Tag Archives: Healthcare

QP: The provocation and the restraint

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After all of yesterday’s drama, it was a real question as to what was going to go down today, with the prime minister present, and there to respond to (but not necessarily answer) all questions. His deputy was absent, but all other leaders were present. Pierre Poilievre led off in French, worrying about the public health director suggesting decriminalisation in Montreal and Quebec, and demanded the government deny the request. Justin Trudeau said that they should take a moment to reflect on what happened yesterday, and said that the government takes the tragedy in BC seriously and they work with science and compassion, and will work with BC on adjusting their pilot project. Poilievre demanded to know if he would reject a request from Quebec, and Trudeau said that they worked with BC when they made the proposal, and he has received no other proposals. Poilievre switched to English, dropped the Montreal angle and demanded he reverse course on BC’s decriminalisation. Trudeau repeated that they will work with BC to adjust their pilot project. Poilievre insisted that Trudeau still hasn’t answered the question, and went into six British Columbians dying every day, and Trudeau repeated that BC approached them with the pilot project, and they worked with them to develop the project, and they looking into the modifications of the project they have asked for. Poilievre very slowly demanded that he reverse decriminalisation, and Trudeau again said they were working with BC.

Yves-François Blanchet led for the Bloc, needled the Bloc for declaring they will support the budget, before going on about Amira Elghawaby making comments about the challenge to Quebec’s Law 21. Trudeau said that they build bridges by funding infrastructure and by helping communities come together. Blanchet railed about Elghawaby and halal mortgages, somehow, and insisted that some communities were getting other privileges. Trudeau said that in a pluralistic democracy, it’s important to talk to communities in order to meet their concerns.

Jagmeet Singh rose for the NDP, and he raised the Loblaws boycott, and the fact the grocery task force has done no work. Trudeau says that they are concerned with Loblaws not signing onto the grocery code of conduct, and they have given the Competition Bureau new powers. Singh repeated the question in French, and got much the same answer.

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Roundup: No, a foreign power can’t install a prime minister

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One of the unfortunate things about certain people I follow on the Twitter Machine constantly retweeting sludge is that sometimes I see something that is so outrageous that it sets me off. This, from former Global journalist Sam Cooper, is just such an egregious thing.

Setting aside the torqued use of Michael Chong’s testimony, this has all of the credibility of those racist emails that used to circulate, usually at the hands of someone’s relatives, where people worried that the changing Canadian demographics could mean that we might *gasp!* have a Muslim prime minister! As is unsurprising in racist emails like those, the internal logic was deeply flawed and the understanding of our system was non-existent, and was likely repurposed from American racist content worrying about a Muslim president, but that aside, this worry from Cooper is about the same quality.

To wit: If a party held a leadership contest while during a prime minister’s term, the fear expressed here is that, somehow, a foreign government would be able to swamp party memberships (either sales or sign-ups, depending on the party) and install a preferred candidate, who would then become prime minister without an election (which, I should not need to remind anyone, is perfectly legitimate in a parliamentary system). The hole in this logic is that pretty much every party has a weighted point system as part of these elections, so that highly populated regions of the country don’t swamp the more sparely-populated ones. In order for a foreign government to therefore take over a leadership contest, they would need a critical mass of voters in the majority of ridings in the country, particularly ones like small rural ridings in Quebec or Atlantic Canada. That’s simply not a possibility for any foreign government to engineer. The fact that Cooper doesn’t have a clue how these things work should be (another) warning sign about his judgment. Cripes.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian drone attacks on Kharkiv struck residential buildings and cut power supplies. A Ukrainian uncrewed aerial vehicle (larger than a drone) was used to strike deep inside Russian territory, striking an industrial site.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1775913487300002262

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Roundup: A dubious Federal Court decision, but right about judicial appointments

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The Federal Court ruled yesterday that the federal government must start filling judicial vacancies faster because, which is true, but the judgment itself is something of a mess. It’s hard to see how the Court has jurisdiction here, and the judge seems to have invented a bunch of justification and has handwaved around constitutional conventions, and in the end, declared that the government must fill most of those vacancies “in a reasonable period of time,” which is vague and of little value other than the declaration. Emmett Macfarlane has promised a post on this soon, and Leonid Sirota has a thread here taking issue with the reasoning (though not the underlying issue of not making sufficient appointments—everyone is agreed on that point).

I have been writing on this government’s problems with appointments since probably their second year in office, possibly even sooner than that. While you can look up the myriad of columns I have written, the short version is this: The government wants to make diverse appointments (which is good! This is a good thing!) but they insisted on a system of self-nominations rather than going out and nominating people. We know that women, people of colour, and LGBTQ+ people routinely don’t apply for positions like this because society has drilled into them the message that only straight, old white men get positions like this. Even the Liberal Party itself gets this in their candidate selection process, where they set up systems to be persistent in getting women and diverse people to seek nominations. And even with that, the federal government has utterly dropped that ball and thinks that they can simply say “We’re accepting diverse applications!” and expecting those applications to flood in. They seem to act like the Sesame Street sketch where Ernie simply goes “Here, fishy, fishy, fishy!” and the fish leap into the boat. That’s not how this works, and when they don’t get enough applications, it slows down the process tremendously. And after seven years, they have absolutely refused to learn this lesson. Refused! It’s some kind of giant ideological blinder that they cannot get their collective heads around, no matter how many times the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court warns them, or the Auditor General sounds the alarm about vacancies on port authorities or the boards of Crown corporations, or even their process for appointing senators. They absolutely refuse to learn the lessons of their failures.

It does bear mentioning that there has been an uptick in the pace of appointments in the past few months, and filling vacancies for provincial chief justices and associate chief justices has also picked up speed (and yes, I have been keeping an eye out for this). That said, making federal judicial appointments faster won’t solve the problems with our justice system because a lot more of them involve provinces not properly resourcing provincial courts or superior courts, where you have a lot of cases where there are no court rooms or court staff available, and that causes as many if not more problems. The issue of federal appointments, however, is low-hanging fruit so it’s taking a lot more attention than it should, and once again, premiers are being allowed to skate because of it.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians have struck a hospital and apartments in Selydove in eastern Ukraine, killing three people. Here’s a look at how Ukrainians are decoding Russian battle communications to save lives on the front lines. Russia is pulling old tanks out of storage and refurbishing them after having lost more than 3000 in the fighting in Ukraine over the past two years. Ukraine’s military intelligence is now saying that Russia has been buying Starlink terminals by way of “Arab countries.”

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Roundup: MPP pay freezes serve no one

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There was a piece in the Star yesterday about how MPPs in Ontario have had their salaries frozen since 2008, with no plans to lift it anytime soon. This is the kind of thing that populist rhetoric engenders, and it’s terrible for the state of our politics. While nobody is in politics to get rich, particularly in Canada, we are pretty miserly about what we want to pay our elected officials, and every time there is some kind of economic downturn, we immediately demand that they either freeze or cut their salaries to “set an example” (which is ridiculous because I have yet to see any senior executives in the private sector freeze or cut their pay in response to bad economic times—they get further bonuses, especially if they manage to reduce payroll during said tough times).

It cannot be understated that we underpay our elected officials, particularly at the provincial and federal levels, for jobs that are fairly 24/7 in most instances—especially in the era of social media where they are expected to perform at all hours of the day and night, and where they can’t go to the store without being expected to be “on” and engaging with their constituents. And in a lot of cases, people take a pay cut to become an elected official, particularly if they are doctors or lawyers. We say we want to attract the best, but the longer this kind of thing goes on, the more it will only attract those who are already wealthy and can live with the pay cut. Oh, and Ontario killed their pensions for MPPs decades ago, so on top of being underpaid, they don’t get a pension out of it either, which just makes it all the worse proposition for someone.

Nevertheless, we already have the astroturfers at the so-called “Canadian Taxpayers Federation” griping that Toronto City Council and the mayor are getting a modest pay rise this year, and because legacy media laps up everything they put out, this feeds the hairshirt parsimony and cheap outrage that makes us look as petty and parochial as our worst instincts tend to be. (Tall poppy syndrome is absolutely one of our national neuroses). This isn’t good for democracy, but nobody wants to make that case, which is why we’re in the situation we’re in.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian missiles hit an apartment building and a medical centre in Kharkiv early Wednesday; Russia claims it was precision-targeting a building housing “foreign fighters” that included French mercenaries. Ukrainian forces also downed19 out of 20 drones targeting Odesa. The fighting has intensified near Bakhmut, as Russian forces are making more offensive assaults.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1747574419994648962

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Roundup: The “watered down” oil and gas emissions cap

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The federal government unveiled their oil and gas emissions cap while at COP28, and the predictable reactions happened—the Greens, Bloc and NDP decried it as being too weak and watered down (never mind that there are recent court decisions that the government has to consider when it comes to just how far they can go); Danielle Smith and Scott Moe were performatively angry, even though it pretty much aligns with Alberta’s existing targets; and the oil and gas lobby decried how much money this was going to lose them. Economists point out that this undermines the carbon pricing system even further.

The cap is only on the pollution, not the production, because that would be provincial jurisdiction, so theoretically these companies could continue to increase production if they better control and capture emissions. (Also, refinery emissions are not in these because that’s part of the clean fuel standard). There is also a cap-and-trade system attached to this emissions cap, so that if a facility goes over their targets, they can buy offsets from a company below their cap, as well as pay into a decarbonisation fund.

Now we wait for the inevitable court challenges, and those dragging their feet to comply because they hope that the polls stay true and that Poilievre will form government in two years and they can ignore all of this then, as though climate change isn’t still the biggest threat to our lives, well, ever.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russians struck the Danube River port infrastructure once again, killing a driver and damaging grain infrastructure. Ukrainians are starting to use rail to bypass the blockade by Polish trucks at their border. And the Ukrainian government has come to an agreement with two American firms to jointly manufacture 155 mm shells in Ukraine, but it could be two or three years before that production can come on line.

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Roundup: Cancelling an invitation that was never issued

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Danielle Smith is at it again, claiming that accepted “on behalf of the Government of Alberta” an invitation to appear at the federal environment committee next week, and that she was sent a letter “rejecting my attendance.” The problem? It’s yet another load of horseshit from Smith, because she was never invited to the committee. Two of her ministers were invited, and she thought that she could just show up and put on a dog and pony show, but that’s not how committees work. You can’t just invite yourself to appear. The witnesses are agreed to by all parties beforehand and a motion is passed to send the invitations. Even if she’s premier, Smith can’t just attend in place of the invited ministers—again, that’s not how committees work.

https://twitter.com/emmalgraney/status/1712598055885910272

https://twitter.com/EmmaLGraney/status/1712599648609972476

https://twitter.com/EmmaLGraney/status/1712601220232446093

https://twitter.com/EmmaLGraney/status/1712602741120684351

In any case, the meetings were cancelled because it was really about hearing from Suncor’s CEO, and they declined, so the committee abandoned that line of testimony, but in any case, Smith is lying again, and trying to spin this into some kind of federal-provincial flamewar, and people shouldn’t treat her with any level of credulity.

Oh, but wait—The Canadian Press did just that, and the headline on the wire overnight repeats the bullshit that her appearance was cancelled, which again, is not true because she wasn’t invited, and in the meagre text of the piece, it both-sides the whole thing, because of course it does. This is utterly irresponsible of CP, who should know better.

Ukraine Dispatch:

There has been fierce fighting around Avdiivka, as Russians have been moving troops and equipment there to try and make a push to show that they’re still capable of making gains in the country as they lose territory elsewhere in the counter-offensive.

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Roundup: More both-sidesing Smith’s mendacity

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Because this is occasionally a media criticism blog, I found myself somewhat gobsmacked by the way in which The Canadian Press has written up the pushback against some of Danielle Smith’s ridiculous accusations against the federal clean electricity regulations. She has been panned by experts for weeks, but how does CP frame this? With statements by a Liberal MP in Calgary, George Chahal.

“The fuse is lit for fireworks in Ottawa after a Liberal member of Parliament accused Alberta Premier Danielle Smith of making false claims days before Smith is slated to appear before a federal environmental committee,” is the lead, and the piece proceeds to methodically both-sides this to death. It’s Chahal-said about Smith’s batshit crazy things she’s claiming about these regulations, like how this is going to mean blackouts and energy company executives being hauled off to jail, versus statements from Alberta’s energy minister, who in turn accuses the federal government of misinformation. There is no third-party expert weighing in, it’s simply the two sides, and the reader is supposed to determine whom they feel is more credible based on a handful of quotes. Come on.

We are in the middle of a misinformation and disinformation crisis in the Western world, and legacy media—of which a wire service like CP is a foundational element of—cannot arse themselves to do some basic gods damned due diligence and provide evidence that Smith and her ludicrous allegations are nothing more than mendacity for the sole purpose of rage-farming and stoking anger against the federal government (because that works so well in Alberta). There are ways to call out lies in a fair and transparent manner, but there was absolutely zero attempt her, and that just lets lies fester in the open, which is why leaders like Smith and Pierre Poilievre (as Andrew Scheer and Erin O’Toole before him) have all learned from, that it means they suffer no consequences for their lies, because nobody calls them out—just other partisan actors who can be dismissed as such. We’re playing with fire when it comes to the health of our democracy, but nobody seems to care, and that’s a very big problem.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian drones have attacked Danube port infrastructure in the Odesa region once again. Ukraine’s intelligence service has accused two villagers who fled to Russia of helping guide the missile strike on the village of Hroza that killed 55 people last week. Ukraine’s prime minister says they need $42 billion in budget support this year and next to help aid reconstruction. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Brussels to meet with military leaders and to impress upon them the importance of keeping up aid to Ukraine, and not to get distracted by the outbreak of hostilities in Israel—NATO leaders have pledged ongoing support.

https://twitter.com/ukraine_world/status/1712119948749717958

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Roundup: Inflation falling into the control range

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The inflation numbers were out yesterday, and headline inflation dropped to 2.8 percent annualized, which is the lowest in the G7, and back within the Bank of Canada’s control range of 1 to 3 percent (though they have stated they are going to keep measures in place it reaches two percent). There are still hot spots—food price inflation is still fairly high, and shelter costs are also running high, but that’s not unexpected given where things are at right now.

Chrystia Freeland called this news a “milestone moment” that Canadians should feel some relief in, while the Conservatives repeated some of their usual talking points. The NDP, naturally, are keeping up with their attempt to blame high inflation on corporate greed, particularly food price inflation, even though the data doesn’t really bear that out, as I pointed out in this thread:

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian forces struck the southern port city of Odessa, and while most of the missiles and drones were intercepted, there were hits and there was damage from debris. This was considered to be retaliation for the explosion on the bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea. More strikes are aimed at Odessa in the early morning hours. Meanwhile, with the Black Sea grain deal ended by Russia, the EU is looking to transport more Ukrainian grain by rail and road, while the UN says they are floating “a number of ideas” around how to get that grain flowing again.

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Roundup: Toronto’s asylum-seeker problem

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There is a bit of an issue happening right now around asylum seekers in Toronto and other parts of the GTA unable to find shelter spaces and some of them sleeping on the streets, and everyone wants to blame the federal government, because of course they do. Reality is, of course, far more complicated and you’d better believe that there is plenty of blame to go around.

To start: the federal government is responsible for refugees, meaning those who have had a status determination, most of whom came over with sponsorship and under some formal programme or structure, and that usually comes with supports, either provided by government or communities. What is the bigger problem in Toronto are those asylum seekers who don’t have a status determination, and may have entered the country in an irregular manner, and because they don’t have status, they also can’t get work permits until they do. And this largely is the responsibility of provinces and municipalities until they get that status determination. But this isn’t to say that the federal government isn’t helping with this situation, because they are, operating certain resettlement services including hotels for some claimants, and they have sent hundreds of millions of dollars to help provinces and municipalities most affected offset their costs. But of course, this money it’s not enough, in part because there are bigger challenges that cities like Toronto haven’t overcome.

In a very real sense, this is a culmination of how broken things have become, particularly under decades of austerity measures by conservative governments and city councils. Provinces are under-funding social services and affordable housing, driving more people to shelters, while the city resists building housing in order to please NIMBY residents clutching their pearls about their property values, so that keeps people in shelters who shouldn’t be there, including these asylum claimants. And because both Toronto and the Ford government have decided the solution to these deep-seated problems is to simply demand more money from Ottawa rather than accepting responsibility for their share of the problem and, oh, doing something about it, it’s leaving the federal government in the position of trying to push back and say things like they need all levels of government to work together, which is also true. I suspect we’ll see some additional federal funds in the next few days as yet another stopgap measure, but this shouldn’t let cities or the province off the hook, as they need to properly step up and start fixing the underlying problems that have led them to this point.

Ukraine Dispatch:

Russian launched an overnight drone attack against president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, and sixteen of the seventeen were shot down, but the last drone and falling debris caused damaged and injured one woman. Progress in the counter-offensive remains slow as Zelenskyy says that the Russians are throwing everything they have at it. Here is a profile of Kyrylo Budanov, Russia’s spy chief. Meanwhile, it sounds like Zelenskyy’s pressure tactics at the NATO summit riled people in the White House, and there was much fighting over the language of the communiqué around Ukraine’s eventual membership in NATO.

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Roundup: A pathway for Ukraine but no obvious timeline

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From the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, we saw some movement on the question of Ukraine’s membership, but with no timeline attached. And while Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy railed that this was “absurd,” that’s pretty much entirely for show because everyone knows that it’s baked into the rules that you can’t join so long as you’ve got an active war taking place in your territory, because as a mutual defence pact, it would draw in the other members, and we don’t want this to turn in to World War III. The other conditions are all largely being waived, because Ukraine is largely becoming interoperable with NATO countries thanks to the training they’ve been receiving from countries like Canada and the UK, and because they’re getting and being trained on more western equipment as it displaces old Soviet equipment; there is also the issue of combatting corruption in their government and ranks, which are also conditions for entry into the European Union, so again, there’s a lot of progress on fast-tracking Ukraine’s membership, but there can’t be a timeline because there’s no timeline as to when the war will be over.

Meanwhile, member countries pledged to boost their spending to at least two percent of GDP (which, we’ve explained previously, is a really dumb metric), and yes, we’ll re-litigate Canada not spending enough yet again, even though we don’t have the capacity to spend more. We can’t spend the current budget allocation, and even if the budget allocated the requisite two percent, a lot of that would lapse and roll over into the next year because we don’t have the capacity to spend it. And this is also the part where I remind you that when Stephen Harper committed to the two percent target, he then cut defence spending and it fell below one percent of GDP, so whatever bellyaching James Bezan and Michael Chong get up to over this, they need to have a good hard look in the mirror about their own record.

https://twitter.com/StephanieCarvin/status/1678933048346263552

As well, the cluster munitions issue came up again. While the US, Ukraine and Russia are not signatories to the international convention banning them, the excuse is that they are running out of other munitions, so the Americans are going to send these instead, which seems…problematic in reasoning considering the reason why they’re largely banned. There doesn’t seem to be any particular move to sanction the US or Ukraine for using them, but or an appetite to prosecute any war crimes for their use, but it’s still not a great sign.

Meanwhile, here is some good analysis from Queen’s University’s Stéfanie von Hlatky that is worth your time to watch.

Ukraine Dispatch:

There was a second night of drone attacks on Kyiv in a row as the NATO summit is underway. As the counter-offensive continues, helmet cam footage is being selectively released, but can’t really provide proper context for what we’re seeing from it. The F-16 pilot training coalition is now firmed up, and training is due to begin in August. Meanwhile, survival skills training is taking off in Ukraine, as the war drags on.

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