Tag Archives: Haiti

Roundup: NSICOP vs lawful access

Posted on by

Yesterday, the CBC’s national security reporter filed a story about the NSICOP report into lawful access, which was frankly a poor piece of journalism. The story merely quoted from the report without any outside comment, but more than that, the focus and entire framing of the story was more on the frustrations of police and CSIS that they don’t have lawful access tools—and by lawful access, we mean the ability of police or intelligence services to access your digital online history and movements, usually without a judicial warrant. This is very bad. In fact, it’s so bad that the Supreme Court of Canada has twice ruled that it’s unconstitutional, and that police can’t even get your ISP information without a warrant because it offers too much access to the “digital breadcrumbs” of your online life that it can and will violate your privacy.

This is not mentioned in the CBC story. The report talks extensively about the Supreme Court’s definition of privacy and why it’s important, and why it’s important to try and find pathways for information that still require a judicial warrant, and so on. But how was this reported in the story? A single sentence: “It dives into one of the most controversial issues in national security: balancing the individual right to privacy while safeguarding public safety.” If that’s not soft-pedalling one of the major problems underpinning this whole report, I’m not sure what is. And then the story goes back to enumerating the complaints about how hard it is to access that data.

I do think that the NSICOP report’s findings are a problematic in places because it essentially wants Parliament to thread that needle in a way that makes it sound easy.

In the Committee’s view, the primary way the government could facilitate and enable national security investigations while at the same time protecting Canadians’ right to privacy would be to modernize lawful access legislation, based on clearly articulated principles that reaffirm the requirement for a legitimate need for exceptional, targeted and judicially authorized access emphasize privacy and cybersecurity protections, and define transparency and oversight mechanisms. In light of the complexity of the lawful access challenge, the Committee suggests that the government implement an incremental approach to allow for meaningful engagement with stakeholders and a diversity of input.

I also question the wisdom of encouraging a comprehensive data-sharing agreement with the US, given that they are no longer a functional democracy and it’s probably a very bad thing if their authorities have easy access to Canadians’ data for their own purposes. And these are real problems that Parliament needs to confront, in both the (terrible) omnibus border bill C-2, which has lawful access provisions in it, or how it and the cyber-security bill, C-8, can try and force companies to put in backdoors to their encryption (which at least the NSICOP report says is a bad idea). This is a very problematic area of law, but that CBC story did absolute injustice to it, and most especially about the absolute importance of privacy rights, and why we shouldn’t make it easy for police to access our data whenever they claim it’s necessary (especially because CSIS has a history of not being candid with the courts about why they need information or warrants).

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine has hit Russian oil infrastructure in both the Bryansk and Samara regions, which is widening the fuel crisis in that country. Under the theory that Trump repeats whatever the last person he was speaking to says, he was saying that Ukraine can win the war and reclaim their territory with NATO help.

Continue reading →

Roundup: An own-goal that makes it worse for everyone

Posted on by

It was an own-goal for the media today as CTV was found to have spliced a Poilievre quote in a news story and was forced to apologise for it. Of course, this had every single Conservative salivating and insisting that this was “proof” of “fake news” and that media were trying to be unfair to Poilievre, and that this was in service of their government funding (which television outlets like CTV don’t get), and other ridiculous accusations of bias. Because that’s where we are now.

While I don’t personally know what happened, what is likely to have happened was you had someone trying to fit the story into their both-sides narrative frame and needed a short quote, and took the long paragraph from Poilievre and extracted words to come up with what they were looking for to fit the piece. It’s bad practice, but it’s almost certainly not done with malevolent intention, but because they’re overworked, under-resourced, and lacking proper editorial supervision, as with nearly every outlet these days. Because that’s where every media outlet is at, and it’s not sustainable, and things are going to continue to deteriorate if we try to keep doing what we’re doing.

This being said, the Conservatives’ war against the media is only going to get worse, and this incident, plus others, shows that they have a vested interest in catching out every single mistake from media, or to invent problems where they didn’t actually exist. For example, Poilievre likes to go on about the three corrections that The Canadian Press made to a story about his remarks, but the “corrections” were because the writer had spelled out what Poilievre was only referring to obliquely (quite deliberately) and Poilievre complained that he didn’t say what the story says he did, even though he actually did if you thought about it for more than five seconds. But this is the kind of petty, bad-faith bullshit that they’re going to engage in, and most of our media outlets are unprepared to deal with it. Legacy media is in serious trouble in this country, and it’s only going to get worse as this campaign against them from Poilievre intensifies.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian forces made a new series of strikes on Zaporizhzhia, killing one. At the Permanent Court of Arbitration in the Hague, Ukraine is accusing Russia of trying to illegally seize control of the Sea of Azov and the Kerch Strait. President Zelenskyy is in the US, not only to attend the UN, but to discuss his “victory plan” with the American government.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Provinces learned they can underfund disaster management

Posted on by

The House of Commons’ national defence committee tabled their report on disaster management earlier this week, and one of its recommendations is for a permanent civilian federal disaster management force that can be deployed for wildfires, floods, hurricanes, or other natural disasters—but they stopped short of recommending a Canadian FEMA, which may not be possible given that this is constitutionally largely an area of provincial jurisdiction, and would require some kind of provincial agreement to operate, and because this is Canada, the provinces would want some kind of say in its operations but wouldn’t want to pay for it, because of course.

One of the problems we’re dealing with as a country is that we’re dealing with the Canadian Forces being at their capacity and they are constantly being asked to deal with disaster management across the country because provincial capacity maxes out too soon. But why does provincial capacity max out? Because they keep cutting funds or under-investing, and creating these situations because they know that regardless of what happens, they can simply call up the federal government to ask them deploy the Canadian Forces, and even more to the point, that they can do it for free because the federal government won’t ask for reimbursement even though they are entitled to. And this has wound up teaching the premiers that there are pretty much no consequences for their under-investing or even cutting the funding for this kind of emergency management, so they are incentivized to rely on the Canadian Forces to do the work for them for free, and now we have reached the end of that being possible.

So, what is the solution? I am wary of the notion of building up a federal force because even if they can manage to get provincial agreements, staff it up (because you would be drawing from the same pool as the Canadian Forces, which has a recruitment and retention crisis), and even if they paid for all of it (which they shouldn’t), this will exacerbate the existing problem of provinces not funding or bolstering their existing forces that are their constitutional responsibility because there will still be a federal backstop. And if the federal government starts asking for reimbursement, either for the use of the Canadian Forces or this hypothetical future force, then the media will be aghast that the federal government is making the province pay in their time of need, completely ignoring that the provincial under-funding created the situation in the first place. We’re at a bit of a rock and hard place, because we have let federalism break down like this, and that’s not good for the country.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russian guided bombs struck the Eastern settlement of Selydove, killing two. Ukrainian forces captured a Russian “barn” tank that has been modified to protect against drone attacks. Ukraine launched a drone attack that struck three Russian oil refineries overnight.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Backtracking on capital gains claims

Posted on by

A number of prominent business lobby groups banded together to write a joint letter to the government slamming the changes to the capital gains inclusion rate, claiming it to be short-sighted, that it sows division, and that it will impact one in five Canadians over the next decade—with more apocalyptic language about how this will hamper economic growth. Because, remember, their ability to engage in tax arbitrage is claimed to be a public good, or something.

There was just one problem—their math was grossly wrong, and they needed to backtrack on their claims, and that really, it’s about 0.13 percent of Canadians who would pay higher taxes on their capital gains. Oopsie. Kind of takes the sting out of their apocalyptic doomsaying, and exposes them for trying to mislead people into thinking that they will be exposed.

Meanwhile, the NDP have been banging on about why the government didn’t introduce any kind of windfall tax or other wealth taxes in the budget, pointing to plans by Joe Biden to increase corporate taxes, apparently not understanding how the American political system works and how that’s unlikely to happen because of how their legislative process works. The bitter irony, of course, is that for a party that keeps aping the American Democrats in their talking points, they also have no understanding of American politics either.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukraine’s air force says they downed all ten of the drones Russia fired overnight, but didn’t say what happened to the two missiles launched. A Ukrainian drone damaged a Russian oil refinery a record 1500 km away from border. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the head of the state guards after two of its members were found to be plotting his assassination. Zelenskyy also says that with more Western weapons arriving, they’ll be able to halt the Russian advance in the east. In those eastern towns, Ukrainian rescuers are evacuating the elderly and infirm as the Russians close in;

Continue reading →

Roundup: Admitting defeat with 24 Sussex?

Posted on by

There is a rumour circulating in Ottawa, put in print, that former prime ministers Jean Chrétien and Stephen Harper are offering to lead a charitable exercise of collecting donations to renovate 24 Sussex in the hopes that this will finally depoliticise the whole affair, and the work can finally get done. It’s absolutely discouraging, however, because if it’s true, it’s a giant admission of defeat when it comes to the ability for political decision-making and frankly our ability to have…not even nice things, but useful, official things in this country.

This is supposed to be why we have the gods damned National Capital Commission to deal with the official residences, so that it takes it out of the hands of the government of the day, but even then, it doesn’t exactly work because if the government doesn’t give them the budget allocations to do the work, it doesn’t get done. And they got the allocations for necessary repairs at Harrington Lake, or doing routine work at other residences like Stornoway, but 24 Sussex keeps being punted, as they do yet more studies about what possible alternatives could be, each more wildly fantastic or implausible than the last (such as converting the National Research Council building on Sussex into a quasi-White House with residences and offices, which is absolutely bloody ridiculous), and with the RCMP security wish list driving up the costs every time.

It’s an official residence. It should have the capacity to host a couple of working dinners (not state dinners—that’s why we have Rideau Hall or the Sir John A Macdonald Building across from the West Block), but that’s about it. It doesn’t need to be elaborate, but I do think it should retain period features (which in my estimation should mean restoring the original façade with the turret) because this is a heritage property and we are a city of a lot of neo-gothic architecture. But we shouldn’t need a fundraising drive if everyone behaved like adults, which unfortunately seems like too much to ask these days.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia fired five missiles at Zaporizhzhia on Friday, killing four, and a drone strike early Saturday morning on Kharkiv killed six and injured at least ten. Russians claim that they have taken control of the village of Vodyane in the east, but Ukraine denies the Russian reports that they have reached the suburbs of Chasiv Yar, one of their strongholds in the east. Ukraine did stage a strike against Russia’s Morozovsk military airbase, destroying six Russian warplanes.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1776278198684201137

Continue reading →

Roundup: Another tranche of housing money

Posted on by

As part of his pre-budget announcement tour, Justin Trudeau was in Halifax yesterday to announce a new tranche of housing funding, which comes with strings attached for provinces to access it, and if provinces don’t, well, it’ll get rolled into the municipal stream to let them access it instead. Some of this is an extension of the existing Housing Accelerator Fund, but they also have some new conditions around densification to be able to qualify for that funding, which is really about overcoming the NIMBYism that prevents a lot of it currently.

https://twitter.com/mikepmoffatt/status/1775245369128939654

This having been said, there will be implementation issues, and for that, Jennifer Robson has some thoughts.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Ukrainian forces say they downed two out of three Russian drones overnight on Monday, and that so far this year, Russia has fired five Zircon hypersonic missiles at Kyiv. Ukraine continues to make its own drone attacks against Russian refineries, with the latest strike against the country’s third-largest refinery. After much debate, Ukraine has lowered its draft age from 27 to 25 as they need to replenish their troops. Ukraine’s largest energy grid operator says that recent attacks have damaged the power system, but that total collapse is unlikely.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Economists endorse carbon pricing, not the Liberal plan

Posted on by

Yesterday, a group of leading Canadian economists published an open letter about the facts about carbon pricing and the rebates, and debunked several claims that conservatives around the country have been making. It was a good and necessary corrective, but of course, legacy media headlined it as them defending the Liberal plan, which they weren’t doing, particularly because while the Liberal plan includes the carbon levy and rebates, it also is full of regulation and subsidies, which these economics are explicitly not in favour of. But legacy media loves to make this a partisan fight where they have to be on one side or the other. Liberal Party comms didn’t do themselves any favours either on this one.

To that end, here is energy economist Andrew Leach on carbon pricing, and throwing some shade at the PBO’s rather shite report once more.

Meanwhile, a number of premiers demanded to be heard at the House of Commons’ finance committee about the carbon levy, because they think that’ll do them any good, but instead, the Conservative chair of the Government Operations Committee invited them to testify today. The Government Operations Committee has fuck all to do with this file, but apparently, we no longer care about things like committee mandates anymore, so long as you can put on a dog and pony show, and gather clips for social media shitpost videos, that’s all that matters. This shouldn’t be allowed, but this is the state to which our Parliament has now debased itself. Ours is no longer a serious institution for doing serious work. It’s only about content creation, and I cannot stress enough about how absolutely terrifying this is for the future of democracy.

Ukraine Dispatch:

A Ukrainian missile attack struck a Russian naval reconnaissance vessel as well as a large landing warship. Ukraine’s navy says that they have destroyed or disabled a third of the Russian Black Sea fleet over the past two years. Here’s a look at how Ukraine’s burgeoning domestic defence industry is ramping up to provide necessary ammunition for the war. Here’s a great explanation of Ukraine’s use of drone warfare with some excellent infographics.

https://twitter.com/defenceu/status/1772541600591147503

Continue reading →

Roundup: Reasons to oppose a bad judgment

Posted on by

After the federal government filed their appeal of that Federal Court decision that…strongly suggested to them to appoint more judges (because it certainly wasn’t an order), the lawyer behind that suit has filed a cross-appeal because he wants tougher language and more teeth to it, but it’s not something that the courts can really force a government to do because it’s a Crown prerogative. They have no enforcement mechanism, so I’m not sure what the lawyer here is hoping to accomplish other than to keep getting his name in the papers.

Speaking of papers, I do find it to be a problem that in both the National Post and Toronto Star stories about this cross appeal that neither of them referenced the fact that the primary reason the federal government is appealing the decision is not because it’s useless, but because it’s a complete dog’s breakfast that makes up a constitutional convention from whole cloth and then runs with it. There is plenty of commentary from constitutional scholars out there, Emmett Macfarlane’s being one of the most accessible, but this is a real issue, and no government that is the slightest bit responsible wants bad precedents sitting on the books. It’s one of the reasons why they fought the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision on compensation for Indigenous families—they were willing to pay the compensation, but the Tribunal exceeded its authority and they didn’t want that to stand lest it create a precedent (and why that was one of the points of negotiation in the settlement).

Bad precedents, if left unchallenged, create bad case law, and that creates all kinds of problems in the future. Nobody is arguing that this government doesn’t need to make faster appointments, because they absolutely do, and even they recognise that. But this was a bad decision that shouldn’t be allowed to stand.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russia subjected Kyiv to intense bombardment for the third time in five days, and once again, damage and injuries were mostly from debris from intercepted missiles and drones. Russia also attacked an underground gas storage facility, at a time where there are already rolling blackouts because of attacks on power supplies, as engineers work to restore power, in particular at Kharkiv and Odesa. Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to make drone attacks on Russian refineries.

Continue reading →

Roundup: The NDP call for more Biden policies

Posted on by

I am once again forced to wonder what exactly is the point of the federal NDP if the only thing they will ever call for are just the policies of the American Democrats, no matter how inappropriate for the Canadian context, or how lazy it is to just regurgitate the American talking points without any critical conception of how Canada is a different country and is not just America divided by ten (well, probably nine now given how fast our population is rising compared to theirs).

Case in point once again—as part of their pre-budget demands, the NDP want the Canadian government to copy Joe Biden’s proposed tax increases on corporations and billionaires, because of course they do. This after years of calling for “windfall” taxes on oil companies and grocery chains, and higher wealth taxes. There are a few problems with this, however, the first being that just because Joe Biden proposes something, it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen—especially if it’s a tax increase after all of the time and energy since the 1980s on tax cuts in that country. Biden doesn’t control Congress, and I have serious doubts he could get the increases passed. And while I would agree that every billionaire is a policy failure, we have so few in Canada—even fewer who file their income taxes here than who are Canadian citizens—that even if we did increase the taxes on them, it would amount to very little. The same with the demands on wealth taxes—we don’t have nearly as many as the Americans, and it wouldn’t really dent our fiscal situation federally. Windfall taxes also come with side-effects, particularly for something like the oil and gas industry, where if we impose these windfall taxes when oil prices are high, it would likely come with an expectation of greater bailouts when those prices crash.

I get that every Canadian political party likes to play fanboy/girl to American politicians, and invite them to their conventions (though the Conservatives lately have eschewed public association with most Republicans, but will instead associate themselves with disastrous UK Conservatives like Boris Johnson), and get organizing lessons from them, but come on. Some actual local policy development that reflects the Canadian economy and polity might be a good idea for a change.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles and drones stuck communications infrastructure in north-eastern Ukraine, knocking out television and radio signals in five towns. Ukrainian officials say that two of Russia’s border regions are now “active combat zones” thanks to incursions, primarily by rebel Russian forces located in Ukraine. Ukrainians living in occupied regions of the country are being coerced to vote for Putin in Russia’s elections this week.

Continue reading →

Roundup: Making a provincial problem a federal one—child care edition

Posted on by

The CBC continues to go out of its way to provide cover for delinquent premiers who can’t live up to their promises, in an attempt to make provincial problems federal ones. Yesterday is was on the early learning and child care system—fewer than half of the promises spaces have been created, and they want to make this a federal problem. It’s not, however—the federal government did their part, and delivered the promised funding, and what is left is for the provinces to live up to the agreements that they signed, and put their own money into the system. Several provinces are not doing that, and yet demanding more federal funding, because of course they are, and because they know they will get away with it.

The federal government did not force or strong-arm provinces into this system. Why? Because every single premier who signed up knew that this was a) popular, and b) economically necessary. We have labour shortages in this country and one of the most fundamental things they can do is to increase the labour force participation of women by providing subsidised child care. Quebec learned this years ago, and also learned that this pays for itself once the tax revenue from those women in the work force rolls in. The federal government wanted to get the ball rolling and provided a certain level of funding, and attached particular strings and metrics to it so that there is uniformity around the country, and some fundamental standards, particularly around things like improving pay for workers, and standards of care, and the choice was made to subsidize not-for-profit spaces because they’re less likely to cut corners for the sake of juicing their profit margins. But there are provinces who haven’t been investing in the system like they agreed to, or those like Ontario who cut the provincial funding they were supposed to invest, and then complain that there aren’t enough spaces being created.

We need to stop giving the premiers a pass on this. This is their problem, because they signed on and now are refusing to live up to their obligations. But the media doesn’t like holding premiers to account for some unknowable reason, so you get this CBC piece that continually frames this as a federal problem where the solution must be more federal dollars. No, the solution is the provinces living up to their obligations, and they have just as many revenue tools as the federal government does—and this will make their money back. But they don’t like to raise their own revenues, and when they get federal funding, don’t like to spend it on the things they are supposed to spend it on. And like Ontario is doing here, they get federal funds, cut their own share, and then demand more federal funds or the programme will suffer. It would be great if legacy media could actually hold them to account for this rather than trying to once again make this a federal problem.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian drone and bomb attacks killed four people overnight in the Sumy and Donetsk regions. Ukrainian drones damaged more Russian oil refineries in a second day of attacks. Here is a look at the Russian rebel groups attacking from Ukraine. The artillery purchase arranged by the Czech government should start arriving in Ukraine by June.

Continue reading →