Tag Archives: François Legault

Roundup: Taking the blame, children’s cold medicine edition

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There has been a concerted effort to try and make the shortage of over-the-counter children’s cold and fever medication the federal government’s problem, even though they have precious few levers at their disposal. The Conservatives are trying to demand that Health Canada lift restrictions on imports that aren’t labelled in English and French, though I’m not sure that would really help if these shortages (which are due to high demand because COVID isn’t over!) are more widespread, and even there, that would require a lot of provincial coordination because pharmacies are also under provincial jurisdiction. But apparently the minister can’t just say that people need to talk to the provinces—that simply won’t do.

I had a bit of a debate over Twitter about this last night, and I will concede that part of this is a problem with the government’s inability to message and get ahead of these kinds of issues, or leverage some righteous anger and direct it to the provinces to do their gods damned jobs for once—but this government doesn’t like to do anger, and it really doesn’t like to blame the provinces for the things that the provinces aren’t doing when they should be, because they want to be “nice,” and “cooperative,” and “not divisive.” But that’s not helping anybody, and so we get more platitudes and feel-good pabulum that doesn’t actually make anyone feel good. I do have real problems with everyone—particularly media—trying to make every problem the federal government’s, but the government need to get better at messaging around this tendency, which they steadfastly refuse to do.

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 224:

As Russia’s president signed papers that purport to annex territory in Ukraine, Ukrainian forces continue to press ahead in their counter-offensive in both the east and the south, collapsing Russian lines even further. And those new troops Russia has been conscripting to send to Ukraine? Much of them come from the country’s ethnic minorities, which is a calculated move. Ukraine, meanwhile, is making a bid for the 2030 FIFA World Cup as a way of survivors of the invasion healing from the war.

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Roundup: The “bigger picture” of continued hybrid sittings

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The Procedure and House Affairs committee is looking in to the future of hybrid sittings, and the Speaker wants them to consider the “bigger picture” of all of this. Of course, the bigger picture is that a) by trying to tie future use of hybrid to sickness or work-life balance, MPs will be creating an impossible attendance standard and create a monstrous culture of presenteeism; b) ministers will not only evade accountability not being in the House, and will be unavailable for MPs to see them during votes—which is the one time they are most available—and this is already happening as ministers are getting used to taking off when votes start and doing them from their phones in their cars, which is very bad; it also means that minister and MPs in general are less available to be found by the media; and c) the big one is of course the human toll that these sessions take on the interpretation staff. The NDP, as usual thinks you can just hire more interpreters, except there are no more interpreters to be hired. They literally cannot graduate enough of them to cover the existing attrition even before the injury and burnout rate from Zoom is factored in.

But MPs have consistently ignored the human toll, preferring their convenience, and whinging about long travel distances and having families, as though there aren’t options available to them that aren’t to most other Canadians. I will keep beating on this drum, because we won’t be able to maintain a fully bilingual parliament for much longer if this keeps up (we’re barely doing so as it is), and it’s probably going to take things absolutely falling apart for them to care, and that’s a problem.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 223:

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that Ukrainian forces have made rapid and powerful advances in both the east and south, and in places where Russian forces are retreating, they are abandoning posts so rapidly that they are leaving dead comrades behind.

https://twitter.com/noclador/status/1577324136220839937

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Roundup: Independent thought alarm, Iran edition

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I hear the independent thought alarm sounding as Liberal MP Ali Ehsassi, who is Iranian-Canadian, is being critical of the government’s response when it comes to sanctions on the Iranian regime, and he wants them to do more. This being said, he has stressed that the minister, Mélanie Joly, has been very receptive to talking to him about the situation, and hearing his ideas, but that wasn’t of any interest to the CBC. No, they were interested in the narrative that even Liberal MPs aren’t happy with the government’s moves to date on sanctioning the Iranian regime, and lo, they put on an “expert” who says the government should do more, in spite of the fact that the don’t have the actual capacity to enforce more sanctions, let alone monitor the entire Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

I don’t expect the party to come down on Ehsassi for this, and the Liberals have demonstrated that they are willing to put up with a certain degree of independence from their MPs (more so than pretty much any other party right now), but I always find the reaction of the media interesting in situations like this, because as much as they claim they want more independence for MPs, when it gets demonstrated, they immediately start acting like this is either an attack on the government/prime minister, and they try to wedge it as much as possible to make it sound exciting. But all this really does is crack the whip without the party Whip ever needing to do a thing, because the media is enforcing discipline more than he ever could. Some members of the media should probably reflect on that fact

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 222:

Ukrainian forces have made a major breakthrough in the south, advancing along the Dnipro River and threatening Russian supply lines in the region. In the northeast, the liberation of Lyman is providing a staging ground to press into the Donbas region.

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Roundup: Demanding LNG with someone else’s money

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While the federal Conservatives continue to promote the fantasy notion that Canada can somehow supply Europe and Japan with LNG to displace Russian supply—something that was never going to happen because of the timelines for projects to be built and that they need to be in operation to make their money back—under the notion that Ottawa needs to “get out of the way,” again ignoring that there has been no market case for it, Jason Kenney is going one step further and demanding that the federal government to build LNG export infrastructure. Which is odd because the Conservatives howled with outrage when the federal government nationalized the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline in order to sufficiently de-risk it for it to complete construction. If there’s no market case, why not get the federal government to do it?

But let’s also remember that the proposed Kitimat LNG facility on the West Coast, fully permitted and approved, is not being built, because there is no market case. Hence why Andrew Leach is calling out Kenney’s nonsense below, particularly the fact that Kenney is calling on the federal government to spend their money rather than Kenney spending his province’s own money. You know, like he did with Keystone XL, and whoops, lost billions because he made a bad bet and the American administration didn’t restore its permits. Funny that.

 

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 217:

UN human rights investigators have found that Russia has been violating international law when it comes to the treatment of prisoners of war during the invasion of Ukraine, which shouldn’t surprise anyone at this point. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also asked for Canadian help in ridding his country of mines left behind by Russian forces. Meanwhile, there are reports that Russian conscription officers are at borders trying to intercept would-be conscripts from fleeing the country.

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Roundup: O’Toole’s day of reckoning

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Regardless of the outcome of today’s caucus vote, Erin O’Toole is finished as leader—the only question is how long he lingers. Thanks to the (garbage) Reform Act, what should have been an exercise in reading the room has come down to weaponization, threats, and now a legalistic battle of wills where anything less than fifty-percent-plus-one will mean O’Toole will try to lord over the caucus until an eventual grassroots leadership review, which may or may not be sooner than the current date scheduled (pretty much acceding to what Senator Denise Batters sidelined for calling for). But the fact that we’ve even reached this point, months in the making, where more than a third of his caucus is alienated, means he’s unable to lead the party no matter what, and frankly, the (garbage) Reform Act is just making this situation worse than it needed to be.

O’Toole apparently spent the day working the phones, and apparently has been saying that he’s willing to change his policies if he survives—but isn’t that part of the problem that got him here? That he keeps changing his positions depending on the audience he’s in front of? I’m not sure how he thinks this promise helps him. Also, “coincidentally” an Astroturf grassroots group calling itself the “Majority Committee” launched itself yesterday morning, conveniently parroting the exact same lines O’Toole used in his challenge letter to his caucus, so that doesn’t look staged at all. Meanwhile, his former allies are lining up against him, a number of former MPs have added their names to an open letter calling for him to step down, so any illusion that continuing on as leader after this is really just delusion.

https://twitter.com/BobBenzen/status/1488633402400071682

Meanwhile, Andrew Coyne argues that it’s not O’Toole that needs to be ousted, but rather the unhinged yahoos in the caucus that are causing the party its biggest headaches. (I don’t disagree, but appealing to the yahoos is part of O’Toole’s problem). Althia Raj correctly notes that whatever the outcome of tomorrow’s vote, it’s untenable for O’Toole to stay. Matt Gurney (by video) wonders if this winds up leading to the break-up of the party.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1488522864269705222

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1488526887408353282

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1488528268106031108

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Roundup: Comms fails and hashtag trends

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There was a lot of discussion about government communications this weekend, and a lot to ponder on about it. First of all, there was this thread, which is long but worthwhile to read, because it gives a lot of context and examples of what it is we talk about with regard to these kinds of communications issues.

https://twitter.com/stateofthecity/status/1484928614927896582

Another example of poor government communications were the proliferation of Cabinet ministers, and others from across party lines, and several who weren’t in Canada, posing with signs that said #StandWithUkraine.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1485251476687663109

They all looked ridiculous and like hollow performance, it was a combination of trying to appease the Ukrainian-Canadian lobby here in Canada (which largely advocates for the Conservatives, for what it’s worth), but part of a movement to try and get the hashtag trending over the weekend, because apparently international relations and diplomacy is really turning into a junior high exercise of being mean to one another over Twitter. (Meanwhile, haven’t politicians learned not to pose with signs like that, because they just get photoshopped?)

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1485254090229747713

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Roundup: The desperate flailing of provincial governments

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We are at a stage of the pandemic when we are seeing a number of provincial governments reach the stage of just flailing. Saskatchewan is a basket case where the premier, who has COVID (and found this out after giving a maskless press conference) refuses to institute lockdown measures so that businesses forced to close because their staff are all sick can’t access federal benefits. In Quebec, that’s François Legault spit-balling major policy with no clue about implementation, and trying to distract from the fact that his polling numbers are plummeting as a result of the latest round of curfews that have been ineffective at curbing spread, as the province’s death rate continues to be the highest in the country (in part because of the horrific first wave continues to skew numbers)—and it’s an election year. It’s also an election year in Ontario, much sooner than in Quebec, and lo, we’ve seen a spate of resignations, many of the MPPs not even bothering to wait for the spring election. Case in point was Doug Ford’s long-term care minister, who resigned abruptly, and plans to resign his seat next month. And because Ford is flailing (on top of being an incompetent murderclown), the portfolio has been handed to Paul Calandra. No, seriously. Paul gods damned Calandra, who was the clownish apologist for Stephen Harper’s government, whose job was to stand up and obfuscate. And he’s now in charge of reforming Ontario’s long-term care system.

Meanwhile, Ford has sent his MPPs to use misleading charts to “prove” that Ontario is doing pretty well, which it’s not. But lying to cover up their incompetence is how his government operates, and they’re only going to get worse, the more desperate they get as the election looms ever closer.

https://twitter.com/HNHughson/status/1482041262639353859

https://twitter.com/HNHughson/status/1482053619700666370

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Roundup: A late start isn’t an extra week off

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I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s a very, very slow news season, or if the basic knowledge of how Parliament works is that lacking, but we got a lot of really bad headlines yesterday about how the Senate plans to take an “extra week off.” Which is not actually true, and distorts the situation. And in some cases, it’s being spun this way by certain media suspects completely out of bad faith, because anytime they can badmouth the Senate they’ll grab the opportunity and run.

To clarify: The Senate does not have a fixed sitting schedule the way the House of Commons does, and in no way are they bound to match the sitting schedule, because they do different work, and the timelines are different. The Senate frequently doesn’t convene at the same time as the House of Commons after the winter or summer break because they simply don’t have enough work on their Order Paper to justify it. They passed all of the bills that the Commons sent to them before they adjourned for the break, so coming back at the same time makes no sense—especially when they are competing for IT resources and interpreters with the Commons in the current hybrid context (which has, frankly, screwed the Senate over, but they’ve also allowed it to happen). More to the point, there are many years where the Senate will sit for weeks after the Commons rises for its break, and they will have break weeks out of sync with the Commons every now and again because their workloads are different. But this isn’t communicated effectively, either by the Senate itself, or by the media reporting on it—and it most especially isn’t communicated or even mentioned by the bad faith actors whose only agenda is to paint the Senate in a bad light. It’s disappointing, but not unexpected.

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Roundup: A plan to tax the unvaxxed

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By all accounts, it sounded like Quebec premier François Legault was spit-balling policy when, at the press conference to announce the province’s new chief public health officer, he proposed that the province impose additional costs on the unvaccinated in the form of some kind of surtax that would be “significant,” meaning more than $100. There were no details, which is kind of a big deal, but you immediately had other political leaders worried about “slippery slopes,” as though we don’t have other sin taxes on things like alcohol and cigarettes which impose their own significant public health burdens, as well as concerns that this will further disenfranchise those who are already marginalised. And fair enough.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1481062196314624000

The concerns about whether this somehow contravenes the Canada Health Act seem to be overblown, as it’s not charging for healthcare services, but other concerns about just how this might be implemented remain, as professors like Jennifer Robson articulate below.

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Roundup: Freeland has a KGB file

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I think it goes a little unappreciated at times as to just what a force of nature Chrystia Freeland can be. This weekend, we learned about her KGB file – wherein she was code-named “Frida” – from the time she was a university student on an exchange programme in Soviet Ukraine. She was ostensibly there to learn the language, but she was already fluent (she spoke it at home growing up, and still speaks it at home with her children), and instead spent much of her time organising local dissidents, and acting as a fixer for foreign journalists (which set up her later career). And along the way, she knew how to evade Soviet surveillance and send letters through the Canadian embassy in Moscow where the diplomatic pouches couldn’t be searched. The KGB was apparently not only worried about her, but impressed by her talents and felt she could have made a great spy.

Having read this, I was reminded of a debate that took place in the House of Commons in the waning days of the Harper government, when then-parliamentary secretary James Bezan was trying to minimise Freeland’s connection with Ukraine, and tried to make it sound as though Freeland was inventing it. (Remember that the Conservatives very much try to play up their connections with the Ukrainian diaspora community across the prairies, because they have votes there). Never mind that Freeland’s mother helped write Ukraine’s first post-Soviet constitution, but we have learned more about Freeland’s own activities in organising movements that helped bring down the Soviet presence in that country.

The fact that our deputy prime minister has this history is pretty interesting stuff, and all the more interesting as she is very likely to be the next prime minister of this country. Add to that, the fact that she is currently a persona non grata in Russia and the subject of sanctions by that country makes it all the more fascinating that she could soon be in charge of this country.

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