Tag Archives: Gun Control

Roundup: O’Toole’s hand-wavey five-point plan

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Erin O’Toole gave his keynote speech at the Conservative convention, and it was…serviceable. It was no rhetorical or oratory feat, but it wasn’t the stumbling, breathy mess that Andrew Scheer tended to deliver either, so there was that. But while he laid out his “five-point plan” for economic recovery, it was mostly hand-wavey and gave no real indication of just what exactly he planned to do, or how. Or, as one description put it, it was all tell and no show. But for as much as saying that the country has changed and the party needs to doesn’t really say how. Reaching out to private sector unions? Okay, sure, but just telling a bunch of blue-collar workers that you’re not “woke” isn’t going to cut it when you’re arguing against better wages and benefits. Trying to appeal to Quebec by out-Blocing the Bloc? I’m not seeing exactly what kind of broader, more inclusive party he’s trying to build other than his usual lip service about wanting more Canadians to see a Conservative when they look in the mirror.

https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1373031101963382790

While you can see my thread responding to his speech here, the party put out a backgrounder on their “Canada Recovery Plan” shortly after the speech, it’s still pretty hand-wavey. In short:

  1. Jobs – What government doesn’t promise jobs? O’Toole promises to recover the million jobs lost by the pandemic, just as Trudeau has, and while O’Toole says that includes women and youth, he literally spent the rest of the speech deriding the Liberals’ inclusive growth plan as being “picking and choosing who gets ahead,” and a “re-imagining of the economy.” Pick a lane.
  2. Accountability – Promises for new anti-corruption laws miss the point. Stephen Harper rode in on the white horse of accountability, and all it did was drive away talent from political staff jobs. Trudeau’s “ethics scandals” have largely been penny ante, and stem from a belief that so long as they mean well that the ends justify the means. Even more laws aren’t going to change that, and this is just populist noise, trying to rail against “elites.”
  3. Mental Health – I will give O’Toole props for mentioning that this will require the cooperation of the provinces, but he’s also already promised increased health transfers with no strings attached. So, again, pick a gods damned lane. As for his “incentives for employers to provide mental health coverage,” we all know that means another tax credit. As for the national three-digit suicide prevention hotline, the Liberals already started this process, but it’s going to take up to two years to implement.
  4. Secure the Country – Partner with pharmaceutical companies to increase capacity for medicines and vaccine production? Erm, what are you willing to capitulate to them? Blow up PMPRB? Give them longer timelines for intellectual property to keep out generics? These kinds of measures would increase drug prices, and would hugely impact provinces and health plans. More domestic production of PPE? You’re talking about subsidising industries to do that, which doesn’t sound very Conservative, and it sounds like picking winners and losers.
  5. Economy – Winding down emergency supports and targeting stimulus are pretty much exactly what the Liberals are promising. There is no daylight here. As for promising to “grow the economy again” and claiming there was slow growth under the Liberals is 100 percent fiction – the Liberals needed to provide some kind of economic stimulus because Conservative austerity was dragging economic growth. This claim is complete bullshit.

Meanwhile, Paul Wells is heartened that O’Toole has woken up to the reality that his party can no longer continue being a cargo cult for Stephen Harper – but also notes that his plan is light on calories, for better or worse at this stage.

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Roundup: Agitating for a political document

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Unable to score points on the vaccine procurement in a meaningful way, now that sufficient quantities have arrived, Erin O’Toole has recently tried pivoting to the federal budget, or the fact that there hasn’t been one in some 700 days. Given that the party is losing its lustre in public opinion polls as being “good fiscal managers” – a bit of branding that rarely, if ever, actually proved itself to be true, O’Toole is trying to bolster their street cred. The problem, of course, is that many of his arguments are, well, not actually sound ones.

For starters, no federal budget is like a household – not even close. It’s a bogus populist argument that just refuses to die, but everyone keeps repeating it and buying into it. More to the point, O’Toole is trying to claim that nobody knows how government money is being spent, which is a falsehood. Any money that the government spends has to come through the Estimates process, which gets voted on in Parliament after going through committee study. Afterward, how that those appropriations wound up being allocated get reported in the Public Accounts, which are released every year. All of this spending is being accounted for.

What O’Toole is looking for is a political document that lays out spending plans in broad strokes. It does not on its own showcase how that money gets allocated and spent. In fact, there has been a disconnect between the budget and the Estimates going back a few decades now, because governments and civil servants preferred it that way, and when the Liberals tried to better re-align those processes in the last parliament, it did not go very well thanks in part to institutional inertia pushing back. Suffice to say, it is not true that money is being spent blindly. MPs have ostensibly been in control of the process the whole time – but whether they have paid attention to what they were voting on is another matter entirely.

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Roundup: A slacktivist declaration

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The Conservatives’ non-binding Supply Day vote went ahead yesterday on declaring that China is conducting a genocide against the Uyghur population, and it passed unanimously – without anyone in Cabinet voting. Well, Marc Garneau was there to performatively declare that he was abstaining – which you can’t actually do, because Commons votes are strictly yay or nay (the Senate has an abstention option), but no one else in Cabinet was there, for what it’s worth.

Immediately, news outlets everywhere started declaring that “Parliament declared a genocide,” which, no, did not happen. It was a non-binding vote in the House of Commons – which is not Parliament – that essentially expressed an opinion. There is nothing official about said declaration, which is important, because an official declaration would have consequences. Essentially, the House of Commons voted to put a black square on their Instagram and call it action against genocide.

And there will be consequences, such as China attempting to impose further sanctions upon Canada in an attempt to try and warn other Western countries from making a similar declaration, because China doesn’t want to lose face. This is precisely why the government has been working with allies to do – ensure that all of their ducks are in a row before they make a formal declaration of genocide, so that they a) have a united front against China’s retaliation, b) that they can uphold the obligations under the Genocide Convention around preventing genocide and punishing those responsible – something that the Americans have opted themselves out of because they refuse to respect the authority of the International Court of Justice, which means that America declaring a genocide is largely a symbolic act, whereas Canada doing the same is not. (And it would be great if media outlets could actually articulate this point rather than ignoring it, because they all have. Every single one of them).

But the opposition parties – and apparently the backbench Liberals as well – are more concerned with making a statement and the kind of preening that comes with “showing leadership” rather than doing the actual hard work of getting our allies on-side so that we have a meaningful declaration and that we aren’t cheapening the term “genocide,” which is literally the worst crime against humanity. But political leadership in this country is decidedly unserious, so this is the kind of clown show we’re getting, complete with a cartoonish understanding of foreign policy. Go us.

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QP: Hotline blues

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Monday, and there were a mere two Liberals in the Chamber. Candice Bergen led off for the Conservatives by video, railing that vaccines were not being distributed fast enough, and demanded a plan from the government. Anita Anand reminded her that the plan is in place, and that over half a million doses are arriving this week. Bergen went two more rounds of the same, and got the same response both times. Gérard Deltell then took over in French, and demanded the government to declare how they would vote on the Uyghur genocide motion, for which Marc Garneau cited the government’s concern with the situation and their actions to try and get verification with international partners, but did not answer the question posed. Deltell cited that the Americans have made a declaration — which is meaningless because they don’t subscribe to the International Genocide Convention — for which Garneau repeated his response.

Alain Therrien rose for the Bloc, citing the hours-long wait times on the government’s hotline for hotel quarantines, for which Patty Hajdu praised their border measures and hotel quarantine making it more robust. Therrien then demanded stronger quarantine measures, for which he got the usual reassurances from Hajdu.

Rachel Blaney led for the NDP, and she complained that the UNDRIP bill had only received two hours of debate — ignoring the winter break and the shenanigans of the opposition in forcing debate on committee reports over bill debates. David Lametti reassured her that they felt the bill was important and hoped it would move along soon. Charlie Angus the railed about companies with poor track records getting contracts for First Nations water systems, for which Marc Miller pointed out that the First Nations choose the contractors, and the department works with them to get results.

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QP: Selectively quoting reports to one another

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There were only three Liberals in the Chamber today, which remains a problem, but they keep telling themselves they’re setting a “good example.” They’re not. Pierre Poilievre led off, and he lamented a Canadian Federation of Independent Business report citing that up to twenty percent of small businesses may close because of the pandemic. Appearing by video, Chrystia Freeland quoted this week’s IMF report that praised the federal government’s quick action in providing supports. Poilievre then gave a mendacious comparison of unemployment figures, to which Freeland responded with comparisons of the participation rates in the labour force. Poilievre railed about people not getting jobs, but Freeland repeated her IMF quotes. Pierre Paul-Hus was up next, and he gave a fictitious version of the CanSino deal, to which Freeland read the talking points on the vaccine portfolio. Paul-Hus demanded a back-up plan for vaccinations, to which Freeland haltingly read talking points about the breadth of the portfolio as being Plans A, B, C, and D.

For the Bloc, Sébastien Lemire quoted that experts did not agree with the CanSino deal and falsely quoted the “putting all our eggs in one basket” notion, for which Freeland read assurances that the government always listens to expert advice, before repeating the assurances about diversifying the portfolio. Lemire then complained about the Laval candidate not getting funding, for which Freeland read that the researcher got a million dollar subsidy from the government.

Rising for the NDP, Jagmeet Singh complained in French about the federal sickness benefit, and demanded it being improved — though in 94 percent of workplaces, sick leave is a provincial responsibility. Freeland read that the sickness benefit was an important programme, and that provinces have put protections for employment in place. Singh repeated his demand in English, and Freeland agreed that paid sick leave is important, which is why they provided the benefits they could.

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Roundup: A hollow gun control bill

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The much-ballyhooed gun control bill tabled this week is going over like a lead balloon on all sides – not only the predictable caterwauling from the gun lobby, but also gun control advocates who see the bill as largely an empty shell that doesn’t really do much at all. And then there are the provinces, many of whom are opposed to this kind of measure and who are accusing the federal government of doing an end-run around them, as cities are creatures of the province – which of course this bill is doing, because the federal government is trying to respond to demands while provinces (and most especially those run by conservatives) refuse to take action.

Matt Gurney lays out a lot of these contradictions in this piece, and concludes that this bill is more about political showmanship than it is about doing anything concrete – which is 100 percent correct. The Liberals are in something of a tight spot – their base is in large urban centres, where this is a pressing issue, and they are trying to look like they’re doing something when provinces aren’t, which means kludging what few levers they have available (in this case, using federal criminal law powers and tying them to municipal regulations). At the same time, they’re trying not to obliterate what little support they still have in rural seats, some of which they have fought to regain, tooth and nail, after the long-gun registry, which hobbled them for decades. I can see themselves thinking they’re clever enough to try and play both sides, but that rarely ends well.

Meanwhile, here’s Gurney with a lengthy thread with more on the deeper reading into the bullshit inherent in these measures, and you should click through and read the whole thing, because it put so many things into context. Suffice to say:

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1362105848768712707

https://twitter.com/mattgurney/status/1362113777244770306

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QP: Random accusations and incoherence

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For the day’s proto-PMQs, prime minister Justin Trudeau was present, along with three other Liberals — still a pathetic turnout and contemptuous of Parliament. After a late start, Erin O’Toole led off, mini-lectern and script in front of him, and he accused the prime minister of being out of step with allies and his own caucus on China, and demanded that Canada remove itself from the Asia Infrastructure Bank — as though that would do anything. Trudeau stated that they continue to express their concern about China’s activities and human rights record, solidarity with the two Michaels, and that more discussions were happening in next week’s virtual G7 meeting. O’Toole tried to wedge Canadian job numbers with the Asia Infrastructure Bank, and Trudeau took the opportunity to pat himself on the back for the measures they rolled out to help those who lost their jobs because of the pandemic. O’Toole then worried about our vaccination rollout, and the lack of domestic production capacity, and Trudeau read about their investments in Canadian bio-manufacturing, and how the vaccine plan was on track. O’Toole switched to French to repeat the question and got the same answer, before he demanded to know how many Canadians would be vaccinated next week — as though he can answer for the provinces, but Trudeau listed what deliveries we were expecting this week,

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, and stated that the Quebec government was investing in that Laval vaccine candidate, to which Trudeau listed what investments that particular researcher was given by the federal government. Blanchet was not mollified, and he continued to rail that multinationals got contracts instead of Quebeckers, for which Trudeau chided that we can hear the frustration in the Bloc leader’s voice because Ottawa was delivering for Quebec.

For the NDP, Jagmeet Singh got up, and in French, demanded a promise from the government that they would not call an election in the pandemic, and Trudeau took the opportunity to call out the Conservatives for stalling the latest pandemic aid bill. Singh repeated his demand in English, and Trudeau noted that in a minority parliament, the government doesn’t have the sole determination of that, before praising their efforts today.

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Roundup: Aping the Americans for the sake of chaos

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I frequently chide NDP leader Jagmeet Singh for his propensity to create jurisdictional confusion with the intent of making promises he can’t keep, and trying to make the Liberal government look unwilling to help (when they simply don’t have levers at their disposal), and yet, he keeps it up, again and again, and refuses to be called out on this particular brand of bullshit. And yesterday was case in point, yet again, as he laid out how an NDP government (post-election) would handle the vaccine distribution – using the military, and setting up federal vaccination sites.

As you can expect, this particular pledge is just more bullshit masquerading as a solution to which problems don’t actually exist. Oh, and yet another example of Singh simply lifting what the American Democrats are doing and insisting that it’ll also work for Canada. Never mind that in the US, where they don’t have public health care, the need for military intervention in the problem is more acute, especially as the rollout is a complete gong show in many states. This is not really a problem here, even though certain provincial governments are less than competent – but it’s certainly not the problem that the Americans are facing, so we don’t need their solutions. This having been said, while Singh thinks that federal vaccination sites will speed up delivery, the problem is not human resources, for which provinces have plenty of trained people and access to Red Cross volunteers, but it’s largely logistics. The notion of setting up federal sites in parallel to existing provincial ones, where it’s unlikely that their IT will communicate well (seriously, every province has their own IT systems and health record formats), and they will only create back-end confusion that will simply cause chaos in trying to determine who has been vaccinated with which product, and whether they’ve had both doses, and how to contact people who need second dose appointments if you have two systems that don’t interface well. There is no world in which this ends well. He should know this and ensure that the federal role is to ensure provinces have all the support they need, but no, he needs to keep trying to inflate the federal role (probably so that he can look like the hero).

His particular demands for publicly-owned vaccine and PPE manufacturing is also problematic in a number of ways. We can all see the need for some domestic manufacturing capability of PPE, it would seem to me that public ownership is a solution in search of a problem, particularly given that federal management of emergency stockpiles was not exactly stellar. As for publicly owned vaccine manufacturing, which particular platform would this entail? It’s highly unlikely that a publicly-owned vaccine manufacturer would have invested in mRNA technology while it was still unproven for wide-scale vaccinations, which wouldn’t do us any good in the current environment. I get that they have an ideological bent to public ownership, but articulate the problems you’re trying to solve – something that they refuse to do when called out.

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Roundup: An oncoming vaccine delivery crunch

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It looks like the vaccine delays are at an end, with ramped up deliveries planned through to the end of March, and Pfizer’s Canadian president insisting that they fully plan to meet their contracted deadlines. Add to that, there is more talk of AstraZeneca vaccines on the way (which could be from India as well as the US), but as has been pointed out in this breakdown of vaccine delivery math, this is going to put more pressure on provinces to get those doses into arms.

Why is that concerning? Well, provincial government competence is a very live concern. Ontario, for example, still hasn’t set up a web portal or call centre to book appointments for vaccinations, when they’ve been caterwauling that they need more doses – only, whoops, it turns out that they can’t even bloody count the doses they’ve delivered and they only delivered half as many as they thought they had. That’s not exactly encouraging (particularly because the government is being run by a gang of incompetent murderclowns).

Add to that, Ontario’s ethical framework for vaccine priorities is far more confused than it should be. Would that this government could get its act together, but no. This is only making a bad situation worse, but remember, everyone has to keep praising Ford for how he really exceeded his (low) expectations, rather than holding him to account for the thousands of unnecessary deaths that have occurred on his watch.

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Roundup: Putting vaccine procurement facts on the record

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There was a very important interview released yesterday, with the co-chair of the government’s vaccine task force, which blew most of the narratives about the vaccine procurement out of the water. Particularly, it goes through the evaluation of domestic production capacity and candidate development, the decision to create a broad portfolio of vaccine candidates from international sources, and the fact that CanSino was just one of several options – it was never “all of our eggs,” as the Conservatives continue to lie about. She talks about how long it takes to build bio-manufacturing capacity, and people demanding that it be done overnight are like trying to tell a farmer to grow his crops faster. There are just so many falsehoods that the opposition has been circulating in order to give the impression that the federal government has been incompetent in their handling of this vaccine procurement, which this government has not been effective in pushing back against, even when the media does finally get Anita Anand to give proper answers – which tend not to stick in people’s minds. This notion that the government was simply incapable of signing good deals is ridiculous but corrosive (indeed, the opposition parties spent the whole day trying to use the Health Committee’s production powers to force the release of the vaccine contracts, in spite of the fact that they have rigid non-disclosure clauses, for which Liberals on the committee were filibustering), and yet here we are. So, it was good to finally get an interview with one of the people at the centre of this on the record, but man, it should not have taken this long.

Meanwhile, after Manitoba put on a dog and pony show about procuring their own domestically produced vaccines (which couldn’t happen until the end of the year at the earliest), Jason Kenney announced that he would do the same, but started talking about how the company – Provenance – would need 50 million doses ordered before they could properly scale up and produce them, and he wanted other provinces to sign up – err, at a point when everyone in the country should be vaccinated already – and insisted that they could simply sell surplus doses abroad. Well, the CEO of that company went on Power & Politics yesterday to say that oh no, Kenney must have been poorly briefed, and there was no 50 million dose minimum, and if they’re only contracted for two million doses, they’ll produce two million doses – but I’m not sure which of them to believe, because while Kenney is not exactly an honest broker, it’s quite possible he said the quiet part out loud when it comes to Provenance (though the industry minister is supposed to be meeting with the CEO today, so we’ll see).

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