Tag Archives: Gun Control

QP: From solemn moment to clown show

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Following every party’s statements and a moment of silence for the anniversary of the massacre at École Polytechnique, things got underway in earnest. While the prime minister was absent, Chrystia Freeland was present. Candice Bergen led off, script on her mini-lectern, and she asked for an update on the government’s programmes to combat violence against women. Freeland highlighted the importance of the day, and spoke about the “unprecedented” investments in the budget, and then called on all women in the a House to rise for a moment to remember those women. Bergen then pivoted to the topic of inflation and wanted to know what was happening with the Bank of Canada’s inflation target, and Freeland assured her the decision was coming in due course. Bergen was not satisfied, and demanded action on rising prices—though she did not call for price controls. Freeland assured her that they understand the difference between fiscal and monetary policy, and have confidence in the Bank, and that they don’t disparage them like the Conservatives do. Alain Rayes took over in French, and demanded a “concrete plan” to tackle inflation. (Like price controls?) Freeland listed off global inflation figures in response. Rayes repeated his demand for a “concrete plan,” and Freeland responded with praise for the GDP growth and job numbers.

Claude DeBellefeuille also raised the anniversary of École Polytechnique and the current spate of gun violence in Montreal and demanded tougher gun control. Marco Mendicino assured her the are working together with different governments to ensure that everyone can live safely. DeBellefeuille accused the federal government of doing nothing, and Mendicino repeated his assurances and brought up his meetings last week with gun control advocates.

Alexandre Boulerice rose for the NDP, and he raised the scourge of opioid deaths, and demanded decriminalisation of simple possession of drugs. Jean-Yves Duclos noted that they are working at several levels around things like safe supply and support for users, with more to be announced shortly. Gord Johns repeated the demand in English, and Carolyn Bennett repeated Duclos’ answer in English.

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QP: What is your inflation position today?

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Even though the prime minister was in town, he was not in Question Period, but his deputy was, so that was something. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he worried about the news that the coming fiscal update would only have “limited information,” and worrying about them covering up spending. Chrystia Freeland stood up and recited O’Toole’s floundering position on whether inflation is a global problem or not. O’Toole retorted that she was the only politician to have been flagged on Twitter for misleading information, and demanded that she tell the Bank of Canada to get inflation under control. Freeland chided O’Toole for not realising that monetary policy is the role of the Bank, which is arm’s length from government. O’Toole started sputtering about small businesses suffering from inflation, and Freeland reminded him that their campaign documents promised even more government spending in the current fiscal year, and wondered what their position was today. O’Toole demanded to know then a budget would be balanced, and Freeland recited the Economist’s top-ten list of most expensive cities to live in, and noted that none were in Canada. O’Toole then switched to French to say that Quebeckers were tired of living paycheque to paycheque. Freeland repeated the same Economist list in response.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and he worried that the prime minister didn’t raise softwood tariff while in Washington, and Freeland stated that while she could not match Therrien’s ability to play on words, but the file was important and they were continuing to defend the sector’s interest like they did for aluminium. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay demanded that the government insist on separate treatment for Quebec because their forestry rules are different, while Freeland assured him that they were defending sector.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he worried that the COVID rules were too confusing for travellers. Freeland said that they agreed that the fight against COVID was the most important issue for the country and vaccination was the way out, but noted that the current rules are a circuit-breaker to buy them time. Singh repeated the question in French, and repeated her response.

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QP: Trying to make “Justinflation” happen

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The Liberal benches were again about two-thirds full, and the prime minister was in attendance, so that was something? While Erin O’Toole gave a lengthy speech in the Chamber earlier, he was nowhere to be seen. That left it up to Gérard Deltell to lead off, and he moaned about inflation and worries in the US about persistent inflation—which is not Canada’s situation. Justin Trudeau said the biggest thing that they could do was end the pandemic, which would end the supply chain disruptions that were increasing costs. Deltell cited the “not thinking about monetary policy” quip and demanded limited spending—erm, which is fiscal policy—and Trudeau repeated that they needed to end the pandemic. Deltell selectively quoted a  countries with lower inflation than us, and Trudeau noted that this was a global issue because of supply chains. Michael Barrett got up after and took a page from Pierre Poilievre’s playbook in confusing land and housing stock to rail about inflation, and Trudeau noted that the question ignored the pandemic, and the way to end it was by vaccination, which Conservatives didn’t seem to get. Barrett countered that his riding has one the highest vaccination rates in the country and gave more wrong talking points about inflation, and Trudeau suggested that Barrett’s constituents help convince his Conservative colleagues to get vaccinated).

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and worried that they softwood lumber tariffs were doubled after the Three Amigos summit and wondered what they talked about. Trudeau listed off items discussed including softwood and PEI potatoes. Blanchet made a jab at the potatoes, and mused that Quebec would be better able to negotiate on their own, but Trudeau insisted that they were defending the sector like they did aluminium (another Quebec export).

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and demanded immediate action on the housing crisis, but Trudeau disputed his characterisation and listed measures in the Speech from the Throne. Singh switched to French to repeat the question, and got the same answer.

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QP: You should read a book or two

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While the prime minister was in town, he was not in Question Period today, but his deputy was, so all was not lost. Candice Bergen led off, script in front of her, and she went off on inflation, accusing the finance minster of printing money so that she never runs out of bucks to pass. Chrystia Freeland read contradictory statements from different Conservative and wondered who was right. Bergen selectively quoted economists to assign blame for inflation. Freeland quoted former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz that government spending is not the problem. Bergen was apoplectic and demanded federal action on inflation, to which Freeland again quoted Poloz, and then suggested the Conservatives read a book or two. Alain Rayes took over, and asked about the labour shortage in Quebec. Marco Mendicino, even though it’s no longer his file, reminded him they have been working with Quebec and hit a record high of temporary foreign workers. Rayes went another round, and got the same.

Luc Therrien led off for the Bloc, and raised the Environment Commossioner’s report, and then demanded the government cap the production of fossil fuels. Stephen Guilbeault appeared by video, and reminded him that the Commissioner’s report didn’t capture several new programmes from the government. Therrien was not mollified, and in response, Guilbeault listed measures they have taken that no other government has taken.

Don Davies rose for the NDP, and demanded that the government support lifting patent restrictions on vaccines manufacturing to help the developing world avoid new variants. Harjit Sajjan read about the government’s vaccine donations. Niki Ashton repeated the question in French over video, and François-Philippe Champagne reminded her of Canada’s support for COVAX and other initiatives to deliver vaccines.

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QP: Insufficiently tough about softwood lumber

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A single day after the prime minister took all of the questions, he was too busy with “private meetings” to return for a second day in a row, but his deputy was present, so hopefully it would be okay after all. Erin O’Toole led off, script on his mini-lectern, and he moaned about the higher softwood lumber tariffs and called the prime ministers a “pushover.” Chrystia a Freeland read that she was extremely disappointed by the unfair and unwarranted decision by the US, that Trudeau did raise it in Washington last week, as did she, and that it was fuelling America’s inflation. O’Toole accused the Liberals of selling out workers, for which Freeland reminded the Commons that O’Toole publicly called on the government to drop retaliatory measures against other American tariffs, which Canada won. O’Toole then raised the threats over PEI potato exports, and Freeland said she would leave it up to Canadians to judge their successes with the New NAFTA and the 232 tariffs, before she pivoted to addressing PEI farmers, reminding them that she grew up on a farm too, and she was working to resolve the situation. O’Toole then switched to French, and said the government was racking up failures, for which Freeland reiterated that they have been trying to resolve the softwood lumber situation. O’Toole raised the issue of inflation, and Freeland reminded him that this is a global phenomenon as a result of economies restarting, and the government was working to help Canadians.

Alain Therrien led for the Bloc, and demanded that all health transfers be given to provinces without strings, and Freeland assured him that they wanted to work with Quebec. Therrien demanded a public summit with premiers, for which Freeland reminded him of the support they sent to Quebec during the pandemic.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he demanded immediate action on the climate crisis and an end to fossil fuel subsidies, and Freeland stated that she agreed that climate action as urgent and essential and that those subsidies would be phased out next year, and that a raft of independent experts judged the Liberal plan the best. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same response. 

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Roundup: Casting doubt as a smoke bomb

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As I was just saying about Canadian political leaders focusing on American issues and culture wars, we are seeing yet another instance in this country – this time over the upcoming riding redistribution hearings. The Conservatives have decided that they want to go all-in on American culture wars and are fundraising to fight these redistributions, citing that they don’t trust the Liberals to run the process fairly – never mind that the process is arm’s length, and the fact that the Speaker of the House is involved in the process is supposed to ensure neutrality. The fact that he was elected as a Liberals should not be a factor – and it’s especially rich from the Conservatives, seeing as it was their votes that ensured that Rota got into the post during Tuesday’s election (and I know enough about where votes were going for certain candidates that the maths work out that the Conservatives were voting for Rota).

We really, really do not want to go down this path of making a partisan issue of riding redistribution, because only madness lies this way. Aside from outright partisan lunacy in thinking that this is an effective way of fundraising never mind the corrosive effect that this has on our political system, it’s also a simple admission of sore loserism. If they think they’ve been losing because of riding redistribution (with “rurban” seats largely being split up into actual rural and urban seats), the most recent redistribution happened under their watch, and frankly, “rurban” seats were pure gerrymandering because they didn’t make sense and were trying to use rural votes to outweigh urban ones and never made sense in terms of “communities” like they are so concerned that ridings encompass. If they think that they won’t get a fair shake this time around, it’s pure projection.

Of course, this isn’t actually about riding redistribution – it’s about throwing another smoke bomb into the mix in order to distract from the party’s internal problems and the challenges to Erin O’Toole’s leadership. The fact that they are trying to discredit a process that is meant to be removed from political considerations and partisan gamesmanship is pretty gross, especially because that is meant to be a pure distraction (and fundraising grab). This process is important to our democracy, and for them to cast doubt for selfish reasons is a sign of the party’s continued moral decline.

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Roundup: Substance-free gong show, English debate edition

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The English debate, with its much higher stakes, was no better than the French. It too lacked substance or any meaningful exchanges because they had a schedule of topics to get through, and wouldn’t you know it, they weren’t going to let exchanges get interesting or involved – they just wanted to move on. Justin Trudeau tried to paint Erin O’Toole as weak, Singh tried to paint Trudeau as unable to fulfil promises. Trudeau warned that Singh was trying to instil cynicism among progressives because he refused to acknowledge any work done. Annamie Paul kept insisting that the key to everything was to work together. And Yves-François Blanchet and moderator Shachi Kurl started getting into it, and that gave Blanchet the victim card he was looking for in the Quebec media, particularly around Bill 21.

https://twitter.com/ChrisGNardi/status/1436172199430328323

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1436142521118334983

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1436154327169581083

The fact that they are still moaning the fact that we’re in an election is getting really tiresome – but not quite as tiresome as the fact that Trudeau still can’t make a convincing case for it. He keeps trying to go hard on insisting there are huge and sharp divisions between the different parties, which is why he needs the electoral support to carry on making tough choices about the pandemic. What he won’t spell out is that he needs that support because the spring session was a toxic swamp that stalled virtually all bills for months, including the budget implementation bill for the fall economic update and all of the pandemic supports therein. The fact that he refuses to say that, for whatever “happy warrior” shtick he thinks is going to win him points, just gives the other parties a pass for their petty bullshit in the spring, and the campaign of dishonesty that accompanied it, and it just keeps him from making an actual case. I don’t get it, but clearly this hasn’t blown over.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1436137253504536581

If you need lists of takeaways, you have plenty to choose from – CTV, Maclean’s, the Star, and CBC. The CBC also has a half-assed fact-check of things mentioned during the debate.

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Roundup: The PBO’s dubious stamp of approval strikes again

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With less than two weeks to go in the campaign, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says he has returned 75 of 100 costing requests, but the Conservatives have not authorised release of any of theirs yet. The Liberals appear to have released most of theirs, and the NDP have only released two so far – but theirs are both fairly problematic.

Their first costing was for their pharmacare plan, basing it on Quebec’s 2016 formulary, and drawing their assumptions out from there for five years, and presumes that they could get a national plan up and running by next year using that formulary as an example. That’s a virtual impossibility, and a national formulary still needs to be negotiated (which the Canadian Drug Agency Transition Office is set up to coordinate once more provinces sign on), but hey, they got the PBO’s stamp of approval. Their costing for their wealth tax is also loaded with plenty of poor assumptions, has a huge uncertainty around a behavioural response – tax avoidance is a whack-a-mole problem – and most importantly, the base assumption is for a tax on “economic families,” when our tax system is built around individual filers. They would need to create a whole new tax system to capture this one percent of net wealth. And as Lindsay Tedds points out, there is no way this could be administered to get revenues for the current taxation year, but hey, the PBO put his stamp of approval on that one too.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1435346365228400643

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1435349658805624834

The notion that the PBO should do platform costing because he’s “neutral” is a poor move, because costing is an inherently political exercise. It requires implementation decisions that have huge effects on what is being projected, and those are decisions that he should be far away from.

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Roundup: Evidence-based dumping a promise

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Because we’re going to re-litigate this issue yet again over the course of the campaign, I’m going to remind you all that Trudeau’s decision to abandon electoral reform was a result of evidence-based policy as opposed to a lie or false promise. The issue was studied. They engaged in polling that was output-based, meaning what people wanted for outcomes rather than simply asking them which system they preferred, because that conditions people who are rote in their responses about what system they think they prefer, without necessarily understanding their outcomes. And the outcomes they were looking for had a lot more to do with status quo than most people like to believe.

Beyond that, the special committee that studied the issue in the House of Commons returned a report that was hot garbage. Its conclusions were to call on the government to design a bespoke version of proportional representation that fell below a certain threshold of what they consider vote percentages to seat allocations which would require a massive number of new seats to be even remotely possible, that also had to have a simple ballot and retained the ability to elect individual MPs who had a connection to the riding as opposed to choosing MPs from party lists. Such a thing is a virtual impossibility. The common talking point is that Trudeau killed it because it didn’t advance ranked ballots, which he preferred (never mind that the Liberals on the committee didn’t advance study of this system in any meaningful way), and both the committee and the media were caught up in one bullshit analysis that relied on a single poll of second choices that declared that the Liberals would have won more seats under such a system, where there is actually no evidence of that. (Seriously, look at how politics works in Australia’s House of Representatives, which is elected by ranked ballot). That was the dominant narrative, which made it poisonous for Trudeau to advance.

But we’re going to get a bunch of people continue to moan about that in this election, including some ridiculous assertions that if the Conservatives form government that it’s because Trudeau didn’t implement proportional representation. (Seriously, if you favour a voting system because you think it’ll keep a certain party out, then you’re a sore loser, not actually interested in democratic outcomes). And no doubt, we’ll see some more garbage journalism like this CBC piece which is obtuse about things like the Conservative platform, and getting comment from a single political scientist who favours reform. Seriously? That’s not how you do your job.

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Roundup: Another day, another position on gun control

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Another day, and Erin O’Toole has yet another position on gun control. In the face of more questions on just where he stands, O’Toole now says that he’ll keep the existing prohibitions in place – but remains cagey on just what those are, never mind that his platform says he’ll repeal them. Also, never mind that his own candidates are saying they’ll repeal the measures the current government put into place.

What is fascinating as well is to watch certain small-c conservative columnists report on this about-face, saying things like this might save O’Toole’s campaign, rather than, oh, this is yet another example of him swallowing himself whole, reversing his positions when it suits him, saying one thing to one group and another thing to another group if he thinks he can get away with it, and generally being a naked opportunist. And these tend to be the same talking heads who spend days if the Liberals “flip-flop” on a position. I expect we’ll see a few more days of questions to O’Toole on his changing positions, and whether they change again in another day or two.

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