that the pandemic spending programmes were too generous, went on too long, and are one of the causes for high inflation. This is clearly hindsight bias—economist Stephen Gordon resurrected a couple of tweets to push back against these kinds of assertions because they ignore the gravity of the situation at the time, and just how many unknowns they were dealing with at the time. And I do recall that Morneau was proposing measures at the time that were clearly inadequate and were politically unsaleable, which he didn’t seem to understand and then got huffy when PMO override his judgment—likely for the best, because we wound up with the actual desirable outcome. Higher inflation was the good outcome scenario. The alternative was deflation that would have spiralled into a depression, which was what everyone worked to avoid. Morneau just continues to be sore that he was overridden, and possibly that people aren’t taking his post-political attempts at reputation rehabilitation more seriously.

https://twitter.com/dgardner/status/1692258336815624347

Some additional data from Jennifer Robson:

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces are claiming progress on the south-eastern front as they push toward the Sea of Azov, which would split Russia’s forces in the occupied south; there has been fierce fighting in the north-eastern front in the Kharkiv region. The defence ministry is telling military-aged citizens to update their data at enlistment offices and to “overcome their fear.” The US has approved sending F-16s from Denmark and the Netherlands to Ukraine, once their pilots are fully trained—probably early in 2024. Meanwhile, Russia claims that two of their warships repelled drone attacks near occupied Crimea, and that a drone attack damaged a building at the centre of Moscow.

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Roundup: Promising a spending cut—for real this time!

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It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone who has paid attention, but word has come down that new Treasury Board president Anita Anand will be tasking other ministers to find $15.4 billion in spending cuts with a deadline of October 2nd, and they really mean it this time. For realsies. The Liberals have been promising programme spending reviews for years now, but haven’t seemed to show any progress on them, or at least not in any public or transparent way, and that’s generally a problem for any government, and particularly one who has been in power for as long as this one has. Anand’s expertise is in governance, so she might have a chance to pull this off, but the civil service has fought back against Treasury Board presidents trying to make reforms—Scott Brison tried to reform the Estimates process and bring it back into line with the budget cycle, and he lost that battle, and it doesn’t look like any of his successors have even tried since. The other thing here is that $15.2 billion is going to be hard to justify if the military is excluded, but can they actually make cuts (setting aside the lapsed funding they can’t spend because of capacity issues)?

The reaction has pretty much been predictable—public sector unions freaking out, Jagmeet Singh concern trolling that this means “essential services” will be cut, and Pierre Poilievre says the Liberals can’t be trusted to make cuts. (Erm, you remember the Chrétien-Martin era, right?) But for some more practical thinking, here’s Jennifer Robson, who teaches public administration:

https://twitter.com/JenniferRobson8/status/1691613225677144349

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles have struck Lviv and other parts of western Ukraine, which is far from the fighting, including a factory in Lutsk. In the early hours of Wednesday, Russian drones have been spotted heading for the Izmail port on the Danube River, which threatens more grain shipments. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was on the front lines in Zaporizhzhia to meet troops there. Meanwhile, farmers in Ukraine are facing the prospect of rock-bottom grain prices if they can’t ship it, which means it’s worth more to store than to sell.

https://twitter.com/zelenskyyua/status/1691510365304102915

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1691366868760829953

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Roundup: Budget cuts and accountability for advice

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There was an interesting piece in the Globe and Mail yesterday where a couple of former top doctors enumerated some of the problems at the Public Health Agency of Canada that have been festering for years in spite of repeated warnings, which started creeping in with the budget cuts that started in 2011, and which were compounded with the loss of scientific capacity to the point where the president who just resigned had no scientific background at all. Which isn’t to say that you necessarily need someone with a science background in an administrative position like that (as opposed to the Chief Public Health Officer, which is a different kettle of fish entirely), but it points to some of the ways in which the civil service in this country has been losing capacity for a while. Suffice to say, it would appear to point to the fact that the current government wasn’t paying enough attention to what was going on at PHAC, though to be fair, there has been a fair bit on their plates, as they were dealing with medically assisted dying, legalised cannabis, and completely restructuring First Nations and Inuit healthcare delivery, which were all health-related files. The fact that emergency stockpiles weren’t being properly managed has come up repeatedly, but this does start with the cuts made under the Harper government.

Meanwhile in Queen’s Park (where premier Doug Ford made cuts to public health before the pandemic began), there is a piece in the Star that starts to ascertain just who is as the premier’s “health command table,” and ascertains that it’s Ford pulling all the strings and making all of the decisions. Which is as it should be – any “command table” should be merely advisory, because in our system of government, Cabinet makes the decisions, and Cabinet gets to wear them. I worry that trying to expose who is at this table will try to blame them for the advice they’re giving to Ford, rather than Ford making decisions on that advice – particularly when we’ve seen him ignore advice on things like school re-openings. There is a debate to be had about the transparency around the advice being given, so that we can ascertain whether or not Ford is actually following it, which I get, but I also wonder if there isn’t also a need for that table to be a place of frank discussion without it all coming out in the press – like why we have Cabinet confidentiality. And it’s a fair debate to be had, but again, let me reiterate that this is 100 percent on Ford, no matter what advice he may or may not be getting. That’s how Responsible Government works, and we need to quit finding ways to give Ford a pass, or an out on his shite decision-making.

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Roundup: Unveiling the help for students

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Prime minister Justin Trudeau arrived at his daily presser with big news – the long-awaited relief package for students, totalling some $9 billion in new emergency measures, starting with the Canada Emergency Student Benefit that provides between $1250 and $1750 per student between May and August (being the period when they would ordinarily be out of school). This would be augmented by additional grants next year on top of loan repayment deferrals. As well, the government would be creating a number of placements for students in needed areas, as well as a Canada Student Service Grant between $1000 and $5000 for those students who volunteer with essential services during these pandemic times – on top of additional funding for the next academic year, and specific pots of money for Indigenous students. During the Q&A and the subsequent ministerial presser, there were questions on repatriations (most especially from India), as well as on what’s happening with prisons as they face the pandemic (and here is a good thread from Justin Ling, who brought the receipts as to why this matters) – made especially important because even the Correctional Investigator can’t get proper figures about what is going on. This gets complicated when you have tough-on-crime politicians making hay about needed decarceration during a crisis like this. Trudeau also gave a rare moment of candour when he stated in response to a question that universal benefits are actually more complicated than they seem, which was why they went with the CERB (but it only took him three tries to actually say it – something I’ve been pointing out for a while).

And then the requests came. Quebec’s premier asked for an additional 1000 soldiers to help cover off in long-term care facilities as the death toll continues to climb, particularly around Montreal. (Here’s a thread that explains some of what is going on, particularly as transmission from long-term-care facility to hospitals is an added problem). Around the same time, Doug Ford also asked for military assistance with five facilities in Ontario (but wouldn’t say which ones). But throughout this, we keep seeing the PM and other ministers being asked if the federal government needs to somehow “take over” the long-term care file, which I think is a bit boggling because there’s no actual mechanism for them to do that. Provincial powers aren’t delegated by the federal government – back during Confederation, they were divvied up between the provinces and the federal government, and in many cases, the provinces were given those powers because they are closer to the people. Yes, there is a federal role in healthcare (beyond simple dollars), which has a lot to do with regulation and the approval of drugs and medical devices, which avoids the duplication of every province needing to do their own. I’m not sure how exactly they should assume control of these facilities – especially because provinces do not take well to having their funding allocations come with strings or reporting requirements. Seriously – previous governments have tried, and it doesn’t go well. Yes, we’re going to need to have a reckoning in this country about the whole issue of long-term care, but that reckoning can’t simply be having Ottawa assume control. I mean, not unless they want to amend the Constitution (and good luck with that).

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