Tag Archives: Gun Control

QP: Legitimate points lost in the partisan noise

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While the PM was off at a photo op in London, Ontario, to praise the rollout of the kludge they are calling dental care, only two other leaders were present in the Chamber. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he raised the increase in violent crime statistics, and wondered why the government wasn’t investing in police or CBSA and were banning hunting rifles instead with an estimate that the buyback could cost an additional billion dollars. Marco Mendicino offered the bland reassurance that their legislation doesn’t target farmers and hunters, but targets assault weapons like have been used at mass shootings. Poilievre switched to English to list some of the rifles in the list to be banned, insisting they were about ducks and vermin on farms, while Mendicino insisted that the goal was to target assault-style rifles. Poilievre cited a statistic that 82 percent of guns used in crimes in Toronto were smuggled across the border, and accused the government of targeting hunters. Mendicino accused Poilievre of spreading disinformation (though there is some grey area here because there are concerns about some of the guns listed), and accused the Conservatives of not voting in favour of supports for CBSA. Poilievre switched topics, worried about particular survey results about housing affordability, and wondered how people can’t afford housing in the country with the second-largest landmass on the planet (which is a really, really stupid talking point because we’re not building residential subdivisions on Baffin Island or in the middle of the Canadian Shield and he knows full well that’s the case). Ahmed Hussen pointed to their funding for municipalities to help accelerate their processing and permitting, along with other measures like their rent-to-own programme. Poilievre switched to French to decry this same shortage of housing, along with some disinformation about inflation, but somehow managed to blame the federal government for preventing housing from being built, which is utter nonsense. Hussen repeated his points, with the added jab that the Conservatives don’t have their own housing plan.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and worried about Chinese interference, along with his particularly odd accusation about Chinese money flowing into the prime minister’s riding. Marco Mendicino got up to recite the lines about creating the two independent panels and their conclusion that there was no interference. Blanchet demanded an inquiry into his allegation about the money going to the prime minister’s riding, and Mendicino shrugged it off with some more talking points about the two panels.

Alexandre Boulerice appeared by video to lead for the NDP to worry about the state of hospitals, demanding the government act, somehow. Adam van Koeverden read a script about the federal government working with provinces. Charlie Angus demanded that the government end the underfunding of Indigenous children in care, and to end the court challenge, to which Patty Hajdu reminded him that they have put forward a record sum of money in partnership with First Nations leaders.

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QP: Careful hewing to prepared lines about national security

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The prime minister was in the Chamber for his usual Wednesday spot of proto-Prime Minister’s Questions, as were all of the other leaders, which hasn’t happened for a few weeks. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, and he once again returned to the Global News report that China had funnelled money to federal candidates in 2019, and wanted to know if the prime minister had gone back to CSIS to ask if there was any evidence to support such an allegation. Justin Trudeau said that he has to be very careful in answering questions about national security, and with a script in front of him, recited that Canada and its allies are regularly targeted by foreign states like China, including during election campaigns, and that his government had more steps than any other including creating an independent panel tasked with assessing the risk coming from foreign countries, and those panels confirmed that the electoral integrity was not compromised, and concluded with yes, he receives regular briefings. Poilievre switched to English, said it was interesting that he said he did get briefings, and repeated to know if he got one post Global News report on the allegations. Trudeau repeated his same response in English, word-for-word, but added at the end that all parties are briefed about elections. Poilievre said that wasn’t the question, and wanted a yes-or-no answer on a post-Global News briefing. Trudeau very slowly enunciated that in all of the briefings he received, there has never been any mention of candidates receiving money from China in either 2019 or 2021, and praised the panels once again. Poilievre wanted a yes-or-no answer on whether Trudeau asked for briefings after the Global News story, but Trudeau went on about how Poilievre, a former minister, knows the importance of respecting national security guidelines and that because Poilievre was the former minister for elevations integrity, he knows this, but also added that when Poilievre was minister, he did nothing about adding security against interference while the current government did. Poilievre was incredulous by the notion that Trudeau didn’t demand a briefing on the story, but moved on to ask if there was any electoral interference at all. Trudeau reminded him that Canada is regularly subject to some level of foreign interference, including from China, including during elections, which Poilievre would know when he was minister of elections, and noted that the two previous leaders did get briefings before, during and after the elections on foreign interference.

Yves-François Blanchet wondered at what point the interference goes from a little to a lot, and wondered about Chinese money flowing into Trudeau’s riding was interference or influence. Trudeau stated that rather than allowing partisan accusations to muddy the waters, they created a panel to precisely look at those issues in an objective and non-partisan manner. Blanchet was more specific about Chinese money flowing into Trudeau’s riding at a time a bank was trying to get approval, and Trudeau said that while the Bloc was trying to cast doubt on the integrity of our institutions, he could assure them they were not affected.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and in French, worried about an overloaded hospital in Quebec, and accused the prime minister of sitting on his hands, and demanded the government do more like they did in the pandemic. Trudeau reminded him that they have been working with the provinces. Singh switched to English to worry about Danielle Smith’s “Sovereignty Act” and that she would use it to undermine the Canada Health Act, which proves he doesn’t know what he was talking about because the whole gods damned point of the Act is to put conditions on federal dollars. Trudeau noted that he could understand why people were concerned, but he was going to focus on getting good results for Albertans.

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Roundup: Danielle Smith will threaten your funding

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Danielle Smith’s Alberta is a place where Smith and her ministers will phone you up and threaten your funding if you have mask or vaccine mandates, it was revealed yesterday. Smith threatened funding for the Arctic Winter Games, and has been phoning film productions to threaten them if they have mandates, because of course she is. It’s an abusive, arbitrary exercise of power that is imposing conditions on these groups or productions that don’t have these obligations in their written agreements, but it’s not like she cares about things like legalities.

It was also revealed that she isn’t moving ahead with her plan to add protection for the unvaccinated in the province’s human rights legislation, and is instead going to focus on her so-called “Sovereignty Act,” but rumour is that it’s going to be something like “Sovereignty Within a United Canada” or some other similar bullshit to make it look like it’s not a full-on separatist movement that will spook investment, not that doing arbitrary things like phoning you up and threatening your funding will make anyone feel like they want to continue doing business in the province. I’m almost surprised that her caucus isn’t revolting already considering the absolute abuse of power on display.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 279:

Ongoing Russian strikes and power disruptions as a result are making it difficult for hospitals in Ukraine to carry out their work, and at times, surgeries are being performed with headlamps and flashlights. The US is expected to announce aid that will help with the restoration of electricity around the country. Meanwhile, 30 settlements in the Kherson region have been shelled 258 times in the past week, and Russia has kept up shelling at Bakhmut and Avdiivka in Donetsk province as they try to make gains there.

https://twitter.com/DavidLametti/status/1597320883441319936

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Roundup: Benefits based on political rather than economic need

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Alberta premier Danielle Smith paid for television airtime last night to announce that she would be making “inflation-fighting measures,” which are mostly cheques to people, but targeted payments rather than just the old model of money to everyone. Of course, where she blamed the cause of inflation is pure fiction, so that was classic Smith, and common among populist “conservative” parties these days. There were some good measures in there like re-indexing several social programmes (the decision not to index them being purely spiteful legislated poverty).

This being said, the targeting is done pretty deliberately, and it’s not entirely based on need, unless you count her political need as what she’s addressing. Money for relatively affluent seniors, and to families with children are politically motivated—seniors vote, and suburban mothers are a highly desirable demographic because women are less likely to vote conservative, and while Smith is likely to clean up in rural ridings by default (because this is Alberta), her problem are the urban ridings (and when I say urban, I really mean suburban because again, this is Alberta and its cities all have miniscule urban cores surrounded by endless suburbs). And while it wouldn’t be a political party pandering or bribing voters by ensuring that singletons get nothing, as usual, this is done with a little more intention than the usual policy objectives of appealing to families. It’s about buying the votes she needs to hang onto power in the spring, and it’s so blatantly obvious that it’s pretty insulting.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 273:

Fighting continues near Bahkmut, and Russians accused Ukrainians of targeting power lines in Donetsk (but they also are masters of projection, so take that as you will). Meanwhile, the government has begun evacuating people from Kherson to prevent them from freezing to death over the winter, and to prevent any losses of life due to the cold. As well, Ukraine’s counter-intelligence forces searched an Orthodox Christian church in Kyiv, shortly after its priest was speaking favourably of Russia, and they wanted to ensure that there are no Russian operatives working out of the church.

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1595260762532229121

https://twitter.com/CFOperations/status/1594799007750295552

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Roundup: The false binary in MAiD coverage

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The stories about the hearings on expanding the Medical Assistance in Dying regime continue apace, complete with lurid tales of people threatening to access MAiD for reasons of poverty rather than because they want to die at this particular moment of whatever condition they suffer that makes them eligible, and almost all of them frame it as the federal government forcing people to die. Althia Raj’s latest column was literally titled “Why does the Trudeau government leave people no option but to take their own lives?” before it was changed several hours later, which may or may not have been because I pointed out the fact that disability supports and housing are provincial responsibilities and not the responsibility of the federal government, who are concerned only with the Criminal Code prohibitions against providing MAiD.

Once again, provinces are being let off the hook for their own responsibilities to care for these vulnerable people. In all of the cases going to the media, it’s over areas that the province should have been responsive to, but we also know that they have been in the business of legislating poverty for those who require disability supports, so it’s not a surprise, but it’s not something the federal government can just swoop down and fix. Yes, they have committed to their disability benefit, which is still in still at committee and will take time to implement because of the complexity of dealing with provincial programmes and most especially ensuring that any federal benefits don’t mean that provincial ones are clawed back (like several provinces did with CERB payments, because again, they are legislating poverty), but even this federal support does not make it a federal responsibility, nor should it impact the considerations for the Criminal Code provisions around providing MAiD to those who request it. That road leads to “perfect world” thinking, where people will be made to suffer needlessly because premiers can’t do their jobs. (Full disclosure: My mother accessed MAiD when she had terminal cancer, and was afforded a good and dignified death).

I also think that there is a growing media ethics problem where we are seeing an increasing number of these stories with either unverified accounts of people who accessed MAiD for seemingly illegitimate purposes (though they obviously had a qualifying condition), or those who are taking to the media to threaten to access MAiD if they can’t get supports they need, as is the case cited in Raj’s column. The framing of these stories is often badly flawed, the facts usually unclear, and frankly, it is emboldening people to use the lurid threats of suicide (albeit medically assisted) in order to draw attention to their plight. Media outlets need to start reconsidering how this is being covered, because the number of these stories appears to be on the rise, and it doesn’t help anyone when things are covered in such a way.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 272:

The damage to the electrical system in the country has president Volodymyr Zelenskyy urging Ukrainians to conserve electricity where possible and to think about options that will help them wait out long outages. He also said that people from liberated Kherson can apply to relocate to places where security and heating issues are less acute, considering how much of Kherson’s civilian infrastructure was destroyed. Here is more about how Kyiv is dealing with the blackouts.

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Roundup: Lost faith in the Ottawa Police Service

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Once again, a lot of threads to disentangle as the OPP Commissioner, Thomas Carrique, was on the stand at the Emergencies Act public inquiry, and what a lot of the day seemed to focus on (at least, from what I could tell from afar) were the texts he was exchanging with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki. So, what did we learn? That the federal government had pretty much lost all confidence in the Ottawa Police and were discussing taking over the response to the occupation, even though Lucki was particularly reluctant to do so (and worried that the Emergencies Act would be used to make that happen). There was discussion about the OPP in particular taking over, and the Commissioner was ready to have that call before the Ottawa chief resigned. Once Peter Sloly was out of the way, an integrated command was set up. Also interesting was the comment that the Act was used to compensate tow truck drivers more than it was to compel their services (which could be a signal to the provinces about how they may need to update their own emergency legistlation).

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1585629449038577664

Carrique defended his comments that the occupation was a threat to national security, and the way that the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor was handled differently than the Ottawa occupation. Documents provided to the inquiry showed that the FBI provided some support to the Ottawa Police during the occupation, likely around US-based support for it, so that lends some credence to the national security threat analysis.

https://twitter.com/acoyne/status/1585720241979629569

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 246:

Ukrainian forces attacked Russian forces occupying the southern city of Kherson, while fighting also intensified in the country’s east as Russians bombarded the city of Bakhmut. While Putin is denying he plans to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine (isn’t that a sign he will?), another mass grave was discovered in the village of Kopanky.

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QP: Demanding support for their carbon price motion

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Even though both the prime minister and his deputy were in town—the PM being in the building—neither were present for QP, and neither were any of the other leaders as well. That left if up to Melissa Lantsman to lead off, and with a script in front of her, she launched into the party’s talking points about inflation (which weren’t true), and then worried about increasing heating costs because of carbon prices, except they don’t go up until April, and the fact that there is no single type of home heating across the country. Nevertheless, she quoted the Liberal premier of Newfoundland and Labrador in opposition to carbon prices, and demanded the government vote in favour of their Supply Day motion to remove the carbon price on home heating. Randy Boissonnault took the question, and used the opportunity to recite his government’s talking points about supporting their bill on the kludge they call dental care, and for rental supports. Lantsman went another round of the same accusations, and Boissonnault recited the government’s record on lowering taxes, which the Conservatives voted against. Lantsman made a third attempt, to which Darren Fisher got up to denounce the Conservatives’ former policy of increasing the age of OAS eligibility for seniors to 67 as proof that the Liberals care more about seniors than the Conservatives. Pierre Paul-Hus took over in French to raise Chrystia Freeland’s new plan to tighten fiscal policy, insisting this was a surprise to the prime minister, that this was an admission that they created inflation (it’s not and they didn’t), and demanded that the carbon price not be “tripled” (that happens over seven years). Boissonnault said the Conservatives are only interested in cutting supports for things like seniors and housing. Paul-Hus insisted that the Conservatives want to cut the carbon tax and demanded the government stop raising taxes (erm, the only actual taxes going up are to corporations and on luxury goods). Boissonnault insisted that he respects his counterpart, but the Conservatives only cut jobs.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and said that the government could simply have enriched the Canada Child Benefit rather than creating their dental care plan, and recited the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s report that this benefit “discriminates” against Quebeckers because they won’t get as much money—because they have existing provincial benefits. Jean-Yves Duclos stated this fact—that they already have dental coverage and the federal benefit will enrich it. Therrien repeated his question and called it “majority insurance” rather than “dental insurance,” and Duclos pointed out how much his government has reduced child poverty.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and in French, he read a statement from a doctor who lost a patient, and demanded the federal government do something about the crisis in healthcare. Duclos admitted there is a crisis, but he said they are providing additional funding to provinces to reduce delays, for workers, and for long-term care. Lindsay Mathyssen read her own condemnation of the state of healthcare in English, to which Duclos reiterated his comments, noting that the Canada Health Act has conditions, and that he was work with premiers.

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Roundup: The transcript doesn’t show interference

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It turns out that the recording of that meeting of RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki coming down on her Nova Scotia team in the wake of the mass shooting in Portapique was found after all, and lo, it doesn’t actually show political interference. (Transcript here). She does say that she told the minister’s office the information on the firearms used would be released (we know that she was contacted by Bill Blair’s chief of staff, not Blair himself), and when the information was not released, she said she had to apologise to the minister and the prime minister, but there is no mention of a promise to release that information. In fact, the only time the word “promised” was used was when Lucki said that she was promised a timeline of events and a map, and she didn’t receive those either, and spoke about feeling disrespected because she wasn’t given it. Lucki did at one point bring up “legislation” the government was working on around guns (it was actually an Order in Council), which Lucki said was supposed to help police, but again, there was no mention of pressure from the minister about it. She was politically aware of what was going on, because she would have been consulted in its development (which had been going on for months at this point), and it should be stressed that political awareness is not interference. Commissioners are supposed to be politically aware. That’s part of their job, just like the Chief of Defence Staff.

The Conservatives, however, took that same transcript, cherry picked a couple of lines about feeling the need to apologise, and took this as “proof” of interference, that either Lucki or Blair had lied, and demanded both of their resignations, and launched a point of privilege in the House of Commons to the effect of saying that Blair lied to them. Because this is what they do—take everything in bad faith, and generate a bunch of clips for shitposts, then fundraise off of them. It’s not even truthiness at this point—it’s out and out bad faith, lies, and deception. And you don’t see the media calling bullshit on it and pointing to what is in the transcript, they just both-sides it, and their talking heads will waffle around it. The talking heads also don’t try to follow all of the information and put it together, where they would see that the allegations of interference don’t actually make sense. I won’t recap the column, but suffice to say, there was no need to interfere because they had all of the information, and the people who claim they were are actually arguing for less transparency. It’s bizarre all around.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 240:

Ukrainian forces have bombarded Russian positions in the occupied Kherson region in the country’s south, targeting their resupply routes along a major river. Russians shelled the Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions.

https://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1583430788468838403

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QP: Some new faces with the same repetitive lines

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Neither the prime minister nor his deputy was present today, but Pierre Poilievre was, as he so frequently is. He led off in French, and claimed that government spending caused inflation (false), and cited an RBC report saying that inflation and higher interest rates would cost families an additional $3000 next year, before he demanded that the government stop “raising taxes” (which they aren’t, but if they were, higher taxes actually fight inflation). Rachel Bendayan said that they know Canadian are facing higher expenses, which is why they are putting forward supports, that the Conservatives are opposing, such as rental supports and dental care. Poilievre switched to English to blame the federal government and the outgoing (formerly) NDP mayor of Vancouver for overdose deaths, violence and higher housing prices. He praised the election of a new mayor and demanded that the federal government “get the message.” Mark Holland said he appreciated the leader’s interest in the mayoralty campaign in Vancouver, but here in Ottawa, he was looking for support for their affordability measures. Poilievre insisted that the federal government was forcing British Columbia to “triple, triple, triple” their carbon price and demanded that they cancel the plan. Steven Guilbeault remarked that families in provinces under the federal price got their quarterly climate rebate payments on Friday. Poilievre then said the government was forcing “energy poverty” onto the Atlantic provinces, to which Guilbeault corrected him in that they are providing support for them to transition to cleaner and cheaper alternatives. Finally, Poilievre insisted that the government was just taking the carbon price revenue, and mocked the notion that it would “trickle down” back to people (false–the revenues don’t go to federal coffers and go to each province to recycle in the way they chose, including the federal climate rebates). Holland responded with some mockery about the Conservative belief in trickle-down economics, which doesn’t actually work.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he insisted that Chrystia Freeland announced a policy of “drill, baby, drill,” and that she drove the nail in the coffin of climate change. Jonathan Wilkinson noted that she did not contradict the government and that they would only move ahead on the right projects. Therrien insisted that the government was using the war in Ukraine to sell more oil, and Guilbeault reminded him that there is a rigorous environmental assessment process and that Canada is moving ahead on renewable energy, which is why Germany came to us for hydrogen.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and in French, he noted the Loblaws “price lock” on generic food products and demanded support for their Supply Day motion on making companies pay more. Rachel Bendayan recited that the government raised taxes on corporations. Alistair MacGregor took over in English, with the took credit for the Loblaws move, to which Terry Beech called for support for their affordability measures.

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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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